"Four-in-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... below me, playing with a fox terrier. Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bad luck to be in a great many accidents," said the other. "But that one was remarkable. As far as I can recollect, we drove into the Grand Duke's four-in-hand on one side and drove out of it on the other. I never drove through a Grand Duke's equipage on any other occasion. It was lucky that his Serenity did not happen to be in it just at the time. There you have my history ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... them; and when she wanted to take out her little boy, Mr. Brownlow said "You may do as you like my dear, but I won't have my son's neck broken, whatever you do with your own." So Maurice answered by declaring he knew a lady who drove not two, but four-in-hand, and when the leaders turned round and looked her in the face, gave a little nod, and said, 'I'm ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jaureguiberry, was loud in his praises. "He played like a statesman and a diplomatist," she said. The Grand Duke MICHAEL was also greatly impressed and made a neat mot. "His fore-hand drives," he said, "were worthy of a driver of a four-in-hand." Mr. BALFOUR, it should be noted, wore brown tennis shoes with rubber soles, unlike Sir OLIVER LODGE, who always golfs in white buckskin boots. His shirt was of some soft material and was marked with his name on a tape, "A. J. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... toss their rippled manes Shining and soft as silken skeins; Wagons and gigs are ranged about, And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; Here stands—each youthful Jehu's dream The jointed tandem, ticklish team! And there in ampler breadth expand The splendors of the four-in-hand; On faultless ties and glossy tiles The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; (The style's the man, so books avow; The style's the woman, anyhow); From flounces frothed with creamy lace Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, Or stares the wiry pet of Skye,— O woman, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... had frequently to carry large sums of money from the Border banks and although these were the days of footpads and highwaymen, and coaches were "held up" in other parts, Sandy's Coach was never molested, although he had been blocked with his four-in-hand in the snow. He gave a graphic description of the running of the last mail coach from Hawick to Merrie Carlisle in 1862. Willie Crozier the noted driver was mounted on the box, and the horses were all decked out for the occasion. Jemmie Ferguson the old strapper, whose occupation like that of Othello's ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... trouble to be resentful. Ailsa, watching, felt a little impatient with him. She wanted to break through the shell in which he chose to hide that self which her instinct told her was so different to his outward seeming. What had become of the gay Londoner, who drove the smartest four-in-hand in the park, and rode the fastest horse to hounds? She longed to write home and ask her people of his story, but bitter things had been said when she elected to go into exile with her husband, and there ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... starved at Pont-a-Mousson, where at last we managed to buy a bit of the King of Prussia's lunch at the kitchen of the inn on the market-place at which it was being cooked in order to be placed in a four-in-hand break. While we were ravenously gorging ourselves upon it, a man burst into the room, and suddenly exclaimed: "Winterbotham!" It was Sir Henry Havelock, who was hiding in the place, being absent without ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... landlady came into the room with a sarcastic glimmer on her underdone visage, and, says she, "I suppose you don't understand about the vehicles we have in London. The four-in-hand is what the quality and coach people use when—" As I looked at Jone I saw his legs tremble, and I know what that means. If I was a wanderin' dog and saw Jone's legs tremble, the only thoughts that would fill my soul would be such as cluster around "Home, Sweet Home." Jone was too ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... proper to mention that Kara Johnson crocheted a white silk four-in-hand necktie for Carl Carlsen, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Club, founded in 1808, was incorrectly styled the Four-in-Hand Club, and the Barouche Club. According to the Club rules, the barouches were "yellow-bodied, with 'dickies,' the horses bay, with rosettes at their heads, and the harness silver-mounted. The members wore a drab coat reaching to the ankles, with three ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... doctor in the case, and you know how it is when somebody is too sick to be seen and the doctor is worried, Abe, he sends down word by the nurse that everything is proceeding satisfactorily, and the visitor goes away trying to remember did he or did he not throw away that fifty-cent black four-in-hand tie he wore to the last funeral he ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... the country in the morning a suit of flannel, tweed or cheviot, a straw hat and tan shoes. His shirt may be of striped madras or linen, with a white collar. The cutaway coat is correct for ordinary afternoon wear, with a white waistcoat, white shirt and four-in-hand tie. This takes the place in summer of the frock coat, which is the formal day wear. He will seldom, if ever, have occasion for a dress suit at a week-end visit in summer. Of course, the size of the party ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... hard life, and generally die with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of government, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administration of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... After awhile a towering four-in-hand coach rose out of the hollow where it had been hidden, and came bowling along the level. The rapid hoofs beat the dust, which sprang up and followed behind in a cloud, stretching far in the rear, for in so still ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... out driving Each day in the Park, four-in-hand, If you saw poor dear mamma contriving To look supernaturally grand,— If you saw papa's picture, as taken By Brady, and tinted at that,— You'd never suspect he sold bacon And flour ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle out-grown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button-hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... response to Carroll's polite "Good-evening," when they had entered. They sat and watched and listened. Occasionally one raised a hand, and an enormous diamond glowed with a red light like a ruby. In the four-in-hand tie of the other a scarf-pin in the shape of a horse's head with diamond eyes caught the light with infinitesimal sparks of fire. Above it his clean-shaven, keen, blue-eyed face kept watch, sharply ready ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... with checks as large as the squares of a chessboard, a blue cloth vest with white polka dots, and a long, gray Prince Albert coat, with mauve satin lapels. The shirt was pink and blue, stripes of each alternating, running cross-ways, a white collar, and a flaring red four-in-hand tie! ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... about for miles the planters had come into Lexington upon their blooded mounts, their wives, daughters, sweethearts, riding in great carriages. Now and then a vehicle, coming from some far-away plantation, was drawn by a gay four-in-hand, and the drivers of such equipages, negroes always, showed a haughty scorn of their black fellow-men who travelled humbly on the backs of mules, or trudged the long and dusty way on foot. Gorgeous were the costumes ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... associates. The boy makes interest, through Nat Boody, with the stage-driver; and one day the old ladies are horrified at seeing the parson's son mounted on the box of the coach beside the driver, and putting his boyish fingers to the test of four-in-hand. Of course he is a truant that day from school, and toiling back footsore and weary, after tea, he can give but a lame account of himself. He brings, another time, a horrid fighting cur, (as Miss Eliza terms it in her disgust,) for which he has bartered away the new muffler that the spinster ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe, trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very old; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive to the banks of Styx ere long,—where the ferry-boat ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... point of revealing itself? Alas! poor Brewster's secret was one that many have striven after before and since, who did not call themselves alchemists,—the secret of getting gold without earning it,—a chase that brings some men to a four-in-hand on Shoddy Avenue, and some to the penitentiary, in both cases advertising its utter vanity. Brewster is a capital specimen of his class, who are better than the average, because they do mix a little imagination with their sordidness, and who have ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... to her wit, leaning his white-gloved hand upon her chair, and looking in her eyes with his most bewitching softness. The extent of this flirtation no one could anticipate; but the sudden appearance of Lady Di' Johnson effected a total change. She drove four-in-hand, and was a dead shot—the very antipodes of sentiment. We said her laugh would drive Edward Layton distracted, and her cigarette be his death. But, no! the magnificence of her tomboyism caught his fancy. He enshrined her at once as Diana, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... breeches, pipes, horns, cows—are all gigantic, and so are the dogs, and because the poor things happen to be so, they harness a parcel of them together and breed them up to draw fish-carts. I yesterday met a man driving four-in-hand; in turning a corner and meeting three of these open-mouthed Mastiffs panting and pulling, you might almost fancy it was Cerberus drawing the Chariot of Proserpine—but I am wandering from the Diligence, ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... shore of the Polar Sea. He had ordered Rain, Hail, and Snow, his slaves, to accompany Lord Boreas Bluster on an invasion of the temperate zone, and when they had done his bidding he harnessed up his four-in-hand team of polar bears and went as far south as he dared, just to see how well they had obeyed him. How he roared with laughter when he found nearly all vegetation killed, and the earth wrapped in a white mantle as thick as his own bear-skins piled six feet deep! There was ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... breakneck speed that said to the small boys, Get out of the way! and caused the stock loafers, who always assembled on the piazza at the first blast of the horn, to envy the skill that could thus handle a whip, and guide, with apparent ease, the most mettlesome four-in-hand. ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... velvet garments, and, despite his empty stomach, he chants the praises of a bountiful table and rare old wine. That is what I am doing—I, Robert Dalbou, Marquis de Valorsay! At the races at Vincennes, about a fortnight ago, I was bowling along the boulevard behind my four-in-hand, when I heard a laborer say, 'How happy those rich people must be!' Happy, indeed! Why, I envied him his lot. He was sure that the morrow would be like the day that preceded it. On that occasion my entire fortune ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... since the reign of Henry the Eighth—there is a hairy, high-nosed, broken-down nondescript, in appearance something between a horse-dealer and a pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the women, a pretty actress, who, a few years since, looked forward to a supper of steak and onions, with bottled ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... wore a suit of pepper and salt, neat and trig, a "bowler hat" (as they say in London), a ready-made four-in-hand tie, and a small pearl scarf-pin. "No more fuzzy hair for me, no red tie, no dandruff," he had said on his return from Paris. "Right here we melt into the undistinguishable ocean of the millions, unless we can be distinguished by reason of our sculpture." He always ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... in her heart I think she cares for me a little bit. But I'm nothing but a plain, ordinary business man. I never did anything devilish in my life. There's nothing romantic about me. Look at this necktie! Did you ever see a hero wearing a plain black four-in-hand? Never! Did you ever see a hero wearing nice tan oxfords without a spot of mud on them? If I can somehow manage to make her think for a few minutes that I've got heroic stuff in me, she may listen to a little sense. She tells me—rather she threw ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... eight o'clock when the four-in-hand on which the new member had been touring the constituency drove up to the Tallyn door. Forbes hurried to the ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is sure to have a good time with Ethel and Lou; they're not a team, but a four-in-hand. Now, come and have a dance with me, and then we'll go off all by ourselves and have the cosiest time you ever dreamed of. I feel so proud to have you all to myself," she added, as they glided away to the soft strains of the music, ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... in life. I never knew a man called Willy after the age of thirty, who did not come to a melancholy end! Willy was the natural son of a rich, helter-skelter, cleverish, maddish, stylish, raffish, four-in-hand Baronet, by a celebrated French actress. The title is extinct now, and so, I believe, is that genus of stylish, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... deny this, but he laughed at her dramatic accent. "Sure, he does! And about how to tie a four-in-hand, and what's the best stud to wear at the back of a collar, and where to buy socks. What's ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... islands. Sometimes the channels are so dangerous that the little steamers have to proceed at half-speed, carefully threading their way in and out of the posts, as a drag at Hurlingham winds its course between barrels at the four-in-hand competitions. ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... maid!—and everything handsome about me, is sufficiently excellent for me, Mr. Logan; and if it were otherwise, do you disapprove of the proceedings of your own Society? But there is Lord Scremerston calling to us, and a four-in-hand waiting at the door. And I am to sit on the box-seat. Oh, this is better than the dingy old ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... very day he had driven himself into his prebend's house in the close in his four-in-hand to welcome his ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... retrograde movement, he gave a gentle pull to the wooden handle of an old-fashioned wire bell-pull in the midst of buggy, four-in-hand, and other whips, hanging in the entrance, a touch that was acknowledged by a single tinkle of the bell in ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... fastened upon his tie, which was undeniably quaint; a very large four-in-hand showing pictorially, as it seemed, a black sea holding for life a school of fat white fish. And then there came a lovely voice from the shadows—lovely, but did it ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... whistling, sometimes high and clear, sometimes under the breath, sometimes interspersed with song, and sometimes ceasing altogether at critical moments, say, during shaving, or while bringing the four-in-hand up tight and snug under the collar. It was one of those comfortable little noises that indicate a masculine presence; one of those pleasant, reassuring, man-in-the-house noises that every ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... jugglers, the acrobats, the costers with their provision barrows; the grooms and stable hands; the beggars and obvious pick-pockets; the low-down harlots—the high-up ones were already entering the seats of the Grand Stand or sitting on the four-in-hand coaches or in the open landaulettes and Silent Knights. But evidently the professional betting men were a new growth since the mid-nineteenth century. They were just beginning to assemble, wiping ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... bodies and short heads. The third consideration under this head is to make sure of the breeding. On this account the asses of Arcadia are celebrated in Greece, as are those of Reate in Italy, so that I remember an ass that brought sixty thousand sesterces, and a four-in-hand team at Rome that was held at four hundred thousand. The fourth consideration is of the legal precautions to be observed in buying live stock, for in order that title may pass from one to another certain formalities must intervene, since ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... weeds. She was attached somehow to the Court, and has a multiplicity of stories about the princesses and the old King, to which Mrs. Berry never fails to call your attention in her grave, important way. Lady Pash has ridden many a time to the Windsor hounds; she made her husband become a member of the Four-in-hand Club, and has numberless stories about Sir Godfrey Webster, Sir John Lade, and the old heroes of those times. She has lent a rouleau to Dick Sheridan, and remembers Lord Byron when he was a sulky slim young lad. She says Charles Fox was the pleasantest fellow she ever met ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... chorus—roses and Fannies, Fannies and roses, without end, thick as blossoms in paradise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, with sixteen capes; and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail. And suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, that mingle with the heavens and the heavenly host. Then all at once we are arrived at Marlborough forest, amongst the lovely households ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... in swarms, ranging from the spider-wheel gig of a British subaltern to the four-in-hand of Rajput nobility—kept pretty carefully apart, though. The conquerors of India don't mix with the conquered, as a rule, except officially. And there were half a dozen shuttered carriages that might have contained ladies, and might ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... the order of the Peasantry, and was to maintain a constant correspondence on these and similar subjects with Eustace Lyle. Finally, however, they all fell into a very fair, regular, routine life. They all read a little, but not with the enthusiasm which they had once projected. Buckhurst drove four-in-hand, and they all of them sometimes assisted him; but not immoderately. Their suppers were sometimes gay, but never outrageous; and, among all of them, the school friendship was maintained ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... morning an expedition was planned, and Uxmoor proffered his "four-in-hand." It was accepted. All young ladies like to sit behind four spanking trotters; and few object to be driven by a viscount with a glorious ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Dawson?" asked the bartender hurrying forward, a magnificent creature in a check waistcoat, shirt-sleeves, four-in-hand tie, and a ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... Blanche LeHaye. "That's me, in the center of the bunch, with the pink reins in my hands, drivin' that four-in-hand of johnnies. Hot stuff! Just let Dacre try to get it away from me, that's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... 69) it was Lade who having asked Johnson whether he advised him to marry, received as answer: 'I would advise no man to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.' See ante, ii. 109, note 2. Mr. Hayward adds that 'he married a woman of the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.' In Campbell's Chancellors (ed. 1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John Ladd, who is, I suppose, the same man. The Prince of Wales in 1805 asked ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... meeting-place there was a vast crowd of on-lookers, chiefly foreigners, in cabs and carriages and four-in-hand coaches from the principal hotels. The Master of the Hunt was ready, with his impatient hounds at his feet, and around him was a brilliant scene. Officers in blue, huntsmen in red, ladies in black, jockeys in jackets, a sea of feathers and flowers ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... moment was rather mournful. He was regretting the thirty shillings the week he had for several years drawn regularly in this shop. Inside there he had introduced the Raglan shirt, the Duke of Westminster four-in-hand, and the Churchill batwing collar. He longed to enter and plead for reinstatement, but his new-found pride refused to budge his legs door-ward. Thirty shillings, twelve for his "third floor back," and the rest for clothes and books and simple amusements. What a whirl he ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... Amelia's "At Homes"! Sir Charles snapped at him instantly. "I've brought my four-in-hand down here with me," he said, in his best friendly manner, "and we think of tooling over to-morrow to Lewes. If you'd care to take a seat I'm sure Lady Vandrift would be charmed to ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... military funeral. The bier was covered with the Stars and Stripes. A company of native scouts was detailed as an escort, and the local band led the procession to the church. Old "Ichabod," with a long face, and in a dress suit, with a purple four-in-hand tie, followed among the candle-bearers with long strides. The tapers burning in the nave resembled a small bonfire, and exhaustive masses finally resulted, so I judge, in getting the old heathen's spirit out of purgatory. Good old Chino ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... reflections as she turned (in order to be home by five o'clock), and walked towards the town. She was awakened from them by the trampling of hoofs and the cheerful tootling of a horn. A four-in-hand approached and passed her; not so furiously but that she had time to recognise Lady Cayley on the box-seat, Mr. Gorst beside her, driving, and Mr. Ransome and Mr. Hannay behind amongst a ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... boy, and secreting them in the lining of her hat. In the latter character she always rode as a boy would, which was nothing to her, for she could govern any horse that any man could ride, and could drive four-in-hand with the best whip in those parts. Setting forth on one of her patriotic missions, she appropriated to herself the first horse she could lay her hands on; and this offence had brought her where I saw her. She had quite a lovely face, though, as the reader ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... it the more effective. You yacht against them, you hunt with them, you play polo, you match them in every game, your four-in-hand takes the prize at Olympia. I have even heard that you go the length of boxing with the young officers. What is the result? Nobody takes you seriously. You are a 'good old sport' 'quite a decent fellow for a German,' a hard-drinking, night-club, ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats. Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... luxury; just as much as a four-in-hand coach or a yacht. Men go into Parliament because it gives them fashion, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... a Roman antique, but the name is a misnomer. The road along the north side of the Serpentine is now thronged every day with bicyclists, to whom the Park has been lately thrown open. Here also are held the annual meets of the Four-in-Hand and Coaching Club during the season. This road was widened in 1852. Of past and present buildings in Hyde Park the following may be noted: When the Serpentine was made, an old lodge was demolished which may have been the tavern known in the reign of James I. as the ...
— Mayfair, Belgravia, and Bayswater - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... off the crash she was taking his measure with quick, critical glances. It was not his pale, straw-colored hair she objected to, made to look even paler by the contrast of his florid complexion and red four-in-hand with its turquoise scarf-pin. It was the way he combed his hair that she criticized, and the gaudy tie and the combination of colors. But his cordial greeting softened her critical glances somewhat. He was genuinely glad to see her, and it was ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... let down for the purpose, the people drove in from the high road. They came in top buggies and in lumber wagons, in democrats and in "three seated rigs," while from the city came a "four-in-hand" with McGee, Cahill, and their backers, as well as other carriages filled with good citizens of London drawn thither by the promise of a day's sport of more than usual excellence or by the lure of a day in the woods and fields of God's open country. A specially fine carriage and pair, ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... equipage, the poor arrayed in some gay, inexpensive motley, and crowded into miserable vehicles. The particolored costumes give an aspect of brightness to the street; but it is a solemn sight to see four Cuban women, of the middle age, drawn by a four-in-hand, arrayed in full ball-dress, powdered and bejeweled, and passing in review ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... morning. The new wife brought him a fortune, in addition to three children of various ages, of sundry articles of household furniture. Parents, children, and goods were shortly after loaded into a wagon drawn by a four-horse team, and in all the style of this frontier four-in-hand, were driven over indescribable roads, through woods and fields, to ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... Archbishop: this regulation is frequently grumbled at by the Spanish Jehus, and one gentleman, the colonel of a regiment, having applied to the government for permission to indulge his taste in this respect by driving a four-in-hand, was refused it, so he had to content himself with turning out with only three in his drag. With that number of quadrupeds, however, he did a good deal to frighten and amuse the world, apparently wishing to break ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... become of that girl you were so crazy about a couple of years ago? I guess maybe she didn't put a dent into your heart that a person could drive a four-in-hand into and never touch the sides, a regular Hoosac Tunnel. Then when she had you all ribbed up and done to a turn, she said, "I love Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Hawkins loves me. Good by, Jim; take care of yourself." You couldn't have gotten a ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... as 1840 there were 54 coaches and omnibuses running from here every 24 hours.— There has been a kind of modern revival of the good old coaching days, but it has not become popular in this part of the country, though quite a summer feature on the Brighton Road. A four-in-hand, driven by the Earl of Aylesford, was put on the road from here to Coventry, at latter end of April, 1878; and another ran for part of the summer, in 1880, to Leamington. The introduction of railways set many persons to work ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... formal functions between noon and evening consists of a double-breasted black frock coat, or a black cutaway coat, with either light or dark waistcoat, gray trousers, patent-leather shoes, light four-in-hand tie, and ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... was sitting on the Cardrosses' terrace knitting a red four-in-hand for Mr. Wayward—he is too snuffy in his browns and grays!—and Mrs. Cardross was knitting one for Neville, and Cecile was knitting one for Heaven knows who, and Shiela, swinging her polo-mallet, sat waiting for ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... painting and music. His interest in the languages and literatures of the East was as keen as ever, but though he had already collected material for several books he does not seem to have published anything prior to 1881. He took his friends out everywhere in his four-in-hand, and they saw to advantage some of the sights of Burton's younger days. With the bungalow Mrs. Burton was in raptures. On the eve of the Tabut feast, she tells us, the Duke of Sutherland (formerly Lord Stafford) joined the party; and a number of boys dressed like ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... blacks or whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity—more from ignorance than will, But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see—three pyebalds ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... and his exploits with the big game in both countries are well known. Like most young men of his class, Lord Selbie was rather wild at Oxford, and displayed a certain amount of diablerie in London during his quite early manhood. He is a splendid whip, and his four-in-hand was eclipsed by none other in the club. Lord Selbie is also an admirable horseman, and has won several cups in ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... was a Scream and the Overcoat was a Riot and the overlapping Collar with the dinky Four-in-Hand was a Comic Supplement, and why had such a Freak been wished on to a ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... quite right," he continued. "Every one is going. There will be two or three drags. Madame Mayer has induced Valdarno to have out his four-in-hand, and to take her ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... tailored waist with stiffly starched cuffs, and a man's sleeve links. When she was dressed a man's linen waistcoat with a black silk watch-fob hanging from the pocket added further to the unfeminine tout ensemble. She liked the effect, and, as she thrust a scarf-pin in the long black "four-in-hand" before her mirror, she viewed the result ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... fellatio on him. But I dreamed also of natural coitus. I fell in love with the handsome, 12-year-old son of the aged headmaster. The boy, O., sat next me at the table, and I never tired of gazing at him. It gave me a special sense of pleasure to look at him when he wore a certain flowing, scarlet, four-in-hand necktie. But O. was not attracted to me—for one thing I was in a disagreeably pimpled condition—and I could not induce him to linger in my room nor to sleep with me. My passion for O. did not diminish, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in Soolsby's hands. At last, however, even this sound ceased; and the two scarce moved as the sun drew towards the middle afternoon. At last they were roused by the sound of a horn, and, looking down, they saw a four-in-hand drawing smartly down the road to the village over the gorse-spread common, till it stopped at the Cloistered House. As Faith looked, her face slightly flushed. She bent forward till she saw one figure get down and, waving a hand to the party ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... air, drifting in through open windows, was cooler than it had been during the day, but still held enough of the noontide caloric to make fans a comfort, and Mr. Stuyvesant, dining at a "four-in-hand" table well to the front, and attempting to hold his own in a somewhat desultory talk with his fellow-men, found himself paying far more attention to the lovely face of the girl across the aisle than to the viands ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... and elegant man came by and said: "I was the reviver of the running turf. My stomach was tough as my four-in-hand. 'Twas Angostura nipped my bud. It was, ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... lovingly over the shores at Cahirciveen that the coach for the coast tour is ready. With a crack of the whip that would do credit to Will Goldfinch, in the coaching days of old, the driver urges on his team, and the blooded four-in-hand cut their way clear of the town. The tour along the Atlantic between Cahirciveen and Kenmare is nearly fifty miles, and passes through the most diversified country. The eleven miles as far as Waterville is first inland, passing through dreary stretches of moorland, where the small black Kerry ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... caps—rather old-fashioned footgear, Florry thought; but they were polished brightly. A tailor-made, double-breasted blue serge suit, close-hauled and demoded; a soft white silk shirt, with non-detachable collar; a plain black silk four-in-hand tie, and a uniform cap, set a little back and to one side on thick, black, glossy, wavy hair, completed his attire. He had his right hand in his trousers pocket; his left was on the doorknob. He glanced from her ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... turnouts were barouches unmistakably hired, occupied by people dressed with a certain cheap smartness. Here and there a girl, probably of the people, cantered half defiantly down the line, a sailor-hat on her head, her jacket open over a shirt and "four-in-hand." Once a yoke of oxen, driven by a bareheaded ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... sailor's usual manner; "that has been seen to already, as I have expected as much. Admiral Bluewater keeps his ships in most beautiful order, sir! I do not think the Caesar, which leads, is two cable's-length from the Dublin, the sternmost vessel. He is driving four-in-hand, with a tight rein, too, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... something like that. I only said that I always longed to meet one. People who do not value their lives are generally amusing. When I was a girl, I was desperately in love with a cousin of mine who drove a four-in-hand down a flight of steps, and won a bet by jumping on a wild bear's back. He was always doing those things. I loved him dearly." ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... ruin yourself, and you will ruin me," Da Souza moaned. "How am I to have a quarter share if Monty is to come in for half, and how are you to repay him all that you would owe on a partnership account? You couldn't do it, Trent. I've heard of your four-in-hand, and your yacht, and your racers, and that beautiful house in Park Lane. I tell you that to part with half your fortune would ruin you, and the Bekwando Company could ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... most shining shirt-front ever beheld, receiving his guests as they arrived. Here, too, was Lord Denysfort, a feeble-looking young man, with huge ears and no chin to speak of, who, however, had shown some sense in engaging a professional whip to drive the four-in-hand down through the fog. Of course there was a good deal of bustle and hurry and confusion—friends anxious about the non-arrival of other friends and so forth—in the midst of which Lionel said ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... I must load my sledges up, With reindeers four-in-hand, That go to the North, South, East, and West, To ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... in which art he is said to have excelled. He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle (this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his invention), and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world. He could drive a four-in-hand very nearly as well as the Brighton coachman, could fence elegantly, and it is said, played the fiddle well. And he smiled with such irresistible fascination, that persons who were introduced into his august presence became his victims, body and soul, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not be a more faithful or valuable man. He was gentle and very clever in his management of horses, and could doctor them almost as well as a farrier, for he had lived two years with a veterinary surgeon. He was a first-rate driver; he could take a four-in-hand or a tandem as easily as a pair. He was a handsome man, a good scholar, and had very pleasant manners. I believe everybody liked him; certainly the horses did. The only wonder was that he should be in an under situation and not in the place of a head coachman like York; but he had one great ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... and my father's elder brother, Pedro Carlos (1806-1857), became the laird and took up his residence in the old home. He broke the record in driving the mail coach from London to York without leaving the box seat. And later on, in Aberdeen, he drove his four-in-hand at full gallop into Castlehill Barracks. Anyone who knows the old ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... better than anything, I think. Mr Palliser doesn't like ladies to hunt, and of course it wouldn't do as he does not hunt himself. I do ride, but he never gets on horseback. I almost fancy I should like to drive four-in-hand,—only I know ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... was winding up the dinner-hour with Nestie Molyneux, on the upper step of the club-house, "if there isn't the 'Bumbees' driving in a four-in-hand!" and the brake of the Muirtown Arms passed, with a dozen smart and well-set-up lads rejoicing openly, and, wheeling round by the corner of the Cathedral, disappeared up the road which ran to Drumtochty. "And where think ye have their ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... dashing sketch of the fashionable world, a few anecdotes of private scandal thinly veiled, and if lusciously painted, so much the better? a heroine from Grosvenor Square, and a hero from the Barouche Club or the Four-in-hand, with a set of subordinate characters from the elegantes of Queen Anne Street East, or the dashing heroes of the Bow Street Office? I could proceed in proving the importance of a title-page, and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... four-in-hand in the square, and there is a crowd round it. Yes, I see the lady upon the ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Santa Claus that had any bowels of compassion would rush down the narrowest and sootiest chimney in the world to give me my simple wishes. It isn't as if I were petitioning nightly for a grand house, a yacht, a four-in-hand, a diamond necklace, and a particular man for a husband; but I don't see that modesty finds any special favour with St. Nick. Now and then I harbour a rascally suspicion that he is an indolent, time-serving person, who slips down the widest, cleanest chimneys ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... never designed them for; and, if lions had been accessible in this country, he would probably have put a snaffle into the mouth of the forest king, and have trained him for hunting, unless his lordship had been devoured in the experiment. But his most notorious attempt of this order, was a four-in-hand of stags. Having obtained four red deer of strong make, he harnessed them, and by dint of the infinite diligence which he exerted on all such occasions; was at length enabled to drive his four antlered coursers along the high-road. But on one unfortunate ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... of light, courier of the bright pole, Surveyor of the sky, and hour-divider, Servant of time, circler perpetual, Cleanser of earth, disperser of the clouds, Ever your chariot, fiery four-in-hand, You curb fast; you who bear on the bright day Steal from the world once more your countenance And of your glowing hair conceal the flame; Tomorrow from the arms of Tethys you Return once more: but night has sealed ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... haste, one to the farm and one to town, while Jimmy Reed was detailed to canvass the guests and see if a white four-in-hand might ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... diagrams so that they may be used by men or boys; the last one shows a gateway large enough to admit a "four-in-hand" stage-coach or an automobile, but the boys may build it in miniature so that the opening is only large enough to admit ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... shining outside and the studio is brightly lighted. The side doors are open. A serving table is seen out in the orchard; on it are glasses and bottles, et cetera. Axel wears cutaway, but without the decoration, and is wearing a standing collar with four-in-hand scarf. His hair is brushed straight back. Bertha wears a dark gown, cut square, with frilled fichu. She has a flower on the left shoulder. The Misses Hall are extravagantly and expensively dressed. Bertha enters from orchard. She is pale and has dark shadows under her eyes. ...
— Plays: Comrades; Facing Death; Pariah; Easter • August Strindberg
... training for a steeplechase when I took him out of Mr. King's stable. I rode him 120 miles before twelve next day. Those two browns are Mr. White's famous buggy horses. He thought no man could get the better of him. But your old father was too clever. I believe he could shake the devil's own four-in-hand—(coal black, with manes and tails touching the ground, and eyes of fire, some German fellow says they are)—and the Prince of Darkness never be the wiser. The pull of it is that once they're in here they're never heard of again till it's time to shift them to another colony, or clear them out ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... brings golf instead of wisdom, these plutocratic products of "the nail and sarspan business as he got his money by." Do you know whether to laugh or cry at the notion that they, poor devils! will drive a team of continents as they drive a four-in-hand; turn a jostling anarchy of casual trade and speculation into an ordered productivity; and federate our colonies into a world-Power of the first magnitude? Give these people the most perfect political constitution and the soundest political program ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... drove four-in-hand," he has said. "I liked very much to go with him, and I liked ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... race of one mile, steeple chase, hurdle race, polo pony dash, relay race of one mile, cowboy's relay race of same length, cowgirl's relay race, six furlongs, saddle tandem. Exposition jumping contest and five-mile Marathon four-in-hand. On the closing day of the Exposition there will be a grand parade of all first and second winners, not only in the horse display, but in all other displays ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... because he liked to indulge him, or because it gave him an opportunity to study a type of man entirely new to him, the result was always the same,—the colonel had his way. Had the Virginian insisted upon waiting on the offending broker in a palanquin or upon the top of a four-in-hand, Fitz would have found the vehicle somehow, and have crawled in or on top beside him with as much complacency as if he had spent his whole life with palanquins and coaches, and had had no other interests. So when the order came ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... stones used for building in the village were ordinarily quarried, and in which he now attempted to turn his team. Passing itself was a task of difficulty, and frequently of danger, in that narrow road; but Richard had to meet the additional risk of turning his four-in-hand. The black civilly volunteered his services to take off the leaders, and the Judge very earnestly seconded the measure with his advice. Richard treated both proposals ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... believe the general will make himself a simple Director with four colleagues. Just imagine it—five kings of France! It wouldn't be a Directory any longer, but a four-in-hand." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... himself was a sportsman, keeping many horses on which other men often rode, a yacht in which other men sunned themselves, a deer forest, a moor, a large machinery for making pheasants. He shot pigeons at Hurlingham, drove four-in-hand in the park, had a box at every race-course, and was the most good-natured fellow known. He had really conquered the world, had got over the difficulty of being the grandson of a butcher, and was now as good as though the Monograms had gone to the crusades. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... a harmless-looking person, of medium height and rather more than medium stoutness, carelessly dressed in a blue-serge suit. His indifference to dress was further betrayed by the fact that his ready-made black four-in-hand tie had slipped the mooring of a white bone stud, leaving that useful adjunct of the toilet open to the eyes of the world. His face was round, smooth-shaven, and rather pale. He had dark brown hair, surprisingly ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... four-in-hand standing at her door, as I came down the Museum Street hither, half an ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... "holiday" through the valley lands of the Dry Belt? Ever spend days and days in a swinging, swaying coach, behind a four-in-hand, when "Curly" or "Nicola Ned" held the ribbons, and tooled his knowing little leaders and wheelers down those horrifying mountain trails that wind like russet skeins of cobweb through the heights and depths of the Okanagan, the Nicola and the Similkameen countries? ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... the Horse Guards, the Admiralty, Charing-Cross, and Vauxhall Bridge. Also, a bulky book, in a dusty-looking yellow cover, reminding one of the paneled doors of a mail-coach, and bearing an elaborate title-page, full of printer's flourishes, in emulation of the cracks of a four-in-hand whip, entitled, in part, "The Great Roads, both direct and cross, throughout England and Wales, from an actual Admeasurement by order of His Majesty's Postmaster-General: This work describes the Cities, Market and Borough and Corporate Towns, and those at which the Assizes are held, and ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... a drag with all its appendages. There was a coach, the four bay horses, the harness, and the two regulation grooms. When making this purchase he had condescended to say a word to his father on the subject. "Everybody belongs to the four-in-hand club ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... on the road to glory, Mr. Simp on the smooth sea, Mr. Freckle in the debtor's jail, Mr. Risque behind his four-in-hand, and Mr. Lees in the charity grave, let us sit with the two remaining colonists in the cabriolet at Bellinzona; for it is the month of April, and they are to cross the great St. Gothard en route for Paris. Here is the scene: a gloomy stone building for the diligence company; ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... indifference than attachment seemed to be expressed in this politeness; and she declined, with a decision astonishing to many a person, his constantly repeated invitations to make a tour to Oestanvik in his new landau drawn by "my chestnut horses," four-in-hand. It was said by many that the agreeable and friendly Jacobi was much nearer to Louise's heart than the rich Landed Proprietor. But even towards Jacobi her behavior was so uniform, so quiet, and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a brave air, as does one at the dentist's. "I hope that you're not afraid I shall run you into a ditch?" I asked, laughing. "I don't believe, after all, it can be any worse than steering a toboggan down a good run, or driving a four-in-hand with one's eyes shut, as I did once for a wager on a road I knew as ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to-day all it possessed in that kind. The weather was too beautiful for closed coupes, and hence the comfortable family landau was most in evidence. Only now and then did an elegant victoria glide along, or an aristocratic four-in-hand demand the ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Mistress Polly, with a stamp of her foot. "He has promised to drive our four-in-hand to the races this afternoon, and I am not going to let that Council of old fogies rob us of the only soldier in town who has seen service ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... delightful wonderment and exhilaration, winked at by the driver, and saluted with a graceful motion of his whip-handle in recognition of the barmaid, chambermaid, and all the other maids of the house. The coach, with all its picturesque appointments, its four-in-hand, the stirring heraldry of its horn coming down the road, its rattling wheels, the life and stir aroused and moved in its wake,—all this has gone from the presence of a higher civilisation. It will never re-appear in future pictures of actual ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... appointed place, where they were met by the men who had ridden over direct from their country-houses. If the meet was an important one, there might be a crowd of onlookers in every kind of trap, from a four-in-hand drag to a spider-wheeled buggy drawn by a pair of long-tailed trotters, the money value of which many times surpassed that of the two best hunters in the whole field. Now and then a breakfast would be given the hunt at some country-house, when the whole day ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... fatter coachman cause his seat to groan under a rotundity more imposing, nor to ornament with a powdered wig a face more rubicund, nor to collect more elegantly, in his left hand, the quadruple ribbons of a four-in-hand; as good a judge of horses as Tattersall of London, having been, in his youth, as good a trainer as the celebrated elder Chifney, the viscount had found in Edward a rare thing, an excellent coachman and a man very ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... to the progressive but invincible operation of the solar beam. Our honourable friend was well aware that a perfect knowledge of the art of driving, and the character of a "first-rate whip," were objects worthy his ambition; and that, to hold four-in-hand—turn a corner in style—handle the reins in form—take a fly off the tip of his leader's ear—square the elbows, and keep the wrists pliant, were matters as essential to the formation of a man of fashion as dice or milling: it was a principle he had long ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... in his chair and took to wondering what the six fellows who started that afternoon for Richmond were doing. Smashing the windows of the "Star and Garter," perhaps, or fighting the bargees on the river, or capturing a four-in-hand drag, or disporting themselves in some such genial and truly English manner. And as Tom conjured up the picture he ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the trusty Joseph who used to drive my grandmother. Why! he it was who let me hold the reins for the first time in my life and allowed me to play with the great four-in-hand whip outside the doors of ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... visiting-cards on the way. But in September, when the great hotels are closed, and the bronze dogs that guarded the portals of the Ocean House are collected sadly in the music pavilion, nose to nose; when the last four-in-hand has departed, and a man may drive a solitary horse on the avenue without a pang,—then we know that "the season" is over. Winter is yet several months away,—months of the most delicious autumn weather that the American climate holds. But to the human bird of passage all ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... limited vocabulary of Morovenia the words that could express his boiling emotions, he saw Popova standing shamefaced in the doorway. Was it really Popova? The tutor wore a traveling-suit with large British checks, a blue four-in-hand, and, instead of a fez, a rakish cap with a peak in front. As he edged into the room the young women attendants filed timidly behind him. Horror upon horrors! They were in shirt-waists, with skirts that came tightly about the hips, and every one of them wore a chip ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... and are much more easily driven than horses. To drive horses four-in-hand is very difficult, but to drive four reindeer is not. The four deer are harnessed to the sledge all in a row, and a rein is fastened to the head of one; when he turns all the rest turn with him. Usually they trot, but they ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... vigorous hunters were before the door. An elegant brake was intended for the ladies, in which the coachman could exhibit his skill in driving four-in-hand. The cavalcade set off preceded by huntsmen, and armed with first-rate rifles, followed by a pack of pointers barking joyously as they bounded through the bushes. For four hours the hunting party wandered ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... sharp at reading character, marvellously able to take care of himself, and hold his own with anybody. A cat to fall on his feet! He is apparently born without any sense of fear, and with a profound belief in destiny. He can drive four-in-hand, swim for any number of hours without tiring, ride—well, as an Italian cavalry officer can ride, and that is not badly. His accomplishments? He can speak French—abominably, and pick out all imaginable tunes on the piano, putting instinctively quite tolerable basses. I ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... to be—that the old man had had losses—that Redford was heavily burdened—that the proud Pennycuicks, already humbled, were likely to experience a further fall. Certainly, the governess was dispensed with, and the dashing four-in-hand withdrawn from the local racecourses and agricultural show-grounds, of which it had long been the constant and conspicuous ornament, to be sold at public auction, without reason given. The great, hospitable ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... of amusement was sufficiently expressive. "One old mare in a hired trap, when I've driven a four-in-hand over some of the wickedest roads in America! If we are smashed, Aunt Soph, you can lay it to providence, and not to my driving. Don't get to worrying if we are late. If we're killed you'll hear all about it soon enough. You can only die once, and a ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... safe to stir! At Cape Coast, I found yet another mode of locomotion. Governor Maclean took me for a long expedition along the road towards Coomassie, the Ashanti King's capital. We travelled in a small victoria, to which was harnessed a four-in-hand of splendid negroes, whose backs bore the marks of terrible floggings. In spite of the sandy road, the team went gaily along full trot, urged forward by the Governor's incessant cry of "Get on faster, boys!" Then I went back ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... dressed in a neat suit of dark blue serge, a neat, white straw hat, neat low-cut tan shoes, of the well-known "immaculate" trade mark, a neat, narrow four-in-hand tie, and carried a slender, neat, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... that oak close to the ditch marking the triangle of cross-roads he had saved his own and Spitfire's neck by a clear jump that had been the talk of the neighborhood for days. On the crest of this hill—the one he was then ascending—his father always tightened up the brakes on his four-in-hand, and on the slope beyond invariably braced himself in his seat, swung his whip, and the flattened team swept on and down, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake that blurred the road ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... could not wholly repel the "city boarder." After the leaves changed color, nobody went to and fro save those who "belonged," as the storekeeper, the milliner, and Squire Pettijohn, the lawyer; and it had been ten years, at least, since Reuben's four-in-hand was brought to a halt before Miss Eunice Maitland's gate. Now, on a windy day of late September, the two white horses and their two black companions were reined up there, while the trumpet gave a blast which ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... is open to visitors—here comes a gay four-in-hand heavily loaded sweeping by on its road to that summer town. There is much ironstone in the soil round about. At the edge of the park stands an old farmhouse of timber and red tile, with red oast-house beside it, built ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... confused with a new apparition. Something that was and was not Miss Virginia Dabtree, but most certainly wore silver stockings, which it would be his duty and privilege to protect. "Well, anyhow, she'll drive a four-in-hand and wear pearls for breakfast," he concluded, and, whistling, he went down to dream out the night ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... was always the same story—we were to "cut a figure." And he did "cut a figure" to some purpose! He used to drive about with a four-in-hand as if he were a king. And he had people bowing and scraping to him just as to a king. [With a laugh.] And they always called him by his Christian names—all the country over—as if he had been the king himself. "John Gabriel," ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... I was learning—I shall not say to tool a four-in-hand—but just simply to drive four horses. Now it is all right enough to begin with four work-horses pulling a load of several tons. But to begin with four light horses, all running, and a light rig that seems to outrun them—well, when things happen they ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... generally), having these extra horses in his charge; and he really managed them admirably. For what with whistling, and coaxing, and swearing, and swinging his "riatta" over their heads, he had them as much under his command as ever a crack dragsman had his four-in-hand in the good old coaching times of my own dear England. We followed after, riding, when the road would admit of it, all abreast, and presenting a bold front to any gang of desperadoes who might be daring ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... in their lines with unflagging spirit. Slim city-children, blistered wholesomely as to their legs, from knee to ankle, by the sun and the salt air, harnessed themselves to little heaps of fish, and were driven about the upper deck in various fashionable styles, including four-in-hand and tandem, by other slim city-children, whose lower extremities had been treated in the same beneficial manner by the same eminent physicians. The musicians had laid away their cornopeans and other cunningly twisted horns upon the broad disk of the big drum, in a dark alcove ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... stood a young man with a flushed face and distressed appearance. He was dressed in a plaid suit, and wore a red four-in-hand necktie, in which blazed a huge diamond. There were two large solitaire rings on his left hand, and he wore a heavy gold ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... and probably I also, must have fallen under the hind wheels of the coach, and in all likelihood been killed. We have since learned that the coachman had only just come upon the road, which is in a great many places very dangerous, and that he was wholly unpractised in driving four-in-hand. Pray excuse this long and minute account. I should have written to you next day, but I waited, hoping to be able to add that my indisposition was gone, as ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... or the amateur of the beauties of nature, who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the scenes we have attempted to describe, in quest of information, health, or pleasure, or floats steadily toward his object on those artificial waters which have sprung up under the administration of a statesman* who has dared to stake his ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... be sure of it. Every now and then I get an impression of permanence in the things of the Park. As long as the peanut-men and the swan-boats are with us I sha'n't quite despair. And the other night I was moved almost to tears by the sight of a four-in-hand tooling softly down the Fifth Avenue drive. There it was, like some vehicular phantom, but how, whence, when? It came, as if out of the early eighteen-nineties; two middle-aged grooms, with their arms folded, sat on the rumble (if it's the rumble), but ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... With many a gliding wheel, To warn, to comfort, to command, Or fly, or drive a four-in-hand, Or dance a ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... gray hair; his eyes are quick and shrewd; his face shows some slight traces of high living; he carries himself well and his general air is distinguished and high-bred. He wears a suit of thinly striped white flannel and white shoes, a four-in-hand tie of pale old-rose crape, a Panama hat with broad ribbon striped with white and old-rose of the same shade as his tie. His accent is that of a man of the world, and quite without affectation. He comes at once upon his entrance to a chair ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson |
