"Lagging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occupied a permanent place behind the cottage-door, and he was away on the hill without them, drinking in life and health with every breath of balmy air. He was no longer the little cripple, painfully following the footsteps of his sister, slackened to suit his lagging pace. Lame he was still, and always might be, and a slender "willow-wand of a laddie," as Mrs Stirling still declared; but there was a tinge of healthy colour on cheek and lip, and instead of the look that reminded Lilias of the shadow creeping round to the gate of the kirk-yard, ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... on any account. There was no help for it, he had to go back, and Peter went on groaning and limping. He could run no more, for the anguish of mind he had been through, and the bumping and shaking he had received, were beginning to tell upon him. And so with lagging steps and groans he slowly made his way up ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... would have shared his feelings in this instance, for Jim, so thorough in some things, was a careless workman. Your old miner would have shaken his head at the weak caps and recklessly driven lagging; frames out of plumb and made of any stick that came to hand—more especially as they were to support loose dirt of ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... and that not freely given, they can ever get either pleasure or comfort from it. They never can. And rather than do it so they would better leave it undone. If we set out on the way to go to the masters we shall get there only by earnestness. Lagging is a disgrace to the one who travels and to the one to whom we go. It shows his laziness on the one hand, and his misunderstanding of the master on the other; for if he understood he would take ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... creaking of dragging wheels, the monotonous cry of tired springs, and the muffled beat of plunging hoofs, it held out a promise of sheltered coolness and green silences beyond. Sunburned and anxious faces yearned toward it from the dizzy, swaying tops of stage-coaches, from lagging teams far below, from the blinding white canvas covers of "mountain schooners," and from scorching saddles that seemed to weigh down the scrambling, sweating animals beneath. But it would seem that the hope was vain, the promise ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the nation roused itself and "shook its mighty mane." The reign of the Stuarts indeed did much to create a more general and continuous attention to public affairs. In the strife of the Exclusion Bill and in the Popish Plot Shaftesbury taught how to "agitate" opinion, how to rouse this lagging attention, this dormant energy of the people at large; and his opponents learned the art from him. The common statement that our two great modern parties, the Whig and the Tory, date from the Petitioners and Abhorrers of the Exclusion Bill is true only ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... go out to the world," said he, "and to our press—such of it as still remains. It may inspire some fainting heart and thrill some lagging mind. Now, that the final struggle is at hand, more than guns we need inspiration. More than force, to meet the force that has ravished our every right and crushed Constitution and Law, alike, we need spiritual insight ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... habitations and signs of life, yet all so silent, had a powerful effect upon my mind. The intermediate valleys, too, that lie among mountains have a peculiar air of solitude. Few sounds are heard at mid-day to break the quiet of the scene. Sometimes the whistle of a solitary muleteer, lagging with his lazy animal along the road that winds through the centre of the valley; sometimes the faint piping of a shepherd's reed from the side of the mountain, or sometimes the bell of an ass slowly pacing along, followed by a monk with bare ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... never left him, nor that persuasive smile which made you think that the sun was come out. He had none of the airs of mystagogue, but talked to men, as he did to beasts, in the speech which was habitual to them. The lagging fox understood him when, grinning his fear and fatigue, he drew himself painfully through the furze. So did the hounds, athirst for his blood. Buck- skinned gentlemen, no less, found him affable and ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... not even now look up. The constraint of her manner, and a certain pleading hesitation in her words, began at once to restore his self-command. "Do not talk of it any further, I beg of you," she went on. "We—we have been lagging behind unconscionably. If you wish to please me, let us hurry forward now. And please!—no more talk ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... and the figures of their fellow-rebels, seen dimly through the murky night, plodding onwards through the sinking moss. Those who kept together—a miserable few—often halted to rest themselves, and to allow their lagging comrades to overtake them. Then onward they went again, still hoping for assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; onward again, through the wind, and the rain, and the darkness—onward to their defeat at Pentland, and their scaffold at Edinburgh. It was calculated ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she had responded with adorable docility. He never admired himself more than in the role of cicerone to a young and trusting maid. By the subtlest methods he knew how to convey approval or disapproval of anything from a beaded slipper to a moral sentiment. He could stir dormant ambition, rouse lagging courage, inspire patience, and all he demanded in return was unfaltering homage from the ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... natural voice.] — I know it when Molly Byrne's walking in front, or when she's two perches, maybe, lagging behind; but it's few times I've heard you walking up the like of that, as if you'd met a thing wasn't right and you ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... with its new, deep foliage and its fragrant grass and trees and flowers; June with a mocking bird singing through the night to its brooding mate; June came with its poets leaning out of windows into the night hearing love songs in the rhythmic whisper of lagging feet strolling under the shade of elms. And under cover of a June night, breathing in the sensuous meaning of the time like a charmed potion, Judge Van Dorn, who personated justice to twenty-five thousand people, went forth a ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... horse the spur, and allowing the creature to choose its course, he called on the lagging hounds, and dashed away as rapidly as he had come. The wood was light as ever, and here and there sunbeam lay, like a golden spear, along the ground yet the rich lustre of the sky, wherever it was ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... country, that is, two-thirds of the people were furnishing food to the remainder. Now conditions are almost exactly reversed. Only one-third remain in the country, and must supply the food, not only for themselves, but for all the two-thirds who are not food producers, so that the food supply is lagging far behind the demand. The price of corn has advanced from twenty-five cents to sixty-five cents a bushel in ten years, and this in turn raises the price of live stock. And so all along the line. Prices are ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... rivals start, And waits their coming with exulting heart; Forestalling glory, with impatient glance, And sure to see his conquering steed advance: The conquering steed advances—luckless day! A rival's Herod bears the prize away, Nor second his, nor third, but lagging last, With hanging head he comes, by all surpass'd: Surprise and wrath the owner's mind inflame, Love turns to scorn, and glory ends in shame; - Thus waited, high in hope, the partial 'Squire, Eager to hear, impatient ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... thick of a squadron to where guns screeched out a tongue of flame from a fog. Once a major of artillery spoke of the suspense of the hours between the parading of the troops before a battle and the first command to advance; and Harry's shoulders worked under the intolerable strain of those lagging minutes. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... sky, imbibing the fine fresh air of the wide-extending downs, instead of the stale tobacco smoke of the fetid beer-shop. As he trotted over the springy sward, up the gently rising ground, he rose in his stirrups; and, laying hold of his horse's mane, turned to survey the long-drawn, lagging ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Breed's and he would not leave her. The high-pitched sinister yelps sounded from behind him as the eager dogs closed up, putting forth every effort to end the race before the wolves reached the choppy badland breaks at the far edge of the flat. Shady's pace was lagging, and they gained the first gulch of the broken country a bare fifty yards ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... paper, but even with these he found a day in prison to be almost an unendurable eternity. This was the real punishment of his guilt; it was not that he could not eat well, and lie soft, or enjoy the comforts which had always surrounded him; but that the day would not pass away. The slowness of the lagging hours nearly drove him mad. He made a thousand resolutions as to reading, writing, and employment for his mind. He attempted to learn whole pages by rote, and to fatigue himself to rest by exercise of his memory. But his memory would not work; his mind would continue idle; ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... he possessed a certain amount of invention. As he prowled about the shelves, setting a good many of Queenie's infirm toys on their feet, and making all things taut, the morning wore on apace. He was glad enough of any occupation to pass the time, which seemed strangely lagging, as he glanced impatiently at his ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... uniforms had faded out to gray, And the faces of the men who marched through that street again Seemed like faces of the dead who lose their way. For the dead who lose their way cannot look more wan and gray. Oh the sorrow and the pity of the sight, Oh the weary lagging feet out of step with drums that beat, As the regiment comes ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... head-keeper. "You'll be some time lagging Charley Hannaford with argyments. Coverts is coverts, my son, and Bow Street is ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... guardian of the hills And set your urgent thew against his thew. Then shall the hidden wisdoms and the wills Strive, and bear witness to the trees and clods How one has dumb lore of the rocks and swales And one has reason like unto the gods. Then shall the lagging righteousness ensue, The powers at last be equal in the scales, And the man's club and the beast's claw be flails To winnow the unworthy of the two. Then on the earth, in the sky and the heavenly court That broods behind it, Justice shall be awakened and aware, ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... stairs to his lady's sitting-room with lagging steps. The Pere Anselme's advice had caused him to think deeply, and it was necessary that he had speech with Sabine, if she would let him come back into her sitting-room. He knocked at the door softly, as was his way, and when her voice said "Entrez" ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... conquered and conquerors, both equally heroic, were extended in confusion on the plain. Several Russian detachments threw up a rampart of dead bodies. When on the morrow General Kutuzoff effected his brave retreat, he left no soldiers lagging behind, and the wounded who died on the march were religiously buried. The Emperor Alexander's army left 60,000 dead or dying on the plain of Borodino—or the battle-field of the Moskwa, as Napoleon himself named that terrible day. Prince ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... in 1823 that Bessel drew attention to discrepancies in the times of transits given by different astronomers.[346] The quantities involved were far from insignificant. He was himself nearly a second in advance of all his contemporaries, Argelander lagging behind him as much as a second and a quarter. Each individual, in fact, was found to have a certain definite rate of perception, which, under the name of "personal equation," now forms so important an element in the correction of observations that a special instrument for ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... a cock bird, for some purpose or other, though what, he didn't say. Now, it's likely, almost certain, that while on their way to the tolderia, or coming back, he has seen one, given chase to it, leaving Francesca somewhere to wait for him. Well, tia, you know what an ostrich is to chase? Now lagging along as if you could easily throw the noose round its neck, then putting on a fresh spurt—'twould tempt any one to keep on after it. Uncle may have got tantalised in that very way, and galloped leagues upon leagues ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... got them to laughing again, and then proposed a race home in their wet clothes, which they accepted, Mr. Hamlin, for respiratory reasons, lagging in their rear until he had the satisfaction of seeing them captured by the horrified Melinda in front of the kitchen, while he slipped past her and regained his own room. Here he changed his saturated clothes, tried to rub ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... at the hotel the following afternoon. The ladies had gone away. How gone away? The portier could not tell. Enraged as he saw his rich dream vanishing, Arthmann moved about the streets with lagging, desperate steps. He returned to the hotel several times during the afternoon—at no time was he very far from it—but the window-blinds were always drawn in the Fridolin apartment and he began to despair. It was near sunset when his Hausfrau, the disappearing ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... broke into a run, and Harry and Blumpo came after, with the hermit lagging on behind. A turn in the brush brought them in sight of ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... Primrose entered with a lagging step behind her aunt. There sat Mistress Janice Kent in her riding habit of green cloth faced with red silk, and a habit shirt of the same color just showing at the neck where the lapels crossed. Her hat was wound around with a green veil, and her gauntlet gloves were of yellow ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... against us; the sportsman wonders why he had brought gun and fishing-rod; even Science grows weary at times in its limited and hampered inspection. For more than five weeks our average progress along the coast was eight miles a day! The ice and the weather were partly responsible for this lagging; but there were other causes, at which I forbear to hint more definitely. Suffice it to say that they were of a kind that one finds it hard to be charmed with; and the Elder will here confide to the reader that he was in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... night dance at the club and the room was crowded. Kathleen had no difficulty in avoiding Captain Miller. Since her debut she had reigned an acknowledged belle in society, and she was quickly importuned by men eager for a dance. But as she laughed and jested with her partners, she was conscious of lagging time and numbing brain. Could she keep up the farce ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... school, and stopped to speak to her. I wanted to ask who the man was, but he seemed to be so close that I did not like to do so, and expected he had passed. When I moved on, I was surprised to find he was still following me, while my dogs were lagging behind with downcast ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... silver bracelet that encircled the wrist, though simple and inexpensive, was not wanting in rough tastefulness. 'You're a bad philosopher, Selah,' he said, turning with her along the path towards Ecclesbourne; 'you're always anxious to hurry on too fast the lagging wheels of an unknown future. After all, how do you know whether we should be any the happier if we were really and truly married? Don't you know what Swinburne says, in "Dolores"—you've read it in the Poems ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... French could get to our relief on the right and until the Australians had come down from Flanders. There was nothing on that day to prevent the Germans breaking through to Amiens except the courage of exhausted boys thinly strung out, and the lagging footsteps of the Germans themselves, who had suffered heavy losses all the way and were spent for a while by their progress over the wild ground of the old fighting-fields. Their heavy guns were far behind, unable ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... bunch of Indians came out of the woods above and down through the mud. Three or four bucks led the way, followed by many squaws, all bending in the head-straps to the heavy packs. Behind came the children burdened according to their years, and in the rear half a dozen dogs, tongues lagging out and dragging forward painfully under their ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... Susy had last encountered the party, had been a fat spectacled school-girl, always lagging behind her parents, with a reluctant poodle in her wake. Now the poodle had gone, and his mistress led the procession. The fat school-girl had changed into a young lady of compact if not graceful outline; a long-handled eyeglass had replaced ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... of the Mogul, and partly from experiencing the advantages of trade, by selling their grain, sheep, and goats, of which they have great store, and by purchasing coarse cotton goods and other necessaries. Still, however, if they find any one straggling or lagging behind, they are very apt to make them slaves, selling them into the mountains, and houghing them to prevent their running away, after which they are set to grind grain in handmills, or to other servile employments. The chief city, called likewise Candahar, is very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... Kory-Kory and myself were left alone in the house, the rest of its inmates having departed for the Taboo Groves. My valet was all impatience to follow them; and was as fidgety about my dilatory movements as a diner out waiting hat in hand at the bottom of the stairs for some lagging companion. At last, yielding to his importunities, I set out for the Ti. As we passed the houses peeping out from the groves through which our route lay, I noticed that they were ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... At last the lagging hours reached their end, and bed-time came. Before she slept that night Magdalen had cleaned the keys from all impurities, and had oiled the wards, to help them smoothly into the locks. The last difficulty that remained was the ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... everything to entertain them, and as if they themselves cared to do nothing; they seemed to be indolent, almost sluggish. First we read aloud in turns from Bjoernson's Arne, which was then new; a lagging conversation followed. Nutzhorn talked nonsense, Paludan-Mueller snuffled, Julius Lange alone occasionally let fall a humorous remark. The contrast between Nutzhorn's band, who took sociability calmly and quietly, and Kappers' circle, which met to work and discuss things to its utmost ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... to the house, yet he must return; and by-and-by, reluctantly and doggedly, he set his face that way. The wind and rain had cooled his brow, but not his brain, and he was still in a fever of resentment and shame when his lagging feet brought him to the house. He passed it irresolutely once, unable to make up his mind to enter and face them. Then, cursing himself for a poltroon, he turned again and made ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... shelved books. Thompson could not drive himself to hurry, nor to call. He was sure—yet not too sure. He hated to make himself appear ridiculous. Nor was he overconfident that if it were indeed Sophie Carr she would be either pleased or willing to renew their old intimacy. And so, lagging faint-heartedly, he lost her in the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... (doing nothing) 681; unbusied^. indolent, lazy, slothful, idle, lusk^, remiss, slack, inert, torpid, sluggish, otiose, languid, supine, heavy, dull, leaden, lumpish^; exanimate^, soulless; listless; drony^, dronish^; lazy as Ludlam's dog. dilatory, laggard; lagging &c v.; slow &c 275; rusty, flagging; lackadaisical, maudlin, fiddle-faddle; pottering &c v.; shilly-shally &c (irresolute) 605. sleeping, &c v.; asleep; fast asleep, dead asleep, sound asleep; in a sound sleep; sound as a top, dormant, comatose; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... my dear Ned,' said Sol, in resigned despair, 'a long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind it. The stock had better be sold—it's worth more than this debt—and I had better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven't any energy left. I don't understand things. This had better be the end of it. Let 'em sell the stock and take him down,' said the old man, pointing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in a trance, and stated that she had never gone into one. She conversed throughout in ordinary voice and manner, save when, with a certain emphasis, she undertook to hasten the pace of her lagging "controls." The three sittings were attended by little noise, pounding, or violence; there was no breaking or crumpling up of slates, as had been the case during ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... where stiliness sat supreme, Flee seers in quest of lagging rest; To regions where giant echos roar, Haste begotten sons in this lair: There man-born wrecks lie down and dream Of sea-winds that foam-billows bless'd, Of auric realms where censers pour Violaceous fumes thro' the air. And in the deep-hued depths of ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... not bring her. The hours wore on—Mr. Ingelow at his easel, Mollie with her book, Susan Sharpe with her needle, conversation desultory and lagging. ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... made a profession of nursing, and those few were deeply to be dreaded. In taking care of the sick, as in other kindnesses, the neighborly instinct, ever so keen, so living in New England, showed no lagging part. For it is plain to any student of early colonial days that, if the chief foundation of the New England commonwealth was religion, the second certainly was neighborliness. There was a constant exchange ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... buffalo were going, we soon overtook them on our swift mustangs; and now began the most exciting part of our day's sport. The leading portion of the herd kept close together; but in the rear the animals were separated—some lagging behind, others scattering on either side. The Indians, with their bows drawn or their spears couched in their hands, dashed in among them, shooting right and left, or plunging their weapons into the shoulders of the brutes—so dexterously aiming ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... comfortably might Christians go through life did they walk with God in their daily business and occupations, carefully observing the leadings of Providence, cautiously avoiding either running before or lagging behind; but in all things making their requests known to God; at all times committing their way to him, being careful about nothing, but to use with diligence the means of grace, and also the means of acquiring the good things of life, leaving ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... casualties even the least likely, she saw him dealing with the tenantry on the property; and in the same spirit that he made allowance for sickness here and misfortune there, he would be as prompt to screw up a lagging tenant to the last penny, and secure the landlord in the share of ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... England colonies were fully earnest for the war, and one, even of these, was ready to use the crisis as a means of extorting concessions from its Governor in return for grants of money and men. When the lagging contingents came together at last, under a commander whom none of them trusted, they were met by strategical difficulties which would have perplexed older soldiers and an abler general; for they were forced to act on the circumference of a vast semicircle, in a labyrinth of forests, without ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... lagging behind some twenty paces when I saw Captain Nemo suddenly come back toward me. With his powerful hands he sent me buckling to the ground, while his companion did the same to Conseil. At first I didn't know what to make ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... a grove of young cottonwood trees and was so absorbed in her thoughts that, becoming only half conscious that Patsie was lagging and that time was passing rapidly, she gave her a slap with the strap in her hand, urging the horse to a faster pace as she rounded the corner of the section without looking up. Patsie broke into a long, easy lope. Suddenly ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... until the day," a lagging answer came; "The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... keel-compelling gale! Till the broad Sun withdraws his lessening ray: Then must the Pennant-bearer slacken sail, That lagging barks may make their lazy way.[125] Ah! grievance sore, and listless dull delay, To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze! What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day, Thus loitering pensive on the willing ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... in church at some time when you were not entirely familiar with the hymn being sung, yet by lagging a note or two behind the rest, you could sing the song, to all appearances being ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... shot, and every thing else. He would have attacked us last winter if he had found an opportunity and a chance of success. One of his band was killed, which taught him that we were on the watch, and he failed in that attempt: he managed, however, to pick up the boy when he was lagging behind us, at the time you were wounded by the painter, and carried him off, and he intends to drive a bargain for his being restored to ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... feared, there were other human foes and such a narrow-throated gorge as this would ideally serve them as a trap. He shortened his lope so as to be ready to whirl away as he came to the first winding between the rugged walls of the valley—but the ground was clear before him and calling up his lagging herd, he made on towards a sound of falling water ahead. It was a new sound to Alcatraz in that place, for he remembered no cataract in this gorge. But every water-course had been greatly changed since the rains began, and who could tell ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... justice, to pay those who have done him wrong as for a favor! This is not the way of retaining to my country; but if another can be found that shall not derogate from the fame and honor of Dante, that I will enter on with no lagging steps. For if by none such Florence may be entered, by me then never! Can I not everywhere behold the mirrors of the sun and stars? speculate on sweetest truths under any sky without first giving myself up inglorious, nay, ignominious, to the populace and city ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... grain, the prairie hens led forth their broods to feed, and at last, father's long-drawn and musical cry, "Turn OUT! All hands TURN OUT!" rang with restful significance through the dusk. Then, slowly, with low-hung heads the freed horses moved toward the barn, walking with lagging steps like weary warriors ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of an international river bridge, four armed rangers sweltered in a little 'dobe hut, keeping a fairly faithful espionage upon the lagging trail of passengers from the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... eleven months in the year bleated sweetly at the foot of the garden, bellowed loudly as any bull of Bashan, and kept us prisoners in the house, where we had leisure to talk and reflect. We had been robbed and humbugged, injured in pride and pocket, but the lagging hours anointed our wounds. Philosophy touched us with ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... from the room, and as he went Tom noticed, with something of a start, that his father appeared older that night than he had ever looked before. There was a trace of pain on the face of the aged inventor, and his step was lagging. ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... a quail's nest in the grass. She was off at an angle, like a hunter on the scent. Colonel Landcraft and his guest followed with equal rude eagerness, and the others swept after them, Frances alone hanging back. Major King was at Nola's side. If he noted the lagging of his fiancee he ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... on a patch of clover In the Western Park when the day is done, I watch as the wild black swans fly over With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun; And I hear the clang of their leader crying To a lagging mate in the rearward flying, And they fade away in the darkness dying, Where the stars are mustering ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... thus as friends; then, at last, there will be rest from sorrow. But now I wish to go abroad, to give deliverance from pain; now then, for your own sake it is, and for the sake of all your kind, that you should exert your strength, with noble pace, without lagging or weariness." Having thus exhorted him, he bestrode his horse, and grasping the reins proceeded forth; the man like the sun shining forth from his tabernacle, the horse like the white floating cloud, exerting himself but without exciting ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... wound over sharp-nosed hills and through deep, narrow coulees, with occasional, tantalizing glimpses of the river and the open land beyond, that kept Beatrice in a fever of enthusiasm. From riding blithely ahead, she took to lagging far behind with her kodak, getting snap-shots of the ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... Albania Lagging behind its Balkan neighbors, Albania is making the difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime, and recently adopted a fiscal reform package aimed at reducing the large ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... fresh beauty of the early spring. We have given up our winter occupations for long rambles on the hills and in the woods. I sometimes decline being a third in the lovers' walks; but Eleanor seems so dissatisfied, if I refuse to accompany them, that I consent, lagging behind often, and have learned to be both blind and deaf as occasion requires. I think, too, that Mr. Lee is not sorry to have me with them. He and Eleanor have been separated for three years, and I sometimes wonder if they have not grown away from each other in that time. A long ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... than by what we preach abroad. Nothing we could do to help the developing countries would help them half as much as a booming U.S. economy. And nothing our opponents could do to encourage their own ambitions would encourage them half as much as a chronic, lagging U.S. economy. These domestic tasks do not divert energy from our security—they provide the very foundation for freedom's survival ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... cowpunchers were not worrying about attack, for they had outposts on duty who could warn them of the advance of the enemy in plenty of time. The amusement of the camera was a fine thing with which to pass the lagging hours. ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... wheat and then to driving in the wagons. From that he progressed to a seat on one of the immense combines, where he drove twenty-four horses. No driver there was any surer than Kurt of his aim with the little stones he threw to spur a lagging horse. Kurt had felt this when, as a boy, he had begged to be allowed to try his hand; he liked the shifty cloud of fragrant chaff, now and then blinding and choking him; and he liked the steady, rhythmic tramps ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... and make her spend as often as I pleased. I was difficult to manage at first, but eventually settled down in great regularity to the rules she dictated, and, indeed, enforced. I soon found out the wisdom of her proceeding, for often afterwards my lagging efforts required the spur of the rod to be applied in earnest for the completion ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... than there was any necessity for, and walked off the punt altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was left clinging to it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignified position for him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chum to "hurry up and see real ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... strolled forward by two's and three's, but long before the young folks and a few others had begun to be tired, several were lagging behind. ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... particular has shown a disposition to regard minor political grievances, and even poverty and discontent, as so much fuel wherewith to stoke the lagging engine of Home Rule. Remedial measures short of Home Rule seem to take in his eyes the character of attempts to deprive the Irish Party of so many valuable assets. Nor is this spirit of tacit or open hostility confined ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... afterwards in the drawing-room when they were missed; but he had laid them down, because how could those degraded hands of his carry flowers again to Grizel? There was great remorse in him, but there was a shrieking vanity also, and though the one told him to be gone, the other kept him lagging on. They had torn him a dozen times from each other's arms before he was man ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... water sucking it perhaps another foot off the deck. The next two or three undulations passed harmlessly by,—the swing and roll of the felucca was such that she just happened to meet them at the right moment, though lagging a little at the last,—and then came another great liquid hill, towering high above the horizon, until the sinking sun was utterly obscured. On it swept toward the felucca, which had now slewed so that she faced the coming swell nearly stem-on, the water in her meanwhile ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... disordered state of Italy. Rome has conceded to an Anglo-French company the construction of a railway from the capital to Ancona; but that, like all other commercial enterprises in the Papal dominions, is lagging sadly. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... second, even for the fastest thinker. Let's say the ship was making a hundred miles a second—and that's slow compared with what they expect eventually. Everything would happen faster than your nerve impulses could register it. Your comprehension would always be lagging a split second behind the ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... me coming toward her, her face brightened and colored quite warmly. She waved her bag with actual abandon and her lagging ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... international prices for these products and weather conditions. Despite government attempts to diversify the economy, it is still heavily dependent on agriculture and related activities, engaging roughly 68% of the population. After several years of lagging performance, the Ivorian economy began a comeback in 1994, due to the 50% devaluation of the CFA franc and improved prices for cocoa and coffee, growth in nontraditional primary exports such as pineapples and rubber, limited trade and banking liberalization, ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... that they go, for the most part, unthanked by name, although upon this occasion William was ready to give such discriminating praise as the dead architects and painters received seldom in the course of the year. They were walking by the river bank, and Katharine and Ralph, lagging a little behind, caught fragments of his lecture. Katharine smiled at the sound of his voice; she listened as if she found it a little unfamiliar, intimately though she knew it; she tested it. The note of ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the butler, telling him to close the house and not to sit up, and walked with lagging steps into the long library, where the shaded lamps were burning. His eye fell upon the low shelves full of costly books, but he had no desire to open them. Even the carefully chosen pictures that hung above them seemed to have lost their attraction. He ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... or tercels. The men bungled in handling them; they evidently belonged to the castle, not to the troop. When they finally rose into the air, Pere Azuli, the veteran blue pigeon, and Rien-du-Tout, the little dun-colored stray Peirol had trained, were almost out of sight. The luckless Blanchette was lagging, and despite her frantic attempts to escape her enemy she was soon struggling in the falcon's grip. Clair de la Lune, the other white pigeon, seemed about to meet the same fate when something ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... by; lagging, perhaps, because his feet were not shod with a pair of red moccasins; or, it may be, because he was not mounted on a Shetland pony. At last, one night in April, as they were all sitting around a roaring log fire, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... of Mr. Chamberlain. To him, certainly, the credit is largely due. At the same time it is only fair to say that he was not the first man who had discovered that Birmingham, some thirty years ago, was, compared with what it should be, in many respects lagging behind. Other persons had been impressed with the idea that the town, in a municipal, sanitary, and social sense, was not advancing at a pace commensurate with ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... him; he seemed to beat out of himself and spread around him the throb of violent and overpowering life. And in the evenings towards sunset they walked together in the fields, and Mary followed them, lagging behind in the borders where the sharlock and wild rye and poppies grew. When she caught up with them she ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... out of that sad fleet, there was peace; peace amid shame and terror; amid the groans of the wounded, and the sighs of the starving; amid all but blank despair. The great triremes and quinqueremes rushed onward past the lagging transports, careless, in the mad race for safety, that they were leaving the greater number of their comrades defenceless in the rear of the flight; but from one little fishing-craft alone no base entreaties, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... especially considering the situation, that Dio had in his mind while writing this the familiar proverb [Greek: honou parakupseos], a famous response given by a careless ass-driver, whose animal being several rods in advance of its lagging master had stuck its head into an open doorway and thereby scattered the nucleus of a promising aviary. The fellow was haled to court to answer to a charge of contributory negligence and when some bystander asked him for what misdeed he had been brought to that place, he rejoined with a great ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... said Ned, with a laugh. "It's too slow to do it alone. Now, young gentlemen, attention! To heel!" He began to march around the garden again, and Jim and I followed closely at his heels, while little Billy, seeing that he could not get us to play with him, came lagging behind. ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... twilight, noon, and eve, My Summer and my Winter, Spring and Fall; For Nature left on thee a touch of all The moods that come to gladden or to grieve The heart of Time, with purpose to relieve From lagging sameness. So do these forestall In thee such o'erheaped sweetnesses as pall Too swiftly, and the taster ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... evident and so unusual that I ventured to inquire as to the trouble which so vexed his serene temper. In reply he took up a copy of a prominent New York morning paper and pointed to a sub-editorial in which he was referred to by name as "a veteran lagging superfluous ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... and moan? O wretched me! When will my lagging sorrows haste and go? Delightful Bacchus at his mystery Forbids these words ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... circuit. Men whistled, children laughed; the train thundered through tunnels, and flew across golden stubble fields, where grain shocks and hay stacks crowded like tents of the God of plenty, in the Autumnal bivouac; and throughout the long days and dreary lagging nights. Beryl was fully conscious of a ceaseless surveillance, of an ever-present shadow, which was tall and gaunt, wore a drab overcoat and slouched hat, and was redolent of tobacco. As silent as two mummies in the crypts of Karnac they sat side by side; and twice when ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... run over its news, while the young man watched the spectacular recession of the city, and was vaguely conscious of the people about him, and of the gay life of the water round the boat. The air freshened; the craft thinned in number; they met larger sail, lagging slowly inward in the afternoon light; the islands of the bay waxed and waned as the steamer approached and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... beauty in the scene as they wearily led two packhorses through the thin, scattered trees, with Benson lagging a short distance behind. They had spent some time crossing a wide stretch of rolling country dotted with clumps of poplar and birch, which was still sparsely inhabited; and now they were compelled to pick their way among fallen branches and patches ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... preparation, and, in spite of Mrs. Rowland's gladly given assistance, the dish-washing and the kitchen-tidying had been longer still. All day Kate's step had been more than lagging, and her face more than discontented. In the twilight, as the two women sat together, Mrs. Rowland laid hold of her courage with ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... tendency to convulsive seizures the nervous system of these children is abnormal. As a rule they are excitable, and develop late the power to control their emotions. Lagging behind in physical development and in the capacity to interest themselves in the pursuits of normal children, their emotional state remains that of a much younger child. In the infant classes at schools they are recognised as dullards, learning slowly, speaking badly, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... hear that voice ringing like a trumpet call, or a commander's shout on the battlefield, into your ears, ever to stimulate you, to rebuke your lagging indifference; if you are ever conscious in your inmost hearts of the summons to His kingdom and glory, then, no doubt, by a walk worthy of it, you will make your calling sure; and there shall 'an entrance be ministered unto you ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... which the dust shook off at every jolt, revealing the carved scrolls and figures upon it: following them, Mercy, with her expressive face full of mirth and excitement; and the old man, now ahead, now lagging behind, now talking in an eager and animated manner with Mercy, now breaking off to admonish or chastise the bearers of the clock. The eccentric old fellow used his cane as freely as if it had been a hand. There were few boys in town who had not felt its weight; and his more familiar acquaintances ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... tantalize my reader, but I flatter myself this history is not written with power enough to do that, and I may venture to leave him to guess whom Sir Charles Pomander surprised more than he did the actress, while I go back for the lagging sheep. ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... the four felt their attention lagging. Novelties always pall quickly, no matter how striking. Estra sensed ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... proposed to surprise by a night attack Cumberland's force at Nairn. The Prince eagerly agreed, and, according to him, Clanranald's advanced men were in touch with Cumberland's outposts before Lord George convinced the Prince that retreat was necessary. The advance was lagging; the way had been missed in the dark; dawn was at hand. There are other versions: in any case the hungry men were so outworn that many are said to have slept ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... told him, but it was noticed that whatever was spoken had to be accompanied by some manual action. If told to get a pail of water, he would remain inactive until a pail was taken up or pointed out. So in yoking up the yaks, merely pointing at the yokes would be sufficient to start the lagging memory. He quickly learned to manipulate the guns, and spent hours in practicing by ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay |
