"Ketch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we received regularly through the courtesy of the rebel pickets, said prior to the fourth, in speaking of the "Yankee" boast that they would take dinner in Vicksburg that day, that the best receipt for cooking a rabbit was "First ketch your rabbit." The paper at this time and for some time previous was printed on the plain side of wall paper. The last number was issued on the fourth and announced that we had ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... ketch him?" cried all hands, for the advent of squid was the most welcome news the men on the Charming Lass had had since leaving home four days before. It meant that this favorite and succulent bait of the roaming cod had arrived on the Banks, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the United Provinces, 1672-1674. The Dutch privateer 's Landswelvaren (Commonweal) captures the Providence on April 4/14, 1673, and puts on board her a prize crew. The two vessels become separated. On April 11/21 the 's Landswelvaren makes prize of the ketch mentioned in this document, in which Captain de Lincourt presents the ketch, by way of consolation, to the master of the Providence. On April 12/22 the prize crew of the Providence, by a ruse, possesses ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... crossed a churchyard alone at night for a thousand naps. Well, that woman to me is what a churchyard was to black Jean. No: if she is in London, I have but to go to her house and say, 'Food, shelter, money;' and I would rather ask Jack Ketch ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... quickly; "there's been awful times over in 'Frisco! Everybody just wild, and the Vigilance Committee in session. Jo Henderson's killed! Shot by Wynyard Marion in a duel! He'll be lynched, sure as a gun, if they ketch him." ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a way out! I tell you," he cried. "This suck o' wind proves it. If we only can get some more o' these blasted plates loose we'll light out o' this and euchre the Priest Captain an' his whole d—n outfit yet! Ketch hold here, Professor, an' put your muscle into it for all you're worth. Grab right here; now!" And Young and I together pulled at the same plate with all our might and main. But for all the impression that we made upon it we might as well have tried to pull down the mountain; the plate did ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... intended for locomotion over freshly ploughed land. Jake rose to his feet, answering the queries of Ferry at his side as to his fitness for continuing work with a decided: "Sure I am. Sha'n't get even with myself for that fool trick till I've done a good dozen furrows. You don't ketch that there pair o'hosses gittin' away from Jake Kelly again ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... preparations for the new enterprise at once. The Albert, a little ketch-rigged vessel of ninety-seven tons register, was selected. Iron hatches were put into her, she was sheathed with greenhart to withstand the pressure of ice, and thoroughly refitted. Captain Trevize, a Cornishman, was engaged ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... of Acheen, killed their captain, Edgecombe, and set afloat in the pinnace twenty-seven officers and men who refused to join them. The Mocha was then renamed the Defence, and for the next three years did an infinity of damage in the Indian Ocean. At the same time, the crew of the Josiah ketch from Bombay, while at anchor in the Madras roads, took advantage of the commander being on shore to run away with the ship. The whole thing had been planned between the two crews before leaving Bombay; their intention being to meet off the coast ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... deep—knee deep! Wade in— wade in!' an' he make de water bubble des like he takin' a dram. Den an' dar, sump'n n'er happen, an' how it come ter happen Brer Rabbit never kin tell; but he peeped in de pon' fer ter see ef he kin ketch a glimp er de jug, an' in he went—kerchug! He ain't never know whedder he fall in, er slip in, er ef he was pushed in, but dar he wuz! He come mighty nigh not gittin' out; but he scramble an' he scuffle twel he git back ter de bank whar he kin clim' out, an' ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... captain were roaring with laughter, but Chris went on solemnly with his confession. "Golly, but dis nigger's been a powerful liar lots ob times, but you doan ketch him at it any more. You sho' is got de conjerer eye, Massa Charley, else how you know dat lake wid de crane on it was full of grass like knives, else how you see bees round dat bear when you is too far off to see 'em, else how you see Chris getting dem pawpaw leaves ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... are goin now, it looks as if William the Twicer is gonna have a great future behind him: Skinny sez the Klown Quince and his army reminds him very much of his (Skinny's) brother who went out west and made twenty Indians run—but the Indians couldn't ketch him. Believe you me derie, the Boches are running faster than the color in a 19 ct. pair of stockins. They are hot footin it faster than the train that I left for camp on pulled out of Grand Central Station; and that pulled out so fast that when I tried to kiss ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... own thinking, it is out of this pain and hatefulness that an execution becomes invested with an ideal grandeur. It is sheer horror to all concerned—sheriffs, halbertmen, chaplain, spectators, Jack Ketch, and culprit; but out of all this, and towering behind the vulgar and hideous accessories of the scaffold, gleams the majesty of implacable law. When every other fine morning a dozen cut-purses were hanged at Tyburn, and when such sights did not run very strongly against the popular current, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... William. The people who fall off cliffs are mighty few compared with them that git skeered 'bout it. Ef you feel a-tall dizzy, jest ketch holt o' the tail o' that rear mule o' mine. He won't kick, an' he won't mind it, a-tall, a-tall. Instead o' that it'll give him a kind o' home-like feelin', bein' ez I've hung on to his tail myself so many times when we wuz goin' along paths not more'n ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... him say, i will be cussed the whole place is ful of toads. then mother said did you ever. and father said he never did, and it was some more of that dam boys works and he yelled upstairs for me to come down and ketch them. so i went down and caught them and put them out all but 2 that father had stepped on and they had to be swep up. then all the folks came down in their nitegounds and i went up stairs lively and got into bed and pulled the clothes round ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... to salve his lacerated dignity. A young English peer happened to ask a Chicago servant to clean a pair of boots, and his tone of command was rather pronounced and definite. That young patrician began to doubt his own identity when he was thus addressed—"Ketch on and do them yourself!" There was no redress, no possible remedy, and finally our compatriot humbled himself to a negro, and paid an exorbitant price for ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... snake I brunged you!" he exclaimed as he came close under the sill, which is not high from the ground. "If you put your face down to the mud and sing something to 'em they'll come outen they holes. A doodle-bug comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift me up and I can put him in the water-glass on your table." He held up one muddy paddie to me and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From the embrace in which he and the worm and I indulged my lace and dimity ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... pulled down the nether lid of the half-closed eye, and inquired, somewhat irrelevantly, whether Jack saw anything green there. "Not by this light!" he answered his own question, as he let up his eyelid and snapped his thumb and finger. "Ye can't ketch old birds with chaff. I've been through the ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... On an expedition of this sort, I rode once into a country town, and saw a crowd assembled in one corner; I joined it, and my feelings!—beheld my poor friend Viscount Dunshunner just about to be hanged! I rode off as fast as I could,—I thought I saw Jack Ketch at my heels. My horse threw me at a hedge, and I broke my collar-bone. In the confinement that ensued gloomy ideas floated before me. I did not like to be hanged; so I reasoned against my errors, and repented. I recovered slowly, returned to town, and repaired to my cousin the bookseller. ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for its breach of faith, you punish doubly the town of Berlin by depriving her of the last thing that remained to her in her day of need and misfortune—her honorable name. You cannot be in earnest, sire? Punish, if you choose, the imperial judge, but do not make Berlin the dishonored Jack Ketch to ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... be sendin' a thief to ketch a thief. But you know I've a grudge agin the devil, if I do belong to him; and if I could help git you out of his clutches it would do me ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... you want her to ketch scarlet fever and die?" demanded the nurse, putting the bottle down and glaring at him with a look of ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... ole mare tid-day, 'cause she 'way down in de pasture, an' anybody can't ketch um in tree hour time; an' you can't ride de mule, Miss Jane, 'cause you ma done tell me I must tek good care o' you an' de house w'ile she gone, an' I ain't gwine let you broke you' neck or you' arm—not tid-day." And Billy quietly walked out and closed the door, leaving the young ladies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... little coaxin', it did." That is to say, a few back-turns with very light pressure brought the screw-head free enough for a finger-grip, and the rest was easy. "It warn't of any real service," said Uncle Mo. "One size bigger would ketch and hold in. This here one's only so much horse-tentation. Now I can't get a bigger one through the plate, and I can't rimer out the hole for want of a tool—not so much as a small round file.... Here's a long ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... but the misfortunes and the personal accomplishments of the object of her affections. "I see him sweeter than the nosegay in his hand; the admiring crowd lament that so lovely a youth should come to an untimely end:—even butchers weep, and Jack Ketch refuses his fee rather than consent to tie the fatal knot." The preservation of the character and costume is complete. It has been said by a great authority—"There is some soul of goodness in things evil":—and the Beggar's Opera is a good-natured but instructive ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... see the surface-gas burnun' down in the woods, like it used to by our spring-house-so still, and never spreadun' any, just like a bed of some kind of wild flowers when you ketch sight of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... on't," replied another groom. "Howsomever we mun contrive to ketch him, or Sir Roaph win send ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... boots—eleven pair o' boots; and one shoe as belongs to number six, with the wooden leg. The eleven boots is to be called at half-past eight and the shoe at nine. Who's number twenty-two, that's to put all the others out? No, no; reg'lar rotation, as Jack Ketch said, ven he tied the men up. Sorry to keep you a-waitin', Sir, but I'll ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... ketch. We com' feefty mile. Dat leetle hoss she damn good hoss. We got de two bes' hoss. We ke'p goin' dey no ketch. 'Spose dey do ketch. Me, A'm tell 'em A'm steal dat hoss an' you not know nuthin' ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... answered. "But we made a quick passage. The Wonder's just around in the bight at Gooma, waiting for wind. Some of the bushmen reported a ketch here, and I just dropped around to see. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... mister," began Bill, "mister, they's a coon what's been a eatin' our chickens lately, and we're goin' to try to ketch[6] the varmint. You wouldn't like to take a coon hunt nor ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... pay for stayin'. I'm tellin' you private that I'm goin' to wrangle dudes next season. I made him a good proposition and I think it'll ketch him." ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... am still alive. Packard is dead. He was unswervingly kind and gentle to his boys, and his boys waited till one day he was down with fever. His head is over on Malaita now. They carried away two whale-boats as well, filled with the loot of the store. Then there was Captain Mackenzie of the ketch Minota. He believed in kindness. He also contended that better confidence was established by carrying no weapons. On his second trip to Malaita, recruiting, he ran into Bina, which is near Langa Langa. The rifles with which the boat's-crew should have been armed, were locked ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... over the mountain, and down the Kangaroo Valley Road that's all cut out of the side of the 'ill. And after they's gone a mile or two, Henery sees a track in the road—the track of the biggest car he ever seen or 'eard of. An' the more he looks at it, the more he reckons he must ketch that car and see what she's made of. So he slows down passin' two yokels on the road, and he says, 'Did you see ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... you think there'll be anything in that?" interestedly asked Mrs Bray. "I suppose she'd be glad to ketch anything for a home of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... enugh, I guess, When some gits more and some gits less, Fer them-uns on the slimmest side To claim it ain't a fare divide; And I've knowed some to lay and wait, And git up soon, and set up late, To ketch some feller they could hate For goin' ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... to his depravity, and his probable end of life upon the gallows if he persisted in so headstrong and wilful a course. The story of the "forty she bears" he did not repeat to the youth, and no reference was made to the awful death of Jack Ketch. He was too shrewd an observer of human nature to present anything as attractive as these things to the imagination ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... bawled the colonel. "Twenty dollars to the men—fifty dollars to the men who ketch an' ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... "You don't ketch my meaning," growled Garstang, angry and surly. "What I want is a big haul, and damn the risk. There's no white liver about me, but I say, 'Let's wait till we've reason to know that the bank's safe is heavily loaded.' I say, 'Wait till we know extra ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... any thieves hereabouts, and if there was, I guess they wouldn't make for your sunshade, but come along. Remember to always go up the back way; we don't use the front stairs on account o' the carpet; take care o' the turn and don't ketch your foot; look to your right and go in. When you've washed your face and hands and brushed your hair you can come down, and by and by we'll unpack your trunk and get you settled before supper. Ain't you got your dress on ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... "We'll ketch something better than them as soon as we get outside," said Josh, bending to his oar, Will following suit, and the water began to rattle under the blunt bow of the heavy boat as they sent ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... ragged as a scarecrow. Looks like he don't get enough food to push his ribs out. I ketch you spendin' the money I give him on sperrits, livin' or dead, an' I'll never ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... live-oaks by the third cross-fence north. Reckon you'll get there about noon. Keep your eye peeled for fire. I thought I seen somebody up there as I come across from the corral early this mornin'. We come close to burnin' out here once, account of a hobo's fire. Understand, if you ketch anybody cantelopin' around a-foot, you just ride 'em off the range ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... said Bill. Of course his name was Bill. "Especially the big he-ones. High altitude. Going slow with your throttle wide open. You're all right if you got plenty water. If not, why then ketch a cow and use the milk. Only go slow or you'll git ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... morning. These black-skinned Spaniards have rebelled again. Wall, they can make a fuss, d—m 'em, and have revolutions every year, but they can't fight. It's no use to go after 'em, unless when you ketch 'em you kill 'em. They won't stand an' fight like men, an' when they can't fight longer give up; but the skared varmints run away and then make another fuss, d—m 'em." Such was the ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... ketch yer horse, Tom?" The Oracle nodded, and passed on; he spake no word—he was too full ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... he agin, 'Lord John, the treasure shall be thine, but the proudest treasure of me life is this fair daughter of thine that sets here by me side, Lord John,' says he. From that I thought maybe the Lady Constance had said something I didn't ketch. Of course, I was ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... his pipe to make room for the remark, "is a wirtue—that's wot I says. If ye can't make things better, wot then? why, let 'em alone. W'en there's no wind, crowd all canvas and ketch wot there is. W'en there is wind, why then, steer yer course; or, if ye can't, steer as near it as ye can. Anyhow, never back yer fore-topsail without a cause—them's ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... ketch the sea cows. They're big as elephants, and one o' them'll last you two, six months if she ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... first time in this heah war," Kirby remarked. "They'll ketch 'em a Yankee. The blue bellies, they're mighty obligin' 'bout wearin' good shoes an' such, an' lettin' themselves be roped with all their plunder on. Some o' 'em, who I had the pleasure of surveyin' through Sarge's glasses this mornin', ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... man I want, behind the 'Daily Sunderbund.' If it wasn't for this dam toe, I'd go across and ask him. No, don't you go. Send one of these dam jumpin' frogs—idlin' about!" He requisitions a passing waiter, gripping him by the arm to give him instructions. "Just—you—touch the General's arm, and ketch his attention. Say Major Roper." And he liquidates his obligations to a great deal of asthmatic cough, while the jumping frog ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... in that sweet presence; and with her good Captain King, who is to engage one Cotterell, an old servant of Raleigh's, to find a ship wherein to escape, if the worst comes to the worst. Cotterell sends King to an old boatswain of his, who owns a ketch. She is to lie off Tilbury; and so King waits Raleigh's arrival. What passed in the next four or five days will never be truly known, for our only account comes from two self- convicted villains, Stukely and Mannourie. On these details I shall not enter. First, because one cannot trust ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... more'n a bit obliged to yer,' she panted, 'an' thank ye kindly. The line parted, and I thought I never should ketch that dratted ole creetur. Ah, ye good-for-nuthin',' she cried to the horse, who now held down his nose and looked meekness itself, 'an' the good missis I am to ye. Allus plenty to eat, and ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... time when he'd gone to Cork to attind a landlord's convintion to raise the rints on a lot o' shtarving tinants, that bein' a favorite job wid him. If he'd knewn the ground was holy, he'd never dared to set fut an it, fur ye see, if ye can ketch the divil an holy ground where he's no bizness, ye've got him fast an' tight an' can pull him in when ye plaze. But the saint wasn't goin' to give the owld desaver any show so he run at him an' gripped him ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... any more at all after Elburtus had come, only I had got into the job, and had to finish it; for I always think it is better manners, when visitors come unexpected, and ketch you in some mean job, to go on and finish it as quick as you can, ruther than to set down in the dirt, and let them, ditto, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... that for anybody who lived right on the side of a canal, and had two good, cisterns on the place, and a well, they didn't see why I should feel in a sufferin' condition for any more water; and if I did, why didn't I ketch ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... would run away and hide in de woods to keep from working so hard but the white folks to keep them from running away so that they could not ketch 'em would put a chain around the neck which would hang down the back and be fastened on to another 'round the waist and another 'round the feet so they could not run, still they had to work and sleep in 'em, too; ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... hoss on this place that could ketch the lieutenant's black mare. Oh, why didn't I shoot the nigger?" and the soldier strode up and down ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... callate, for 'Bam!' it caught him—or somebody in the seine-boat with him. He swore some, or somebody swore, you c'n bet. 'I don't know who y'are,' he hollers, 'but if ever I meet you ashore,' and he was so far away then I couldn't ketch no more of it. 'Don't know who y'are, but if I ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... heart she has, and slippin' in and out of things like a hummin'-bird, no easier to ketch and no longer to stay," said Finden, the rich Irish landbroker, suggestively to Father Bourassa, the huge French-Canadian priest who had worked with her through all the dark weeks of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer gayety. She had been buoyant of spirit ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... wuss'n whut I do," said Kitty Silver. "An' he ain't got to ketch 'em lookin' at him outen of his kitchen sink—an' he ain't fixin' to be no ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... 'em ev'ry Sunday they ketch it of ye," my uncle answered. "Long sermons are hard on ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... Denison was quite a young man he was earning a not too dishonest sort of a living as supercargo of a leaky old ketch owned by Mrs. Molly MacLaggan of Samoa, which in those days was the Land of Primeval Wickedness and Original and Imported Sin, Strong Drink, and Loose Fish generally. Captain "Bully" Hayes also lived ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... He's bound to ketch dat train ef it busts a hamstring. He's done got holt de rear platform! He's pullin' hisself up! There! I tole you so! I knowed he was the kind of fellow that gits ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... I hate to see you go out this awful night," wailed Mrs. Mangan, following him into the little hall, and dragging his fur-lined coat off a peg, and holding it for him; "and this scorf, my darling, put it on you before you ketch your death. Will ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... States government would return to relations of amity with us, the contents of which may possibly induce the American government to agree to a suspension of hostilities as a preliminary to negotiations for peace;—that he proposed sending his majesty's hired armed ketch Gleaner to New York, with letters to Mr. Baker, whom he had left at Washington in a demi-official capacity, with directions to communicate with the American minister and to write to me the result of his interview. Should the president ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... had a rope with him, and without more ado they ran up the culprit to the nearest tree. To be sure, they did intend to put the rope round his waist, but they were too drunk to know exactly what they were about, and by mistake slipped it, Jack Ketch fashion, round his neck. Having done this wise trick, they all ran away, shrieking with laughter at the cleverness of ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... powerful, even amid the fearful accessories of that scene; "yes, it is no trifling commission that can call people that I shall not name out upon the water in such a night as this. It was in just such weather that I saw the Vesuvius ketch go to a place so deep, that her own mortar would not have been able to have sent a bomb into the open air, had hands and fire been there ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... bit of poetry—I forgit it now—that that there jackaroo kep' sayin' over an' over agen till it buzzed in me head; an', weeks after, I'd ketch the missus mutterin' it to herself in the kitchen till I thought ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... to the house at suppertime," he went on, "the whole family were laying for them. 'Ketch anything?' said the old lady, 'anythin' more'n a bullhead?' 'I c'n see,' said the hired man, 'that she's been castin' purty hard, by the way her dress is kinder pressed around the waist. It ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... boltin?" came the brooding voice. "Nowhere to bolt to. Jack Ketch's our only friend this side ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... I want to be, but ef any woman wuz to marry me she'd most likely believe whatever I told her, bein' ez I hev a truthful countenance, but ez fur you, Sol, anybody kin tell by lookin' at you that ef you wuz to ketch in this river a little cat-fish six inches long you'd tell them that didn't know ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... poor—fellow. But those emotions would be as little profitable to others as to myself. It just happened that I saw the thing in a light of consolation. Things are bad with me, but not so bad as THAT. I might be going out between Jack Ketch and the Chaplain to be hanged; instead of that, I am eating a really fresh egg, and very excellent buttered toast, with coffee as good as can be reasonably expected in this part of the world.—(Do try boiling the milk, mother.)—The tone in which I spoke was spontaneous; ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... somehow unlucky and one by one they dropped out of the game of life. The oldest brother died with the smell of burnt black powder in his nostrils, and Tom's father stood over the body and called his dead son a fool for wearing his gun so it could stick in the holster. "If I ever ketch yuh doin' a trick like that, I'll thrash yuh till yuh can't stand," he admonished young Tom sternly. Young Tom always remembered how his dad had looked ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... new houses, with a piazzer acrost the front, and plenty of windows, and a grass plot, and see Lucy washin' dishes at the little white sink with the hot and cold water runnin' free out of silver fassets, and know you don't have to tote your drinkin'-water a block, and ketch what rain-water you can in a bar'l, you ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... home? When do they ketch them pick'rul? That's where they get th' cash!" Bill Jordan was exclaiming, in a rather disconnected manner, thus showing that the putting of two and two together ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... judge, he'll see for himself, that them cussed varmints won't hev more'n four hours the start; an', ef he'll let us hev the men, we kin ketch 'em, sartin." ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... skillets what helt two. Big pots for bilin' was swung over de coals in de fireplace. Dey was hung on hooks fastened to de chimbly or on cranes what could be swung off de fire when dey wanted to dish up de victuals. Hit warn't nothin' for us to ketch five or six 'possums in one night's huntin'. De best way to tote 'possums is to split a stick and run deir tails thoo' de crack—den fling de stick crost your shoulders and tote de 'possums 'long safe and sound. Dat ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... Phil. You needn't run arter 'em," said the old man, shaking his head. "You don't expect to run fast enough to ketch Injuns ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... Crowd extolling his Resolution and Intrepidity!—What Vollies of Sighs are sent from the Windows of Holborn, that so comely a Youth should be brought to Disgrace!—I see him at the Tree! The whole Circle are in Tears!—even Butchers weep!—Jack Ketch himself hesitates to perform his Duty, and would be glad to lose his Fee, by a Reprieve. What then will become of Polly!—As yet I may inform him of their Design, and aid him in his Escape.—It shall be so—But then he flies, absents himself, and I bar myself from ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... Anchored here was the ketch Secret, a fisherman, and the Mary of Sydney, a steam ferry-boat fitted for whaling. The captain of the Mary was a genius, and an Australian genius at that, and smart. His crew, from a sawmill up the coast, had not one of them seen a live whale when they ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... an' Rob, that one or t'other mun watchen the light o' nights, to-night, to-morrow night, an' ontil woord coom again. If light go out they mun setten forth in they ketch thot moment, fettled op for a two-three days' sailing. If wind is contrairy like, they mun take sweeps. This for the master's service—for Sir Adrian's service!"—amending the phrase with a sharp reading of the blackness of Mr. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... see a V-shaped patch of blue, this half water and that sky; here and there the gable of a farmhouse with a plume of smoke streaming sidewise; and below me, in the exact point of the V, the masts and naked yards of a ketch at her moorings. Even in that sheltered harbor, to judge by the faint oscillations of her masts, she felt the tug of the waters around her keel. There had been a storm the night before; without, the sea ran strong ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... before yesterday; Melbourne, Rice, Lord and Lady Albemarle, and Lord Gosford; rather dull. A discussion about who was the man in a mask who cut Charles I.'s head off; Mackintosh believed he knew. What a literary puerility! The man in a mask was Jack Ketch (whatever his name was); who can doubt it? Where was the man, Roundhead or Puritan, who as an amateur would have mounted the scaffold to perform this office? But the executioner, though only discharging the duties of his office, probably ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... touches the clapboards with his magic wand; and, with one accord, all men cry out, and especially all women, "Wal, I do declare! That air house goes up in a hurry, don't it? Guess there hain't much but green lumber gone into that. Folks'll be movin' in 'n a few days. Ketch me goin' into a house like that! I'd a good deal druther live in an old house than ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... people are livin' in large cities. Sartin we must trust to Him an' let things slide a bit, jest as He may direct 'em. To go out of our kiver now 'ud be the same as steppin' inter the heart o' a forest fire. Them sogers air mounted on swift horses, an' 'ud ketch up wi these slow critturs o' mules in the shakin' o' goat's tail. Thurfor, let's lie by till night. Tain't fur off now. Then, ef we see any chance to steal down inter the valley, we'll take edvantage ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... are a picked lot, "first scholars" and the like, but their business is as unsympathetic as Jack Ketch's. There is nothing humanizing in their relations with their fellow-creatures. They go for the side that retains them. They defend the man they know to be a rogue, and not very rarely throw suspicion on the man they know to be innocent. Mind you, I am not finding fault with them; every side of a ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... ground. "Seven. That's all the shoes I'll make this morning, and there are seven of you at home. Your mother can't spare Molly, but you'll have to do something. It is Saturday, and you can go fishing, after dinner, if you'd like to. There's nothin' to ketch 'round here, either. Worst times ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... didn't take me long, stranger, to discover thar wa'n't no herd to locate. But I struck their trail, whar Le Fevre had driven 'em up into Missouri and cashed in fer a pot o' money. Then the damn cuss just natch'ally vanished. I plugged 'bout fer two er three months hopin' ter ketch up with him, but I never did. I heerd tell o' him onc't or twice, an' caught on he was travellin' under 'nuther name—some durn French contraction—but thet's as much as I ever did find out. Finally, up in Independence I wus so durn near broke I reckoned I 'd better put what I hed left in a grub ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... man laughed. "Thar's been many a lively young fellow that's tried it, but she's hard to ketch as a wildcat. She won't have nothin' to do with other folks, 'n' she nuver comes down hyeh into the valley, 'cept to git her corn groun' er to shoot a turkey. Sherd Raines goes up to see her, and folks say he air tryin' to git her into the church. But the gal won't go ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... that if I remain here I shall probably be hanged on account of what happened yesterday. There are grounds for my considering this outcome unlikely, but if I knew it to be inevitable—if I had but one hour's start of Jack Ketch,—I swear to you ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... me will by an' by be telling you, what a black night it was, with a high-running sea and wind to blow the last coat o' paint off the vessel, but o' course he had to be the first o' the fleet—nothing less would do him—to make the market with his big ketch. It was for others, not for him, to show the way to take in sail, he said, and not a full hour before it happened that was." ...
— The Trawler • James Brendan Connolly
... sister are well," he answered to Audley's eager queries, as they warmly shook hands. He was quickly, however, plied with eager questions by many others, to which he could but briefly reply. The fleet had arrived safely, the ketch Susan excepted, which had foundered during the gale. The smaller vessels had gone up the river as far as James Town, where a settlement had been formed, and the larger, including the Rainbow, lay at anchor in Hampton Roads, whence he had ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... was the man I tried to do a good turn to; a man what used to be master of a ketch called the Lizzie and Annie, trading between 'ere and Shoremouth. 'Artful Jack' he used to be called, and if ever a man deserved the name, he did. A widder-man of about fifty, and as silly as a boy of fifteen. He 'ad been talking of getting married agin ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... children. You will presently hear that I have saved my boy from Jack Ketch," said Trompe-la-Mort. "Yes, Jack Ketch and his hairdresser were waiting in the office to get Madeleine ready.—There," he added, "they have come to fetch me to go to the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Narkom; come in, constables," said Cleek, with the utmost composure. "Here are your promised prisoners—nicely trussed, you see, so that they can't get at the little popguns they carry—and a worse pair of rogues never went into the hands of Jack Ketch!" ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... be off. You get nothing out of us; and we've no shot that we want to throw away. Leave you alone, and Jack Ketch will save us shot." ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Zupnik; he's the holder-on; he handles the dolly and hangs on to the rivets while I swat 'em. The pill over by the furnace is the heater; his name is Pafflow, and his job is warming up the rivets. Just before they begin to sizzle he yanks 'em out with the tongs and throws 'em to you. You ketch 'em in the bucket—I hope, and take 'em out with your tongs and put 'em in the rivet-hole, and then Zupnik and me we do the rest. And what do we call you? Miss Webling is no name ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... ketch him to make such a dunce of himself. He believes in using a little when he wants it, and ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... looking around him. "He's got rich now, and he's got more'n a thousand acres of land," said the little Sanford, boastfully, thinking perhaps that his father's success might encourage the woe-begone set before him. "But I reckon that mean old captain'll ketch it if pappy ever sets eyes ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... began the traffic-expert to the smaller of the two navvies, "just ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... the golden opportunity be lost which may never be recalled. I have traced the reprobate to his sanctuary in the cloud, and lo he is perched on the pinnacle of a precipice an hundred fathoms high. One ketch with thy foot, or toss with thy finger, shall throw him from thy sight into the foldings of the cloud, and he shall be no more seen till found at the bottom of the cliff dashed to pieces. Make haste, therefore, thou loiterer, if thou wouldst ever prosper ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... several frigates and a bomb-ketch took their stations before the camp of the Chevalier de Levis, who, with his division of Canadian militia, occupied the heights along the St. Lawrence just above the cataract. Here they shelled and cannonaded him all day; though, from his elevated position, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... ketch yer deff, doan yer, Miss Odylit? Goin' out in de cole widout nuffin on yer! Yer musn' gib yerse'f dat habit. 'Deed yer musn'. Here, put ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... no, no, sir!" cried Mr. Sim piteously. "We don't speak, you know; we—we've lost the habit of it, and we're too old to ketch holt of it again. You give it to him, Cal, like a good feller! And—and there's another thing, Calvin. Did you have any dealin's with Cousin about what we was speakin' of some time along ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... deal from you up to now!" roared Ward, coming close and leaning over threateningly. "You come here to town with so much tar on ye that your feet stuck every time you stood still in one place; you married my sister like you'd ketch a woodchuck; you've stuck your fingers into my business in her name—but that's jest about as fur as you can go with me. There was only one man ever tried to advise me about gitting married—and he's still a cripple. There ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... time to ketch that there train, sir," said the driver, who, feeling no fear of his bony horse starting, was down out of his seat to hold open ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... son no more. A sneakin' hulk that leaves me with my wheat standin' an' goes over to help that Methodist of a Willson is no son of mine. I ain't never had a son, and you ain't, neither; remember that, Marthy—don't you ever let me ketch you goin' a-near them. We're done with Sam an' his missus. You jes' make a note of that." And old Billy flung out to his fields like a general whose forces ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... felo de se, and thief-captain—this loathsome and leprous confluence of robbery, adultery, murder, and cowardly assassination,—this monster, whose best deed is, the having saved his betters from the degradation of hanging him, by turning Jack Ketch to himself; first recommends the charitable Monks and holy Prior to pray for his soul, and then has the folly and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... stranger, that Hell fer Sartain empties, as it oughter, of co'se, into Kingdom-Come. You can ketch the devil 'most any day in the week on Hell fer Sartain, an' sometimes you can git Glory everlastin' on Kingdom-Come. Hit's the only meetin'-house ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... tol' you wan day, two, t'ree mont' ago," Poleon remarked, with apparent evasion, "'bout Johnny Platt w'at I ketch on de Porcupine all et ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... whispered hoarsely, "I'll be all right. You jest ketch holt of my arm when we go by; I'll be all right then. Say, Con," he guttered, in an agony of fear and desperation, "you hear me? Only git me ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... use for a stove. They'd ha' burned th' tilt. 'Tis Micmac John, an' he be here t' steal fur. 'Tis t' steal fur's what he be after. But let me ketch un, an' he won't steal much more fur," insisted Dick, worked up to a ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... climb a tree. Inspector himself fell a-top of the bear. I dassent shoot, for the devil himself couldn't have told which was inspector and which bear. Finally bear shakes himself loose and telescopes himself up the canyon, the worst scared animile in the country. 'If you'll ketch my horse, I'll amble back again,' says the inspector. 'I've investigated this route pretty thorough, and find it's just as you say. Lamp-posts'll do me all right for a while.' Come ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... ketch fish yo' mus' jes' set an' wait— When yo' wan' to ketch fish yo' must spit on yo' bait— When yo' wan' to ketch fish yo' mus' git across de tide, For dey's alw'ys bettah fishin' ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... you!" exclaimed Uncle Rufus. "Dar's too many of you cats erbout disher house, an' dat's a fac'. Dar's more cats dan dar is mices to ketch—ya-as'm!" ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... small string of tiny fish wuz all he ketched out of the deep waters, he didn't ketch any cheerfulness or happiness for himself or me, only disappintment and shagrin for I felt if I didn't use all my tack mebby the meetin' house would try to set down on him. Two deacons! ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... down on a raft with Dolph and Tom and Rube and the Squire and the school-teacher, an' I got lost in Frankfort. They've gone on, I reckon, an' I'm tryin' to ketch 'em." ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the journey we have taken, if only to behold the curious maritime scene before us now-made up of the felucca, the polacre, and the bombard, or ketch all equally unknown ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... dear friend the Baron,' exclaimed the Chief, as soon as he was out of hearing, 'for the most absurd original that exists north of the Tweed! I wish to heaven I had recommended him to attend the circle this evening with a boot-ketch under his arm. I think he might have adopted the suggestion if it had ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... yesterday?' says I. That bothered him nicely, and he didn't know how to be down upon me; 306 but at last he thought he'd serve me one of his old tricks. So he says, 'Peter, what are you doing to-day'?' I see what he was at, and I thought I'd ketch him in his own trap. 'Very busy a cleaning plate, sir,' says I. This was enough for him: if I was a cleaning plate, in course I shouldn't like to be sent out; so says he, 'Go down to Barnsley, and see whether Mr. Cumberland is there'. 'But the plate, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... it, Bertie. I'm goin' to try to hold you here till you've had time to kind of straighten yourself around and ketch up with the procession. I don't know what in Sam Hill you wanted to go and bu'st yourself up for, this way, but I'm owin' it to Amos Weyburn dead to help his boy get some sort of a fair show for his white alley. You ask me anything in reason, ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... miss goin' to make a clean finish of her dis time," said Aunt Milly, who watched her mistress' daily depredations. "Ole Sam done got title deed of her, sure enough. Ki! won't she ketch it in t'other world, when he done show her his cloven foot, and won't she holler for old Milly to fotch her a drink of water? not particular then—drink out of the bucket, gourd-shell, or anything; but dis nigger'll 'sign her post in de parlor ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes |
