"Footpad" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be quite enough to upset a quiet man's way of living! The moral pressure of it was so iniquitous! Your convictions or your life! It was the language of a footpad. ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Harley. "A very alarming occurrence, Sir Charles. It must have shaken you very badly. But we must not overlook the possibility that this may have been an ordinary footpad." ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... house-breakers' craft, and the vulgar ruffian of St. Giles took lessons of self-control from the keener intellect of the professional swindler. The fraudulent clerk and the flash "cracksman" interchanged experiences. The smuggler's stories of lucky ventures and successful runs were capped by the footpad's reminiscences of foggy nights and stolen watches. The poacher, grimly thinking of his sick wife and orphaned children, would start as the night-house ruffian clapped him on the shoulder and bade him, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... representatives of the sovereign people;" the swindler will say: "The chief of the State got his election, got power, got the Tuileries, all by swindling;" the forger will say: "The chief of the State forged votes;" the footpad will say: "The chief of the State stole their purses from the Princes of Orleans;" the murderer will say: "The chief of the State shot, sabred, bayonetted, massacred passengers in the streets;" and all together, swindler, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... punishment and its reckless repetition—what the newspapers will call "A Triple Mystery" when it gets to them—and both victims among our commensals! Really, I don't know what more we could ask of you, unless it were the foot-padded footpad himself as a commensal. If this sort of thing should become de rigueur in society generally, I don't know what's to become of people who haven't ...
— The Garotters • William D. Howells
... hardly be sufficient for the purpose, supposing an ill-used Englishman inclined to block their way!—What, and play footpad, Kit Ines? No, it's just a game in the head. But a true man hates to feel himself suspected. His refuge is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... admirably represented. A Capuchin friar, long-bearded and dirty, with the air of a footpad, and an umbrella by way of a blunderbuss or musket under his arm, was talking to a Sister ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... country highway, out of sight of lights and out of the fear of watchmen. And yet I had not gone above a hundred yards before a fellow made an ugly rush at me from the roadside. I avoided him with a leap, and stood on guard, cursing my empty hands, wondering whether I had to do with an officer or a mere footpad, and scarce knowing which to wish. My assailant stood a little; in the thick darkness I could see him bob and sidle as though he were feinting at me for an advantageous onfall. Then ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... friend," was his answer, "but not a common one; no ordinary footpad could strip the noble Servius Flaccus without ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... coachman half-a-crown to get it mended.' News from London, dated January 9, 1765, says: 'Early on Tuesday morning, a member of parliament, on his return home in a chair to his house in New Palace Yard, was stopped and robbed by a single footpad of his purse, in which were ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... way does it protect them? Inspiration itself could not furnish a rational answer to that question. Whom does it protect, then? Nobody, as far as I can see, but the foreign thief —sometimes—and his fellow-footpad the U. S. government, all the time. What could the Central Company do with the counterfeit bonds after it had bought them of the star spangled banner Master-thief? Sell them at a dollar apiece and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... into the sea. Then you would see the superb albicore, with his glittering sides, sailing aloft, and often describing an arc in his descent, disappear on the surface of the water. Far off, the lofty jet of the whale might be seen, and nearer at hand the prowling shark, that villainous footpad of the seas, would come skulking along, and, at a wary distance, regard us with his evil eye. At times, some shapeless monster of the deep, floating on the surface, would, as we approached, sink slowly into the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... time a deacon who did not favor church bazars was going along a dark street when a footpad suddenly appeared, and, pointing his pistol, began to relieve his victim ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... Intelligence, although they were much given to laugh at my assumptions of superior Birth, and nicknamed me "Gentleman Jack,"—I was promoted to the rank of Corporal, and might have aspired to the dignity of a Sergeant's Halbert, but that in a Mad Frolic one night I betook myself to the road as a Footpad, and robbed a Gentleman, coming from the King's Arms, Kensington, towards the Weigh House at Knightsbridge, of fourteen spade guineas, a gold watch, and a bottle-screw. And that being taken by the Hue and Cry, and had before Justice de Veil then sitting at the ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... such a powerful prefect, and had been inscribed among the patricians and had mounted the seat of the consuls, than which nothing seems greater, at least in the Roman state, they made to stand naked like any robber or footpad, and thrashing him with many blows upon his back, compelled him to tell his past life. And while John had not been clearly convicted as guilty of the murder of Eusebius, it seemed that God's justice was exacting from him the penalties of the world. Thereafter they stripped ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... internecinum? Though, by St. Giles, which is my patron saint, I care not how it be, for mark ye, vacuus cantat coram latrone viator, Sir Goliath, the which in the vulgar tongue signifieth that he who travels with an empty purse laughs before the footpad—moreover, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... watching his fellow-creatures, spying their every act, and then betraying them for the sake of a few dirty shillings, to send them to prison or to the gibbet? There can be nothing on earth so base as a thing like this. Why, a footpad is a nobleman ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... dummerer. The burglar was then the housebreaker. Burglary was formerly a far worse crime than it is now, because the people for the most part kept all their money in their houses, and a robbery might ruin them. The pickpocket plied his trade, only he was then a cutpurse. The footpad lay in wait on the lonely country road or among the bushes of the open fields at the back of Lincoln's Inn. The punishments, which seem so mild under the Plantagenets, increased in severity as the population outgrew the ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... homewards to his lodgings, and met Mr. Addison on the road that night, walking to a cottage he had at Fulham, the moon shining on his handsome serene face:—"What cheer, brother?" says Addison, laughing: "I thought it was a footpad advancing in the dark, and behold 'tis an old friend. We may shake hands, Colonel, in the dark, 'tis better than fighting by daylight. Why should we quarrel, because I am a Whig and thou art a Tory? Turn thy steps and walk with me to Fulham, where there is a nightingale ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... purse," growled the other, "and be quick about it." The Bagman obeyed with wonderful celerity, and I heard the purse chink as the footpad dropped it into ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... pace as he heard footsteps overtake him, and where a beam of light shone out from an open door he wheeled about, thinking me a footpad. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... unmistakable ruffian, a grim and dirty robber, and the other a weak, nervous, timid youth of insignificant stature, the scene representing the entrance to a dark lane as night closes in. "This is a werry lonely spot, sir," says Seymour's footpad; "I wonder you ain't afeard of being robbed!"—and the young man's hair stands on end, and lifts his hat above his head. Leech in 1853 (p. 100, first volume) alters the dialogue for Punch by introducing the pleasing possibility of a greater tragedy, by ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... He tried to approach her, but she pleaded fatigue and anxiety, and he was glad then that he had made arrangements not to travel beside her in the lumbering coach. His position on horseback beside the carriage would, he felt, be a more romantic one, and he half-hoped that some enterprising footpad would give him a chance of displaying his pluck and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Geoffrey. Now, you or I, if we had been tied up in the mud through one of these damned raw nights, would take some pains to catch the fellow who did the trussing. But my wretch was as meek as the Gospels. So here is a silly, teasing mystery. Who is the footpad that is at the pains of tying up a fellow and never looks for his purse? Odds fish, I did not know we had a gentleman of such humour in these parts. I suspect you, Geoffrey, I protest. There's a misty ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... least there was one Border highwayman—or is "footpad" here the more correct term?—who, if the story is true, may surely claim to have been the most picturesque and romantic of criminals. In this instance the malefactor was a woman, not a man, and her name was Grizel Cochrane, member of (or at least sprung from) a noble family, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... (adv.) anywhere awhile baseball billboard bipartizan bondholder carload classmate corespondent downstairs everyday (a.) everyone fireproof football footlights footpad gateman holdup inasmuch infield ironclad juryman landlady lawsuit letterhead linesman midnight misprint misspell nevertheless newcomer nonunion northeast northwest Oddfellows officeholder oneself outfield pallbearer paymaster ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the grassy road or woodland lane. In the midst of it, sprawling on his back, for he had been pulled from his horse, lay a stout burgher, whose pockets were being rifled by a heavy-browed footpad, who from time to time, doubtless to keep him quiet, threatened his victim with a knife. On the pillion of the burgher's thickset Flemish horse, which was peacefully cropping at the grass, sat a middle-aged female, who seemed to be stricken dumb with terror, while a few paces away a second ruffian ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... night—no incident, or accident, but an alarm on the part of my valet on the outside, who, in crossing Epping Forest, actually, I believe, flung down his purse before a mile-stone, with a glow-worm in the second figure of number XIX—mistaking it for a footpad and dark lantern. I can only attribute his fears to a pair of new pistols wherewith I had armed him; and he thought it necessary to display his vigilance by calling out to me whenever we passed any thing—no matter whether moving or stationary. Conceive ten miles, with a tremor every furlong. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... should return into danger and the likelihood of swift punishment. It was rather and simply because she felt that this bronzed young stranger, seeming to her woman's instinct a sort of breezy incarnation of the outdoors, partook of none of the characteristics of the footpad, sneak thief or nocturnal gentleman of the road. An essential attribute of the boldest and most picturesque of that gentry was the quality of deceit and subterfuge and hypocrisy. Consecutive logical thought being, after all, a tedious process, she had had no time to progress ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... that fell on the smoking fortress was felt by the sovereign nation of which that was the representative. Robbery could go no farther, for every loyal man of the North was despoiled in that single act as much as if a footpad had laid hands upon him to take from him his father's staff and his mother's Bible. Insult could go no farther, for over those battered walls waved the precious symbol of all we most value in the past and hope for in the future,—the banner under which ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... again without some slight entanglement in philology. Lily-pads. Whence pads? No other leaf is identified with that singular monosyllable. Has our floating Lotus-leaf any connection with padding, or with a footpad? with the ambling pad of an abbot, or a paddle, or a paddock, or a padlock? with many-domed Padua proud, or with St. Patrick? Is the name derived from the Anglo-Saxon paad or petthian, or the Greek [Greek: pateo]? All the etymologists ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... out riding together, some adventure must befal them. The horse must run away with the lady, and the gentleman must catch her in his arms just as her neck is about to be broken. If the horse has been too well trained for the heroine's purpose, 'some footpad, bandit fierce, or mountaineer,' some jealous rival must make his appearance quite unexpectedly at the turn of a road, and the lady must be carried off—robes flying—hair streaming—like Buerger's Leonora. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... his hands the most sentimental exotics of the publishing firms. There was the 'Elegant Maniac; or, the Snuff-coloured Rose and the Field of Silver,' a beautiful romance. Then there was the 'Sentimental Footpad; or, Honour among Thieves.' And 'Syngenesia,' the last of the melancholies; with the 'Knight of the Snorting Palfrey; or, the Silken Fetlock.' These works she read to Mr. Mumbles on evenings instead of suffering him to repair to his bowls, and after a short ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... encyclopaedias. It involves no great fatigue to look up a poem of Herrick's, or a letter of Shelley's, or a novel of Peacock's (these things are accessible and repay enquiry), and it would be a rational and self-respecting thing to do, instead of endeavouring to extort information (like an intellectual footpad) from writers who are in no way called upon ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... achievement, not of the Ministry of Munitions but of the War Office. The Munitions Ministry in due course did splendid work. Chancellor of the Exchequer become lord-paramount of a great spending Department of State, its chief was on velvet. "Copper" turned footpad, he knew the ropes, he could flout the Treasury—and he did. But it is a pity that unwarrantable claims should have been put forward on behalf of the department in not irresponsible quarters at a time when they could not be denied, claims which ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... cattle thief, chor^, contrabandist^, crook, hawk, holdup man, hold-up [U.S.], jackleg [U.S.], kidnaper, rustler, cattle rustler, sandbagger, sea king, skin [Slang], sneak thief, spieler^, strong-arm man [U.S.]. highwayman, Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, Macheath, footpad, sturdy beggar. cut purse, pick purse; pickpocket, light-fingered gentry; sharper; card sharper, skittle sharper; thimblerigger; rook [Slang], Greek, blackleg, leg, welsher [Slang]; defaulter; Autolycus^, Jeremy Diddler^, Robert Macaire, artful dodger, trickster; swell ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... found that the muse had played me another of her tricks, and had betrayed me into the hands of a footpad. There was no time to parley; he made me turn my pockets inside out; and hearing the sound of distant footsteps, he made one fell swoop upon purse, watch, and all, gave me a thwack over my unlucky pate that laid me sprawling ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... to the Times and to Justice NORTH! The highway—of-News—may be clearer henceforth Of robber daring and footpad sly. To stop a coach, or to fake a cly, Boldly to lift or astutely sneak, Will expose a prig to the bobby's tweak, And he shall not shelter himself beneath The plea of the custom of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... town, given to celebrate the birth of a child; I had drunk pretty freely and had just fallen asleep, when a cock, I suppose in a greater hurry than the rest, began to crow. I thought it was dawn and set out for Alimos.[223] I had hardly got beyond the walls, when a footpad struck me in the back with his bludgeon; down I went and wanted to shout, but he had already made ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... a house, s.c. a thieves' lodging-house; "spellken," a play-house; "high toby-spice" is robbery on horseback, as distinguished from "spice," i.e. footpad robbery; to "flash the muzzle" is to show off the face, to swagger openly; "blowing" or "blowen" is a doxy or trull; and "nutty" ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... is a creature of the footpad type who, tripping his victim flat, seizes him by the shoulders and beats his head against the pavement until he renders him unconscious—if he ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... some intercourse carried on in these districts. I passed through territory occupied by Carlists before. Why not again? Besides, I had nothing to fear from the Carlists, the tramp carols in the presence of the footpad (which, I submit, is a neat paraphrase of a classic saw); and if I did chance to meet them, there would be that dear touch of romance for which the lady-reader has been looking out so long ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... New Orleans, whither he had gone to sell his cotton, with the story that he had been knocked senseless and robbed of his wallet, and in proof of this he produced a newspaper account of the midnight outrage, and exhibited a wound on the head, inflicted by the bludgeon of the footpad. And with such drollery did he recite this story that the Major laughed at him, which meant, of course, that his tenure of the old plantation was not to be disturbed. The memory of this rascally trick came back to the Major as he sat there looking over his ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... to take care that I did not get into trouble. I was held up, as a matter of course, and, my revenge balked, I returned to my lodging-house and, recovering by degrees from my fright, I began to be grateful to the boldness of the footpad. It is not wise to place much reliance upon any scheme, because Fortune has a ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... tatterdemalion figure, and, seeing Darrell's face under the lamp, halted abrupt at the mouth of the narrow passage from which it had emerged,—a dark form filling up the dark aperture. Does that ragged wayfarer recognize a foe by the imperfect ray of the lamplight? or is he a mere vulgar footpad, who is doubting whether he should spring upon a prey? Hostile his look, his gestures, the sudden cowering down of the strong frame as if for a bound; but still he is irresolute. What awes him? What awes ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lawsuit, tried with a jury—that he did it under a duly enacted law, and that the facts of the case were such as to place the man under that law—then that official, however high, is just as much liable in the ordinary courts, as if he were the merest footpad trying to stop a man on the highway—a doctrine almost unknown to any country in the world outside of England, the United States, and ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... a long season of ill-fortune, and all scruples were thrown aside, the "Jolly Roger" sent merrily to the fore, and another pirate was added to the list of those that made the highways of the sea as dangerous to travel as the footpad infested common of Hounslow Heath. English ships went out to hunt down the treacherous Spaniards, and stayed to rob and pillage indiscriminately; and not a few of the names now honored as those of eminent English discoverers, were once dreaded ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... highwaymen. They are peculiar to her clime, and are as much before the brigand of Italy, the contrabandist of Spain, or the cut-purse of France—as her sailors are before all the rest of the world. The day will never come, I hope, when we shall degenerate into the footpad, and lose our Night Errantry. Even the French borrow from us—they have only one highwayman of eminence, and he learnt and practised his art ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... dash to Winterblossom, who was broken down, and turned twaddler; and in tact and sense to Sir Bingo Binks, easily manoeuvred himself into his lordship's more intimate society; and internally thanking the honest footpad, whose bullet had been the indirect means of secluding his intended victim from all society but his own, he gradually began to feel the way, and prove the strength of his antagonist, at the various games of skill and hazard which he introduced, apparently with the sole purpose of ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... increase my speed without altering the rhythm of my footfalls. As I went, I speculated on the intentions of my friend and noted with interest and a little surprise that I was quite without fear of him. I suspected him of being a footpad, one of the gang of which Grayson had spoken, and I had set forth along this unfrequented road in a spirit of mere curiosity to see if ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... an end, and found Jonah out of pocket. He had planted himself like a footpad at the door of his old master to rob him of his trade and living; and day by day he counted the customers passing in and out of the old shop, but none came his way. As he stared across the street at his rival's shop, his face changed; it was like a hawk's, threatening ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... rogue who has but one horse," I observed contemptuously. "You are only a footpad, a simple-minded ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... (vulg.) being the testicles, also called "bayzatan" the two eggs) a double entendre which has given rise to many tales. For instance in the witty Persian book "Dozd o Kazi" (The Thief and the Judge) a footpad strips the man of learning and offers to return his clothes if he can ask him a puzzle in law or religion. The Kazi (in folk-lore mostly a fool) fails, and his wife bids him ask the man to supper for a trial of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the cloaked man whom he had taken for an ordinary footpad. The fellow must have altered his mind if his intention was to follow Vane. No sooner was the latter past the passage than he darted back into St. Paul's Churchyard and hastened westward. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... Caravan, consumed with rage, rushed at him, exclaiming: "You are a thief, a footpad, a cur. I would spit in your face, if ... I would ... I ... would...." She could find nothing further to say, suffocating as she was, with rage, while he still sipped ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... wild-eyed and haggard, in the light of Estabrook's drug-store and scanned the faces of the foot-passengers. Early in the evening Elliot Chittenden came along with a grip-sack in his hand, just down from Lame Gulch. Peckham fell upon him like a footpad, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... bandit, brigand, buccaneer, burglar, depredator, despoiler, footpad, filibuster, forager, desperado, corsair, freebooter, highwayman, picaroon, marauder, pillager, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he told was in precise accordance with the suspicions that his hearers had entertained. He had been tramping through the country, sometimes pilfering, sometimes taking money as a footpad. He had, one day, met John Dormay and demanded his money. He was armed only with a heavy cudgel, and thought Dormay ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... never looked after a woman or knew the meaning of a bribe. Even in a palace, life can be lived well; and even in a Parliament, life can be lived with occasional efforts to live it well. I tell you it is as true of these rich fools and rascals as it is true of every poor footpad and pickpocket; that only God knows how good they have tried to be. God alone knows what the conscience can survive, or how a man who has lost his honor will still try to save ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... her nestlings bleeding, Was no such monument of feeble folly. Let folks alone, and all will then be jolly. Let the poor perish, let the ignorant sink, The tempted tumble, and the drunkard drink! Let—no, don't let the low-born robber rob, Because,—well, that would rather spoil the job. If footpad-freedom brooked no interference, Of Capital there might be a great clearance; But, Wealth well-guarded, let all else alone. 'Tis thus our race hath to true manhood grown: To make the general good the common care, Breaks through the sacred law of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... as the grave. But here Sir Robert Walpole is as much wrong as if, doubting the value or power of Methodist preachers, he should make it the test of their useful existence that, as often as a highwayman, a footpad, started out of the wayside, from the other side should start a Methodist preacher to reason with him ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... a man rushing from the side of the road. The boy, on perceiving him, instantly spurred his pony, and, by a sudden bound of our light vehicle, the ruffian missed his grasp at the front rein. We now proceeded at full speed, while the footpad ran endeavouring to overtake us. At length, my horses fortunately outrunning the perseverance of the assailant, we reached the first 'Magpie,' a small inn on the heath, in safety. The alarm which, in spite of my resolution, this adventure had created, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... too, t' avert the wretched wrath Of footpad, hungry for thy robe and ring! So safe and sacred is a lover's path, That common caution to the ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus |
