"Mischance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... struck a rock and were driven down sideways with great violence, Mackenzie, followed by his men, jumped into the shallow to turn the canoe straight, but in a moment the water deepened and they had to scramble inboard again hurriedly. Swiftarrow by some mischance was left behind to struggle on shore as best he might. Before they could resume their paddles they struck again; the stem of the canoe was shattered like an egg-shell and hung only by the gunwales, so that Lawrence, who was steering, ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... purpose,' replied Montoni, 'and IS a noble edifice. You know not, it seems, by what mischance it ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... that they looked as if they had been flayed. Or white and blue, or white and black, or black and red; this variety of colours gave an appearance to their members of St. Anthony's fire, or cancer, or other mischance! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... principal object of attack, and by the irony of fate Pharaoh had himself contributed to enrich the coffers and reinforce the fleet of his foes. In spite of this mischance, however, circumstances were so much in his favour that he ventured to consider whether it would not be more advantageous to forestall the foe by attacking him, rather than passively to await an onslaught behind his own lines. He had sought the friendship of Athens,* and, though it ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to be got rid of. Who does not remember odious images that can never be washed out from the consciousness which they have stained? A man's vocabulary is terribly retentive of evil words, and the images they present cling to his memory and will not loose their hold. One who has had the mischance to soil his mind by reading certain poems of Swift will never cleanse it to its original whiteness. Expressions and thoughts of a certain character stain the fibre of the thinking organ, and in some degree affect the hue of every idea that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... contemptuously repeated to them. When my father heard of this, he took his sword, and went to see the man. There, in the presence of his father, who was called Niccolaio da Volterra, a trumpeter of the Signory, he said, "O Piero, my dear pupil, I am sorely grieved at your mischance; but if you remember it was only a short time ago that I warned you of it; and as much as I then said will come to happen between your children and mine." Shortly afterwards, the ungrateful Piero died of that illness. He left ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... come again to Burgundy and to the home of the Burgundian kings. But when it was certainly known that neither Gunther the king, nor Hagen of the evil eye, nor Dankwart his brother, had returned, the people felt many sad misgivings; for they greatly feared that some hard mischance had befallen their loved king. Then Gernot and the young Giselher, having heard of Siegfried's arrival, came out with glad but anxious faces to ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... faithful Tabby, a few days after my return home. She was gone out into the village on some errand, when, as she was descending the steep street, her foot slipped on the ice, and she fell; it was dark, and no one saw her mischance, till after a time her groans attracted the attention of a passer-by. She was lifted up and carried into the druggist's near; and, after the examination, it was discovered that she had completely shattered and dislocated one leg. Unfortunately, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... I received the news namely, that the whole of my testimonials, and particularly those that I had received in Jena, which were amongst them, had been lost. They had been sent to a gentleman who took a lively interest in my affairs, and I never found out through what mischance they were lost. I now read this to mean that Providence itself had thus broken up the bridge behind me, and cut off all return. I deliberated no longer, but eagerly and joyfully seized the hand held out to me, and quickly became a teacher in ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... least until some mischance uncovered her to the little general. At Mrs. Brindley's she found a note awaiting her—a note ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... one of those wandering waves that roam the smoothest sea struck the ship, and Clementina caught herself skilfully from falling, and reeled to her seat, while the room rang with the applause and sympathetic laughter for the mischance she had baffled. There was a storm of encores, but Clementina called out, "The ship tilts so!" and her naivete won her another burst of favor, which was at its height when Lord Lioncourt ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Hollanders to draw off. On that side where Roxo commanded there was much slaughter on both sides without any evident superiority; but about sunset, when the advantage was obviously leaning to the Portuguese, Roxo was slain. Being informed by signal of this mischance, Gonzalez was obliged to discontinue following up his good fortune; and on the tide ebbing the fleet separated, one of the Portuguese galliots being left aground among the enemy, who tore her to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... advancing till abreast the British line, it was necessary only to keep fast the cables and let go the springs; the ships would swing head to the east wind, and the broadsides would once more bear north, across the channel instead of along it. These careful arrangements were subject, of course, to the mischance of shot cutting away cables or springs; but this was more than offset by the probable injury to the enemy's spars and rigging, as well as hulls, before he could ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... horses, then the Chiefs and head men, followed by the main body of the band to the number of two or three hundred. As they approached the manoeuvres of the horsemen became more and more excited and daring, racing wildly about so rapidly as to be barely distinguishable; unfortunately, from some mischance, two horses and their riders came into collision with such tremendous force as to throw both horses and men violently to the ground; both horses were severely injured and one of the Indians had his hip put out of joint; fortunately, Dr. Kittson of the police, was near by and speedily ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... a boy, thrust by mischance into a man's body,—a boy who could complacently pluck a butterfly, wing from wing, or cower in abject terror before a lean, nervy fellow, not half his size. He was a selfish cry-baby, hidden behind a man's mustache and stature, ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... lose his horse," said Mysie, laughing, "surely he is not the first man on the marches who has had such a mischance. But he will be no loser, for I warrant he will stop the value out of moneys which he has owed my ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... thought much of this intelligence. I saw in an instant that I had lost all again, my safety, my home, my new friends. I must flee once more, alone and unaided, leaving no trace behind me. When old Mother Renouf, whom Tardif had set to watch me for very fear of this mischance, had led me away from Kate Daltrey to the cottage, I sought ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... from the reflection that, no despatch in the missing cipher was extant. Whoever had stolen it, therefore, another could be substituted for it and no one the worse. Still I was unwilling that the King should hear of the mischance from a stranger, and be led to think me careless; and I bade Ferret be silent about it unless Henry missed the packet, which might not happen ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... no purpose to dwell further on the miserable details of mighty effort wasted, splendid lives sacrificed, and gallant hearts crushed by mischance. There are moments when, like the Oriental, one can but lift helpless hands to ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... seen a Matter in which our Sentiments are specially enlisted, perhaps in contest with judgment or tastes or duty. By a Diamond, the affair is in society, artistic life, money, or responsibility to others as well. By a Spade, a Mischance or Disappointment is part of it; often faithfully hid, or to ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... stand, though it continues the saga of the Mississippi with sympathy and knowledge; but The Fugitive Blacksmith has a flavor which few comparisons and no neglect can spoil. Its protagonist, wrongly accused of a murder which he by mischance finds it difficult to explain, takes to his heels and lives by his mechanic wits among the villages of the lower Mississippi through a diversity of adventures which puts his story among the little masterpieces ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... John Roberts, 11 July 1746. Capt. Roberts was a very downright individual, and years before the characteristic had got him into hot water. The occasion was when, in 1712, an Admiralty letter, addressed to him at Harwich and containing important instructions, by some mischance went astray and Roberts accused the Clerk of the Check of having appropriated it. The latter called him a liar, whereupon Roberts "gave him a slap in the face and bid him learn more manners." For this exhibition of temper ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... captain's bed and passengers' luggage, and another at the opposite end, with three beds in it. Outside all this, but inside the walls of wicker-work, was an inflated rubber lining, so as to prevent it from sinking if, by any mischance, the 'Giant' should fall into the sea. Thus, according to circumstances, the building could be either the car of a balloon, a ship at sea, or a caravan being drawn by horses upon the wheels already mentioned along a country road. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... it became a passion to the winners; the little girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner as it disappeared dismally through the door of ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... alone, but could not find him, there was a young nobleman belonging to king Benhadad, whose name was Naaman; he drew his bow against the enemy, and wounded the king through his breastplate, in his lungs. Upon this Ahab resolved not to make his mischance known to his army, lest they should run away; but he bid the driver of his chariot to turn it back, and carry him out of the battle, because he was sorely and mortally wounded. However, he sat in his chariot and endured ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... been attributable to one's own fault. Neither of them could in this instance attach any blame to himself, and each felt that he had done what in him lay to prevent the possible ill effect of the mischance. As for the boat, Harry was too happy to think that none of his friends were hurt to care ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Lundin, "I fear our common carrier, John Auchtermuchty, hath met with some mischance, that he came not up last night with his wains—bad land this to journey in, my master; and the fool will travel by night too, although, (besides all maladies from your tussis to your pestis, which walk abroad in the night-air,) he may well fall in with half a dozen swash-bucklers, who ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... "Boy," he said, "I told thee thou wast over like him. Live, live if thou canst! Alas! I had thought to make surer work this time; but thou dost pardon me the mischance?" ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not lucky. Let it pass. There is another, only a year away, that will bring lasting joy. Now we have wept over our mischance, we will bury it and look to the future. We will go and wash away sorrow and put on fresh clothes, and look forward to the far better marriage ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... rite by the seaside. (I am told this rite is still annually performed at the same hour.) But, except the Bekkwa himself, no man might be present; and it was believed, and is still believed by the common people, that were any man, by mischance, to see the rite he would instantly fall dead, or become ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... was choking hire. Had the devil of mischance taken the salvation of Alan's good name out of his hands—had his work ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... who is acquainted with Westminster-School, knows that there is a Curtain which used to be drawn a-cross the Room, to separate the upper School from the lower. A Youth happened, by some Mischance, to tear the above-mentioned Curtain: The Severity of the Master [2] was too well known for the Criminal to expect any Pardon for such a Fault; so that the Boy, who was of a meek Temper, was terrified to Death at the Thoughts of his Appearance, when his Friend, who sat next to him, bad ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Fabricius. As such mischance as you mention might indeed very well occur, we will lower sail and ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... Otomies on the eastern frontier where the great fortification stood. The old chief advised that this force should at once fall upon the Spaniards. If they were conquered they would be at the mercy of the Tlascalans, but if by any mischance his son should fail, the council could declare that they had nothing to do with the attack, laying the whole blame of it upon the young Xicotencatl. Meantime the Cempoallan envoys were to be detained under pretence of assisting at a religious sacrifice. By ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... down the river's dim expanse Like some bold seer in a trance, Seeing all his own mischance— With a glassy countenance Did she look to Camelot. And at the closing of the day She loosed the chain and down she lay; The broad stream bore her far away, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... lasted until, on tiptoeing nearer to the house in order to gloat more adequately upon it, she perceived that the French windows of the drawing-room were standing ajar. Sam had left them like this in order to facilitate departure, if a hurried departure should by any mischance be rendered necessary, and drawn curtains had kept the household from noticing ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... precious dwarf, whom, both for his appearance and for his knowledge of armor, I had reserved as a gift for your father; and when that danger was past, I breathed freer, not calculating upon any further mischance.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... them so fine an inheritance, to say it ends with us!" She afterwards conversed with me about the Tuileries and the persons who had fallen; she condescended also to mention the burning of my house. I looked upon that loss as a mischance which ought not to dwell upon her mind, and I told her so. She spoke of the Princesse de Tarente, whom she greatly loved and valued, of Madame de la Roche-Aymon and her daughter, of the other persons whom she had left at the palace, and of the Duchesse de ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... servilely so, but it might change. The South thought it had too much at stake to take the chances when the opportunity for absolute safety and permanent rule was within its reach. It resolved to make the whole country, not only pro-slavery, but slaveholding. If, through any mischance, it failed in its calculation, the next step would be to tear down the house and from its ruins reconstruct so much of it as might be needed for its own occupancy. That it would be able in time to ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... the contrary. What would befall this realm if my marriage were called in question after my decease? The same trouble and confusion would ensue that followed on the death of my noble grandfather, King Edward the Fourth. To prevent such mischance I have resolved, most reluctantly, to put away my present queen, and to take another consort, by whom I trust to raise up a worthy successor and ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... always been the Fighting Nigger's belief—creed, so to speak—that Indians, though possessed (by some strange chance or mischance) of the power of speech, with a few other faculties in common with colored people and the rest of mankind, had, nevertheless, neither souls nor human feelings. According to his view, they were a sort ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... firm in her adherence to the plan of procedure which she had announced. She declared that, as matters stood, she would not become a burden, with all her encumbrances, upon his slender resources. If mischance wrested the promised fee out of his hands, then they must go their ways separately. She repeated her determination to abide by that on the morning when Dr. Slavens announced the necessity of ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... happened that mischance led General Dean to go over to see Major Buford about Chad next morning. The Major listened patiently—or tried ineffectively to listen—and when the General was through, he burst out with a vehemence that shocked and amazed his ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... mischance this letter was delayed, and Mr. Gilmour's relatives were startled, one March day in 1874, by receiving from an entirely unknown lady in London a letter, containing the unlooked-for statement: 'Your son, Mr. Gilmour, of Peking, has asked my daughter to write to you, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... something resembling a process of convalescence. It was possible in 1903 for a novel Jena or Sedan by Franz Adam Beyerlein to create a sensation. Written in the manner of Zola, the book, which, because of an alleged dry rot in the German army, prophesied mischance in the future, produced its effect not so much through an apparently objective but gloomy depiction of life in the garrisons, as through the nourishment that it gave to the torturing doubts which during ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... speed. Conspicuous in his person he was observed; a musket-ball was aimed at that extended arm; it struck him, and found entrance through an opening in his armour. The brave General was wounded in the arm-pit. He rode off the field, desiring that the mischance might not be disclosed, and fainting, dropped from his horse. As soon as he was revived, he desired to be raised, and looking towards the field of battle asked how things went. "Well," was the reply. "Then," he said, "I ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... it, opposite the couch where he longed so ardently to see his fair and queenly loved one sitting—he by her side in the lovers' paradise of secure content; but the next time he went into the room he found it lying in fragments on the floor. None of the servants knew how the mischance had happened: the window was not open, and none of them had been in the room. How, then, came it there, broken on the floor? When he asked Leam, wandering by in that pale, feverish, avenging way of hers, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... my not leaving a letter at Fort Enterprise it was because by some mischance you had forgot to give me paper when ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... by the hand of rough mischance, Or chilled by age, their airy dance They leave, in ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... poor man and the rich, and shares our fortunes "for better, for worse," clinging with heroic loyalty to his master when all other friends may have abandoned him. The power of memory is wonderfully exhibited, considering the shortness of life which Nature, by some mischance has ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... been captured a few days ago by some peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de Bardelys's servants as belonging to their master, and that as nothing had been seen or heard of him for a fortnight, it was believed that he must have met with some mischance. Not even that piece of information served to arouse my interest. Let them believe me dead if they would. To him that is suffering worse than death to be accounted dead is ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... lithe grace of hers, and catching the fluttering fringe in the gilt protuberance. Perhaps she exclaimed in petulance, but, more likely, I thought, she laughed at the trivial accident. That was Vicky Van, as I knew her, to laugh at a mischance, and smile ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... and warm lips, had been spattered out with a brushful of blood; the scene was changed from sunny life to wan death. Here were the staring eyes of a dead man, and his mouth twisted awry in its last agony. He could not away with the shock, nor divest himself of a share in it. If he, by mischance, had taken up with Manuela, he had taken up with ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... hast heard by now of how all mischance and disaster befell the adventure. For myself, who was thy friend, I will show thee in lines of thy own making what men hereafter (and justly) will say of me who am thy friend ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... deal more behind it, which ere long, however, fades away into the darkness; it is of a kind that, though a little wise before the event, is apt to be much wiser after it, and to profit even by mischance so long as the disaster is not an overwhelming one; nevertheless, though it is so interwoven with luck, there is no doubt about its being design; why, then, should the design which must have attended organic development ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... of them. The consequence is, that in respect of character, disposition and moral quality, there is really no difference to be found amongst the men in any of the classes. The scheme operates in this way—suppose that a clergyman by some mischance gets sentenced to penal servitude, and enters the prison in company with one of the very worst villains that could be selected out of our criminal population; both these men, the one with a first sentence, the other with a long string of convictions against him, enter the "probation ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... light sarcasms with which Soame Jenyns disposed of the pretensions of "our American colonies": such men waited only the opportune moment for retrieving a humiliating defeat. That moment came with the mischance that clouded the mind of Pitt and withdrew him from the direction of a government of all the factions. The responsibility relinquished by the Great Commoner was assumed by Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man well fitted to foster the spirit of discord which ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko. She had flashed me a look, just one. What horrible mischance to have brought ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... gone far enough along the beach to prevent any chance of low conversation being overheard; though Ned kept on the alert all the while, lest by some mischance there might others come along, who would ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of any particular watch is that in which your successor touches his cap and says, "I'll relieve you," I still maintain there are abundant and large compensations. Particularly for a midshipman, for he had no responsibilities. The lieutenant of the watch had always before him the possibilities of a mischance; and one very good officer said to me he did not believe any lieutenant in the navy felt perfectly comfortable in charge of the deck in a heavy gale. Freedom from anxiety, however, is a matter of temperament; not by any means necessarily ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... their large, solemn eyes with his wistful, questioning blue ones; he would kiss them, as women sometimes do, and call them "dear old fellow," in tones that had tears; and once in the course of his travels while at a little way-station, he discovered a huge St. Bernard imprisoned by some mischance in an empty freight car; the animal was nearly dead from starvation, and it seemed to salve his own sick heart to rescue back the dog's life. Nobody claimed the big starving creature, the train hands knew nothing ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... above their heads until they came to stones set in lime; and this was the floor of a stone hall. Anon they brake up the floor and ascended into the hall, and there sat many of the townsmen eating and drinking, and great was the mischance of these good men for they were taken unawares. The Vaerings went about with drawn swords, and straightway killed some of them though others fled, to wit, those who could ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... him the bag through the door. He took it carefully, but in spite of his great precaution fell over it twice on his way to the road, where from certain exclamations and shouts it seemed that a like miserable mischance attended its elevation to the boot. Then Mrs. Baker came back into the office, and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the first time to an outburst of tears. Then her hand was grasped suddenly and she found Green on his knees before her. ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... bed-chamber door, these incidents of the past rose confusedly on his memory, and forced on him the serious question whether the admiral had left his room during the earlier hours of the night. If by any mischance the sleep-walking fit had seized him, the slippers in old Mazey's hand pointed straight to the conclusion that followed—his master must have passed barefoot in the cold night over the stone stairs and passages of St. Crux. "Lord send he's been quiet!" muttered old Mazey, daunted, bold as he ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... and useless. They were taking him to slaughter; and I think the animal knew it: he cast such looks, as if of mad appeal, to those who passed him, as he went among the strangers to whom his former owner had committed him, to die, in his beauty and pride, for just that one mischance or fault; although the morning air was still so animating, and pleasant to snuff. I could have fancied a human soul in the creature, swelling against its luck. And I had come across the incident just when ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... heart that's clear in truth, with trust in God. No great disaster can befall the man Who's still possessed of these! Good fellow, leave me. What you would learn, and have a right to know, I would not tell you now. Good Stephen, hence! Mischance has fallen on me—but what of that? Mischance has fallen on many a better man. I prithee leave me. I grow sadder while I see the eye with which you view my grief. 'Sdeath, they will out! I would have been a man, Had you been less a kind ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... the hill between the wall of the theatre and the wall of an adjacent house and which was lighted, just below its sharpest turn, by a single lamp pendant from an outjutting gibbet of iron. By a lucky mischance, three of the incompetent officials on duty at the first-class entrance—whereat, in default of guiding signs, we happened first to apply ourselves—examined in turn our tickets and assured us that the way to our second-class ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the bush, but for the fact that if we are right, and any slave-craft happen to be lurking here—as our Yankee friend's suspicious conduct leads me to believe may be the case—there would be a great risk of our stumbling upon them unawares, and so giving them the alarm. And even if we escaped that mischance I have no doubt but that they keep sentinels posted here and there on the look-out, and we could hardly hope that the boat would escape being sighted by one or other of them. If there are any craft hereabout, we may rest assured that they are fully ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... the morning, soon after sunrise; but long before that, indeed the moment the hedgehog had first attacked the owl and forced her to turn her attention to him, the little female bank-vole, who by some mischance or miscalculation, had evaded the first terrible handshake of the owl which spells death, had rolled clear of the fight, and dashed for her life to the nearest tussock of grass that offered shelter; and the first thing she fell ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... it is perhaps permissible to suggest that Luis de Leon wrote a prefatory note to Portocarrero intending it to be placed at the beginning of the Second Book which contains his poems translated from Roman and other authors. By some mischance the poet's intention was frustrated; perhaps a leaf was out of place in Sarmiento de Mendoza's copy; perhaps Quevedo is directly responsible for what occurred. At any rate, the letter dedicatory was bisected, the greater part of it being transferred to the beginning of the First Book, while a ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... will allow, however, that I did come in time," said Sir John. "It was his own presumption and foolhardiness that got him into the scrape, and he was none the worse for the lesson he received. But this young fellow seems to have met with this mischance by no fault of his own; and I am willing to see him righted; for he is a good lad as well as a brave, as far ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Chicago took his Sabbath-school out on the cars once. A little boy was allowed to sit on the platform of the car, when by some mischance he fell, and the whole train passed over him. They had to go on a half a mile before they could stop. They went back to him and found that the poor little fellow had been cut and mangled all to pieces. Two of the teachers ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... could be of the slightest use to the general reader. A few of us knew perfectly well who was meant, but that was all. Unfortunately, the particular story in which this person figured was first published serially in an illustrated magazine, and by some extraordinary chance—or mischance—the artist, in depicting the disagreeable man, drew a portrait of the actual original that was positively startling in its likeness. No one who knew him opened the magazine without saying at once, "Why, here's a portrait of So-and-so." ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... command, humble herself, or rise in pride; times without number she brings comfort when a young girl can only make moan. And with all the advantages of her position, the woman of thirty can be a girl again, for she can play all parts, assume a girl's bashfulness, and grow the fairer even for a mischance. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... bank into the water, and then, by some mischance, Poore, who was a bad swimmer, dropped his rifle, and began uttering the most fearful oaths, when I told him that it was no use my trying to dive for it, unless he could hold my shot gun, which I was carrying ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... mischance I have lost the address of Donaldson's son. Should he happen to read these lines I hope he ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... virile craving (Mannesgier) wrings from him, and which he fires only when he knows that he will kill, painlessly kill. For this is the root principle of German sportsmanship: 'God grant me one day such an end as I strive to bestow upon the game.' ... And if, by mischance, the German sportsman wounds without killing a head of game, he suffers with it, and does not sleep or rest till he has put it out of its misery." If this be not very nauseous cant, where shall we seek ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... children had fallen into the well. She ran out to the back of the house, and saw the two girls standing together with consternation on their faces. It appeared that Juliet had insisted on lowering the bucket by the windlass, and that, by some awkward mischance, she had let it fall off the hook, and there it lay at the bottom of the well, and there seemed to be no means of getting it ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... again, though 8 ordinarily guarded me, I wanted not what they could devise to content me: and still our longer acquaintance increased our better affection: much they threatened to assault our forte as they were solicited by the King of Paspahegh, who shewed at our fort great signs of sorrow for this mischance: the King took great delight in understanding the manner of our ships and sayling the seas, the earth and skies and of our God: what he knew of the dominions he spared not to acquaint me with, as of certaine men cloathed at a place called Ocanahonun, cloathed like me, the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... mischance she occupied the seat opposite to mine. And in this trap of Iblis was decoy enough for a poor mouse like me. It is an age since I beheld such an Oriental gem in an American setting; or such a strange Southern beauty in an exotic frame. For one would ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... away from the Turk and attained a fair altitude, he set the indicator at zero and paused long enough to consult his map and decide what direction it was best for him to take. The mischance that had swept him unwittingly over the countries of Europe had also carried him more than half way around the world from his home. Therefore the nearest way to reach America would be to continue traveling ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... ever-blessed Reformation, let in upon the kingdom not only new knowledge, but new motive. A useful rivalry commenced between the metropolis on the one hand, the residence, independently of the court and nobles, of the most active and stirring spirits who had not been regularly educated, or who, from mischance or otherwise, had forsaken the beaten track of preferment,—and the universities on the other. The latter prided themselves on their closer approximation to the ancient rules and ancient regularity—taking the theatre of Greece, or rather its dim ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... had the next chance in the encounter, and was thrown no less speedily than Astolfo; but he did not so easily put up with the mischance. Crying out, "What are the emperor's engagements to me?" he rushed with his sword against Argalia, who, being forced to defend himself unexpectedly, dismounted and set aside his lance, and got so much the worse of the fight, that ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... believe Mr. Putney had sent me this card, nor that his wife had done so; certainly the Count did not send it. But no matter how it came to me, I was very sure I owed it to the determination, on the part of some one, that by no mischance should I fail to know exactly what had happened. I heard recently that the noble lady and her husband expect to spend the summer at her father's country-house, and some people believe that they intend to make ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... visit your friends in Cambridge? It would excite no great wonderment that you should do so. We cannot spare you to the malice of enemies; and Garret being escaped from the snare, there is no knowing upon whom they may next lay hands. It would break my heart if mischance happened to you, Master Clarke; wherefore I pray you have a ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... man, who had lost both arms, and was walking pensively between the trees. After some expressions of heart-felt commisseration, I enquired by what mischance he had met with so untoward a wound? He told me that he was in the act of loading his musket, when a cannon-ball, passing before him, carried off one arm above the elbow, and so shattered the other, that it was necessary to amputate it. He then named some paltry battle where this accident ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... friendship. The reason for this is simple. If the companion you choose is religious in all sincerity, she is perforce a slave to every little rule and regulation, and to her it would seem like defrauding the Deity to give affection to any one but to Him. If, by mischance, you meet with some one of sensitive temperament, with a bright intellect that matches your own, you lay yourself open to be the mournful sharer of her griefs, doubts, and regrets, and her depression reacts upon you; her sorrow makes your melancholy return. Privation ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... all suspicion, the soldiers left them, and no further mischance occurred. At night, just as the young moon was setting, the boat was brought out, and Harry, with little Dick and a comrade whom he engaged could be trusted, prepared their oars. At the same time, Dr. Bathurst and ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the way she trails her skirt, you'd think she was the real child of her father." Then rushing hurriedly to generalization at Abel's entrance, he added in a louder tone—"Ah, it's a sad pass for things to come to, an' the beginnin' of the end of public morality, when a gal that's born of a mischance can come to act as if a man was responsible for her. It ain't nothin' mo' nor less than flyin' in the face of the law, which reads different, an' if it keeps up, the women folks will be settin' up the same rights as men to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... in the astonishing first moment. A deep-sea sailor, who had come through what he had come through, to let himself be caught unawares by such a paltry mischance as this! Then, what an unspeakable ass to have been so careless—to have shown himself incapable of protecting his wife, after all his boasts! Would he ever hear the last of it as long as he lived? ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... with the races on the ice, and Utrovand for once was gay. The sullen hills about reechoed with merry shouting. The Reindeer races were first, with many a mad mischance for laughter. Rol himself was there with his swiftest sled Deer, a tall, dark, five-year-old, in his primest prime. But over-eager, over-brutal, he harried the sullen, splendid slave till in mid-race—just when in a way to win—it turned at a cruel blow, ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... thy grace believe me, I did but speak the truth, most dread lord; for I am the meanest among thy subjects, being a pauper born, and 'tis by a sore mischance and accident I am here, albeit I was therein nothing blameful. I am but young to die, and thou canst save me with one little ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mischance would spoil Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's toil At wearisome silk-winding, coil ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... by this gross impugnment of her sincerity, the head of the family kept her room on pretexts during a greater part of Euphemia's stay, so that the latter's angelic innocence was left all to her grandson's mercy. It suffered no worse mischance, however, than to be prompted to intenser communion with itself. Richard de Mauves was the hero of the young girl's romance made real, and so completely accordant with this creature of her imagination that she felt afraid of him almost as she would have been of a figure in a framed picture who ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... disaster Octavius drew off the troops. The news of the first battle had been reported at Rome as a victory, and gave rise to extravagant rejoicings. The second battle was really a victory, but all rejoicing was damped by the news that one consul was dead and the other dying. No such fatal mischance had happened since the Second Punic War, when Marcellus and Crispinus ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... following account of this affair: "We do not hesitate in saying, and have good reason to know, that had any want of firmness on the part of the leader, or any indecision or vacillation appeared, and a mischance occurred, this splendid command would then and there have ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy, Which I shook off, for I was young, and one To whom the shadow of all mischance but came As night to him that sitting on a hill Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun, Set ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... be hot enough to brown the crust within ten or fifteen minutes. The heat should increase for the first fifteen minutes, remain steady for the next fifteen minutes, and may then gradually decrease during the remainder of the baking. If by any mischance the oven be so hot as to brown the crust too soon, cover the loaf with a clean paper for a few minutes. Be careful that no draught reaches the bread while baking; open the oven door very seldom, and not at all for the first ten minutes. If it is necessary ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... lies under the grave danger of being misunderstood, and the student under the scarcely less grave one of misunderstanding. The danger is reciprocative, just as, to return to my nautical simile, the peril of the helmsman is shared by each passenger if he by mischance steers ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... words well past his lips when the girl gave a scream of dismay, and sprang forward down the slippery red incline. She had dropped the amethyst, by some incomprehensible mischance. The priest beheld the purple gleam as it flashed from between the girl's fingers. Her high cap of coarse undyed French linen fell away from her black locks as she stooped to grope passionately in the ooze which had swallowed up her treasure. In a moment the comely picture of ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of Mischance brought as a visitor to the mess, a subaltern from another regiment who belonged to ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... the wise woman, 'I weep to think what will become of you if the handsome Prince is slain by any mischance, and you are left here in the wilderness alone.' For the witch knew by her ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... have reasoned that her master would never know, would have been an argument, pressing and imperative, for informing him at once. She had done him an injury, and the injury must be confessed and lamented; it was all that was left to be done! "Sic a mischance!" she said, then bethought herself that there was no such thing as mischance, when immediately it flashed upon her that here was the door open for the doing of what was required of her. She was bound to confess the wrong, and that would lead in the disclosure ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... unknown quantity, there was real danger in the sheer speed of the machine. Heavy as the car was, it lurched and swayed from side to side. And simply to shut off the power would not have been enough. Moreover, that was something both of them would have feared to do. The slightest mischance, the most trifling circumstance, might arouse suspicion in the watchers on the culvert. It was necessary, and Ivan had warned them specially of this, to dash under that at the highest possible speed for there would be stationed not private soldiers alone, who ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... time they reached Melbourne, without further mischance. Harry induced Jack to remain with him, but Mr. Clinton, with a new stock of trousers, purchased in Melbourne, returned to America on the same steamer with ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... respectability which rankled so when he remembered them. He explained the difference between the two routes from Malbaie on, and advised him to take the longer, which lay through a more settled district, where he would be safer in case of any mischance. But if he liked to take the shorter, he told him there were good campes, or log-house stations, every ten or fifteen miles, where he would find excellent meals and beds, and be well cared for by people who kept them in the winter for travellers. ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... songs.' Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee; For love is large as is yon heavenly dome: In love's great blue, each passion is full free To fly his favorite flight and build his home. Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beak Stab by mischance a level-flying dove? Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek: God-love darts straight into the skies above. Crossing, the windage of each other's wings But speeds them both upon ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... joint; hard times, bad times, sad times; rainy day, cloud, dark cloud, gathering clouds, ill wind; visitation, infliction; affliction &c. (painfulness) 830; bitter pill; care, trial; the sport of fortune. mishap, mischance, misadventure, misfortune; disaster, calamity, catastrophe; accident, casualty, cross, reverse, check, contretemps, rub; backset[obs3], comedown, setback [U.S.]. losing game; falling &c. v.; fall, downfall; ruination, ruinousness; undoing; extremity; ruin &c. (destruction) 162. V. be ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... that had waited Outside was elated So much by the prince's mischance, That they greeted with jeers And ironical cheers, The end of his little romance. They said: "Did it hurt when the ground you hit?" They searched for some mark where the prince had lit, And as he looked colder, They only grew ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... happened to papa?" demanded Charlotte, in a shrill voice, and it was again as if she were unconsciously accusing Anderson. When a heart becomes confident of love, it is filled with wonder at any evil mischance permitted, and accuses love, even the love of God. "What has happened to papa? Where is he?" she demanded again. And it was then that Mrs. Anderson, unseen by either of them, stood in the doorway with an enormous purple-flowered wrapper ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... That he would even solicit for his years the indulgence, that he might not be placed in the front line; that whatever duties in war an old man could discharge, in these he would not be deficient; that he prayed to the immortal gods, that no mischance might prove his plan to be the more advisable." Neither his salutary advice was listened to by men, nor such pious prayers by the gods. The adviser of the battle draws up the front line; Camillus forms the reserve, and posts a strong guard ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... suffered frightfully from this storm of grape and chain shot, but those who were left alive still fought inflexibly. It looked as though the Frolic might get away, for the masts of the Wasp were in danger of tumbling over the side. With this mischance in mind, Captain Jacob Jones shifted helm and closed in ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... heart was not bad, and he cared less for being liked than for being respected. He was the offspring of a mesalliance; and greatly over-estimating the importance in which his family was held, he imagined he would be looked down upon for this mischance, unless he kept people at a distance and in awe of him. The idea was a foolish one, no doubt, but then Sir Timothy was not a wise man; on the contrary, his lifelong determination to keep himself loftily apart from his fellow-men had resulted in an almost extraordinary ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... surer way, aye, and a quicker one. Struggle not to-night, sahib, when I tie you to the ring in the wall. Bound you must be, for the Black One has spoken; and it is her pleasure that I shall lift my will from you, even as I did by mischance yesterday. India has suffered through this white woman; my people have been tormented by her, and Kali, the Black One, has commanded that the sufferings of the land shall be wiped out in the white woman's blood, and the torments of the people ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... occurring, the Royal Academicians supply that vacancy, or would you wish to see that election confided to any other hands?—I should wish to see the election confided to other hands. I think that all elections are liable to mistake, or mischance, when the electing body elect the candidate into them. I rather think that elections are only successful where the candidate is elected into a body other than the body of electors; but I have not considered the principles of election fully enough to be able to give any positive statement of opinion ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... by my landlady, who, dragging me in a state of bewilderment into her room, pointed to numerous specimens of granite, which her "young people" had, in their unhallowed thirst for knowledge, discovered and drawn from my trunk, which, by some strange mischance, had been left unlocked! In vain I mumbled something touching my love of mineralogy, and that a lapidary had offered I knew not what for my collection. I was compelled to "bundle," as the idiomatic, but ignorant ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... hath not reach'd me. I know not wherefore—some mischance of flood, And broken bridge, or spavin'd horse, or wave And wind at their old ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... had been wanting to complete the evidence against the Count, that thing, by an odd mischance, Francesco himself seemed to supply. The strange group in that dining-room claiming his attention, and the portentous air that hung about those present, confirmed the warning Peppe had brought him that something was amiss. He disregarded utterly his servant's ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... the Squire, with active speed Dismounted from his bonny steed, To seize the arms, which, by mischance, Fell from the bold Knight in a trance. These being found out, and restor'd 615 To HUDIBRAS their natural lord, As a man may say, with might and main, He hasted to get up again. Thrice he assay'd to mount aloft, But, by his weighty bum, as oft 620 He was pull'd back, ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... each partie knowing, and still keeping the same companions, and Captaine. At last one of the boyes, conuerted the spill of an old candlesticke to a gunne, charged it with powder and a stone, and (through mischance, or vngraciousnesse) therewith killed a calfe: whereupon, the owner complayned, the master whipped, and ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... do no more; but her heart prophesied some mischance to damp the perfection of her felicity. It could not be very lasting, however. Even if he did not come to Camden Place himself, it would be in her power to send an intelligible sentence by Captain ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... average of 6 men per battle, to the British average loss of 175. In Jameson's battles, as per Boer official report, the Boer loss in killed was 4. Two of these were killed by the Boers themselves, by accident, the other by Jameson's army—one of them intentionally, the other by a pathetic mischance. "A young Boer named Jacobz was moving forward to give a drink to one of the wounded troopers (Jameson's) after the first charge, when another wounded man, mistaking his intention; shot him." There were three or four wounded Boers ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and one place where hands did as much work as toes. They used the rope—not that a rope was at all necessary, but because Ann Veronica's exalted state of mind made the fact of the rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a joint death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes went first, finding footholds and, where the drops in the strata-edges came like long, awkward steps, placing Ann Veronica's feet. About half-way across this interval, when everything seemed going well, Capes ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... stepped over to the desk. His keen eyes spotted the money-lender's pistol lying upon the far corner of it. He had also noted his prisoner casting furtive glances in the direction of it. To prevent any mischance he picked the gleaming weapon up and slipped it into his hip pocket. After that he drew a sheet of foolscap from the stationery case and laid it on the blotting pad. Then ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... seemed ready to hug his comrade in the extremity of his delight; but Dan was rather sullen, evidently ruminating on peril and mischance, wherein the tempter had no share, though participating in the profits of the adventure. Eventually, the stranger was placed under the patronage of Daniel Hardseg, who, to do him justice, was well affected towards the enterprise ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the governor was getting a force ready at Monterey to send to unite with one under Guerra from Santa Barbara. On March 16 they were to have met, but owing to some mischance, the northern force had to make the attack alone. Cavalry skirmishers were sent right and left to cut off retreat, and the rest of the force began to fire on the adobe walls from muskets and a four-pounder. The four hundred neophytes within ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... he never could live through the disgrace; he would die of a broken heart, and she of another. They had come out to this remote and lonesome country to build up a home and a fortune; and so many people would be stricken with them! What a mischance for her to be left with the whole thing in her hands, her little, weak, trembling hands—Tom's honor, his good name and his success, their fortune, the welfare of the whole family, the livelihood of all the men, the safety of the enterprise! What made Tom risk things so! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... betimes, to my Lord Duke of Albemarle by water, and after some talke with him about business of the office with great content, and so back again and to dinner, my landlady and her daughters with me, and had mince-pies, and very merry at a mischance her young son had in tearing of his new coate quite down the outside of his sleeve in the whole cloth, one of the strangest mishaps that ever I saw in my life. Then to church, and placed myself in the Parson's pew under the pulpit, to hear Mrs. Chamberlain in the next pew sing, who is daughter to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the Victory Mill, with its tall frames and endlessly turning bobbins, where the languid thread ran from hank to spool and the tired little feet must walk the narrow aisles between the jennies, watching if perchance a filament had broken, a knot caught, or other mischance occurred, and right it, Deanie plodded for what seemed to her many years. Milo and Pony both had work now in another department, and Lissy's frames were quite across the noisy big room. Whenever the little dark-haired girl could get away from her own task ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... she, "my husband slew a dragon among the mountains, and when he had slain the monster, he bathed himself in its blood. So mighty was the charm, that thenceforth no steel had power to wound him. And yet, for all this, I am ever in fear lest by some mischance a weapon should pierce him. Hearken now, my cousin, for you are of my kindred, hearken, and see how I put my trust in your honour. While Siegfried washed his limbs in the blood of the dragon, there fell a leaf from a linden tree between his shoulders. There and there ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Suddenly, however, two prowling and suspicious Cossack peasants appeared on horseback, some thirty paces from our line, and after regarding it for a moment they fled towards the camp, where it was obvious that they intended to give warning of our presence. This mischance was very unfortunate, because had it not been for that we would certainly have reached the Russians without losing a man; however since we were now discovered and were in any case nearing the spot where I had decided to increase the speed of our advance, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... guess how thoroughly Popinot had picketed the house, in co-operation with Roddy's murderer, by way of provision against mischance; but the adventurer was satisfied that, in his proper guise as himself, he needed only to open that postern door at the street end of the passage, to feel a knife slip in between his ribs—most probably in his back, beneath ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... had agreed, and Felix followed his own counsel by withholding from Joan all knowledge of the unpleasant mischance that had nearly cost the lives of the King and his companions in the besieged hotel. But his thoughts were busy, and, when he found Sobieski detained in the entrance hall, he consigned Joan and her maid to the care of a servant, briefly explaining that they were ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... gloomily contemplating the bare table before him, over which so much of his good gold had slipped away. "Take care! Luck at play, mischance in ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... and done with. I was soaring through the air right way up, steadily, and no mischance had happened. I felt intensely alive and my nerves were strung like a bow. I shifted a limb, swerved and shouted between fear and triumph as I recovered from the swerve and heeled the other way ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... said at last. 'You did not understand the boy. A freeman was a little hurt, by pure mischance, at ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... to following my recreant nephew wherever he might go, even if considerably beyond the limits of Ullerton. I saw that the lad's intelligence was likely to be equal to this transaction, unless there should arise any difficult or complicated position by reason of the suspicion of Hawkehurst, or other mischance. "Do you think you can watch the gentleman without being observed?" I asked. "I'm pretty well sure I can, sir," answered the boy, who is of an enterprising, and indeed audacious, temper. "Very well," said I, "you will go to the Black Swan Inn. Hawkehurst ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... father send love by me. They are expecting you home; but I would not write of this before, lest you should become homesick. You do not know your father; he is like a tree which makes no moan until it is hewn down. But if ever any mischance should befall you, then you will learn to know him, and you will wonder at the richness of his nature. He has had heavy burdens to bear, and is silent in worldly matters; but your mother has relieved ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... appetizing. If I were a profane mortal, I should call him a condemned nuisance. Most birds build their own nests, and a well-built nest lasts them a whole season. This infernal bird has to have a furnace-man to make his bed for him night and morning, and if, by some mischance, the fire goes out, as fires will do in the best-regulated families, he begins to squawk, and he squawks, and he squawks, and he squawks until the keeper comes and sets his nest a-blazing again. He has a voice like a sick ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... Margaret—we are one! and thus one, our world is as free from their control as it is superior to their dreams and hopes. Here is our heaven, Margaret—ah! how long shall it be ours! at what moment may we lose it, by death, by storm, by what various mischance! What profligacy to fly before the time! No! no! but a little while longer—but a ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... am again, like a bad half-penny," said the sailor; and sitting down wearily on a chair which Katie placed for him directly, Bolton gave a short account of what he called the most unlucky mischance that had ever happened to him in the course ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... houses of their friends: there they heard confessions and gave advice to the faithful. Early in the morning they preached, and then broke up again; it was customary to provide them an armed escort to guard them from any mischance. ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... the reverse, they all felt the greatest esteem for the young creatures. The hare came to eat parsley from their hands, the deer grazed by their side, the stag bounded past them unheeding; the birds, likewise, did not stir from the bough, but sang in entire security. No mischance befell them; if benighted in the wood, they lay down on the moss to repose and sleep till the morning; and their mother was satisfied as to their safety, and ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... scanned the surrounding solitude. While Hay-uta had seated himself where he gained an unobstructed view of the sky, he was not at the top of the ridge, nor was he liable to be discovered by any enemies at a distance. It was a fatal mischance which brought the ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the inheritance of Namur, had the wisdom to prefer the substance of a marquisate to the shadow of an empire; and on his refusal, Robert, the second of the sons of Peter and Yolande, was called to the throne of Constantinople. Warned by his father's mischance, he pursued his slow and secure journey through Germany and along the Danube: a passage was opened by his sister's marriage with the king of Hungary; and the emperor Robert was crowned by the patriarch in the cathedral of St. Sophia. But his reign was an ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... You were to give me an answer here, in Seville, and now I ask for it. I have almost taught myself to think that it is needless to ask; and now this horrid mischance—" ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... the mother sought the strayed one, Dreading what mischance had happened, Like a wolf she tracked the marshes, Like a bear the wastes she traversed, Like an otter swam the waters, Badger-like the plains she traversed, 120 Passed the headlands like a hedgehog, Like a hare along the lakeshores, Pushed the rocks from out her pathway, From the slopes bent down ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... runs the world we live in. Everywhere Mischance befalls and misery enough. In Glarus there has been a landslip, and A whole side of ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... never roof nor fire, and I grew hard as the frost, and would have stolen a woman from the Juts but that the Frisians by mischance, in a two days' hunt, ran me down. By them I was looted of my gold collar and traded for two wolf-hounds to Edwy, of the Saxons, who put an iron collar on me, and later made of me and five other slaves a present to Athel of the East Angles. I was thrall and fighting man, until, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... was supposed to have rambled in the mountains, and to have lost his way, or to have met with some mischance. It was three days since he had disappeared, but had been seen by some one, the last night, ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... you'd do nothing for months but dedicate odes to her eyes,—to the deep, dark infinity of their luring, devouring beauty,—which seem to drop honey and poison from every arched hair of their fulsome lashes. Withal,—another devilish mischance,—she was dressed in black and wore a white silk ruffle, like myself. And her age? Well, she can not have passed her sixth lustrum. And really, as the Novelist would say in his Novel, she looks ten years younger.... To say we were attracted to each ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... cheerful, patient life, there had been hours when she had known the wrongs that had been done her, known how cruelly the world had thwarted her; her very keen insight into whatever was beautiful or helpful may have made her see her own mischance, the blank she had drawn in life, more bitterly. She did not see it bitterly now. Death is honest; all things grew clear to her, going down into the valley of the shadow; so, wakening to the consciousness of stifled powers and ungiven happiness, she saw that the fault ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... in silence at Selene's tall, slight form, he felt prompted to follow her, to say to her how very sorry he was for the mischance that had befallen her, and that the hound belonged not to him but to another man; but he dared not. Long after she had disappeared from sight he stood on the same spot. At last he collected his senses, and slowly went back to his room, where he sat on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... she was surprised, deeply moved, and I thought that the happy hour had struck. I folded her in my arms, and was already tasting the first fruits of enjoyment. . . . The sentinel knocked twice! . . . Oh! fatal mischance! I recovered my composure and stood in front of her. . . . M. D—— R—— made his appearance, and this time he found me in so cheerful a mood that he remained with us until one o'clock ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... friend," answered Ibarra with a forced smile. "You'll have to take me to that town whose belfry we see from here. A mischance ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... headlong into the very jaws of the animal. It might have gone ill with Reuben had he been left to his own resources. At the most he could only have kept the cruel teeth from his throat for a very few moments; but seeing the mischance, I drew my remaining pistol, and springing from my horse, discharged it full into the creature's flank while it struggled with my friend. With a last yell of rage and pain it brought its fierce jaws together in one wild impotent snap, and ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to you; the affair is, unquestionably, of sufficient importance to justify my seeking to clear it up in the sight of all. Alcmene expects this public testimony from me; her virtue, which is outraged by the noise of this mischance, demands justification, and I will see justice is done it. My love for her compels me to it. I shall call together an assembly of the noblest chiefs, for the explanation her honour requires. While waiting with you for these desirable witnesses, I pray you to condescend to honour the table to ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... richness of oil; but at luminous bloom of surface, and dignity of clearly visible form. I do not think that this principle would be disputed by artists of great power at any time, or in any country; though, if by mischance they had been compelled to work in one material, while desiring the qualities only attainable in another, they might strive, and meritoriously strive, for those better results, with what they had under their hand. The change ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... such another set of clasps in Brabant; old work you could make a fortune of in the curiosity shops in the Montagne," said Trine Krebs, going up the steps of her mill house. "But, all the same, you know, Bebee, things off a dead body bring mischance sometimes." ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... Joneses' new flat. I already know it, and the moment when she (or he) knows it also will be the moment of my triumph. She (or he) will not celebrate my triumph openly, but it will be none the less real. And my reputation for accuracy and calm restraint will be consolidated. If, by a rare mischance, I am in error, it will be vastly better for me in the day of my undoing that I have not been too positive now. Besides, nobody has appointed me sole custodian of the great truth concerning the rent of the Joneses' new flat. I was not brought ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... clothes. Then sending a girl who was in waiting, for clean towels, she rubbed Ellen dry from head to foot, and wrapping her in a blanket, left her in a chair before the fire, while she went to seek something for her to put on. Ellen had managed to tell who she was, and how her mischance had come about, but little else, though the kind old lady had kept on pouring out words of sorrow and pity during the whole time. She came trotting back directly with one of her own short gowns, the only thing that she could ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... magnificent, so honest, so uncompromising, so efficient a worker! He was worthy of some very high position in the army, and he could certainly have attained any height had he chosen. He had a genius for compelling other men to obey him, he was never perturbed by unexpected mischance, he paid no attention at all to what other people thought of him, and he seemed incapable of fatigue. I often wondered what he was doing here, why he had chosen so small an Otriad as ours in which to work, why he stayed with us when he, so openly, despised us all. Until the arrival of ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole |
