"Red-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boy's hard-earned money. He simply explained the situation to him and I am sure the boy never came back, as he might have done if he had not been treated generously. At another time some boys from across the river were caught red-handed stealing grapes. After scaring them for a time, Father gave them some grapes and sent them home. He was always cautioning us about cutting grapes, to cut only such as we would be willing to eat ourselves not to mislead ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... middle and the end of my misfortunes," she said. "What did I do that gradually lost me my friends?—and I had such good friends, even after my best friend my sister died. What did I do that ruined me by inches? In Australia I have heard of evil men taken red-handed being left in the bush with food and water by them, bound to a fallen tree which has been set on fire at one end. And the fire smoulders and smoulders, and travels inch by inch along the trunk, and ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... "and find out all about him. We'll put a spoke in his wheel before long; if he's caught red-handed he'll be shot and she will be ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... he may be telling us the truth," urged Paul Breslin. "Foy may very well have ridden here alone before Vorhis got here. I've known the Major a long time. He isn't the man to protect a red-handed murderer." ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... forth—had miscarried, and he knew the porthole trick would be useless once we got into the open sea. He took a big chance. He discarded his clerical guise and peeped into your room—you remember?—but you were awake, and I made no move when he slipped back to his own cabin; I wanted to take him red-handed." ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... not yet realized. The rest of the West came up to specifications, but this one essential failed. In Spanish Gulch he had, to be sure, encountered a number of girls. But they were red-handed, big-boned, freckled-faced, rough-skinned, and there wasn't a Tam o' Shanter in the lot. Plainly servants, Bennington thought. The Mountain Flower must have gone on a visit. Come to think of it, there never was more than one Mountain Flower ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... stuff back to Ganymede for refining. Wallace happened to be dead-heading on the freighter. When they got to Ganymede, and Coxine saw all the money lying around at the Credit Exchange to pay off the prospectors, he convinced Wallace to go in with him and they robbed the Exchange. Coxine was caught red-handed, but Wallace got away. In fact, the Solar Guard didn't know Wallace had anything to do with it. So Coxine was taken back to the prison asteroid, and Wallace has been driftin' around the system ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... of men and the Branded, Whether hated or hating they fell— I pledge the devoted, red-handed, Unfaltering Heroes ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... right," says Mrs. Flynn. "Didn't I catch him red-handed prowlin' about? But if ye want to see what his ugly mug looks like, ye may. There! Sit ye ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... drowning them like rats. At another point, when baffled in their efforts to overturn a sleeping-car in front of a patrol engine, and dispersed by a dozen well-aimed shots, the rioters impanelled their coroner's jury, and declared the red-handed participants innocent spectators and the officer and his men murderers. At a third, when a great railway centre was found in the hands of the strikers and the troops were ordered to clear the platform, one surly specimen ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... left the Duma a company of Red Guards, stern-faced and desperate, came marching down the dark, deserted street with a dozen prisoners-members of the local branch of the Council of Cossacks, caught red-handed ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... strange tales were told than of the bloody buccaneer himself. That the walls of his house were ceiled with jewels, shedding their accumulated lustre of years so that never candle need shine in the place, was well known. That the spellbound souls of all those on his red-handed ancestor's roll were fain to keep watch and ward over their once treasures, by night and noon, white-sheeted and faint in the glare of the sun, wan in the moon, blacker shadows in the starless dark, found belief. And there were those who had seen his seraglio;—but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "We but want your red-handed friend Dark Neil," said he; "your father kens his lair, and the hour he puts him in our hands for ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... sir, but he was caught red-handed Killing the king's deer. By the forest law He should of rights be ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Juden. Deil take me if anyone could blame us if we paid him a visit. For all the world knows how often some cows, or a calf or two, have vanished on a dark night from the hillsides at Harden, and though a Murray hath never yet been ta'en red-handed, it is easy to know where the larders o' Elibank get their plenishing. Turn about is fair play, say I, and now that the pastures at Harden are empty, 'tis time that we thought of taking our revenge. Sir Juden was a wily man in his youth, and sly as a pole-cat, but men say that nowadays he ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... character, and cruel in the extreme. Finally a game warden caught him red-handed, arrested him, and took him to Cody for trial. It happened that the judge on the bench had once trapped with him, and therefore "he set the game-killer free, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... pray you," rejoined Crystal proudly, "go and seek a quarrel with the man who has unmasked you; who caught you red-handed with the money in your possession which you had stolen from us, who forced you to give up what you had stolen, and whom then you and your friend Victor de Marmont waylaid and robbed once more. Go then, Mr. Clyffurde, and seek a quarrel with the Marquis de St. Genis, who has already ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... had organized a force which detected Contenson red-handed in the act of espionage. Contenson, disguised as a market-porter, had twice already brought home the provisions purchased in the morning by Asie, and had twice got into the little mansion in the Rue Saint-Georges. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... capacity," said Mr. Quilty, looking him sternly in the eye, "I hope th' dirty blagyards is caught red-handed and soaked hard for th' shameless and di'bolical atrocity they have perpetuated. For such abandoned miscreants hangin' is too dom ladylike a punishment. I want yez to understand me official sintimints in me official capacity clearly. Yez may quote me exact words ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... several members of our little colony composed themselves to await in such tranquillity as they could command, the ordeal of sleeping, sitting bolt upright in a French diligence, upon a dark, tempestuous night, and surrounded on all sides by the dreadful presence of "red-handed war." The last thing I remember ere the drowsy god "MURPHY" sent his fairies to weave their cobwebs about my eyelids, was "OLD CONNECTICUT." She didn't look like the battering-ram that she was. She had taken that chignon for a pillow, and fastened ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... excuse to go on deck, I stole cautiously up the companion-stairs, expecting to catch Van Luck red-handed in the act of playing the spy upon us, but when I reached the skylight I could see no sign of him. From where I stood, however, I was able to observe the captain counting the pearls, and I determined to warn him to have a cover made for the skylight, or a blind inside that might be drawn ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... sinning and laden with the burden of human guilt, has once fallen a victim to the Eumenides, cannot, as a figure in a drama, go off on pleasure trips, nor can he go about the usual business of daily life. Fate seizes him red-handed, causes him to see blood in every glass of champagne and to read his warrant of arrest on every chance scrap of paper. And the Comic Muse is even less indulgent. When Aristophanes would mock the creations of Euripides, which are meant to move the public by ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... of his countenance was not accounted for by his answer: "I believe she has treated me with it once or twice already, and I still survive. In fact, I am inclined to think the doctor caught her red-handed on one occasion, and there ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... turn some day, and turning, rend those who now preyed upon them. It would be "dog eat dog" again, with positions reversed, and he saw for one instant of time that splendid house sacked to its foundations, the tables overturned, the pictures torn, the hangings blazing, and Liberty, the red-handed Man in the Street, grimed with powder smoke, foul with the gutter, rush yelling, torch ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... already avenged it sternly, O Red-handed Concobar," Catbad made answer, "by winning the battle over the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... him!" gasped an astonished voice. "Well, of all effrontery! Got him, you miserable thief? The police are coming and they'll get you, and I can identify you, if they don't succeed in nabbing you red-handed." ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... this? but that was long ago - Months. Now I know not—yet I think I know - Whether I fear or fear not it. Hard by Men fight even now—they strike and kill and die Red-handed; nay, we hear the roar and see The lightning of the battle: can it be That what no soul of all these brave men fears Should sound so fearful save in foolish ears? But all this while I know not where ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an' he planned to sell the Border Legion outright. There was to be a big stake in it for him. He held off day after day, only tippin' off some of the gang. There's Dartt an' Singleton an' Frenchy an' Texas all caught red-handed at jobs. Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin' them jest to prove his claim.... Aw! I've got the proofs! Jest wait. Listen to me!... You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce. An' the job he had put up on us was grand. To-day ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... a sunny land! Yet here pressing relentlessly upon his mind were the murders of Vise, the massacres of Dinant, the massacres of Louvain, murder red-handed and horrible upon an inoffensive people, foully invaded, foully treated; murder done with a sickening cant of ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... declining at command Exhausted, the now helpless poet rose And said: "I am discovered, I suppose. Though I have taken all precautions not To sign my name to any verses wrought By my transcendent genius, yet, you see, Fame wrests my secret from me bodily; So I must needs confess I did this deed Of poetry red-handed, nor can plead One whit of unintention in my crime— My guilt of rhythm and my glut ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... secure, hires four assassins, and in the darkness of night betakes himself to Rome. He and his accomplices enter the house of Pietro Comparini and his wife, and, not content with slaying them, also murders Pompilia. But they are discovered, and Guido is caught red-handed. Pompilia's evidence alone is damnatory, for she was not slain outright, and lingers long enough to tell her story. Franceschini is not foiled yet, however. His plea is that he simply avenged the wrong done to him by his wife's adulterous connection with ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... dollars of the bank's money and a steamship ticket made out in a fictitious name, it was prima-facie evidence that he had done the job and had the balance somewhere. What would his denials, his protestations of innocence count for? He was an ex-convict, a hardened criminal caught red-handed with a portion of the proceeds of robbery—he had succeeded in hiding the remainder of it too cleverly, that ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... caught us red-handed," explained Bill. "We hadn't more'n got the pitchforks back in the stable when they ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... of the death of Slippery Trendley and Deacon Rankin, and he accepted their passing as a personal affront. That they had been caught red-handed in cattle stealing of huge proportions and received only what was customary under the conditions formed no excuse in his mind for their passing. He was now on his way to attend the carnival at Muddy Wells, knowing that his enemy would be ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Oliver Cromwell who overcame the hitherto invincible Allen. A handful of the gang attacked Oliver on his way from Huntingdon, but the marauders were outmatched, and the most of them were forced to surrender. Allen, taken red-handed, swung at Tyburn; Hind, with his better mount and defter horsemanship, rode ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... was farthest removed from the Revolutionists of the vulgar, red-handed class. He consecrated his life to prevent Revolution. All his action in the conflict between Labor and Capital aimed at conciliation. He told the plutocrats their defects with brutal frankness, and if he promoted laws to curb them, it was because he realized, as they did not, that, unless they ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... do you think is here too? The cat with nine lives has turned up again, and, by Jupiter! Bob, he's brought another cat with him. Dennis is with me without a scratch, and he's captured Ottilie von Dussel, red-haired and red-handed!" ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... infamous title. Rapine, murder, lust, oppression, high-handed bullying, servile slavishness in every vile abandonment, have bred up delicate, dreamy aristocrats. Their ancestors, by the two strains, were either red-handed marauders, or easy Delilahs." ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... intrusion, Sir William," explained Lord Clowes, as Howe, in surprise, faced about, "but we have just caught a spy red-handed, and an important one at that, being none less than Colonel Brereton, an aide of Mr. ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the old feud between Pizarro and Almagro culminated in a battle between their two factions, and Almagro was defeated and killed. Pizarro now ruled the country with red-handed despotism. The benignant laws of the Incas were replaced by the rapine of the conquerors. Not only gold and silver, but the land itself and its former peaceful occupants, were apportioned among them; and slavery and concubinage prevailed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... blanched-almond teeth, she found it hard to dismiss them from her mind. How the other girls would have boasted of it, had they been chosen by such a one as Bob!—they who, for the most part, were satisfied with blotchy-faced, red-handed youths, whose lean wrists dangled from their retreating sleeves. But then, too, they would have known how to keep him. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... fear of her being robbed at night. The cabin, to be sure, was broken into, but it was done in daylight, and the thieves got no more than a box of smoked herrings before "Tom" Ledson, one of the port officials, caught them red-handed, as it were, and sent them to jail. This was discouraging to pilferers, for they feared Ledson more than they feared Satan himself. Even Mamode Hajee Ayoob, who was the day-watchman on board,—till an empty box fell ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... the street, or waved salutations with a duster. Swift upon such discoveries, she would execute a flank march across the few steps of garden and steal into the house, noiselessly ascend the stairs, and catch the offender red-handed at this public dalliance. But all such domestic espionage to right and left was flavourless and insipid compared to the tremendous discoveries which daily and hourly awaited the trained observer of the street that lay directly ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... planted in ambush many hours before, galloped up, and with these new diabolical engines of war, shot leaden bullets, and laid many an honest fellow low, and so quelled the courage of others that they yielded them prisoners. These being taken red-handed, the victors, who with malice inconceivable had brought cords knotted round their waists, did speedily hang, and by their side the dead ones, to make the gallanter show. "That one at the end was the captain. He never felt the cord. He was riddled with broad arrows and leaden ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... it had caused. All he saw was a typical ragamuffin of humanity in the grip of the policeman, Nemesis. Adair had been caught trying to do what thousands of other ragamuffins achieved daily with success. He had been arrested red-handed in the act of stealing forbidden happiness. It was his first offense. He was inexpert and had bungled. He had bungled because, while assuming the role of roguery, he had remained at heart an honest man. Now that ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... precedent. A "squaw man" driving out a brown wife to make room for a white is not a heroic figure. It had been done before, but it would not hand down well in the traditions of the settling of this great country. Trespass of law and order, with their swift, red-handed reckoning, were but moves of the great game of colonization. But to shove out a brown woman for a white was a mean move. Few stopped at the Rodneys' ranch, though it marked the first break in the journey from town to the gold-mining country. Rodney had fallen from his estate ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... several minutes to jimmy open the elevator door. His mind was sensitive enough to sense the nearness of others, so there was no chance of his being caught red-handed. When he got the door open, he stepped into the shaft, brought his loathing for the bottom into the fore, and floated up to the top floor. From there it was a simple matter to get to the roof, drop down the side, and enter the open window of ...
— What The Left Hand Was Doing • Gordon Randall Garrett
... thought," said Chester. "Now I am almost positive that the conspirators will gather for one more session before the German advance, if only to make sure that nothing has gone amiss. We can surround the house and capture them red-handed." ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... "As long as the unknown enemy feels that he can harass us without much risk of being caught red-handed, just so long will he go on with his ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... Basuto tribe, his companions becoming hungry, stole a goat and killed it. Zinti ate of the goat, for they told him that they had bought it for some beads, and while they were still eating the Basutos came upon them and caught them red-handed. Next day they were tried by the councillors of the tribe and condemned to die as thieves, but the chief, who wanted servants, spared their lives and set them to labour in his gardens, where they ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... wrong. Having accomplished his purpose he quietly walked out of the cafe and went away. I happened to be on the spot shortly afterwards, and inquired, with some surprise at the escape of the murderer, why he had not been arrested red-handed. "He had a sword in his hand!" said the person to whom I had addressed myself, in a tone which implied that that quite settled the matter—that of course it was absolutely out of the question to attempt to interfere with a man who had a sword in ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... you well enough, you old fox, and we'll catch you red-handed yet, and hang you. But we're not hunting after your kind to-day. Did you see anything of a fellow in scarlet jacket along here last night, or ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... but she remembered how sarcastic and evil he looked when she took final leave of him after the ball. Had he discovered something then? Had he already laid his plans for catching the daring plotter, red-handed, in France, and sending him to the guillotine without ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... suddenly that the Boxers had caught a lot of native Christians, and had taken them to a temple where they were engaged in torturing them with a refinement of cruelty. One of our leaders collected a few marines and some volunteers, marched out and surrounded the temple and captured everybody red-handed. The Boxers were given short shrift—those that had their insignia on; but in the sorting-out process it was impossible to tell everybody right at first sight. Christians and Boxers were all of them gory with the blood which had flown from the torturing ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... they told me this morning lathe would run short before they was through. I knew I had ordered an extra hundred on the architect's figgers, but I didn't say anything. Just prospected 'round and came back unexpected, and caught one of them red-handed. He was tucking a bunch between the ceiling and the upper floor, without even cutting the string. I made them rip off the lathe, and there they were stored thick, a full bundle to 'bout every three they'd ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... if a murderer could be caught red-haired instead of red-handed," retorted Paynter. "Why, at this very minute, you could be caught red-haired yourself. Are you a murderer, by ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... There's an organization, right here in this city, a sort of assassin's club, as it were, aimed at all the powerful men the world over. Why, the most refined and intellectual reformers have joined with the most red-handed anarchists and—" ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... maybe he will send for you. If he does so, kindly take my advice and see to it that when you come to the colonel's office you are not watched by Brown, Martell and Stowell, or that may spoil everything. I think that the colonel will agree with me that the thing to do is to catch those fellows red-handed." ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high-shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,—the waist plunging downwards into the rocking pelvis at every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... deprived of its chief; the remaining four conveyed Pierre to the little wood, while the robbers, hearing no signal, did not venture to stir. According to agreement, Pierre Buttel was tried by the archers, who promptly transformed themselves into a court of justice, and as he had been taken red-handed, and did not condescend to defend himself, the trial was not a long affair. He was unanimously sentenced to be hung, and the execution was then and there carried out, at the request of the criminal himself, who wanted the game to be properly played to the end, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the death of Jesus, they would not give up their right to choose their prisoners to be released, and take at the dictation of Pilate the very man they wanted to have done to death. They clamoured for an insurgent, Barabbas, a man caught red-handed in the very crime for which these hypocrites professed in their new-fledged loyalty to Caesar to be anxious to have Jesus executed. The cynicism of their choice is palpable. By daring to make it, they show in what contempt they hold Pilate. ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... common in Mizora. Her long, blonde hair hung straight and unconfined over a dress of thick, white material. Her attitude and expression were dejected and sorrowful. I had visited prisons in my own land where red-handed murder sat smiling with indifference. I had read in newspapers, labored eloquence that described the stoicism of some hardened criminal as a trait of character to be admired. I had read descriptions where mistaken eloquence exerted itself to waken sympathy for a criminal who had ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... Kate, putting her arm around her sister's waist, "I am perfectly convinced that if three-fingered Jack, or two-toed Bill, or even Joaquim Murietta himself, should step, red-handed, on that veranda, you would gently invite him to take a cup of tea, inquire about the state of the road, and refrain delicately from any allusions to the sheriff. But I shan't take Manuel from you. I really cannot undertake to look after his morals at the station, ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... and after darkness the evening before, had crept up to a window and shot a man sitting at the supper-table with his family. The murderer had harbored a grudge against his victim, had made threats, and before he could escape, was caught red-handed with the freshly fired pistol in his hand. The evidence of guilt was beyond question, and a vigilance committee didn't waste any time in hanging ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... "—caught red-handed with the incriminating papers," shouted an offstage announcer. "Handbills asserting objects declared obsolescent could actually ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... and whistle for himself; but, lo! without giving him time to carry out his intentions, you, good boy that you were, squealed and brought all the teachers in the room to the spot. You cried out to them what had occurred, and the ragged lad was caught red-handed with the knife in his possession. He was expelled from the school that day, but the affair did not end there. The father of the boy who owned the knife was a great judge, and he caused the ragged lad to ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... another pause, then Alfred drew in his breath and bore down upon Jimmy with fresh vehemence. "The only time I get even a semblance of truth out of Zoie," he cried, "is when I catch her red-handed." Again he pounded the table and again Jimmy winced. "And even then," he continued, "she colours it so with her affected innocence and her plea about just wishing to be a 'good fellow,' that she almost makes me doubt my own eyes. She is an artist," he declared with ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... What was the game? Melinoff was an old-clothes and junk dealer, and, as a side line, at times a very profitable side line, had been known to act as a "fence" for stolen goods. He had skirted for years on the ragged edge with the police, and then, caught red-handed at last, had changed his occupation for a more useful one during a somewhat prolonged sojourn in Sing Sing. Affairs after that had not prospered with Melinoff. His wife, honest if her husband was not, and already an old woman, had been hard put to it with the shabby ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... October 18th, 1810, ordered that all such goods should be seized and publicly burnt; and five weeks later special tribunals were instituted for enforcing these ukases and for trying all persons, whether smugglers caught red-handed or shopkeepers who inadvertently offered for sale the cottons of Lancashire or the silks ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... of later days. It was about the worst blow the W.S.P.U. had; before the outbreak of War turned suddenly the revolting women into the stanchest patriots and the right hands of muddling ministers. For in addition to many a rich find in No. 94 and a dozen captives caught red-handed in making mock of the Authorities, the plain-clothes policemen made themselves thoroughly at home in Mr. Michaelis's quarters till the following Monday. And when in the fore-noon of that day, Mr. Michaelis entered his rooms, puzzled and perturbed at finding the outer door ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... root out Presbytery from Scotland, as less subservient to his despotic aims, and forcibly to impose Prelacy on her as a stepping-stone to Popery, had no difficulty in finding ecclesiastical and courtly bravos to carry out his designs; and for a long series of dismal years persecution stalked red-handed ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... men, seeing how the wind lay, swore before heaven that he saw me shoot the deer, and took me red-handed, with my bow in my hand. And when one sheep leads the way, the others follow. They all swore it was I; while some added that my comrade lay asleep under a tree, and knew nothing of the matter till ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... on the paper here," said Detective Ferrett. "We've got him dead to rights. Aim for a goose and you hit a gander. This fellow's a red-handed thug from Canada. They've had the alarm out for him a couple of years. You kids never knew that, hey?" And by way of a pleasantry he hit Roy a rap with his bulging wallet. "We'll measure him up down yonder. The face is enough, but ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... and not leaving a single loophole of escape? Who would believe the story of his innocent ramble on the turnpike that Tuesday night? Who could doubt that he had gone directly from the Slocums' to Welch's Court, and then crept home red-handed through the ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... how I have arranged to save the 'Lark' and get 'Red Mike' red-handed. The Southern Pacific superintendent knows all this and will bring the 'Lark' to a stop as close to the derailer on the track as he can. My detectives will be hidden all around. As the train pulls to a stop they'll close in and ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... this mood, some one tells him Mr. Augustus Hare's story of Crooglin Grange, his education in the practice and theory of vampires will be complete, and he will be a very proper and well- qualified inmate of Earlswood Asylum. The most awful Japanese vampire, caught red-handed in the act, a hideous, bestial incarnation of ghoulishness, we ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... "one noon, in th' foothills, we come on what we was after, an' we did some stalkin' t' do it. We ketched three guys red-handed. They was artistic-like re-brandin' some of our calves so's Lazy I'd read Circle W. 'Course, they wa'n't but one thing t' do with them fellers, an' we perceeds to do it. But unfortunate enough they wa'n't a tree within miles of that ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... spies and their boat must be caught red-handed, but not till after the false news of the mining of the battle-cruisers has been carried to Holland. But how shall we make certain that the sleepless English Navy will not butt in and catch the boat at sea before it gets across ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... devoted to her, the secret leaked out that she was the married sister of the terrible priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest's brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons' sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... man, "you know very well you were guilty. I caught you red-handed. You didn't fool anyone—except the jury that let you go. So save your breath, and, if you've the sense you were born with, release my daughter and me. Why, you're crazy!" he cried with mounting anger. "You can't get away with this! I'll have you in jail within forty-eight ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... the Lord: "So, red-handed I catch thee? Death-doomed by our Law of the Border! We've a gallows outside and a chiel to dispatch thee: Who ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... government control in Mars and it might be that the majority of the people there knew nothing of this store of wealth floating in the firmament. That would account for the battle with the supposed pirates, who, no doubt, had organized a secret expedition to the asteroid and been caught red-handed at the mine. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... at once!" cried Benassis, and he made straight for the little wood, urging his horse at a furious speed across the ditches and fields, as if he were riding a steeplechase, in his anxiety to catch the sportsman red-handed. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... not be made to suffer death except by the voice of the people. The Valerian, the Porcian, and the Sempronian laws had all been passed to that effect. Now there had been no popular vote as to the execution of Lentulus and the other conspirators, who had been taken red-handed in Rome in the affair of Catiline. Their death had been decreed by the Senate, and the decree of the Senate had been carried out by Cicero; but no decree of the Senate had the power of a law. In spite of that decree the old law was ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... day we rested. Troops having been sniped at by natives, a party from the Squadron was detailed to make an example of two offenders who had been caught "red-handed". They were taken back to their village, and after their crime had been publicly announced by an interpreter to the chief of the tribe and the inhabitants, they were shot by the firing party. At 18.00 the Brigade moved off through ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... of whom I had the honour of being much hated, had worked out a different, and to them, a much more satisfactory ending. If Conde's assassin could be caught, red-handed as it were, and slain by the angry people, there would be an end to the business. For this purpose they had conducted the mob to my prison, but the speedy arrival of the soldiers had upset their plans; Maubranne was dead, and I lay on a ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... the public learned from the press at the time, hence the writer will only allude in this connection to the effect created in various Circles of the Order, by the attempt upon the part of the Government to thwart the perpetration of the red-handed crimes contemplated by the leaders. When it was officially announced by Reuben Cassile, presiding Grand Seignior of the Chicago Temple, then recently removed from the Invincible Club Hall to McCormick's Building, that disclosures of the ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a force of Swazis burying their ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... up arms, presumably for the purpose of inflicting grievous harm on loyal fellow-citizens. As their opponents were certainly the government, what could they be but declared foes who had been caught red-handed in an act of treason so open and so violent that the old identity of "traitors" and "enemies" was alone applicable to their case? Thus legal theory itself proclaimed the existence of civil war, and handed on to future generations of party leaders an instrument of massacre ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... until Friday, that Mary's "little friends" caught her red-handed, in an escapade that explained everything from the size of her trunk to the puzzling insouciance of her manner. They all, and particularly Roberta, had begun to feel a little hurt as the days went by and Mary indulged in many ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... the arrogance of pride was very great as I pulled up by the tall cart. I had Cynthia red-handed, and wanted to gloat over the stammer and the crimson flush of the traitor. I assumed the attitude of the very terrible. Sharp and jarring and without premonition are the surprises of youth. This straight ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... said, "you and Dolph came to steal sheep, and it isn't your fault that you haven't been able to do it. You thought there was nobody on this island and that you could kill and take to suit yourselves. You've been caught red-handed. By good rights you ought to be turned over to the sheriff. We'll let you go this time, but if we catch you here on such an errand again you'll have a chance to tell your ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... for i-den-ti-fi-cation, Mr. Landale, sir. So I say, sir, it's a mercy I did not hit him either, now I can think of it. Ah, slow and sure, that's my motter! I takes my man on his boat, in the very middle of his laces and his brandy and his silk—I takes him, sir, in the very act of illegality, red-handed, so to speak, and then, if he shows fight, or if he runs away, then I shoots, sir, and then if I hits, why it's a good job too—but none of this promiscuous work for Augustus Hobson. Slow and sure, that's ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... annoyed at being caught red-handed with the pendant in her possession, and she won't give in and acknowledge her wrongdoing," said Miss Teddington ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... participator in; bear a hand, lend a hand; pull an oar, run in a race; mix oneself up with &c (meddle) 682. be in action; come into operation &c (power at work) 170. Adj. doing &c v.; acting; in action; in harness; on duty; in operation &c 170. Adv. in the act, in the midst of, in the thick of; red-handed, in flagrante delicto [Lat.]; while one's hand is in. Phr. action is eloquence [Coriolanus]; actions speak louder than words; actum aiunt ne agas [Terence]; awake, arise, or be forever fall'n [Paradise ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... convenient by the kitchen door. Indeed, so deadened in delicate perceptions were these people that the landlord observing a rare plant in one of our hands, he actually called the butcher in to tell us its name. The man, having at that moment ended his first stroke of business, came in red-handed, and proved a botanist. It was a Woodsia hyperborea—that was the Latin name—and was rare in those parts, he said; but the Herrschaft should come earlier for flowers. July was the month. Then there was geum, and pale blue-fringed campanulas, and rich ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... she had felt like a servant girl taken red-handed and heavy-footed from the kitchen and suddenly placed in the drawing-room upon terms of equality with her mistress and her mistresses's friends, but she had profited by her opportunities and now brought back with her something of the air and manner of speech and dress ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... the red-handed murderer!" broke out the woman, fiercely. "He is probably a thief; he killed my poor husband, and then sat down like a cold-blooded villain that he is, and ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud-voiced; and they and their broad jokes are about all I remember of the place. I could look up my history-books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or two; for it figured rather largely in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no such thing as abstract liberty; it is not even thinkable. If you ask me, "Do you favor liberty?" I reply, "Liberty for whom to do what? Just now I distinctly favor the liberty of the law to cut off the noses of anarchists caught red-handed or red-tongued. If they go in for mutilation let them feel what it is like. If they are not satisfied with the way that things have been going on since the wife of Duke Albert the Pious was held under water with a pole, and since the servitors ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the lake, The sunny Venice of the western world; There many corpses, rotting in the wind, Poked up stiff limbs, but in the leprous rags No jewel caught the sun, no tawny chain Gleamed, as the prying halberds raked them o'er. Pillage that ran red-handed through the streets Came railing home at evening empty-palmed; And they, on that sad night a twelvemonth gone, Who, ounce by ounce, dear as their own life's blood Retreating, cast the cumbrous load away: They, when brown ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... him. Look at the Scribe, and look at the Pharisee—religious men in their way, wise men in their way, decent and respectable men in their way; and look at that poor thief that had been caught in the wilderness amongst the caves and dens, and had been brought red-handed with blood upon his sword, and guilt in his heart, and nailed up there in the short and summary process of a Roman jurisprudence;—and think that Scribe, and Pharisee, and Priest, saw nothing in Christ; and that the poor profligate wretch saw this in Him,—innocence that showed heavenly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... night passed rapidly. I was anxious about the ascent, for gusts of ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. Then wild animals howled, and "Ring" was perturbed in spirit about them. Then it was strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man, sleeping as quietly as innocence sleeps. But, above all, it was exciting to lie there, with no better shelter than a bower of pines, on a mountain 11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the Rocky Range, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... (Telfy), or in the Magnesian state. In both (Telfy) the contriver of a murder is punished as severely as the doer; and persons accused of the crime are forbidden to enter temples or the agora until they have been tried (Telfy). (d) At Athens slaves who killed their masters and were caught red-handed, were not to be put to death by the relations of the murdered man, but to be handed over to the magistrates (Telfy). So in the Laws, the slave who is guilty of wilful murder has a public execution: but if the murder is committed in anger, it is ...
— Laws • Plato
... ruffianism and lawlessness, showing how Eastern Capital must ever be timid in visiting a town of such reputation, apart from investing any money therein; then, changing to the personal phases of the case, he spoke of the absolute disregard of law shown in the act charged, mentioned the red-handed deed of this lawless and dangerous person who had thus slain a pig, no less the pride of the community than the idol of the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... car while it still moved, and leaped up the garden walk. The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom he heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold. The audacity of the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry. The Lord had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge, distinctly jubilant. In the passageway a frightened maid servant, who, at his unexpected ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... we alarm anybody? We know the plans as well as these scoundrels themselves. Why not follow them right into the castle, capture them red-handed, and then do the alarming? I'm in for saving the Princess of Graustark with our own hands and right under the noses of her vaunted guardsmen, as Michael says." Lorry was thrilled by the spirit of adventure. His hand gripped his friend's arm and his face was close to his ear. ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the rest of the day, and for several days following, made out exhaustive lists of eatables, bedding and utensils such as would have provided amply for a regiment of soldiers. In the midst of the preparations Sarah was caught red-handed packing her drawn-work among ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... and humble the pretensions of the feudal nobles. The Duke of Villahermosa, in command of an army maintained by contributions from the towns, waged a merciless campaign, burning castles and administering red-handed but salutary justice to rebels against the royal authority, and to all disturbers of public order ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... then clicked shut as his Colt swung down. But he did not shoot; something inside of him held his trigger finger and he swore instead. The idea of a man stealing his horse, being caught red-handed and unarmed, and still possessed of sufficient courage to call his captor a name never tolerated or overlooked in that country! And the idea that he, Hopalong Cassidy, of the Bar-20, could not shoot such a thief! "Damn that sky pilot! He's shore gone an' made ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader of the outlaws had saved the men by ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... "Perhaps you do not know your position. You are not at New Orleans. Here I am both the civil and military chief and this is my own place. I can put you to death as brigands or guerillas, caught red-handed upon Spanish soil." ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... realised he had said anything to compromise his senior. Felgate was not one of the vulgar noisy sort of bullies, but a good deal worse. He made the wretched Baby's life miserable with all sorts of exquisite torture. He hounded him on to break rules, and then caught him red-handed, and held over his head threats of exposure and punishment. He passed the word round the house that the boy was a tell-tale, and little was the mercy poor Bateson got either from friend or foe when that became known. Nor did Felgate, in his revengeful whims, omit the orthodox functions ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... we had a law which since the Union has become the unwritten law of South Africa. In this law it is laid down that a coloured policeman shall not lay his black hands on a white man even if he found him red-handed in the commitment of a crime. The duty of a coloured policeman in such circumstances would be to look around for a white constable and report the misdemeanour to him. Rather than suffer the humiliation of a black official taking a white criminal into custody ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... another minute. Fortunately this had not been necessary. Pasquale was in a position to prove to the United States Government, in case it became inquisitive, that when the man had been confronted with his guilt he had tried to kill him and had been shot down red-handed. ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... below. Doubtless the miserable heiress of the Lorringtons had found a grave in the bed of soft, deep snow which surrounded its base. Then, stricken through heart and brain with the curse of madness which had already sent her mistress red-handed to death, Virginie Giraud fled across the lawn—through the parkgates—out upon the bleak common beyond, and was gone. The old priest laid aside the manuscript and took a fresh pinch of rappee from the silver snuff box. "Monsieur," ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed Alan's chief in war, and made but one clan with Appin. Here, too, were many of that old, proscribed, nameless, red-handed clan of the Macgregors. They had always been ill-considered, and now worse than ever, having credit with no side or party in the whole country of Scotland. Their chief, Macgregor of Macgregor, was ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in no land of barbarians would it be possible to duplicate the scenes of brutality that are reported from New Orleans. In the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting men who had no ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... in the game. He would keep him in sight, hang on his flank, follow his trail wherever it led, in the hope of finding the rendezvous of the gang. Then he would ride with whip and spur to the ranch, Melton would gather his men together, and they would swoop down on the outlaws' camp and catch them red-handed ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... no suppose in the matter. I could swear to you. But I would not, lad—not if I caught you red-handed. You must know, Clarke, since there is none to overhear us, that in the old days I was a Justice of the Peace in Surrey, and that our friend here was brought up before me on a charge of riding somewhat late o' night, and of being plaguey short with travellers. You will understand me. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Well, Doctor Browne, my keeper and I were out taking a look round at the young pheasants in their coops last evening, when we took these confounded young dogs red-handed, ferreting rabbits with that scoundrelly poaching vagabond you have taken into your service, when nobody else ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... on the shins and even bitten by ladies of an equally elegant exterior. Hearts, the policeman knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were with the stick still in her grasp, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... there won't. When a master begs men to own up, it means that he's up the spout. It's much more fun catching a fellow red-handed. And, after all, you two are the last people anyone ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... red-handed firing the grass on Warenda Station, on his way to Boulia. He was brought before the Boulia justices, who sentenced him to three months' imprisonment under the "Careless Use of Fire Act." This was the maximum penalty that could be inflicted. On completion of his ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... centuries from Covadonga to Toledo, halfway in time and territory to Granada and the Midland Sea. And since then how many royal feet have trodden this breezy crest,—Sanchos and Henrys and Ferdinands,—the line broken now and then by a usurping uncle or a fratricide brother,—a red-handed bastard of Trastamara, a star-gazing Alonso, a plotting and praying Charles, and, after Philip, the dwindling scions of Austria and the nullities of Bourbon. This height has known as well the rustle of the trailing robes of queens,—Berenguela, Isabel the Catholic, and Juana,—Crazy ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... bewailed their fate: the reverse! The proudest congratulate themselves on having been at so good a school; and M. Auguste Maquet, the chief of them, speaks with real reverence and affection of his great friend." And M. About writes "as one who had taken the master red-handed, and in the act of collaboration." Dumas has a curious note on collaboration in his "Souvenirs Dramatiques." Of the two men at work together, "one is always the dupe, and he is ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... grimly, "are outlaws, red-handed robbers. They have broken the law of God and man. They deserve justice, ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... the city is a mound, where, dear To Ceres once, but now deserted, stands A temple, and an aged cypress near, For ages hallowed with religious fear, There meet we. Father, in thy charge remain Troy's gods; for me, red-handed with the smear Of blood, and fresh from slaughter, 'twere profane To touch them, ere the stream hath cleansed ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... are caught and punished. Of those who stole the millions in Harrisburg, nearly a score have died disgraced, or are in prison or exile; and $1,300,000 has been returned to the treasury of the State. Even when those who betray us are not caught red-handed we learn to distrust and then to despise them. They pass their last years in exile, and when their statues are erected in our State Houses they are memorials of shame. Thus we learn the art of living, we who participate ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... the old Foger home, and on the gardener's house at once. We may catch the rascals red-handed. You can have the honor of representing Uncle Sam. I'll make you assistant deputies for the night. Here are some extra badges I always carry," and he pinned one each on the ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... had expected, it was not long before two stealthy figures came tiptoeing in, and were taken red-handed in the very act of constructing an apple-pie bed. The vials of wrath which descended upon the would-be practical jokers were enough to damp the spirits of even such madcaps as Raymonde and Aveline. After all, monitresses are monitresses, and to affront them is rather like twisting a lion's ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... understand German thoroughness, they will go over their final plans in detail to make sure that everything is understood. The darkness will let us slip up closer to the house, and we may be able to overhear what they say. Don't forget, too, that our main job is to catch the Hoffs red-handed." ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... of Calabar is a fine type of the secret society. It is exceedingly well developed in its details, not sketchy like Isyogo, nor so red-handed as Poorah. Unfortunately, however, I cannot speak with the same amount of knowledge of Egbo ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Riel had been caught red-handed. Whatever excuses might be put forward, on behalf of his unfortunate dupes, that the Government had refused to heed their just demands, it is certain that Riel himself could plead no such excuses, for he was not at the time even a resident of the country. But, unfortunately, ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... turn would come. Holmes knew perfectly well that, only for the fun of the thing, some of those teamsters and scouts would form a "queue," and, with unimpeachable gravity, march up to the window and inquire if there was anything for Red-Handed Bill, or Rip-Roaring Mike, or the Hon. G. Bullwhacker, of Laramie Plains. He wanted time to think a bit before he returned to the doctor's house, anyhow. He had drawn from Corporal Zook a detailed account of McLean's spirited and soldierly ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... "Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock, the heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur, "brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... be?" asked Ailill of Fergus. "Indeed, but we know him," Fergus made answer; "the wild, red-handed, [3]rending[3] lion; the fierce, fearful bear that overcometh valour. [4]He is the high doer of deeds, warlike, and fierce,[4] Errge Echbel ('Horse-mouth'), from Bri Errgi ('Errge's Mound') in the ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... populated about here to suit me," replied Banborough. "But the police haven't been idle since we started, and our flight has probably been telegraphed all over the countryside. Perhaps we'd better run the risk, for if we're caught red-handed with the Black Maria we'll find some difficulty in ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... loving hand by Dickens. There are some improbable features about the plot and some overwrought sentimental scenes in this story. Dickens reveled in the romantic and found it in robbers' dens, in bare poverty, in red-handed crime. The touching pathos and thrilling adventures of Oliver Twist make a strong appeal to the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... rapidly down the pier how this ship of pirates had been captured, red-handed, her own captain still on board,—the good ship Alarm having seen a redness in the sky, and heard some firing in the night before; and how Captain How had put it to his crew, Would they fight or not? And they had fought, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... myself in tartan plaid. When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the Bois-Brules, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... carried by the police. "Wide open" gambling and debauchery made the city pleasing to "trade," but burglaries and holdups did not. One night it chanced that while Jack Duane was drilling a safe in a clothing store he was caught red-handed by the night watchman, and turned over to a policeman, who chanced to know him well, and who took the responsibility of letting him make his escape. Such a howl from the newspapers followed this ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Tom to his chum, as the latter gave him this information. "The Firefly is tuned up for a hundred miles an hour! We'll be there in ten minutes! We must catch him red-handed, ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... was red and working; for this was the most important moment of Inspector Brown's life, and it was little wonder that he was agitated and strung up. While the great detective from Scotland Yard was doing nothing, here had he, the Inspector, actually discovered the criminal, caught him red-handed, so to speak! ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... up against the dry laws and the game laws. Government enforcement agents, game protectors, State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod's trespass signs fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law breaking and nobody can catch him red-handed. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... Hal promptly, and with enthusiasm. "Shrimp was hard to swallow, and he would have made this place purgatory to us. But he was caught, red-handed, and we've had a lesson, the first day in the service, that real justice rules always in the Army. The breaking-in as recruits, Noll, is going to be harder than I thought, even if we have such fine men as ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... restraints of his native place no longer applied. With all his ability, he was not shrewd enough to realize that the Police Department was having him as well as the rest of us carefully shadowed. He was caught red-handed by a plain-clothes man doing what he had no business to do; and from that time on he dared not act save as those who held his secret permitted him to act. Thenceforth those officials who stood behind the Police Department had one man on the committee ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... suit his purpose. He thought his position one uncommonly difficult. As Maitland, he had on his hands a female thief, a hardened character, a common malefactor (strange that he got so little relish of the terms!), caught red-handed; as Maitland, his duty was to hand her over to the law, to be dealt with as—what she was. Yet, even while these considerations were urging themselves upon him, he knew his eyes appraised her with open admiration and interest. She stood ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... didn't like, so I watched them until I was about sure of their next dirty trick. It happened to be a thieving one on the Zavala ranche, so I let Zavala know, and then rode on to tell Granger he'd better send a few boys to keep them red-handed Comanche from ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... for personal gain. What this instance was his informant could not at that moment say—the facts were being carefully compiled, but the evidence was beyond dispute. This autocrat, who talked of principle and honor, had been caught red-handed in the very act against which he pretended to stand; and, of course, this instance was but one of many. Doctor Jekyll could take it upon himself to deliver platitudes upon moral rectitude, while Mr. Hyde gathered in ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... mistake: he did too much; and the scout who does too much blunders just as surely as he who does too little. Had Chippy sculled quietly away with the ample information he had already gained, the thieves might have been taken red-handed. But he burned to put, as he thought, a finishing touch to his night's work. He wanted to see what was going on in the forepeak of the Three Spires, and he wanted to see the faces of the men; it was almost certain ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... my agitation, impressed them with the conviction that I was guilty of the foul crime which had been committed; for murdered she had been, of that there was no doubt. Branded as a murderess I was borne off to prison. Many thought me guilty. It was cruelly said that I was found red-handed by the side of my victim. But even in prison I sought support, and obtained it whence alone it was to be afforded. As King David, I could say, 'I have washed my hands in innocency. I cried unto the Lord and He heard me.' Oh, my young friends, keep innocency. Do what is right in ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... criminal's case waits for day. The Night Court in Jefferson Market sits in judgment only on the small fry caught in the dragnet of the police. Tramps, vagrants, drunkards, brawlers, disturbers of the peace, speeding chauffeurs, licenseless peddlers, youths caught red-handed shooting craps or playing ball in the streets,—these are the men with whom the Night Court deals. But it is not the men we ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... other up and incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to convict ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... her, poor girl, to leave a happy home with her heart full of innocent mirth, only to encounter murder lurking red-handed at the ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... sand which had worked into his shoes during his agitated spring around Tyee Beach. She was quite certain he had indulged in a moonlight stroll on the seashore with a younger and prettier woman, so she resolved to follow him when next he fared forth and catch the traitor red-handed. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... was a red-handed outlaw, sleeping on the straw of a dungeon. To-day I wake in a royal bed and my varlets call me monseigneur. There are but three ways of explaining this singular situation. Either I am drunk or I am mad or I am dreaming. If I am drunk, I shall never distinguish Bordeaux Wine from ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the host, calling to the long-armed, red-handed stable boy, who thrust a shock of hair through the kitchen door. "Build a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... two of them. They were as nearly as possible captured red-handed. We have their footmarks, we have their description, it's ten to one that we trace them. The first fellow was a bit too active, but the second was caught by the under-gardener, and only got away after a struggle. He was a middle-sized, strongly ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Adventure galley, which he had captured somewhere in the South Seas. This latter vessel he placed in command of a certain John Malyoe whom he had picked up no one knows where—a young man of very good family in England, who had turned red-handed pirate. This man, who took no more thought of a human life than he would of a broom straw, was he who afterwards murdered Captain Brand, as ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... is reached. The question is whether this Empire, reeking with crimes, red-handed from the blood of Christians in Armenia, a scourge in the past, and an offence to the moral sense of humanity in the present,—shall ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... up the dark cheek of M'liss and kindled a savage light in her black eyes. Relieved by the background of the sombre woods, she might have been a red-handed Nemesis looking over the city of Vengeance. As the long tongues of flame licked the broad colonnade of the National Hotel, and shot a wreathing pillar of fire and smoke high into the air, M'liss extended her tiny fist and shook it at the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... docile, and had a precocious sagacity for keeping out of trouble. Quiet in manner, he was fertile in devising mischief, and easily persuaded his older brother, who was always looking for something to do, to execute his plans. It was usually Claude who was caught red-handed. Sitting mild and contemplative on his quilt on the floor, Ralph would whisper to Claude that it might be amusing to climb up and take the clock from the shelf, or to operate the sewing-machine. When they were older, and played out of doors, he had ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... him red-handed if they catch him," I answered confidently. "A white man who sides with the blacks in ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... flag of the rebellion flying at their peaks. "Old Ironsides" herself would have perhaps sailed out of Annapolis harbor to have a wooden Jefferson Davis shaped for her figure-head at Norfolk,—for Andrew Jackson was a hater of secession, and his was no fitting effigy for the battle-ship of the red-handed conspiracy. With all the great fortresses, with half the ships and warlike material, in addition to all that was already stolen, in the traitors' hands, what chance would the loyal men in the Border States have stood against the rush of the desperate fanatics of the now triumphant faction? ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... moor belongs to the De Vescis, the blackest Lancaster fellow of all! His daughter is the widow of the red-handed Clifford, who slew young Earl Edmund on Wakefield Bridge. They say her young son is in hiding in some moss in his lands, for the King holds him in deadly feud ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... come to the surface it was with the certain feeling that the fatal searchlight had been played upon the scene two minutes too early, and just in time to prevent the capture red-handed of a very questionable character, undoubtedly carrying out some plot for an ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... swift wits were on the alert. Never before had he known this kind of hospitality to be tendered in a police station to a man arrested red-handed. And although suspicious, he was nevertheless flattered. All criminals, whether at the top or bottom of their ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... came in, which was not till several hours later. When he did at last return it was in triumph. He was dead-beat, voiceless, and foot-sore; but a sense of glory sustained him. Four poachers had been taken red-handed in the coverts farthest from Arleigh. The rumor about Arleigh had, of course, been a blind; but he, Ralph, thank Heaven, was not to be taken in in such a hurry as all that! He could look after his interests as well ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley |
