"Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... terms, and those terms incorrect. We are amazed to find a writer usually thoughtful, if not accurate, thus indolently adopting the worn-out falsities of our weakest writers on Taste. Does he—can he for an instant suppose that the ruffian Caravaggio, distinguished only by his preference of candlelight and black shadows for the illustration and re-enforcement of villainy, painted nature—mere nature—exclusive nature, more painfully or heartily than John Bellini or Raphael? Does he not see that whatever men imitate ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... inmates to endure, 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 those casernes. And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called in the slang of the place 'strawplait-hunts,' when in pursuit of a contraband ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Beastlinesse, that swolne Parcell of Dropsies, that huge Bombard of Sacke, that stuft Cloakebagge of Guts, that rosted Manning Tree Oxe with the Pudding in his Belly, that reuerend Vice, that grey iniquitie, that Father Ruffian, that Vanitie in yeeres? wherein is he good, but to taste Sacke, and drinke it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carue a Capon, and eat it? wherein Cunning, but in Craft? wherein Craftie, but in Villanie? wherein Villanous, but ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the arms) of a stranger, his first impulse is to show fight. Naturally Leonard began to plunge and to double his fists. But he could not keep this up, for the man whose arm was round him quickly retired and stood a few paces off, looking wan and haggard, and very unlike a thief or ruffian. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... prisoner, whom one guarded at the pistol's point, while the other pushed on, buried the box in another place, and then they conveyed the ruffian to Columbus. ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... and the ends knotted similarly about the waists of the man before me and the man behind me. Agathemer was made secure in a like fashion. When he lay down to sleep, after he had composed himself to rest, a blanket was spread over him and a burly ruffian lay down on either side of him, the edges of the blanket under them. I slept similarly guarded. On day marches Caburus kept Agathemer close to him; I was never out of sight ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... being smooth, How many shallow bauble boats dare sail Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk! But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between two ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... he listened to the last words, and with emotion almost equalling that which excited his host. He had just been thinking about the portrait upon the wall, and how beautiful the original must be. Now hearing her name coupled with that of the ruffian whose blow he had felt, and whose blood he had spilled, he almost regretted not having ended that duel by killing his ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... unless it were the Irishman, Sarsfield. But not only was the light of genius extinguished then, and a heroic spirit lost to earth—as kindly and as noble a heart as was ever warmed by the constant presence of generous emotions was stilled by a ruffian's bullet. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Men, and the most exposed to the Malignity or Wantonness of the common Voice, is the Trader. Credit is undone in Whispers. The Tradesman's Wound is received from one who is more private and more cruel than the Ruffian with the Lanthorn and Dagger. The Manner of repeating a Man's Name, As; Mr. Cash, Oh! do you leave your Money at his Shop? Why, do you know Mr. Searoom? He is indeed a general Merchant. I say, I have seen, from the Iteration ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... neck in order to break its master's. But he was equal to the occasion; and when Steamboat staggered again to its feet Bannister was still in the saddle. It was a daring and magnificent piece of horsemanship, and, though he was supposed to be a desperado and a ruffian, his achievement met with a breathless gasp, followed by ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... hurried from me and sold to the highest bidder, or doomed to any drudgery her master might put her to, and even flogged at will. There was only one remedy that could be applied; and the specific was dollars. My friend was so kind as to negotiate with the ruffian. One thousand was demanded, and cheerfully paid. I carried the manumission home to my sorrowing Mary. From her I learned, as she lay in bed—her beautiful face buried in the clothes, and her voice choked by sobs—that the wretch who had called on me was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... What! I warrant me, you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, "We'll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond)." And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. "Ah, ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... yellow gleam of a Jew's head in the crowd, and called upon him to fling him his cap. It was hurled from hand to hand. Fra Giuseppe held it up in the air. "Men of Rome, Sons of Holy Church, behold the contumelious mark we set upon our fellow-men, so that every ruffian may spit upon them. Behold the yellow—the color of shame, the stigma of women that traffic in their womanhood—with which we brand the venerable brows of rabbis and the heads of honorable merchants. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the Russian peasant, mild and kindly. I do not intend to take up much space here 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 ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... less familiar to the people of England is the career of Jack Sheppard, as brutal a ruffian as ever disgraced his country, but who has claims upon the popular admiration which are very generally acknowledged. He did not, like Robin Hood, plunder the rich to relieve the poor, nor rob with an uncouth sort of courtesy, like ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... 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 ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... of outraged respectability, with here and there an epithet distinguishable like a plum in a pudding. "Ruffian," they called him, "assassin," "robber," and so forth, the innocuous amateur abuse of men who have learned their bad language from their newspapers. It was not till he had gone a hundred yards, and the noise of their lamentation had a little died down, that there emerged out of the blur of it ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... "Daphne, I'm a ruffian! forgive me! you must, Daphne! Look here, I want you to marry me. I've nothing to offer you, of course; I'm a poor man, and you've all this horrible money! But I—I love you!—and I'll make you a good husband, Daphne, that I'll swear. If you'll take ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... aboard fairly slimed over, in addition, with all that had ever been told or guessed against Buck Vliet's missionary. The stories didn't agree about his sect: but they agreed that Vliet, though a ruffian, hadn't marooned the man just for fun—that he must have been a hard case somehow. The stories might vary concerning Vliet's reasons: but they agreed that the man hadn't come to it by sheer over-prayerfulness: and the conclusion was—reasonable ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ramp leading to the summit of the wall almost immediately in front of the little group. There was a gleam of steel in his hand. With one long ringing whistle, Humfrey bounded from his place, and at the moment when the ruffian was on the point of assailing the Queen, he caught him with one hand by the collar, with the other tried to master the arm that held the weapon. It was a sharp struggle, for the fellow was a trained soldier in the full strength of manhood, and Humfrey ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resent the supposition of being heretical to thy creed, and yet how few truly adhere to the purity of thy precepts! How few are sincere in the expression of their adoration!—nay, how limited the number of those who really understand the essence of thy doctrine! The sanguinary ruffian considers himself as zealous in the service of honor, as the high minded and courageous man who has a sword to avenge the wrongs of his country, and a heart to sympathise with the picture of human misery. All are swayed by the magic ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... frightful smile—and laid a very strong emphasis on those two words, "Somebody else." There is evidently a third ruffian, a nameless ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... to the feet of the old woman; in a while it mounted to her knees, then to her waist, then to her chin, then to her lips; and when she was almost stifled by the rising waves, and the bubbling groan of her last agony was reaching her fellow-martyr farther up the beach, one heartless ruffian stepped up to Margaret Wilson, and, with a fiendish grin and mocking laugh, asked her, 'What think you of your friend now?' And what was the calm and noble reply? 'What do I see but Christ, in one of his members, wrestling there? Think you ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... boys!" cried the prostrate ruffian, who had lost a tooth and bled freely at the nose. The other two prepared to pile, when the schoolmaster faced one of them, and kept him off. It is hard to say how matters would have gone, had not a tornado entered the bar room ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... troop of villains; The sons of public rapine were destroying. They told me, by the sentence of the law, They had commission to seize all thy fortune: Nay more, Priuli's cruel hand had sign'd it. Here stood a ruffian with a horrid face, Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate, Tumbled into a heap for public sale; There was another, making villanous jests At thy undoing: he had ta'en possession Of all thy ancient, most domestic, ornaments, Rich ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... risked all—and many of whom have lost all but life in upholding the 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 and orphans of the war, to be fulfilled ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... to the rescue! Here is a desperate young ruffian seeking to murder the Queen's subjects in broad daylight! Help, I say, and take the young braggart before the magistrates! Cannot peaceable citizens walk the streets without being set upon by such bullies ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a cuirass! What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... war against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at length from his wife and infant family, to fight for his country. ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... her role, but dispensed with the business of tearing her hair. "O my husband!" she cried, stretching her arms across the water. "Shall I never see thee more? What foul ruffian has treated thee thus?" ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... Vallandigham, though less valuable, is of the same purport, that "it is vain to underrate either the man or his conspiracy.... He is the farthest possible removed from the ordinary ruffian, fanatic, or madman." ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... 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 foot ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... aware of Durand. The man was not alone. He had with him a hulking ruffian whose heavy, hunched shoulders told of strength. There was a hint of the gorilla in the way the long arms hung straight from the shoulders as he leaned forward. Both of the men were watching the cowpuncher as steadily as ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... material out of which he was expected to manufacture serviceable troops." "Swaggering ruffians from the disreputable haunts of London" "were not the men to be intrusted with the honor of England at a momentous crisis." "Our simplest men in show have been our best men, and your gallant blood and ruffian men the worst of all others." (The Italics again are the author's.) Yet, said the muster-master, "there is good hope that his Excellency will shortly establish such good order for the government and training of our nation, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... dame. Not for a king's ransom would I have thus jostled thee in such unseemly haste!" And Ginger, instead of giving Keith a slap when he teasingly penned her up in a corner, to make her divide some nuts with him, said, in a most tragic way, "Unhand me, villain, or by my troth thou'lt rue this ruffian conduct sore!" ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... ruffian!" cried Saxe: "how can you expect people to be friendly with you! Well, I'm not going to be beaten by ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... such a calf after all;' and then Roland heard him mutter something about 'an acquisition to the band.' The words made the matter clear enough now to our hero. This ruffian had not saved him because he had shot Ham, but because he wanted an addition to his force. Knowing that there was a price upon Roland's head, he believed that he would find little difficulty in bending him to his ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Colonel Baker and myself were both battling together in the Whig cause, at a convention held in Springfield, I made a speech at the State House, which I think now, looking back at it from this point, was the very best I ever made in my life. While I was addressing the vast assembly some ruffian in the galleries flung at me a gross personal insult accompanied with a threat. Lincoln and Colonel Baker, who were both present and were warm personal and political friends of mine, anticipating that I might be attacked ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and very plain clothes, would certainly give him the appearance of a vulgar person, if the impression was not counteracted by his evil soldierly carriage, and the peculiar manner of his walking, which is confident, theatrical and a little ruffian like, for he stamps the ground at every step, and at the same time twists his body a little. He was dressed that day in a green coat, turned up with a dirty white, &c. &c. &c. His neck is short, his shoulders very broad, and his chest open * ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... crew alive with his fiddle forward, and even Dan Hoolan looked somewhat less surly than usual; at the same time Larry kept out of his way, and never trusted himself at night on deck when I was not there. Whether he was right in his suspicions or not was uncertain, but at all events Hoolan was a ruffian, and a traitor to ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... pennywise parsimony had left himself defenceless, made a feeble and wholly vain attempt to put the city in a state of defence. The corrupt and cowardly citizens could not have opposed any valid resistance to the ruffian hordes who were slowly but surely, like an advancing conflagration, coming upon them, even if they had been willing to do their best. But the trembling Pope's appeal to them to defend the walls fell on the ears of as sorely trembling men, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... he came here, heroic resolutions followed him. He had thrashed a ruffian who struck a woman, and narrowly escaped with his life for doing so. Henceforth he could but assent to a truce which implied mutual toleration; and yet he understood that his presence was not without its influence ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... her breath quickly. She knew the big ruffian's methods, and with good reason feared for her old friend, should he even unconsciously ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... the dark on a moor, he follows a light, and enters an old lonely house. He is seized by ruffians, locked in, and expects to be murdered, which he knows that he cannot stand, for he is timid by nature. In fact, a ruffian puts a pistol to La Motte's breast with one hand, while with the other he drags along a beautiful girl of eighteen. "Swear that you will convey this girl where I may never see her more," exclaims the bully, and La Motte, with the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... silent, but betraying no agitation; and he roused 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 ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... present to a clever and muscular ruffian one of the most formidable weapons of offence he could possibly possess, as he can, and frequently does, inflict the deadliest blows upon his captor. Another great drawback is the fact that these handcuffs do not fit all wrists, and often the officer is nonplussed by having ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... And found them guarded by a troop of villains; "The sons of public rapine were destroying." They told me, by the sentence of the law They had commission to seize all thy fortune: Nay, more, Priuli's cruel band had signed it. Here stood a ruffian, with a horrid face, Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate, Tumbled into a heap for public sale: There was another making villainous jests At thy undoing: he had ta'en possession Of all thy ancient, most domestic ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... have the wicked reign, Instead of help will find his bane. The Doves had oft escaped the Kite, By their celerity of flight; The ruffian then to coz'nage stoop'd, And thus the tim'rous race he duped: "Why do you lead a life of fear, Rather than my proposals hear? Elect me for your king, and I Will all your race indemnify." They foolishly the Kite believed, Who having now the pow'r received, Began upon the Doves to ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Amanda, stepping to the verandah, "why have you ventured here again so soon,—or, rather, why so late? for are there not ruffian robbers on the road, and all the ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... I may say that if my hand was an index to my general appearance, I must have looked the most abject ruffian under heaven. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... to go to the butcher's for a bit of meat for dinner. The crippled lad had just rounded the corner, and, forced to give all his attention to his own halting steps, did not grasp the situation but continued his dragging way across the path of the drunken and enraged bully. The ruffian, seeing the lad ignore his loud commands, strode heavily forward with menacing fists, heaping foul epithets upon the head of the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... in ruffian anger Raised its bloody steel against Beauty so divinely fashioned? Sorrow, ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... stage they want lighter matter to amuse them at home; but they can hardly appreciate, even if they could find, the loftier flights of social romance. Sam Weller to-day has joined a union, and reads his Henry George. Rawdon Crawley of our own generation is a mere drunken ruffian, only fit to point the moral in a lecture on the drink traffic. And Becky Sharp is voted to be a stupid libel on the social destiny of the ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... its mouthpiece in the faction of the legislature. Property will be at the mercy of the idle, the desperate, and the rapacious—Law will be a dead letter—Religion a mockery—Right superseded by violence—and the only title to possession will be the ruffian heart and the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... concealed themselves. There is sometimes in the social order a favouring shadow thrown over iniquitous trades, in which they thrive. In our own day we have seen an association of the kind in Spain, under the direction of the ruffian Ramon Selles, last from 1834 to 1866, and hold three provinces under terror for thirty ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... 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 ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out right and left with arms and legs, and yelling lustily the while, and at last something gives way, and you find your head in the fresh air. Two feet off, you dimly observe a half-dressed ruffian, waiting to kill you, and you are preparing for a life-and-death struggle with him, when it begins to dawn upon ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the tact which he possessed, had been chosen as general regulator of the whole prize- fighting body, by whom he was usually alluded to as the Commander- in-Chief. He and Belcher went across now to the table upon which Berks was still perched. The ruffian's face was already flushed, and ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... who 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 alike of all ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... gets abroad of his cock-and-bull story, and the true history of the loss of his teeth, he will not be able to show his face in public for some time; but he will be none the less dangerous. Through that notorious ruffian, Captain Copper, he can dispose of half the cutthroats about the town, and I should advise you not to go out after dark until you have put the seas between you and him, and even then you had better be cautious ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... captured crew of an unarmed merchant vessel which he had sunk, destroyed their boats, took from them their life-belts, carried them miles away from any floating wreckage, and then projected them into the sea to drown, this unspeakable monarch approved the awful deed and decorated the ruffian for his infamous cruelty. ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... his feeble witticism, and Brett instantly took his measure as a member of the gang of flash thieves which infest Paris. He knew that such a ruffian was both pitiless and cowardly. Whatever the outcome of the situation which faced him, he would not stoop to conciliatory ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... ladies had known the character of this house and the neighborhood around it, they would not have placed me here. Heaven only knows what I have suffered, and still suffer. I live in constant dread that some ruffian, instigated by my landlady, who wishes to gratify both her avarice and malignity, may break in upon me some time when I am off my guard, and make me the victim of a brutal outrage. This fear keeps me awake nights, and makes my days ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... "Insolent ruffian!" muttered Tharon this day, frowning above her daddy's pipes on the desk top. "He's goin' t' get one run for his money from now till one of us is whipped. It may be me, but I'll leave my mark on him, so ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... victory to be as fruitless as it was brilliant. The ruffian troops, by whom it was gained, became immediately self-disbanded; threw off all authority; hastened to possess themselves of Antwerp; and threatened to proceed to the most horrible extremities if their pay was longer withheld. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... complex arrangements of the animal creation, extending down to the minutest portions of their frames—that same Divine mercy it is which we are bid to imitate. He whose soul burns with indignation against the brutal ruffian who misuses the poor, helpless, suffering horse, or dog, or ass, or bird, or worm, shares for the moment that Divine companion wrath which burns against the oppressors of the weak and defenceless everywhere. He who puts forth his hand to save from ill treatment, or add to the ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... eyes as round and sparkling as those of the children going to Christmas parties. He stole glances at her as if her fresh innocent looks were an absolute treat to him, and when he talked, it was of Robert in his boyhood. 'I remember him at twelve years old, a sturdy young ruffian, with an excellent notion of standing ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... result was disappointing. Only one noble had his head cut off. Few executions were carried into effect, many were on paper. One of the latter, a ruffian steeped in blood, defied the sentence and was banished. Flechier in his amusing and instructive book, Les grands Jours d'Auvergne, has given us a dramatic ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Sally. "Why, I saw this young ruffian pommeling him. And look! Martha is bound in her ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... ruffian fired his first shot with the revolver at his powerless victim. The captain winced slightly, and I saw the bullet had carried off part of one of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... Sonora to supply some of the guerilla insurgents operating in the wilds of that state. Once they were safe in Mexico the cattle would be sold to old Pasquale for a fraction of their real value, the money received in exchange for them having been wrung by that old ruffian from some prisoner he had put to the torture to give ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... the realm. I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloster Did bear him like a noble gentleman. Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal, More like a soldier than a man o' the church, As stout and proud as he were lord of all, Swear like a ruffian and demean himself Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.— Warwick my son, the comfort of my age, Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping, Hath won the greatest favour of the commons, Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey;— And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland, In bringing them to civil discipline, ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill's, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult game ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... 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
... sputtered Mr. Downes. "You see, Mary, what this young ruffian has done to poor Paul? Stand still, will you?" he added, jerking Paul around as he tried to untie the cod line. Paul began to snivel; I reckon his father pulled the line so tight that it cut ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... both, whether to kill or imprison was not yet determined. John was absent; Sarah, seeing the troopers gallop toward the house, poured a prayer over her babe, as it lay asleep in the crib, and fled in terror, hoping that sweet infancy would appeal to their hearts. A ruffian rushed in, and grasping the babe, shouted, "The nurse is not far away." He made it scream, to bring the mother back. She heard its pitiful cry; her heart was breaking, yet she was utterly powerless. She might expose herself, but she could not help the infant. They carried it away. ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... he has been described as a ruffian and villain of irredeemable depravity—desperate to the last degree. James P. Casey was a young man of bright, intelligent and rather prepossessing face, neat in his person, inclined to fine clothes, but not flashy or gaudy in his attire. He was of low stature, slender frame, lithe and ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... Here had we two expatriated Frenchmen engaged in an ill-regulated combat like the battles of beasts. Here was he, who had been all his life so great a ruffian, dying in a foreign land of this ignoble injury, and meeting death with something of the spirit of a Bayard. I insisted that the guards should be summoned and a doctor brought. "It may still be possible to save ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at nightfall left the cottage in Danny's company. Two hours afterwards Hardress himself arrived in a fit of compunction. On learning that they had departed, he swore to himself that if this his servant exceeded his views, he would tear his flesh from his bones, and gibbet him as a miscreant and a ruffian. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... the equally sanguinary royal governor of Chili, Sanchez, carrying on a most horrid and cruel war of extermination against the republican inhabitants of the southern part of Chili. Into the hands of this murderous ruffian and his ragamuffin gang the Swan was delivered; but the villany of her piratical crew was soon to receive its just punishment. Benavidas, who suspected them of having kept back no trifling part of the plunder, with very little privacy and no formality, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... pin 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 have ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... have long been singing the praises of your Caesar. Believe me, he is very close to my heart, and I am not going to let him slip from his place. Now for the history of the Ides (13th). It was Caelius's tenth day.[584] Domitius had not obtained a full panel. I am afraid that foul ruffian, Servius Pola, will appear for the prosecution. For our friend Caelius has a dead set made at him by the Clodian gens. There is nothing certain as yet, but I am afraid. On the same day there was a full house ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with remorse, as he shut the door upon himself, was:—"I have departed from my character—from the sacred character, and the dignity of my profession and sentiments—I have departed from myself. I am no longer the philosopher, but the ruffian—I have treated with an unpardonable insult a young nobleman, whose only offence was love, and a fond desire to insinuate himself into the favour of his mistress. I must atone for this outrage in whatever manner he may choose; ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... father had returned home, a man named Sharpe, who disgraced the small office of justice of the peace, rode up to our house, very much the worse for liquor, and informed mother that his errand was to "search the house for that abolition husband of yours." The intoxicated ruffian then demanded something to eat. While mother, with a show of hospitality, was preparing supper for him, the amiable Mr. Sharpe killed time in sharpening his bowie-knife on the sole ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... answer—'Many men, many women, and many children.' Macpherson wrote offensively and violently to Dr. Samuel, who replied heartily enough—'I received your foolish and impudent letter ...I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian ...I thought your book an imposture. I think so still. Your rage I defy,' etc. etc. What was all this to Runciman? He had no learning—he cared nothing for antiquarianism. He took for granted that Ossian was authentic. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... ever haunt mankind, And glare upon the darken'd mind! Whene'er thou enterest a breast, Thou robb'st it of its joy and rest; And terrible, and strange to tell, On what that mind delights to dwell. The ruffian's knife with reeking blade, The stranger murder'd in his bed: The howling wind, the raging deep, The sailor's cries, the sinking ship: The awful thunder breaking round: The yauning gulf, the rocking ground: The precipice, whose low'ring brow O'erhangs the horrid deep below; And tempts ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... all over the United States to whom the mere mention of the word mountaineer evokes a fantastic picture—a whiskey-soaked ruffian with bloodshot eyes and tobacco-stained beard, wide-brimmed felt cocked over a half-cynical eye, finger on the trigger of a long-barreled squirrel rifle. He is guarding his moonshine still. Or he may be lying in wait behind bush or tree to waylay his deadly enemy ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... tonight at Brattleburn—that's my chief town, and an infernal Tory stronghold. I had got the Colonial ex-Premier fellow, Crumpleton, coming to speak for me tonight, and had the thing tremendously billed and the whole place ground-baited. This afternoon I had a wire from the ruffian saying he had got influenza at Blackpool, and here am I left to do the whole thing myself. I had meant to speak for ten minutes and must now go on for forty, and, though I've been racking my brains for three ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian's presence, Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed. He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots, however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast. Swithin's yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash the costermonger, but was ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that second volume is 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 Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... fact, it is probable that the majority of genuine French names belong to a later period; for, although the baron who accompanied the Conqueror would in many cases keep his old territorial designation, the minor ruffian would, as a rule, drop the name of the obscure hamlet from which he came and assume some surname more convenient in his new surroundings. Local names of Old French origin are usually taken from the provinces and larger ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... said Belsize. "Is that the cane you strike your wife with, you ruffian!" Belsize seized and tore him out of the saddle, flinging him screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street; a hundred people were round Sir ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of his love; Wide as his will, extends his boundless grace; Nor lost in time nor circumscribed by place. Happier his lot, who, many sorrows' pass'd, Long labouring gains his natal shore at last; Than who, too speedy, hastes to end his life By some stern ruffian, or adulterous wife. Death only is the lot which none can miss, And all is possible to Heaven but this. The best, the dearest favourite of the sky, Must taste that cup, for man is born ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... in unlaced gymnasium shoes, "leathers," and a brown sweater (warranted not to show the dirt), looked quite definably what he was, a Commercial Road ruffian; and his foreheadless face, greasy cow-lick "quiff" (or fringe), and truculent expression, inspired more disgust than confidence ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... possibly a murderer, from the gallows, simply and solely because I had eaten ham and rice in his company. Had I not betrayed my guide, who was supporting the cause of law and order? Had I not exposed him to a ruffian's vengeance? But then, what about the ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... that is well, for the American article answers almost exactly to the vagrant and criminal tribes of India, being a predatory ruffian who knows too much to work. 'Bad place to beg in after dark—on a farm—very—is Vermont. Gypsies pitch their camp by the river in the spring, and cooper horses in the manner of their tribe. They have the gypsy look and some of ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... breakers of all laws human and divine,—the makers of counterfeit money, the forgers of land titles, the stealers of horses, robbers, murderers, thieves and criminals of every sort and condition, the fine gentleman and the ruffian, the duelist and the assassin—all these were now flocking to Rogue's Harbor. Once there, they were not long content merely to find a hiding place from the wrath of broken law and outraged civilization. They were soon seeking and ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... does it matter if he can? Are we to delay every time that lazy ruffian spying a shadow makes it an excuse to stop to yawn and scratch? Go on, you plankful of lubbers, or I'll give you something worth thinking about!" And joyfully, oh, so joyfully, we heard the sullen dip ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... at table, lashed to their chairs, pale and trembling, while six of the most ruffian-looking scoundrels I ever beheld stood on the opposite side of the table in a row fronting us, with the light from the lamps shining full on them. Three of them were small but very square mulattoes; one was a South American Indian, ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... respectable Teachers of ———— has had any participation in this scurrilous transaction, as I consider them to be sober, moral, exemplary well-conducted men, possessed of excellent literary abilities; but this expatriated ruffian and abandoned profligate, being aware of the marked and unremitting attention which I have heretofore invariably paid to the scholars committed to my care, and the astonishing proficiency which, generally speaking, will be an accompaniment ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... But he was at the same game. You have got the proof in your hands. There's a group of nine men—Salak and his eight friends. Well, of his eight friends every man jack is now doing time for burglary, in some cases with violence—that second ruffian, for instance, he's in for life—in some cases without, but in each case the crime was burglary. And why? Because Salak in the centre there set them on to it. Because Salak nine years ago wasn't the big swell he is now. Because Salak wanted money to start his intrigues. That's the way he ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... second volume is 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 of what you ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... as it is no secret why he and Miss Bates parted, I enlightened the company on the subject of his antecedents. He threatened to challenge me! Ho! ho!—fight with a nigger—that is too good a joke!" And laughing heartily, the young ruffian leant back in his chair. "I want some money to-morrow, dad," continued he. "I say, old gentleman, wasn't it a lucky go that darkey's father was put out of the way so nicely, eh?—We've been living in ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... sudden rage the ruffian soldier bore, Or drenched the pavements with his vital gore; Deliberate thought did all our souls compose, Till veiled in gloom ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Stephen's ear, are accused of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any because you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as you ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... strongly, James; but, under the circumstances, I can't blame you much. The boy is evidently a ruffian." ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... 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 ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... who cuts off another man's hands is a ruffian. The man who cuts off a woman's hands is a scoundrel. There is no excuse for him—none whatever. And the kinder he is the worse he is. I repeat that you are the worst sort of scoundrel. Your family mourns you, and every member of it says what an angel of a father you were. But you were ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... Losberne came, and begged them to accompany him to the patient's room, they dreaded to comply with the request, but finally yielded to his demand. What was their astonishment when the bed-curtains were drawn aside, instead of a black-visaged ruffian, to see a mere child, worn with pain, and sunk into a deep sleep. His wounded arm bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast. His head reclined upon the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed over the pillow. The boy smiled in his sleep as ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... solemnly believe that the very best thing that could be done for you at this moment, you unfortunate individual, would be to buy you a saddle-horse and a revolver, and start you tomorrow for the Rocky Mountains, with distinct instructions to treat any man as a Border Ruffian who should venture to allude to the subject of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... in the foreground, nor star that kept alive a promise in the distance, violently refused to be comforted. It is beside an awful aggravation of such afflictions, that the lady herself might have co-operated in the later stages of the tragedy with the purposes of the imperial ruffian. Lamia had been suffered to live, because as a living man he yielded up into the hands of his tormentor his whole capacity of suffering; no part of it escaped the hellish range of his enemy's eye. But this ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... answered the young man, "nothing can cure my grief; this day my dear mistress is to be sacrificed to a rich old ruffian of a husband who ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... forgive my transgressions!—he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a bit richer, or've more children, he doesn't touch, the red-headed devil! but there's all the difference here! Why he's sent Antip's sons for recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... am unworthy of having such an angel," replied the old man, "but unless you were a cruel and a heartless ruffian, you would not at this moment mention her, or bring the thoughts of her to ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... difference, if any, is in favor of the last. Suppose them both raised for merit, (here, indeed, we do come to theory!) the benefits that society has received from him are nearer us.... Some of us may look back six or seven centuries, and find a stout ruffian at the beginning." In England, where the institutions are such that a title of nobility is considered by the majority to be the highest reward attainable by merit, it is not surprising that the great god of Rank should be worshipped at the family altar of Form. In England, too, it must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... hold a gun, he said, must come to the help of civilization against barbarism. These dreadful outrages are happening thousands of miles away, but that makes them none the less real. Humanity is being attacked by a bully, a ruffian,—how can any man stay at home? Let no consideration of family life keep you from doing your duty. Every human being must give an account of himself to God. What did you do in the great day of testing? will be the question asked you in that great day of reckoning ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... the parish and the despair of his pious mother, who, whenever he sallied forth upon adventure bent, rang the bell of the chateau, to give the alarm to the surrounding peasantry. The ballad which tells of the infamous deeds of this titled ruffian, and which was composed by one Tugdual Salauen, a peasant of Plouber,[46] opens upon a scene of touching domestic happiness. The Clerk of Garlon was on a visit to the family of ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... many a day, never failed to cause merriment. His costume rose to the height of Desert-fashion, described when pourtraying Shaykh Khizr the Imrni; his manners were those of a gentleman below the Pass, and above it he became an unmitigated ruffian, who merited his soubriquet El-Kalb ("the Hound"). On one side sat his son Slim, a large, beardless lad, who had begun work by presenting us with a sheep—Giorgi (cook) said it cost us 40. On the other was his eldest brother and ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... old ruffian here as a joke. Directly I set eyes on him I knew he ought to have been in quod himself! Come now, what do you say? Look here! I'll make a bargain with you. I'll give you the thing when ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... be provided in so desolate a spot. The unprepossessing look of everything was completed when the host came in and took his seat at the head of the table. A bear out of the woods could hardly have been rougher, with his unshaven hair and unkempt beard. He answered to the type of border ruffian, and his appearance suggested the dark deeds that might be done here in secret, and hidden in the forest gloom. Imagine the astonishment of the travellers when this rough backwoodsman rapped on the table and bowed his head. And such a prayer! "Never," says Mr. St. John, "did I hear ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... 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, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... that made them peculiarly acceptable to me; but discipline is discipline, and must be maintained, at all hazards, even when a crew has been picked up in such irregular fashion as mine had been; and I was determined to at once impress upon this Irish ruffian the fact that I was skipper of the brig, and that I intended to exact from him the respect and deference of manner due to the position. So I ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... expected, he carried her off to England, where he did not wait to be drunk in order to maltreat her. She was not free from his cruelty night or day. Before she was sixteen, she had run the whole gamut of human suffering; and that, not at the hands of a coarse, common ruffian, but from an elegant, handsome, luxury-loving gentleman, whose taste in dress was so nice he would sooner fling a garment of hers into the fire than see her go into company clad in a manner he did ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... well in the front rank of the combatants, and was carrying himself right manfully, when he saw one of his countrymen slip and fall in a pool of blood, losing his sword as he fell. A burly black-bearded ruffian, whom he had been engaging, instantly set his foot on the prostrate body, and shortened his hanger to thrust him through; but Roger, who was engaged with another pirate, nimbly evaded the blow aimed at him, and, with one spring, like a young leopard, ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Joined by his fellow ruffian he fell upon Harry, but they were no match for the Royalist colonel. After a few rapid thrusts and parries he ran his first assailant through the body and cut down the man called Marlow, with a sweeping blow which nearly cleft ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... glory? Was the Fate that forced us to fight for the mastery of the world, of our making? Am I Julius Caesar, or am I a wolf, that you fling to me the grey head of the old soldier, the laurelled conqueror, the mighty Roman, treacherously struck down by this callous ruffian, and then claim my gratitude for it! (To Lucius Septimius) Begone: you ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... been made romantic when they were brutal, brave when they were 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 ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis |
