"Straggler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cornuta (Gm.). RANGE—N. Africa, Asia, as far east as Japan, Europe including Britain, and has occurred as a rare straggler in Leicestershire. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Great Savage Mountain, and traversed the funereal pine-forest afterwards called the Shades of Death. No attempt was made to interrupt their march, though the commandant of Fort Duquesne had sent out parties for that purpose. A few French and Indians hovered about them, now and then scalping a straggler or inscribing filthy insults on trees; while others fell upon the border settlements which the advance of the troops had left defenceless. Here they were more successful, butchering about thirty ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... sleep. The town becomes as silent as the graveyards which have been filled with its victims. Not a sound is heard save the crackling of the flames and the challenges of the sentries to some belated newspaper man or straggler. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... for the motley train of Hard-Heart to disappear. When his scout reported that the last straggler of the Indians, who had joined their chief so soon as he was at such a distance from the encampment as to excite no jealousy by their numbers, had gone behind the most distant swell of the prairie, he ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... returns! no soul's in town! And darkness reigns where lamps once brightened; Shutters are closed, and blinds drawn down— Untrodden door-steps go unwhitened! The echoes of some straggler's boots Alone are on the pavement ringing While 'prentice boys, who smoke cheroots, Stand critics to some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... all assembled, he went down swiftly toward the lower valley, and they followed him, panting. At the last crook of the path on the steep hillside a straggler came after him along the cliff. He looked up and saw it outlined against the sky. Then he saw it leap, and slip, and fall beyond the path into ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... appeared, and we were informed that it being the first Sunday in the month, the pastor had to do duty in an adjoining parish, according to custom, and that the schoolmaster would read the prayers and lessons instead. A psalm was sung, portions of Scripture and short prayers were read, another straggler or two joining the little congregation as the service went on. The schoolmaster, who officiated, played the harmonium and sang exceedingly well, finally read a brief exposition on the portion of Scripture read, whereupon after further singing we ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... them, they carried their heavy guns as though those guns were toys. Their fair sunburned faces were lined with sweat marks and masked under dust, and doubtless some were desperately weary; but I did not see a straggler. To date I presume I have seen upward of a million of these German soldiers on the march, and I have yet ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... retarded by the frequent attacks of the Indians. These enemies soon became a cause of great trouble to the colonists, and it was dangerous to pass beyond the palisades, as the Indians would hide for days, waiting to assail any unfortunate straggler. Although Maisonneuve was brave as man could be, he knew that his company was no match for the wily enemy, owing to their ignorance of the mode of Indian warfare; therefore he kept his men as near the fort as possible. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... responsibility and worry, and that heavy weight on the truck back there, quite gone out of the world. She was in it, and himself—the world was full. The girl seemed to be as oblivious of outside facts, as he, for it was quite two minutes, and the last straggler from the boat had disappeared into the street before she broke into one ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... could be, and the horseman rode with an address and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle mass of them down in the shadow of the valley there came ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... nevah once tries Fu' to be cross, er once loses dat smile? Whah did you git dem teef? My, you's a scamp! Whah did dat dimple come f'om in yo' chin? Pappy do' know you—I b'lieves you's a tramp; Mammy, dis hyeah's some ol' straggler got in! ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... from street to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims. The night was of the most melancholy description—a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy December night. Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern, like an incarnation of the Will-o'-wisp. I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... village, a party of Blackfeet, numbering thirty or forty, came stealing through the Crow country, killing every straggler, and carrying off every horse they could lay their hands on. The Crow warriors immediately started after them and pressed them so closely that they could not escape. The Blackfeet then threw up a semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... slowly evaporating in pale mists from the river, and the celebration itself spasmodically taking flight here and there in Roman candles and rockets. An occasional outbreak from revellers in the bar-room below, a stumbling straggler along the planked sidewalk before the hotel, only seemed to intensify the rustic stillness. For the future of Indian Spring was still so remote that Nature insensibly re-invested its boundaries on the slightest relaxation ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... succeeded in the return voyage; but a single ship, of whatever strength or force, seldom escaped the vigilance of the pirates. They followed such fleets as they judged it unsafe to attack, and a slow sailer or a straggler was inevitably captured. So daring were these robbers, that even before they were enabled to obtain a smaller craft, a crew of fifty-five of them in one of the large canoes sailed into the Southern Ocean, and proceeded along the coast of the continent as far north as California. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... up every two or three days to purchase provisions at the scattered cottages. On Saturday night they lit a great fire just inside the mouth of the cave, so that while the flames could be seen far out at sea the light would be unobserved by the garrison of Dunluce or any straggler on the cliff above. It had been arranged with Duncan that every Saturday night, weather permitting, he should sail across and look for a signal fire. The first Saturday night was wild and stormy, and although ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... White-winged Dove on April 23 "at the mouth of Boquillas Canyon at about 4900 feet" and remarked that this bird might either be a straggler or a representative of a normal breeding population (Z. a. asiatica). On January 29 and 30, Sutton and Burleigh (1939a:29) saw White-winged Doves several times in southern Coahuila along the highway from Saltillo to ...
— Birds from Coahuila, Mexico • Emil K. Urban
... into the stable with his lantern, to see that all the animals were comfortably bedded. As he approached the pig-pen, he was surprised to hear a loud snoring, unlike the noise pigs make in their sleep. He entered cautiously, fearing a straggler had sought shelter there. This fear was quickly changed to mirth, however, as he saw Leo lying on his back between the two pigs, his feet extending some distance below them, while they were pressed closely up to his body, to impart to him as much as ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie
... to shake too. It may be an Indian belonging to the band that the scout told about, but I still don't think we're in any danger of attack. We're in too small force to try it down here, but they might cut off a straggler." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... eggs still, and squab-young. The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August; it was a straggler. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... desert solitudes, across the pasture-lands, and finally swept up through the little village that lay at the foot of the hill to the castellated fortress which covered the summit, edging its mighty walls to the brink of the steep cliffs. Soon the last straggler would be lost to view, the heavy portcullis fall, and the massive iron gate swing to, and the first step would be taken towards the tragedy, which lay right before Herod's path. One sometimes wonders whether the whole of these circumstances had not been planned by the cunning device of Herodias. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... twilight or in partial cover, must be of the greatest advantage and often lead to the preservation of life. Animals of this kind will not usually receive a stranger into their midst. While they keep together they are generally safe from attack, but a solitary straggler becomes an easy prey to the enemy; it is, therefore, of the highest importance that, in such a case, the wanderer should have every facility for discovering its companions with certainty at any distance within ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... regularly or only as a straggler in Cashmere we do not know; it is always overlooked and passed by as a "Common Crow." Future visitors to Cashmere should try and clear up both the identity of the bird and all particulars about ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... beneath. The interior of a raised biscuit could not have been more densely uniform than the atmosphere. It seemed as if the world had slipped its moorings and drifted off its course into companionless space, leaving me behind, as an ocean steamer sometimes leaves a straggler on an uninhabited shore. I felt like sending forth a call that should give my bearings and bring back a boat to the rescue. I groped my way down the steps, and, following an intuition, sought the station. Ahead of me I heard muffled steps, yet saw no ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... reach, the puma will not hesitate in pouncing upon the unfortunate creature; but if a herd of animals, or party of men, should be travelling together, the caution of the brute asserts itself, and he will often dog their footsteps for a great distance, in hopes of securing a straggler. Birds are struck down by a single blow of the puma's ready paw, and so quick are his movements that even though a bird has risen on the wing, he can often make one of his wonderful bounds, and with a light, quick stroke, arrest the winged ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Mexico. It wasn't much regular up and down fighting we had, though we had some toughish battles too, but it were skirmishing here, skirmishing there, keeping one eye always open, for man, woman, and child hated us like pison, and it was little mercy that a straggler might expect if he got caught away from his friends. Their partisans chiefs, half-soldier, half-robber, did us more harm than the regulars, and mercy was never given or asked between them and us. Me and Rube Pearson worked mostly together. ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... Preserve his life—his course direct! How suddenly it has grown dark— How very dark without—hush! hark! 'Tis but the creaking of the door; It opens wide, and nothing more. Then wind and snow came in; I thought Some straggler food and shelter sought; But more I feared, for fear is weak, That some one came of him to speak: To tell how long he braved the storm, How long he kept his bosom warm With thoughts of home, how long he cheered His weary horse that plunged, ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... widely asunder: here and there three or four of the boats kept well together, and followed steadily in the track of the leader's vessel; then there was a long space of the sea with no boat upon it at all; then came a straggler or two, and then another company; and then, far off on the right and on the left, were other boats, which seemed to be wandering quite away ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... evicted," said Bart, unconsciously beginning to apologize to an unknown straggler. "I own this place and my home is yonder; we are camping here for our health and pleasure. Come, it's time you gave an account of yourself, as you are trespassing." That the situation suddenly began to annoy Bart ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... biscuits they didn't care for much, and the cakes of soap which they began to eat could not honestly be said to be an entire success as comestibles. But while we watched them at these hors d'oeuvres to the banquet at which we were expected to take a prominent part, a straggler came up with some reserve supplies; I saw them; tins of dynamite—we carried dynamite for blowing up the snags that obstructed the narrower reaches of the river. We watched the thieves crowd around the bearer of the tins, and we saw that the general ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... is invariably fired at The supply of ammunition is in the centre, carried generally by about fifteen natives, and strongly escorted by guards. The rear of the party is closed by another flag behind which no straggler is permitted. The rear flag is also guarded by six or eight men, with a box of spare ammunition. With these arrangements the party is always ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... Hurry removed some pieces of bark that lay before the large opening in the tree, and which the other declared to be disposed in a way that would have been more likely to attract attention than to conceal the cover, had any straggler passed that way. The two then drew out a bark canoe, containing its seats, paddles, and other appliances, even to fishing-lines and rods. This vessel was by no means small; but such was its comparative lightness, and so ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... had become by 1540 similar to an estate which has been shot over too frequently; birds had become both wild and scarce, it was hardly worth while to go over the ground, except now and again on the chance of picking up a straggler. Towns and islands, on the other hand, even if they did not yield much in the way of actual plunder, were always good cover to beat for slaves, which had a certain value in the markets of Algiers and Tunis. Another circumstance which had led to the now frequent ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... body of it was solid black, with figures which at the distance blended into one mass, but on the flanks hung stragglers, lawless old bulls or weaklings, and outside there was a fringe of hungry wolves, snapping and snarling, and waiting a chance to drag down some failing straggler. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... peace, are by no means proper to be discussed in this place; but they will easily offer themselves to the skilful in maritime affairs. However, as the Manilla ships are the only ones which have ever traversed this vast ocean, except a French straggler or two, which have been afterwards seized on the coast of Mexico; and as, during near two ages, in which this trade has been carried on, the Spaniards have secreted with the utmost care all accounts of their voyages from the rest of the world; these reasons would ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... cattle were gathered into a group, pressing close together for company and protection. The boys hurried them toward the stockade, but one cow, driven by terror, broke from the rest and ran toward the woods. Agile Henry, not willing to lose a single straggler, pursued the fugitive, and Paul, wishing to be as zealous, followed. The rest of the cattle, being so near and obeying the force of habit, went ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the first great torrent, that I met some soldiers from Missolonghi. I had let them all pass me, ere I had resolution enough to enquire the news from Missolonghi. I then rode back, and demanded of a straggler the news. I heard nothing more than—Lord Byron is dead,—and I proceeded on in gloomy silence." The writer adds, after detailing the particulars of the poet's illness and death, "Your pardon, Stanhope, that I have thus turned aside from the great cause in which I am embarked. But this is no ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the horse long enough to gather a fresh supply. More gray figures came through the dark to gather in a wide, waiting circle all about the fire. Within the limits of their brutish minds lay the knowledge that fires would die down, that strength of man and beast would fail, and that, once a straggler could not go on, patient waiting always made him their prey at last. Felix cocked his gun, took long aim at a pair of green eyes glittering in the dark, but in the end lowered the muzzle without firing. The flash of a rifle and its report carried far over the level prairie, and there ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... window and drew the curtains. There was nothing to see. He ordered Morris, who stood behind his chair, to have the ground searched and to bring in any straggler. Already both the officers were on their way to the door, and at this point it opened and let in a soldier. He said that as he and his comrade were returning from their duty with Radisson they saw a man lurking in the grounds and seized him. He ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... difficult of passage beyond description; the air is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for which no running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under an equatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe betide the straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such-as to forbid an adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The impatient ship waits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining undiscovered, up goes a stake on the beach, with a letter of regret, and ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... winds outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance and left ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disorders there sprang up a third, less prevalent indeed, but to the last degree annoying and not without its share of danger, for when the straggler chanced to find himself in easy range of any thing, from a steer to a chicken, that he happened to fancy for his supper, he was not always careful in his aim or accurate in his judgment of distance; thus a number of officers and men were wounded and the lives ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... never fairly taken root in English soil. It remains, like the Roman snail and the Portuguese slug, a mere casual straggler about its ancient haunts. But there are other plants which have fairly established their claim to be considered as native-born Britons, though they came to us at first as aliens and colonists from foreign parts. Such, to take a single case, is the history of the common alexanders, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... on the Lenape a nation of mourners. No shouts of success, no songs of triumph, were heard, in rejoicings for their victory. The latest straggler had returned from his fell employment, only to strip himself of the terrific emblems of his bloody calling, and to join in the lamentations of his countrymen, as a stricken people. Pride and exultation were supplanted by humility, and the fiercest of human passions ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous change! The whole swarm fainted! their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted into air. No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped down pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on his feet, but he was dead and gone before he could turn round. Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the tower, remained there, spinning over and over a little longer; but these became at every turn more ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin', to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... discipline of these particular troops was almost perfect. The ammunition expended by the two squadrons engaged in an incessant advance for one hour and fifteen minutes averaged less than ten rounds per man. The fine quality of these troops is also shown by the fact that there was not a single straggler, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any soldier to fall out in the advance to assist the wounded or carry back the dead. The fighting on the left flank was equally creditable and was remarkable, and I believe unprecedented, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... inconvenience of this fight, I would discover where their Daughters are, To shew the error they are shrouded in: But Time hath run a desperate course with mee And desperate let them runne to misery. Here comes a Straggler of their ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... found Shawn enjoying the surprising event of being cordially welcomed by the inhabitants of the town. The worst sort of straggler is often astonished at the kindly interest accorded him upon returning to his old home. Old Doctor Hissong greeted him by saying, "Hello, been seeing the world, have you?" When he went up to the Alden home, he found the same good friend there; the same sweet smile and the ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... Beloit, camped at Milton, near the south end of Storr's Lake, and followed on cautiously to Lake Koshkonong, for Atkinson had a most wholesome regard for Black Hawk's prowess. At the lake they found an old blind Sauk who had been left behind. They gave him food, but a straggler coming along later shot him as he was crawling to a spring for water. His bones lay on the ground unburied for years after the country was settled, the skull having been hung on a bush. At the junction of the Bark and Rock rivers Atkinson went into utter bewilderment ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... margin of a rapidly running and coffee-colored stream, which three of them had to cross by means of a very shaky plank. Lord Beauregard, Major Stuart, and Macleod remained on this side, keeping a lookout for a straggler, but chiefly concerned with the gradually opening and brightening sky. Then far away they heard a slight tapping on the trees; and almost at the same moment another sound caused the hearts of the two novices ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... degree than could have been expected. It was now near eight o'clock in the evening, but still good day-light, and they set forward for the nearest valley, Mr Banks himself undertaking to bring up the rear, and see that no straggler was left behind: This may perhaps be thought a superfluous caution, but it will soon appear to be otherwise. Dr Solander, who had more than once crossed the mountains which divide Sweden from Norway, well knew that extreme cold, especially when joined with fatigue, produces ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... Lynde's fresh outbreak. Some one picked up his hat and set it on the back of his head, giving him quite a rakish air. His dignity suffered until the wind took the hat again. The party proceeded in silence, halting once to tighten a girth, and another time to wait for a straggler. If the men spoke to one another it was in subdued tones or whispers. Two of the horsemen trotted on a hundred yards in advance, like skirmishers thrown out in front of an attacking force. There was something in all this mysterious precaution and reticence ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... for it is a victory in which I had taken my part; but I am not so pleased as I would have expected to be. I ask myself whether his rush had really carried him out of that mist in which he loomed interesting if not very big, with floating outlines—a straggler yearning inconsolably for his humble place in the ranks. And besides, the last word is not said,—probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... stigma still persistent, is held erect. The thin, rounded, finely notched leaves, measuring barely an inch in length, are clustered in whorls next the ground. Whether one comes upon colonies of this gregarious little plant, or upon a lonely straggler, the "single delight" (moneses), as Dr. Gray called the solitary flower, is one of the joys of a tramp through the ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... to give a straggler a lift of a couple of miles. He was embarrassingly grateful. The last few miles was weary work for the men. Remember they had marched or fought, or more often both, every day since our quiet night ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... that the unsightly shanty had been removed from a place where it disfigured the landscape. No one appeared to be sorry; but every one wondered how the fire had caught. Various conjectures were suggested; but, after all, no one knew anything about it. Some thought a straggler had used it as a lodging, and set it on fire in lighting his pipe. Others thought some bad boys had ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... best. I would make any sacrifice to obey you, but I cannot give up my freedom to love the woman that attracts me as I have never been attracted before. I would sooner live a poor and unsuccessful straggler in the art I have chosen, with her to help me live, than be the mightiest man in England without her—even with Julia, whom I admire ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... trouble, exactly, for it's most agreeable. I pretend about them, and decide what they'll be like. When I see a man that takes my fancy, I add him to the list. Mostly they're clean-shaved, but I saw one the other day with a beard—" She lifted a warning finger to stay Bridgie's cry of protest. "Not a straggler, but a naval one, short and trim; and you wouldn't believe how becoming it was! I decided then to have one with a beard. And they are mostly tall and handsome, and rolling in riches, so that I can buy anything I like, nose included. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... his feathers on a high log, had escaped the eye of the squirrel, whose strange, perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat; his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and what a blow he could strike! At the first onset he struck the squirrel square on the end of the nose, his ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... on the ridges," said Mr. Kincaid. "This fellow's rather a straggler. But there's plenty in the swamps and popples. Want to ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... wide-channelled, hard-tempered swords in their hands, and prepared to slay the Fianna, but before doing so they gave one more look from the door of the cave to see if there might be a straggler of the Fianna who was escaping death by straggling, and they saw one coming towards them with Bran and Sceo'lan leaping beside him, while all the other dogs began to burst their throats with barks and split their noses with snorts and wag their tails ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... the straggler, as he leant his back against the barn, and his two companions sat down on the ground in the shelter, "I have heard a lot about the Cause, but all I know is that my Lord of Essex sent to call out five-and-twenty men from our parish, and the squire, he was in a proper rage with being rated to pay ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Wars touch it nearly. Barnstaple and Dunster were taken and retaken by the Parliamentarian troops, and armies marched from Dunster west to Bideford across Exmoor and the great commons, but no armed troops came down into Lynton; perhaps hardly even a straggler found his way there. In the tragic rebellion of 1685 a bloody little drama was enacted here indeed, but that is connected with the history of the de Wichehalses, the family of chief interest and importance who have lived ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... free before, but the chicken had given him his wish for freedom, and he meant to have the chicken. With one swift spring he caught the bird, and in another moment his teeth were buried in its breast and back, and the unfortunate straggler from the home roost was giving his last cry, choked in its infancy by another grip from ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... her contingent with all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the little army that was to fight a fight in which was neither medal nor honour for the winning, against an enemy none other than 'the sickness that destroyeth ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... vision. Half way up Pleasant it were upon some broad smooth rock To sit and sun me, and look down below And watch the goatherd down that high-bank'd path Urging his flock grotesque; and bidding now His lean rough dog from some near cliff to drive The straggler; while his barkings loud and quick Amid their trembling bleat arising oft, Fainter and fainter from the hollow road Send their far echoes, till the waterfall, Hoarse bursting from the cavern'd cliff beneath, Their dying murmurs drown. A little ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... traveler, wayfarer, voyager, itinerant, passenger, commuter. tourist, excursionist, explorer, adventurer, mountaineer, hiker, backpacker, Alpine Club; peregrinator^, wanderer, rover, straggler, rambler; bird of passage; gadabout, gadling^; vagrant, scatterling^, landloper^, waifs and estrays^, wastrel, foundling; loafer; tramp, tramper; vagabond, nomad, Bohemian, gypsy, Arab^, Wandering Jew, Hadji, pilgrim, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... topped by a sack of buffalo-chips that, at each slow step, rolled first to one hand and then to the other. Yet with all the difficulty of balancing the fuel-sack and preventing its falling to the ground, the straggler did not fail to keep in place a ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... with questions. He told them that he had killed it the day before, really. It had been prowling for the last week or more about Kernore's bush; probably it was a straggler ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... destruction. But I am glad it happened that way. Perhaps they may have more respect for Uncle Sam's Flying Squadron after this, and fight shy of running their heads into trouble. I'll have the guards at the camp doubled at night time, and any straggler will be apt to find it pretty warm around there: I'd advise all persons who have no business at our headquarters to give the camp a wide berth, or something not down on the bills might happen, to their ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... the information that he was going to fish downstream, but he was a long time in tying his leader and fussing with his reel. His preparations were finished just when the last straggler of the group was out of sight. Then he laid down his rod, went over to Evadna, took her by the arm, and drew her back to the farther shelter of ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... to the Tuesday's dinner, without any inconvenience[900]. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there.' EDWARDS. 'Don't you eat supper, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' EDWARDS. 'For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... recuperate. The pursued Indians, fortunately, had turned southward and gone jogging leisurely away towards their reservations, until warned of the pursuit by ambitious young braves still hovering about the troops in hope of slicing off the scalp of some straggler. Then, every man for himself, they had apparently scattered over the face of the country, laughing gleefully to think what fun the white chief would have in deciding which trail to follow. The situation ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... resource as he darted into another angle between two other corrals. The darkness favored them, and the rustlers swept by. Arizona only waited long enough for them to get well clear, then his gun rang out again, and Tresler's too. But the game was played out. A straggler sighted them and gave the alarm, and instantly the rest took ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... other in any distinct peculiarity that I can perceive. They keep each to their own territory, except on the occasion of a grand "corroborie," when the whole assemble. They are at present on terms of peace nominally. Should a safe opportunity of cutting off a straggler offer, I have no doubt it would be taken advantage of. They are cowardly and treacherous in the extreme. The "Gudang" tribe, claiming the land from Cape York to Fly Point, at the entrance of Albany Pass, is small ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... him, boy, I pray, that could thy blessed favors slight! Back to the ranks the straggler bring beneath thy ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin"' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... shaken off, even had he tried. The promise, in his case, was fulfilled—"Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it when he is old;" and though no mother's voice of warning was heard in that wild region of the earth, and no guardian's hand was there to beckon back the straggler from the paths of rectitude, yet he was not "let alone;" the arm of the Lord was around him, and His voice whispered, in tones that could not be misunderstood, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the calm; when the last straggler had marched through to the front and Johnston's junction with Magruder was accomplished. The rosy clouds faded into gray again; and, though the fluttering pulse of Richmond beat a little more steadily, it was not entirely ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... had been in his place, he would have followed the fleet across the Indian Ocean, and have picked up a straggler or two, but the sight of the Sceptre and a Dutch man-of-war had been enough for Kidd, and he left the pilgrim fleet alone. Without molesting them further, he made his way eastward, and, on the 29th August, off Sanjan, north of Bombay, ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... commandant's mind, and although the gas-jets continued contumacious (the gas-workers were all called up to the colours) the maire was not molested. It was here that we heard a shameful story (for the truth of which I will not vouch) of a certain straggler from our army, a Highlander, who tarried in amorous dalliance and was betrayed by his enchantress to the Huns, who, having deprived him of everything but his kilt, led him mounted upon a horse in Bacchanalian ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... them, although the numbers were about equal; besides, they had got all the plunder and spoil, and a battle would only endanger the success already obtained. So they lay in cover until the last straggler had disappeared in the direction of Aescendune, and then continued their course, with many a jest at the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... warfare in the River Plate which was common twenty years ago, or that in Venezuela which obtains to-day. Alternately each party carried off the other's horses, drove each other's cattle, or, if they caught a straggler, tied his hands and cut his throat or lanced him, the party who had lost the man protesting he was 'massacred' — a term in use even to-day when the party to which one's self belongs sustains reverse. For the first two years — for wars in South America till twenty years ago were to the full ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... heat, though full and high The sun has scorched the autumn sky, And scarce a forest straggler now To shade us spreads a greenwood bough; These fields have seen a hotter day Than e'er was fired by sunny ray, Yet one mile on—yon shattered hedge Crests the soft hill whose long smooth ridge Looks on the field below, And sinks so gently on the dale That not the folds ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... myself as to the several modes in which the four others attained felicity, I next set my mind at work to discover what enjoyments were peculiar to the old "straggler," as the people of the country would have termed the wandering mendicant and prophet. As he pretended to familiarity with the devil, so I fancied that he was fitted to pursue and take delight in his way of life by possessing some of the mental and moral characteristics—the lighter and more ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to be believed in regard to its hue!—when she sat down in the only chair, and dust in her eyes when she flirted her fan. Fortunate was it for Straws that the Muse is a wayward, freakish gipsy; a straggler in attics; a vagrant of the streets; fortunately for him she is not at all the fine lady she has been depicted! Doubtless she has her own reasons for her vagaries; perhaps because it is so easy to soar from the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... above the level at which bee-blossoms altogether cease to grow. Now, the butterfly differs greatly from the bee in his mode of honey-hunting: he does not bustle about in a business-like manner from one buttercup or dead-nettle to its nearest fellow; but he flits joyously, like a sauntering straggler that he is, from a great patch of color here to another great patch at a distance, whose gleam happens to strike his roving eye by its size and brilliancy. Hence, as that indefatigable observer, Dr. Hermann Mueller, has noticed, all Alpine or hill-top ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... those rare bits of autobiography which he left behind him, "with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three.' If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education." But in the case of this ungainly boy there was no necessity ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... climbing, but unfortunately selected a tree with branches higher than he could hold out to reach; so he fell back to the ground. Then came the inexorable demands of breakfast, with which no one who has been up since four o'clock will decline to comply. On my return, the straggler was mounted on a post that held a tennis net, three or four feet from the ground. One of the old birds was on the rope close by him, and there I left them. Once more I saw him fall, but I concluded that since he had learned to ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... purring sigh as a bridge loomed ahead, the car slackened and stopped. Carl slowly lighted a cigarette. At the end of the bridge a straggler struck a match and flung it lightly in the river, the disc of his cigar a fire-point ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... beautiful—he casually alluded to the days of his early coming among his Southern friends—of hours of pleasure he had massed, and of the hopes of the future. In a few moments the bustle and confusion natural to a fatiguing day of political wrangling ceased—one straggler after another suspended his noisy demonstration, and gathered near the speaker. Soon a mass of silent but heart-heaving humanity was crowded compactly before him. Had Prentiss, on that occasion, held the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... order a horse to be brought round at once for the surgeon, then hurry to the barracks. Order the colonel to turn out a troop of horse instantly, and let him scour the country between the north gate and the camp, and arrest every straggler he comes across." ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... crest of the foothills and down to the little town of Siboney, lighted, bustling with preparation for the wounded in the tents; bustling at the beach with the unloading of rations, the transports moving here and there far out on the moonlighted sea. Down there were straggler, wounded soldier, teamster, mule-packer, refugee Cuban, correspondent, nurse, doctor, surgeon—the flotsam and jetsam of the battle of ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... beside a small fire, which sent so thin a column of smoke into the air that it was almost dissipated ere it reached the tree-tops. It was hoped that the Indians had been now so far overshot that there was no danger of even a straggler being near them. But they took the precaution to load their two guns with ball, and lean them against a tree within reach of their hands. When the meal was over, Maximus retired from the fire a few paces, and throwing himself ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... after him his guests—or, rather, his wife's guests—until that whole brilliant company was packed into the small white room. Someone had thoughtfully closed the shutters of the windows giving on Park Lane, and securely screwed them; so that, when the last straggler had entered, and the door was shut, they were in ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... the official view. It was the act of a very young subaltern, mistakenly interpreting an order. In the other case an Arab was caught red-handed, lurking in a ditch on our line of march, with one of their loaded knobkerries for any straggler. I do not know what happened, but have no doubt ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... men soon held that to fall out on the march was a disgrace. Before a month "had passed," he says, "the brigade had learned how to march, and in the Valley with Jackson covered long distances without leaving a straggler behind."* (* Ibid ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... occupation in which they were engaged is looked upon as honourable. It is highly exciting and interesting. Their herds were feeding together near them. The moment one was seen to stray, one or two lads threw themselves on their own steeds, which they kept tethered near, and galloped off in pursuit of the straggler. They had, too, to defend their cattle from the wolves—often hazardous work. They offered me some milk, and then each lad helped himself to some potatoes; they had an abundance cooked, so that I was not depriving them of their food. They ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... sun was shining, and there was a confusion of voices close at hand. He could not catch the drift of conversation; but, as the tongue spoken was Spanish, he lay motionless and listened, expecting each moment to be discovered by some straggler. For several hours his unseen neighbors cooked, ate, smoked cigarettes, laughed, and talked without suspecting his presence within a few yards of them; while he, desperately hungry, cramped, and filled with impatience at this ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe |
