"Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from his sleeve, the ruffian plunged it deeply into the poor creature's flesh. Nance winced, but she set her teeth hardly, and repressed the cry that must otherwise ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Colonel Napier pushes on—gets into the vicinity of Ibrahim—his rabble rout turn tail, in case of being swallowed alive by the ferocious pasha, whose reputation for cruelty and all manner of iniquities seems well deserved, and having ascertained the movements of that formidable ruffian, he returned to Naplouse to take the command of 1500 half-tamed, undisciplined savages, with whom to oppose his retreat. Luckily, the ratification of the convention come in the nick of time; for it is very evident that the best cudgels that were ever cut in "the classic woods of Hawthornden," ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... with easy and somewhat swaggering bearing,—a good many roughs, with here and there a ruffian. Several, as they approached, swung and tossed, for mere overplus of strength, the sledges with which they had been tapping at the bald shiny pates of their anvils. Several wielded their long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... which Spenser wrote. In Ireland, he had before his eyes continually, the dreary world which the poet of knight errantry imagines. There men might in good truth travel long through wildernesses and "great woods" given over to the outlaw and the ruffian. There the avenger of wrong need seldom want for perilous adventure and the occasion for quelling the oppressor. There the armed and unrelenting hand of right was but too truly the only substitute for law. There might be found in most certain and prosaic reality, the ambushes, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... though Billy moved like one in a dream. Her father was engaged in placating Dusty Rhodes and in explaining their agreement to the rest, and she still felt surprised that she had ever consented to accompany so desperate a ruffian. Yet as he knocked off a chunk of ore and showed her the specks of gold, scattered through it with such prodigal richness, she felt her old sense of security return; for he had never been rough with her. It was only with Old Whiskers, the grasping Blackwater saloon-keeper, and with the equally avaricious ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... an' there was a fight about it. Matters got t' such a pass that pistols were fired, an' th' captain would have been shot, an' killed, only a fellow named Mike Tullane, a rough character, an' one of the leaders of th' mutiny, stepped up sudden like an' saved th' captain's life by knockin' aside th' ruffian's gun. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... The ruffian laughed hoarsely, but when he saw the blood streaming down my face as Medley assisted me to get up, he looked somewhat alarmed, for he remembered that we were not yet at sea, and that although he might then treat me much worse with impunity it would be prudent ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... moving picture company was getting to work on the important scenes of "Brighteyes." Besides, she felt a trifle anxious because Mr. Hammond himself did not chance to be here under the present circumstances. He might be better able to handle Dakota Joe if the ruffian made trouble. ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... checked less by the exasperation, by the authority in the speaker's tone, than by the fact that the entire complexion of the affair had changed. The ruffian, who had entered so confidently, was no longer the aggressor; a mere look, a word, a gesture from this aged, unknown person had put him upon the defensive. More extraordinary still was the fact that his power of initiative was for the moment completely paralyzed, and that ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... "that accounts for it. There has been an unkempt ruffian marching up and down watching this house. They are on your track, Simkins, my boy, and when they discover that you are a reporter, and therefore necessarily a traitor, you will ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... "That's right. They were engaged when I met her. She didn't know the sort of ruffian he is till I proved it. She's afraid of ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... Warden (who represents JUBELA, one of the ruffians), who exclaims, "Who comes here?" [The room is dark, or the candidate hoodwinked.] The conductor answers, "Our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff." "Our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff!" exclaims the ruffian, "he is the very man I wanted to see (seizing the candidate by the throat at the same time, and jerking him about with violence); give me the Master Mason's word, or I'll take your life." The conductor ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... of Free-Soil and the friends of Slavery, for the possession of Kansas, which convulsed the whole Country for years, and moistened the soil of that Territory with streams of blood, shed in numerous "border-ruffian" conflicts. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... of the bold, lion-like scout of former days, he told how he had fainted and fallen on the breast of his master, how he had lain all night on the battle-field among the dead and dying, how he had been stripped and left for dead by the ruffian followers of the camp, and how at last he had been found and rescued by one of the ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... out of what was left of the village with his prisoners and captives, all neatly tied up. Boh Na-ghee was first, and one of the villagers, as soon as he found the old ruffian helpless, began kicking him quietly. The Boh stood it as long as he could, and then groaned, and we saw what was going on. Hicksey tied the villager up and gave him a half a dozen, good, with a bamboo, to remind him to leave ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... rage, scorn, and indignation were concentrated into that moment, and, smarting at the blow, he sprang upon the schoolmaster, wrested the weapon from him, and, pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian until ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... almanack-maker; a ballad-monger; a corranto-coiner; a decoy; an exchange man; a forrester; a gamester; an hospitall-man; a iayler; a keeper; a launderer; a metall man; a neuter; an ostler; a post-master: a quest-man; a ruffian; a sailor; a trauller; an vnder sheriffe; a wine-soaker; a Xantippean; a yealous neighbour; ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... le Comte," said Camusot, "let us complete our work. We have a very dangerous man on our hands. He is Jacques Collin—and you know it as well as I do. The ruffian ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... fellow blushed up to the eyes, and said, Oui, son nom etoit Joseph aussi bien que le mien, "Yes, he was called Joseph, as I am." I did not think proper to prosecute the inquiry; but did not much relish the nature of Joseph's connexions. The truth is, he had very much the looks of a ruffian; though, I must own, his behaviour was very ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... I'll tend to him. He is dead as a stone; bullet went right through here," and he turned the dead man's face toward the train, so all could see the blood pouring from the temple which the finger of the rebel ruffian touched. ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... speaks of wot I wants to know, I'll keep quiet. Well, sir, to my surprise, the Arab—he speaks in bad English, whereby I came to suppose the other was an Englishman, but, if he is, the climate must have spoiled him badly, for I never did see such a ruffian to look at. But he only laughed, and didn't speak, so I couldn't be sure. Well, to come to the pint, sir, the Arab said he'd got hold of two shipwrecked Englishmen, whom he meant to put on board of his dhow, at that time lyin' up a river not ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... as escort an Afghan or Pathan, a soldier of the Maharajah's irregular force of foreign mercenaries, who had been sent to meet me when I entered Kashmir. This man, Usman Shah, was a stage ruffian in appearance. He wore a turban of prodigious height ornamented with poppies or birds' feathers, loved fantastic colours and ceaseless change of raiment, walked in front of me carrying a big sword over his shoulder, ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... Lal," murmured the Lord Mayor, "dear, faithful, loving soul, these are the first tears I have ever known you shed. Are they tears of gratitude because we have rescued you from this ruffian with a knife, who would have destroyed your noble sight? Or are they tears of pity? Speak to me, Lal; if they are tears of pity, they will ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... a bigoted Roman catholic, and a desperate ruffian, to undertake the enterprise. He, therefore, obtained leave to raise a regiment in the following six towns: Lucerne, Borges, Famolas, Bobbio, Begnal, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... The burly ruffian tried to kick him as he had promised, but with his disengaged hand Matt caught his foot, and after dancing about to regain his balance, the man came down heavily across ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... the dark and bawl back, "All's well here too"; and all night long the two sentries bawl back and forward to each other through the dark. Sometimes, too, though strictest orders are issued against such ruffian warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by rat-tat-too ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... to work out their sentences. Thus did the practical settlers attempt to carry out one of Sir Thomas More's Utopian notions. Upon the whole, I think I should rather have a Nipmuck squaw cooking in my kitchen, or a Pequot warrior digging in my garden, than to have a white burglar or ruffian in either situation. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... country should not be without the means of defence. It is quite true that arms may do you a bad turn, either by tempting you to a hasty display, or by being of so costly a character as to excite the cupidity of some ruffian. But it is just as true that any other thing you possess may do you the like ill turn among men who would shoot you for the value of your skin. The golden mean is to be armed usefully, but not showily; and, above all things, to be very discreet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... "I shall prefer to do it in print,—though I must own that the temptation to adopt the manual violence of a ruffian is great, very great, very great indeed." But he resisted the temptation and walked down the stairs, concocting his article as ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... classical. The libretto deals with the vengeance wreaked by a villainous Neapolitan street loafer upon a woman who has played him false—a vengeance which takes the form of ruining her son by drink and play, and of attempting to seduce her daughter. In the end this egregious ruffian is murdered in the street by the mother of his two victims, just in time to prevent his being knifed by the members of a secret society whom he had betrayed to justice. The music is not without dramatic vigour, and it has plenty of melody of a rough and ready kind. There is technical ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... stories you hear of this man, I hope," he said to his wife and sister, one morning; "he is some inhuman ruffian, who is disgracing, by his cruelty, the cause which he has joined, for the sake ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... horrible thought keeps recurring to me," I whispered. "Halsey, Gertrude probably had your revolver: she must have examined it, anyhow, that night. After you—and Jack had gone, what if that ruffian came ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he is a ruffian in his style, Withouten bands or garters' ornament: He quaffs a cup of Frenchman's [51] Helicon, Then roister doister in his oily terms, Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoever he meets... Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms, Cleanly to gird ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... people grow absolutely insufferable," said the Black Rat. "There is a local ruffian who answers to the name of Mangles—a builder— who has taken possession of the outhouses on the far side of the Wheel for the last fortnight. He has constructed cubical horrors in red brick where those deliciously picturesque ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... the young ruffian's family the credit they deserve," she stated. "The whole connection despises his keeping ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable, good old governor—how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise me ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... foolhardy, heroes when they were only bullies and blackguards. This man, Abe Barrow, the prisoner at the bar, belongs to that class. He enjoys and has enjoyed a reputation as a 'bad man,' a desperate and brutal ruffian. Free him to-day, and you set a premium on such reputations; acquit him of this crime, and you encourage others to like evil. Let him go, and he will walk the streets with a swagger, and boast that you were afraid to touch him—afraid, gentlemen—and children ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... recollections connected with the war of the Revolution,—the noble declaration of independence, for truly noble it was: no dark compact of a crew of ruffian conspirators, but a generous bond that their aggrieved country should be freed, given by a band of citizen gentlemen, husbands, fathers, and brothers, to the fulfilment of the which they pledged unto each other their lives, their fortunes, and their ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... that an astronomer from the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg was near by, engaged in laying out the route of a canal from the Volga to the Don, he ordered him to be brought before him. When the peaceful astronomer appeared, the brutal ruffian bade his men to lift him on their pikes "so that he might be nearer the stars." Then he ordered him ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... with an account of him, but he did, after this first meeting, in some sort attach himself to me. I never learned his name nor where he lived; he was I should suppose an absolutely abominable plunderer and pirate and ruffian. He would appear suddenly in my room, stand by the door and talk—but talk with the ignorance, naivete, brutal simplicity of an utterly abandoned baby. Nothing mystical or beautiful about the Rat. He did not disguise from me in the least that there was no crime that he had not committed—murder, ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... When the black ruffian regained consciousness, Dick was still sitting on the edge of the table, calmly swinging his feet, but in his hand ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... of flowers; natural history increases the pleasure with which we view society and the justice with which we judge it. An instinctive sympathy, a solicitude for the perfect working of any delicate thing, as it makes the ruffian tender to a young child, is a sentiment inevitable even toward artificial organisms. Could we better perceive the fine fruits of order, the dire consequences of every specific cruelty or jar, we should grow doubly considerate toward all forms; for we exist through form, and the love of form is ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Union cause—to be excluded from every office, State and National, and in many instances to be banished from the States they so faithfully laboured to save; it abandons the four millions of colored people to such treatment as the ruffian class of the South, educated in the barbarism of slavery and the atrocities of the rebellion, may choose to give them; it leaves the obligations of the Nation to her creditors and to the maimed soldiers and to the widows ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... cried Mrs. Forrester. "An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the conventional dragon or ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "The ruffian was disguised with his head in a bit of a bag, or something of that sort, and he never spoke a word from first to last," added Kennedy, looking over ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... is it strange. Your house is grown a nuisance to its neighbours, Where twice in every week, if not more frequent, A motley crowd at midnight hour assembles; Whose ruffian-like attendants in the street, Alarm the peaceful, and disturb ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... him as he stepped into the room. The act of robbery which he found them coolly perpetrating in broad daylight, instantly set his irritable temper in a flame. He rushed at the younger of the two men—being the one nearest to him. The ruffian sprang aside out of his reach; snatched up from the table on which it was lying ready, a short loaded staff of leather called "a life-preserver;" and struck him with it on the head, before he had recovered himself, and could face ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... door was opened and a drunken ruffian entered, I awoke from my troubled slumbers. "Hi, Dutchy, and have yez any tin?" he threatened. "Kind sir," I replied, "when I departed for the West I left all my wealth behind me." Verily, now I was proving myself the worthy scion of valiant men, who had laid aside hauberk, sword, ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... impudence. How on earth among you could you let George marry the daughter of a low-bred ruffian like that,—a man that never ought to have been allowed to put his ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... forehead, the arched brows, the tremulous lips, the rounded chin, and the whole face glorified by that wonderful mass of hair, I only know, without weapon or design, she dealt me a wound which I bear to this day. What a ruffian I had been! I was ashamed, and my eyes fell before hers. If a libation of blushes could appease an offended goddess, I was livid evidence of repentance. I felt myself flooded in a sudden heat of shame. She ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the only one of the crew remaining on board, hastily belayed the clewline at the fife-rail, hauling it just taut enough to hold Bitts, without choking him to death. As the ruffian leaped into the boat, to which he had been assigned, Perth gave the order to shove off, and the runaways pulled with all ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... rode through the country, accompanied by his two hundred followers—mostly rollicking and arrogant foreign adventurers—who robbed and devastated the land, and thrashed and even mutilated passers-by for fun, people looked forward with great fear to the accession of such a ruffian. A few years of responsibility, and failure, soon changed him into the noblest and most law-abiding of the Plantagenets. It was Wales which gave him his first lesson. He first tried his hand at the reorganisation of the "Middle Country," making it "shire-land," ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first—for she was full of ambition—and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a 'vulgar young ruffian,' and 'worse than a brute,' she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... unmingled thence that drop again, Without addition or diminishing, As take from me thyself, and not me too. How dearly would it touch thee to the quick, Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious, 130 And that this body, consecrate to thee, By ruffian lust should be contaminate! Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me, And hurl the name of husband in my face, And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow, 135 And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring, And break it with a deep-divorcing vow? ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... was all in the good cause,' responded a sullen voice, as a grim red and scarred face was seen on a ruffian held ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be discussed not long since, in which I took a part. We had been speaking of the beauty of truth, and that nothing could justify the slightest deviation from the plain letter of it. This was doubted; and the case supposed was, that of a ruffian or a madman pursuing an innocent person with intent to murder. You see the flight and pursuit; the pursuer is at fault, and questions you as to the way taken by the fugitive. Are you justified in deceiving ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... ruffian of unmitigated type, whose breast is not stirred by the slightest throb of humanity. It is the second mate, Padilla. Breaking ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... laurel crown, which had been thrown to her, but which she rightly felt to be his due, who had given her all, and brought her from darkness into light! Instead of this, what part was this he was really playing? Anderson the kidnapper; Anderson the villain, the ruffian, the invader of peaceful homes, the bogy to scare naughty children with. He did not say all this to himself, perhaps, because he was not, save when carried away by professional enthusiasm, an imaginative man; but he felt thoroughly uncomfortable, and, above all, absolutely at sea, not knowing which ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... furnace—I'm always in liquor, A ruffian—a bully—a sot; I'm sure I should thrash her, perhaps I should kick her, I am such a very bad lot! I'm not prepossessing, as you may be guessing, She couldn't endure me a day! Recall my professing, when you are assessing The damages Edwin ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... after what seemed minutes to the silent, motionless congregation, his raised hand came down on the shoulder of the leader with the exact, resistless precision of the tiger's paw, and the ruffian was snatched from his seat to the floor sprawling. Before he could rise, the steel-like grip of the roused preacher sent him halfway to the door, and then out into the dirt of ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... place, we must bear in mind that he lived in the woods. The West of that day was not wild in the sense of being wicked, criminal, ruffian. Morally, and possibly intellectually, the people of that region would compare with the rest of the country of that day or of this day. There was little schooling and no literary training. But the woodsman has an education of his own. The region was wild in the sense that it was almost uninhabited ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... rear of his retinue, conversing with some of the officers of the court. As the party was issuing from a little chapel contiguous to the royal saloon, and just as the king was descending a flight of stairs, a ruffian darted from an obscure recess in which he had concealed himself early in the morning, and aimed a blow with a short sword, or knife, at the back of Ferdinand's neck. Fortunately the edge of the weapon was turned by a gold chain or collar which he was in the habit of wearing. It inflicted, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... And daily where he goes, of late, he spies The scowls of sullen and revengeful eyes; 'Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear, And serves a cause too good to let him fear: He fears no poison from incensed drab, No ruffian's five-foot sword, nor rascal's stab; Nor any other snares of mischief laid, Not a Rose-alley cudgel ambuscade; From any private cause where malice reigns, Or general pique all ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... was during these daily rounds that I witnessed with sadness the evil effects of sending boys or lads to prison for a few days or weeks for some petty theft, and placing them in constant contact and association with the habitual and reputed scoundrel and ruffian. These men are always willing to make a convert, and they generally succeed, for the battle is half won ere they bring their forces on the field. It is here that the juvenile offender is nursed in villainy, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... was a fair specimen of that class, known in more modern parlance as a "Border Ruffian." Such as are at this time endeavoring, by their swaggering and bullying, to cast on the fair fields of Kansas the deep curse of Slavery—a curse which, like the poison of the deadly Upas, blights all within its influence: the colored and the ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... was a very easy man, but would work you hard and never allow you any chance night or day; he was a farmer, about fifty, stout, full face, a real country ruffian; member of no church, a great drinker and gambler; will sell a slave as quick as any other slave-holder. He had a great deal of cash, but did not rank high in society. His wife was very severe; hated a colored man to have ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... his rifle by the barrel as he spoke the words and, bringing it down crash, he cleaved the skull of a great ruffian whose face was already glowering down from the turret's rim. Nothing, I swear, in all that night was more wonderful than the sang-froid of this great Irishman (as he would call himself in fighting moods) or the merry ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... shrieked in frantic terror; Harold sprung at the throat of the foremost; another advanced, Harold left his present prey and attacked the new assailant. The brave dog did wonders, but the odds were fearful; and the men had bludgeons, were enraged, and had already wounded him. One ruffian had grasped the arm of Sybil, another had clenched her garments, when an officer covered with dust and gore, sabre in hand, jumped from the terrace, and hurried to the rescue. He cut down one man, thrust away another, and placing his left arm round Sybil, he defended ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... protection against the son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult would be uttered. In this way much mischief is prevented. Besides, every precaution is taken to guard against ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... their insipid noise, And vain pretending take a Fool's advice; Of the faux Braves I've had some little trial, There's nothing gives 'em credit but Denial: As when a Coward will pretend to Huffing, Offer to fight, away sneaks Bully-Ruffian, So when these Sparks, whose business is addressing, In Love pursuits grow troublesom and pressing; When they affect to keep still in your eye, | When they send Grisons every where to spy, | And ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... his hypocritical jargon: but it was unworthy of me to combat in words with the ruffian; and my answer was cool; while, far from being possessed with fear, methought, even at the worst, a man true to himself, courageous and determined, could fight his way, even from the boards of the scaffold, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... rumbling volcanic Is heard in the Radical Press, And Presidents tremble in panic And Wardens their terrors confess: How each with anxiety shivers, The Dean with his fines and his gates, The ruffian who ragged me in Divvers, The pedant ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... suffer fops sometimes very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse. But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that I had too much respect for ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... poor to help the poorest," objected the woman, "and I don't like your luggage, sir." And she wondered why she had sirred a cut-throat looking ruffian such as this. ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—of England, in general so kind and bountiful. Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and a captive; and such, alas! was the fare in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... Scoundrel! Ruffian! Why do you go sniffin' around me now! Who are you? What has I done? You stuck to my heels! You followed me an' baited me an' snapped at me ... Rascal ... worse'n ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... a cat, he leapt upon him, felled him to the earth with a single blow, tore the dagger from his hand, and sprang to his feet again just in time to strike his new weapon full into the third pursuer's face. The man put his hand to his head, and recoiled against a fellow-ruffian, who was close on his heels. Philammon, flushed with victory, took advantage of the confusion, and before the worthy pair could recover, dealt them half a dozen blows which, luckily for them, came from an unpractised hand, or the young monk might have had more than one ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... the Land League here?" said Robert, shoving the yellow horse into the crowd; "let the hounds through, boys, can't ye? No, Captain, but 'tis Saint November's Day, as they call it, a great holiday, and there isn't a ruffian in the country but has come out with his blagyard ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... guess he was about to be used in a game he did not understand? He would have stopped all work to beg for extra pay at the merest suggestion of such a thing; but as it was he raised both fists and lapsed into his own tongue to apostrophize the ruffian who dared jostle King. A Northerner who did not seem to understand Punjabi almost cost King his balance as he thrust broad shoulders between him ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... is always something to look at, for there are canoes constantly going up and down, and there is plenty of variety among them—from the sluggish dhows, laden with up country produce, to the long canoes with a score of paddlers and some picturesque ruffian sitting in the stern. It adds to the interest when you know that the crews are cutthroats to a man, and would make but the shortest possible work of you if they had got you in ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... watch-case to a common larum-bell? Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge; And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deaf'ning clamours in the slipp'ry shrouds, That with the hurly Death itself awakes: Can'st thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose To the wet seaboy in an hour so rude, And in the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... pardon!" he breathlessly exclaimed. "I was just taking the short cut! I had no idea—Here, Mungo, you ruffian!" as the Skye was ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... MacConachie, and try to be like him?' And now, when one of them has taken his advice, if ye dinna turn round on the street and half kill him, till he had to be brought home half faintin' to his father's house! Fine-like conduct for a magistrate! Ye bloodthirsty old ruffian! ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... their wives, recollecting that the cottage formed part of the glebe, went off to inquire of Parson Morth, "than whom," as the tablet to his memory relates, "none was better to castigate the manners of the age." He was a burly, hard-riding ruffian, and the tale of his great fight with Gipsy Ben in Launceston streets is yet told on ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quieting effect upon poor Jim, who immediately closed his lips. Silent but watchful he eyed the half-breed's face. There was something very familiar about the thin cheeks, high cheek-bones, and about the great hooked nose. He was struggling hard to locate the man. At this moment the third ruffian approached with three horses. The other had been busy fixing a gag in Jake Bond's mouth. Jim Bowley saw the horses come up. And, in the now brilliant moonlight, he beheld and recognized a grand-looking golden chestnut. There was no mistaking that glorious beast. Jim was no tenderfoot; ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Marston saw through wrong, and which he had intended to carry out,—is now beyond his power. Stripped of those comforts he had enjoyed, his offspring carried off as trophies of avarice,—perhaps for sale to some ruffian who would set a price upon their beauty,—he sits down, sick at heart, and weeps a child's tears. The mansion, so long the scene of pleasure and hospitality, is like a deserted barrack;-still, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... "Well," was the ruffian's reply; "women of all ages are fools: what is it to you whether this young fellow is shot or hanged? He was taken in arms against the Republic—one and indivisible. All the enemies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... no yearning to pluck out the heart of the mystery. La Motte, a needy adventurer fleeing from justice, takes refuge on a stormy night in a lonely, sinister-looking house. With startling suddenness, a door bursts open, and a ruffian, putting a pistol to La Motte's breast with one hand, and, with the other, dragging along a beautiful girl, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... I made friends with the ruffian set to watch over me, and I plied him with wine until he fell on the grass and was unable to rise. I then dammed the stream, and climbed down its empty bed. It was difficult work, as the rocks were wet and the night was very dark. I was covered with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... Allyne was usually a gentleman, but in his cups he became little short of a ruffian in ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... himself from his sad musings at the supper-hour, to arrange his hair, and assume the ordinary dress of gentlemen in the evening; though Philip laughed at the roses adorning his shoes, and his fresh ruff, as needless attentions to an old ruffian like the Chevalier. However, Philip started when he entered the hall, and beheld, not the Chevalier alone, but with him the beautiful lady of the velvet coach, and another stately, extremely handsome dame, no longer ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be disappointed. Here, come forward," said he, to some of his men, who were, armed with axes. "Hew the ruffian from ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... young man, "nothing can cure my grief; this day my dear mistress is to be sacrificed to a rich old ruffian of a husband ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... admirable make-up, though only a policeman of very melodrama could have missed that brilliant pate as it shone balefully over the inadequate chair in which he sat concealed while his subordinate was bullying the hapless Anna. Also I doubt whether so stout a ruffian would have succumbed so promptly to such a simple pin-prick. But perhaps the surprise, annoyance and keen disappointment broke his soldierly heart. Anyway, living or dying, the Baron was a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... greater trouble comes. I could not hold out for another fight. I am almost finished. Let the king fight the battles of his friends. The ruffian that escaped will return with re-enforcements, and I am not able ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... and, with a smile, put it into her arms, and told her that she was now at liberty to return to her home or go where she pleased. The joy expressed by the girl and by all who witnessed this scene was very great; for they had all considered him to be a mere ruffian, incapable of anything ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... at this time, there was one carter who had none, and Regina knew it, for he was one of her chief admirers. He was the hardest-drinking ruffian of all the men who came and went on the Frascati road, and he had been quite willing to sell his dog in the street to a gentleman who admired it and offered him fifty francs for it, though that is a small price for a handsome "lupetto." But Mommo happened to be deeper in debt than usual, took the ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... nor shall you be able to complain that they are not recent, as well as of longer standing. Your conduct in the case of poor honest M'Evoy here is black and iniquitous. He must be restored to his farm, but by other hands than yours, and that ruffian instantly expelled from it. From this moment, sir, you cease to be my agent. You have betrayed the confidence I reposed in you; you have misled me as to the character of my tenants; you have been a deceitful, cunning, cringing, selfish and rapacious tyrant. My people you ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... majority as inadequate to account for the phenomenon. They inclined, rather, to adopt an alternative and alluring theory propounded by the Commissioner's lady. This theory laid it down that the American was bargaining for the Count's daughter, a pretty girl whom the old ruffian had shut up in a convent somewhere in anticipation of the day when a purchaser, rich enough to content his inordinate lust for gold, should present himself. Van Koppen was that purchaser. They had now been haggling, she said, for two or three years; a DENOUEMENT might be expected at ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the morning, and hanged him in the evening of the same day. Fifty thousand people stood around the columns of the national capitol, shouting themselves hoarse at the presidential inaugural, and in four months so great were the antipathies that a ruffian's pistol in Washington depot expressed the sentiment of a great multitude. The world sits in its chariot and drives tandem, and the horse ahead is Huzza, and the horse behind is Anathema. Lord Cobham, in King James' time, was applauded, and had thirty-five thousand ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... the rakes and bullies of the time; "For when they expected the most polished hero in Nemours, I gave them a ruffian reeking from Whetstone's Park." Dedication to Lee's "Princess of Cleves." In his translation of Ovid's "Love Elegies," Lib. II, Eleg. XIX. Dryden mentions, "an easy ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... to his diocese. I asked a member of another Balkan nationality whether he knew this ancient cleric of the extremely venerable aspect, and whether he knew what kind of political and religious propaganda had brought about his downfall. "I know all about that old ruffian," he replied. "He stole over fifty pigs and one hundred sheep, and about twenty-five cows and 200 lb. of fat." Anyhow, if his lordship had heard that these accusations had been repeated in many places, he would have been ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... nervous movement of my gun, pressing gently on the trigger at the same time. Never was a man nearer his death than was Asmani during those few moments. I was reluctant to shed his blood, and I was willing to try all possible means to avoid doing so; but if I did not succeed in cowing this ruffian, authority was at an end. The truth was, they feared to proceed further on the road, and the only possible way of inducing them to move was by an overpowering force, and exercise of my power and will in this instance, even though he might pay the penalty ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... you all about that afterwards," said Dennis grimly. "I'm going to save you now." And, cutting the cord, he threw the knife into the basin and proceeded to make a slip-knot. "We must make this old ruffian secure first." ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... I'd see this ruffian at Halifax first, if you ask me." The angry color flushed his face again as he thought of the insult to which ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... had charge of the execution of this order was a stern and ruffian-like officer named Sir Richard Ratcliffe. This man is quite noted in the history of the times as one of the most unscrupulous of Richard's adherents. He was a merciless man, short and rude in speech, and reckless in action, destitute ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... caught her breath quickly. She knew the big ruffian's methods, and with good reason feared for her old friend, should he even ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... of her word, and that an undrained cabbage would be the signal for the execution of her threat. From the first she had assumed despotic power over Wiggleswick, of whose influence with his master she had been absurdly jealous. But Wiggleswick, bent, hoary, deaf, crabbed, evil old ruffian that he was, like most ex-prisoners instinctively obeyed the word of command, and meekly accepted Zora ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... however, Diether sprang up from a ditch, seized the frightened boy, and ran back toward the mill. The girl had but little time in which to decide on a course of action. If she barricaded herself in the mill, might not the ruffian slay the child? On the other hand, if she waited to meet him, she had no assurance that he would not kill them both. So she retired to the mill, locked the door, and awaited what fate had in store for her. In vain the robber threatened to kill the child and burn the mill over ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... optimism. He had been at sea, and shipwrecked on several islands in the Pacific; he had passed a rainy season at Panama, and a yellow-fever season at Vera Cruz, and had been carried far into the interior of Peru by a tidal wave during an earthquake season; he was in the Border Ruffian War of Kansas, and he clung to California till prosperity deserted her after the completion of the Pacific road. Wherever he went, he carried or found adversity; but, with a heart fed on the metaphysics of Horace Greeley, and buoyed up by a few wildly interpreted maxims of Emerson, he had always ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... arranging books with the huge patriarch of all the rats dangling by his tail! Three hopeful families were destroyed; rooms, vaults, and cellars examined and cleared; and Petty declared the race to be exterminated, picturesque ruffian that he was, in his shapeless hat, rusty velveteen, long leggings, a live ferret in his pocket, and festoons of dead ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... apartments like a palace, all covered with gold and ivory, which the king kept as a pleasure-yacht for his own use. Exasperated against Gonzalez for his treachery, the king ordered the nephew of that lawless ruffian, who was in his power as a hostage, to be be impaled. But Gonzalez, being a person utterly devoid of honour, cared not at whose cost he advanced his own interests; yet the guilt of so many villanies began to prey upon his conscience, and he became ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... dastardly falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought forward to the readers of ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... enterprising lad was Tom the Bootblack. He was not at all ashamed of his humble calling, though always on the lookout to better himself. The lad started for Cincinnati to look up his heritage. Mr. Grey, the uncle, did not hesitate to employ a ruffian to kill the lad. The plan failed, and Gilbert Grey, once Tom the bootblack, came into a comfortable fortune. This is one of Mr. Alger's ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... "The owdacious young ruffian!" ejaculated Mrs. Fox. "To beat my poor, dear Joel so! Never mind. Joel, dear, I'll give you a piece of pie and some cake. As for that boy, he'll be ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... MRS BAR. You disobedient ruffian, careless wretch, That said your father lov'd me but too well? I'll think on't, when thou think'st I have forgot it: Who's with thee else?—How now, minion? you! With whom? with him!—Why, what make you ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... I handled that situation rightly?" he asked himself between chuckles. "One thing I know—if that old ruffian plays another trick on me—one more of any kind—Ill show my teeth. There's a thing known as ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... more sacred than a man's family and his children. It would not be possible for a man to do public violence to a family circle without vindictive penalty. Let him separate a mother from her daughters, let him employ a hireling ruffian to carry off the boys into the country and parcel them out there—let him scatter the flock, and leave the children motherless, and the parents childless, and what do you think would become ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher
... the good sense of rushing to the front door and shouting for the police. I'm an orphan, your Worship, and that's why I'm here to seek protection from the court. All the same, I haven't a word to say to my husband, the cowardly ruffian, only for his love of poteen, ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... through a justice-of-peace marriage with Jean Armour. Burns, with all his faults, was an honest and a high-spirited man, and he loved the mother of his children. Had he hesitated to make her his wife, he must have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian, or that misery of miseries, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... struggle. There are times when what should exasperate a people, strikes them with terror. The population of Paris felt that a ruffian had his foot upon his throat. It no longer offered any resistance. That same evening Mathieu (of the Drome) entered the place where the Committee of Resistance was sitting and said to us: 'We are no longer in Paris, we are no longer under the Republic; ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... wait for either of these questions to be answered. He sprang into action with all the agility and ferocity of a young panther. The handle of his cane was a huge knob of carved ivory. He brought it directly on the head of the ruffian in a blow of tremendous force, and as the fellow staggered, Mr. Dootleby grasped the poker, turning it so that its heated end touched his antagonist's arm. Of course, the man loosened his hold, and in an instant more dropped ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg |
