"Ruffianly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for America. When I was discovered hiding among the cargo we were in mid-ocean, and there was nothing for it but to carry me to the States. Still, to earn my passage, I was made cabin-boy to a ruffianly captain, and once more tasted the early delights of childhood, viz., kicks, curses, and starvation. When the ship arrived in New York I was turned adrift in the city without a penny or ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... Martha were eye-witnesses from their chamber window of the whole of this supplementary fight; the former little dreaming, that the officer attacked by the two ruffianly masks, was the man that was all the world to her. She perceived, however, that he belonged to the invading army, and such being the case, she viewed the contest with breathless anxiety; looking every moment for the fatal stroke that was to lay him low in the dust forever, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... aroused for this poor pale-faced lad, put on the airs of a ruffianly bully. He did not wish that message to be taken indoors by the lad, for the concierge might get hold of it, despite the boy's protests and tears, and after that Blakeney would perforce have to disclose himself before it would be given up to him. During the past ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... and mainly on all fours. At one point Dougal nodded downward, and the other two saw on a patch of turf, where the Garple began to widen into its estuary, a group of figures round a small fire. There were four of them, all men, and Dickson thought he had never seen such ruffianly-looking customers. After that they moved high up the slope, in a shallow glade of a tributary burn, till they came out of the trees and found themselves ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... knowledge; they trusted her, fawned on her, whined when she rebuked them, carried themselves more decently for a day or two when she dropped a rare word of commendation. They respected her in spite of the latent ruffianly instinct which sneers at women; they feared her as a parish fears its priest; they loved her as they loved one another—which was rather toleration than affection; the toleration ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... he needed, for the only opening in it was a small round hole in the top, hardly bigger than a twenty-five-cent piece. (The story in the weekly paper said that the wrens' doorway should be as small as that, so that no ruffianly English sparrows could enter the house and disturb the little people that ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Hoddan fits to that somehow. Oh, yes! Space-piracy! People say the people of Zan capture and loot a dozen or so ships a year, only there's no way to prove it on them. And there's a man named Hoddan who's supposed to head a particularly ruffianly gang." ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage them—he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a singular partiality for him—a partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed, Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... blackguards of Saint-Antoine! French troops massacring and murdering men, women, and children; rampant diabolism, and incarnate revenge were at work in the most beautiful city in the world! Fair women converted into demons, and dragged by ruffianly soldiery through the streets to universal execration and pitiless death; children of tender age pinned to the earth and bayoneted; men innocent or not, shot, cut, stabbed, slashed, destroyed—a whole city given up to the summa injuria of an infuriate, reckless, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... about." And as he spoke he hurried to the oriel window which looked out upon the wharf, exclaiming—"Ay, ay,—'t is as I thought. Dick is among them, and at their head. 'Fore heaven! they are attacking those ruffianly braggarts from Whitefriars, and are laying about them lustily with their cudgels. Ha! what is this I see? The Alsatians and the myrmidons are routed, and the brave lads have captured Sir Francis Mitchell. What are they about ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... happily to be quite fresh and not affected by the sultriness of the day. It had cost her small effort to adhere to her statement that she had had no share in the escape of the sisters, when catechised by the ruffianly negro; but she found it hard to defy Othman's benevolent questioning. However, there was no choice, and she succeeded in proving that she had never quitted Memphis nor the house of Rufinus at the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thoroughfares, and made Alsatia dangerous ground for respectable feet. Here, too, they saw familiar phantoms: poor Jo, perpetually moving on; and little Oliver led by Nancy, with a shawl over her head and a black eye; Bill Sykes, lounging in a doorway, looking more ruffianly than ever; and the Artful Dodger, who kept his eye on them as two hopeful 'plants' with profitable pockets ready ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... a very nice-looking young man, who had the skin of a leopard-cat (F. Serval) tied round his neck—a badge which royal personages only were entitled to wear. N'yamgundu seeing this, as he knew the young man was not entitled to wear it, immediately ordered his "children" to wrench it from him. Two ruffianly fellows then seized him by his hands, and twisted his arms round and round until I thought they would come out of their sockets. Without uttering a sound the young man resisted, until N'yamgundu told them to be quiet, for he would hold a court on the subject, and see if the young man could defend ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... quickly, stealthily, she would rain a little shower of crumbs, from her left hand, on the grass beside her, to a confiding group of finches assembled there. And if ever a sparrow ventured to intrude his ruffianly black beak into this sacred quarter, she would manage, with a kind of restrained ferocity, to "shoo" him away, without thereby ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... loudly. "By heaven, Madame, you shall see! I did not move against his outrage and assault, but I will move to purpose now. For you and he shall leave there in disgrace before another week goes round. I have you both in my 'practical power,' and I will squeeze satisfaction out of you. He is a ruffianly interloper, and you, Madame, the law would call by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... born on English soil, is really Norse—not English. But Kingsley did not write about the Vikings, nor about his Elizabethan heroes in "Westward Ho!" in a perfectly simple, straightforward way. He was always thinking of our own times and referring to them. That is why even the rather ruffianly Hereward is so great an enemy of saints and monks. That is why, in "Hypatia" (which opens so well), we have those prodigiously dull, stupid, pedantic, and conceited reflections of Raphael Ben Ezra. That is why, in all Kingsley's ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... whole exterior; whereas, a broken, squashed, higgledy-piggledy sort of a hat, such as Randal Leslie had on, would go far towards transforming the stateliest gentleman that ever walked down St. James's Street into the ideal of a ruffianly scamp. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... perfectly faithful picture than it gives both of Henry and Thomas." Tennyson's portraits of these two "go beyond and perfect history." The poet's sympathy ought, perhaps, to have been, if not with the false and ruffianly Henry, at least with Henry's side of the question. For Tennyson had made ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... shipped with no serious results, but there was a considerable smashing of breakable objects in the pantry and in the staterooms. Mr. Bunter, who was so greatly respected on board, found himself treated scurvily by the Southern Ocean, which, bursting open the door of his room like a ruffianly burglar, carried off several useful things, and made all the others ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... feast waiting for him. He was not the only one who was there to enjoy it. For there were three ruffianly red squirrels and a half-dozen chipmunks who appeared on the spot ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... mob. The few torches which were its only light, and which scarcely showed the roof and extremity of the building, were, however, enough to show heaps of weapons of every kind—muskets, sabres, pikes, and even pitchforks and scythes, thrown on the floor. On one side, raised on a sort of desk, was a ruffianly figure flinging placards to the crowd below, and often adding some savage comment on their meaning, which produced a general laugh. Flags inscribed with "Liberty Bread or Blood—Down with the Tyrant"—and that comprehensive and peculiarly favourite motto of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... and jeering distinguished them, and I was often reminded of the slums of some great city. One night, as dusk was falling, a whale-boat put in on that part of the beach where I chanced to be alone. Six or seven ruffianly fellows scrambled out; all had enough English to give me "good-bye," which was the ordinary salutation; or "good-morning," which they seemed to regard as an intensitive; jests followed, they surrounded me with harsh laughter and rude looks, and I was glad to move away. I had not yet encountered ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... waged as fiercely over Pope's poetry as erst it did in his own Homer over the body of the slain Patroclus. Stout men took part in it, notably Lord Byron, whose letters to Mr. Bowles on the subject, though composed in his lordship's most ruffianly vein, still make good reading—of a sort. But the battle is over, at all events for the present. It is not now our humour to inquire too curiously about first causes or primal elements. As we are not prepared with a definition ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... that I come to think of it, it must have looked remarkable—a ruffianly-looking man, carrying a disreputable bundle of blankets, a tin cup and water-bottle slung across his shoulders all clanking together, and a small Bible in his hands, with a well-dressed lady on each arm and an armed soldier ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... a chair, with his feet on the table beside an empty beer bottle and dirty glass, was a ruffianly-looking chap, who had a thick neck that ran straight up with the back of his head. His hair was close cropped and his forehead low. There was a bulldog look about his mouth and jaw, and his forehead was ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... uniforms, two of them rough-coated Cossacks, and two whose dress showed clearly that they belonged to the Russian Imperial Guard, lay on the floor, bound and helpless. A stout, elderly man, in civilian garb, with a very red face and an angry look, his wig awry, was lashed to a chair. Between two ruffianly looking men, who held her firmly, ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... imagine a better way of disburdening you and of disposing of Almo than banishing him would be. The lad is far too good to be wasting his time with the horse-jockeys and charioteers and ostlers of the Greens, or brutalizing himself with the companionship of ruffianly prize-fighters, belonging to this or that speculator in the flesh of ferocious savages. He must find some outlet for his energies and interests and is carried away by the fashionable mania, which is corrupting our whole population, especially our young ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... his head, sheered a little in the direction of the voice, and landed stiffly on the sand-bar below the bridge. Then you saw what a ruffianly brute he really was. His back view was immensely respectable, for he stood nearly six feet high, and looked rather like a very proper bald-headed parson. In front it was different, for his Ally Sloper-like head and neck had not a feather to them, and there was ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... semi-pirate adventurers developed the buccaneers, a ruffianly, dare-devil lot, who feared ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... like a rich sunset on a garden lake. Item (3): A ship that was armed to the full, as a casual glance told me, with every kind of quick-firing guns, and with two ten-inch guns in her turret. Item (4): A ruffianly blackguard, to whom the cutting of a throat seemed meat and drink, with ten other rogues no less deserving, from a murderous point of view, put to watch about the ship that no strange eye might look upon her. Item (5): The confusion of Signor ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... of her refusal to wear woman's dress. For this she seems to have had two reasons: first, that to give up her old dress would have been to acknowledge that her mission was ended; next, for reasons of modesty, she being alone in prison among ruffianly men. She would wear woman's dress if they would let her take the Holy Communion, but this they refused. To these points she was constant: she would not deny her visions; she would not say one word ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Harold, bowin' to Miss Vincent, "there is no excuse for addressing me before these ladies and gentlemen in that ruffianly manner. I was unable to carry out your—er—orders this morning, having overlooked a trifling detail in the scurry and bustle of catching that ungodly ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... three generations before the Council of Clermont; but, from the first, the southward advance against the rulers of Cordova foreshadows the age of the Crusades. In Spain, as in the German marks, the pioneers of Christendom were often ruffianly, and always fought with an eye to the main chance. Among them are mere desperadoes like the Cid Campeador (d. 1099), who serves and betrays alternately the Christian and the Moorish causes, founds a principality at the expense of both religions, but is finally claimed as a ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... back to the carriage instantly,' said Lady Palliser, almost shouting the substantive, in order that Jack might be reminded what kind of people he had insulted by his ruffianly bearing. 'I feel that I am bemeaning myself every moment I stay ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... plaintiff's shrieks, The ruffianly defendant speaks - Upon the other side; What HE may say you need not mind - From bias free of every kind, This trial must ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... fine, how the two orders of neighbours lived in long and happy communion of kind offices with one another; until, upon one unfortunate day, the ill-renowned freebooter, Aymerigot Marcel, with his ruffianly men-at-arms, having approached, by stealth, from his near-lying hold, stormed the romantically seated rock-mansion of the bountiful pigmies: who, scared, and in anger, forsook the land. Ever since the foul outrage, only a straggler may, now ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... selected was one called Dotheboys Hall, a long, cold-looking, tumble-down building, one story high, in a dreary part of the country. It belonged to a man named Squeers, a burly, ruffianly hypocrite, who pretended to the world to be a kind, fatherly master, but in fact treated his pupils with such cruelty that almost the only ones ever sent there were poor little orphans, whose guardians were glad to ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... often the case, had been developed earlier than the intellectual qualities, and the force of character, for which he was afterwards remarkable. He had shown himself wild, dissipated, addicted to low pleasures, little short of ruffianly in his propensities, and recklessly expensive, with no other resources than the bounty of his uncle. This course of conduct had alienated the old bachelor's affection, once strongly fixed upon him. Now it is averred,—but ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... performing the act with a good nature that I found quite irresistible, and I am certain that neither his lordship nor I have ever thought the less of each other because of it. I revert to this merely to show that I have not always acted in a ruffianly manner under these circumstances. It seems rather to depend upon how the thing is done—the mood of the performer—his mental state. Had Mr. Belknap-Jackson been—pardon me—quite drunk, I feel that the outcome would have been happier for us all. So far ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... dozen of Irish reapers; some were lying asleep, others in parties of two or three were seated with their backs against the wall, and were talking Irish; these last all appeared to be well-made middle-sized young fellows, with rather a ruffianly look; they stared at me as I passed. The whole party had shillealahs either in their hands or by their sides. I went to the extremity of the pier, where was a little lighthouse, and then turned back. As I again drew near the Irish, I heard a hubbub and observed ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... certain night not long ago when you were flying from a ruffianly mob and you sought the shelter of my house? But may be you've a short memory. Mine isn't so fleeting. Men's kisses are lightly bestowed. Women are different. I shall never forget the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... protested. "I am a slave to my word. There will be a siring of carts and mules on a certain part of the coast, and a most ruffianly lot of men, men you understand, men with wives and children and sweethearts, who from the very moment they start on a trip risk a bullet in the head at any moment, but who have a perfect conviction that I will never fail them. That's my freedom. I wonder what ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... rain was falling, but the crowd between the prison and Kennington Common was immense. At the time of our trials the mob had treated us in ruffianly fashion, but now we found a respectful silence. The lawyer Morgan was in an extremely irritable mood. All the way to the Common he poured into our inattentive ears a tale of woe about how his coffee had been cold that morning. Over and over again he ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... painstaking mechanics, and so forth, as ever cut an inch short of measure, or paid a letter of change in light crowns over a counter. The mercer there wears his hat awry, over a shaggy head of hair, that looks like a curly water-dog's back, goes unbraced, wears his cloak on one side, and affects a ruffianly vapouring humour: when in his shop at Abingdon, he is, from his flat cap to his glistening shoes, as precise in his apparel as if he was named for mayor. He talks of breaking parks, and taking the highway, in ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... steadily forging up-stream and presently it was disclosed to view no more than a cable-length away. It was a pinnace filled with ruffianly fellows, more than a score of them. No merchant seamen these but brethren of the coast, freebooters who were gallows-ripe. Bill Saxby was quick to recognize two or three of them as old hands of Blackbeard's crew who must have deserted their leader in time to escape his fate. Presumably ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... on the Boston Port Bill in Parliament, April 15th, 1774, Colonel Barre referred to the ruffianly attack made on Mr. Otis, and his treatment of the injury, in a manner that reflects honor ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... explained, for, the negress, before mentioned, coming into the room on some trifling errand, to my surprise accosted him rather freely. Her master suddenly broke out in a paroxysm of rage, swore at her awfully, and accused her in a ruffianly way of being insolent to her mistress. Then, violently ringing a bell which stood on the table, he summoned a negro lad into the room, and at once despatched him to a neighbour's house to borrow a new raw-hide whip, threatening all the while to flay her ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... thing as feasible as it is impossible, I must repeat that the argument would here be—what it is now—in no wise concerned), as is the handling of character throughout; but most especially the subtle force, the impeccable and careful instinct, the masculine delicacy of touch, by which the somewhat ruffianly temperament of the original Ferando is at once refined and invigorated through its transmutation into the hearty and humorous manliness ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... be seen betwixt your doublet and the band of your upper stock, it will have so much the more rakish effect, and will attract you respect in Alsatia, where linen is something scarce. Now, I tie some of the points carefully asquint, for your ruffianly gallant never ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... inquiring look toward the three men. Iemon alone looked down, his gaze on the letter the characters of which danced and waved before his eyes. Sharp as he ordinarily was, before this vigorous and astute old man, backed by the ruffianly prospective son with impertinent smile, the cowardice of Iemon deprived him of all spirit. His faculties were numbed. Kwaiba leaned over and removed the letter from his hands. "Since Iemon San will not read the letter, Kwaiba will try to do so; ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... hearts, asked Labda, with assumed friendliness, if they might see her child. She, looking upon them as friends of her husband, whom kindly feeling had brought thither, gladly complied, and, bringing the infant, laid it in the arms of one of the ruffianly band. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... king of the power which he still possessed to allay the tumult, if the reasonable demands of the people (as he called them) were granted. Marie Antoinette alone was undaunted and calm; or, at least, if in the depths of her woman's heart she felt terror at the sanguinary and obscene threats of her ruffianly enemies, she scorned to show it. When the firing began, M. de Luzerne, one of the ministers, had quietly placed himself between her and the window; but, while she thanked him for his devotion, she begged him to retire, saying, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... to be alone to-night, he has other men with him, hideous, ruffianly looking creatures, whom I saw him admit after the servants had gone. The countess has left the house and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... another mandarin, named Kwang—one of much higher rank than his visitor of the previous day—came on board. He was attended by thirty of the most ruffianly-looking scoundrels—even for Chinamen—that the captain had ever seen. They were all well armed, and came off in a large, well-appointed boat, which, the mandarin intimated with a polite smile, was to be towed, if she was too heavy to be hoisted ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... he presents a very ferocious front; he is, in fact, about the most ruffianly-looking specimen I have seen outside of Asiatic Turkey. As I ride up he motions for me to alight, at the same time retreating a few steps toward his humble stronghold, betraying a spirit of apprehension lest, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... seated himself, and kept a place for her beside him. Otherwise she would hardly have had seat or food.' She was now able to survey the inmates of the castle. Besides the family themselves, there were about a dozen men, all ruffianly-looking, and of much lower grade than her father, and three women. One, old Ursel, the wife of Hatto the forester, was a bent, worn, but not ill-looking woman, with a motherly face; the younger ones were hard, bold creatures, from ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were approaching from separate points. I glanced back, and saw the ruffianly-looking man within a yard or two, with his arm raised and one finger up, telegraphing, as it seemed, to the ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... said Fearless Frank, rolling over on the grass and gazing at the guide, thoughtfully, "but I doubt it. It seems to me that one hears of more butchering, lately, than there was a month ago—all on account of the influx of ruffianly characters into the ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... susceptibilities required careful healing. The situation was somewhat odd. She had not scrupled to attack the innermost weaknesses of my character, and yet when I retaliated by a hit at externals, she was deeply hurt, and made me feel a ruffianly blackguard. I really think if Lisette had pinned up that curtain I should have learned something more about female human nature. But Judith is the only woman I have known intimately all my life long, and sometimes ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... now became a pandemonium. The more ruffianly part of the mob—and alas! there were but too many of them—hurled the furniture out of the windows, or ran off with anything that they could carry. In vain I expostulated, threatened; I was answered by laughter, curses, frantic dances, and brandished plunder. Then I first found out how large ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... limpid lustre of his eyes tempered their burning ardor. In a word, though a peaceable man, the goldsmith was not one to be insulted with impunity, and perhaps it was a knowledge of his physical qualities that secured him from attack in those stormy days of ruffianly violence. ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... while Lucretius was still away, yet another peril came upon her. While Caesar was operating round Dyrrhachium, there was a dangerous rising in Campania and Southern Italy, for which our giddy friend Caelius Rufus was chiefly responsible; gladiators and ruffianly shepherd slaves were enlisted, and by some of these the villa where she was staying was attacked, and successfully defended by her—so much at least it seems possible to infer from the fragment ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... expedient to stop just then to pick it up, and Obadiah Weeks, leaping forward, made it a prey, and instantly elevated it on a pole, amid roars of derisive laughter. The retreat of the justices had indeed so emboldened the more ruffianly and irresponsible element of the crowd, many of whom were drunk, that it was just as well for the bodily safety of their honors that the distance to their lodgings was no greater. As it was, stones were flying fast, and the mob was close on the heels of the sheriff when ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... been seized by the bit, and a ruffianly fellow stood holding him with one hand, while his other held a revolver that was pointed at ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... scenes and the effective portrayal of character. With extraordinary ability and consistency to the type he works out the gradual evolution of a wild Irish boy, hot-headed in love and fighting, full of daring impetuosity and ignorant vanity, into the ruffianly soldier, the intrepid professional gambler, and finally into the selfish profligate, who marries a great heiress and sets up as a county magnate. Instead of the mere unadulterated villainy and meanness which were impersonated ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... by some half-caste Portuguese, and worked by a mixture of aborigines and Malays, a most unpromising and ruffianly-looking set. However, they received the unhappy boatload quite civilly, promised that a messenger should be dispatched across country to the nearest civilized centre, and provided a good meal of salt junk, sweet potatoes, rice, and tea. It did not matter to the exhausted men ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... held Drogheda at the battle of the Boyne, and was induced to surrender it by William's ruffianly and unmilitary ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... chief. He was a man of about fifty, and exceedingly dirty in appearance. He sat upon an angarep, surrounded by his people; lying on either side upon his seat were two brace of pistols, and within a few yards stood his horse ready saddled. He was prepared for fight or flight, as were also his ruffianly-looking followers, who were composed of Abyssinians ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... found Jorian and Boris giving a kind of exhibition of their skill in military exercises. It might be, also, that they desired to teach a lesson for the benefit of the wild robber border folk and the yet more ruffianly kempers who foregathered in this strange inn of Erdberg on the borders of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... occupation by its three co-heiresses, Anne, the enthusiast, paid an afternoon visit to the St. Quentins, at Harpham. On starting to return home about nightfall with her dog, she had gone no great distance when she was confronted by two ruffianly-looking beggars, who asked alms. She readily gave them a few coins, and in doing so the glitter of her finger-ring accidentally attracted their notice, which they at once demanded should be given up to them. This she refused ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silent communion. They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. 'That's some ruffian come up for a drink,' said Torpenhow; and he raised his voice cheerily. There entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-aged gentleman in a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, and there were ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... in the afternoon and were still several miles from home, when, passing through a bit of woods, a sudden turn of the road brought them face to face with a band of mounted men, some thirty or forty in number, not disguised but rough and ruffianly in appearance and armed with clubs, pistols ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... man over that affair. He went to his mother and complained of John's selfish and brutal behaviour, alleging that he had suffered terrible punishment in a chivalrous effort to protect his sister from ruffianly assault; and his mother, a thin, acidulous woman, whose voice was half snarl and half whine, carried her ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... smiling more broadly; and his ruffianly, piratical look was superseded by a frank aspect which transformed him. "You see, Mr Harlow, I'm a sort of a cocoa-nutty fellow, all shaggy husk outside. You find that pretty tough till you get through ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... short-tempered, as the stranger appeared to be. But when Paddy inquired whether the visitor wasn't a distant connection of the Mink family (as indeed he was!), Grumpy Weasel said, "What! Do you mean to insult me by asking whether I'm related to such a ragged, ruffianly crowd?" ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... influence over all these ruffianly people. Everything that I had promised them had been more than performed; all that I had foretold had been curiously realized. They now acknowledged how often I had assured them that the slave-trade would ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... of men one usually saw in these border forts, men of the lowest type, miztiros and mulattos most of them, criminals from the gaols condemned to serve in the frontier army for their crimes. And in the midst of the low-browed, swarthy-faced, ruffianly crew appeared the tall distinguished-looking young man with a white skin, blue eyes ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... she had run from the rascal. When he had learned something of the peculiar relations in which Mary stood to the family at Durnmelling, he began to think there might have been something more in the pursuit than a chance ruffianly assault, and the greater were his regrets that he had not secured ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... her feet in astonishment, and at the same moment heard the voice of the viscount without, saying in ruffianly tones: ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... hardship and suffering that they had so recently passed through, I was compelled to confess to myself that they were by no means a prepossessing lot; they, one and all, O'Gorman and Price not excepted, wore that sullen, hang-dog, ruffianly expression of countenance that marks the very lowest class of British seamen, the scum and refuse of the vocation. Still, we had not far to go, and I consoled myself with the reflection that they would probably prove good enough ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... fashion; the Apostle Eliot, Parson Stoddard, Parson Rogers, President Chauncey, President Wigglesworth, all launched burning invective and skilful Biblical argument against the long-growing locks—"the disguisement of long Ruffianly hair" (or Russianly—whichever it may be). It was derisively suggested that long nails like Nebuchadnezzar's would next be in fashion. Men under sentence for offences were offered release from punishment if they would "cut off their long hair into a civil frame." Exact rules were ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... said. "I knew that it was death to serve the Gods any more, yet none the less in my little temple did fire burn upon Apollo's altar this morning. Scarcely was it kindled ere I became aware of a ruffianly mob thronging to sack and spoil. I was ready for death, but not at their hands. I caught up this basket, and escaped up the mountain. On its inaccessible summit, it is reported, hangs Prometheus, whom Zeus (let me bow in awe before his inscrutable counsels) doomed for ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... name—a name which still survives as that of a distinguished regiment of the British army. It was framed in much the same language and to much the same purpose as its predecessor of Rutherglen, though it would not be right to degrade Cameron to the level of Hamilton and his ruffianly associates. It took its title from having been fixed to the market-cross of Sanquhar, a small town in Dumfriesshire, on June 22nd, 1680. Exactly a month later Claverhouse's troopers (though, as I have said, not commanded by Claverhouse himself) came upon the Cameronians in a desolate spot ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... from the next room to dispose of yourself. But I want you to confess quietly, and save me raising my voice. Why, man, do I not know the old story? The heir between the succeeding heir, and this heir's 150 ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, and the life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence? Did you throttle or stab ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... world is acquainted with the full particulars of his shame, and to sport with his jealous agonies. Congreve was the first dramatic author who put an English seaman on the stage; and, after his characteristic fashion, he made his Ben Legend a selfish, coarse, and ruffianly lout. But if one cannot admire many of Congreve's characters, on the other hand one cannot help admiring every sentence they speak. The only fault to be found with their talk is that it is too witty, too brilliant, for any manner of real ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Wentworth Dilke's "Greater Britain," Vol. I, p. 148: "Brigham's deeds have been those of a sincere man. His bitterest opponents cannot dispute the fact that, in 1844, when Nauvoo was about to be deserted owing to attacks by a ruffianly mob, Brigham Young rushed to the front and took command. To be a Mormon leader was then to be the leader of an outcast people, with a price set on his head, in a Missouri country in which almost every man who was not a Mormon was ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... surrounded for the most part by a cupuliform membranous calyx. I have only seen however withered specimens. Reached Bahawul ghat at 1 P.M. The Khan visited Mr. Macnaghten in the afternoon, his visit was preceded by one from his Hindoo minister, and another man, Imaam Shah, who is a very fat ruffianly- looking fellow. The Khan was attended by numerous suwarries; he is a portly ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... reports show that the proceedings of the American Congress, while in the main conducted with becoming propriety and decorum, have occasionally been dishonored by angry personal altercations and scenes of ruffianly violence. These disorders increased as the great political struggle over the slavery question grew in intensity, and reached their culmination in a series of ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... he find what he had come to see. So he asked a ruffianly looking wasp where the raising bee was. But the wasp, who was hurrying by, merely glanced at Buster and ...
— The Tale of Buster Bumblebee • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and said you were a tailor—a devotee of the cabbage and the goose. Why the notion didn't strike me is extraordinary—I ought to have known my man. However, the old gentleman who gave the supper—he's evidently one of your beastly rich old ruffianly republicans—spent part of his time in America, I dare say. Put two and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that his conduct—though he was not a religious man—was every way more humane than that of his brother, Thomas, when I went to the latter in a somewhat similar plight, from the hands of "Brother Edward Covey." He listened attentively to my narration of the circumstances leading to the ruffianly outrage, and gave many proofs of his strong indignation at what was done. Hugh was a rough, but manly-hearted fellow, and, at this time, his best ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... surprising she bore with the most recalcitrant members of it—tried to win them over, and yet when they were rude, did not withhold reproof, and at times looked down upon them with so fine a scorn that it seemed as if even those ruffianly young men felt the edge of it. Certainly a curious sight—this well-bred woman standing there in front of the soaring column, talking with grave passion to those loafers about the 'Great Woman Question,' and they treating it as ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... VIII. was the product of the previous time; the ultimate outcome of that ideal state of things in which the church had its own way during the ages of truth. Must not the system have been wrong, when it had so lost all moral weight as to be at the mercy of a ruffianly plunderer? And so, as we all admit now, the strongest condemnation of the old French regime is the fact that it had not only produced such a set of miscreants as those who have cast permanent odium even upon sound principles; but that its king and rulers went down before ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... the discoveries were made was, at that time, a species of "No-Man's-Land." The southern bank belonged to the Free State, but for the other side there were many claimants, none of whom could prove a title to it. The community of miners which there gathered was consequently lawless and ruffianly, and its mode of government ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... for his politeness, and returned to my carriage. The young woman smiled at me, as much as to say: 'Is he not a fine fellow?' I thought he was; and there may be other fine fellows as much out of place in the ruffianly mass with which ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... sense of touch told him he had reached the foot of the stairs, Lord Emsworth paused. The hall was very dark and the burglars seemed temporarily to have suspended activities. And then one of them, a man with a ruffianly, grating voice, spoke. What it was he said Lord Emsworth could not understand. It sounded like "Heh! Mer!"—probably some secret signal to his confederates. Lord Emsworth raised his revolver and emptied it in the direction of ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... shown into a small room. The chief inmates were some Papal soldiers of ruffianly air, engaged in the clamorous game of moro. Unlike the close shorn Englishmen, their beards and mustachios, were allowed to grow to such length, as to hide the greater part of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... had to go down late in the evening from a mountain village to the town of Wicklow, and come back again into the hills. As soon as I came near Rathnew I passed many bands of girls and men making rather ruffianly flirtation on the pathway, and women who surged up to stare at me, as I passed in the middle of the road. The thick line of trees that are near Rathnew makes the way intensely dark even on clear nights, and when ...
— In Wicklow and West Kerry • John M. Synge
... fall into the hands of the enemy, and it must be confessed that on the whole they have been dealt with in no ungenerous spirit, while the British treatment of the Boers has been unexampled in all military history for its generosity and humanity. That so fair a tale should be darkened by such ruffianly outrages is indeed deplorable, but the incident is too well authenticated to be left unrecorded in any detailed account of the campaign. General Dixon, finding the Boers very numerous all round him, and being hampered by his wounded, ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his duty. But 'neath the suasion of Galliard's inexorable eye he sat limp and docile, vowing to himself that on the morrow he would lay the matter before Lord Middleton, and thus not only endeavour to make amends for his present guilty silence, but rid himself also of the companionship of this ruffianly Sir Crispin, to whom no doubt a hempen justice ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... learning. The admirable civilization that Rome had developed and fostered, was swept out of existence by the barbarous invaders from Northern Europe, and there is no doubt that the first half of the medieval era, at least, from the year 500 to 1000, was one of the most brutal and ruffianly epochs in history. The principal characteristic of the middle ages were the feudal system and the papal power. By the first the common people were ground into a condition of almost hopeless slavery, by the second the evolution of just ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... Mr. Baring was an English official of the best stamp. He not only ascertained the truth, but he reported it in plain language to the Home Government. It was then found that the Daily News had, if anything, understated the case. The ruffianly Bashi-Bazouks, employed by the Sultan to keep down the Christians of European Turkey, had been let loose upon the people of certain villages in Bulgaria and Roumelia, as a pack of wolves might have been let loose upon ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... continued, reminding Speed that Buckhurst had collected his ruffianly franc company in the forest; that the day the cruiser sailed he had appeared in Paradise to proclaim the commune; that doubtless he had signalled, from the semaphore, orders for the cruiser's departure; that a few hours later his red battalion had ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... himself. And what time Darnley gave them this reassurance from a window of her room, Mary herself stood pale and taut amid the brutal horde that on this alarm had violated the privacy of her chamber, while the ruffianly Red Douglas flashed his dagger before her eyes, swearing that if she made a sound they would ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... his sinister and gloomy gaze rested upon the face of Alice, his bad countenance, rendered more haggard by the cold raw light of the cheerless dawn, completed the hideous picture of unveiled and ruffianly wretchedness. ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him that if the police found him they would suppose him to be drunk; also that it was his duty to go to them and give them the alarm. He rose, and, after a struggle with dizziness and nausea, concluded that his most pressing duty was to get to bed, and leave Dr. Moncrief to recapture his ruffianly ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... prisons. They were mostly women. Here and there in the crowd was a little boy carrying a tin can with something in it good to eat, sent, doubtless, by his old mother to her scamp of a son. The little beggar has his first experiences of a prison administering to the comforts of his big, ruffianly brother, probably a great ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... Arthur Huntington resisted manfully, their efforts were unavailing, for whilst the two ladies were borne off in one direction, they were quickly hurried on board their boat and compelled by the threats of their ruffianly assailants to row swiftly towards ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... and your mother afterwards," replied the horrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring to tear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianly band broke the glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessed themselves of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... was a great glutton, and thought of nothing but his stomach, even up to the very hour of his death. On account of his "position in society," (!) every officer of the prison became his waiter; and a certain ruffianly turnkey, who was in the habit of abusing poor prisoners in the most outrageous manner, would fawn to the Doctor like a hungry ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... to desist from their wanton hallooing. Old Jean Poquelin, standing and shaking his cane, rolling out his long-drawn maledictions, paused and stared, then gave the Secretary a courteous bow and started on. The boys, save one, from pure astonishment, ceased but a ruffianly little Irish lad, more daring than any had yet been, threw a big hurtling clod, that struck old Poquelin between the shoulders and burst like a shell. The enraged old man wheeled with uplifted staff to give chase ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... over the school at once, before morning chapel was well over; so, Dimock being head of Robertson's house, thought it was his place to take it up. He sent for Harpour in the classroom, and told him he meant to cane him for his abominable, ruffianly conduct; but before he'd begun, Harpour seized hold of the cane, and wouldn't let it go. Luckily Dimock didn't fly into a rage, nor did he let himself down by a fight, which Harpour wanted to bring on. He simply let go of the cane quite coolly, and said, 'Very ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the private secretary of the governor, the first and second in command, and several old residents. They would apply to the British consul for warrants for the arrest of the ruffianly marksmen, they would wrench them from the rails, and sentence them ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... him instantly from his sleep, and springing to his feet, he ran out to see what it meant. In a moment more Ramona followed,—only a moment, hardly a moment; but when she reached the threshold, it was to hear a gun-shot, to see Alessandro fall to the ground, to see, in the same second, a ruffianly man leap from his horse, and standing over Alessandro's body, fire his pistol again, once, twice, into the forehead, cheek. Then with a volley of oaths, each word of which seemed to Ramona's reeling senses to fill the air with ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... their families into the navy, and after many years of execrable treatment, hard fighting, and wounds, they landed back into their homes broken men, with no better prospect than to begin life anew. It was natural that the numerous pressed men should detest the ruffianly man-catchers and their employers, if not the service they were forced into, and that they would nurse the wrong which had ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... other youths, but still in company, and with their old love for one another unaltered. They had been duly entered as members of the King's Youths, and had proved themselves not to be the least reckless and truculent of those who form that ruffianly gang, but they had chiefly used their position to carry on their love intrigues with greater freedom and daring. Both were handsome, dashing, fearless, swaggering, gaily-dressed boys, and many were the girls within the palace, and the town which lay around it, who cast loving eyes upon them. ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... a great multitude of infantry and cavalry, as though he were marching to battle. But he injured no one, and gave abundant alms to the poor. Thirteen years later, the King's rebellious son, Henry, Court Mantel, pillaged the sanctuary of its treasure in order to pay his ruffianly soldiers. This memorable sacrilege had much to do with the insurmountable antipathy of the Quercynois for ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... 'A great, hulking, ruffianly sort of fellow glaring in at the window,' said Mr Pickering. 'I shouted at him and he ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... on in heaven's name. You are a treasure, Gahra Dahra. In rescuing you from those ruffianly Spaniards we did ourselves, as well as you, a ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... creature, that it was not moral courage that enabled him to do it. Then, if moral courage is not the requisite quality, what could it have been that this stout-hearted Slade lacked?—this bloody, desperate, kindly-mannered, urbane gentleman, who never hesitated to warn his most ruffianly enemies that he would kill them whenever or wherever he came across them next! I think it is a conundrum ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... be done?" asked the doctor. "Our cockleshell of a boat will only hold three or four people, and the chances are that some ruffianly work is going on, and we shall only share ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Bay Company doesn't take that for an excuse. It wants the man. This is a hard country and a hard rule, but no other rule will keep a respect for law in our territories. A shot, a dagger-thrust, anything to punish Seguis for his crime, and this ruffianly collection of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... a negroid Arab, whose ruffianly aspect was rather enhanced by the swaggering way he carried a broad shoulder-belt and brass badge of office. He interpreted his orders literally, being eager to display a certain skill in conducting to an artistic finish any enterprise that savored of guile. As soon as the two ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... scrap of reason, or a grain of goodness. Would we bethink ourselves, modest, sober, and pertinent discourse would appear far more generous and masculine than such mad hectoring the Almighty, such boisterous insulting over the received laws and general notions of mankind, such ruffianly swaggering against sobriety and goodness. If gentlemen would regard the virtues of their ancestors, the founders of their quality; that gallant courage, that solid wisdom, that noble courtesy which advanced their families, and severed them from the vulgar; this degenerate ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Heidegg. (Replaces beard.) A gang of desperate desperados, headed by the ruffianly ruffian whom they call The Baron, will be here to-night. I shall be hiding under the counter. Ten men and two dachshunds surround the house. If you betray me your licence will not be worth a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... thus cleverly gained possession of the barque were as ruffianly a set of scoundrels as could well be met with on the high seas. Their leader, a brawny, thick-set Spaniard, with a skin tanned to the hue of well-seasoned mahogany, his ragged black locks bound round with a filthy red silk handkerchief, and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... unpopular townsman was to be seen anywhere, but, as Levin Dennis peeked around the foliage in the yard he beheld a man he had never observed before, and of a tall, bearded, suspicious, and ruffianly exterior, lying flat on the top of a memorial vault, with his head and feet half concealed in some ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... (iii. 305) Junius himself had discovered 'that if this country can be saved, it must be saved by Lord Chatham's spirit, by Lord Chatham's abilities.' Lyttelton and Junius are assuredly both of them ruffianly, scandal-loving, inconsistent, and patrician in the manner of Catiline. So far, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... breaking up or smashing the fibres of the surrounding portion of the pine. Of a dozen old Italians, perhaps on an average ten will be found with this part broken, jagged, or having a portion of fresh wood inserted where ruffianly treatment has bruised the threads of the pine past remedy. Our professional repairers, being men of experience, further, both having a natural disposition and qualification for their calling, know better than to use much violence in this part of their work, so taking ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... shop. It was the first time I had seen my real name in print: "The Witch of Moel Sarbod: a legend of Mona, by Paul Kelver." (For this I had even risked discovery by the Lady 'Ortensia.) My legs trembling under me, I entered the shop. A ruffianly-looking man in dirty shirt-sleeves, who appeared astonished that any one should want a copy, found one at length on the floor underneath the counter. With it in my pocket, I retraced my footsteps as in a dream. On a seat in Paddington Green I sat ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... regiment on Pine Knob was recruited from the Bowery. I happened to be with Kemp, their surgeon, when sick call sounded, and I never saw such a line of impudent, ruffianly malingerers as filed before Kemp. One, I am convinced, had deliberately shot off his trigger finger; but it couldn't be proven, and he'll get his discharge. Another, a big, hulking brute, all jaw and no forehead, came up and looked ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... instructive and elevating book as your companion? I should recommend a visit to the ruins of St. Bridget's Church, a very interesting relic of the early Norman era. By the way, there is one objection which I see to your going to Croxley on Saturday. It is upon that date, as I am informed, that that ruffianly glove fight takes place. You may find yourself molested by the blackguards ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was formed by a crowd of ruffianly young fellows who were called the "Clary's Grove Boys." Once or twice a week they descended upon the village and passed the day in drinking, fighting, and brutal horse-play. If a stranger appeared in the place, he was likely to suffer a rude initiation into the social life of New Salem at the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... our young friends, when startled by the sound of heavy footsteps and gruff voices in their rear, and casting a look behind them, they beheld, rapidly approaching by another path which wound about the base of the mountain, two men of most ruffianly aspect. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... less of that angry and heady spirit which evil times have encouraged amongst our young nobles. God knows, I grudge not his life in your Grace's quarrel; and love him for the willingness with which he labours for your rescue. But wherefore should he brawl with an old ruffianly serving-man, and stain at once his name with such a broil, and his hands with the blood of an old and ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... husband, as the offence in him was foulest and the insult from him to her deepest, she assuredly conceived and cherished a bitter loathing. But there was one man who had always been ready to champion her cause, the daring, reckless, ruffianly James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who nevertheless was no mere swash-buckler, but according to Scottish standards of the day, a man of education [Footnote: Lang, Hist. Scotland, ii., p. 168.] and even, it would seem, of some culture. ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... road, where the trams were humming to and fro. He was still confused and perplexed, and he tried to account for a certain relief he felt in removing himself from the presence of Mrs. Nixon. He told himself that her grief at her husband's ruffianly conduct was worthy of all pitiful respect, but at the same time, to his shame, he had felt a certain physical aversion from her as she sat in his garden in her dingy black, dabbing her red-rimmed eyes with a damp pocket-handkerchief. He had been to the Zoo when he was a lad, and he still remembered ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... utterly incapable of forming a well-balanced judgment. Nothing more illogical, more ill-advised, more thoroughly unsuited to achieve its object than the proposed duel could well be mooted, yet the sheer malignity of Marigny's ruffianly device to attain his ends had impelled him to that final madness. Notions of right and wrong were topsy-turvy in his brain. He was carried along on a current of passion that overturned every barrier imposed by sense and prudence. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... Masham's ruffianly blow and kick had evidently done far more damage than he or any one supposed. As we waited in silence for the doctor to come our alarm increased, and it even seemed doubtful whether, as we stood there, we were not destined to see a terrible ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... beggar in the street to the king upon the throne, and had I been older I should have been proud of what then was my greatest annoyance. But I was young—a mere boy—and so I watched her jealously, until a new element of disquiet was presented to me in the shape of a ruffianly looking fellow, who was frequently seen about the premises, and with whom I once found Genevra in close converse, starting and blushing guiltily when I came upon her, while her companion went ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... what is called the "ruffianly style of dress" or the slouchy appearance of a half-unbottoned vest, and suspenderless pantaloons. That sort of affectation is, if possible, even more disgusting than the painfully elaborate frippery of the dandy or dude. Keep your clothes well brushed ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... to our own house, the history of which, and its former owner, I will give by-and-by, we had a bony, red-headed, ruffianly American squatter, who had "left his country for his country's good," for an opposite neighbour. I had scarcely time to put my house in order before his family commenced borrowing, or stealing from me. It is even worse than stealing, the things procured from you being obtained on ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... a pandemonium, as the more ruffianly part of the mob hurled furniture out of windows, or ran off with anything they could carry. The ricks had been fired, and the food of man, the labour of years, devoured in aimless ruin, when some one shouted: "The yeomanry!" And at that ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds. |
