"Halter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account,—but as to effectually lifting a little finger—oh, no. By heavens! there is something after all in the world allowing one man to steal a horse while another must not look at a halter. Steal a horse straight out. Very well. He has done it. Perhaps he can ride. But there is a way of looking at a halter that would provoke the most charitable of ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... believe it is impossible to express, to the life, what the ecstasies and transports of the soul are when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the very grave: and I do not wonder now at that custom, when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck, is tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to him—I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him of it, that ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... his! Nobody will deny it. He may have it for asking. But to ask is his death-warrant. 'Oh yes!' would be the answer, 'here's your jewel, wrapt up safely in tissue paper. But here's another lot that goes along with it—no bidder can take them apart—viz. a halter, also wrapt up in tissue paper.' Francis, in relation to Junius, was in that exact predicament. 'You are Junius? You are that famous man who has been missing since 1772? And you can prove it? God bless me! sir; what a long time you've been sleeping: every body's gone to bed. ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... became shyer of even the hand which had fed and succoured her; and, as this is a true chronicle, it must be stated that the very first use Mrs. Star made of her convalescence was, to kick her nurse on the leg, break her halter into fragments, and gallop off to the hills with a loud neigh of defiance. Whenever the topic of feminine ingratitude came on the carpet at that station, this, which Star had done, used always to be told as an ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... be had at Bow Street any day, where if you ask any officer of the establishment how they take most thieves, he will tell you at the houses of the women. They must see the dear creatures though they hang for it; they will love, though they have their necks in the halter. And with regard to the other position, that ill-usage on the part of the man does not destroy the affection of the woman, have we not numberless police-reports, showing how, when a bystander would beat a husband for beating his wife, ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... steadily kept in view some general scope or bearing. The robberies committed by the soldiers in a friendly country, had led to the severest orders against marauders; and all who should be caught thieving, were threatened with the halter. Wallenstein himself having met a straggler in the open country upon the field, commanded him to be seized without trial, as a transgressor of the law, and in his usual voice of thunder, exclaimed, "Hang the fellow," against which no opposition ever availed. The soldier ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... directly after a figure, mounted upon a heavy cart-horse, came into sight, thundering along at full gallop. At the first glimpse it seemed as if the horse had run away with his bareheaded rider; but directly after it became plain that, though only riding saddleless, and with no rein but a halter, the big man was urging the horse forward ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... in came Abou Nuwas and was about to take his usual seat, when the Khalif cried out to Mesrour the headsman and bade him strip the poet of his clothes and clap an ass's pannel on his back. Moreover, he charged him bind a halter about his head and a crupper under his rear and carry him round to all the lodgings of the slave-girls and the chambers of the harem, that the women might make mock of him; then cut off his head and bring it to him. 'I hear and obey,' replied Mesrour ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... in our picture. There was a long dark brown tunic made with loose sleeves, and having a sort of hood attached. The garment was fastened about the waist with a knotted rope. By this strange girdle the wearer was continually reminded that the body is a beast to be subdued by a halter. ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Daniel Murchison, Cadets are servants to some chief of clan, From theft and robberies scarce did ever cease, Yet 'scaped the halter each, and died in peace. This last his exiled master's rents collected, Nor unto king or law would be subjected. Though veteran troops upon the confines lay, Sufficient to make lord and tribe a prey, Yet passes strong through which no roads were ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... letter than the gentleman intended. To his great astonishment, it was not long before he one day saw Johnny Darbyshire come riding on a little shaggy horse down the village where he lived, leading the foal in a halter. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... her and flayed her, but found on her neither fat nor flesh, only skin and bone. Then I was sorry for having slain her, when repentance availed me not; and I gave her to the herd and said to him, "Bring me a fat calf." So he brought me my son in the guise of a calf; and when he saw me, he broke his halter and came up to me and fawned on me and moaned and wept, till I took pity on him and said to the man, "Bring me a cow and let this calf go." But my wife cried out at me and said, "Not so: thou must sacrifice this ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... compensated. If the people dare murder their victim, as they are determined to do, and in the name of the law ... the moral effect of the execution will be without a parallel since the scenes on Calvary eighteen hundred years ago, and the halter that day sanctified shall be the cord ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... of her some day. I left the boards off the old well in the pasture, and the pretty new calf fell in and got drowned. Then Peter Bopp said he was going to give me a licking. He did, too. He took a strap halter and went at me. It was awful. I'd never had a licking in my life. They don't do such things in the Home, which is why I say the Home is the ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... before goodness Preferring the universal and common tie to all national ties Premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty Prepare ourselves against the preparations of death Present Him such words as the memory suggests to the tongue Present himself with a halter about his neck to the people Presumptive knowledge by silence Pretending to find out the cause of every accident Priest shall on the wedding-day open the way to the bride Proceed so long as there shall be ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... same, and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how I might get along through life after my contemplated change of circumstances should have taken place, and how I might procrastinate the evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than an Irishman does the halter. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... new halter, an' a muckle nail. There's a gran' tough beam here ayont the ingle, will haud me a' crouse and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... stopped. After taking the group of the Albanian horsedealers (who crossed with us to Bari with their merchandise) we wished to have a separate figure of the villain to the left; but the next man, who was master of the gang, thought time enough had been lost, and, taking the halter from a horse, twisted it round his neck by way of explaining that he was his servant, and that he objected to any further interruption to business. As we were walking between Perzagino and Mula an old man addressed ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that, since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison: "for why," he said, "should you choose to live, seeing it is ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... prevent fools being mad, all the Natural Causes of Love, abundance of Demonstrations of the Synonimous Nature of Love and Leachery, especially consider'd a la Modern, with an absolute Specifick for the Frenzy of Love, found out in the Constitution, Anglice, a Halter. ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... forest was tumbling down about his ears, but as he collected his wits he saw that it was only young Bartlett who had come crashing through the woods on the back of one horse, while he led another by a strap attached to a halter. The echo of his hearty yell still resounded in the depths of the woods, and rang in Yates' ears ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... have arisen were promptly prevented by Hubert de Burgh, the justiciar, who very quickly sought out the ringleader, and incontinently caused him and two of his followers to be hanged at the Elms in Smithfield. Whilst the halter was round his neck, Fitz-Athulf offered 15,000 marks of silver for his life. The offer was declined. He was not to be allowed another chance of stirring ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... crumbled away in some loose stones close to the edge of the dangerous cliff. The animal and the outfit were in danger of going down to the depths below. Phil, on his own horse, had caught hold of the other horse's halter and was trying to haul him to a safer footing. But the youth and his steed were losing ground instead of ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... to the South-lands, that the barbarians there might make an end of him without scandal. If ever he should come back with the Beggar-man and his message, which is not likely, you can answer him with the halter he deserves." ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... adroit hand and fell round her neck; with a single bound she sprang backward the full length of the cord, the noose drew tight, and she fell to the earth half strangled. I at once ran up, loosened the rope, and replaced it by a halter; and placing the pincers upon her nose, secured her by two cords fastened between two trees, and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... tried to climb two trees at once and been carried home on a stretcher; been pulled out of the river with my lungs full of water, and artificial respiration resorted to; been jerked around over the north half of the county by a fractious horse whose halter I had tied to my leg, and which leg is now three inches longer than the other; together with various other little early eccentricities which I cannot at this moment call to mind. My parents at last got so that along about 2 o'clock ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... was a powerful nobleman; he had right of pit and halter upon his lands; he bared the shoulder of the countess, tied her hands behind her back, and hung ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... concluded this speech when a peasant woman passed along the road, dragging by the halter an old mare so heavily laden with branches cut with their leaves on that her knees were trembling, and ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France
... though I had nothing to eat, I felt greatly relieved. A few hours sleep on the frozen ground and we were again astir. I was holding my horse to graze when Gen. Wheaton's orderly came to me and stated that the General wanted to see me at his tent. Handing him the halter strap I walked down to the tent and stepped in. The General was sitting on the ground with a can of coffee before him. He said he had a couple of cups of coffee and four crackers and wanted to divide with me. It required no persuasion ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... quaking in thy shoes at every step thou takest. Take charge of him, Dick; he is to be thy prisoner, remember. Bind his hands behind him so firmly that he cannot get away, and just tightly enough to leave a mark. Put a halter round his neck, and hold the end of it in thy hand, and threaten him with thy drawn pistol at every street corner. And now, gentles, to our preparations. Every man of the shore party shall go armed with hanger on hip, a pair of loaded pistols in his belt, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... me of my mistake, adding, that such engines were as necessary to the proper discipline of the negroes in that latitude as the overseer himself. He then proceeded to detail several instances of fugitive negroes being dragged in capture to the foot of the gallows, where, with halter-encircled necks, they were made not only to acknowledge the error committed and expose accessories, but "pumped dry," as he facetiously termed it, as to the intended flight of other negroes on the estate. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... favour his Conquests in other Parts of the World. But to return to the Series of my own Story, I had now obtain'd Liberty of the City of Dublin upon Paroll, and spent my Life pretty agreeable, especially when I understood that a kind of a Cartel was fix'd, and there was no Danger of a Halter. My long stay in Dublin brought me acquainted with several General Officers of King William's Army, who were my Countrymen and well acquainted with my Family. The great Respect they showed me, was, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... has invaded the town, I will enter Lucile's room; go, therefore, and get ready immediately the dark lantern, and whatever arms are necessary." When my master said these words, it sounded in my ears as if he had said, "Go quickly and get a halter to hang yourself." But come on, master of mine, for I was so astonished when first I heard your order, that I had no time to answer you; but I shall talk with you now, and confound you; therefore defend yourself well, and let us argue without making a noise. ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... and a far more glorious homage to be paid by it to God: by this St. Peter was delivered from his chains; to it the apostles ascribed the wonderful success of their preaching. He mentions, that ten years ago, when a magistrate condemned for high treason was led to execution with a halter about his neck, the citizens ran in a body to the hippodrome to beg a reprieve; and the emperor, who was not able to reject the request of the whole city, readily granted the criminal a full pardon. Much more easily will the Father of mercy suffer himself to be overcome ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... Thomas More and Protector Sommerset were doomed to the scaffold. Here, in Henry VIII.'s reign (1517), entered the City apprentices, implicated in the murders on 'Evil May Day' of the aliens settled in London, each with a halter round his neck, and crying 'Mercy, gracious Lord, Mercy,' while Wolsey stood by, and the King, beneath his cloth of state, heard their defense and pronounced their pardon—the prisoners shouting with delight ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... time for us to go home to prepare our several suppers and we went our different ways, shaking our heads over Tryphena's queerness. I stopped a moment before the cobbler's open door, watched him briskly sewing a broken halter and telling a folk-tale to some children by his knee. When he finished, I said with some acerbity, "Well, Jombatiste, I hope you're satisfied with what you've done to poor old Miss Tryphena ... spoiling the rest ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... creatures she bore beneath her hatches, should have been landed in any other part of the then called Christian or civilized world, stigmatized with the charge of witchcraft, they would have met with the halter or the fagot; and scarcely have fared better, if cast ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... the hint of the Giants suicidal offer of "knife, halter, or poison," from Spenser's "swords, ropes, poison," in Faery Queen, B. I. c. ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... faltering voice, the prisoner answered the Empecinado's interrogatories. It appears that he had been detected as a spy by the French, who had given him his choice between a halter and the betrayal of his countrymen and employers. With the fear of death before his eyes, he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... arriued and landed in the Isle of Caycos, in which Iland we searched for salte-pondes, vpon the aduertisement and information of a Portugall: who in deede abused our Generall and vs, deseruing a halter for his hire, if it had ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... sufficiently disproved by the whole life of the doughty old warrior. Carbajal did not insist further on his own views, however, as he found them unwelcome to Pizarro, and contented himself with coolly remarking, that "he had, indeed, no relish for rebellion; but he had as long a neck for a halter, he believed, as any of his companions; and as he could hardly expect to live much longer, at any rate, it was, after all, of little ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... my horn for the hogs, and they returned to their pen obediently as the Princess had promised. I had scarcely finished numbering them when Marc'antonio came down the track, this time haling a recalcitrant she-goat by a halter. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... to drive called "Jacky," who disliked being groomed. The stable-men kept their brushes in a little cupboard near his stall; but sometimes when they came to groom him they could not find them. So one day they watched him, and saw him slip his halter and go to the cupboard and knock with his nose until he got it open. Then he took out the brushes and hid them under ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... consumptive, it had been overlooked, or received a blast from the fairies; if the whooping-cough was rife, all the afflicted children were put three times under an ass; or when they happened to have the "mumps," were led, before sunrise to a south-running stream, with a halter hanging about their necks, under an obligation of silence during the ceremony In short, there could not possibly be a more superstitious spot than that which these men of mystery had selected for their residence. Another circumstance which caused the people to look ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... glorious immortality. I therefore offer as a conclusive reason why sentence should not be pronounced, that I have rescued souls from perdition, and thus enlarged the company of the saints in light.' Would the villain be acquitted, and, instead of a halter, receive the panegyric of the Court ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... recognizing him, I've fixed it so that he is obliged to kill me," he muttered. "It's my life, or his neck for a halter, and he knows it. The blood-thirsty devil! If I could only get to Brissac's bunk-shanty and lay my ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... lapse of years and ecclesiastical intolerance had rendered Italy nearly destitute of great men. Her famous sons were all either dead, murdered or exiled; reduced to silence by the scythe of time or by the Roman 'arguments of sword and halter.' Bruno burned, Vanini burned, Carnesecchi burned, Paleario burned, Bonfadio burned; Campanella banished, after a quarter of a century's imprisonment with torture; the leaders of free religious thought in exile, scattered over northern Europe. Tasso, worn out with misery ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... it will rain again directly, and you are not half recovered.' And without more ado Knight took her hand, drew it under his arm, and held it there so firmly that she could not have removed it without a struggle. Feeling like a colt in a halter for the first time, at thus being led along, yet afraid to be angry, it was to her great relief that she saw the carriage coming round the corner ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... inspired great strength into the shepherd of the people. As when some stalled horse, fed on barley[490] at the manger, having snapped his halter, runs over the plain, striking the earth with his feet (accustomed to bathe in the smooth-flowing river), exulting, he holds his head on high, and around his shoulders his mane is dishevelled; and, trusting to his beauty[491]—his knees easily bear him to the accustomed places and pasture ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... smith, "to beware how he taxed the people. Poor men won't be taxed. But as he does not follow my advice, he must take the consequence—the horse runs from one hand, the halter ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to git some kind of an animal and tame it," Pinkey suggested. "I mind one winter when I 'bached' I tamed and halter-broke two chipmunks so I could lead 'em anywhur. You wouldn't believe what company they ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... trees to be met with in many parts of that country for making piquets, necessity has introduced a substitute in some measure equivalent: For this purpose each horseman has a small bag, which he fills with sand and burries in a hole of sufficient depth, having one end of the halter fixed to the bag, the hole being afterwards filled up and pressed well down to prevent the bag from being drawn up by the efforts of the horse. But on this urgent occasion, the troops of the viceroy did not take time for this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... of Rome until they are spent. For such a person to lose his money is to suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse so dearly earned, so foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was not horrified to find himself trampling ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tugging at the halter and striking the camel over the neck with his stick, and slowly it spread out its hind legs, rising on them first, and throwing its riders forward till it seemed as if they must slide down his sloping neck ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... field below, a man was ploughing amid the glare of the sun. The reins hung about his neck like a halter, and he clung to the jerking handles of the plough while the furrows of red earth turned and fell behind him like welts on the ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... poor innocent Marianna, and fancy you are going to get her into your toils—but stop a moment! I will spend my last ducat to have the vital spark stamped out of you, ere you're aware of it. And your fine patron, Signor Salvator, the murderer—bandit—who's escaped the halter—he shall be sent to join his captain Masaniello in hell—I'll have him out of Rome; that won't cost ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... will hang you in your own halter strap; Jan Howart's Tories—the same that burned the Westcotts in their cabin a fortnight since. Will your horse take that barricade, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... waiting, and studiously refraining from the slightest move in my direction, until I am within twenty paces of him. Then, with a loud whinny, rather like a child's 'Peep-bo!' in intent, I think, he will walk quickly up to me, wishing me the top of the morning, and holding out his head for the halter which I always carry on ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... to be documentary evidence that she meant to be "At Home" in the capital, bringing the first strawberries with her from Montgomery for her May-day soiree. Bah! one does not like to sneer at people who have their necks in the halter; but one happy result of this disturbance is that the disturbers have sent themselves to Coventry. The Lincoln party may be wanting in finish. Finish comes with use. A little roughness of manner, the genuine simplicity of a true soul like Lincoln, is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... most affected who had been misled by dreams of assimilation. They suffered most, for they lost most. Their hopes were blighted, their hearts broken. The leading-strings proved to be a halter. They saw they had little to expect at the hands of those they had believed to have become fully civilized, and they were embittered toward civilization, which had showed them flowers, but had given them no fruit. In a work, Sinat 'Olam le-'Am 'Olam (Eternal ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... might have been a Quakeress, but for the feather (of the same sober color) in her beaver hat, and the rosette of dark red ribbon at her throat. The other, in bluish-gray, with a black beaver and no feather, rode a heavy old horse with a blind halter on his head, and held the stout leathern reins with a hand covered with a blue woollen mitten. She rode in advance, paying little heed to her seat, but rather twisting herself out of shape in the saddle in order to chatter to her ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... free, out they hustled, Clark and Montgomery each with a fistful of halter thongs, Simon lashing and ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... aloft and fell at my feet throwing a spray all over me as he came down! That was the way they fished in those days. They angled with a stout pole of seasoned tamarack and no reel, and catching a fish was like breaking a colt to halter. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... on the one side and Bruin on the other led the poor fox to the gallows, Tibert running before with the halter. And when they were come to the place of execution, the King and the Queen, and all the rest of the nobility, took their places to ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... goats or mule deer for exhibition; and to breed buffaloes. His finest bull buffalo, named Indian, was one of his favorites, and was broken to ride! Scores of times Rock rode him around the corral, barebacked and without bridle or halter. Rock felt that he could confidently trust the animal, and he never dreamed of guarding himself against a ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... shed, which was without stalls, but had a long rack and manger. On one side he tied his donkey, after taking off her caparisons, and I followed his example, tying my horse at the other side with a rope halter which he gave me; he then asked me to come in and taste his mead, but I told him that I must attend to the comfort of my horse first, and forthwith, taking a wisp of straw, rubbed him carefully down. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... to the saddle here is interesting, though it is rough and cruel. The horses are kept all together in a large paddock; some of them already broken, and some that have never known saddle, bridle, or halter. Every morning they are driven up by the black boys. Selections are made of the animals required for the day's riding, and then the remainder are turned loose into the paddock again. The daily visit to ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... passed, even if it was only a sparrow. The only interest in animals which survived his change of heart was that which he now took in horses as chargers. He would ride the farm-horses bare-back to the trough, holding the halter in one hand and a tin sword in the other with the air of a field-marshal. When strangers tapped him on the cheek and asked him—as is the wont of strangers—"What are you going to be, my boy, when you grow up?" he answered no longer, as he used to do, "A ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... in the matter of horse property the average Tommy holds vague moral views. That cart had to be brought into camp by night, and there was only one way in which it could be done. I rode about for ten minutes, and found an old framework so thin and so dejected that I blushed when I put the halter on it; it had been abandoned on account of lameness, from which it had recovered, and had since been starving. They harnessed it up and it brought in the cart; and that night, being given a good feed of oats, it died from shock. Another skeleton was found in the morning to ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... rain was quit I git the bucket and go milk the cows, and it is time to water the hosses too, so I starts to the house with the milk and leading one of the hosses. When I gits to the gate I drops the halter across my arm and hooks the bucket of milk on my arm too, and starts to open the gate. The wind blow the gate wide open, and it slap the hoss on the flank. That was ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... it, and lifted up his voice and said: "O heart of stone, O curst and cruel maid Unworthy of all love, by lions bred, See, my last offering at thy feet is laid, The halter that shall hang me! So no more For my sake, lady, ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... at various individual acts of wrong, especially if they come in an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him the days when his mother's great-grandmother was strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old Testament for her halter. With all this, he has a boundless belief in the future of this experimental hemisphere, and especially in the destiny of the free thought of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was there to act as his champion. The two friends, although so widely different, were helpful to each other afterwards in many ways, and Lincoln made ample amends for the liberty his hands had taken with Jack's throat, by saving, in a memorable trial, his son's neck from the halter. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... of the trip, however, Cappy found down at the breaking corrals where the horses were detraining. They were all young and full of life, and fully ninety per cent of them had only been halter-broken. In the lot was many an outlaw whose ancestors had run wild for generations in Nevada; and as the delivery contract specified that a horse to be accepted must be broken—God save the mark!—as Terence Reardon ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... nations, eccentricity, beauty, cleverness, or love of sport, may establish him a lady's pet or a sportsman's companion. Happy indeed the dog born in the kennel of a park; no canister for his tail, no halter for his neck; physiologists shall try no experiments on his eighth pair of nerves; his wants are liberally supplied; a Tartar might envy him his rations of horseflesh, shut up with congenial and select associates with whom he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... am most grateful to you for your regard and for your kindness, but farther I will not let you go with me.' I was obliged to be firm. I gave him the reins of my horse. His was without saddle or bridle. He had guided it with a rough halter. When he saw that I was firm, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... driven in from the plains was a magnificent creature, but so fierce that no man dared approach closely. Then the amiable lunatic appeared on the scene. He took a halter, and went toward the dangerous beast. And as he went, he ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... shan't go yet," replied Benjamin; "I don't like your foreign parts; they have no good ale, and I can't understand their talk. I'd sooner remain in jolly old England with a halter twisted ready for me, than pass my life with such a set of chaps who drink nothing but Scheidam, and wear twenty pair of breeches. Come, let's be off: if we get the money, you shall go to the Low Countries, Will, and ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... his lofty halls; But donn'd his armour, glitt'ring o'er with brass, And through the city pass'd with bounding steps. As some proud steed, at well-fill'd manger fed, His halter broken, neighing, scours the plain, And revels in the widely-flowing stream To bathe his sides; then tossing high his head, While o'er his shoulders streams his ample mane. Light borne on active limbs, in conscious pride. To the wide pastures of the mares he flies; So Paris, Priam's ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... The names of Hemp. [b] Neckweed (ahalter) [c] is good for thievish apprentices, [d] for swashbucklers past grace, [e] and all scamps. [f] Also for young spendthrifts [g] who after their parents' death [h] waste their all with harlots [i] and ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... of a week the sentence was uttered, and Vargas was notified that for four months he must do what follows: During the first month, he must go on every feast-day to divine worship in the cathedral, clad in the sackcloth robe of a penitent, and with a halter round his neck; and in this guise, he must listen in public to mass. The second month, he must do the same at the convent of San Domingo; the third month, at San Gabriel; and the fourth, at Binondo—and this, when it had been decided in the conference that he should be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... fashion you're meaning; having gone out so long since, 'tis barely coming in yet. I'd not give a farthing for the man who couldn't lead me; only, God help him! if he ever leaves his hands off the halter." ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Down-East manicure woman in Seattle, show her to me and I'll practice on her," he insisted. "She can halter-break me, at least." ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... mark, dear boy—while these assemble not, Green springs the tree, hemp grows, the Wag is wild; But when they meet, it makes the timber rot, It frets the halter, and ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... address to triumph over them. He had done everything which ingenuity, skill, and impudence could accomplish to save himself from the hands of the rebel soldiers; from a rebel prison, if not from a rebel halter. He had failed; and, though it gave him a bitter pang to yield his last hope, he believed that nothing better could be done than to surrender ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... smiled oddly, but made no reply. He undid the mare's halter, and took her into the stable. There he fed her, standing by her all the time she ate, and not once taking his eyes off her. His father, the late marquis, had bought her at the sale of the stud of a neighbouring laird, whose whole being ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... Walter, "Time rolls his ceaseless course: "The Grace of yore" may alter - And then, I've one resource: I'll invest in a bran-new halter, ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... halter to do what he threatened, when the fox, whose tongue had helped him in hard pinches before, thought there could be no harm in trying whether it might not do him ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... then came up, and, tying a halter round the neck of the effigy, dragged it off to a place where a gibbet had been erected, ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... point," he said. "Right there, just as Capriata swung his vessel to head for the sea, the mare broke loose from her halter, and in a bound reached the rail of the schooner and leaped into the waves. Capriata could do nothing. The schooner was in peril, and he, with his hand upon the wheel and his men at the sails, could only utter an oath. He confesses he did that, and you will find no man more convinced of the miracle ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... were shouting different advice and it was a question whether he would be able to get control before a disaster happened. I said nothing and did nothing but kept fairly close to him. Narayan Singh found his proper place alongside me, with the halter of Ayisha's camel in his hand; and he said ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... was completely concealed amid the trees. Two horses, with their feet fettered, were fastened by a halter to the lower ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... I'm afraid of his breaking away. Look how he is straining at his halter, and how rough his coat is. It looked like satin yesterday. If he broke loose what should ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... McClellan speaks of the campaign in Maryland as made "with a halter round his neck," [Footnote: O. S., p. 551.] meaning that he had no real command except of the defences of Washington, and that he marched after Lee without authority, so that, if unsuccessful, he might have been condemned for usurpation of command. It would be incredible that he adopted such a mere ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... of a horseman, as we think, to have his groom trained thoroughly in all that concerns the treatment of the horse. In the first place, then, the groom should know that he is never to knot the halter (1) at the point where the headstall is attached to the horse's head. By constantly rubbing his head against the manger, if the halter does not sit quite loose about his ears, the horse will be constantly injuring himself; (2) and with sores so ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... any argument shall be matter of encouragement; but if unwilling, then any argument shall give discouragement. The saints of old, they being willing and resolved for heaven, what could stop them? Could fire and fagot, sword or halter, dungeons, whips, bears, bulls, lions, cruel rackings, stonings, starvings, nakedness? So willing had they been made in the day of His power. And see, on the other side, the children of the devil, because they are not willing, how many shifts and starting-holes they will have! I ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... been driven by a woman's perfidy into crime I am going to bridle my tongue and keep down the words which are my only safeguard from insanity? No, no; while my miserable breath lasts I will curse her, and if the halter is to cut short my words, it shall be with her name ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Elysium. We entertain no doubt whatever that the passions of men and demigods and gods are nearly the same above ground and below; and that Achilles would dispatch his spear through the body of any shade who would lead Briseis too far among the myrtles, or attempt to throw the halter over the ears of any chariot horse belonging to him in the meads of asphodel. We admit no doubt of these verities, delivered down to us from the ages when Theseus and Hercules had descended into Hades itself. Instead of a few stadions in a cavern, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... of the lions rose in sudden fury until the earth trembled to the hideous chorus. The horses shrilled their neighs of terror as they lay back upon their halter ropes in their mad endeavors to break loose. A trooper, braver than his fellows, leaped among the kicking, plunging, fear-maddened beasts in a futile attempt to quiet them. A lion, large, and fierce, and courageous, leaped almost to the boma, full in ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the exposition was to the effect that pure-bred cattle from below the Federal quarantine line should not be allowed to participate in the live-stock show at the exposition, and that none but halter-broke cattle should be exhibited in any event. The effect of this ruling, the commission claimed, was, first, to shut out from participation the breeders of pure cattle from below the quarantine line, and, second, to prevent a demonstration that should ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... another inn, and asked the landlord if he could put him up for the night, him and his mare. The landlord said, "All our beds are full, but you can put the mare up in the stable if you will." "Very well," said the man, and tied the halter of the mare into the ring of the stable. Next morning early the landlord's daughter said to her father, "That poor mare has had nothing to drink; I'll go and lead it to the river." "That is none of your business," said the landlord; "let the man do it himself." "Ah, but the poor thing has ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... interrupted by the appearance of a negro in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making or "quilting frolic" to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and, having delivered his message with that air of importance ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... to try to realise the strange and to our eyes repulsive spectacle of the burnt offering, which is veiled from us by its sacred associations. The worshipper leads up his animal by some rude halter, and possibly resisting, to the front of the Tabernacle, the courts of which he dared not tread, but which was to him the dwelling-place of God. There by the altar he stands, and, first pressing his hand with force on the victim's head, he ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a dreadful, wicked girl to be thus in league with pirates," sighed Mistress Dorothy, "but I confess to you, Jack dear, that it would grieve my heart to see this charming pirate wear a hempen halter." ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... all the better for knowing that," Peters said grimly. "The Dutchmen are learning that, as the Spaniards are finding to their cost. There is nothing like making a man fight than the knowledge that there is a halter waiting for him if he ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... he would give up all further thought of writing. "The quill and I are divorced," he wrote to Greenough in June, 1833, "and you cannot conceive the degree of freedom, I could almost say of happiness, I feel at having got my neck out of the halter." Longings for his old sea-life often came over him. "You must not be surprised," he wrote, half-jestingly, to the same friend, "if you hear of my sailing a sloop between Cape Cod and New York." But he had no definite plans ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... a cow and wants to sell her to Gryb for thirty-five paper roubles and a silver rouble for the halter. She is a ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... after admiring the beauty of his form, and becoming familiar with him, they proceeded to tie one of their young men upon his back with cords that he might not fall off. The horse was then led cautiously by the halter until he became sufficiently tame to ride alone, and without a leader. It was in this manner that our nation procured the horse, and from this one sprung the breed we ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... went along very sadly, but after a little he quite recovered his spirits. "I may as well ride as walk," said he; so instead of leading the cow by the halter, he jumped on her back, and so he went whistling along until ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Wainsbury; that she was deformed in person; that she retired into a convent from some circumstances connected with an attachment to a young man of inferior rank; and that she killed herself, not by a sword, as the poet insinuates, but by a halter. As to the latter statement, it may very possibly be true; such a change would be a very slight exercise of the poet's privileges. As to the rest, there are scarcely grounds enough for an opinion. Pope certainly speaks of her under the name of Mrs. (i. e. Miss) W—, which at least ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... god—yes, a god, I declare—vouchsafes me these pleasant conditions, And often I gayly repair with a tender white lamb to his altar, He gives me the leisure to play my greatly admired compositions, While my heifers go browsing all day, unhampered of bell and halter. ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... escape. C. J. Sudheimer and Peter Molitor were placed as sentinels on the top of the edge of the plateau, near the camp. The wind was blowing at a 30 or 35 mile gait, so they finally took post on the more sheltered slope near the top. About 11 p.m. an Indian with a halter in his hand appeared and crossed the line some 50 feet distant, when he was halted by Sudheimer, who, finding that he was a prisoner trying to make his escape, promptly arrested him. I immediately ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... he entered Colorado, Following still the barren plain Where for months the mocking heavens Never spared a drop of rain, Faithful Simon, weak and starving, Following feebly in the track Pulled upon his straining halter, Groaned ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... little chilled by the cold mountain air and very willing to travel. Towards nightfall I heard the welcome tinkling of a bell, and soon saw first the smoke of camp fires, and then a village of tents and grime-covered wagons. How I tugged at Bobby's halter to make him go faster and then mounted him, without getting much more speed, can better ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... the geodetic relations were known, and the work was founded upon a base line connecting these two points. Sub-assistant Oltmanns, and Mr. Bowie as aid, were detailed for the west shore, Mr. Gerdes and acting assistant Harris taking the eastern side, while sub-assistant Halter observed angles from permanent stations. The angular measurements were made with all kinds of instruments found suitable to the locality. Only a few of the stations were on solid ground, nearly all the shore being overflowed. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... state shall please to consider as unconstitutional. Stripped of the sophistical argumentation in which this doctrine has been habited, its naked nature is an effort to organize insurrection against the laws of the United States; to interpose the arm of state sovereignty between rebellion and the halter, and to rescue the traitor from the gibbet. Although conducted under the auspices of state sovereignty, it would not the less be levying war against the Union; but, as a state cannot be punished for treason, nullification cases herself ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... a rush and a splash he ran into the water, to where he could dimly make out the form of the big bay; and catching it by the halter, he drew it after him, the rest of the thirst-quenched horses coming plash! plash! out of the water, and following the bay ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... pale lad by his neckerchief, as if he had him by the halter; "Shippy, I've seen sarvice with Uncle Sam—I've sailed in many Andrew Millers. Now take my advice, and steer clear of all trouble. D'ye see, touch your tile whenever a swob (officer) speaks to you. And never mind how much they rope's-end ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... with revenge for all these years of enmity, Charnisay forgot his promise and hanged every soul of the garrison but the traitor who acted as executioner, compelling Madame La Tour to watch the execution with a halter round her neck amid the jeers of the soldiery. Legend says that the experience drove her insane and caused her death within three weeks. Charnisay was now lord of all Acadia, with 10,000 pounds worth of Madame La Tour's jewelry transferred to Port Royal and all La Tour's ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... with their bright red sashes, and the gold rings in their ears, stood together. Each one had hold of the halter of a horse he was leading. And the horses did not seem to be the kind that belonged in a circus, for they pranced about, and did not like to hear the music. Nor did they like the sight of the elephants and camels, that were now walking about, ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... Bern and violated by her antichristian innovations: "The Articles of Confederation," said Erlach, "do not touch upon religion, and grant full liberty in regard to it."—"Well!" replied the old landamman, Halter, "if you yourselves say, that the Articles of Confederation do not touch upon religion, then they cannot be violated even by our intervention in matters of faith; and if your people or others appeal to us for sympathy or succor, where ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... yielding. It's no use your screaming in my ears, you won't make me change my mind. I'm ready to treat with people that are reasonable, but when they bite me I bite back. I agree with you it's a hateful thing to have two of our brothers hanged; noblemen are not to be insulted with the halter; their honour should be spared and their heads taken off decently. But what can we do? Can we hesitate a moment between two noblemen's deaths and the destruction of all the peasantry? One man is as good as another now. So you may make as much ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... shalt not excel,'" he answered. "A man weak as any child, and as easily led astray. If he be your head, Avery, I would say it were scarce worth to turn out for the cause. You would have an halter round your ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... in dangerous proximity. Between house and barn, standing out black against the orange glow of the fire, was a group of women and children, while a few men, not more than a half-dozen it seemed, were wandering hither and thither in the radiance. A horse with trailing halter snorted and dashed to safety as the automobile turned from the lane and came to a stop under ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... whooping, neighing and braying; there was galloping and trotting; fellows with highlows and white stockings, and with many a string dangling from the knees of their tight breeches, were running desperately, holding horses by the halter, and in some cases dragging them along; there were long-tailed steeds and dock-tailed steeds of every degree and breed; there were droves of wild ponies, and long rows of sober cart horses; there were donkeys, and even mules: the last rare ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow |
