"Red-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... capital. The Chinese, however, being, as has been so often stated, an eminently practical people, understand that certain cases admit of no delay; and to prevent the inevitable lynching of such criminals as kidnappers, rebels, and others, caught red-handed, high officials are entrusted with the power of life and death, which they can put into immediate operation, always taking upon themselves full responsibility for their acts. The essential is to allay any excitement of the populace, and to preserve ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... have it, one night when they were camped near the kraal of a small Basuto tribe, his companions becoming hungry, stole a goat and killed it. Zinti ate of the goat, for they told him that they had bought it for some beads, and while they were still eating the Basutos came upon them and caught them red-handed. Next day they were tried by the councillors of the tribe and condemned to die as thieves, but the chief, who wanted servants, spared their lives and set them to labour in his gardens, where they were watched day ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... date set for the operation and before her father, who was still able to be about, had entered the hospital, the flat had been broken into during the early morning hours. The thief, obviously not counting on the engineer's wakefulness, had been caught red-handed. At first defiant, the man had finally broken down, and had told a miserable story. It was hackneyed possibly, the same story told by a thousand others as a last defense in the hope of inducing leniency through an appeal to pity, but somehow to her that ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... until Friday, that Mary's "little friends" caught her red-handed, in an escapade that explained everything from the size of her trunk to the puzzling insouciance of her manner. They all, and particularly Roberta, had begun to feel a little hurt as the days went by and Mary indulged in many mysterious ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... was a notorious character, and cruel in the extreme. Finally a game warden caught him red-handed, arrested him, and took him to Cody for trial. It happened that the judge on the bench had once trapped with him, and therefore "he set the game-killer free, while ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... just enough to see him with no choice of party allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old regime red-handed with the ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... business had been done for him, and he had escaped the guilt of it. His second, that here lay a chance of fair profit. Godfrey was a great man, and Bedloe and Carstairs were the seediest of rogues. He might make favor for himself with the Government if he had them caught red-handed. It would help his status in Aldersgate Street.... But he must act at once or the murderers would be gone. He tiptoed back along the passage, tumbled down the crazy steps, and ran up the steep entry to where he saw a glimmer ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... pull an oar, run in a race; mix oneself up with &c. (meddle) 682. be in action; come into operation &c. (power at work) 170. Adj. doing &c. v.; acting; in action; in harness; on duty; in operation &c. 170. Adv. in the act, in the midst of, in the thick of; red-handed, in flagrante delicto[Lat]; while one's hand is in. Phr. "action is eloquence" [Coriolanus]; actions speak louder than words; actum aiunt ne agas [obs3][Lat][Terence]; "awake, arise, or be forever fall'n" [Paradise Lost]; dii ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... between the players representing Harvard and Pennsylvania. The contest was sharp and bitterly fought all the way through. Both teams had complained frequently to Edwards, the Umpire. Finally he caught two men red-handed, so to speak. There was no argument. Both men admitted it. It so happened that both men were very valuable to their respective teams. The loss of either man would be greatly felt. Both captains cornered Edwards and both agreed that he was perfectly right in his contention that ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... and Hallock set a woman on him—a woman out of Cat Biggs's dance-hall. From that to holding out fares to get more money to squander was only a step for the young fool, and he took it. Having baited the trap and set it, Hallock sprung it. One fine day Jackson was caught red-handed and turned over to the company lawyers. There had been a good bit of talk and they made an example of him. He's got a couple of years to serve yet, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... they are caught and punished. Of those who stole the millions in Harrisburg, nearly a score have died disgraced, or are in prison or exile; and $1,300,000 has been returned to the treasury of the State. Even when those who betray us are not caught red-handed we learn to distrust and then to despise them. They pass their last years in exile, and when their statues are erected in our State Houses they are memorials of shame. Thus we learn the art of living, we who ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... came upon her for what she had done. Chauvelin had told her nothing, it was true; but she remembered how sarcastic and evil he looked when she took final leave of him after the ball. Had he discovered something then? Had he already laid his plans for catching the daring plotter, red-handed, in France, and sending him to the guillotine ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... swift wits were on the alert. Never before had he known this kind of hospitality to be tendered in a police station to a man arrested red-handed. And although suspicious, he was nevertheless flattered. All criminals, whether at the top or bottom of their profession, ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... profile or the smooth delight of her tone at some of her own cruelties. Some day he would have it out with her when the right moment came. Before he reached the house he had had time to sketch a number of scenes in which she, caught extraordinarily red-handed, was forced to listen to his exposition of the evil of such methods as hers. He would say to her, "I remember that you once said to me, Mrs. Farron—" Anger cut short his vision as a cloud of her phrases came back to him, like ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... Crenshaw did not reply: "Wherein are you different from any other felon taken red-handed—except that you were taken twice in ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... extremes. He who, sinning and laden with the burden of human guilt, has once fallen a victim to the Eumenides, cannot, as a figure in a drama, go off on pleasure trips, nor can he go about the usual business of daily life. Fate seizes him red-handed, causes him to see blood in every glass of champagne and to read his warrant of arrest on every chance scrap of paper. And the Comic Muse is even less indulgent. When Aristophanes would mock the creations of Euripides, which are meant to move the public by their declining fortunes, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Melinoff was an old-clothes and junk dealer, and, as a side line, at times a very profitable side line, had been known to act as a "fence" for stolen goods. He had skirted for years on the ragged edge with the police, and then, caught red-handed at last, had changed his occupation for a more useful one during a somewhat prolonged sojourn in Sing Sing. Affairs after that had not prospered with Melinoff. His wife, honest if her husband was not, and already an old woman, had been hard put to it with the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Government enforcement agents, game protectors, State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod's trespass signs fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law breaking and nobody can catch him red-handed. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... groups of two each from the trampled hill slope, bearing on stretchers their ghastly burden of bleeding and wounded men. Although coming within musket-range of the American force, no molestation was offered. Their work of humanity was felt to be too sacred for even red-handed War to disturb. Indeed, both American and British wounded were cared ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... possible accomplice of the Sieur de Retz, but by the intercession of the Scottish maidens, as well as by the sworn evidence of Sholto and the Lord James, testifying that wholly by her means Gilles de Retz had finally been caught red-handed, she was permitted to depart whither ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... said Chester. "Now I am almost positive that the conspirators will gather for one more session before the German advance, if only to make sure that nothing has gone amiss. We can surround the house and capture them red-handed." ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... game. He would keep him in sight, hang on his flank, follow his trail wherever it led, in the hope of finding the rendezvous of the gang. Then he would ride with whip and spur to the ranch, Melton would gather his men together, and they would swoop down on the outlaws' camp and catch them red-handed with ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... that they did not seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a force of Swazis burying ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... in the matter. I could swear to you. But I would not, lad—not if I caught you red-handed. You must know, Clarke, since there is none to overhear us, that in the old days I was a Justice of the Peace in Surrey, and that our friend here was brought up before me on a charge of riding somewhat late o' night, and of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said Hassib. "I heard of the misfortune; but it was by the hand of Arabi's soldiers that he fell; not that of the English. Arabi's soldiers, or plunderers who called themselves such. The English sailors caught them red-handed, and hung them up for it then ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... thousands of enemies; the people curse and groan at him; if he were stabbed by an Italian, 'Oh, another of those Camorristi wretches!' would be the cry. The agent must come from England, and, if he is taken red-handed, then let him say if he likes that he is connected with an association which knows how to reach evil-doers who are beyond the ordinary reach of the law; but let him make it clear that it is no Camorra ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... in a sunny land! Yet here pressing relentlessly upon his mind were the murders of Vise, the massacres of Dinant, the massacres of Louvain, murder red-handed and horrible upon an inoffensive people, foully invaded, foully treated; murder done with a sickening cant of ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... the frankest truthsayer. He is the august companion with whom one walks with the gods. He is also in league with the Noseless One. His way leads to truth naked, and to death. He gives clear vision, and muddy dreams. He is the enemy of life, and the teacher of wisdom beyond life's wisdom. He is a red-handed killer, and ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... if a murderer could be caught red-haired instead of red-handed," retorted Paynter. "Why, at this very minute, you could be caught red-haired yourself. Are you a ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... resolved to waylay him this morning and force him to give me satisfaction, or if he refused—well, no matter! I tell you, there was danger in me! But, before retiring to bed at night, it is my habit to say my prayers; now the practice of prayer and the purpose of 'red-handed violence,' cannot exist in the same person at the same time! I wouldn't sleep without praying, and I couldn't pray without giving up my thoughts of fatal vengeance upon Craven Le Noir. So at last I made up my mind to spare ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... with the worst element on board, and only joined us from fear of being killed just as Estada was. He has no heart in this job, and would accept any chance to square himself with those cut-throats below. I'll have trouble with him before we are done, but prefer to catch the man red-handed." ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... detectives had been shot dead—poor Ross had been the first victim. Five had been seriously wounded. Several others had been injured. But the entire gang of The Four Faces had finally been captured. Some had been arrested in the house, red-handed; among these were Connie Stapleton and Doris Lorrimer—guests at Eldon for the week, they had been discovered in Mrs. Stapleton's bedroom in the act of packing into a bag jewellery belonging to Lord and Lady Cranmere. Others had been run down in the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... suggestion was hopeless. If the Jews were set on effecting the death of Jesus, they would not give up their right to choose their prisoners to be released, and take at the dictation of Pilate the very man they wanted to have done to death. They clamoured for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed. The cynicism of their choice is palpable. By daring to make it, they show in what contempt they hold Pilate. The governor loses ground considerably ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... suppose this is your book? And I am afraid you have caught me red-handed. You must excuse me for looking at it, but usually at this season only German Alpine climbers stop at the Hotel du Lac, and I was surprised, you know, to find that German Alpine climbers did anything so frivolous ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... when he heard her story, said he thought it would be better to catch the thief red-handed in the fowl-run than to surprise him in his den, and the police were set to watch again ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... warm. I could not sleep, but the night passed rapidly. I was anxious about the ascent, for gusts of ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. Then wild animals howled, and "Ring" was perturbed in spirit about them. Then it was strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man, sleeping as quietly as innocence sleeps. But, above all, it was exciting to lie there, with no better shelter than a bower of pines, on a mountain 11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the Rocky Range, under twelve degrees ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... was farthest removed from the Revolutionists of the vulgar, red-handed class. He consecrated his life to prevent Revolution. All his action in the conflict between Labor and Capital aimed at conciliation. He told the plutocrats their defects with brutal frankness, and if he promoted laws to curb them, it was because ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... when you have come into court as the sworn representatives of the State, to sit in judgement upon the report of these proceedings, you should acquit the author of all the evil, when you have taken him red-handed in actions like these. {133} Who is there of all your fellow citizens—nay, who of all the Hellenes—that would not have good cause for complaint against you, when he saw that though you were enraged against Philip, who in making peace after war was merely purchasing ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... continued to receive visitors. It had long been decided that she must be taken in the act of sorcery, and warning had that day been given that she expected illustrious company in the evening. The watch were to find her red-handed, so to speak; the leech was to prove whether her house was indeed plague-stricken; and in either case the senate wished to have the sorceress safe in prison and at their mercy, though even Philippus had not been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... back into the little office where Mary Carstairs waited, fresh from more cheap plotting in which she was the innocent central figure; and faced her, uncomfortable, ill at ease, disquieted inwardly as a conspirator taken red-handed. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Dick's advice. "Some day we'll catch both of them red-handed at something, and then we can give 'em what's coming ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... now deprived of its chief; the remaining four conveyed Pierre to the little wood, while the robbers, hearing no signal, did not venture to stir. According to agreement, Pierre Buttel was tried by the archers, who promptly transformed themselves into a court of justice, and as he had been taken red-handed, and did not condescend to defend himself, the trial was not a long affair. He was unanimously sentenced to be hung, and the execution was then and there carried out, at the request of the criminal himself, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Tabs forgot the silly beginnings of this upset and the endless troubles it had caused. All he saw was a typical ragamuffin of humanity in the grip of the policeman, Nemesis. Adair had been caught trying to do what thousands of other ragamuffins achieved daily with success. He had been arrested red-handed in the act of stealing forbidden happiness. It was his first offense. He was inexpert and had bungled. He had bungled because, while assuming the role of roguery, he had remained at heart an honest ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... from accepting any of her manufactures. His Fontainebleau decree of October 18th, 1810, ordered that all such goods should be seized and publicly burnt; and five weeks later special tribunals were instituted for enforcing these ukases and for trying all persons, whether smugglers caught red-handed or shopkeepers who inadvertently offered for sale the cottons of Lancashire ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... jungle, springs upon a man and overpowers him by the suddenness of the assault. The word so rendered may perhaps be represented by some such phrase as 'discovered'; or, if I may use a 'colloquialism,' if a man be caught 'red-handed.' That is the idea. And Paul does not use the weak word 'fault,' but a very much stronger one, which means stark staring sin. He is supposing a bad case of inconsistency, and is not palliating it at all. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... easy to tell the combatant, unless he be caught red-handed. They all wear khaki, the only difference being that a civilian wears pearl buttons, the soldiers the metal military button with the Imperial Crown stamped on it. When it is borne in mind that the buttons are hooked on, one can imagine how simple it ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... captured," she continued, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her mackintosh. "It appears that he is shadowed, and it is not unreasonable to expect that we shall be chased before the day is over. Then we shall be caught red-handed in an attempt to get a criminal over the border. Please wait until I have finished," she said, holding up her hand at an interruption I was about to make. "You and I know he is not a criminal; but he might as well be as far ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... this little episode," continued Cummins, "was the defense set up by George Washington's lawyer. There was no doubt that George was guilty of highway robbery. He had been caught red-handed, and ten Chinamen were prepared to testify to the fact. But counsel argued that by the laws of the State a white man could not be convicted on the testimony of Chinamen; and that, within the meaning of the statute, in view ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... been planted in ambush many hours before, galloped up, and with these new diabolical engines of war, shot leaden bullets, and laid many an honest fellow low, and so quelled the courage of others that they yielded them prisoners. These being taken red-handed, the victors, who with malice inconceivable had brought cords knotted round their waists, did speedily hang, and by their side the dead ones, to make the gallanter show. "That one at the end was the captain. He never felt the cord. He was riddled with broad arrows ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... for several days following, made out exhaustive lists of eatables, bedding and utensils such as would have provided amply for a regiment of soldiers. In the midst of the preparations Sarah was caught red-handed packing her ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... many of them couched in language even stronger and more suited to fan the public rage. The recent trial was called an outrageous travesty on justice; attention was directed to the damnable vagaries of recent juries which had been impaneled to try red-handed Italian murderers. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... the Lord Provost, and each sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour. I was called to give evidence in the court, and chagrined the two London sharpers must have felt to find out how they had been caught red-handed. This was my first appearance in a ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... friend passing in the street, or waved salutations with a duster. Swift upon such discoveries, she would execute a flank march across the few steps of garden and steal into the house, noiselessly ascend the stairs, and catch the offender red-handed at this public dalliance. But all such domestic espionage to right and left was flavourless and insipid compared to the tremendous discoveries which daily and hourly awaited the trained observer of the street that lay directly in front ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... churchmen. We are not moved by a boy's rhetoric. The facts lie on the surface, and we need not enquire whether one is truly a rebel who was taken red-handed in the so-called 'Camp of Refuge;' nor do we deign to discuss those rights, which Christendom acknowledges, with our subjects. The question is this: Does the youth simply merit the lighter doom of a rebel, or the far heavier one of a parricide and ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... crushing or drowning them like rats. At another point, when baffled in their efforts to overturn a sleeping-car in front of a patrol engine, and dispersed by a dozen well-aimed shots, the rioters impanelled their coroner's jury, and declared the red-handed participants innocent spectators and the officer and his men murderers. At a third, when a great railway centre was found in the hands of the strikers and the troops were ordered to clear the platform, one surly specimen not only refused to budge, but lavished on ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... in three minutes. Wasn't it far better to catch him red-handed as we have? You will at least admit that it was far neater. I say I have the place. I say we are all going to it at two in the morning. I say, let us sleep till a little after one. Was it not obvious what would happen? The only thing ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... recklessness brought the inevitable disaster; and it was no less a personage than Oliver Cromwell who overcame the hitherto invincible Allen. A handful of the gang attacked Oliver on his way from Huntingdon, but the marauders were outmatched, and the most of them were forced to surrender. Allen, taken red-handed, swung at Tyburn; Hind, with his better mount and ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... alone was able to manage him, but she had other things to do as well; so it is not strange that he escaped from the leash. He relates one amusing incident where he was caught red-handed. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... always suggested a happy phrase, 'to ask for your hearts and nothing but your hearts.' As she did not allude to her debts, the populace threw up their caps; the Prince de Monaco, just cured of his wound at Crecy, placed his sword at her service; and the Baron de Benil, red-handed from a cruel murder, besought her patronage which, perhaps from a fellow-feeling, she promised with great alacrity. At Grasse she won all hearts and made many more promises, and finally, arriving ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... his antagonist should speak the truth,—Mr. Rollins was convinced that the latter was really, in some way, to blame. But of course he could not punish him without reason; while Jim had been caught red-handed, and must, at least, be reprimanded and warned. The gentleman told him that he forfeited his recess for a week, and that, if he trespassed again in this manner, he would be degraded to a ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... will go over their final plans in detail to make sure that everything is understood. The darkness will let us slip up closer to the house, and we may be able to overhear what they say. Don't forget, too, that our main job is to catch the Hoffs red-handed." ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... once!" cried Benassis, and he made straight for the little wood, urging his horse at a furious speed across the ditches and fields, as if he were riding a steeplechase, in his anxiety to catch the sportsman red-handed. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... not, sir, but he was caught red-handed Killing the king's deer. By the forest law He should of rights be blinded; ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... father-in-law and endeavor to persuade him to relinquish his career of crime. In this he was actuated by two powerful motives—the desire to relieve Eugenie's distress and suspense and the wish to avoid the scandal that would be sure to come should the former banker be caught red-handed in the commission of some fearful crime and a legal ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... aeons pass them by, They rise at last to day. The spirits of our fathers rise Triumphant through the starry skies; And we may hear their choral song,— The firm in faith, the noble throng,— It bids us crush a deadly wrong, Wrought by red-handed Cain. AND WE SHALL CONQUER! for the Right Goes onward with resistless might: His hand shall win for us the fight. WE, too, shall ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that it contained, a suspicion that there was something queer about those skeletons had made me quite uncomfortable. Now, after reading his first narrative, I knew all about them. They were the relics of criminals whom he had taken red-handed and preserved for the instruction of posterity. Thus were my utmost suspicions verified, and yet, strange as it may seem, with the advent of certainty, my horror of them vanished. Even the hideous little doll-like heads induced ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... But still red-handed at your horrid trade You wrought, to reason deaf, and to compassion. But now with gods and men your peace is made I beg you to be good and in ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... that I was guilty of the foul crime which had been committed; for murdered she had been, of that there was no doubt. Branded as a murderess I was borne off to prison. Many thought me guilty. It was cruelly said that I was found red-handed by the side of my victim. But even in prison I sought support, and obtained it whence alone it was to be afforded. As King David, I could say, 'I have washed my hands in innocency. I cried unto the Lord ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... Reillaghan, bitterly, in Irish, "but I doubt the red-handed villain has cut short the lives of my two brave sons! I only hope he may stop in the country: I'm not widout friends an' followers that 'ud think it no sin in a just cause to pay him in his own coin, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... woe to him by whom the offence cometh. So said that Messiah of whom I spoke to thee, and it was truly said. If thou slayest this innocent woman, I say unto thee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit from thine ancient tree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will this man take thee red-handed from the slaughter of her who loved ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Deil take me if anyone could blame us if we paid him a visit. For all the world knows how often some cows, or a calf or two, have vanished on a dark night from the hillsides at Harden, and though a Murray hath never yet been ta'en red-handed, it is easy to know where the larders o' Elibank get their plenishing. Turn about is fair play, say I, and now that the pastures at Harden are empty, 'tis time that we thought of taking our revenge. Sir Juden was a wily man in his youth, and sly as a pole-cat, but men say that nowadays he ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... might that man be?" asked Ailill of Fergus. "Indeed, but we know him," Fergus made answer; "the wild, red-handed, [3]rending[3] lion; the fierce, fearful bear that overcometh valour. [4]He is the high doer of deeds, warlike, and fierce,[4] Errge Echbel ('Horse-mouth'), from Bri Errgi ('Errge's Mound') in the north, is ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... loafers; the continuous changing of the tide; the opening of the lock gates; the departure of the tug; its triumphant return, leading in custody a timber-laden barque from the Baltic, a little self-conscious and ashamed, as if caught red-handed in iniquity by this fussy little officer; the independent sailing of a grimy steamer bound for Sunderland and more coal; the elaborate wharfing of the barque:—all these things on a hot still day can exercise an hypnotic influence ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... last affair, anyhow," said he, as he took us into his office. "You might say the man was caught red-handed! All the same, Mr. Lindsey, he's in his rights to ask for a lawyer, and you can ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... placed above, dripped its contents. To these elements of combustion the sun added its power, and sixteen hours afterwards the fire broke out. Happily it was instantly extinguished; and the agents that produced it were caught, red-handed as it were, in the act. The chances are that such a particular combination of circumstances might not occur again in a thousand years. The sawdust will not be swept again into such a position under the oil, or the bottle will not break over the sawdust, or the ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... He tried to get up as high as his brothers, but the thin boughs broke beneath him, so he had to be content with staying in the lower part of the tree on the thicker boughs; so there he sat, hugging the millstone in his arms. Presently some robbers came along that way, red-handed from their work, and they too prepared to pass the night under the tree. So they cut them down firewood, and made them a roaring fire beneath a huge cauldron, and in this cauldron they began to boil their supper. They boiled and boiled till their mess of pottage was ready, ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... around New Orleans. In no other civilized country in the world, nay, more, in no land of barbarians would it be possible to duplicate the scenes of brutality that are reported from New Orleans. In the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting men who had no possible connection ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... we alarm anybody? We know the plans as well as these scoundrels themselves. Why not follow them right into the castle, capture them red-handed, and then do the alarming? I'm in for saving the Princess of Graustark with our own hands and right under the noses of her vaunted guardsmen, as Michael says." Lorry was thrilled by the spirit of adventure. His hand gripped his friend's ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of to-day—about whom more strange tales were told than of the bloody buccaneer himself. That the walls of his house were ceiled with jewels, shedding their accumulated lustre of years so that never candle need shine in the place, was well known. That the spellbound souls of all those on his red-handed ancestor's roll were fain to keep watch and ward over their once treasures, by night and noon, white-sheeted and faint in the glare of the sun, wan in the moon, blacker shadows in the starless dark, found belief. And there were those who had seen his seraglio;—but few, indeed, had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... smile and earned an infamous title. Rapine, murder, lust, oppression, high-handed bullying, servile slavishness in every vile abandonment, have bred up delicate, dreamy aristocrats. Their ancestors, by the two strains, were either red-handed marauders, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... FRANCESCHINI. He has been caught red-handed from the murder of his wife. His crime is patent. He has himself confessed it under torture. His only hope of reprieve lies in the colour which he may be able to impart to it; and his speech is cunningly adapted to the nature of the Court, and to the moral ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... "That may seem a strange thing to say," he went on, "but it is the truth. Of course we don't want the dam blown up, or even slightly damaged, but it will be better to let them make the attempt, and catch them red-handed, than just to scare them off before they make a try. Because, if we do that they may only come back again, later, when we're not ready for them. But if we let them see we are prepared and can catch some of them at work, it ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... "—caught red-handed with the incriminating papers," shouted an offstage announcer. "Handbills asserting objects declared ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... boat, amid recent traces of business with salmon, codfish, and the like. The heat was putting a point on the smell of defunct fish. The dried scales of them still clung to the small vessel's timbers. In keeping, the girl should have been buxom, red-handed, coarsely healthy. And she was anything but that. No frail, delicate creature, mind you,—but she did not belong in a fishing boat. She looked the lady, carried herself like one,—patrician from the top ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... buffets her favourites is sometimes true. Here we catch the baggage red-handed. With one cold relentless palm she threatens to take from Anthony, who hath not, even that which he hath: with the other she is strewing blossoms upon what is to be his path. With her right hand she robs the beggar, with ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... selfishness, selfwill, sensuality, or other forms of sin, but there is one thing you cannot do, you cannot prevent His loving you. If I might venture without seeming irreverent, I would point to that pathetic page in the Old Testament history where the king hears of the death, red-handed in treason, of his darling son, and careless of victory and forgetful of everything else, and oblivious that Absalom was a rebel, and only remembering that he was his boy, burst into that monotonous wail that has come down over all the centuries as the deepest ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Standing. I was caught red-handed. Now the right and the wrong of this affair with Professor Haskell I shall not discuss. It was purely a private matter. The point is, that in a surge of anger, obsessed by that catastrophic red wrath that has cursed me down the ages, I killed ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... I ordered you to come with me; because if you hadn't I would have killed you back there in the shack, you red-handed murderer. Now listen, Hughes. I know what you are—a cattle thief. You and Le Fevre belong to the same outfit, only he was the smarter of the two. I have spared your life for a purpose, and if you fail me now I 'll shoot you down as I would a dog. Don't try to threaten me, you cur, ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... up the garden walk. The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom he heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold. The audacity of the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry. The Lord had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge, distinctly jubilant. In the passageway ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... a very prettily laid trap," was the grim answer. "No, my dear young lady, we are not going to leave the cave unguarded. I'll have men watching day and night until we catch them red-handed. It is sure to ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... one of the established ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader of the outlaws had saved the men by ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... there are men and women who are vaguely known as gossips; but they are seldom caught red-handed. For one thing, they do not often speak at first hand. They profess only to repeat something that they have heard—something, they are careful to add, which is probably quite untrue, and which they themselves do ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... then clicked shut as his Colt swung down. But he did not shoot; something inside of him held his trigger finger and he swore instead. The idea of a man stealing his horse, being caught red-handed and unarmed, and still possessed of sufficient courage to call his captor a name never tolerated or overlooked in that country! And the idea that he, Hopalong Cassidy, of the Bar-20, could not shoot such ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... and with enthusiasm. "Shrimp was hard to swallow, and he would have made this place purgatory to us. But he was caught, red-handed, and we've had a lesson, the first day in the service, that real justice rules always in the Army. The breaking-in as recruits, Noll, is going to be harder than I thought, even if we have such fine men as Brimmer and Davis ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... belongs to the De Vescis, the blackest Lancaster fellow of all! His daughter is the widow of the red-handed Clifford, who slew young Earl Edmund on Wakefield Bridge. They say her young son is in hiding in some moss in his lands, for the King holds him in deadly feud for his ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a feeling of horror was a proceeding fraught with peril to the royal cause. Anger does not discriminate, and to the Protestants of England, North and South, old Irish, and Anglo-Irish, honourable gentlemen of the Pale, and red-handed rebels of Ulster, were all alike guilty. Nor was this Charles's only difficulty. The Confederates declined to abate a jot of their terms. The free exercise of the Catholic religion, an independent Irish parliament, a general pardon, and a reversal of all attainders were ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... Every man, black or white, was "neighbor" to him, and he ever fulfilled the command of his Lord, to "love his neighbor as himself." Against oppression he could, however, be stern and severe. Not a few ruffians whom he caught red-handed in flagrant acts of cruelty were executed without mercy. So that the same man who, by the down-trodden people, was called the "Good Pasha," was to the robber and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the married sister of the terrible priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest's brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons' sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that more than once in the last ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the body left no room for doubt that the victim of the tragedy and the man who had sold him the diamond were identical. He began to realize the responsibilities of the bargain, and the daring of his visitor of the day before, in venturing before him almost red-handed, gave him an unpleasant idea of the lengths to which he was prepared to go. In a pleasanter direction it gave him another idea; it was strong confirmation of ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... red-handed outlaw, sleeping on the straw of a dungeon. To-day I wake in a royal bed and my varlets call me monseigneur. There are but three ways of explaining this singular situation. Either I am drunk or I am mad or I am dreaming. If I am drunk, I shall never distinguish Bordeaux ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... instead of condemning the red-handed to death, they condemned them to a solitary ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Gay far more than the original poaching had done. To be flouted in his own pasture on the subject of his own game by a handsome barbarian, whom he had caught red-handed in the act of stealing, would have appealed irresistibly to his sense of humour, if it ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... who have shown as much self-devotion in carrying a lone wall-flower down to the supper-table as ever saint or martyr in the act that has canonized his name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ballroom, whom nothing can hold back from their errands of mercy. They find out the red-handed, gloveless undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms in his corner, and distill their soft words upon him like dew upon the green herb. They reach even the poor relation, whose dreary apparition ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) |
