"Townsfolk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to represent the strife between the English and the Danes, agreeably to a custom long preserved in their ancient borough, and warranted for truth by old histories and chronicles. In this pageant one party of the townsfolk presented the Saxons and the other the Danes, and set forth, both in rude rhymes and with hard blows, the contentions of these two fierce nations, and the Amazonian courage of the English women, who, according to the story, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the Citizen office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... her prediction gone to lie with me in a death-pit. As things befell, I lived, hearing only dimly and, as it were, from afar-off of that great calamity, and of the horrors that beset the city. For the disease did not come our way, and we moralised on the sins of the townsfolk with sound bodies and contented minds. We were happy in our health and in our virtue, and not disinclined to applaud God's judgment that smote our erring brethren; for too often the chastisement of one sinner feeds another's pride. Yet the plague had a hand, and ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... the left; many of them learned more harm than good. The elder men, and they who had consciences and hearts, shook their heads, and asked what could be done? For a long time the principle of laissez faire prevailed: the young fellows were left to the tender mercies of the townsfolk. There was no grandmotherly legislation in those days. Gradually a kind of joint-stock arrangement came into vogue. Worthy people seemed to have hired a house which they called a hostel or hall, and sub-let the rooms to the young fellows; the arrangement ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... known, and the fact that the office had only been instituted in 1684 seems to show that what reverence had gathered round the person of the chief magistrate was not sufficient to stand in the face of such outrageous conduct as the public caning of the minister. The townsfolk decided that they had had enough of Mayors, for on November 16 in the same autumn Scarborough was once more placed under the control of two Bailiffs, as had been the case previous ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... Syracusans. In Browning's poem, Balaustion tells her four girl-friends the story of her "adventure" at Syracuse, where, shortly before, she had saved her own life and the lives of a ship's-company of her friends by reciting the play of Alkestis to the Euripides-loving townsfolk. After a brief reminiscence of the adventure, which has gained her (besides life, and much fame, and the regard of Euripides) a lover whom she is shortly to marry, she repeats, for her friends, the whole play, adding, as she speaks the words of Euripides, such other words of her own as may ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the Morris all the way from London to Norwich—see plate opposite. This indefatigable traveller, incidentally, is somewhat curiously figurative of this latter-day revival of the Morris—of its restoration by townsfolk to dwellers in ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... a victorious army, it seemed to me that they were strangely still and dull. There was, to be sure, no lack of yelling, but it came for the most part from a company of priests clustered on the pier where we landed, and from the soldiers and oarsmen in the boats—not from the townsfolk at large. And when we were marched upward through the city—following the same street that we had fought our way along when last we traversed it—I saw in the crowd so many sullen and dejected faces that it seemed to ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... fact, I had enquired about the place and received assuring reports as to its hotel accommodation. But the fates were against me. On my arrival in the late evening I learnt that the hotels were all closed long ago, the townsfolk having gone to bed "with the chickens"; it was suggested that I had better stay at the station, where the manageress of the restaurant kept certain sleeping quarters specially provided ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... as for you who made it to look upon it as a bore. However, you must not expect anything of an original kind from a lazy man like me. I shall only ask you to find time to again look through the speech which I made to my townsfolk at the dedication of the public library. I remember that you have already criticised a few points therein, but merely in a general way, and I now beg that you will not only criticise it as a whole, but will ply your pencil on particular passages as well, in your severest manner. For ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... thereof that he feared it were doubtful an he could brake them down. Now the townsfolk had enough of victuals and other commodities which were required to withstand a siege, so hit Harald on the craft of bidding his fowlers to catch small birds, which had nests in the town & flew out during the day to seek food. On the backs of these birds caused ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... Town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; But, when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, was ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... procession swept on. It turned out that the lady was the wife of a jeweller to whom the King of Bassorah was desirous of granting a boon, and at her request the boon obtained was a proclamation commanding that all the townsfolk should every Friday enter the mosques two hours before the hour of prayer, so that none might abide in the town, great or small, unless they were in the mosques or in the houses with the doors locked upon them; but all the shops were to be left open. ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... small, clean bakeshop, where they sold Bread, cakes and little pies. Well, so it went! These were not Italy's saints, nor yet the gods, Majestic, calm, unmoved, of ancient Greece. No, they were only townsfolk, common people, And graced a common church—that stood and stood Through war and fire and pestilence, through ravage Of time and kings and conquerors, till at last The century dawned which promised common men The things ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... friends among the townsfolk, and more still after supper. It was late—late for South Harniss, that is—when Albert, standing in the doorway of the bedroom he nor they had ever expected he would occupy again, bade his grandparents good night. Olive kissed him again and ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... point. If he had to go alone, he would search for the missing men; but he asked for help. "I am a surveyor," he said. "I knew none of these men who are lost or murdered, but I appeal to those of you who are diggers to come forward and help. I appeal to the townsfolk who knew young Zahn to rally round me in searching for their friend. I appeal for funds, since the work cannot be done without expense; and at the conclusion of this meeting I shall enrol ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... by an enemy who would not retire until he had received six hundred dollars. Then the townsfolk caused it to be proclaimed by beat of drum that whosoever was able to procure the money should be burgomaster. Now there was a poor fisherman who fished on the lake with his son, and the enemy came and took the son prisoner, and gave the father six hundred dollars for ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... cocoa-palms were no bigger than beet root and the baobab (arbos gigantea—"giant tree," you know) was easily enough circumscribed by a window-pot; but, notwithstanding this, it was rather a sensation for Tarascon, and the townsfolk who were admitted on Sundays to the honour of contemplating Tartarin's baobab, went ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Roman bridge. It was so doubtless with the English conquerors of Britain. But though Britain had long been Roman, her distance from the seat of Empire left her less Romanized than any other province of the West. Socially the Roman civilization had made little impression on any but the townsfolk, and the material civilization of the island was yet more backward than its social. Its natural defences threw obstacles in its invaders' way. In the forest belts which stretched over vast spaces of country they found barriers which in all cases ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... and later the Feast of Fools was expelled from the churches of France, associations of laymen sprang up to carry on its traditions outside. It was indeed a form of entertainment which the townsfolk as well as the lower clergy thoroughly appreciated, and they were by no means willing to let it die. A Prince des Sots took the place of the "bishop," and was chosen by societes joyeuses organized by the youth of the cities for New Year merrymaking. Gradually their ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... hardly stop there. After we have taught the condition of health, we must teach also the condition of disease; of those diseases specially which tend to lessen wholesale the health of townsfolk, exposed to an artificial mode of life. Surely young men and women should be taught something of the causes of zymotic disease, and of scrofula, consumption, rickets, dipsomania, cerebral derangement, and such like. They should be shown the practical value of pure air, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... have seen our ship; and if, as seems, the townsfolk know who we are, how much more must she! Yes, doubt it not, she still longs to hear news of her own land, and some secret sympathy will draw her down towards the sea to-night. See! the light is ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... name hereabouts more famous than twenty years of practice would have done; but it is a name like that of him who burnt the Temple of Ephesus: God be merciful to me a sinner!" might now with all seriousness be said of the impression his Robbers made on the harmless townsfolk of Stuttgart. But how did Father Schiller at first take up this eccentric product of his Son, which openly declared war on all existing order? Astonishment and terror, anger and detestation, boundless anxiety, with touches of admiration and pride, stormed alternately through the solid ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... as the Israelites did, into farmers and townsfolk. They never became what we call civilized: though they had a civilization of their own, which stood them in good stead, and kept them—and keeps them, it would seem, to this day,—strong and prosperous, while great cities and mighty ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... was difficult, for in the winter season he was put to great straits to feed himself; and there were nights when the sky was like an iron vault, and a hoarse wind rattled the oakwood in the valley, and a great fear came on him that was worse than any cold. But in time it became known to his townsfolk and to the peasants in the neighbouring valleys that he had withdrawn to the wilderness to lead a godly life; and after that his worst hardships were over, for pious persons brought him gifts of oil and dried fruit, one good woman gave him seeds from her garden, another spun for him a hodden ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... desperately, with diminishing strength, but the thought of safety outside the walls gave them force to make one last stand. With backs to the gate and faces to the foe, Adam and Clym and William made a valiant onslaught on the townsfolk, who fled in terror, leaving a breathing-space in which Adam Bell turned the key, flung open the great ponderous gate, and flung it to again, when the ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... seals to examination in Paris, but the drapers of Rouen scarcely waited for confirmation before they attacked the royal tax-gatherers with cries of "Long live Burgundy!" Thereupon d'Armagnac sent three commissioners with a troop of Bretons and Genoese cross-bowmen from Paris. But the townsfolk would not let the mercenaries enter, seizing the keys of the town from the officials and mounting their own guard at every gate. The three commissioners, powerless without their escort, took refuge in the Chateau. The King's bailli, Raoul de Gancourt, refused to leave ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... true, I confess to a love of a stream. This may be merely an anaemic love of beauty, such as is commonly bred in townsfolk on a holiday, or it may descend from braver ancestors who once were anglers and played truant with hook and line. You may recall that the milk-women of Kent told Piscator when he came at the end of his day's fishing to ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... is not the way in these days—at least not always. So poor father said last time we went into Bristol, when he had been talking to the butter-merchant's man. He said the townsfolk would know the reason why, if the soldiers were for holding out long enough to ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... brave man flees, treachery is manifest and it is for wise men to reserve themselves for better occasions. This proved to be the case with Don Quixote, who, giving way before the fury of the townsfolk and the hostile intentions of the angry troop, took to flight and, without a thought of Sancho or the danger in which he was leaving him, retreated to such a distance as he thought made him safe. Sancho, lying across his ass, followed him, as has been said, and at length came up, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... so close that Beranger was almost among the congregation before he could see more than a passing glimpse of a sea of heads. Stout, ruddy, Norman peasants, and high white-capped women, mingled with a few soberly-clad townsfolk, almost all with the grave, steadfast cast of countenance imparted by unresisted persecution, stood gathered round the green mound that served as a natural pulpit for a Calvinist minister, who more the dress of a burgher, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gave their testimony that the debates became interesting. Then began to pass before the eyes of the spectators a succession of people who had known Joan of Arc, and who had taken part in the same actions as those of the Maid—peasants from her native village, townsfolk from Orleans, generals and soldiers who had ridden with her into battle and fought by ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... a curious old font, probably Norman in date as it is in appearance. The tower of this church was removed for some reason, perhaps because it was out of repair; and it was slyly reported in the neighbourhood that the townsfolk had sold their bells to pay for the removal of their tower. Cornish parishes are fond of these jibes against each other. Penwarne, the seat of "One-handed Carew," is in this parish; he lost his hand ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... fountains of water, whereof one scatters his streams all about the garden, and the other runs over against it beneath the threshold of the courtyard, and issues by the lofty house, and thence did the townsfolk draw water. These were the splendid gifts of the gods in ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... because she was still in mourning, so that her acquaintance with life on the higher line consisted merely in a knowledge of certain simple luxuries, of larger rooms and prettier furniture, and more careful service than in her natural condition. And by birth she belonged to the class of small townsfolk who are nobody, and whose gentility is more appalling than their homeliness. So that when she came to be Sir Thomas Randolph's wife and a great lady, not merely the ward of an important personage, but herself occupying that position, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Clement XIV.; and we can imagine how all the windows of the unplastered houses, all the black and oozy doorways, must have been lined with heads of women and children; how the principal square of each town, where the horses were changed, must have been crowded with inquisitive townsfolk and peasants, whispering, as they hung about the carriages, that the great traveller was the young Queen of England going to meet her bridegroom; a thing to be remembered in such world-forgotten places ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... had the wit to echo her then, and in a loud voice, that any eye-witness or passer-by might be struck with the genuine severity of their loss. But there had been no eye-witness who thought it worth while to rally them on the occurrence, and the busy townsfolk hastening past were all too much engrossed in their own affairs to take any interest in those of the boy and girl who seemed themselves in something of a hurry to get back ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... was the holding of a public meeting in April, 1852, under the provisions of the Museums and Libraries Act of 1850, which allowed of a 1/2d. rate being levied for the support of such institutions. Whether the townsfolk were careless on the subject, or extra careful, and therefore, doubtful of the sufficiency of the 1/2d. rate to provide them, is not certain; but so little interest was shown in the matter that only 534 persons voted for the adoption of the Act, while 363 voted against it, and the question for ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... a city of Khorassan a family of affluence and distinction, and the townsfolk used to envy them for that which God had vouchsafed them. As time went on, their fortune ceased from them and they passed away, till there remained of them but one old woman. When she grew feeble and decrepit, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... 1401, the townsfolk and the occupants of the castle were gathered in the church, when a cry was raised that the enemy had swarmed over the walls and were in the town. Adhemar de Laroque was the seigneur at the time. He hastened from the church, but already the street was full of English, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Trirodov had for some time been a source of great annoyance and scandal to the townsfolk. Complaints had been lodged with the authorities even earlier. Ostrov communicated considerable information, mostly invented by himself or by the alert townsmen. The head of the schools sent an order to the Headmaster of the National Schools to make an investigation. The Governor took other ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... a colossal pavilion, which held more than two thousand persons, and in which the townsfolk of Montacute were to dine; at equal distances were several smaller tents, each of different colours and patterns, and each bearing on a standard the name of one of the surrounding parishes which belonged to the Duke of Bellamont, and to the convenience ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... around her, fetched and carried, nailed up greens for her and all that, till you could see he was leaving himself two trails—either skip with the funds or marry the girl. He had one day left to choose. Having locoed the townsfolk into giving him the management of the festivities, he stood well, and he wasn't a bad looker neither. He had an easy, slippery tongue for a young girl: not like Ag's methods—in any gatherin' Ag could make George Washington or General Grant look ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... so clamorous," he said, "that a flag of truce may be despatched to Massena, in half an hour's time. The Portuguese are right so far that, if the place must be surrendered, there is no reason for any longer exposing the troops and the townsfolk to the French bombardment. Therefore it is imperative that, if we are to make our way out, we must do so before the ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... have existed, intermittently perhaps, but never clouded by misunderstanding, was the mission of the English Singers who came to Prague. They sang to us in the large hall of the Obecni Dum, the building dedicated to the townsfolk's recreation. They sang us old-time motettes, madrigals, ballads, and we were taken back to our own country by the soothing harmonies of Weelkes. We saw Winchester Cathedral, its long nave and squat tower, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... exclaimed Senora Windham as they cantered into San Francisco one morning. "A ship all gay with banners! See the townsfolk are excited. They rush to the Embarcadero. The band plays. It must be the festival of some Americano ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... king had summoned great battalions of birds, from fierce eagles and owls (these last rushing from their dark hiding places) down to fluttering little wrens and tomtits. 'Twas of those that the great cloud was made, and it hung just over the town like a dark wave that would soon smother the townsfolk. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... Many old townsfolk—especially those musically inclined—will remember my father, who was a vocalist of no mean repute;—at least, this was said of him in general. Possessing a rich tenor voice, he was in great demand, both publicly and privately. He occupied the position of leading ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... Filatiers, a featureless, solid structure, was found hanging, one autumn evening, the body of the young Marc-Antoine Calas, whose ill-inspired suicide was to be the first act of a tragedy so horrible. The fana- ticism aroused in the townsfolk by this incident; the execution by torture of Jean Calas, accused as a Protestant of having hanged his son, who had gone over to the Church of Rome; the ruin of the family; the claustration of the daughters; the flight of the widow to Switzerland; her introduction to Voltaire; the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... hotels, &c., and has all the advantages of modern civic appliances. There is a rich museum, and university with 2000 students. Extensive railway communication and the Nile waterway induce a large transport trade, but there is little industry. The population is mixed; the townsfolk are half Arab, half Egyptian, while Copts, Turks, Jews, Italians, and Greeks are numerous; it is a centre of Mohammedan learning, and since 1882 the centre of British influence ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... me, too, though of a different kind. When I return, I shall expect you to tell me how you won our 'little saint,' my sister-in-law Eva. The two beautiful Ortlieb 'Es' are one in the eyes of the townsfolk, so we also will be often named in the same breath, and shall do well to feel brotherly regard for each other. There shall be no fault on my part. Farewell, till we meet again, an' it please God in and not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... place to the red signal of danger; the bugle, now silent, may at any moment blare out its loud and dismal note of warning; the bells that call with peaceful insistence, "Come to church! come to church!" in the twinkling of an eye may be clanging scared townsfolk to their burrowed hiding-places. You never know. For General Brounckers, though a God-fearing man, sometimes goes in for Sunday gun-practice, quite unintentionally, as he afterwards explains. Hence, even on the Sabbath, it is as well to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... commissaries of the Convention did not scruple to guillotine those who withheld their grain from the market, and pitilessly executed those who speculated in foodstuffs. All the same, the corn was not forthcoming, and the townsfolk suffered from famine. ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... themselves in the sunshine. They were nearly all pretty, and the flapping hats of Tuscan straw half hid and half revealed charming curves of cheek and chin, little tip-tilted noses, soft brown eyes. Many of the townsfolk were out too on this day of days and the streets were crowded with gay, vociferous people. There was so much to see. The old picture-gallery was free to all, and the very beggars might go in to see the sly, pale, almond-eyed Byzantine Madonne in their gilt ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... find him as 'brother' of the 'Lodge of the Three Graces' at Haworth. In the following year he is practising as an artist in Bradford, and painting a number of portraits of the townsfolk. At this same period he wrote to Wordsworth, sending verses, which he was at the time producing with due regularity. In January 1840 Branwell became tutor in the family of Mr. Postlethwaite at Broughton-in-Furness. It was from that place that he wrote the incoherent and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... me. A woman does not marry to have her heart wrung, her health destroyed, her life made wretched by anything that is preventable, and I intend to put a stop to this last discovered hellish practice of yours. I will not allow it, and if you dare to attempt it again, I will call in the townsfolk to see you at your ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... of Japan has its own peculiar dialect; and that of Oki, as might be expected in a country so isolated, is particularly distinct. In Saigo, however, the Izumo dialect is largely used. The townsfolk in their manners and customs much resemble Izumo country-folk; indeed, there are many Izumo people among them, most of the large businesses being in the hands of strangers. The women did not impress me as being so attractive as those of Izumo: ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... "Sir knight," said the old man, "I am Yniol, and once I was lord of a broad earldom. But my nephew, whose guardian I had been, made war upon me, affirming that I had withheld from him his dues; and being the stronger, he prevailed, and seized my lands and burnt my halls, even as ye see. For the townsfolk hold with him, because that, with his tournaments and feastings, he brings many strangers their way." "What then is all the stir in the town even now?" asked Geraint. "To-morrow," said the Earl, "they hold the tournament of the Sparrow-Hawk. ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... two of his firm friends, the ranchman introduced Bob, and sincere were their expressions of delight both at meeting him and in knowing that he was to come into his own. Ford, however, swore them to silence, for there were some of the townsfolk who had supported Dardus in his lawsuit, and neither the ranchman nor Bob wished a word of his presence to leak out till they had perfected their plans for bringing ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... ability I have a deep respect and perhaps if I were a Prussian Junker I would follow him as blindly and confidently as do the army and navy officers, the nobles, great and small, and the land-holding squires of Prussia, to whom his writings are as seductive as the pipings of the Pied Piper to the townsfolk of Hamlin. ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... hand fashioned her, and she was the last crowning piece of all His week's doings. The finest arts are the easiest spoiled, as you know very well; and if you demand how Mistress Hortense could escape harm amid all the wickedness of that wilderness, I answer it is a thing that your townsfolk cannot know. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... treasurer to the Company, had been found in the factory one morning with a bullet-hole in his head, and it was believed that he had shot himself. His father gave his evidence at the inquiry with stern self-control, but took to his bed afterwards and had not left it yet. So far as the townsfolk knew, this was the first time he had shown any weakness ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... army which blackened the face of the earth, came forth from their haunts, and followed the piper until he piped them to the river Weser, where they alls jumped in and were drowned. But as soon as the torment was gone, the townsfolk refused to pay the piper on the ground that he was evidently a wizard. He went away, vowing vengeance, and on St. John's day reappeared, and putting his pipe to his mouth blew a different air. Whereat all ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... the door of the tonneau and, holding it, immobilised himself into the semblance of a waxwork image with the dispassionate eye, the firm mouth, and the closely razored, square jowls of the model chauffeur. Rustics and townsfolk were already gathering, a gaping audience, when from the tonneau descended first a long and painfully emaciated gentleman, whose face was a cadaverous mask of settled melancholy and his chosen toilette for motoring (as might be seen ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,—to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present—without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... will tell you. The great Daimios and the Hatamotos have fallen out about this affair of Matagoro, and lately it has seemed as if they meant to come to blows. The country will be agitated, and the farmers and townsfolk suffer great misery, if we cannot quell the tumult. The Hatamotos will be easily kept under, but it will be no light task to pacify the great Daimios. If you are willing to lay down your life in carrying out a stratagem of mine, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... passing the evening; and after a hurried supper he set out with Cantapresto for the Philodramatic Academy. It was late when they entered their box, and several masks were already capering before the footlights, exchanging lazzi with the townsfolk in the pit, and addressing burlesque compliments to the quality in the boxes. The theatre seemed small and shabby after those of Turin, and there was little in the old-fashioned fopperies of a provincial audience to interest a young gentleman fresh from the capital. Odo looked about ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... glory, appeals to his whimsy and his pity. The youth's glance at the court-house unmistakably said: "Ah, I recall that odd little box. I thought it quite large in the days before I became what I am now, and I dare say the good townsfolk still think it an imposing structure!" With everything in sight he deigned to be amused, especially with the old faces in the "National House" windows. To these he waved his stick ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... sped through the streets ahead of us, and out of the houses poured the townsfolk to watch our passage and to point me out one to another with many whisperings and solemn head-waggings. And the farther we advanced, the greater was the concourse, until by the time we reached the square ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... forest. Throughout the interior the painted savages roved at will, uncontrolled by Spaniard or Englishman, owing allegiance only to the White Chief of Tallasotchee. St. Augustine, with its British garrison and its Spanish and Minorcan townsfolk,[2] was still a gathering place for a few Indian traders, and for the scattered fishermen of the coast; elsewhere there were in all not more than a ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... material point of view was that at least 10,000 tons of coal had been destroyed and the project of transporting coal to Krupp's effectually quashed. From the point of view of moral, the Germans were the laughing-stock of the town; they were deeply enraged and the townsfolk proportionately delighted. ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... dinners an' huntin' meetin's, an' half th' little shopkeepers in th' neighborin' town lived on th' money he spent f'r th' things he didn't bring fr'm Dublin or London. I mind wanst a great roar wint up whin he stayed th' whole season in England with his fam'ly. It near broke th' townsfolk, an' they were wild with delight whin he come back an' ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... words—Beorh a hill, and mynster the church of a monastery. Anciently, our city was called Beorhmynster, "the church of the hill," for, as you can see, my dear young lady, our cathedral is built on the top of a considerable rise, and thence gained its name. The townsfolk were formerly vassals, and even serfs, of the monastery which was destroyed by Henry VIII.; but the Reformation brought about by that king put an end to the abbot's power. The head of the Beorhmynster monastery was a ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... be caused by some person or thing. A ghost is a spirit, and insubstantial, and I had never heard that the ghost which some of the townsfolk (chiefly servant maids) had seen in St. Alkmund's Churchyard had done more at any time than glide silently among the tombs. And even as I decided that the sound must have a natural cause, I had startling confirmation of my conclusion in a new sound—nothing else than a sneeze, sudden, and short, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... special regard for this beautiful portion of his diocese, and now felt that a holy memory had shed upon it a peculiar lustre. Nelson was hardly keeping up to its early rate of progress, and its central mound, instead of a church bore an ugly fort, into which the nervous townsfolk passed over a drawbridge for their Sunday worship. Wellington was still unsatisfactory, its one wooden church serving for a congregation which was "neither so regular nor so good" as might have been wished. Altogether the diocese appeared ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... could never walk the old streets again without seeing nods and shudders everywhere. See him? That's him! Killed his best friend! Wheatman of the Hanyards! Never held his head up since! And hadn't ought to! The chatter of the townsfolk crept into my ears between the hoof-beats, and made ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... was aware that to the townsfolk the works had become part of the landscape, and, imaginatively, not much more. But just as they could not contemplate the obliteration of part of the landscape, so it was difficult to conceive permanent idleness at ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... said another. 'I am afraid she is,' said a third. 'Life is very uncertain,' said a fourth. 'It is Mrs. —-,' said a fifth; 'let us carry her to her own house.' Not being able to render any assistance, I left the poor female in the hands of her townsfolk, and proceeded on my way. I had chosen a road in the direction of the north-west, it led over downs where corn was growing, but where neither tree nor hedge was to be seen; two or three hours' walking ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... you remember the story of that old fellow—a Dutchman, I think—who took a fancy to be buried in the church porch of his native town, that he might hear the feet of the townsfolk, generation after generation, passing over his ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of mind, Andrew Windybank strode up the high street of the town. Few of the townsfolk gave him a good-day; he was not a popular personage. For one thing, he was a Littledean man and not of the river-side; his family was purse-proud and tyrannical; worst of all in the eyes of a Pope-hating people, the Windybank ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... on their feet in an instant. We scrambled down the narrow stairs, and out into the starlit night. Leiden was a city of the dead. Not even a dog played sentinel for the sleeping townsfolk; not a cat sprang out of the shadows as I led my band through a labyrinth of canal-streets, floored as if with jet nailed down with stars. But suddenly the spell of silence was broken by an explosion of sound which crashed into it like breaking ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the slope of Cooper's Hill, just opposite, are gathered the wondering rustics and curious townsfolk, who have run from Staines, and none are quite sure what the bustle is about, but each one has a different version of the great event that they have come to see; and some say that much good to all the people will come from ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... to call them to luncheon. She had heard them talking at the rear of the hotel shortly after Sheriff Hardy had inquired for Lorry. Several townsfolk came in, ate, and ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... to avoid disputes as to prices of victuals and other necessaries, he ordered the Council to draw up a tariff, and issued an edict forbidding his soldiers, under pain of death, from touching any property of the townsfolk. Lest they should doubt his earnestness, he hanged two of his soldiers on December 7—a Piedmontese and a Gascon—and on the 13th a third, all from the windows of his own palace, and all with a label hanging from ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... college chapel of St. Andrew's and also in the parish kirk where Rutherford was colleague with that servant of the Lord Mr. Blair, he listened to Rutherford upon the love of God and the loveliness of Christ. One day he was present, standing obscure among a mass of townsfolk, when Rutherford, after making a tedious argument on the controversies of the day which had almost driven Pollock from the Kirk, came across the name of Christ and then, carried away out of his course as by a magnet, began to rehearse the titles of the Lord Jesus ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... McKay, millionaire lumber king, falls in love with "Nan of the Sawdust Pile," a charming girl who has been ostracized by her townsfolk. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... his post-chaise, and the obsequious chamberlain bowed him upstairs to the "Rose" or the "Dolphin." The trim chambermaid dropped her best curtsey for his fee, and Gumbo, in the inn-kitchen, where the townsfolk drank their mug of ale by the great fire, bragged of his young master's splendid house in Virginia, and of the immense wealth to which he was heir. The post-chaise whirled the traveller through the most delightful home ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the English should, on their side, pack off their Indians. He represented that the townsfolk of Montreal stood in terror of being massacred. Again Amherst refused. "No Frenchman," said he, "surrendering under treaty has ever suffered outrage from the Indians of our army." This was on the ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has been many times told. Quarrels had grown frequent between the soldiers and the rope-walk hands, the soldiers usually getting the worst of it. On the evening of the 5th, an altercation began just below the Old State House, between the sentinel of the guard and a crowd of townsfolk. An alarm was rung from one of the steeples, and many citizens hurried to the place, most of them thinking that a fire had broken out. A sentry was at the corner of King and Exchange streets, where the Custom House stood, and he was assaulted by the boys with snowballs. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... is such a din as disturbs the slumbers of the neighbours. David, the apprentice, comes out and recognises his sweetheart Magdalena at Eva's window. He scents a rival in Beckmesser, and begins lustily to cudgel the unfortunate musician. Soon the street fills with townsfolk and apprentices, all crying and shouting together. Eva and Walther, under cover of the uproar, are making their escape, when Sachs, who has been on the watch, steps out and stops them. He bids Eva ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. "Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out," he said, "and the forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I'm afraid of this fellow's crying off, in fact. You know it's not 'timber,'" said ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... had valiantly repelled hostile armies, scarcely one was now capable of sustaining a siege The gates stood open night and day. The ditches were dry. The ramparts had been suffered to fall into decay, or were repaired only that the townsfolk might have a pleasant walk on summer evenings. Of the old baronial keeps many had been shattered by the cannon of Fairfax and Cromwell, and lay in heaps of ruin, overgrown with ivy. Those which remained had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... is written that Sylla had six thousand of these at his funeral), then the long line of wax images of ancestors (thus the dead of old interred the newly dead), then the relatives, clad in mourning, the friends, citizens, and townsfolk generally in crowds. The throng is all the greater when the deceased is the more honored. Lastly, other trumpeters, and other pantomimists and tumblers, dancing, grimacing, gambolling, and mimicking the duumvir whom they are helping to bury, close the procession. ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... grounds were my chief delight, as indeed they were the main attraction of the place, making it the focus of a holiday resort for the townsfolk of Cologne and Bonn, and a point of interest for travellers. First came a great gravelled terrace upon which the ground-floor windows opened—a terrace where the sun shone more fiercely than elsewhere, and orange-trees in tubs bore ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... "So—the townsfolk smoking the King's jest—two stout servitors led the merchant down to the landing by the upper ferry, and there, having hoisted him aboard a boat, thrust off into the stream. The current soon swept them past the town; and for a while, as the boat spun downward and the dark woods slipped ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of extravagance and impiety was committed there, by day and by night. In vain did the great St. Nicolas warn his flock by exhortations, threats, and fulminations. The evil increased unchecked, and it was sad to see the contagion spreading itself among the well-to-do townsfolk, the lords, and the clergy, as much as and more than among the poor artisans and ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... "on the second day after that, they brought Chamberlayne's body down. Three of 'em came with it—Stephen Chamberlayne, the doctor who'd been called in, and a solicitor. Everything was done according to proper form and usage. As Chamberlayne had been well known in the town, a good number of townsfolk met the body at the station and followed it to the cemetery. Of course, many of us who had been clients of Chamberlayne's were anxious to know how he had come to such a sudden end. According to Stephen Chamberlayne's account, our Chamberlayne ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... went forward, like Nausicaa when she left Ulysses, lest the townsfolk should talk; and Tom sat down upon a bank and watched her ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... save for reason, naught in reason lacks, Who, though he small and puny seems to shew, In speech he is Goliath-like, I trow, Chief Councillor of Tissingors is he, And of the council second but—to me. For with the townsfolk first of ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... a fresh surprise to both troops and townsfolk. Banks, so the rumour went, was rapidly approaching; and it was confidently expected that the twin hills which stand above the town—christened by some early settler, after two similar heights in faraway Tyrone, Betsy Bell and Mary Gray—would look down ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... meeting in the Close or the adjacent gardens or the hospitable Palace itself. Here the company would sip tea, talk mild literature of their own and good criticism at second hand, quoting Dr. Johnson to one another with the familiarity of townsfolk. From Erasmus Darwin, too, they must have gained something ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... townsfolk were at church about eleven o'clock, the firebell rang out its note of alarm, scattering the congregation into the streets. It was the signal for the mustering of the volunteers. The officer in command at the Castle was sending ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... many years I have sat at my chalet window and seen the world go by. The path from the village below to the peaks and pastures above runs past my nest. On it, in the summer months, there was a straggling procession of tourists and climbers, peasants and townsfolk. They were of all nationalities, and their loud voices proclaimed the immutability of the curse of Babel. I used to be annoyed at the close proximity of the path, until, one day, I discovered its marvellous opportunities for anthropological research. Then I settled down, content to limit my wooing ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... surprise. A few inhabitants were still abroad in the north end, at which we landed. As we advanced, we were soon done with encounter, and seemed to explore a city of the dead. Only, between the posts of open houses, we could see the townsfolk stretched in the siesta, sometimes a family together veiled in a mosquito net, sometimes a single sleeper on a platform like a corpse on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... years we ought to lay out the hundred francs in making a single-span bridge to carry the lower road over the main stream," said M. Cambon. "The townsfolk and the people down the valley have fallen into the way of taking a short cut across that patch of land of Jean Francois Pastoureau's; before they have done they will cut it up in a way that will do a lot of ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... if I were to offer my next month's salary as a fee. These hills are very remote to the townsfolk, and one dago more or less of no importance, but I'll see what ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... dangerous forest track to visit her. He soothed her almost crazy grief, bid her bear grief bravely and face better days cautiously, said Mass for her, blessed her and her train, and went back at once. He got to Saumur the same day, where he was greeted with a sort of ovation by the townsfolk and was entertained by Gilbert de Lacy, who was studying there. Next day, Palm Sunday, he sped on to Fontevrault and met the bearers just at the doors. He paid all the royal honours he could to his late Master and was entertained at the Monastery. ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... would listen to this, looking as unnatural as a blue china cat in a thunderstorm. He fairly hated these appearances of Billy, and they spoiled his term of office, I do believe. But all the same he turned out a very passable Mayor. The townsfolk respected him so highly, I've heard my mother say, that they made ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... of rents she certainly had no equal—to that I can cheerfully testify. She was not popular in A——, nor was her eccentric brother. Unpleasant tales were told about Matthai. I never knew all the particulars, but they had something to do with the murder of a slave in antebellum days. The townsfolk were extremely reticent on the subject, and very mercifully so, for, as I have since learned, the tragedy occurred in our house in Queen ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... to-day you'll be looked at a great deal more than the clergyman. We are a terribly inquisitive town; and weddings are scarce at Kingcombe.—Take your wife, Nathanael. There you go—a very handsome, interesting young couple. Nay, don't cheat the townsfolk by taking the ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... husband enquired of Queen Firuzah why and wherefore she wept and wailed, and moaned and groaned, she told him all she had heard from the leech, and her husband was filled with hot wrath against his sons. So he rose up and went straightway to the audience-chamber, where the townsfolk had gathered together to petition him and to pray for justice and redress; and they, seeing his features working with rage, were all sore afraid. Presently the Sultan seated himself on the throne of his kingship and gave ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... townsfolk are owners of cacao plantations, which are situated on the low lands in the vicinity. Some are large cattle proprietors, and possess estates of many square leagues' extent in the campo, or grass-land districts, which border the Lago Grande, and other ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... confound me, but you shall have a bonfire this night for your generosity that will shame the sun. The tar-barrels shall blaze, and the beer-barrels shall run to celebrate your appearance amongst us. Come, Charley, let us go to Rathfillan, and get the townsfolk to prepare for the fete: we must have fiddlers and pipers, and plenty of dancing. Barney Casey must go among the tenants, too, and order them all into the town. Mat Mulcahy, the inn-keeper, must give us his best room; and, my life ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... have tortured him with wearisome distress; and certainly shut him out from the sympathy and appreciation which, if all the conditions had been different, might have been given him by sincere and competent admirers. So little known among his own townsfolk, it is not to be wondered at that no encouraging answer reached him ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Sir Cahir had armed his followers with matchlocks and powder out of the magazine, he left a small detachment to garrison Culmore, and then marched rapidly on Derry, where he arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Totally unprepared for such an irruption, the townsfolk were roused from their sleep by the bagpipes and war-shout of the Clan O'Dogherty, who rushed into the streets, and made their way to Paulet's house, where Sir Cahir, still smarting under the indignity of the angry blow, satisfied his vow of vengeance by causing that unhappy ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Maria. But nobody had dared to mention the name of Gerald Scales to her. With her fashionable clothes, her striking mien of command, and the legend of her wealth, she inspired respect, if not awe, in the townsfolk. In the doctor's attitude there was something of amaze; she felt it. Though the dull apathy of the people she had hitherto met was assuredly not without its advantageous side for her tranquillity of mind, it had touched her vanity, and the gaze of the doctor ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... our backs are turned, that Howel was insufferably purse-proud and conceited, and his wife as affected and provincial as possible; they did not hear the friendly notices, and were well content to fill the concert room with their party, all in full dress, to the admiration of the townsfolk, and of Mrs ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... visible. It is a summer's evening, and twilight. A golden-red shimmer is in the air and over the mountain-tops in the far distance. A quartette is faintly heard singing below in the background. Young townsfolk, ladies and gentlemen, come up in pairs, from the right, and, talking familiarly, pass out beyond the beacon. A little after, BALLESTED enters, as guide to a party of foreign tourists with their ladies. He is laden with ...
— The Lady From The Sea • Henrik Ibsen
... they waited anxiously all the same to see what the bailiff would do. On he came, taller than Andras by several inches, but heavier of build. He too sprang high and well, but as he came down his heel just grazed the edge of the boat. Dead silence reigned amidst the townsfolk, but Andras only laughed ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... this simplicity and personal retirement Mr. Stanlock was a good deal of a mystery to many citizens who knew really little about him. Or perhaps he was a mystery to these fellow townsfolk because of his modest qualities. Knowing little about him, they imagined more. Leading citizens who knew his good qualities were ever ready with a word of praise for him. But the trouble was, the needed tangible evidence of his broad philanthropy ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... Townsfolk who gave me a kindly "Morning, Major!" and went on, and others who paused awhile and gave me the gossip of the day. And presently young Randall Holmes went by on a motor bicycle. He caught sight of me, disappeared, and then suddenly reappeared, wheeling his machine. He rested it by the kerb ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... Albrecht Duerer. Celestin Nanteuil "had the air of one of those tall angels carrying a censer or playing on the sambucque, who inhabit the gable ends of cathedrals; and he seemed to have come down into the city among the busy townsfolk, still wearing his nimbus plate behind his head in place of a hat, and without having the least suspicion that it is not perfectly natural to wear one's aureole in the street." He is described as resembling in figure "the spindling columns of the church naves of the fifteenth century. . . . The ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... that infinitely fine and tortuous line whose inexplicable convolutions mark off what is forbidden to a society lady. Clearly, however, the Hopgoods could be requested to co-operate at the 'Crown and Sceptre;' in fact, it would be impolitic not to put some of the townsfolk on the list of patrons. So it came about that Mrs Hopgood was included, and that she was made responsible for the provision of one song and one recitation. For the song it was settled that Frank Palmer should be asked, as he would be in Fenmarket. Usually ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... weel come, Sir Alexander: here is Orator Elliot been makin' a harangue to the townsfolk; and ane cries for bread, and anither for meal—that it is my opinion I dinna ken what's to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... dog's sensitive brain was aware of a subtle alteration. He did not object very much to the occasional visits at the house of other farmers and townsfolk during the erstwhile quiet evenings, although he had been happier in the years ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune |
