"At bay" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... untrustworthy; built upon.sand, on a sandy basis; wildcat. defenseless, fenceless, guardless[obs3], harborless; unshielded; vulnerable, expugnable[obs3], exposed; open to &c. (liable) 177. aux abois[Fr], at bay; on the wrong side of the wall, on a lee shore, on the rocks. at stake, in question; precarious, critical, ticklish; slippery, slippy; hanging by a thread &c. v.; with a halter round one's neck; between ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... at bay, with her nest storm tossed and threatened, suddenly the impossibility of it all came down upon her, and stern with a very rigidity of resolve she went into the house, lighted a candle by the old desk in the hall, and wrote swiftly a few ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... thing to do and James did it. He leaped into the tender which made an excellent fort, and there for a few minutes he kept the bandits at bay. He would have laughed heartily at the fireman, Bill Sheehan, if he could have spared the time, for that worthy had taken up the battle in his own way. Having quickly discarded his revolver with which he was not an expert, he began hurling chunks of coal, wherever he saw the flash of the enemy's ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... quite at bay by this remark of his, and she consequently added, "There are also two propitious phrases engraved on this charm, and that's why I wear it every day. Otherwise, what pleasure would there be in carrying a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and alarm, many of the fishes will throw themselves on to the land. They have the power of remaining very long under water, at a considerable depth, and the fierce manner in which they keep dogs at bay, often wounding them severely with their sharp bites; and the anxious watching for their rise in the water when they have retreated, all form a most exciting sport, so that we hear of otter-hunting as a source of keen enjoyment; and there is a hunt on ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... bow-shot from the blaze, The silent streets between, Who had stood by the King in sport and fray, To blade in ambush or boar at bay, And he was a baron old and gray, And kin to the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... frost and snow and icy rain and heavy darkness, and still the wolves prowled howling around their prey, and the good dog held them at bay with savage growls and deep-throated yelps of defiance, and his master, caring more for the humble friend he had reared and brought over seas from his English home than for his own safety, held him all night by the collar, and the spaniel whimpered with ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... money with a greedy, frightened look, like a wild beast at bay, but did not utter a word, as Robert placed it in a large envelope and secured it about ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... fallen, and he saw the truth in all its fearsome deformity. On awakening, the implacable externality of things pressed upon his sight until he felt he knew what the mad feel, and then it seemed impossible to begin another day. With long rides, with physical fatigue, he strove to keep at bay the despair-fiend which now had not left him hardly for weeks. For long weeks the disease continued, almost without an intermission; he felt sure that death was the only solution, and he considered the means for encompassing the end with a calm ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... that neither will any among us ever forget for a single instant how much was paid for us in blood and anguish by those who held the beast at bay from us for long years before we put forth a stroke in our own defense or in friendly help or in ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... he bounded to his feet, a hand on the knife in his belt. He stood still waiting, ready as a crouching tiger, resolute, a man at bay with an unsated appetite for freedom. The door opened ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow, and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will pour in, and all the scum of creation will flock toward the setting sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they are wherever men can easily reach them. Men ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... had concentrated the Danish forces in and near the Castle of Vesteras, deeming this the best point at which to hold the patriots at bay. One detachment, indeed, proceeded north as far as the Dalelf, on the southern frontier of Dalarne, and encamped there, thinking to prevent the enemy from crossing. While waiting, the Danish leader is said to have inquired the population of Dalarne, and ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... assaulted him in the church for having taken the oath imposed by the French republic, and which was rejected by all good Catholics. Dietrich, aided by the great majority of the citizens of Strasburg, long succeeded in keeping the sans culottes at bay, but was at length overcome, deprived of his office, and guillotined at Paris, while Eulogius Schneider, who had formerly been a professor at Bonn, then court preacher to the Catholic duke, Charles of Wurtemberg,[2] became the tyrant ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Mrs Stuart confided her secret anxiety to the ear of the Baroness; and that secret caused the cheek of the listener to grow pale and the look of an animal at bay ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... towards the house; and the noise alarming the servants, they hasted out to, see the sport. One of them took young Dryden by the hand, and led him out to see it also, when just as they came to the gate, the stag being at bay with the dogs, made a bold push and leaped over the court wall, which was very low, and very old; and the dogs following, threw down a part of the wall ten yards in length, under which Charles Dryden lay buried. He was immediately ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... had taken strong measures to keep boredom at bay. They had their books and magazines; they had a pair of good trotters and a capacious carryall, with other like aids to locomotion in reserve; they had a telephone; they had a pianola, with a change of rolls once a month; they had neighbours of their own sort ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... screamed, and Vandy jumped as if he had been shot. Then, with a snarl, he turned to face us, crouching a little, like a beast at bay. Before he could utter a word, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... the king, and to deal the fiercest blow at religious freedom which it had ever received. The Presbyterians flocked back to their seats; and an "Ordinance for the Suppression of Blasphemies and Heresies," which Vane and Cromwell had long held at bay, was passed by triumphant majorities. Any man—ran this terrible statute—denying the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Divinity of Christ, or that the books of Scripture are "the Word of God," or the resurrection ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... the other Mexican. Their story might be straight, but, with all the valor to which they laid claim, it seemed strange to Archer and his officers that two men could break their way through an encircling horde of hostiles such as they described, and hold a hundred fierce Apaches four long hours at bay. ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... at bay! Impressive tableau!" whispered the young man of the Corson party in Lana's ear, displaying such significant and wonted familiarity that Miss Bunker, employing her vigilance exclusively in the direction in which her fears and her ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... skill and sciences could devise to save the young man's life. But every effort was in vain, and as the sun set Sir Jasper lay dying. Conscious at last, and able to speak, he looked about him with a troubled glance, and seemed struggling with some desire that overmastered pain and held death at bay. ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... that far away Against the myriads of Assaye Clashed with his fiery few and won; And underneath another sun, Warring on a later day, Round affrighted Lisbon drew The treble works, the vast designs Of his labored rampart-lines, Where he greatly stood at bay, Whence he issued forth anew, And ever great and greater grew, Beating from the wasted vines Back to France her banded swarms, Back to France with countless blows, Till o'er the hills her eagles flew, Beyond the Pyrenean pines; Followed up in valley and glen With blare of ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... first column of the French was to commence its march on the 4th. The soldiers, still irritated, declared they would not set out, till they received their arrears of pay. The treasury was empty, credit extinguished, the government at bay. The Prince of Eckmuhl proposed, to seize the funds of the bank: but this attempt struck the committee with horror. One resource alone, one only hope, remained: this was to invoke the support of a banker, at that time celebrated for his wealth, now celebrated ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... till her persistent repetition of her name gained her admission. She beheld her sister indeed, but not the broken Dahlia from whom she had parted. Dahlia was hard to her caress, and crying, "Has he come?" stood at bay, white-eyed, and looking like a thing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Line almost entirely disappears under the overwhelming shower of shells; the brave Marine Infantry holds at bay for a moment the Saxons, joined by the Bavarians, but outflanked on every side draws back; all the admirable cavalry of the Margueritte division hurled against the German infantry halts and sinks down midway, ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... the contending villagers met a broil ensued, until the strife culminated in an attack upon Walpi. The Oraibi chose a day when the Walpi men were all in the field on the east side of the mesa, but the Walpi say that their women and dogs held the Oraibi at bay until the men came to the rescue. A severe battle was fought at the foot of the mesa, in which the Oraibi were routed and pursued across the Middle Mesa, where an Oraibi chief turned and implored the Walpi to desist. A conciliation was ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... against the door; once—twice—it rose and fell on the clapboards, and under those mighty thuds grew up a wide gap through which the moonlight streamed splendidly. The horse-thief stepped between the dangling cleats and vanished. The judge, armed with the stool, stood at bay. ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... advantages he has ever demanded the widest possible culture for all. Wherever known, he is estimated as a pillar in the temperance cause. Gentle, modest, courteous and benignant, he combines, in a remarkable degree, strength and tenderness, courage and sympathy. At one time, holding at bay the powers of evil and baffling the most determined opponents by his manly adherence to right; at another he may be found yielding to impressions bidding him to seek the source of some hidden private sorrow, and with delicate touch, binding up a flowing wound, or offering himself ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... of Pisa was gone for ever; others, lords and tyrants, arose, Castruccio Castracani and the rest, yet she was still at bay. On the 2nd October 1325 she again defeated Florence at Altopascio, and even excluded her from the port, and, in 1341, when Florence had bought Lucca from Mastino della Scala for 250,000 florins, she ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... great nation like yours, to leave us so abruptly to our fate. Supposing it were true that we were suffering a little from a period of too lengthened prosperity, from an attack of over-confidence. Still think of the part we have played in the past. We kept the world at bay ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of breastworks was thrown up just beyond our camp at Fairfax on a little eminence to the right of the road. This we thought sufficient to defeat quite an army, or at least keep them at bay. General Bonham had his headquarters at Fairfax Court House, but rode out daily to examine the work done on the entrenchments, or inspect the picket and outposts. General Bonham was one of the finest looking officers in the entire army. His tall, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... of the claptrap morality exploited in the cheap story-books. Reduced to the last analysis, they had to do with but one subject—the frailty of woman. On the one side was presented Virtue tempted, betrayed, repentant; on the other side, Virtue fighting at bay, persecuted, scourged, but emerging in the end unspotted and victorious, with all good ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... were for the time being abrogated, and every man was preparing to fight for his own hand and his own land. A single day, almost, had divided the Normans of England into two factions, not yet come to blows, but facing each other like wild beasts at bay. And England and the English were the prey craved by both ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... shrunk behind her, and beneath the gaze of the other boys his eyes were those of a little hunted animal at bay. "Bethlehem," he said, huskily. ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... stand it no longer, but broke and fled, he got together another little band to protect the retreat. But for him, I doubt whether Canterac would have saved a quarter of his cavalry. Once, when turning at bay to repel a fiercer rush than usual, he caught sight of me, and his face lit up with a smile. He had been wounded, but not dangerously, and his sword-arm was vigorous ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... except now and then to turn fiercely on them, and then indeed were he to catch the dogs it would be all over with them, but they take good care that he shall not. So, to escape the dogs' din, the lion makes off, and gets into the wood, where mayhap he stands at bay against a tree to have his rear protected from their annoyance. And when the travellers see the lion in this plight they take to their bows, for they are capital archers, and shoot their arrows at him till he falls dead. And 'tis thus that travellers in those ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... to be the man to baffle Cornwallis. With a constantly underequipped and often inadequate army he managed to keep Cornwallis at bay. He was moved by one desire—to force Cornwallis into costly battles, but never expose his whole army to capture. Flee if necessary, but be able to fight another day. He was inventive and unorthodox. With an army much smaller than Cornwallis' he divided it into ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... "We will keep the biggest lion at bay if he should come near us, and will give him a shot which will make him wish he had ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... least twenty to one, thus held at bay by one man, the bravest of the brave, sent a messenger to Corte to demand a reinforcement. Four hundred troops were detached for this service. They were accompanied by the sous-préfet, the procureur imperial, a captain of engineers, and ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... see me on business? What business? I am doing no business. Can't you see that this ship is laid up?" Massy had turned at bay before the pursuing irony of his disaster. Afterwards he could not believe his ears. What was that old fellow getting at? Things don't happen that way. It was a dream. He would presently wake up ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... sprang into the room, falling upon the bewildered scoundrels ere they had recovered from their surprise. There was a brief struggle, but the servants were unarmed, and the robbers, disengaging themselves from the clutches of their adversaries, kept them at bay with their pistols and slowly backed from the apartment. In the conflict, however, Bouche-de-Miel's mask was torn from his face, and his countenance was no sooner visible than the white-robed woman ran towards him ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... have been told of the Waldenses; calumny is far too facile a weapon not to tempt an adversary at bay. Thus they have been charged with the same indecent promiscuities of which the early Christians were accused. In reality their true strength was in their virtues, which strongly contrasted with ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... insupportable—came crowding into that one moment. The feeblest little bleat of a spring lamb too weak to stand up for the first time would have been a deafening roar in comparison with the silence which now penetrated to the marrow of his bones. He faced the two women at bay, with one hand resting on ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... Catherine. 'Get away, now; he'll return with a brace of pistols and half-a-dozen assistants. If he did overhear us, of course he'd never forgive you. You've played me an ill turn, Heathcliff! But go—make haste! I'd rather see Edgar at bay than you.' ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... lives of many hounds and endangers those of the huntsmen themselves. Supposing that the animal has given in from exhaustion at some moment in the chase, and they are forced to come to close quarters; (42) whether he has taken to the water, or stands at bay against some craggy bank, or does not choose to come out from some thicket (since neither net nor anything else hinders him from bearing down like a tornado on whoever approaches); still, even so, advance they must, come what come may, to the attack. And now for a display ...
— The Sportsman - On Hunting, A Sportsman's Manual, Commonly Called Cynegeticus • Xenophon
... you may guess when I tell you that it was the report of a firearm! For a moment my gaze traversed the landscape beneath until it was caught and held by four figures near the base of the cliff—a human figure held at bay by three hyaenodons, those ferocious and blood-thirsty wild dogs of the Eocene. A fourth beast lay dead or dying ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the attack moved by the irresponsible bravado of his first attack. He was a raging savage, goaded by the desperate wounds he had received, and the knowledge that he and all his force were being held at bay by one man. So he charged again, a headlong rush, howling as he came at the head of ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... On our starboard bow he lay, With his mail-clad consorts three, (The rest had run up the Bay)— There he was, belching flame from his bow, And the steam from his throat's abyss Was a Dragon's maddened hiss— In sooth a most cursed craft!— In a sullen ring at bay By the Middle Ground they lay, Raking us ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... be marshalled into trusts or other combinations for the private advantage against the public interest. Such combinations, predicted by Karl Marx as the appointed means of dissolving the competitive system, have been kept at bay in this country by Free Trade. Under Protection they constitute the most urgent problem of the day. Even here the railways, to take one example, are rapidly moving to a system of combination, the economies of which are obvious, while its immediate ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... reached the brink of a deep ravine; before her is a perpendicular wall of rock; behind, the foe, so near that she can hear the crackling of the dry branches under their tread; yet nearer they come; she almost feels their breath on her cheek; it is useless to turn at bay; there is hardly time to measure with her eye the depth of the ravine, or its width. A step back, another forward, an almost superhuman leap, and she has cleared the awful chasm.... 'Look before you leap,' is one of caution's maxims. We may stand looking till it is too late to leap. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the brave, And peace be on his soul! How few unscathed Are left us from the fight! Accursed Cossacks, Traitors and miscreants, you, you it is Have ruined us! Not even for three minutes To keep the foe at bay! I'll teach the villains! Every tenth man ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... of brilliant festivals in honour of the Princess. The Spanish party was radiant with triumph, the French maddened with rage. Henry in Paris was chafing like a lion at bay. A petty sovereign whom he could crush at one vigorous bound was protecting the lady for whose love he was dying. He had secured Conde's exclusion from Holland, but here were the fugitives splendidly established in Brussels; the Princess surrounded by most formidable ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of a series which rise at intervals, like islands out of the low bottoms as far south as Natchez, came into view on the left side of the river. The mound- builders of past ages used these natural fortresses to hold at bay the fierce tribes of the north, and long afterward this Chickasaw Bluff played a conspicuous part in the civil war between the states. Columbus, a small village, and the terminus of a railroad, is at the foot of ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... your tongues, you wretched girls," cried Dora, standing at bay, stamping one small foot in a slipper with a preposterously large rosette. "What does it signify? The man, like his words, is well enough—better than any of us, I dare say," speaking indignantly; "but what does ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... eternal second, during which these two women regarded each other. The one, eyes blazing, meteoric; at bay, aggressive; suffering in advance and resenting in advance the scorn and ridicule and insult she had thrown herself open to; a beautiful, burning, bubbling lava cone of flesh and spirit. And the other, calm-eyed, cool- browed, serene; strong in her own integrity, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... achieves conquests, wherein none are wounded save the envious: with that he shelters him against how much idleness, ambition, temptations! Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts cannot gain mastery over him: selfish wishes or desires are kept at bay. Art is truth: and truth is religion: and its study and practice a daily work of pious duty. What are the world's struggles, brawls, successes, to that calm recluse pursuing his calling? See, twinkling in the darkness round his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have never heard of any other person in the three worlds that could, by his ascetic power, though lying on a bed of arrows and at the point of death, still have such a complete mastery over death (as to keep it thus at bay). We have never heard of anybody else that was so devoted to truth, to penances, to gifts, to the performances of sacrifices, to the science of arms, to the Vedas, and to the protection of persons soliciting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... Nathaniel Lyon, carrying things with a high hand, seized and dispersed the state militia encamped in Saint Louis, got control of almost all the Federal arms in the State, and with outside aid and help from the regular army, chased the governor from the capital, and held him at bay long enough for the convention to depose him and the General Assembly, and to establish a state government ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... before a few score natives who understood little beyond the gestures, for the single purpose of warding off disintegration! It reminded the doctor of a stubborn retreat; from barricade to barricade, grimly fighting to keep the enemy at bay, that insidious enemy of the white man ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... satisfied also to make use of Simon without calling him to instant account for his treachery. The bustle of the streets, which the confirmation of the king's speedy departure had filled with surly, murmuring crowds, tended still further to keep my fears at bay; while the contrast between my present circumstances, as I rode through them well-appointed and well-attended, with the Marquis by my side, and the poor appearance I had exhibited on my first arrival in Blois, could not fail to inspire me with hope that I might ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... thousand miles. He is in the mountains, a free man yet; not a beggar, not a thief, but the brightest, bravest, truest man alive. Every few years, the soldiers find him; and they do not despise him when found. Think of Captain Jack, with his sixty braves, holding the whole army at bay for half a year! Think of Chief Joseph, to whose valor and virtues the brave and brilliant soldiers sent to fight him bear immortal testimony. Seamed with scars of battle, and bloody from the fight of the deadly day and the night preceding; ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... circumstance that people were indisputably turning back. However, as the road to Basle was open, Vendale's resolution to push on was in no wise disturbed. Obenreizer's resolution was necessarily Vendale's, seeing that he stood at bay thus desperately: He must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that Vendale carried about him, even if he destroyed Vendale ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... began half playfully to throw pebbles and lumps of dry earth at him. Then they would run up slyly and strike him with sticks. Presently the large ones began to tease him in like manner, till the contagion of hostility spread, and the whole pack was arrayed against the strange boy. He kept them at bay for a few moments with his stick, till, the feeling mounting higher and higher, he broke through their ranks, and fled precipitately toward home, with the throng of little and big at his heels. Gradually the girls and smaller boys dropped behind, till at the end of the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... assassin with one savage growl. His life had ended then and speedily, for in those days all carried death at their girdles. But Denys drew his sword directly, and shouting "A moi, camarades!" kept the mob at bay. "Who lays a finger on him dies." Other archers backed him, and with some difficulty they kept him uninjured, while Denys appealed to those who ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... to marry this villain," he continued. "Heaven forbid!" (Not that Mr. Allen referred this or any other matter to Heaven; it was only a strong way of expressing his own disapproval.) "But we must manage to temporize and keep this man at bay till I can extricate myself from my difficulties. As soon as I stand on firm ground I will ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the little crimson angry face grows white—white as death itself. The professor, shocked beyond words, stands staring, and marking the sad changes in it. Perpetua is trembling from head to foot. A frightened look has come into her beautiful eyes—her breath comes quickly. She is as a thing at bay—hopeless, horrified. Her lips part as if she would say something. But no words come. She casts one anguished glance at the professor, and rushes from ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... the bushes continued, while the Rifleman compressed his lips and stood like a tiger at bay. In a moment he saw a man making his way through the tangled shrubbery, and almost immediately he lowered his rifle with an expression of disappointment. The individual before him was so different from what he expected, that a fuller notice of him is necessary, especially as he now takes his ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... was at that time a great race, working them as slaves in building these walls, and in that terrible quarry. I confess to a feeling of admiration for them, in spite of their cruelty. They must have been great warriors, though so few in numbers, to hold at bay one of the bravest of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... feeling that there was nothing in it to change her wish that the acquaintance should cease. In after years, the terms of this note did not always appear to Elmore wisely chosen or humanely considered; but he stood at bay, and he struck mercilessly. In spite of the explicit concurrence of both Miss Mayhew and his wife, he felt as if they were throwing wholly upon him a responsibility whose fearfulness he did not then realize. ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... result. Hector would fain have made his escape; two ladies he might have faced, but four!—and two of them above thirty years of age! 'Twas too much; but his retreat was instantly cut off. He stood at bay, blushed with all his might, but saluted the ladies as manfully as if he had been a page. He received three most gracious curtsies in return—only three; for Daphne wished to pass on without taking any notice—which he considered a very favourable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... and had given a yearly subscription to the society representing it. But to give his son—ah, that was a different matter! At the first shock of the thought he had recoiled, and a naturally stubborn heart kept the question at bay for a time. But he could not long fight with God. The fellowship lost while he steeled his heart against the unwelcome demand was too great a price to pay. Gradually it came to him that the greater weight that bowed his soul and took the joyous spring from life was not Hubert's ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... a new moral suffering, in one whose life had been based hitherto on intellect, or passion. In a sense it held at bay even her grief for Warkworth, her intolerable compassion for his fate. In sheer dread lest the girl should find her out and hate her, she lost insensibly the first poignancy ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... blue color. Farther up, the wagons were fording the stream. As you crossed the pontoon bridge, you came directly to the little stone engine house, with its belfry, where John Brown held the power of the great State of Virginia at bay. All else of the Government buildings are in ruins. The long lines of brick and stone walls blackened by fire, and the picturesque broken arches of the engine-house windows, were a fit greeting to one's entrance ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Sicilians, who had lain concealed in a compartment on the first floor, broke out in a desperate endeavor to escape, but they were caught between the opposing ranks, as in the jaws of a trap. The cell door clanged to behind them; they found themselves at bay in the open yard. Resistance was useless; they sank to their knees and set up a cry for mercy. They shrieked, they sobbed, they groveled; but their enemies were open to no appeal, untouched by any sense of compunction. They ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... doorway, blocking it with his gigantic form, his long-barreled revolvers holding the crowd at bay, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... this while was standing simmering, as ready as a boar at bay to fight the lot of us, yet I thought with an air about him, too, of half-conscious surprise. Several times he took a half-pace forward to assert his right of chastisement, looked hard at Monty, and ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... turned at bay. "I tell you what it is, Mrs. French;—if I am treated in this way, I won't stand it. I won't, indeed. I'll go away. I'm not going to be suspected, nor yet blown up. I think I've behaved handsomely, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... hiding he had stolen in under the cover of night. No welcome met him. These Fort Brown Indians were not his friends at any time, and less so now, when he arrived wild drunk among their families. Hounded out, he sought this empty lodge, and here he was, at bay, his hand against every man's, counting his own life worthless except for destroying others before ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... orders, and a sharp spat of revolver shots. One ball plugged into the siding of the hotel, and a second threw a spit of sand into their lowered faces, but neither man glanced back. They were running for their lives now, racing for a fair chance to turn at bay and fight, their sole hope the steep, rugged hill in their front. Hampton began to understand the purpose of his companion, the quick, unerring instinct which had led him to select the one suitable spot where the successful ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... would I not give for my handy little Mannlicher, and a good pocketful of cartridges. I could hold an army at bay in this narrow tunnel. But they stripped me of every weapon, even to ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... bring him to bay here, unless the hounds were wanted. I thought that they would be, for there were sounds of wild baying from the midst of the line, forward where the kings were, and now and then howls told me that some more bold hound had dashed in on a boar at bay and had met the tusk. I would that I could see some of that sport, but there was no chance ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... a sudden release of faculties, darting this way and that, as if at bay, she tore the white-enameled medicine-chest from its moorings, and, with a yell sprung somewhere from the primordial depths of her, stood ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... on mine! I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit. His language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... a glimpse of the dark group, that the quick eye of the old man had so readily detected. Some fifteen or twenty horsemen were, in truth, to be seen riding, in quick circuits, about a noble bull, which stood at bay, too grievously hurt to fly, and yet seeming to disdain to fall, notwithstanding his hardy body had already been the target for a hundred arrows. A thrust from the lance of a powerful Indian, however, completed his conquest, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... her with little or no demonstration of any sort, though he and she, also, had never met since the year of Phoebe's flight. His sunken eyes indeed regarded her with a look that seemed to hold her at bay—a strange look full of bitterness. She understood it to mean that he was not there to lend himself to any sham sentimental business; and that physically he was ill, and could stand no strain, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... contemplation of the abandonment of their beautiful city by our troops. General Lee had for so long a time thwarted the designs of his powerful adversaries for the capture of the city, and seemed so unfailing and resourceful in his efforts to hold them at bay, that the good people found it difficult to realize that he was compelled at last to give way. There was universal gloom and despair at the thought that at the next rising of the sun the detested ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... could do, the buck found himself unable to keep up his prodigious tension. He was losing ground, and he could not fail to know that escape was out of the question: he was as much doomed as if surrounded and driven at bay by a dozen hunters and their hounds. He was still running at his highest bent, when he suddenly deviated to the right, and, with shocking violence, plunged squarely against the trunk of a beech, and, falling over on his side, gave a few convulsive struggles and died. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... the forest. The Russians, exasperated that their prey should not only escape, but escape by such dauntless valor, hung closely on their rear, goading them with musketry, whilst they (like a wounded lion closely pressed by the hunters, retreats, yet stands proudly at bay) gradually retired towards the camp with a backward step, their ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... the boar at bay,] [Sidenote B: alights from his horse,] [Sidenote C: and seeks to attack him with his sword.] [Sidenote D: The "swine sets out" upon the man,] [Sidenote E: who, aiming well,] [Sidenote F: wounds him ...
— Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight - An Alliterative Romance-Poem (c. 1360 A.D.) • Anonymous
... et focis and all at stake! What can we be meaning? Unable to conquer America before she was assisted—scarce able to keep France at bay—are we a match for both, and Spain too? What can be our view? nay, what can be Our expectation? I sometimes think we reckon it will be more creditable to be forced by France and Spain to give up America, than to have the merit with ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... and the tension of being pursued through day and night by an infinitely stronger force, these two Divisions had yet to pass through the worst ordeal of all. It was left to a little force of 30,000 to keep the German Army at bay for some days while the other British Corps were being brought up from the Aisne (the First Corps did not come to their assistance till October 21). Here they hung on like grim death, with almost ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... was murdered, as some said, on the night of the fire, Cytherea was the steward's lawful wife. Manston at bay, and reckless of results, might rush to his wife ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... approach of day three hundred Pequots advanced from a second fort intending to fight, but they were struck with horror at the sight of their dead fellow-warriors. Keeping the enemy at bay, the English marched to the vessels, which had arrived at Pequot Harbor, and, placing the wounded on board, continued their march to Saybrook. The remnant of the Pequots sought to escape from the country, moving westward ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... his surname from the horn Of this prodigious unicorn. Beyond, where the two Rhinogs tower, Rhinog Fach and Rhinog Fawr, Close there after a four years' chase From Thessaly and the woods of Thrace, The beaten Dog-cat stood at bay And growled and fought and passed away. You'll see where mountain conies grapple With prayer and creed in their rock chapel Which Ben and Claire once built for them; They call it Soear Bethlehem. You'll see where in old Roman days, Before Revivals changed our ways, The Virgin 'scaped ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... their love or gratitude; make your place what the best class of servants will value, and, though in their heart they may not thank you for it, you will gain, perhaps, one servant out of twenty who will keep gross imposition and gross immorality at bay. ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it—it may be—a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... direction that natives might well have envied him. He found his way back to the foot of the road at a trot, where ninety-nine men out of almost any hundred would have been lost hopelessly; and close to the road he overtook Darya Khan, hugging his rifle and staring about like a scorpion at bay. ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... battle of Worcester, which ended the long conflict, had been fought about three weeks before, and the young King had only just escaped with his life, through the bravery of his gallant troops, who made a desperate stand in the street, keeping the victors at bay while their commander fled to a ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... holding the Incas at bay while Harry assisted Desiree up the steep face of a boulder or across a narrow ledge. There was less danger now from their spears, protected as we were by the maze of rocks, but I was already bleeding in a dozen ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... Geraint, now thinking that he heard The noble hart at bay, now the far horn, A little vext at losing of the hunt, A little at the vile occasion, rode, By ups and downs, through many a grassy glade And valley, with fixt eye following the three. At last they issued from the world of wood, And climbed upon a fair and even ridge, And showed ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... with nothing to show for his long chase. He was about to ride back in search of his companions when on a sudden he noticed a doe hiding in a thicket with her fawn. She was white from ear to hoof, without a spot. Gugemar's hounds, rushing at her, held her at bay, and their master, fitting an arrow to his bow, loosed the shaft at her so that she was wounded above the hoof and brought to earth. But the treacherous arrow, glancing, returned to Gugemar and wounded him ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... way through, guided by the sounds within. Barraclough struck a match and shed a light on the scene. For an instant it flared and sputtered, discovering to us the situation in that cockpit. The place was a shambles. Grant was at bay in a corner, the cook lay dead, and half a dozen mutineers were struggling in the foreground with some persons I could not see: while through the broken boards of the windows other men were climbing. With an oath Barraclough dropped his match and rushed forward. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... a picture cast by a cinematograph in a darkened auditorium, there leaped upon Maitland's field of vision the picture of Anisty standing at bay, face drawn and tense, lips curled back, eyes lurid with defiance and despair. He stood, poised upon the balls of his feet, like a cat ready to spring, in the doorway between the inner and outer offices. He raised his hand with an indescribably swift and vicious gesture, and a flame ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... dont know you. Where are the police?" She paused for a reply; and a bracelet, broken by the blow she had given him, dropped on the pavement, and was officiously picked up and handed to her by a battered old woman who shewed in every wrinkle her burning sympathy with Woman turning at bay against Man. Susanna looked at the broken bracelet, and tears of vexation sprang to her eyes. "Look at what youve done!" she cried, holding out the bracelet in her left hand and shewing a scrape which had drawn ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... like a wild beast at bay, glared firmly round on the whole company; and then, fixing his dark eyes full on the woman, he bade her be silent so sternly, that she shrank down like a ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... she had been going to look for the thing which had dropped out of Peterson's handkerchief, and rolled out of sight. She went down on her knees for the second time, but only to spring up, and stand quivering like a creature at bay. Again the telephone bell was ringing, and now the sound was in the room. The call was for 658. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... live a hundred years, never should I forget her face as it looked at that moment. It was expressive of a strength of will and an energy that would hold death at bay until the task upon which she ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... stooped to pick it up, when one of the savage creatures, thinking or 'instincting' that a stone was coming at him, rushed in, with loud barking, to make mince-meat of the German noble. He seized his camp-stool, and kept the dog at bay; but in a moment the whole pack were down on him. Just at this instant, in rushed Rocjean, staff in hand, beating the beasts right and left, and shouting to the shepherd, who was but a short distance off, to call off his dogs. But the pecorajo, evidently ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... desperate and gigantic creature by whom he was supported. I have had terms enough at command to bring over this Varangian to my side, in appearance at least; yet all this does not encourage me to hope that I could long keep at bay ten or a dozen such men as these beef-fed knaves appear to be, led in upon me by a fellow of thewes and sinews such as those of my late companion.—Yet for shame, Robert! such thoughts are unworthy a descendant of Charlemagne. When wert thou ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to two, and his friends were keeping the men at bay. Without a moment's hesitation, George rushed into the fray, and, setting to work with a will, quickly stretched one of the gipsies out, whereupon the ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... sudden, violent, and unintermitted, than a strict regard to health would have dictated, had laid the seed of future disease. But a sanguine observer would infallibly have predicted, that his temperate habits, activity of mind, and unabated cheerfulness, would be able even to keep death at bay for a time, and baffle the attacks of distemper, provided their approach were not uncommonly rapid and violent. The general affliction, therefore, was doubly pungent upon ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... as by the Hollanders in the hour of their extremity. They opened their dikes, and overflowed their villages and their farms. They rallied around the standard of their heroic leader, who, with twenty-two thousand men, kept the vast armies of Conde and Turenne at bay. Providence, too, assisted men who were willing to help themselves. The fleets of their enemies were dispersed by storms, and their armies were driven back by the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... during the remainder of the first period they forced the fighting over into Chester territory. Indeed, after a number of downs, and a close call from having a touchdown scored upon them, Chester only barely managed to hold the hungry enemy at bay until the referee's whistle announced that the first period ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... height, Helen Grey, Come down, and take a lowlier place; Come down, to fill it now with grace; Come down you must perforce some day: 20 For years cannot be kept at bay, And fading years will make you old; Then in their turn will men seem cold, When you yourself ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... that after the last bold step the accomplices would remain quiet for a while; she knew resistance could have no worse results than would cowardly submission; and therefore assumed the entire responsibility of managing the affair so as to keep at bay both Raoul ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... English deer, be then in blood; Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch, But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags, Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel And make the cowards stand aloof at bay: Sell every man his life as dear as mine, And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends. God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right, Prosper our ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... by two trig maids. There were champagne and frozen pudding. Selma felt almost as if she were in fairy-land. She had never experienced anything just like this before; but her exacting conscience was kept at bay by the reflection that this must be a further manifestation of the New York manner, and her self-respect was propitiated by the cordiality of her entertainers. The conversation was bubbling and light-hearted on the part of both Mr. and Mrs. Williams. They kept up a running prattle on the current ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... after it was born, and then the old nurse, and the unhappy Marguerite was left alone with the wild beasts, especially the white Polar bears, who thronged round her hut. Nevertheless she kept them at bay with her arquebus, and managed somehow to support an existence, until after nineteen months' isolation the ascending smoke of her fire was seen by people on one of the many fishing vessels which, by this time, frequented the coasts ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... eldest son Abel was installed as page. The other two were educated for similar posts among hostile young Spaniards under stern priestly tutors in the Nobles' College at Madrid, a palace become a monastery. Upon the English advance to free Spain of the invaders, the general and Abel remained at bay, whilst the mother ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... and sisters, and he felt Peter's fate as keenly as if it had been his own. It was a scandal that young children should be forced to earn their living by work that endangered their lives, in order to keep the detested Poor Law guardians at bay. What sort of a social order was this? He felt a suffocating desire to strike out, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a fixed horror of sea-sickness. The running down, by her private steamer, of a few more inquisitive yachts in the Solent would be a hazardous experiment, if temporarily effective in keeping home invaders at bay. Holding as her right and left bowers those two sanctuaries at the opposite ends of her island realm, she can play a strong hand in the way of personal independence, and cease to feel that hers is a monarchy limited by the rights of the masses. It is well for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... cup of muddy coffee he had a curious sense that his mind was intent on keeping at bay some half-formulated fear. He felt pursued, as by an indistinct dream. Yet he was cunning enough to pretend that this something was too illusive to capture outright, so he turned his thoughts to all manner of remote things. But ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that till you're hoarse But remember that elegance also is force; After polishing granite as much as you will, The heart keeps its tough old persistency still; Deduct all you can that still keeps you at bay, Why, he'll live till men weary of Collins ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... or disagreements, eh? "Shane's smile was unbearable, and Eunice turned and faced him like an angry thing at bay. ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... their surprise to see the buffalo once more upon his feet, and surrounded by a score of snapping, snarling wolves! These were rushing upon him from all sides at once; while the wounded bull was turning briskly about, and endeavouring to keep them at bay with his horns. Some of the wolves were seen stretched out on the ground—to all appearance dead—while their companions kept up the attack with unrelenting fury. The eyes of the buffalo flashed fire, as, wheeling round and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... through the house walking wide in the legs. It would neither notice nor brook any other man, but rather seemed jealous, and would hiss and flap away the rest of the company. If the bishop slept or watched, the swan would keep dogs and other animals at bay. With true spiritual instinct it would peck hard at the calves of chaplains. If the bishop was abed no one was allowed near him without a most distressing scene, and there was no cajoling this zealous watchman. When the bishop went away the bird would retire to the middle ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... no reply. Then James and Arthur kissed her, Marcia threw an arm round her and went with her, the girl's troubled, indignant eyes holding Coryston at bay the while. ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... returning happiness was not completely closed. Dr. Kent's skill, aided no doubt by Lucy's young confidence in her lover's steadfastness, kept danger at bay, until one of those opportune accidents of life, which like many of the best things in it look threateningly until time takes off the veil, occurred in the shape of a fire on the premises of the wanderer; which news, forcing him to return, the indefatigable ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... were two more, probably my pursuers, from the upper apartments. Providentially the passage was (as I before said) extremely narrow, and as long as no fire-arms were used, nor a general rush resorted to, I had little doubt of being able to keep the ruffians at bay, until I had hit upon the method of springing the latch, and so winning ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
