"Hindmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... smiled, saying, "Father, I must begin to speak some Latin again, otherwise the folks will leave me no peace." But it was not wanted this time; for our guards, with the pitchforks, had now reached the hindmost, and, doubtless, told them what had happened, as we presently heard a great shouting behind us, for the love of God to turn back before the witch did them a mischief; and as Jacob Schwarten his wife heeded it not, but ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... stationary. That leg stops, and the ants attached to it hold on with the rest, while another of the foremost legs is advanced. Thus they continue, until all the foremost are out, and the body of the animal is suspended by its legs at its full stretch. Now one of the hindmost legs closes in to the body, while all the others hold on—now another, and another, each in their turn; and by this skilful manoeuvre they have contrived to advance the body nearly an inch along the ceiling. One of the foremost legs advances again, and they proceed as before. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... disobey the order which had been issued, refrained from looting on their own account; but when they saw that officers, even of the higher ranks, took possession of plunder, these scruples were cast to the winds—it was "every man for himself, and the d—- l take the hindmost," and a general desire was evinced for each to enrich himself with the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... full blast, every man working with such feverish industry that not one of them stopped to look up. From the receiving corral three Mexicans in slouched hats and jumpers drove the sheep into a broad chute, yelling and hurling battered oil cans at the hindmost; by the chute an American punched them vigorously forward with a prod, and yet another thrust them into the pens behind the shearers, who bent to their work with a sullen, back-breaking stoop. Each man held between his knees a sheep, gripped relentlessly, that flinched and kicked at times when the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... should march off in battle array like conquerors and knowing that the victory was not perfect if these were not broken and dispersed like the rest, went furiously to attack them with a squadron of horse and did execution upon the hindmost; but being surrounded and thrown from his horse, or, as some say, his horse falling upon him, while he was fighting, he received a mortal thrust with a pike in his side. And if it be desirable, as it is believed, for a man to die in the height of his ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... The hindmost ranks are continually rising from the ground, and dropping in front of the others. This is the proper time to fire, just as the hind-rank are a couple or three feet from the ground; firing the second barrel as the whole flock ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... also happened, that all the saleable ground lying north of the city was owned by a man named Smith—a shrewd, wide-awake individual, whose motto was "Every man for himself," with an occasional addition about a certain gentleman in black taking "the hindmost." ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... distinguished from the broad dagger by the shape of the handle, which is curved or indented in the case of the dagger, but straight across in the case of the halberd. There is, however, another point. The hindmost rivets, both in the case of the blades with four rivets and those with three only, are shorter than those in front of them. The shortness of the end-rivets and slope of the heads imply that the handle was rounded off behind the blade, as would be the case ...
— The Bronze Age in Ireland • George Coffey
... this as well as I did, looked full of horror. He caught one of the hindmost of the rabble by the sleeve and asked him harshly, 'What has this man done, and whither are you taking him?' At which the man, turning towards us his red, jovial ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... quite—you cannot feel as I do, Greif. Perhaps, some day— when you and I are old, Greif—then you will love me as I love you now, but then, you see, I shall have learnt how to love you more, and you will still be hindmost in love's race—for women are made to love and men to fight, in this world, and though I could fight not badly, if need were, for you, yet I know better how to do the sweeter thing, than you can ever know. Do you not ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... back arches a little as far as the loins, whence it goes off at a flat slope to the hindmost parts, where not any tail is visible. A tail, however, may be found by carefully passing the finger over the flat slope in a line with the backbone. After separating the hairs, it is seen of some five tenths of an inch in length, and from three to one ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... to send Saul against the Amalekites. What Amalek did to us when we came out of Egypt had been written down, and the direction concerning him. He met us by the way, and smote the hindmost of us, even all that were feeble, when we were faint and weary; and it had been said to our fathers that when we had rest from our enemies round about us, we were to blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven—"Thou shalt not forget ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... pickpockets, but they backed away until they stood on the other side of our boundary, where they were presently joined by half a dozen others. We had one point in our favor. In such a rush it is every man for himself, with a broad invitation to the devil to take the hindmost. Somebody called the fellow who wanted to break into our shaft for the needful evidence a much-emphasized jackass, and pointed to the wagon-tracks leading straight ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... to the combing to steady himself in the sea-way, and flung a key on a chain down into the orlop, right among us. 'Take it,' he shouted in Dutch, 'and make the most of it. God helps the brave, and the devil takes the hindmost.' ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... nevertheless been warned by their approaching friends to be on the alert to prevent their sailing out, at dawn they sighted the fleet of Mindarus, which immediately gave chase. All had not time to get away; the greater number however escaped to Imbros and Lemnos, while four of the hindmost were overtaken off Elaeus. One of these was stranded opposite to the temple of Protesilaus and taken with its crew, two others without their crews; the fourth was abandoned on the shore of Imbros and ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... To the hindmost wall of the scene an upper story could be added; whenever, for instance, it was wished to represent a tower with a wide prospect, or the like. Behind the great middle entrance there was a space ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... unruly fowls, and pressed upon them and buffeted them, until the turkeys were right glad to defy the vision of the old brown sensationalist, and take refuge in their house. Pocahontas closed the door with a sharp bang almost upon the tail of the hindmost one, locked it, and then turned cordially to her companion and invited him to remain and take tea ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... great that it projects, like a tusk, far beyond the general level of the other teeth. The roots of the false molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex than in Man, and the proportional size of the molars is different. The Gorilla has the crown of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw more complex, and the order of eruption of the permanent teeth is different; the permanent canines making their appearance before the second and third molars in Man, and ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... the green inch-worms vanish on the tenth of every June, so on the tenth of that June all the money in America had buried itself and was as if it were not. Everybody and everything was ready to fail. If the hindmost brick went, down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... earthquake having happened. I was lying in bed when there was a party at dinner in the house; on a sudden I heard such a hubbub in the dining-room; without a word being spoken, it was devil take the hindmost who should get out first; at the same moment I felt my bed SLIGHTLY vibrate in a lateral direction. The party were old stagers, and heard the noise which always precedes a shock; and no old stager looks at an earthquake ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... commander, kept going through the ranks of heroes, and he came to the Cretans, going through the throng of men. But they were armed around warlike Idomeneus. Idomeneus, on his part, [commanded] in the van, like a boar in strength; but Meriones urged on the hindmost phalanxes for him. Seeing these, Agamemnon, the king of men, rejoiced, and instantly ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... monarch's hindmost year but ane Was five and twenty days began; 'Twas then a blast o' Januar' win' Blew hansel in on ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... those creatures acted thus, for, close on their heels, gasping and glaring, the army burst forth and fell on them— literally fell on one of them, for Otto in his anxiety to catch the hindmost pig, a remarkably small but active animal, tripped over a root just as he was about to lay hold of its little tail, and fell on the top of it with fearful violence. The mechanical pressure, combining with the creature's spiritual efforts, produced a sudden yell ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... next twelve months. This is still credited. There is now the custom also of watching the fires till the last spark dies, and instantly rushing down hill, "the devil (or the cutty black sow) take the hindmost." A Cardiganshire ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... top of the Courthouse steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... volume would be required to unfold all its import. There was an old tradition that the students of necromancy or the black art, on reaching a certain pitch of proficiency, were obliged to run through a subterranean hall, where the devil literally caught the hindmost unless he sped so swiftly that the arch enemy could only seize his shadow, and in that case, a veritable Peter Schlemihl, he never cast a shadow afterwards! A man stood by his furnace one day casting eyes for buttons. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... tosses The grain in its breath, the grain flashes, So over the field of their losses Fly the vanquished. But now in their course Starts a squadron that suddenly dashes Athwart their wild flight and that stays them, While hard on the hindmost dismays them The ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... to distinguish himself, galloped out with the keenest of the troopers and charged the Vitellians, inflicting only slight loss; for, on the arrival of reinforcements, the tables were turned and those who had been hottest in pursuit were now hindmost in the rout. Their haste had no sanction from Antonius, who had foreseen what would happen. Encouraging his men to engage with brave hearts, he drew off the cavalry on to each flank and left a free passage in the centre to receive Varus and his ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... horn for horn they stretch an' strive, Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive, 'Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve Are bent like drums; Then auld Guidman, maist like to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the same beam. The first inverts the sod to the depth of a few inches, and the hindmost plow brings up the lower soil, depositing it on ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... for yesterday was once to-morrow: That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd; And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd, For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask, And wilt be ever to begin thy task; Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, are curst, Still to be near, but ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... in the former age to lie back on a couch handsomely spread, am now thrust among the hindmost and driven from the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... nice about the interests of others, was, 'Every man for himself and the Lord for us all.' But the motto has become slightly changed in these times. It now reads, 'Every man for himself, and the d——l take the hindmost!' I hear this too often unblushingly avowed, but see it much oftener acted out, all around me. My young friend, if you wish to keep a clear conscience, adopt neither of these mottoes, but regard, in every transaction, the good of others as well as your own good. ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... escorted, in the language of the time, the Fortune of Scotland. He now led the van, now checked his bounding steed till the rear had come up, exhorted the leaders to keep a steady, though rapid pace, and commanded those who were hindmost of the party to use their spurs, and allow no interval to take place in their line of march; and anon he was beside the Queen, or her ladies, inquiring how they brooked the hasty journey, and whether they had any commands for him. But while ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... rice-fields, Ito on the pack-horse in front, when we met a number of children returning from school, who, on getting near us, turned, ran away, and even jumped into the ditches, screaming as they ran. The mago ran after them, caught the hindmost boy, and dragged him back—the boy scared and struggling, the man laughing. The boy said that they thought that Ito was a monkey-player, i.e. the keeper of a monkey theatre, I a big ape, and the poles of my bed ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... sex, and the rest of the dogs take precedency according to their training or sagacity, the least effective being put nearest the sledge. The leader is usually from eighteen to twenty feet from the fore part of the sledge, and the hindmost dog about half that distance, so that when ten or twelve are running together, several are nearly abreast of each other. The driver sits quite low on the fore part of the sledge, with his feet overhanging the snow on one side, and having in his hand a whip, of which the handle, made ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... are much alike in structure, and can hardly be divided, as they are by some naturalists, into molars and premolars. They take the three hindmost as molars, regarding the others as premolars. Sometimes these grinders have roots, but are more commonly open at the end and grow from a permanent pulp. They are composed of tubular and convoluted portions of enamel filed up with ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... cicada exceeded the hornet by more than half. In color, the wings and thorax, or waist, of the hornet were a rich bronze; the abdomen was black, with three irregular yellow bands; the legs were large and powerful, especially the third or hindmost pair, which were much larger than the others, and armed with many spurs and hooks. In digging its hole the hornet has been seen at work very early in the morning. It backed out with the loosened material, like any other animal under the same circumstances, holding ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the neighbourhood affords, well covered with slippery frozen snow, two individuals who purpose forming the freight of the toboggin pose themselves, the foremost holding the reins, which, however, are more for effect than use, sitting between the feet of the hindmost traveller, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... shots from the three-pounder dislodged the defenders of the block-house; and about sunset the Americans closed in, but only to find that their foes had escaped under cover of a noisy fire from a few of the hindmost warriors. They had run up stream, behind the banks, until they came to a small "branch" or brook, by means of which they gained the shelter of the forest, where they at once scattered and disappeared. A few of their stragglers exchanged shots with the advance guard ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... carrying between them one of the small poles above-mentioned on their shoulders. We were told, that the small pieces of sticks fastened to the poles were yams; so that probably they were meant to represent this root emblematically. The hindmost man of each couple, for the most part, placed one of his hands to the middle of the pole, as if, without this additional support, it were not strong enough to carry the weight that hung to it, and under which they all seemed to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind to design an authentic picture of the rejoicings at London upon our glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns dragged in procession by our gallant tars; the stout horse-grenadiers prancing by; the mob waving hats, roaring cheers, picking pockets, and our friends ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ludicrous from one point of view: but another is magnificent enough to make me forgive the scamp his autobiography from now to the day of judgment (when we shall all begin forgiving each other in great haste, I suppose, for fear of the devil taking the hindmost!), and I registered a vow on the spot to that effect:—so no more of ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... behind. The riderless horse seemed to catch the fever of the moment, and closed up with me, leaving his master the solitary tenant of the dell. For perhaps three miles we galloped like the wind, and my brave little traveller overtook the hindmost of the troop, and retained the position. Thrice there were discharges ahead; I caught glimpses of the Major, the Captain, and the wolfish sergeant, far in the advance; and once saw, through the cloud of dust that beset them, the pursued and their individual pursuers, turning ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... hundred strong; and, as a medium between the extremes of four and sixteen, the foot soldiers of Leo and Constantine were formed eight deep; but the cavalry charged in four ranks, from the reasonable consideration, that the weight of the front could not be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses. If the ranks of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this cautious array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the troops, whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but of whom ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... In the Exchequer's hindmost row I sat, and some one touched my head, He tendered ten-and-six, but oh! That only client now ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the award that passed By voice of the majority in the court, And either pelt us with rude calumnies, Or stab at us, ye laggards! with base guile. Howbeit, these ways will never help to build The wholesome order of established law, If men shall hustle victors from their right, And mix the hindmost rabble with the van. That craves repression. Not by bulky size, Or shoulders' breadth, the perfect man is known; But wisdom gives chief power in all the world. The ox hath a huge broadside, yet is held Right in the furrow by a slender ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... he exclaimed, "a war in which dog eat dog and devil take the hindmost becomes sooner or later the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... The pair in the hindmost sleigh diverged equally far from the aurora; for heavy upon Edith's heart lay the fact that the mortgage was at last about to be foreclosed, and they should leave Daisy Burn. This very evening, her father coming late to Mrs. Vernon's corn-shelling bee, had told ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. now then, thought i, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost. .. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... trench. Then Hector came, with fury in his eyes, Among the foremost warriors. As a hound, Sure of his own swift feet, attacks behind The lion or wild boar, and tears his flank, Yet warily observes him as he turns, So Hector followed close the long-haired Greeks, And ever slew the hindmost as they fled. ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... quit the stage; And to an age less polished, more unskilled, Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield. As with the greater dead he dares not strive, He would not match his verse with those who live: Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast, The first of this, and hindmost of the last. A losing gamester, let him sneak away; He bears no ready money from the play. The fate, which governs poets, thought it fit He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. The clergy thrive, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... route lay before those who took the River Road leading to the Indian Encampment. Bachelor Lot was the hindmost in this receding column. Bachelor Lot, though too withered and brown of visage to afford immediate enlightenment as to his species, was held to be of unquestionable white descent. Yet he kept house, ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... child - I was going to say your cat. There would be cats in my home too if I could but get it. I may seem to you 'the impersonation of life,' but my life is the impersonation of waiting, and that's a poor creature. God help us all, and the deil be kind to the hindmost! Upon my word, we are a brave, cheery crew, we human beings, and my admiration increases daily - primarily for myself, but by a roundabout process for the whole crowd; for I dare say they have all their poor little secrets and anxieties. And here am I, for instance, ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... some. But, why take accidents So bitterly? It's all a rough-and-tumble Of accidents, from the accident of birth To the last accident that lays us out— A go-as-you-please, and the devil take the hindmost. It's pluck that counts, and an easy seat in the saddle: Better to break your neck at the first ditch, Than waste the day in seeking gates to slip through: Cold-blooded crawlers I've no sort of use for. You took the leap, and landed in the quickset: But, at least, you leapt ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... with a Menow, you must put your hook through the lowermost part of his mouth, so draw your hook thorow, then put the hook in at the mouth againe, let the point of the hook come out at the hindmost Fin, then draw your Line, and the Menowes mouth will close, that no water will get into its belly; you must alwayes be Angling with the point of your Rod down the stream, with drawing the Menow up the stream by little and little, nigh the top of the water; the Trout ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker
... I can yet distinguish her; Dost thou triumph, dark-brow'd Nina? Is my secret known to thee? On the sands of yon arena I shall yet my vengeance see. Now through portals fast careering Picadors are disappearing; Now the barriers nimbly clearing Has the hindmost chulo flown. Clots of dusky crimson streaking, Brindled flanks and haunches reeking, Wheels the wild bull, vengeance seeking, On the matador alone. Features by sombrero shaded, Pale and passionless and cold; Doublet richly laced and braided, Trunks of velvet slash'd ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... But the greatest success was farthest south, where the village of Loos was rushed by the 15th Division and then Hill 70. Even there the Highlanders would not stop, but went on impetuously as far as the Cit St. Auguste, well outflanking Lens and past the hindmost of the German lines. This was all by 9.30 a.m., within four hours of the first attack. But there were no reserves at hand to consolidate the victory and hold up the German counter-attacks. There were plenty miles away in the rear, retained by Sir John French because along ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... cattle, speeding with lowered horns and fiery eyes across the plain. Fortunately, they do not observe our presence; were it otherwise, we should be trampled or gored to death in the twinkling of an eye. Onward they rush; at last the hindmost animals have passed; and see, behind them all there scours ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... what to do! I guess I shall have to leave the thing to Providence—and the devil take the hindmost!" he thought gloomily. ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... a stick under one arm and a list in the other hand, stood apart in front of us, and called name after name in the tone of a command. At each name you would see a family gather up its brats and bundles and run for the hindmost of the three cars that stood awaiting us, and I soon concluded that this was to be set apart for the women and children. The second, or central car, it turned out, was devoted to men travelling alone, and the third to the Chinese. The official was easily moved to anger ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... found these creatures clinging by thousands, literally blackening the wall, and hanging in festoons a foot or two in length. The manner of forming these festoons was curious enough: three or four bats having first taken hold of some sharp projecting ledge with their hindmost claws, and hanging thereby with their heads downward, others had seized their leathery wings at the second joint, and they too, hanging with downward heads, had offered their wings as holding-places for still others; and so the unsightly pendent mass had grown, until ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Gen. Kearney's quarters, about the middle of the afternoon, we were looking for a place to camp for the night, when we saw eleven Indians coming for us full tilt. Jim Bridger was riding in the lead, I being the hindmost one. Jim being the first to see them, he turned as quick as a wink and we all rode to the center. Each man having a saddle-horse and five pack-horses, they made good breastworks for us, so we all dismounted and awaited the impolite arrival. I drew my rifle down across the back of ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... for himself without regard to others was increased. If Pat had served a kinder and more considerate man, he might have been inclined to show greater consideration for the intoxicated youth; but Pat's favorite phrase, "Divil take the hindmost," was but a fair expression of the spirit which animated his master, and the majority in his employ. When, therefore, Haldane, in his thick, imperfect utterance, again said, "Take me 'ome," Pat concluded that it would be the best and safest course ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... there any poor law? Only an emigration agent, hungry for steamship percentages, will declare there are no poor there now. The survival of the fit is the survival of the strong; every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost might replace the legend on the silver dollar and the golden eagle, without any American denying it ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... scrub-race—melancholy, Abel, but true. I talk plainly to you, but I do it for your good. If we were all angels, things would be different. If this were the Millennium, every thing would doubtless be agreeable to every body. But it is not—how very sad! True, how very sad! Where was I? Oh! it's all devil take the hindmost. And because your neighbors are dishonest, why should you ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... gang you won't be so damn safe! I ain't afraid of losin' no friends. Friends never got me nothin'. Damn the nesters! There won't be no deals when I'm runnin' the gang. It'll be every man for himself an' the devil take the hindmost. If a nester's got anything I want I'll reach out an' take it—nesters, or banks, or railroads—they all look alike to me. An' if McWhorter's huzzy don't throw in with me willin', she'll come along unwillin'. ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... turn they took, these two, of the hindmost seat in the canoe, for the back of each was unspeakable from the spear-prods. Without a word McElroy took his punishment as the lagging became more pronounced from arms overtaxed at the paddles, but the long-haired adventurer from the Saskatchewan ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... might be several men. No one knew but what the man next to him had turned traitor. They groped for one another's throats and finally, as though by one impulse, crowded for the exit. They fought and pounded and kicked at each other. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. Wilson helped them along by continued shooting—aiming high and low. In five minutes the cabin was cleared save for the wounded, who managed, however, to ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Mr. Janson, junior, who came out to Chontales purposely to collect insects; and I afterwards obtained it in great numbers. The use of the curious brushes on the antennae is not known. Another longicorn, about the same size (Coremia hirtipes), has its two hindmost legs greatly lengthened, and furnished with brushes: one I saw on a branch was flourishing these in the air, and I thought at first they were two black flies hovering over the branch, my attention being taken from the body of the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... about him with an impatient gesture. "That's true," he answered, "the Spaniards hold by Spain, and all the Hanse merchants by one another, but our English go every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. I speak freely to you, friend, because you have cast in your lot with us West Country folk and are content to be ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... wighty men, As fast as ye can drie; For he that is hindmost of the thrang Shall ne'er get gude ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... bristles raised the sudden noise they hear, And ludicrously wild and winged with fear, The herd decamp with more than swinish speed, And snorting dash through sedge and rush and reed; Through tangled thickets headlong on they go, Then stop and listen for their fancied foe; The hindmost still the growing panic spreads, Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds, Till Folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap; Yet glorying in their fortunate escape, Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease, And Night's dark reign restores their ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... engulf us; our three men were obviously too few. The boat danced in the rapid. My men on board shrieked excitedly that the towrope was fouling—it had caught in a rock—but their voices could not be heard; our trackers were brought to with a jerk; the hindmost saw the foul and ran back to free it, but he was too late, for the boat had come beam on to the current. Our captain frantically waved to let go, and the next moment we were tossed bodily into the cataract. The boat heeled gunwale under, and suddenly, but the bowman ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... dress stepped from the wings and made signs that he wanted to speak. Silence fell, and he announced that Arthur Stoss, the world's champion, would say a few words. The next instant Stoss's sharp, clear boyish voice rang through the theatre reaching even the hindmost seats. ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... way, resolving here to lodge Under the spreading favour of these pines, Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide. They left me then when the grey-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far; And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them from me. Else, O thievish Night, Why shouldst thou, but ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... blood-bounding vein. Of tribes Bisaltic such the wonted use, And keen Gelonian, when to Rhodope He flies, or Getic desert, and quaffs milk With horse-blood curdled. Seest one far afield Oft to the shade's mild covert win, or pull The grass tops listlessly, or hindmost lag, Or, browsing, cast her down amid the plain, At night retire belated and alone; With quick knife check the mischief, ere it creep With dire contagion through the unwary herd. Less thick and fast the whirlwind scours the main With tempest ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... them. As a magical aid the Samhain bonfire was chief, and it is still lit in the Highlands. Brands were carried round, and from it the new fire was lit in each house. In North Wales people jumped through the fire, and when it was extinct, rushed away to escape the "black sow" who would take the hindmost.[906] The bonfire represented the sun, and was intended to strengthen it. But representing the sun, it had all the sun's force, hence those who jumped through it were strengthened and purified. The Welsh ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... alone upon the far-off hills With song serene the wilderness he fills, But in the forum now his art employs And what he lacks in knowledge gives in noise. At first, ere he began to feel his feet, He begged a corner in the hindmost sheet, Concealed with Answers and Acrostics lay, And held aloof from Questions of the Day. But now, grown bold, he dashes to the front, Among the leaders bears the battle's brunt, Takes steel in hand, and ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... skulker declined his queen's command. There lay the reason why Dolores so placidly turned her back to men whose dearest ambition would have been realized by the plunge of steel between her shoulders at that moment. Milo walked around to the rear of the hesitant mob, and without a word gripped the hindmost in his two great hands and hurled him bodily over the heads of his mates ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... was—a statement of Captain Reid's imperiousness in trifles, very much exaggerated by the narrator, who had written it while fresh and warm from the scene of altercation. Some sailors being aloft in the main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered them to race down, threatening the hindmost with the cat-of-nine-tails. He who was the farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility of passing his companions, and yet passionately dreading the disgrace of the flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope considerably lower, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... into the grass, until only their heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine-needles thrown up into his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly to butt into a tree, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... had almost reached the hindmost and smallest of the boys when Jack Sheldon suddenly came out ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... waited glad bustle and strife; love itself, an emulous game; religion, a cause and a controversy, well smitten and well defended; men governed by reasons and suasion of speech; wheels going, steam buzzing—a mortal race, and a slashing pace, and the devil taking the hindmost—taking me, by Jove (for that was my inner care), if I lingered too long upon the difficult pass that leads from ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... skylight. A minute elapsed. Then they reappeared on the top of the porch, having come out through the window to which it served as a balcony. Here they put on their boots, and stepped on to the wall of the fruit garden. As they crawled along it, the hindmost ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... Jervis saw the steady line of his fleet drawn fair across the gap in the Spanish line, he flung his leading ships up to windward on the mass of the Spanish fleet, by this time beating up to windward. The Culloden led, thrust itself betwixt the hindmost Spanish three-deckers, and broke into flame and thunder on either side. Six minutes after her came the Blenheim; then, in quick succession, the Prince George, the Orion, the Colossus. It was a crash of swaying masts and bellying sails, while below rose the shouting ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... that were entred Penzance before him, that they should make their stand at the market place, himselfe [158] staying hindmost, to obserue the enemies order, and which way they would make their approach. Which done, he found at the said market place but onely two resolute shot, who stood at his commaund, and some ten or twelue others that followed him, most of them his ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... had been so sudden that they had taken no heed of where they were going. It was every man for himself, with the broncho boys' bullets for the hindmost. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... hand she ran to meet her children. Some hunter had broken the bear's fore leg with a bullet a few days before, which accounted for its strange, waddling gait; but it was almost within reach of the hindmost child when the mother arrived. The bear at once turned its attention to the newcomer, and with a terrific snarl rushed 5 at her. On sped the children, screaming and crazy with fright. It was a moment of imminent peril to the mother, but she was equal to the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... bound to happen, the stubborn retreat broke into a rout. It was every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The pirates fled for the after cabin-house, there to take cover behind the timbered walls and use the small port-holes for musketry fire. Thus they could find respite and it would be ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Kiugr call'd down his merry men all, By one, and by two, and three; Earl Marshal was wont to be the foremost man, But the hindmost man was ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... immense voyage to make across space; she can no longer support the weak or help on the laggards. The great assault upon the future makes her hard and pitiless to all who fall by the way. Her motto is, "The devil take the hindmost." ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wish, sate at his side. Oehlenschl ger was also my neighbor, and in many an evening hour, when no one dreamed of it, my soul was steeped in deep humility, as I sate between these great spirits. The different periods of my life passed before me; the time when I sate on the hindmost bench in the box of the female figurantes, as well as that in which, full of childish superstition, I knelt down there upon the stage and repeated the Lord's Prayer, just before the very place ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... gently—"I sure do wish it could have been different, little person. Maybe you'll have a kindlier feeling for this big old North when you get back into your cities and towns, with their smoke and smells and business sharks, where it's everybody for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Maybe some time when I get restless for human companionship and come out to cavort in the bright lights for a while, I may pass you on a street somewhere. This world is very small. Oh, yes—when you get to Vancouver go to the Ladysmith. It's a nice, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... hills into the villages, being now overtaken by darkness, (for, as the way was narrow, their ascent of the heights, and descent to the villages, had lasted the entire day,) some of the Carduchi, collecting together, attacked the hindmost, and killed and wounded some of them with stones and arrows. They were but few; for the Greek troops had come on them unawares; 11. but had they assembled in greater numbers, a great part of the army would have been in danger of being destroyed. ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... marched in a line in order to have the benefit of the path), gave one to each man as he passed by. They observed the same method in distributing the water which they brought; and were particularly careful that the foremost did not drink too much, lest none should be left for the hindmost. But at the very time these were relieving the thirsty and hungry, there were not wanting others who endeavoured to steal from them the very things which had been given them. At last, to prevent worse consequences, they were obliged to fire a load of small shot at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost: there you lie, For pavement to the abject rear, o'errun And ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... granite heap my monument of death! She paused, she snorted loud and long, and drew a fuller breath; Nine strides and then a louder beat that warn'd me of her spring, I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing— But oh! the crash!—the hideous shock!—the million sparks around! Her hindmost hoofs had struck the crest ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... fulness, there is any one single command in Scripture more habitually disregarded. Proverbs are generally supposed to be a condensation of facts or experiences. Whence comes "Every one for himself, and God for us all"? or, the more vulgar one, "Go ahead, and the d——l take the hindmost?" What are they but concentrations of the fact that selfishness is man's ruling passion? What are most laws made for, but to restrain men by human penalties from a broach of the law of love? and, if these ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... father, anxious to keep sight of me yet not lose the hounds, pulled in a little, and the hunted animal, in hopes of finding cover, made toward a wood. Being prevented from entering it, he skirted along its sides, and turning the corner, the hindmost sportsmen followed by a short cut ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and now came yapping along the ditch as hard as he could scamper. Of course, Bob being as deaf as a post, was quite unaware of this circumstance, and as the terrier brushed rudely by him, poor Bob looked so mortified! He wasn't going to find game for him, so "the devil take the hindmost," became the order of the day, and had I not shot the pheasant, which they put up between them, Bob was so angry that he would have wrung the very soul ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... to be in; And so not knowing what else to do, When the fields were so white, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! He stole away,—I tell you true,— Upon the road from Moscow. 'Tis myself, quoth he, I must mind most; So the devil may take the hindmost. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... there was silence. Then a tumult arose, a shouting, and holloing, and screeching, and the whole school rushed to the door, as if the devil had been after them to catch the hindmost. Strange uproar invaded the ears of Glamerton—strange, that is, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... succeeded in dispersing and driving before us a rather numerous band, I came up with one of the hindmost Cossacks, and I was about to strike him with my Turkish sabre when he took off his cap ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Applehead with a new respect. The Indians, having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a closer group than before, shooting as they rode—at the four men first, and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed bedding, but that ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... bridegroom's courser To the best of all the stables, To the best of resting-places, To the hindmost of the stables. Tether there the bridegroom's courser, To the ring of gold constructed, 100 To the smaller ring of iron, To the post of curving birchwood, Place before the bridegroom's courser, Next a tray with oats overloaded, And with ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... most obnoxious to him, and continued the pursuit of the flying royalists with the utmost diligence, through difficult and almost impracticable roads, where no provisions could be procured, always coming up with some of the hindmost of the enemy. Gonzalo likewise sent on several Indians with letters to the principal officers who served under the viceroy, urging them to put him to death, and offering them their pardons for the past and to give them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... unsuccessful he committed suicide; his body was afterwards found on the Landes of Bordeaux half devoured by wolves; was surnamed the "Virtuous," as Robespierre the "Incorruptible"; was of the Girondist party; had "unalterable beliefs, not hindmost of them," says Carlyle, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... a soldier-like manner. General de Vins gave up the command in the middle of the battle, pleading ill health. "From that moment," says Nelson, "not a soldier stayed at his post: it was the devil take the hindmost. Many thousands ran away who had never seen the enemy; some of them thirty miles from the advanced posts. Had I not, though I own, against my inclination, been kept at Genoa, from 8000 to 10,000 men would have been taken prisoners, and, amongst the number, General de Vins himself; ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... The hindmost were soon passed—each swerving off from the track, as soon as he saw himself headed by the great dark horse that carried the strange and dreaded object upon his back. One by one they were passed, until Black Hawk had forged ahead ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... mixt with hope, as Gyas slacks his pace, Fires the two hindmost. Now they near the mark; Sergestus, leading, takes the inside place. Yet not a length divides them, for the Shark Shoots up halfway and overlaps his bark. Mnestheus, amidships pacing, cheers his crew; "Now, now lean to, and let each arm be stark; Row, mighty Hector's followers, whom ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... has. It is all done on credit, and the devil take the hindmost. But if I really had a million—eh! I ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... "Scatter." When the first was heard his men "huddled and fit"; and when retreat was the only possible salvation, the command to "scatter" was obeyed with equal alacrity. Each man was now for himself, and "devil take the hindmost" for a time, but the sound of Woolford's bugle never failed to secure prompt falling into line at the auspicious moment. "Woolford's cavalry" was the synonym for daring, even at the time when the recital of the deeds of brave men ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson |
