"Four-in-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... country in the morning a suit of flannel, tweed or cheviot, a straw hat and tan shoes. His shirt may be of striped madras or linen, with a white collar. The cutaway coat is correct for ordinary afternoon wear, with a white waistcoat, white shirt and four-in-hand tie. This takes the place in summer of the frock coat, which is the formal day wear. He will seldom, if ever, have occasion for a dress suit at a week-end visit in summer. Of course, the size of the party and the gayeties in which one will participate have a bearing on the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... work it is! So that Theagenes and Proxenides Might flourish and gasconade and prance away Quite at their ease, both of them four-in-hand, Driving abreast upon the breadth of wall, Each in his ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... became confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the night in the ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... seven vigorous hunters were before the door. An elegant brake was intended for the ladies, in which the coachman could exhibit his skill in driving four-in-hand. The cavalcade set off preceded by huntsmen, and armed with first-rate rifles, followed by a pack of pointers barking joyously as they bounded through the bushes. For four hours the hunting party wandered through the paths and avenues of the park, which was as large as a small German ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... He customarily wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be distinguished by reason of our sculpture." ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... at Piccadilly oh! The coachman takes his stand, And when he meets a pretty girl, He takes her by the hand. Whip away for ever oh! Drive away so clever oh! All the way to Bristol oh! He drives her four-in-hand. ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... He wore the fez, of course, and sported a Montenegrin order on his lapel; he had Turkish slippers; he carried a Malacca cane; he wrapped himself in a Mohave blanket and he wore a Caracas carved gold ring on his four-in-hand scarf. But his crowning effort was in wearing the great traveling badge, the English fore-and-aft checked cap, with its ear flaps tied up over the crown, leaving the front and rear scoops exposed. Not all of the passengers carried this array of proofs, but many dabbled in them ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... the twanging of the strips of cane in Soolsby's hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and the two scarce moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At last they were roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down the road to the village over the gorse-spread common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent forward till she saw one figure get down and, waving a hand to the party on the coach as it moved ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... interest, through Nat Boody, with the stage-driver; and one day the old ladies are horrified at seeing the parson's son mounted on the box of the coach beside the driver, and putting his boyish fingers to the test of four-in-hand. Of course he is a truant that day from school, and toiling back footsore and weary, after tea, he can give but a lame account of himself. He brings, another time, a horrid fighting cur, (as Miss Eliza terms it in her disgust,) for which he has bartered away the new muffler that the spinster ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... she said at last. "I have seen you playing polo once or twice, and driving your four-in-hand; but I thought I only knew you by sight. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... breakfast Thomson and I set off for Aberdeen Gully, and as our three mule ambulance wagons were going up for the day we had a ride in a four-in-hand to Gully Beach. All the way out we watched the Turks' shells falling right along The Gully, all the batteries, which are numerous there, getting their attentions, while we sat and wondered what we were to do. At the foot of the steep descent into Gully Beach Major Bell shouted to ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... must load my sledges up, With reindeers four-in-hand, That go to the North, South, East, and West, To ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... gentle reader, have demanded from me a dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could proceed in proving the importance of a title-page, and displaying at the same time my own intimate knowledge of the particular ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... superb turnouts were barouches unmistakably hired, occupied by people dressed with a certain cheap smartness. Here and there a girl, probably of the people, cantered half defiantly down the line, a sailor-hat on her head, her jacket open over a shirt and "four-in-hand." Once a yoke of oxen, driven by a bareheaded maid, ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... very day he had driven himself into his prebend's house in the close in his four-in-hand to ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... room suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle out-grown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button-hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... signs upon the rocks of the islands. Sometimes the channels are so dangerous that the little steamers have to proceed at half-speed, carefully threading their way in and out of the posts, as a drag at Hurlingham winds its course between barrels at the four-in-hand competitions. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... possession of his ancestors since the reign of Henry the Eighth. There is a hairy, high-nosed, broken-down nondescript, in appearance something between a horse-dealer and a pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the women, a pretty actress, who, a few years since, looked forward to a supper of steak and onions, with bottled stout, on ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He, himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying to figure out Jimmy's manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially gave information. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... study a type of man entirely new to him, the result was always the same,—the colonel had his way. Had the Virginian insisted upon waiting on the offending broker in a palanquin or upon the top of a four-in-hand, Fitz would have found the vehicle somehow, and have crawled in or on top beside him with as much complacency as if he had spent his whole life with palanquins and coaches, and had had no other interests. So when the order came for the carriage, Fitz winked at me with ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was about to reply when a well-appointed four-in-hand drove up, and a courteous gentleman who handled the ribbons, offered ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... to visitors—here comes a gay four-in-hand heavily loaded sweeping by on its road to that summer town. There is much ironstone in the soil round about. At the edge of the park stands an old farmhouse of timber and red tile, with red oast-house beside it, built with those gables which our ancestors seemed to think made such excellent ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... in a cathedral town, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five as a single lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a martinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove the proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and had solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage being accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties with great decorum, and Mrs General ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... marvellously able to take care of himself, and hold his own with anybody. A cat to fall on his feet! He is apparently born without any sense of fear, and with a profound belief in destiny. He can drive four-in-hand, swim for any number of hours without tiring, ride—well, as an Italian cavalry officer can ride, and that is not badly. His accomplishments? He can speak French—abominably, and pick out all imaginable tunes on the piano, putting instinctively quite tolerable basses. I don't ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... in places good, and often turned in among the pines. At Riverdale they saw the deer of Mr. George Calvert, a descendant of one of the Lords Baltimore, browsing in his park, and his great four-in-hand carriage was going in the lodge-gates from a state visit to the Custises. Passing direct to Georgetown from Bladensburg, they encountered General Jackson, taking his evening ride on horseback, and saw the chasm of the new canal ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... barricaded ourselves. Another adventure was our being nearly starved at Pont-a-Mousson, where at last we managed to buy a bit of the King of Prussia's lunch at the kitchen of the inn on the market-place at which it was being cooked in order to be placed in a four-in-hand break. While we were ravenously gorging ourselves upon it, a man burst into the room, and suddenly exclaimed: "Winterbotham!" It was Sir Henry Havelock, who was hiding in the place, being absent without ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... really managed them admirably. For what with whistling, and coaxing, and swearing, and swinging his "riatta" over their heads, he had them as much under his command as ever a crack dragsman had his four-in-hand in the good old coaching times of my own dear England. We followed after, riding, when the road would admit of it, all abreast, and presenting a bold front to any gang of desperadoes who might be daring enough to attack us. There was little fear of this, however, for we hardly rode ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... much as a four-in-hand coach or a yacht. Men go into Parliament because it gives them fashion, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... your horse! By Zeus! I would rather defray the keep of a four-in-hand team than be ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... traveling in the Rockies and in Africa, and his exploits with the big game in both countries are well known. Like most young men of his class, Lord Selbie was rather wild at Oxford, and displayed a certain amount of diablerie in London during his quite early manhood. He is a splendid whip, and his four-in-hand was eclipsed by none other in the club. Lord Selbie is also an admirable horseman, and has won several cups in ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... many of the social problems that afflicted the young men about town; the identity, for instance, of the occupant of the hansom who had just driven past, heavily veiled, together with her destination and her reason for being out at all; why the four-in-hand went up empty and came back with a pretty woman beside the "Tooler," and then turned up a side street toward the Park, instead of taking the Avenue into its confidence; what the young wife of the old doctor meant when she ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Empire of Business," "Gospel of Wealth," "Triumphant Democracy," "American Four-in-Hand in ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... had been done, J——, and probably I also, must have fallen under the hind wheels of the coach, and in all likelihood been killed. We have since learned that the coachman had only just come upon the road, which is in a great many places very dangerous, and that he was wholly unpractised in driving four-in-hand. Pray excuse this long and minute account. I should have written to you next day, but I waited, hoping to be able to add that my indisposition was gone, as I ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... tie was a four-in-hand of raw silk, very choice in color but of a fatally loose oriental weave; and once entangled in its meshes the task of extricating its delicate threads from the clutch that gripped them seemed hopeless. It apparently failed ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... her heart I think she cares for me a little bit. But I'm nothing but a plain, ordinary business man. I never did anything devilish in my life. There's nothing romantic about me. Look at this necktie! Did you ever see a hero wearing a plain black four-in-hand? Never! Did you ever see a hero wearing nice tan oxfords without a spot of mud on them? If I can somehow manage to make her think for a few minutes that I've got heroic stuff in me, she may listen ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... sport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe, trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very old; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive to the banks of Styx ere long,—where the ferry-boat waits to carry him over to the defunct revellers, who ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in these reflections as she turned (in order to be home by five o'clock), and walked towards the town. She was awakened from them by the trampling of hoofs and the cheerful tootling of a horn. A four-in-hand approached and passed her; not so furiously but that she had time to recognise Lady Cayley on the box-seat, Mr. Gorst beside her, driving, and Mr. Ransome and Mr. Hannay behind amongst a perfect ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... of American residents of Melbourne and members of the Victorian Cricket Association, met us with four-in-hand drags appropriately trimmed with the American colors, and as we entered them and drove up Collins street we felt that we were the observed of all observers. At the Town Hall we were received by Mayor Benjamin and the members ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... from the Border banks and although these were the days of footpads and highwaymen, and coaches were "held up" in other parts, Sandy's Coach was never molested, although he had been blocked with his four-in-hand in the snow. He gave a graphic description of the running of the last mail coach from Hawick to Merrie Carlisle in 1862. Willie Crozier the noted driver was mounted on the box, and the horses were all decked out for the occasion. Jemmie Ferguson the old strapper, whose ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... satin and velvet garments, and, despite his empty stomach, he chants the praises of a bountiful table and rare old wine. That is what I am doing—I, Robert Dalbou, Marquis de Valorsay! At the races at Vincennes, about a fortnight ago, I was bowling along the boulevard behind my four-in-hand, when I heard a laborer say, 'How happy those rich people must be!' Happy, indeed! Why, I envied him his lot. He was sure that the morrow would be like the day that preceded it. On that occasion my entire fortune consisted of a single louis, which I had won at baccarat the evening ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats. Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of the ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... Mr. Pisgah on the road to glory, Mr. Simp on the smooth sea, Mr. Freckle in the debtor's jail, Mr. Risque behind his four-in-hand, and Mr. Lees in the charity grave, let us sit with the two remaining colonists in the cabriolet at Bellinzona; for it is the month of April, and they are to cross the great St. Gothard en route for Paris. Here is the scene: a gloomy stone building for the diligence ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... retrograde movement, he gave a gentle pull to the wooden handle of an old-fashioned wire bell-pull in the midst of buggy, four-in-hand, and other whips, hanging in the entrance, a touch that was acknowledged by a single tinkle of the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... is one who rides blood horses, drives four-in-hand, speaks when he's spoken to, sings when he's asked, always turns his back on a dun, and never on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... self-interest. Neither man had spoken besides a defiant response to Carroll's polite "Good-evening," when they had entered. They sat and watched and listened. Occasionally one raised a hand, and an enormous diamond glowed with a red light like a ruby. In the four-in-hand tie of the other a scarf-pin in the shape of a horse's head with diamond eyes caught the light with infinitesimal sparks of fire. Above it his clean-shaven, keen, blue-eyed face kept watch, sharply ready to strike anger as the diamonds struck light, and yet with a certain amusement. He had shown ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... next morning. The new wife brought him a fortune, in addition to three children of various ages, of sundry articles of household furniture. Parents, children, and goods were shortly after loaded into a wagon drawn by a four-horse team, and in all the style of this frontier four-in-hand, were driven over indescribable roads, through woods and ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Bobbies, these cricketers to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom, these plutocratic products of "the nail and sarspan business as he got his money by." Do you know whether to laugh or cry at the notion that they, poor devils! will drive a team of continents as they drive a four-in-hand; turn a jostling anarchy of casual trade and speculation into an ordered productivity; and federate our colonies into a world-Power of the first magnitude? Give these people the most perfect political constitution and the soundest political program that benevolent ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... Blanche LeHaye. "That's me, in the center of the bunch, with the pink reins in my hands, drivin' that four-in-hand of johnnies. Hot stuff! Just let Dacre try to get it away from me, that's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... than the ordinary accessories of an American race-course: here is no assemblage of the beau-monde, no populace, no four-in-hand drags, no costermongers, no donkeys, no dukes, no thimble-rig, no gipsies; in short, "no nothin'," except a few quiet-looking hacks and a sprinkling ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... apparent necessity turned out to be a mere display of superfluous luxury, for the two white leaders did little more than show their feeble paces, leaving the gray wheelers to do the work. We had the elevating sense of traveling four-in-hand, however—a satisfaction to which I do not believe any human being is ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... of the "Four-in-Hand," Lower Maybush street, a party of gentlemen's servants were playing bagatelle upon a bad board in a very smoky atmosphere, while a knot of three men sat at one of the old, narrow, battered mahogany tables in a corner, drinking cold gin and water, ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... their carriages are the Governor and the Archbishop: this regulation is frequently grumbled at by the Spanish Jehus, and one gentleman, the colonel of a regiment, having applied to the government for permission to indulge his taste in this respect by driving a four-in-hand, was refused it, so he had to content himself with turning out with only three in his drag. With that number of quadrupeds, however, he did a good deal to frighten and amuse the world, apparently wishing to break his neck, in which he very nearly succeeded ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... an expedition was planned, and Uxmoor proffered his "four-in-hand." It was accepted. All young ladies like to sit behind four spanking trotters; and few object to be driven by a viscount with a glorious ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... usquebaugh of the Highlands. Who would not laugh himself into a pleurisy to see the dandies of Timbuctoo stalking along in solemn gravity beneath their torrid sun, encumbered with a Russian fur-cloak, or a Lapland 'whip' on a snow-sledge, driving his canine four-in-hand, with a Turkish turban and Grecian robe folded carelessly around him? Yet wherein do we greatly differ in our absurdities! Again: we profess to have lopped from our democratic tree the old-world customs of hereditary title ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Clubs, Four-in-hand Clubs, Tandem Clubs, and Sporting Clubs of all sorts, but there ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... in through open windows, was cooler than it had been during the day, but still held enough of the noontide caloric to make fans a comfort, and Mr. Stuyvesant, dining at a "four-in-hand" table well to the front, and attempting to hold his own in a somewhat desultory talk with his fellow-men, found himself paying far more attention to the lovely face of the girl across the aisle than to ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Jehu. There is but one name for a man who handles his four-in-hand over tree-trunks, tacurus, and tussocks, as our coacher does. He drives as not even his namesake drove; in rain, in sunshine, in light, in darkness, over smooth ground or rough, he guides his steeds with ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... and toss their rippled manes Shining and soft as silken skeins; Wagons and gigs are ranged about, And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; Here stands—each youthful Jehu's dream The jointed tandem, ticklish team! And there in ampler breadth expand The splendors of the four-in-hand; On faultless ties and glossy tiles The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; (The style's the man, so books avow; The style's the woman, anyhow); From flounces frothed with creamy lace Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... air, as does one at the dentist's. "I hope that you're not afraid I shall run you into a ditch?" I asked, laughing. "I don't believe, after all, it can be any worse than steering a toboggan down a good run, or driving a four-in-hand with one's eyes shut, as I did once for a wager on a road I knew as I knew my ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... I, 'fwhere?' An' he tould me—Regina. Sez I thin ''tis Skinner Adams's undershtudy ye must have bin?—for he was Reg'mentil Teamster Sarjint there, an' sure fwas a great man wid a four-in-hand team.'" ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... fellatio on him. But I dreamed also of natural coitus. I fell in love with the handsome, 12-year-old son of the aged headmaster. The boy, O., sat next me at the table, and I never tired of gazing at him. It gave me a special sense of pleasure to look at him when he wore a certain flowing, scarlet, four-in-hand necktie. But O. was not attracted to me—for one thing I was in a disagreeably pimpled condition—and I could not induce him to linger in my room nor to sleep with me. My passion for O. did not diminish, and it rose to its supremacy on the evening when he appeared in our hallway (he roomed on the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... attempt to deny this, but he laughed at her dramatic accent. "Sure, he does! And about how to tie a four-in-hand, and what's the best stud to wear at the back of a collar, and where to buy ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... this head is to make sure of the breeding. On this account the asses of Arcadia are celebrated in Greece, as are those of Reate in Italy, so that I remember an ass that brought sixty thousand sesterces, and a four-in-hand team at Rome that was held at four hundred thousand. The fourth consideration is of the legal precautions to be observed in buying live stock, for in order that title may pass from one to another certain formalities must intervene, since neither a contract nor ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... to be fust vip to the Queen herself; and I'm proud to call him my poople. Why, sir, - if his honour here will pardon me for makin' so free, - this 'ere gent is Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, of which ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... corn-field, Stephen Council was still at work "finishing a land." He rode on his sulky plough when going with the wind, but walked when facing it. Sitting bent and cold but cheery under his slouch hat, he talked encouragingly to his four-in-hand. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... and appointments; hence the yacht and a four-in-hand—then a great novelty—all of which he had promised her should she decide to join him at home. Hence, too, his luxuriously fitted-up bachelor quarters in Philadelphia, and his own comfortable apartments in his late father's house, where his sister Sue lived; and hence, too, his ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... took him out of Mr. King's stable. I rode him 120 miles before twelve next day. Those two browns are Mr. White's famous buggy horses. He thought no man could get the better of him. But your old father was too clever. I believe he could shake the devil's own four-in-hand—(coal black, with manes and tails touching the ground, and eyes of fire, some German fellow says they are)—and the Prince of Darkness never be the wiser. The pull of it is that once they're in here they're ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... see 'em. There will be mischief some day with it yet, for all that old Lord Orford, down at Newmarket some fifty years ago, used to do the same thing, they say. It ain't in nature that stags should be druv four-in-hand, even by Carew. However, the Squire won his wager; and we haven't seen none o' that wild work o' late weeks, though we may ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... four-in-hand coach rose out of the hollow where it had been hidden, and came bowling along the level. The rapid hoofs beat the dust, which sprang up and followed behind in a cloud, stretching far in the rear, for in so still an atmosphere the particles were long before ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... roadway. It quite took me back to the delightful days of 1866 in Mexico, when we used to ride out to picnics at the Rincon at Orizaba armed to the teeth, and ready at a moment's notice to throw the four-in-hand mule-wagons into a hollow square, and prepare to receive cavalry. As it seems to be perfectly well understood that the regular price paid for shooting a designated person (they call it "knocking" him in these parts) is the ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... eighteen or twenty young Darwins of different families in the house. Four-in-hand coaches of young Darwins used sometimes to come down from London. Mr. Darwin liked children. They didn't disturb him in the least. There were sometimes twenty or thirty pairs of little shoes to be cleaned of a morning, but there were always plenty ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... leaned back in his chair and took to wondering what the six fellows who started that afternoon for Richmond were doing. Smashing the windows of the "Star and Garter," perhaps, or fighting the bargees on the river, or capturing a four-in-hand drag, or disporting themselves in some such genial and truly English manner. And as Tom conjured up the picture he ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... beaming man of forty, with gold-rimmed eyeglasses and a somewhat grizzled beard which has been, a week or so ago, a neatly trimmed Vandyke. He wears a "cutaway suit," not much pressed, not new; a derby hat, a standing collar, and a "four-in-hand" dark tie; hard, round cuffs, not link cuffs. He carries a folded umbrella, not a fashionable one; wears no gloves; and has two or three old magazines and a newspaper under ...
— The Gibson Upright • Booth Tarkington
... would advise no man to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.' See ante, ii. 109, note 2. Mr. Hayward adds that 'he married a woman of the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.' In Campbell's Chancellors (ed. 1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John Ladd, who is, I suppose, the same man. The Prince of Wales ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... to stir! At Cape Coast, I found yet another mode of locomotion. Governor Maclean took me for a long expedition along the road towards Coomassie, the Ashanti King's capital. We travelled in a small victoria, to which was harnessed a four-in-hand of splendid negroes, whose backs bore the marks of terrible floggings. In spite of the sandy road, the team went gaily along full trot, urged forward by the Governor's incessant cry of "Get on faster, boys!" ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... for there are really few more agreeable sights than that of a good-looking team handled neatly by a gentleman, who sits well, with, perhaps a lady beside him on the box. I am much pleased to find that the taste for four-in-hand driving is increasing of late, and am glad to say, some gentlemen drive very well. It is easy enough, to detect those who are self-taught from those who have received instruction from a professional man. Many think that driving can be acquired without teaching. I wonder if any gentleman would like ...
— Hints on Driving • C. S. Ward
... of amusement was sufficiently expressive. "One old mare in a hired trap, when I've driven a four-in-hand over some of the wickedest roads in America! If we are smashed, Aunt Soph, you can lay it to providence, and not to my driving. Don't get to worrying if we are late. If we're killed you'll hear all about it soon enough. You can only die once, and a carriage ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... gaited saddle race of one mile, steeple chase, hurdle race, polo pony dash, relay race of one mile, cowboy's relay race of same length, cowgirl's relay race, six furlongs, saddle tandem. Exposition jumping contest and five-mile Marathon four-in-hand. On the closing day of the Exposition there will be a grand parade of all first and second winners, not only in the horse display, but in all other displays ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber |
