"Preconcerted" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with playful exaggeration, that these two men could shout so as to be heard across Lake Michigan. They were made captains of two stentorian bands of followers. These were placed on opposite sides of the auditorium and were instructed to raise the shout at a preconcerted signal and keep it up as long as desired. ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... to the castle where Count Lenkenstein, assisted by Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions, the Italian in the manner of a winding lawyer, the German of a gruff judge. Half-way down the zig-zag Vittoria cast a preconcerted signal back to Laura. The soldiers had a pair of prisoners between their ranks; Vittoria recognized the men who had carried Captain Weisspriess from the ground where the duel was fought. A quick divination told her that they held Angelo's life on their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... delight, you'll comprehend the rapture of acquisition, and learn that it is generally secured by very coarse means. Come, I have a mind that you should prosper. The public spirit is inflamed here; you are a leader of the people. Let us have another meeting on the Moor, a preconcerted outbreak; you can put your fingers in a trice on the men who will do our work. Mowbray Castle is in their possession; we secure our object. You shall have ten thousand pounds on the nail, and I will ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... science on the art of chemistry, and give no obscure promise of some one great constitutive law, in the light of which dwell dominion and the power of prophecy; if these discoveries, instead of having been, as they really were, preconcerted by meditation, and evolved out of his own intellect, had occurred by a set of lucky accidents to the illustrious father and founder of philosophic alchemy; if they had presented themselves to Professor Davy exclusively in consequence of his luck in possessing ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... were hardly uttered, when, as if by preconcerted arrangement, the door opened, and in sailed Mrs Jellybag, the housekeeper, an elderly woman, somewhere in the latitude of fifty-five or sixty years. With a low courtesy and contemptuous toss of her head, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... consideration the frequent loss of human life by shipwreck, and believing that by the preconcerted exertions of practical men, and the adoption of practical means, such calamities might often be averted, are of opinion that a National Institution should be formed (to be supported by voluntary donations and subscriptions) for the preservation of life in cases of shipwreck on the coasts ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... letter which a lover receives from his mistress, is a new era in his life. Again and again I kissed the precious paper, and almost wore it out in my bosom. We afterwards improved in this mode of intercourse, and, by various preconcerted signals, were able to carry on our correspondence altogether in the night. Not a day passed that we did not exchange letters, which, though they contained few facts, and always expressed the same sentiments, still repeated what ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... to step aft and bore a hole in the bulkhead that separated the Major's berth from mine. He took the necessary tools from his chest and followed me. The captain was now again on deck, talking with the Major; in fact, detaining him in conversation, as had been preconcerted. I went into the Major's berth, and quickly settled upon a spot for an eye-hole. The carpenter then went to work in my cabin, and in a few minutes bored an orifice large enough to enable me to command a large portion of the adjacent interior. I swept the sawdust from the deck in the Major's berth, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... that Van Twiller was in some kind of trouble. Just as everybody suddenly takes to wearing square-toed boots, or to drawing his neckscarf through a ring, so it became all at once the fashion, without any preconcerted agreement, for everybody to speak of Van Twiller as a man in some way under a cloud. But what the cloud was, and how he got under it, and why he did not get away from it, were points that lifted themselves into the realm of pure conjecture. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... the assembled crowds, but left a paper, which he delivered to the Sheriffs, containing his last protestations. After his sentence, Lovat had accustomed his crippled limbs to kneel, that he might be able to assume that posture at the block. He now kneeled down, and after a short prayer gave the preconcerted signal that he was ready; this was the throwing of a handkerchief upon the floor. The executioner severed his head from his body at one blow. A piece of scarlet cloth received his head, which was placed in the coffin ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... man, since the tribe wished to get rid of him anyhow, adding that he was a bad Indian, whose bullet no doubt had given the woman her death wound. He said that if I assented to this arrangement, he would require all of his people except the objectionable man to run to the right of his line at a preconcerted signal. The bad Indian would be ordered to stand fast on the extreme left, and we could open fire on him as his comrades fell away to the right. I agreed to the proposition, and gave Joe fifteen minutes to ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... ignorant class of speakers upon the same subjects, and in many instances the signs would win at a trial of speed. At the same time it must be admitted that great increase in rapidity is chiefly obtained by the system of preconcerted abbreviations, before explained, and by the adoption of arbitrary forms, in which naturalness is sacrificed and conventionality established, as has been the case with all spoken languages in the degree in which they have become copious ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... task enough even when there is a doubt. The very possession of the passion,—or even its pretence,—gives the man a liberty which he has a pleasure and a pride in using. But this is the case when the man dashes boldly at his purpose without preconcerted arrangements. Such pleasure, if it ever was a pleasure to him,—such excitement at least, was come and gone with Harry Gilmore. He had told his tale, and had been desired to wait. Now he had come again at a fixed hour to be informed—like ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... host suddenly lowered his upraised sword, as if in salute, but the motion seemed to be a preconcerted signal, for every man behind him instantly whipped blade from scabbard, and stood there with naked weapon displayed. The leader, raising his sword once more to its former position, repeated in the same loud and monotonous voice, as if the archbishop had not spoken. ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... those unhappy whose copies are of less capacious dimensions, as for the consolation of those whose copies may lift up their heads in a yet more aspiring attitude. One further preliminary remark. I send you this list precisely in the order in which chance, rather than a preconcerted plan, happened to present ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Wittenberg had been really standing by, and he had seen them smiling by stealth, at the idea of the players crossing their minds. It is not "a combination and a form" of words, a set speech or two, a preconcerted theory of a character, that will do this: but all the persons concerned must have been present in the poet's imagination, as at a kind of rehearsal; and whatever would have passed through their minds on the occasion, and have been observed by others, passed through his, and is made known ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... of the Seine, opposite the Louvre, and demanded that a banquet be prepared for them. Though the royal party was masked, the unwilling host knew his guests but too well, and dared not deny their peremptory command. In the midst of the carousal, at a preconcerted signal, the king's followers began to ransack the house, maltreating the occupants, wantonly destroying the costly furniture, appropriating the silver plate, and breaking open doors and coffers in search of money. The next day even Paris itself was indignant at the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... stretching a white line of tape between them. Two more of the men marched to another outlying point, where they made marks in the ground. Thus they walked about and took distances, obviously according to some preconcerted scheme. ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... to Bathsheba to explain here a little fact which did not come to light till a long time afterwards: that Troy's presentation of himself so aptly at the roadside this evening was not by any distinctly preconcerted arrangement. He had hinted—she had forbidden; and it was only on the chance of his still coming that she had dismissed Oak, fearing a meeting between ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... suspirations, and then, starting up, gazed wildly around her. Half of us were still laughing—my unfortunate self among the number; this the enraged landlady no sooner perceived than she imagined herself the victim of some preconcerted villainy. Her lips trembled with passion—she uttered the most dreadful imprecations; and had I not retired into a corner, and armed myself with the dead body of Jocko, which I wielded with exceeding valour, she might, with the simple weapons ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... parsonage and found Miss Oriel at home; but Mary had not been seen that morning. He then returned to the house; and, having come to the conclusion that she had not thus vanished into air, otherwise than by preconcerted arrangement, he boldly ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of approbation. I was very much surprised, knowing the explosive nature of the subject. It was not till the sale had run to over a hundred thousand copies that reaction began, and the reaction was led off by the London "Times." Instantly, as by a preconcerted signal, all papers of a certain class began to abuse; and some who had at first issued articles entirely commendatory, now issued others equally depreciatory. Religious papers, notably the "New York Observer," came out and denounced ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Galilee; because he alone, except Mark, who seems to have taken it from him, has recorded this promise, and he alone has confined his narrative to that single appearance to the disciples which fulfilled it. It was the preconcerted, the great and most public manifestation of our Lord's person. It was the thing which dwelt upon St. Matthew's mind, and he adapted his narrative to it. But, that there is nothing in St. Matthew's language which ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... and soon approached near enough to the King William, which was the foremost of the fleet, to call upon her captain to surrender. But at that moment Governor Johnson, who was on board the Mediterranean, and could hear the insolent pirate shouting through his speaking-trumpet, gave a preconcerted signal. Instantly everything was changed. The covers were jerked off from the cannon of the pretended merchantmen, armed men poured up out of the holds, the flag of England was quickly raised on each ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... as we had preconcerted, attempted to follow us, and, no impediment being offered, unceremoniously passed through the little door into the park, crossed the latter, boldly ascended a terrace adjoining the palace, and at ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... solitary gunshot there was a tense silence, lasting for perhaps half a minute, while searchlight after searchlight was turned upon us from the heights and from every ship so placed that they could be brought to bear. Then, as though at a preconcerted signal, the batteries on the heights and two gunboats anchored at the harbour entrance opened fire upon us, and the darkness of the night was stabbed and pierced by jets of flame, while the air became vibrant with the hiss and scream of projectiles ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... disporting themselves in a low bush a few yards from me. The female takes shelter amid the branches, and squeaks exultingly as the male, circling above, dives down as if to dislodge her. Seeing me, he drops like a feather on a slender twig, and in a moment both are gone. Then, as if by a preconcerted signal, the throats are all atune. I lie on my back with eyes half closed, and analyze the chorus of Warblers, Thrushes, Finches, and Flycatchers; while, soaring above all, a little withdrawn and alone, rises the divine soprano of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... this dreadful order of arrest, behind which crouched these crimes ready to rise and spring upon her, was suspended by Inspector Loup. For which tenderness and mercy Fouchette was merely to report to the Secret Service bureau in accordance with a preconcerted arrangement. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... increasing noise of applause, with a smile upon his lips, when, suddenly, at the moment that he galloped up into the large square, formed by the troops drawn up in a line, the band of the fifty-third regiment struck up a quick march, and, as if obeying a preconcerted signal, the jennet began to turn round, and to accelerate its speed, in spite of the furious tugs at the bridle ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... with Romola by his side. He had already during the day had one momentous interview with Dolfo Spini, and the business he had spoken of to Romola as yet to be done was a second interview with that personage, a sequence of the visit he had paid at San Marco. Tito, by a long-preconcerted plan, had been the bearer of letters to Savonarola—carefully-forged letters; one of them, by a stratagem, bearing the very signature and seal of the Cardinal of Naples, who of all the Sacred College had most exerted his influence at Rome ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... saying, Mere Michaud turned, and swinging high up in the air one end of a long wreath of feathery ground-pine, led off the procession. The rest followed in preconcerted order, till some forty men and women, all linked together by the swinging loops of the pine wreath, were in line. Then they suddenly wheeled and surrounded the bewildered Hetty, and bore her with them. The children, carrying their little pots of flowers, ran along shouting and screaming ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Pope be thus insulted in his own city?" cried several voices. "Down with the sacrilegious—down!" And, as if by a preconcerted plan, a whole body of the mob broke at once through the lane, and swept like a torrent over Orsini and his jostled and ill-assorted train. Orsini himself was thrown on the ground with violence, and trampled upon by a hundred footsteps; his men, huddled and struggling as much against ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... glowing plates. The operation, to be successful, required to be conducted with great rapidity. On a signal given by a cannon-shot each furnace was to give vent to the molten iron and completely to empty itself. These arrangements made, foremen and workmen waited the preconcerted moment with an impatience mingled with a certain amount of emotion. Not a soul remained within the enclosure. Each superintendent took his post by ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... it some international password or a gipsy note of universal import? Had she called them friend in a tongue they knew? Now she began speaking, huskily at first, with tumultuous syllables and wide open vowels, and at the first pause they cheered. The inky multitude that had kept silence, by preconcerted plan, while Weedon Moore talked to them, lost control of itself and yelled. She went on speaking and they crashed in on her pauses with more plaudits, and presently she laid her hand on Jeffrey's shoulder ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... pleasantness of the meeting were disturbed by an evidently preconcerted irruption of certain women, who have succeeded beyond doubt in acquiring notoriety, however much they may have failed in winning respect. The notorious Abby Kelly, the Miss Stone whose crusade against the Christian doctrine on the subject of marriage has shocked the better ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... on Belle Isle and five thousand in the buildings. Of these one thousand five hundred were officers in Libby. Besides there were the prisoners in Castles Thunder and Lightning. The essential features of the plan were that at a preconcerted signal we at the second and third floors should appear at the windows with bricks and irons from the tobacco presses, which a should shower down on the guards and drive them away, while the men of the first floor would pour out, chase the guards into the board house in the basement, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in every detail, and Elmore regarded her young beauty and delight with a pride as innocent as her own. A dim regret, evaporating in a long sigh, which made the others laugh, recalled him to himself, as the bell rang and Hoskins appeared. He was received in a preconcerted silence, and he looked from one to the other with his queer, knowing smile, and took in the whole affair without ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... preconcerted, Kaplan Giraj's sword must needs have leaped from its sheath at these mortally insulting words. Furiously he leaped from his seat with his flashing ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... afternoon we were drilled in the method of abandoning ship, and I was put in charge of a lifeboat and a certain section of the ropes that were to be used in our descent over the side into the water. Between twelve and one o'clock that night we were awakened by three blasts, the preconcerted danger-signal. Slipping into my life-jacket, I groped my way to my station on deck. The men were filing up in perfect order and with no show of excitement. A ship's officer passed and said he had heard that we had been torpedoed and were taking in water. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... in the leg, the pain of which had been aggravated by the heavy irons which galled it. All the prisoners except Barry and Woolfe, readily acknowledged their participation in the attempt to seize the brig, but most solemnly denied any knowledge of a preconcerted plan to take her; or that they at least had attempted to throw the soldiers overboard. They were unwilling to be interrupted, and inveighed in the bitterest manner against some of their companions who had, they seemed to think, betrayed them, or at least had led them on, ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... was a visitor at the rooms of Leslie and Morse, frequently made his appearance under the influence of those fits of despondency to which he was subject. On these occasions, by a preconcerted plan, they often drew him from this state to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... the advantage of a fait accompli. Of this there was no room to doubt, when, a little later, he took officially under his protection the fruit of that criminal aggression against which he had so loudly protested. Either from weakness or treachery he was an accomplice, and played a preconcerted game. At first he may have been sincere in threatening, in the hope of intimidating the revolution. But when there was question of acting, and he knew that it defied him, he recoiled. French historians remark, with pain, that this was a sad alternative, as regards the memory of a man who had the ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Manfredi, of Faenza; one of the Jovial Friars (see Canto xxiii). Having received a blow from one of his kinsmen, he pretended to forgive it, and invited him and his son to a feast. Toward the end of the meal he gave a preconcerted signal by calling out, "Bring the fruit," upon which his emissaries rushed in and killed the two guests. The "fruit of ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... deserter came to the English camp, and brought the unwelcome intelligence that there were three thousand armed men in Quebec. [1] Meanwhile, Phips, whose fault hitherto had not been an excess of promptitude, grew impatient, and made a premature movement inconsistent with the preconcerted plan. He left his moorings, anchored his largest ships before the town, and prepared to cannonade it; but the fiery veteran, who watched him from the Chateau St. Louis, anticipated him, and gave ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... utter a cry. In the confusion of the moment the man loosed his grip of the musket to grapple with his unseen antagonist, and Fair, snatching up the weapon, swore to blow out his brains if he raised a finger. Seeing the sentry thus secured, Cheshire, as if in pursuance of a preconcerted plan, leapt down the after hatchway, and passed up the muskets from the arm-racks to Lesly and Russen. There were three muskets in addition to the one taken from the sentry, and Barker, leaving his prisoner in charge of Fair, seized one of them, and ran ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... went to Mr. Taylor's residence, Percy Street, near Rathbone Place. The publisher received him in his ordinary friendly, though somewhat stiff and formal manner. Clare was on the point of delivering his preconcerted speech, when Mr. Taylor interrupted him with an unexpected communication. He told him frankly that he had not been able hitherto to give much attention to the sale of the 'Shepherd's Calendar,' and that this, probably, was the reason why but few copies had been disposed of. As a compensation, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... down, looking grave and discomposed. All during breakfast time they were silent and uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast things were taken away, and the children had been carried up-stairs, Mr. Chadwick began in an evidently preconcerted manner to inquire if his nephew was certain that all his servants were honest; for, that Mrs. Chadwick had that morning missed a very valuable brooch, which she had worn the day before. She remembered taking it off when she came home from Buckingham Palace. Mr. Openshaw's face contracted into ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... way and order are suddenly altered, it is impossible but that they should be disconcerted and the whole scheme ruined. For which reason, it is far better to do everything in accordance with the preconcerted plan, though it be seen to be attended with some disadvantages, than, in order to escape these, to involve yourself in an infinity of dangers. And this will happen when you depart from your original design without time given to ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... crashing of shot against the walls of their bomb-proof forts. All day long the battle rages without intermission or material advantages to either side. As night approached, the fire slackened in all direction, and at dark Sumter ceased to return our fire at all. By a preconcerted arrangement, the fire from our batteries and forts kept up at fifteen-minute intervals only. The next morning the firing began with the same vigor and determination as the day before. Sumter, too, was not slow in showing her metal and paid particular ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... orders were executed, and the assignats were delivered to the King. The Queen informed me that Madame Elisabeth had found a well-meaning man who had engaged to gain over Petion by the bribe of a large sum of money, and that deputy would, by a preconcerted signal, inform the King of the success of the project. His Majesty soon had an opportunity of seeing Petion, and on the Queen asking him before me if he was satisfied with him, the King replied, "Neither more nor less ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... unconcerned demeanor imaginable. As soon as his comrades had taken their assigned stations he placed himself at the bow, near one of the robbers, a stout herculean fellow, who was armed cap-a-pie. Cacasotte gave the preconcerted signal, and immediately the robber near him was struggling in the water. With the speed of lightning he ran from one robber to another, as they were sitting on the sides of the boat and, in a few seconds' time, had thrown several of them overboard. Then seizing ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... evening shut in, Basset—agreeably to the preconcerted plan, presented himself at the hut of the General, and took his station at the window that commanded, for quite a distance, a view of the road. The moon was shining, and her beams, reflected from the snow, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... foremen and workmen awaited the preconcerted moment with impatience mixed with emotion. There was no longer any one in the inclosure, and each superintendent took his place near ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... quick and retentive memory, and a frankness of manner which precluded any suspicion of artifice. All his speeches were, in appearance, the unpremeditated effusions of an honest heart; and yet, in reality, they were preconcerted with so much skill, that the judges were, sometimes, not so well prepared, as they should have been, to withstand the force of them. His language, indeed, was not so refined as to pass for the standard of elegance; for which reason he was thought to be ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... marked! how like, and yet how unlike! Portia's eulogy on mercy is a piece of heavenly rhetoric; it falls on the ear with a solemn measured harmony; it is the voice of a descended angel addressing an inferior nature: if not premeditated, it is at least part of a preconcerted scheme; while Isabella's pleadings are poured from the abundance of her heart in broken sentences, and with the artless vehemence of one who feels that life and death hang upon her appeal. This will be best understood by placing the corresponding ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... people would pick up their instruments—bagpipes of sheepskin, small drums and gourd-like mandolines—and draw from them strange dronings, gurglings, thrummings, twangings; soon a group of youngsters would rise gravely from the ground and, without any preconcerted signal, begin to move in a dance—a formal and intricate measure, such as had never yet been witnessed ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Dunning and Mr. John Lee were retained. The former had been solicitor-general, and was a man of mark and ability in the profession. When the hearing came on, the Cockpit presented such a spectacle that Franklin felt assured that the whole affair had been "preconcerted." The hostile courtiers had been "invited, as to an entertainment, and there never was such an appearance of privy councilors on any occasion, not less than thirty-five, besides an immense crowd of other auditors." Every one save the privy councilors had to stand from beginning to end of the proceedings. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... sooner did Joe fire, than they hastily retreated a short distance, scattering in every direction, and, without a moment's consultation, again appeared, advancing rapidly from every quarter. It was evident that this plan had been preconcerted among them; and had all fired, instead of Joe only, they might easily have scaled the palisade before the guns could have been reloaded. Neither had the besiegers been aware of the strength of the garrison. But ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... threw up the shade and opened the sash, waving our preconcerted sign, turning again ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... responsibility, on May 11, 1856, commanding "law-abiding citizens of the Territory" "to be and appear at Lecompton, as soon as practicable and in numbers sufficient for the proper execution of the law." Moving with the promptness and celerity of preconcerted plans, ex-Vice-President Atchison, with his Platte County Rifles and two brass cannon, the Kickapoo Rangers from Leavenworth and Weston, Wilkes, Titus, Buford, and all the rest of the free lances in the Territory, began ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Still the Indians of to-day are different from those of days past, and have learnt many of the white man's ways—even to wearing watches. The man in question seems to know all about it; and has his reasons for being particular as to the hour. He is evidently acting upon a preconcerted plan, with the time fixed and fore-arranged. And evident also that ten is the hour awaited; for, while in the act of examining his dial, the old mission clock, restored to striking, tolls just so many times; and, before the boom of its cracked bell has ceased rolling in broken reverberation ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... looked on, very white save where M. de Vilmorin's finger-prints began slowly to colour his face; but he said nothing more. Instead, it was M. de Chabrillane who now did the talking, taking up his preconcerted part in this ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... and timid eyes, in a long line, has the air of an ecclesiastical procession. The singers go before, the minstrels follow after. There is something liturgical, too, in the way in which, as if by a preconcerted signal, they all cry out together, standing in a group, with a burst of hoarse cheering, cut off suddenly by an intolerable silence. The arrival of ducks upon the scene, when the fowls are fed, is an ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... he told you, Dr. Conrad?" This is not unexpected, and the answer is a prepared one, preconcerted under pressure between ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... war, very eminently. So that, on the whole, what with the temper of the people, the temper of our own friends, and the domineering necessities of war, we must quietly give up all ideas of any settled, preconcerted plan. We shall be lucky enough, if, keeping ourselves attentive and alert, we can contrive to profit of the occasions as they arise: though I am sensible that those who are best provided with a general scheme are fittest to take advantage of all contingencies. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to stratagem. Since the churches were closed to them, they opened their own houses. By arrangement with Mr Rose, service was held in the Lamb on the evening of the Coronation Day, safety being secured by a preconcerted signal-tap. About forty persons gathered, exclusive of the families of the host and the minister. A small congregation; but a congregation of live souls, who were ready to yield life sooner than faith. The majority of ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... spent with bleeding, Force (no), no concern, Fordeal, advantage, Fordo, destroy,; fordid, Forecast, preconcerted plot, For-fared, worsted, Forfend, forbid, Forfoughten, weary with fighting, Forhewn, hewn to pieces, Forjousted, tired with jousting, Forthinketh, repents, Fortuned, happened, Forward, vanguard, Forwowmded, sorely wounded, Free, noble, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... hand in glove with Dashing Jerry; met in the same inn last night—preconcerted, you may be quite shure. It would be the best day's job I have done this many a day to save that 'ere little fellow from being corrupted. You sees he is just of a size to be useful to these bad karakters. If they took to burglary, ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... bullock-drivers and two men, sent for water, were at that time there, and also the tribe of king Peter, it was evident that a collision had taken place between them. The arrival of the other tribe, who still lingered on our right front, made this appear like a preconcerted attack; and two of the tribe again came forward, just as the shots were echoing along the river, to ask for fire and something to eat. Their apparent indifference to the sound of musketry was curious, and as they had not yet communicated with those to ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... style of eloquence—if, indeed, truth will permit the name of eloquence to be applied to the reading of matter from a preconcerted manuscript—how would such a style of delivery be received out in the wild West? Place your textual speaker out in the backwoods, on the stump, where a surging tide of humanity streams strongly around him, where the people press up toward him on every side, their ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... itself expressed. But such satisfaction has been denied to the majority; the equilibrium of things has at least postponed their day. Yet they are not altogether extinguished, since the equilibrium of things is mechanical and results from no preconcerted harmony such as would have abolished everything contrary to its own perfection. Many ill-suppressed possibilities endure in matter, and peep into being through the crevices, as it were, of the dominant world. Weeds they are called by the tyrant, but in themselves they ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Morgan brought his horse from the livery stable, mounted with his rifle under the crook of his knee. At nine o'clock Peden threw open his doors, the small luminaries which led a dim existence in his effulgence following suit, all according to their preconcerted plan. ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... excite her, was no real defence. He had postponed an interview with her from day to day because he realised that that interview would strike into flame all the slumbering relations that that household held. It would fling them all, as though from a preconcerted signal, into war.... ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... of his coat, and sauntered back to his former seat. The group of chiefs gathered on the deck glanced at each other and uttered suppressed ejaculations of dismay. As for M'Bongwele, he was thoroughly discomfited; he had been shrewd enough to suspect in the professor's proposal some preconcerted arrangement, which he flattered himself he had skilfully baffled; instead of which his ruse had simply redounded to his ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Tryanites!" "Down with cant!" They had a hideous caricature of me being tripped-up and pitched head-foremost out of the pulpit. Good old Mr. Landor would insist on sending me round in the carriage; he thought I should not be safe from the mob; but I got down at the Crossways. The row was evidently preconcerted by Dempster before he set out. He made ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... and art—trade, commerce, manufactures, agriculture—and the amenities of society and manners, were allowed to develop themselves in their own way, without reference to rule and preconcerted dogmas. Hence the peculiarities which mark the institutions of America—their utter freedom from cant and the shows and pageantry of state. Bank, titles, and caste were abolished; and the enormous gulfs which separate the European man from the European lordling were bridged over by Equality ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... where they had been concealed. The cannon were hauled to the gateway, and a soldier came running with fire in his hand, ready to apply the match. Our braves gave way and retired to the camp. There was no preconcerted plan to attack the whites at that time, but I am of the opinion now that had our braves got into the fort all of the whites would have been killed, as were the British soldiers at Mackinac ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... the subject." The senate, in its turn, replied on the 14th Floreal (3rd of May): "The senate considers that the interests of the French people will be greatly promoted by confiding the government of the republic to Napoleon Bonaparte, as hereditary emperor." By this preconcerted scene was ushered in ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... knows the story of the tragedy on Magus Moor. It will be enough here to remind my readers, once more, that it was no preconcerted plan, but a pure accident—or, as the murderers themselves called it, a gift from God. The men I have named, with a few others, were really after one Carmichael, who had made himself particularly odious by ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... the spoils, and found that they had two hundred and thirteen flatirons, one stand and a cow-bell. And now the Pottses have cut the Smiths and Browns and Johnsons and Thompsons and the rest entirely, for they are convinced that there was a preconcerted design to play ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... cartridge were unconsciously received on board as PRESENTS. I had instructed Ibrahim to accompany us as my servant, as he was better than most of the men in the event of a row; and I had given orders that, in case of a preconcerted signal being given, the whole force should swim the river, supporting themselves and guns upon bundles of papyrus rush. The men thought us perfectly mad, and declared that we should be murdered immediately when on the other ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... a fray arose between his adherents and the kinsmen of his enemy. The war-whoop was raised, bullets and arrows began to fly, and the camp was in confusion. The chief sprang up, and rushing in a fury from the lodge shouted to the combatants on both sides to cease. Instantly—for the attack was preconcerted—came the reports of two or three guns, and the twanging of a dozen bows, and the savage hero, mortally wounded, pitched forward headlong to the ground. Rouleau was present, and told me the particulars. The tumult became general, and was not quelled until several had fallen on both ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... unto that man who was brought before them. It was even alleged by the impious that when Babson was in doubt what to do or what O'Brien wanted him to do the latter communicated the information to his conspirator upon the bench by a system of preconcerted signals. But indeed no such system was necessary, for the judge's part in the drama was merely to sustain his colleague's objections and overrule those of his opponent, after which he himself delivered the coup de grace with unerring insight and accuracy. When Babson got through charging ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... the Countess proposed a walk, whereupon the Count, following the preconcerted arrangement, took Boule de Suif's arm and fell behind with her a little. He adopted that familiar, paternal, somewhat contemptuous tone which elderly men affect towards such girls, calling her "my dear child," treating her from the height of his ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... him, Else's eager words had made him indignant, almost incensed. This was certainly an attempt to take him by surprise. For a moment the suspicion even awoke that Thiel was in league with Frau von der Lehde, his warning, her demand were arranged, a preconcerted attack had been executed on both sides. True, he did not dwell long upon this thought, whose improbability he himself soon perceived, but he mentally repeated Frau von der Lehde's words again and again. No other woman saw him with eyes like hers! How did she know that? No woman ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... go on indefinitely, though the body of the little creature were dried into dust. All this time the birds were silent and invisible, as if they would take no more part in the symphony of the year. Then, as if by preconcerted signal, they joined in: Crows cawed anxiously afar; Jays screamed in the woods; a Partridge clucked to its brood, like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a Kingfisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in spring, as if we now knew all about it and the merest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... explanation. The culprit addressed—a dull, heavy-looking youth of nineteen—hesitated with an air of mingled doggedness and sheepishness, and then, without replying, nudged his companion. It was evidently a preconcerted signal of rebellion, for the boy nudged stopped, and, turning a more intelligent, but equally dissatisfied, face ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to a preconcerted plan, port fires were burnt every half hour for Mr. Roe's guidance, and before midnight the boat came alongside. Mr. Roe informed me that there was good anchorage round the point; and where he landed ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... might in the excitement of the moment have lunged at me after the halt was cried, but I cannot understand how Casalverde could be so infamous as not to cross his sword when he himself called. It looked very much like a preconcerted arrangement. Casalverde deserved to die, for the safety of society. I should think that Rome had had enough of duelling for ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... chatter and laughter, which by now had prevaded the big place, ceased as by a preconcerted signal, and a dozen women gathered about the table toward which Mrs. Solomon Black was moving like the central figure in ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... Dick were near coming in for some hard usage from Goggins, conceiving it might be a preconcerted attempt on the part of his prisoners and their newly arrived friends to achieve a rescue; and while he was rolling about on the ground, he roared to his evil-visaged janitor to look to the door first, and keep ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... led on by the retreating Romans into a broken and marshy ground, where their movements were in every way impeded, and thousands were suddenly fixed immovable in the deep morass. At this moment, the enemy, by preconcerted signals, with inconceivable rapidity, being light-armed, formed; and, returning upon our now scattered forces, made horrible slaughter of all who had pushed farthest from the main body of the army. Dismay seized our ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... close up to where the plank rested on the grassy quay; turned his back upon the schooner, and began to whistle that lively air, "The Irish Washerwoman." It caught the ears of the Kanaka seamen like a preconcerted signal; with one accord they looked up from their meal and crowded to the ship's side, fei in hand and munching as they looked. Even as a poor brown Pyrenean bear dances in the streets of English towns under his master's baton; even so, but with how much more of spirit and precision, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then? He would signal or call to the Sergeant; or, if they had a preconcerted rendezvous, he would betake himself there, expecting to find his accomplice. He would neither get an answer from him nor find him, of course. Equally, of course, he would look for him. But the last place where he would expect to find him—the last place he would search—would be where the ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... place last quoted: "Wherefore, if there is no fair appearance of the causes employed being able to produce such effects, it needs must be that they are not employed to the causation of these effects as causes, but only as signs, and thus they come under the category of preconcerted signals arranged with ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... English boys adhere to anything so formal? Directly Archie announced that 'mamma was coming' Georgie pushed the gate open, and toddled to meet her, followed by all the rest of the boys, leaping, shouting, and laughing, forgetting all preconcerted speeches, and much too ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... been managed so dexterously and quietly that no sound had been heard except the reply, "A friend," that was the preconcerted signal of attack; but upon arrival at the beach the rattling of the shingle as the large party hurried toward the boat threatened to attract ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... commission that the late ministry founded their Bill for "the better Regulation of the Corporation of the City of London." They had arrived at a foregone conclusion, and asked for only the shadow of an excuse to mask their preconcerted designs against the chief and last stronghold of self-government. The fate of the Corporation was clearly doomed from the hour the House of Commons sanctioned the appointment of a prejudiced and ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... time-beater in the latter system thus taps the measure gently on the sole of the performer's foot, and special signals, as may be arranged, are sent to him by preconcerted combinations of taps. The absence of any distraction from the music itself will soon be gratefully felt by audiences, and the playing of a symphony in the twentieth century, in which the whole orchestra ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... their gratitude for our miraculous deliverance from the cloud-bank, were snoring peacefully in unconsidered attitudes about the deck, when the lookout man, perched on the supreme extremity of the mainmast, consuming a cold sausage, began an apparently preconcerted series of extraordinary and unimaginable noises. He coughed, sneezed, and barked simultaneously—bleated in one breath, and cackled in the next—sputteringly shrieked, and chatteringly squealed, with a bass of suffocated roars. There were ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... and, when within short range, they seemed about to make a rush, supposing, no doubt, that the party concealed behind the breastwork must be Indians, since they did not use firearms. Just then Redhand gave a preconcerted signal; three sheets of flame spouted from their guns, and three of the foremost Indians fell dead ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... that as he advanced he would find progress easier. This proved, indeed, to be the case, for soon Balbi found the brickwork yielding so rapidly to his efforts that one morning, a week later, Casanova heard three light taps above his head—the preconcerted signal by which they were to assure themselves that their notions of the topography of the ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... somewhere in the Lake district—refused by her from professed inability to pay the postage—paid for by Mr. Rowland Hill, who happened most opportunely to be passing that way—and, when opened, found to be blank (this plan being preconcerted between the woman and her correspondent, to know of each other's welfare without the expense of postage). A remarkable instance of "how great events from little causes spring," and have bestowed much admiration on the penetration of Mr. Hill's mind, which "wakened up at once to a significance ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... mate insisted upon undergoing the same trial with the rest of the domestics, and, as usual, comprehended Fathom in her insinuations; while he seconded the proposal, and privately counselled the old lady to introduce Teresa to the magistrate of the place. By these preconcerted recriminations, they escaped all suspicion of collusion. After a fruitless inquiry, the prisoner was discharged from her confinement, and turned out of the service of the Count, in whose private opinion the character of no person suffered so much, as that of his own son, whom he suspected ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... critic followed and seized the tail with both hands, and a number of reporters, armed with inkstands and sharpened pencils, came next, followed by a dozen policemen with brandished clubs; at the same time, the engineer in the basement received the preconcerted signal and got ready his hose, wherewith to pour boiling hot water upon the heads of, those in the streets, in case it should prove a regular systematized attack by gorillas, Brazil apes, and chimpanzees. Opposed to this formidable ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... not know how to read, was induced to lead his troops outside of the castle wall for a review. The royal order that had been shown him was no forgery, but had been sent on a previous occasion, and the attesting seal was genuine. At a preconcerted signal, two hundred Rochellois rose from ambush, and cut off the return of the English. The latter, finding their antagonists reinforced by two thousand armed citizens under the lead of the mayor himself, soon came to terms, and, withdrawing the few men they had left behind in the castle, accepted ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Kelly's we see the evidence of a preconcerted plot in which many liquor men, both Canadian and American, must have been initiated. It is an important fact also that the man entrusted with the execution of their lawless plans was himself a bartender. From the evil account of Mr. Smith's deeds, which Kelly says was given to him ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... stones from different quarries and the timbers from various shops—and different workmen have been busy upon them at times and places which forbade all conscious contact or cooperation. The conditions oppose all preconcerted action, and yet, without chipping or cutting, stone fits stone, and timber fits timber—tenons and mortises, and proportions and dimensions, all corresponding so that when the building is complete it is as perfectly proportioned and as accurately fitted as ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... did not abandon his strategic plan. The Spaniards had grown warlike in a day, but their victories had intoxicated them, and of military science they had only what they had learned by experience. There was no harmony among the generals—not even a preconcerted plan of operation. Accordingly the mass of the French army was directed toward Burgos to cut off and overwhelm Blake, while two corps under Soult were ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... done for any of us what it ought; quite the reverse. Even I am not in my usual form, if Mabel and Jane are right. They had let me alone for some time: last night they attacked me together—a preconcerted movement, obviously. ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... have been designed goes far toward proving that other organs and other seemingly less explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift-deposits, prove design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... and uttered the fateful words, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." This was doubtless the preconcerted signal for action, and it was answered by the men who sounded the war-whoop at the church door. The cry was re-echoed from the gallery, where a voice cried out, "Boston harbor a tea-pot to-night; hurrah for Griffin's wharf!" and the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... was the chief predominated strongly, as has been mentioned, in the Council of Ancients. It was through the instrumentality of that council, accordingly, that the conspirators resolved to strike their first blow. And how well their measures had been preconcerted, will sufficiently appear from the most naked statement of the events of the 18th and 19th Brumaire (Nov. 10 and 11, 1799), in the order of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... traditions, there was concluded on the 15th of September, 1491, a treaty whereby the two parties submitted themselves for an examination of all questions that concerned them to twenty-four commissioners, taken half and half from the two hosts; and, in order to give the preconcerted resolution an appearance of mutual liberty, authority was given to the young Duchess Anne to go, if she pleased, and join Maximilian in Germany. Charles VIII., accompanied by a hundred men-at-arms and fifty archers of his guard, again entered Rennes; and three days afterwards ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... soon as Elizabeth was dead, Lady Scrope dropped a sapphire ring from the window—a preconcerted signal—to her brother, Robert Carey, who was waiting below. Carey states that he was told in a more matter-of-fact way—by a sentinel, whom he had previously requested to bring him ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... the truth is," she added, "Jim has no preconcerted plan. He's made a very close man friend or two in Germany, belongs to a doctors' club. I know him so well! He lets the days, and the weeks, and the years go by, forgetting me and everything that concerns me as much as he can, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... officers having obeyed the preconcerted signal, the whole party started on their land enterprise. One of the young men was harnessed to a sledge, containing saws, hatchets, a bamboo ladder that had formerly done duty as a staircase to the Nest, and everything else requisite ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... majority of whom were fantastically attired in the national costumes of the various Indian tribes. These were grouped round a carro, or two-wheeled cart in so picturesque a manner, that it was easy to see that their performance had been preconcerted and rehearsed. They wore symbols of mourning, and seemed acting as pall-bearers and followers of a funeral; while upon the cart itself were two figures, in which the horrible and the comic were blended after a most extraordinary fashion. One of them was a Torso, from whose breast and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... periodical shots into Death's Alley, but no sooner had the shot struck, and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of curious noses, than Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved his cocked hat. At this preconcerted signal, his battery opened fire on the bastion, and the battery to his right opened on the wall that fronted them; and the colonel gave the word to run the gun out of the trenches. They ran it out into the cloud ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... never deliberately contemplated, and that the outbreak, no less than the magnitude and length of the mighty struggle, was all, humanly speaking, forced on by the logic of events, rather than through the preconcerted action of either section of the country. We say this much to demonstrate the truly prophetic character of many of the visions and communications which circulated amongst the Spiritualists prior to the opening ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... was such that he could not persuade the ladies to come out. With some hesitation he added, that it "had even been suggested that I might be an emissary or accomplice, in what was suspected to be a general and preconcerted abolition movement." This explained the questionings of my hostess, and the provision against any possible rudeness which I might have received from the "strange men" at the public table. Thus ended my projected campaign in Missouri. For ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... an enemy. It was to be supposed that, by the aid of glasses, a vast distance around could be subjected to careful scrutiny, and a constant communication kept up with the authorities in the fortress. Further, the flags or other signals were supposed preconcerted and unknown to the enemy, being formed by variations of shape and colour. Pigeons were also despatched from a considerable height to test their efficiency under novel conditions. The public press commented favourably on the performance and result ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... did see, for at some preconcerted signal the devil priests, each of them, jumped with a yell at a person near to them, gripping him or her by the hair, whereon assistants rushed in and dragged them down to the bank of the canal. Here to the number of a hundred or more, a wailing, struggling mass, they were confined in a pen ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... afternoon, having gained unobserved admittance into the house, according to preconcerted signals, he was sitting in Squire Woodcock's closet, pulling off his boots ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... source the new commander received forty-seven thousand five hundred francs in cash, and drafts for twenty thousand more; forced loans for considerable sums were made in Toulon and Marseilles; and Salicetti levied contributions of grain and forage in Genoa according to the plan which had been preconcerted between him and the general in their Jacobin days. The army which Bonaparte finally set in motion was therefore a fine engine of war. Its immediate necessities relieved, the veterans warmed to their work, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Mrs. Adolphus Green had been instrumental in imparting some knowledge of singing to two of the Miss Masons, and had continued her instructions over the last three years. This had not been done in any preconcerted way, but the lessons had grown by chance. Mrs. Mason the while had looked on with a satisfied eye at an arrangement that was so ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... them and had a good time, being more hampered by the curiosity of the unattached fish than by the pugnacity of those under our immediate attention. So we killed three, and by preconcerted signal warned the watchers on the lofty points ashore of our success. As speedily as possible off came four boats from the shore stations, and hooked on to two of our fish, while we were busy with the third. The wind being off shore, what there was of it, no time was to be lost, in view of the ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... the inhabitants feared that the dreaded visitor would soon arrive, and the following ingenious contrivance was adopted for warding off the danger. At midnight, when the male population was supposed to be asleep, all the maidens met in nocturnal costume, according to a preconcerted plan, and formed a procession. In front marched a girl, holding an Icon. Behind her came her companions, dragging a sokha—the primitive plough commonly used by the peasantry—by means of a long rope. In this order the procession made the circuit of the entire village, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... course, attached himself ostensibly to the Daymond party. He seemed to bear Geof no grudge because of his defection in the matter of the tramp among the Dolomites, which he himself, indeed, had appeared ready enough to relinquish. Without any preconcerted plan it usually happened that the two gondolas fell in with each other in the course of the afternoon, an arrangement which was much facilitated by the brilliant-hued banners floating ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller |
