"Groat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my part, I believe the mind is less evil than people say it is; its great characteristic is imitation, and it will imitate the good as well as the bad, if we will set the example. I thank Heaven, sir, that my boy now might go from Dan to Beersheba and not filch a groat by the way." ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... obligations to the Queen than to Essex. What these obligations were it is not easy to discover. The situation of Queen's Counsel, and a remote reversion, were surely favours very far below Bacon's personal and hereditary claims. They were favours which had not cost the Queen a groat, nor had they put a groat into Bacon's purse. It was necessary to rest Elizabeth's claims to gratitude on some other ground; and this Mr. Montagu felt. "What perhaps was her greatest kindness," says he, "instead ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he answered; "there is my stake. Set what you please against it, were it no more than a silver groat. I do not ask to be ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... part of the country from John o' Groat's to Land's End, from the Scilly Isles to Sark. There was merry-making among the English residents in every foreign place, as far as the great colonies in the still ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... and gave her a broadside, she cried out for Quarters, which made them cease firing, and ordered the Captain to come aboard, which proved to be Captain Hawkins, whom they had dismissed three days before, not worth a groat. Two Days after, they anchored at Ratran, not far from Honduras, and put ashore Captain Hawkins, and several others, giving them powder and ball, and a musquet, and then left them to shift as well as they could. Here they ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... Horncastle. I believe I have told you my history,' said he—'no, not quite; there is one circumstance I had passed over. I told you that I have thriven very well in business, and so I have upon the whole: at any rate, I find myself comfortably off now. I have horses, money, and owe nobody a groat; at any rate, nothing but what I could pay to-morrow. Yet I have had my dreary day, ay, after I had obtained what I call a station in the world. All of a sudden, about five years ago, everything seemed to ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... one long room was the result. They were all three fairly full; that into which they entered, the first in the row, was occupied by some gentlemen-pensioners and ladies talking and laughing; some playing shove-groat, and some of them still applauding the song that had just ended. The middle room was much the same; and the third, which was a step higher than the others, was that in which was the Queen, with Lady Leicester and a few more. Lady ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... Soliloquy,—and, in a few Minutes, to his Doubts too; for a Labourer in the Town, who deem'd himself past his fifty-second Year, had been returned by the Constable in the Militia-List,—and he had come, with a Groat in his Hand, to search the Parish Register for his Age.—The Parson bid the poor Fellow put the Groat into his Pocket, and go into the Kitchen:—Then shutting the Study Door, and taking down the Parish Register,—Who knows, says he, but ...
— A Political Romance • Laurence Sterne
... my father, after a pause, "thee shall take my son home, and I'll give thee a groat. Let me see; art thee a lad to be trusted?" And holding him at arm's length, regarding him meanwhile with eyes that were the terror of all the rogues in Norton Bury, Abel Fletcher jingled temptingly the silver money in the ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... for my sins or his ain that the lad has sic auld world notions? There isna a pagan altar-stane 'tween John O'Groat's an' Lambaness he doesna run after. I wish he were as anxious to serve in the Lord's temple—I would build him a kirk an' ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... detest him."—"If you detest un never so much," cries Western, "you shall ha'un." This he bound by an oath too shocking to repeat; and after many violent asseverations, concluded in these words: "I am resolved upon the match, and unless you consent to it I will not give you a groat, not a single farthing; no, though I saw you expiring with famine in the street, I would not relieve you with a morsel of bread. This is my fixed resolution, and so I leave you to consider on it." He then broke ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... "you have a brand new football which you may kick from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End without its being much the worse for its journey, only you must not treat it as you ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... cumber us with his sermons for ever, and set every lazy lad thinking he must needs run after them? No, no, my good boy, take my advice. Thou shalt have two good bellyfuls a day, all my cast gowns, and a pair of shoes by the year, with a groat a month if thou wilt keep mine house, bring in my meals, and the like, and by and by, so thou art a good lad, and runst not after these new-fangled preachments which lead but to heresy, and set folk racking their brains about sin and such trash, we'll get thee ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... steam is not the only terrible agent at work in that same basement. If you only saw the electric batteries there that generate the electricity which enables us up-stairs to send our messages flying from London to the Land's End or John o' Groat's, or the heart of Ireland! You must know that a far stronger battery is required to send messages a long way than a short. Our Battery Inspector told me the other day that he could not tell exactly the power of all the batteries united, but he had no ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Mony Groat was sexton of the church. He performed also the office of policeman in the gallery during the service, going about with a cane, and rapping the heads of disorderly boys. In winter his duties were multiplied. The ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... in the pound on all who enjoyed twenty pounds a year and upwards; one shilling on all who possessed between twenty pounds and forty shillings a year; and on the other subjects above sixteen years of age, a groat a head. This last sum was divided into two yearly payments; the former into four, and was not therefore at the utmost above sixpence in the pound. The grant of the commons was but the moiety of the sum demanded; and the cardinal, therefore, much mortified with the disappointment, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... will be before my countrymen find out that it is worth while to spend a penny in order to get a groat? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... indeed. By this art he could tell how to make men send their goods to his shop, and then be glad to take a penny for that for which he had promised before it came thither, to give them a Groat: I say, he could make them glad to take a Crown for a pounds worth, and a thousand for that for which he had promised before to give ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... Land's End and John O'Groat's, a highly-treasured heir-loom, known as the "British Sense of Fair Play." It disappeared immediately after the issuing of the Report of the Parnell Commission, and has never been seen or heard of since. Many applicants have claimed to have re-discovered ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... Skill or Art, are these Diviners; "But superstitious Prophets, Guessers impudent, "Or idle Rogues, or craz'd, or mere starving Beggars. "They know no way themselves, yet others would direct; "And crave a Groat of those, to whom they promise Riches: "Thence let them take the Groat, and give ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... not all, some sing another note; My mother will say no, I hold a groat. But I thought 'twas somewhat, he would be a carter; He hath been whipping lately some blind bear, And now he would ferk the blind ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... he had traveled from Antioch in the south-east to Troas in the northwest of Asia Minor, a distance as far as from Land's End to John O' Groat's, evangelizing all the way. It must have taken months, perhaps even years. Yet of this long, laborious period we possess no details whatever, except such features of his intercourse with the Galatians as ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... don't care for the bankruptcy now. I can face my creditors, like an honest man; and I can crawl to my grave, afterwards, as poor as a church-mouse. What does it signify? Job Thornberry has no reason now to wish himself worth a groat:—the old ironmonger and brazier has nobody to board his money for now! I was only saving for my daughter; and she has run away from her doating, foolish ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... bitter winter the moat was frozen over, and the lads, making themselves skates of marrow-bones, which they bought from the hall cook at a groat a pair, went skimming over the smooth surface, red-checked and shouting, while the crows and the jackdaws looked down at them from the top of ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... nor will he perform, and has persuaded others to join with him, his very worthlessness having made him their leader, and they threaten, unless they may receive additional 4 shillings per week, and a groat each night for sack, they will have no plays performed, nor will they allow others to be hired in their stead. They do further demand that you shall write shorter plays; that you shall write no tragedies requiring them to labor more than three hours ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... brawn, and being tender boil'd take it up, and put it into a hoop to fashion it upright and round, then keep it dry, and take it out of the clout, and serve it whole with mustard and sugar, or some gallendines. If lean, lard it with groat Lard. ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... carat is generally a twenty-fourth part of a diner, i.e. about 5d.; but here it appears to be a sixtieth part or about 2d. Burton, "A copper carat, a bright polished groat."] ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... padre, doubtfully. "I do not understand. I know something of Esteban Silvela. A lean man of plots and devices. My friend, do you know that Esteban has not a groat? The Silvela fortunes and estate came from the mother and went to the daughter. Esteban is the Senora Christina's steward, and her marriage would alter his position at the least. Did he not spoil the magic ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... to you I have walked nearly 160 miles. I was terribly taken in with respect to distances—however, I managed to make my way. I have been to Johnny Groat's House, which is about twenty-two miles from this place. I had tolerably fine weather all the way, but within two or three miles of that place a terrible storm arose; the next day the country was covered with ice ...
— Letters to his wife Mary Borrow • George Borrow
... these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone all his life, and die not worth a groat at last. 'If you would be wealthy, think of saving ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... O'Groat (John), with his two brothers, Malcolm and Gavin, settled in Caithness in the reign of James IV. The families lived together in harmony for a time, and met once a year at John's house. On one occasion a dispute arose about precedency—who was ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... done, the father would soon become reconciled to it. But on the contrary, the attorney, on being told the news, turned his daughter out of doors and would have nothing more to do with either of them. The bridegroom, finding his heiress worth not a groat, did what other sailors have done before and since, and slipped away to sea without so much as saying good-bye to his bride. But a more gallant lover soon hove in sight, the handsome, rich, dare-devil ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... for I loved any that had a sense of good. When we had drunk a glass apiece, they began to drink healths and called for more drink, agreeing together that he that would not drink should pay for all. I was grieved that they should do so, and putting my hand into my pocket took out a groat and laid it on the table before them, saying, "If it be so, I will leave you." So I went away, and when I had done my business I returned home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down and prayed and cried unto the Lord, who said to me: "Thou ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... were far from ample For pleasure or for dress, Yet note this bright example Of single-heartedness: Though ranking as a Colonel, His pay was but a groat, While their reward diurnal ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... King cast down a silver groat, A silver groat o' Scots money, "If I come with a poor man's dole," he said, "True Thomas, will ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... sail, stood for England. The Sally Rose sprang a leak, and scarcely could she be kept afloat till, coming up Channel, they entered the port of Dartmouth. Here landing, Batten was making his way without a groat in his pocket to London, when Providence ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... put therein a groat or sixpence, as to the quantity of the aforesaid water, then set both to dissolve before the fire, then dip a small spunge in the said water, and wet your beard or hair therewith; but ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... And then consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to noble and simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... chose the guava-berry; but without any immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before each draft ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... three centuries this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble and simple from John o' Groat's house to Land's End; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of a mere literary form; and finally, that it forbids the merest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... straight-forward and hearty, and in the good old English manner!" exclaimed the admiral, when he had returned the salutes, and cordially thanked the baronet. "One might land in Scotland, now, anywhere between the Tweed and John a'Groat's house, and not be asked so much as to eat an oaten cake; hey! Atwood?—always ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "A groat for your tidings," replied Rose, "we poor women hear none in this remote corner. But is it a secret? Women may keep one," she added, looking at the panel that had closed on Le Gallais, "but walls have ears: and so have you, as yet such as they are, which I would not have you sacrifice ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... poor he cannot think to wed Quiteria. A pleasant fancy, forsooth, for a fellow who has not a groat in his pocket to look for a yoke-mate above the clouds. Faith, sir, in my opinion a poor man should be contented with what he finds, and not be seeking for truffles at the bottom of ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... or physical convulsion visit the United States, and England would feel the shock from Land's End to John o'Groat's. The lives of nearly two millions of our countrymen are dependent upon the cotton crops of America; their destiny may be said, without any sort of hyperbole, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... and brither Scots, Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's, If there's a hole in a' your coats, I rede ye tent it; A chiel's amang you takin' notes, An' faith ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Marston, more tired than any ploughman or watchman, or any other son of labour from this to John O'Groat's House. I was sent for, from the House, six hours ago, and every hour since have I been poring over those puzzled papers. How long I can stand this wear and tear the physicians must tell, but it would require the constitution of Hercules or Samson, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... was a very good cloake Itt hath been alwayes true to the weare, But now it is not worth a groat; I have had it four and forty yeere; Sometime itt was of cloth in graine, 'Tis now but a sigh clout as you may see. It will neither hold out winde nor raine; And Ile have ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... go to Brighton with Miss De Groat;—or what does it matter for a fortnight? You'll get the advantage when it's done. It's as well to have the truth out at once, mamma,—I cannot carry on if I'm always to be stuck close to your apron-strings. There are so many people won't ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Asleep and naked as an Indian lay, An honest factor stole a gem away: He pledged it to the knight; the knight had wit, So kept the diamond, and the rogue was bit. Some scruple rose, but thus he eased his thought, "I'll now give sixpence where I gave a groat; Where once I went to church, I'll now go twice— And am so clear, too, of all other vice." The Tempter saw his time; the work he plied; Stocks and subscriptions pour on every side, 'Till all the demon makes his ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Marlowe. The truth is, that all the supporters of Malone's theory have taken Malone's unsupported statement as indisputable fact; they have not sufficiently examined the works of Greene and Peele, but have assumed, as Malone assumed, that Greene's charge in his "Groat's Worth of Wit" was conclusive proof that Shakspere did not write the two parts of the "Contention," and that Greene, or one of the friends he addresses, was in ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... quantity in the abstract; as, How, (meaning, in what degree,) however, howsoever, everso, something, anything, nothing, a groat, a sixpence, a sou-markee, and other nouns of ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... he) if please, care for the manie, I for my selfe must care before els anie. So did he good to none, to manie ill, So did he all the kingdome rob and pill; Yet none durst speake, ne none durst of him plaine, So groat he was in grace, and rich through gaine. Ne would he anie let to have accesse Unto the Prince, but by his owne addresse, For all that els did come were ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... editions of the quartos; the various editions of the folios; the works of contemporaneous authors whom Shakespeare had consulted; and also the early works that mention Shakespeare, or cite from his plays or poems, including Greene's "Groat's Worth of Wit", published in 1592 by Henry Chettle and containing the earliest printed allusion to Shakespeare under the name ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... its function. The earth has dwindled strangely since the advent of steam and electricity, and in a generation used to Mr. Edison's devices, Puck's girdle presents no difficulties to the imagination. In Charles Lamb's time the expression "from Land's End to John O'Groat's" meant something; to-day it means a few comfortable hours by rail, a few minutes by telegraph. Wordsworth in the North of England was to Lamb, so far as the chance of personal contact was concerned, nearly as remote as Manning in China. Under such conditions a letter was of course ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... venerable device, but useful upon occasion. I walked into the doctor's yard this morning and shot my syringe full of aniseed over the hind wheel. A draghound will follow aniseed from here to John o' Groat's, and our friend Armstrong would have to drive through the Cam before he would shake Pompey off his trail. Oh, the cunning rascal! This is how he gave me the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... houses were the poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of fields and grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added, 'is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him, like a villein, directly out of the way, and so ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... heads of the little girls with Fairy Godmothers, till they grew up. How you would scold, dear little readers, if I were to enter into a particular description of each child's Nurse, and tell whether Miss Aurora, Miss Julia, Miss Hermione, &c. &c. &c. were brought up on baked flour, groat-gruel, rusks, tops and bottoms, or revalenta food! Whether they took more castor-oil, or rhubarb and magnesia; whether they squalled on those occasions or were very good. When they cut their teeth and how, together with ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... given, twelve years before, for eleven huge folios, called 'Antiphoners.'[178] In the reign of Henry VIII. it would seem, from a memorandum in the catalogue of the Fletewode library (if I can trust my memory with such minutiae) that Law-Books were sold for about ten sheets to the groat.[179] Now, in the present day, Law-Books—considering the wretched style in which they are published, with broken types upon milk-and-water-tinted paper—are the dearest of all modern publications. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... there's a pack of 'em all round. Some seen, some unseen—Papists and Puritans—but, thank the stars, I care not a groat for either. I am contented, any way. Saint or sinner, Puritan or Papist, I say, let 'em alone, if ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... but he is a steady, honest young fellow, and I fancy his pen keeps his father, who is a roystering blade, and spends most of his time at the taverns. The boy comes to me for an hour, twice a week; he writes as good a hand as any clerk and can reckon as quickly, and I pay him but a groat a week, which ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... cried John Harcourt, pulling up in the moon-silvered mist and clapping his hand to his pocket, "not a groat! Stay, here is a crooked sixpence of King James that none but a fool would take. The merry robbers ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... interlarding of comic songs. Quick, Suett, and Mrs. Mattocks were the reigning favourites; and, about 1800, Elliston and Fawcett became occasional stars. But Quick and Suett were the king's especial delight. When Lovegold, in the "Miser," drawled out "a pin a day's a groat a year," the laugh of the royal circle was somewhat loud; but when Dicky Gossip exhibited in his vocation, and accompanied the burden of his song, "Dicky Gossip, Dicky Gossip is the man," with the blasts ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... these—masters who grudge one a groat, and squander a rouble! What if a fire WERE to break ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... it is for a soldier, who is often obliged to snatch each morsel from unwilling hands, to meet with a generous and benevolent family! I wish it were in my power, my dear child, to give you some pledge of my gratitude, but I have nothing—not so much as a single groat. You must be content with my simple thanks." With these words, and once more bidding Caroline and her mother an affectionate farewell, he took his departure, and walked ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... fatigues and bad entertainment to which I have submitted. As for the people, you will believe, from the specimen I have given you, that they could not be very engaging company: though poor and dirty, they still pretend to be proud; and a fellow who is not worth a groat, is above working for his livelihood. They come abroad barefooted, and without any cover to the head, wrapt up in the coverlets under which you would imagine they had slept. They throw all off, and appear like so many naked cannibals, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... all about the northern coast and John o' Groat's House; and you shall give me an account of the canal, though I don't envy you," ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... of a surfeit of pickled herrings and Rheinish wine. His extant writings are much less gross than those of many of his contemporaries, and he seems to have given signs of repentance on his deathbed, as is evidenced by his last work, A Groat's worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance. In this curious work occurs his famous reference to Shakespeare as "an upstart crow beautified with our feathers." Among his other works may be mentioned Euphues' censure to Philautus, Pandosto, the Triumph of Time ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... third, that was a yellow man, Out of his bundle picks a groat, 'La, by the Angel of St Ann, And I must ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... I went through the garden gap, Whom should I meet but Dick Red-cap! A stick in his hand, a stone in his throat: If you'll tell me this riddle, I'll give you a groat. ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... perriwig".[862] He had also been heard to say that the Lieutenant-Governor was "a worse Rebel than Bacon", that he had broken the laws of Virginia, that he had perjured himself, that he "was not worth a Groat in England". Nor was it considered a sufficient excuse that Ludwell had made those remarks immediately after consuming "part of a Flaggon of Syder".[863] The jury found him guilty of "scandalizing the Governor", but acquitted him of any intention of abusing his Majesty's authority. ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... to, while they lay in fields; so that the care of above thirty thousand souls, hath been sometimes committed to one minister, whose church would hardly contain the twentieth part of his flock: neither, I think, was any family in those parishes obliged to pay above a groat a year to their spiritual pastor. Some few of those parishes have been since divided; in others were erected chapels of ease, where a preacher is maintained by general contribution. Such poor shifts and expedients, to the infinite shame and scandal, of so vast and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... accomplish for his country, cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the career of Sir John Sinclair; characterized by the Abbe Gregoire as "the most indefatigable man in Europe." He was originally a country laird, born to a considerable estate situated near John o' Groat's House, almost beyond the beat of civilization, in a bare wild country fronting the stormy North Sea. His father dying while he was a youth of sixteen, the management of the family property thus early devolved ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... of Nature he says, that a wise man, if he has lost the greatest wealth imaginable, seems to have lost but a single groat. But having there thus elevated and puffed him up, he again here throws him down to mercenariness and sophistry; nay, to asking money and even to receiving it beforehand, sometimes at the very ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... furnished then y^e English them selves. Yea, it is well knowne that they will have powder & shot, when the English want it, nor cannot gett it; and y^t in a time of warr or danger, as experience hath manifested, that when lead hath been scarce, and men for their owne defence would gladly have given a groat a l which is dear enoughe, yet hath it bene bought up & sent to other places, and sould to shuch as trade it with y^e Indeans, at 12. pence y^e li.; and it is like they give 3. or 4.^s y^e pound, for they will have ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... father's life, was a failure; the sea proved too strong for man's arts; and after expedients hitherto unthought of, and on a scale hyper-cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in that bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John- o'-Groat's. In the improvement of rivers the brothers were likewise in a large way of practice over both England and Scotland, nor had any British engineer ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that he had not, and to many other questions with which the tanner plied him he returned straightforward answers. He was promised a groat if he would see Phineas safely home when the rain had ceased, and was asked if he would care to take the piece ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... clan—a yearning to the last for the mountains, the straths, the burns, now ravaged by the despoiler, and red with the blood of the Frasers. "Bury me," he said, "in my own tomb in the church of Kirk Hill; in former days, I had made a codicil to my will, that all the pipers from John O'Groat's house to Edinburgh should be invited to play at my funeral: that may not be now—but still I am sure there will be some good old Highland women to sing a coronach at my funeral; and there will be a crying and clapping ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... answered, with a judicial frown; "but foul play never should hurt fair play; and we haul them through the water when we catch them. Your father is terribly particular, I know, and that is the worst thing there can be; but I do not care a groat for all objections, Mary, unless the objection begins with you. I am sure by your eyes, and your pretty lips and forehead, that you are not the one to change. If once any lucky fellow wins your ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of taxation. To the earlier land-tax, to the tax on personality which dated from the Saladin Tithe, to the customs duties which had grown into importance in the last two reigns, was now added a tax which reached every person in the realm, a poll-tax of a groat a head. In this tax were sown the seeds of future trouble, but when the Parliament broke up in March the Duke's power seemed completely secured. Hardly three months later it was wholly undone. In June Edward the Third died in ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... friction that it looks no better than an old daub. The pity of it is, too, that the very best of my gatherings are apt to get lost or ruined; and sometimes it happens that when I varnish up what appears to be valuable it turns out not a groat. Want of method would ruin a Zingalee gipsy or a Bedouin Arab. No doubt you have already discovered to your sorrow that when we start on a visit to the Kremlin, it is no sure indication that we will not spend the day in the Riadi or the old-clothes market. If either you or ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... their jurisdiction, allowing him but one month for his departure, though in the winter season, and he a weakly ancient man: Endicott the governor, when applied to on his behalf for a mitigation of his fine, churlishly answered, 'I will not bate him a groat.'" [Footnote: ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... could there be always "close to his burrow." The "burrow" which received the luckless wight, was indeed no pleasant refuge. Since poor Green, in the earliest generation of dramatists, bought his "groat'sworth of wit with a million of repentance," too many of his brethren had trodden the path which led to hopeless misery or death in a tavern brawl. The history of men who had to support themselves by their pens, is a record of almost universal gloom. ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... The groat of Edward I. is of the first rarity.[10] The pennies of Hadleigh, Chester, and Kingston, are scarce; the other pennies are extremely common, and scarcely a year passes without a discovery of new hoards. The half-pennies and farthings are somewhat scarce. From ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... purs'd their paltry silverlings. [18] Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count this trash! Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay The things they traffic for with wedge of gold, Whereof a man may easily in a day Tell [19] that which may maintain him all his life. The needy groom, that never finger'd groat, Would make a miracle of thus much coin; But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full, And all his life-time hath been tired, Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it, Would in his age be loath to labour so, And for a pound to sweat himself to death. Give me the merchants of the Indian mines, ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... wonderful abundance, insomuch that you may buy at least three pheasants for a Venice groat of silver. I should say rather for an asper, which is worth a little ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... cheap and maddening a drink were incalculably debasing. "The drunkenness of the common people," says an eye-witness, "was so universal by the retailing of a liquor called gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London, and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people of both sexes from morning to night, and were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society."[138] The sign which hangs over the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... every person, male and female, above fifteen years of age. For the relief of the poor it was provided that in the cities and towns the aggregate amount should be divided among the inhabitants according to their abilities, so that no individual should pay less than one groat, or more than sixty groats for himself and his wife. Parliament thereupon was dismissed; but the collection of the tax gave rise to an insurrection which threatened the life of the King and the existence of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Honour knows this is a scandalous place, for they say your Honour was but a broken Excise-Man, who spent the King's Money to buy your Wife fine Petticoats; and at last not worth a Groat, you came over a poor Servant, though now a Justice of the Peace, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... same time, I must confess that, if there had been an Athenaeum, and if the people had been readers, years ago, some leaves of dedication in your library, of praise of patrons which was very cheaply bought, very dearly sold, and very marketably haggled for by the groat, would be blank leaves, and posterity might probably have lacked the information that certain monsters of virtue ever had existence. But it is upon a much better and wider scale, let me say it once again—it is in the effect of such institutions upon the great social system, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... was met by the earl of Danby, who asked him, whether he had closed with the King's proposals; to which lord Orrery answered, no. Then replied the other statesman, "Your lordship may be the honester man, but you will never be worth a groat." This passage is the more remarkable, because Danby was of the same opinion with Orrery, and temporized purely for the sake of power, which cost him afterwards a long imprisonment, and had very near ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... that's more than thou ever wilt be, thou 'long-shore stay-at-home. Why wast making sheep's eyes at Mistress Salterne here, while my pretty little chuck of Burrough there was playing at shove-groat with Spanish doubloons?" ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... middle of a crowd he saw some English soldiers, who were boasting that they were superior to the Scots in strength and feats of arms. One of them, a strong fellow, was declaring that he could lift a greater weight than any two Scots. He carried a pole, with which he offered, for a groat, to let any Scotchman strike him on the back as hard as he pleased, saying that no Scotchman could strike hard enough ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... was levied per capita at the rate of three groats on male and female above the age of fifteen, and those who know the value of a groat will admit that it was too much. A damsel named Tyler, daughter of Wat the Tyler, was so badly treated by the assessor that her father struck the officer dead with his hammer, in 1381, and placed himself at the head of a revolt, numbering one hundred thousand ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... come!" exclaimed the inn-keeper in glad surprise. "They'll come past here. I really believe it's the Messiah-King! Oh, I could have let out my windows for a silver groat apiece!" ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... fellow, or ignorant of his duty, he keeps the ship going about in a melancholy state of indecision as to its precise destination; so that on a voyage to Liverpool, it may be pointing one while for Gibraltar, then for Rotterdam, and now for John o' Groat's; all of which is worse than wasted time. Whereas, a true steersman keeps her to her work night and day; and tries to make a bee-line from ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... too clear that the injury you have received is resented by you, since you complain of it. We do not usually complain of what pleases us, quite the reverse, we are glad and rejoice and expect to be congratulated, not pitied. Witness the great parables of the finding of the lost sheep and the lost groat.' ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... (as others have done) the different values of money for about four hundred years past. Henry Duke of Lancaster, who lived about that period, founded an hospital in Leicester, for a certain number of old men; charging his lands with a groat a week to each for their maintenance, which is to this day duly paid them. In those times, a penny was equal to ten-pence half-penny, and somewhat more than half a farthing in ours; which makes ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... and rascall estate" at the house of a poor shoemaker near Dowgate. He had previously written his "Groat's-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance;" in which he warns his former companions and "gentlemen who spend their wits in making playes," to take warning by his fate. He could get none of his friends to visit him at the last ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... never found by Friends, Ships loaded with Volatile Silver, that came away full, and gat home empty; whole Voyages made to beat No body, and plunder Every body; two Millions robb'd from the honest Merchants, and not a Groat sav'd for the honest Subjects: There we saw Captains Lifting Men with the Governments Money, and letting them go again for their own; Ships fitted out at the Rates of Two Millions a Year, to fight but once in Three Years, and then run away for ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... own neck, she tucked it into his shirt-collar (whence it hung like a bib), and helped him to a leg of the chicken. The old gentleman, at every bit he put into his mouth, amused himself with saying, 'There goes two-pence, there goes three-pence, there goes a groat. Zounds, a man at these places should not have a swallow as wide ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... shelves, they literally lined the walls, well filled with plates, dishes, and tea-ware. The landlady came forward to meet us, a tall, genteel woman, with the manners of one apparently used to better society. After putting down our groat, and giving into her hand a certain garment wrapped in a handkerchief, in case of accidents, we were told that the men's kitchen was in the next house, the first door on the right hand side, in the entry. By this, we found ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... seeing certain birds, which they knew to be of India; the second was some sedges and boughs of palm-trees; the third was snakes swimming at the surface of the water, and a certain substance which they called money, as round and broad as a groat-piece, and wonderfully printed or stamped by nature, as if it had been coined money. These two last signs are so certain, that they always see land next day, if the wind serve; which we did next day, when all our water, for you know they have no beer in these parts, and victuals ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... also is famous for this, where the Lord Jesus takes more care, as appears there by three parables, for the lost sheep, lost groat, and the prodigal son, than for the other sheep, the other pence, or for the son that said he had never transgressed; yea, he shows that there is joy in heaven, among the angels of God, at the repentance of one sinner, more ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... John; "must be quite an undertaking getting Smith's tri-plane on the sky-way. It's useful for a family party, though. I hear he packed twenty or thirty on to it for the picnic they had at John-o'-Groat's last week. By the way," added John, as he moved upstairs, "aren't the Robinsons coming ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... for the company of Chandlers and Tobacco-Men, who are your Stationers, and the onely men that vend your Labors' (pp. 4-5). 'He [a member of the Rota] said that he himself reprieved the Whole Defence of the People of England for a groat, that was sentenced to vile Mundungus, and had suffer'd inevitably (but for him), though it cost you much oyle and the Rump 300l. a year,' &c. (ibid.). ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... said Temperance. "But, Madam, and saving your Ladyship's presence, crowns bloom not on our raspberry bushes, nor may horses be bought for a groat apiece down ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... and Scotland slid past the litter of the king of the Shadows. Over rivers and lakes they skimmed and glided. They climbed the high mountains, and crossed the valleys with a fearless bound; till they came to John-o'-Groat's house and the Northern Sea. The sea was not frozen; for all the stars shone as clear out of the deeps below as they shone out of the deeps above; and as the bearers slid along the blue-gray surface, ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... direct descendants), neither did we much inquire what their lineage was. For it had long been fixed among us, who were of the house and chambers, that these same day-boys were all "caddes," as we had discovered to call it, because they paid no groat for their schooling, and brought their own commons with them. In consumption of these we would help them, for our fare in hall fed appetite; and while we ate their victuals, we allowed them freely to talk to us. Nevertheless, we could not feel, when all the victuals were ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... first half year of service, and provided only that there is to be a continuance of the engagement: surely a beneficent provision for the poor teacher. (3) One cannot travel very far in Britain: for ten dollars one can go from London to John O'Groat's. (4) Vacancies are announced by bulletin in the office as they occur, and a notification is sent by post to distant registered candidates: secrecy in regard to the whereabouts and emoluments of a position is quite unnecessary, because the principals who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... us stay and fight, and vote, Till London is not worth a groat; Oh! 'tis a patient beast! When we have gall'd and tired the mule, And can no longer have the rule, We'll have the ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... father with the Groat's-worth of Wit. But there was other means used: we had a preacher that would preach folk asleep still; and so they were prescribed to go to church, by an old woman that was their ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... Clarendon. They agreed; and, upon the payment of two hundred thousand pounds in hand, and security for as much more upon days agreed upon, the Scots delivered the King up.—Swift. Cursed Scot! sold his King for a groat. Hellish Scots. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... difference introduced by time and circumstance in the same person; for instance, a losing gamester is sometimes generous, but from a winner you will as easily obtain his soul as a single groat. A lawyer traveling from his country seat to his clients at Rome, and a physician going to visit a patient, were always worth asking; but the same on their return were (according to ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... good, as far as it goes," remarked undismayed Samuel Ferret when she concluded; "only it can scarcely be said to go very far. Moral presumption, which, in our courts unfortunately, isn't worth a groat. Never mind. Magna est veritas, and so on. When, madam, did you say Sir Harry—Mr. Grainger—first began to ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... reported Term Rep. 499), it appears that Cranstoun, for his concern in the murder of Mr. Blandy, was prosecuted to outlawry, the learned judge observing with reference to the form adopted on that occasion, "It was natural to suppose groat care had been taken in settling it, because some of the most eminent gentlemen in the ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... gold is all for you, For faithful you have proved and true; But had you left the rug unturned, A groat was all you would have earned. Our love goes with the gold we give, And oh! forget not while you live, That in the smallest duty done Lies wealth of joy for ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... it liked her well that the angel Gabriel loved her, seeing she loved him well nor ever failed to light a candle of a groat before him, whereas she saw him depictured, and that what time soever he chose to come to her, he should be dearly welcome and would find her all alone in her chamber, but on this condition, that he should not leave her for the Virgin Mary, whose great well-wisher ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... groat's worth of his time per day, one day with another, wastes the privilege of using one ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... session of parliament held in April and May (1379), the demand for further supply became so urgent that a poll-tax was imposed on a graduated scale according to a man's dignity, ranging from ten marks or L6 1s. 4d. imposed on a duke, to a groat or four pence which the poorest peasant was called upon to pay. The mayor of London, assessed as an earl, was to pay L4; and the aldermen, assessed as barons, L2. The sum thus furnished by the city amounted to less than L700,(634) and the whole amount levied on the country ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... his caution for a gray groat against salt water or fresh," said Roland's adversary, the falconer; "marry, if he crack not a rope for stabbing or for snatching, I will be content never to hood ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... themselves willingly by whiles with a creature that is unlucky, inimical, and gamesome,—so it was. And thenceforward the nimble gentleman danced upon bell-ropes, vaulted from steeple to steeple, and cut capers out of one dignity to another. Having thus dexterously stuck his groat in Lambeth wainscot, it may easily be conceived he would be unwilling to lose it; and therefore he concern'd himself highly, and even to jealousie, in upholding now that palace, which, if falling, he would out of instinct be the first should leave ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Mowbray, "to fail this time is impossible—Jack Wolverine was too strong for Etherington at any thing he could name; and I can beat Wolverine from the Land's-End to Johnnie Groat's—but there must be something to go upon—the blunt must be ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... stopping it. It was sunset before the good woman had time to take breath. She was almost stifled, for she was up to her ears in ten thousand yards of cloth. She could have afforded to have sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift' of the usual coarseness she wears, for a groat halfpenny. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... to the muckle trone, with a nail of twal-a-penny, until he down of his hobshanks and up with his mucle doubs, and pray to heaven neen times, Gold bles the king, and thrice the muckle Lord of Relton, pay a groat to me Jammey Ferguson, bailiff of the aforesaid manor. So ye heard my proclamation, and I'll haam ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... Master John. "You've got her reasonable good cheap. I thought ye might not grudge me a groat if I help move her." Ah, he was a masterpiece! They say that morning's work cost our John two hundred pounds, and he never winked an eyelid, not even when he saw the guns ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... fairer justice 1515 Than all your covenanting Trustees; Unless to punish them the worse, You put them in the secular pow'rs, And pass their souls, as some demise The same estate in mortgage twice; 1520 When to a legal Utlegation You turn your excommunication, And for a groat unpaid, that's due, Distrain ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... have applied the same sum afterwards to the tradesmen; but he was too quick for me, and set (sat) up and lost it and more to Lord Stavordale. I know that he could have pleaded his debt to Lord Cholmondly, and to Brooks himself, &c., neither of whom probably would have received a groat; but that matter is over for the present. However, Brooks has promised me that (sic), if any event of this kind happens again, to avail himself of ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... friends—as cannot fail to last. 80 A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth, Venus shall give him form, and Anstis[140] birth. (Believe me, many a German prince is worse, Who, proud of pedigree, is poor of purse). His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds; Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds; Or if three ladies like a luckless play,[141] Takes the whole house upon the poet's day. Now, in such exigencies not to need, Upon my word, you must be rich indeed; 90 A noble superfluity it craves, Not for yourself, but for ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... around the port. Glenbrook and Monkstown are particularly picturesque. Above the latter, nestling in the trees, may be seen Monkstown Castle, the legend attached to which says it was built for one groat. The owner of the site, one of the Archdeckens, an Anglo-Irish family, having gone away to the wars in the Lowlands, his better-half promised him a pleasant surprise on his return. She employed a number of workmen to build the castle, a condition of the contract being that they should buy their ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... large dark eyes, and his awkwardness in handling his arms." But if he could not handle his musket deftly, he could do what none else in that or any other corps could, he could sing a patriotic stave which thrilled the hearts not only of his comrades, but every Briton from Land's-end to Johnny Groat's. ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... went riding the circuit from Land's End to John O'Groat's, from Cork to Londonderry, eight thousand miles, and eight hundred sermons every year. In London he spoke to the limit of his voice—ten thousand people. Yet when chance sent him but fifty auditors he spoke with just as much feeling. His sermons were full ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... with the bellows, "this fellow is too lazy to stand, so we have to hang him up; and he is too lazy to breathe for himself, so he pays me a groat a day to do it for him with ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... our Host; "Ah, sir, ye should be hend* *civil, gentle And courteous, as a man of your estate; In company we will have no debate: Tell us your tale, and let the Sompnour be." "Nay," quoth the Sompnour, "let him say by me What so him list; when it comes to my lot, By God, I shall him quiten* every groat! *pay him off I shall him telle what a great honour It is to be a flattering limitour And his office I shall him tell y-wis". Our Host answered, "Peace, no more of this." And afterward he said unto the frere, "Tell forth your tale, mine owen ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... hobby horse, And it was dapple grey; Its head was made of pea-straw, Its tail was made of hay. I sold it to an old woman For a copper groat; And I'll not sing my song again Without a ...
— Young Canada's Nursery Rhymes • Various
... who were so vehement against lying bulletins, and so wary in announcing their great news, were in the condition of a clown, who thinks he has bought a great bargain of a Jew because he has beat down the price perhaps from a guinea to a crown, for some article that is not really worth a groat. ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... companion! I am happy to see there is still so much enthusiasm surviving in the world. Thou hast fairly won the minstrel groat; and if I do not pay it in conformity to my sense of thy merit, it shall be the fault of dame Fortune, who has graced my labours in these Scottish wars with the niggard pay of Scottish money. A gold piece ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... haud thy tongue, thou silly wench! The morn's but glancing in your e'e."— I'll[130] wad my hail fee against a groat, He's bigger than ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... dark and delicately made, with quick-sighted falcon-coloured eyes that nothing escaped. Unlike her big, healthy brethren, she was never in the slightest degree shy or clumsy, and she cared not a single groat for anyone or anything in the whole wide world so long as she got her own way. And this, being a member of the Ffolliot family, she did not get nearly as often as she would have liked. But she understood ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... groat for that man's knowledge in pen-craft, who does not understand this,—That the best plain narrative in the world, tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby—would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader's palate;—therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... is a great difference between such a climate as that of Scotland, damp and cold, snowy and blowy, and a continental ice-sheet, a mile or two thick, reaching from John o' Groat's House to the Mediterranean. We can see that the oranges of Spain can grow to-day within a comparatively short distance of Edinburgh; but we can not realize that any tropical or semitropical plant could have survived in Africa when a precipice of ice, five thousand feet high, ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... he hath a half-face like my father? With halfe that face would he haue all my land, A halfe-fac'd groat, fiue hundred pound a yeere? Rob. My gracious Liege, when that my father liu'd, Your brother did imploy my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... again; we were again laying our heads together, with intent to struggle against our mother. I cared not a groat for William Adolphus, but it would be pleasant to me to help my sister to bring him back to his bearings; and the more pleasant in view of Princess Heinrich's belief that the things could not ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... be solitary hinds, widows and rovers from their clans, sniffing eagerly over to the Cowal hills. Poor beasts! poor beasts! I've seen them in their madness take to the ice for it when it was little thicker than a groat, thinking to reach the oak-woods of Ardchyline. For a time the bay at the river mouth was full of long-tailed ducks, that at a whistle almost came to your hand, and there too came flocks of wild-swan, flying in wedges, trumpeting as they flew. Fierce otters quarrelled over their ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... course, for them as is flush o' the rhino, and wants a blow-out, there's nothin' like two o' leg o' beef with a dash o' pea, 'alf a scaffold-pole, a plate o' chats, and a swimmer—it's wholesome and werry filling, and don't cost more than a groat, but give me a cold per-tater to walk on. But you, sir," continued the Pedler, beginning to eat with great appetite, "you, being a reg'lar 'eavy-toddler now, one o' the gilded nobs—and all on account o' that there priceless wollum as I—give away to you—for five bob! you, being now a blue-blooded ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... Much, reining in his steed sharply. "Why! 'tis the gipsy lad, as I live; with his face nicely washed...!" He had recognized Robin by his clothes. "Money, forsooth! Do you know that I have not so much as a groat in ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... and 'gad, my limbs yearn for bed, Joe. This fellow can still carry the bag; 'tis worth a groat." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... not to murmur; for I had still the child, and every day that passed made him more winsome, more loving, more mettlesome and bold. Even the master would draw rein as he passed my door to have a word with the boy; and little Mistress Joan gave me many a silver groat to buy him a fairing with, and keep him always dressed in the smartest little suit of forester's green. The priest noticed him too, and would have him to his house to teach him many things, and told me he would live to carve out a fortune for himself. I thought naught too good for him. ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... here of Cromwell and his wife sitting down to a loin of veal, and his calling for an orange, which was the sauce he preferred to that joint, and her highness telling him that he could not have one, for they were not to be had under a groat. ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... we shall make our fortune, but I am worn to a ravelling. Take this groat (which is our last fourpence), and, Simpkin, take a china pipkin, but a penn'orth of bread, a penn'orth of milk, and a penn'orth of sausages. And oh, Simpkin, with the last penny of our fourpence but me one penn'orth ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... water Tyrrel's ford. By Rhinefield and by Osmondsleigh, Through glade and furze brake fast drove he, Until he heard the roaring sea; Quod he, 'Those gay waves they call me.' By Mary's grace a seely boat On Christchurch bar did lie afloat; He gave the shipmen mark and groat, To ferry him over to Normandie, And there he fell to sanctuarie; God send his soul ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... woh! and I will come by and by. Now for a pair of spurs I would give a good groat, To try whether this jade do amble or trot. Farewell, my masters, till I come again, For now I must ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... metaphors are but empty sounds in your chaste ears, nephew—brother George is trying to say money. Do you happen to have a sufficiency of such dross about you, pray?" A search of my various pockets resulted in the discovery of one shilling and a groat. "Precisely as I surmised," nodded my uncle Jervas, "having had your every possible want supplied hitherto, money is a sordid vulgarity you know little about, yet, if you persist in adventuring your precious person into the world ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol |
