"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... return a general camp had been established at the nearest wood, and a stray killed. Stakes were driven to mark the rise or fall of the water, and we settled down like prisoners, waiting for an expected reprieve. Towards evening a fire was built up and the two sides of ribs were spitted over it, our only chance for supper. Night fell with no perceptible change in the situation, the weather remaining dry and clear. Forrest's outfit ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... a short reprieve, because Dick has had to go away again; not to his mother, this time, but to London. A telegram was forwarded to him from Gloucester, where he had left sending-on instructions; and he knocked at my door early ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... rises next week: every body is going out of town. My Lord goes the first week in May; but I shall reprieve myself till towards August. Dull as London is in summer, there is always more company in it than in any one place in the country. I hate the country: I am past the shepherdly age of groves and streams, and am not arrived at that of hating every thing but what I do myself, as building ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the Castle Green, Raleigh saw Markham, a very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... hang, when all were equally guilty? In his pleasant way the Captain used to tell how he acted in the dilemma. He went round to the twelve condemned wretches, and asked each man separately if, being under sentence of death, he desired a reprieve or wished for death. As luck would have it, of the twelve men, six pleaded for life and six as earnestly prayed that they might be sent to the scaffold. So the Captain hanged the six men who wished to live, and spared the six men who prayed for death ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... misery allay. Lives there a true and tender friend, who doth compassionate My sickness and my long unrest, that unto him I may Make moan of all that I endure for dole and drearihead And of my sleepless eyes, oppressed of wakefulness alway? My night in torments is prolonged; I burn, without reprieve, In flames of heart-consuming care that rage in me for aye. The bug and flea do drink my blood, even as one drinks of wine, Poured by the hand of damask-lipped and slender-waisted may. The body of me, amongst the lice, is as an orphan's good, That in an unjust Cadi's ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... last, and their minds have a temperature a little below normal. In Ypres, whatever may have been their heroic and exalted dreams, they awake, see the world is mad, and surrender to the doom from which they know a world bereft will give them no reprieve. ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... to plead for a reprieve. Not yet—not yet! Whatever she had to face, let her rest for a little first. They had parted with her for the night; they would not go to her room, she knew—outcast as she now was from the sympathy ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... is a sinful race, and we are treated as such. Slavery is one of God's chastisements. Instead of destroying every wicked nation by war, pestilence, or famine, he grants some of them a reprieve, and commutes their punishment from death to bondage. Those whom he allowed to be slaves to his people Israel were highly favored; they enjoyed a blessing which came to them disguised by the sable cloud of servitude; but in their endless ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... says Menenius, after the reprieve, 'this morning for ten thousand of your throats, I'd not have given a doit.' But this is only the same 'good citizen' we saw in the first scene, who longed to make a quarry of thousands of the quartered slaves, as high as he could prick his lance! That was 'the altitude of his ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... there seems to be some doubt. The last really authentic trial in England for witchcraft took place in 1712, when the jury convicted an old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village in the north of Hertfordshire, and she was sentenced to be hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace. With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is recorded that in the year ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... our night-mantled foe: 10 The flame-winged feet Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, Are mercilessly fleet, And at a bound annihilate Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve; Surely ill news might wait, And man be patient of delay to grieve: Letters have sympathies And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 To senses finer than the eyes. Their errand's purport ere we break the seal; They wind a sorrow round with circumstance To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... delivered over to Satan by the minister. Some good sense still prevailed, and the Governor reprieved her; but ecclesiastical pressure and popular clamour were too powerful. The Governor was induced to recall his reprieve, and she was executed, protesting her innocence and ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... mirthful hour; And further, to avoid all blame Of cruelty upon my name, To give you time for preparation, And fit you for your future station, Three several warnings you shall have Before you're summoned to the grave; Willing for once I'll quit my prey, And grant a kind reprieve; In hopes you'll have no more to say, But, when I call again this way, Well pleased the world will leave." To these conditions both consented, And ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and went on cutting the leaves of the books placed before him. Still utterly incapable of preparing myself in any way for the disclosure expected from me; without thought or hope, or feeling of any kind, except a vague sense of thankfulness for the reprieve granted me before I was called on to speak—I mechanically looked round and round the room, as if I expected to see the sentence to be pronounced against me, already written on the walls, or grimly foreshadowed in the faces of ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Yolanda's emotions was the knowledge that she could insure Max's return by telling him that she was the Princess of Burgundy. But she did not want this man whom she loved so dearly, and who, she knew, loved her, if she must win him as princess. She was strangely impelled to reject a reprieve from a life of wretchedness, unless it came through the high court ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... I beseech you? that in his reprieve, Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted 40 That ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... die, But smile, and see, I live; The sad indifference of your eye Both kills and doth reprieve. You hide our fate within its screen; We feel our judgment, ere we hear. So in one picture I have seen An angel here, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... to-night a woman young and fair, almost a girl indeed, who has broken the vows she took. She dies to-night with her babe—thus, oh God, thus! by being built alive into the foundations of the house she has disgraced. It is the judgment that has been passed upon her, judgment without forgiveness or reprieve. I am the abbess of this convent—ask not its name or mine—and I love this sinner as though she were my daughter. I have obtained this much of mercy for her because of my faithful services to the church and by secret influence, that when I give her the cup of water before ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... calling a convention. That law had to be approved by a majority of the people. Members of the convention had then to be elected in all parts of the State, and the Constitution which they adopted had to be carried by a majority of the popular vote. He allowed himself no reprieve from labor until all this had been accomplished. And when the rest of us, worn out by incessant toil, gladly sought rest, he went before the court of appeals to maintain everything that had been done against all comers, and did ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... said Kilmary, "unless you're much belied, you got your reprieve just as you were ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... Mary's refusal came as a reprieve. But to Callandar it was but a lengthening out of torture. Man's love must always, in its essence, be different from woman's; though many women seem incapable of recognising this fact. To Esther, now that ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... with twenty-five hundred dollars might have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two years on that! She was free—at last! The knowledge exalted her—in the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, barren future, she gave no thought to the extreme ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... her reprieve had come before her sentence had time to be carried out. She was brought directly from the prison, where Nona had once visited her, to the lodgings where the American girls ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... it's positive?" said Kenneth to Cameron; "you're sure there's no hope of a reprieve or ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... sensuality, another kind of sensitiveness and another kind of cheerfulness make their appeal. This music is gay, but not in a French or German way. Its gaiety is African; fate hangs over it, its happiness is short, sudden, without reprieve. I envy Bizet for having had the courage of this sensitiveness, which hitherto in the cultured music of Europe has found no means of expression,—of this southern, tawny, sunburnt sensitiveness.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... there until the horses, save for the wounded one still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve. They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two strikes which might yet reduce him to a condition the ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... this subject by himself and other Ministers. It would be better, he implied, to accept a composition than to put the debtor into the Bankruptcy Court. This is common sense, no doubt, always provided that the Hun does not misinterpret his reprieve, and, instead of laying golden eggs for our benefit, resume the practice of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... but 'tis for your sake; for you are my chief Business, and your incomparable and Peerless Beauty, has made that Impression in my heart as will put a sudden Period to my Life unless your Compassion will grant me a Reprieve: for nothing can retrieve it, but the Enjoyment of your Love, and Beauty.—I can't believe, Sir, says she, that that poor Stock of Beauty I am Owner of, can ever produce any such fatal Effects as those you speak of. But 'tis the common Theam that you are pleas'd to ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue 20 Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor; But no—already had his deathbell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung: His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve: Another way he went, and soon among Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... I'll despatch an Express to the Congress. This repulse, if I mistake not (or victory, as Carleton may call it), will stand 'em but in little stead—'t will be only a temporary reprieve—we'll reinforce our friends, let the consequence be what it may—Quebec must fall, and the lofty strong walls and brazen gates (the shield of cowards) must tumble by an artificial earthquake; should they continue in their obstinacy, we'll arm our friends with missive thunders in their ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... she melted with grief. She played on him with all a woman's artillery; and at last actually wrung from him what she called a reprieve. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... but Eben is on the alert, and unless they shoot us without the usual twenty-four hours' reprieve, he will have ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... speak word, I was called by another voice. I was fain enough of the reprieve. Leaving Dame Joan with the Queen, I ran forth into the Queen's ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... reprieve from danger was only momentary. The whale came to the surface at no great distance, and once more headed towards us. If frightened for an instant, it had quickly recovered from the panic, and now there was no mistaking the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the United States paused in the midst of the important business under discussion, and with the gravity due to a solemn occasion, took a card and wrote on it an order of reprieve for the turkey, which Tad seized, and fled with all speed, and Jack's life was saved. He became very tame, and roamed peacefully about the grounds at will, enduring petting and teasing alternately, from his capricious young master. At that time the White House was guarded by a company of soldiers ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... will, be arrested, tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happy day. You will be converted—you will be converted just as soon as every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed—and then!—Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns. This will show that assassination is respectable. Then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... girl!" Cecil said kindly, and helped herself to bread and butter. Claire had a miserable conviction that her reply had had a deceptive effect, and that the shock when it came, would be all the more severe. Nevertheless, she was thankful for the reprieve; thankful to see Cecil eat sandwiches with honest enjoyment, until the last one had ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... seized by remorse or fright at the last moment, M de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse had granted a reprieve to six of the prisoners and at that very hour a courier was hastening toward Paris with six petitions for pardons, signed by ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... her orders. He was the destroying angel, and his mission was death. He could not know of the change which had come over her; nor could he dream of the possibility of a change. She alone could bring a reprieve from that death, and stay ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... father of Diane de Poitiers, whose footsteps we followed at Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... remitted in due form to the Assizes, tried, and found guilty, and we seem at last to be near his end when we read that the Lords ordained Mr William Spence to be taken to the Cross of Edinburgh on Wednesday next, July 22nd, and there to be hanged. Before that day arrived, however, he got a reprieve, and on August 17th he was allowed to remove to a chamber in Edinburgh because of sickness—quite unaccountable leniency at a time when the authorities did not scruple to hang dying men in their night-shirts. The Magistrates were made responsible for ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... pre-eminence. The one person for whom an approach to equality may be claimed is, not Adam Bede, but Arthur Donnithorne. If the story had ended, as I should have infinitely preferred to see it end, with Hetty's execution, or even with her reprieve, and if Adam had been left to his grief, and Dinah Morris to the enjoyment of that distinguished celibacy for which she was so well suited, then I think Adam might have shared the honors of pre-eminence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... worn out, and assured by physicians that he had not six weeks of life, had come to Aleppo with the gaudy escort of an Eastern satrap, had caused himself to be borne in his litter to the mud-hut of Haroun the Sage, and now called on the magician, in whose art was his last hope, to reprieve ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "To make a mouse-hole in my head!" So saying, he prepared his foot To crush the trembling tiny brute; But she (the mouse) with tearful eye, Implored the lion's clemency, Who thought it best at last to give His little prisoner a reprieve. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... the bushrangers was Jeffries: he obtained his reprieve in Scotland, to act as executioner.[170] Being transported to this country, he was employed as a scourger, and thus trained to cruelty, entered the bush. He robbed the house of Tibbs, a small settler, and after wounding, compelled him, with his wife, to proceed to the ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... sweet Life; and I shall think my self ever obliged to my dear Wife, for this kind Reprieve;—had she been cruel, I had been strangled, or hung in the Air like ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... sections was not lost upon thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle that would ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... oak that had been rather recklessly harboring mistletoe and many squirrels, until it was thought probable that, like our first parents, it might have a fall. It was a plea more eloquent than "O Woodman, spare that tree." A reprieve for a year was granted; and I thought, as I cast my vote on the side of mercy, that the jury that could not be won by such a young woman as that was hopelessly dead at the top and more hollow at the heart than the old oak under whose ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... saddened of late by whole days- -nay weeks—of helplessness for any employment. They have but just revived. How merciful a reprieve! How merciful IS ALL we know! The ways of Heaven are not dark and intricate, but unknown and unimagined till the great teacher, Death, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Then, if the present holder of the letters is poor, he is open to bribery. So, no, we must make Jacques Collin speak. What a duel! He will beat me. The better plan would be to purchase those letters by exchange for another document—a letter of reprieve—and to place the man in my gang. Jacques Collin is the only man alive who is clever enough to come after me, poor Contenson and dear old Peyrade both being dead! Jacques Collin killed those two unrivaled ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... thrills while watching this situation—whichever it may be—develop, but is spared any acute anxiety, knowing from experience that just at the last moment the rescuing boat, or the heroic firemen, or the troops, or a reprieve from the Governor, will arrive and save the leading man or woman and the play from a premature end and for ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... as sixty or seventy sometimes within these narrow limits, and most were kept six months and more thus hovering between a wretched existence and a shameful death. Men in momentary expectation of being hanged rubbed shoulders with others still hoping for reprieve. If the first were seriously inclined, they were quite debarred from private religious meditation, but consorted, perforce, with reckless ruffians, who played leap-frog, and swore and drank continually. Infants of tender years were among the condemned; lunatics, too, raged furiously ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... anything like it. Not a doubt had he, nor could have, that Hughie was guilty; but he went straight from the court to his young woman and said, "I've saved money for us to be married on. There's little chance that I can win Hughie a reprieve; and, whether or no, it will eat up all, or nearly all, my savings. Only he's my one brother. Shall I go?" And she said, "Go, my dear, if I wait ten years for you." So he borrowed a horse for a stage or two, and then hired, and so got to London, on a ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was a month's reprieve, and she stretched out her hand to Raymond. He clutched it, and held ...
— The Boy Artist. - A Tale for the Young • F.M. S.
... produced, and the final vote was taken. It was in favor of the prisoner's reprieve. Having thus succeeded in his benevolent purpose, Girty lost no time in attending to the comfort of his friend. He led him into his own wigwam, and, from his own store, gave him a pair of moccasins and leggins, a breechcloth, a hat, a coat, a handkerchief ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... downstairs for a nothing. At a word from mademoiselle she would trip down the whole five flights. When she was seated, her feet danced on the floor. She brushed and scrubbed and beat and shook and washed and set to rights, without rest or reprieve, always at work, filling the apartment with her goings and comings, and the incessant bustle that followed her about.—"Mon Dieu!" her mistress would say, stunned by the uproar she made, just like a ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... was filled with surprise and disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed himto read had been his own reprieve. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... forming in every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at least, to the Christian world. The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginning, was, by most of the Christian powers, felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner declared. In the joint ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... But I knew the reprieve would be but for a short time, and though I had no wish to die, I must confess that I rather wished the ordeal over and the peace ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... more; he fancied he was a boy at school again," said the nurse, "and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago." So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome was ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a restless night. When he sank into a troubled sleep he imagined he was laid by the heels and about to be shot suddenly. In some unaccountable way Jane rushed up as the soldiers were about to fire, with a reprieve. He awoke quivering with joyful excitement at being saved from sudden death. It gave him an appetite ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... capacity as watch-dog he might have been considered as ex officio the guardian. This vile malefactor had been ordered for execution, and the noose was already coiled for his caitiff neck, when a neighbor of his master's—a great raiser of sheep—begged for him a reprieve, kindly volunteering the use of a truculent, but valuable ram belonging to him, for the purpose of illustrating the homaeopathic theory above alluded to. At nightfall the ram was brought and turned into a paddock, where he was left fettered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker's ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... low and rapidly to her enraged suitor. De Spain alone knew it was to keep her humiliation from his own ears, and he made no effort to follow her quick, pleading words. The moment was most embarrassing for two of the three involved. But nothing that Nan could say would win from her cousin any reprieve. ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... O.K. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and hand it to Burris on a silver platter. "But why Miami?" ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... delivered from his chains; to it the apostles ascribed the wonderful success of their preaching. He mentions, that ten years ago, when a magistrate condemned for high treason was led to execution with a halter about his neck, the citizens ran in a body to the hippodrome to beg a reprieve; and the emperor, who was not able to reject the request of the whole city, readily granted the criminal a full pardon. Much more easily will the Father of mercy suffer himself to be overcome by the concord of many in prayer, and show mercy to sinners. Not only men join the tremendous voice ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... was true or not, hours came when she still belonged wholly to him. Whatever happened on her absences from him, as soon as the four walls of the room shut them in again, she was his; and each time she returned, a burning gratitude for the reprieve filled ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... confessed the conspiracy, and promised, if released, to tell all about it. They were at once taken down. This was the signal for an outbreak, and shouts of "burn 'em, burn 'em" burst from the multitude. Mr. Moore then asked the sheriff to delay execution till he could see the Governor and get a reprieve. He hurried off, and soon returned with a conditional one. But, as he met the sheriff on the common, the latter told him that it would be impossible to take the criminals through the crowd without a strong guard, and before that could arrive, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... of Tenney's they stopped. The rooms were lighted. The house was still. Raven drew a deep breath. What he had expected he did not know, whether calls for help or Tenney's voice of the woods shouting, "Hullo!" This, at any rate, was a reprieve. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... waters! Alone, without compass or rudder, borne on by relentless winds into the lonesome, dreary, shoreless ocean of despair, within whose blank and forbidding sphere no voyager ventures; across whose desolate waste dawn sends no signal and night brings no reprieve; but whose sun is cold, and whose moon is clouded, and whose stars withdraw into space, and where the insufferable silence of vacancy shall not be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... money, which he was unwilling to give them, cannot now be determined. But to the want of genuine and reciprocal confidence between him and those ministers is to be attributed, in a great measure, the escape which the nation at that time experienced—an escape, however, which proved to be only a reprieve from that servitude to which they were afterwards reduced in the latter years ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... is to be had, say, for a calf; wealth, for a couple of yoke of oxen; a kingdom, for a hecatomb. A safe conduct from Troy to Pylos has fetched as much as nine bulls, and a passage from Aulis to Troy has been quoted at a princess. For six yoke of oxen and a robe, Athene sold Hecuba a reprieve for Troy; and it is to be presumed that a cock, a garland, a handful of ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... troubles that had overtaken Carver House, Kaiser Bill had gained a temporary reprieve. In the excitement over Nyoda's going away he had been forgotten entirely for a whole week, and of course nothing would be done about his execution until she returned. Kaiser Bill was making the most of his reprieve by ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her face. Then suddenly she was before ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... dear, a moment's thought would reveal it to you. Remember how we came almost to the door of the prison, when a temporary reprieve was handed to us by that coarse reprobate, the Pfalzgraf. Your suite of rooms was not yet ready, and thus we found bestowed upon us another free day; a day of untrammeled liberty, quite unlooked for. ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... captains were therefore tried and condemned to death at Port Royal. As the Spaniards, however, had refused to punish them, and as there was no reason why the Jamaicans should be the executioners, the captains of the port and some of the council begged for a reprieve, and the English prisoner, Francis Witherborn, was sent to England.[341] Captain Johnson, one of the pirates after whom Beeston had originally been sent, was later in the year shipwrecked by a hurricane upon the coast of Jamaica. Johnson, ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... their hard heart, their stupefied heart, has no sense of such kindness as this, and therefore they take no notice of it. How many times has God said to this dresser of his vineyard, 'Cut down the barren fig-tree,' while he yet, by his intercession, has prevailed for a reprieve for another year! But no notice is taken of this, no thanks is from them returned to him for such kindness of Christ. Wherefore such ungrateful, unthankful, inconsiderate wretches as these must ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... some cigars; but when she got into her father's room, she seated herself blindly and looked aimlessly down at her hands. What a blessed reprieve this was! If she could but stay here! She could if it were not for the peace-pipe. Such a silly performance too! Father kept those superfine cigars over in the cabinet there. Should she bring only two as usual? Then she was going? Why not? It would look very ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... faith no longer I implore, Nor yet his Latian kingdom to forego: Some fruitless space, some breathing time for woe, 'Till fate have thought the wretch subdu'd to grieve, Is all I beg—Obtain this last reprieve— 540 For pity gain it,—and the short delay With all her parting soul, will Dido pay". So pray'd the Queen, and o'er and o'er again, Pray'rs, sighs, and tears her sister urg'd in vain; Unmov'd he stands by tears, by pray'rs by sighs, 545 The fates ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... render it impossible. He was afraid that she would read his revulsion in his eyes, would suspect how time and his very constancy had given her the one rival with whom she could never compete; the memory of her old self, of her gracious girlhood, which was dead. Might not she too, actually, welcome a reprieve; however readily she would have submitted out of honour or lassitude, to a marriage which could only be a parody ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... it was the consequence of the policy adopted by him. But no sooner had the law pronounced her doom than the tide turned with startling rapidity, and a gigantic agitation was at once set on foot for a reprieve. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... inspector stared; but nothing happened. Mr. Prohack had a sense of reprieve, and also of having been baptised or inducted into a secret society. He listened heartily to forty conversations about physical diversions and luxuries and about the malignant and fatuous wrong-headedness of men who went on strike, and about the approaching ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... to examine the list, and you begin with them calmly to parcel out the names by sixes and eights, and then to arrive at an opinion when your day of execution will be. If your name comes at the head of the list, you wish that you were "YOUNG, Carolus, e Coll. Vigorn." that you might have a reprieve of your sentence. If your name is at the end of the list, you wish that you were "ADAMS, Edvardus Jacobus, e Coll. Univ." that you might go in at once, and be put out of your misery. If your name is in the middle of the list, you wish that it were elsewhere: and then you wish that ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... be carried any further than the mere terror of execution. When the decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction, he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders, looked on the ground, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the captain's heart was pity. He forgot all about the crime in commiseration of the wretchedness of the criminal. Yet he knew it was useless to hold out any hope of a reprieve, even if that had been to be desired. All he could do was to let the poor fellow know at least that he was not friendless; and this sign of sympathy ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... his heart and a red-faced woman on his arm he approached the box-office. "Not a seat left," sounded to his hen-pecked ears like the concluding words of the black-robed judge: "and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul." But a reprieve came, for one of the aforesaid beacon lights of hope rushed forward, saying: "I have two good seats, not far back, and only ten apiece." And the gentleman with fear in his heart and the red-faced woman on his ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... on the young, sweet face, and made prompt reply: "I don't know that I shall care for even that reprieve, since you're ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... every moment's reprieve, I willingly agreed to the proposal; and Mrs. Selwyn had but just time to shut me in, before ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... a bell in him and never stopped for a moment: six weeks! six weeks! six weeks! all his waking movements went to that intolerable rhythm; he was like a man under a gallows, with a reprieve coming to him, at the mercy of all the elements. It was observed at the bank that he worked harder and longer and much alone: they said the American blood was coming out at last, and smiled at ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... years. I suppose she has made some application to Mr. G—— for a respite for Edie, on finding how terribly unfit she is for work; or perhaps Mr. ——, to whom I represented her case, may have ordered her reprieve; but she came with much gratitude to me (who have, as far as I know, had nothing to do with it), to tell me that she is not able to be sent into the field for another week. Old Sackey fully confirmed ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... time—a respite and reprieve— A little truce, my passion to allay, Till fortune teach my baffled love to grieve. Grant, sister, this, the latest grace I pray, And Death with interest shall the debt repay." She spake; sad Anna ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... 1954 meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... "the Black Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve." ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... breathed more freely. There are cases in which to obtain time for thought seems the one essential thing—cases in which a reprieve is ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Uncle Tobe hanged all sorts and conditions of men—men who kept on vainly hoping against hope for an eleventh-hour reprieve long after the last chance of reprieve had vanished, and who on the gallows begged piteously for five minutes, for two minutes, for one minute more of precious grace; negroes gone drunk on religious exhortation who died in a frenzy, sure of salvation, and shouting out halleluiahs; ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... tight rein over himself. "Your eyes are like a startled fawn's. Have I been too abrupt—too thoughtless and inconsiderate? You would forgive me, love, if you knew how I have longed for you; have yearned for this meeting as Dives yearned for water—as the condemned yearn for reprieve. Have you no smile for me, sweetheart?—no word of welcome for the man whose heaven is your love? You knew I would come. You knew I loved ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... not shared by Pasque nor Manginot, who were now fully persuaded that the prisoner had only wanted to gain time, or some chance of escape. They thought of abandoning the search and returning to Paris, but Querelle begged so vehemently for twenty-four hours' reprieve that Manginot weakened. The third day, therefore, they explored the environs of Taverny and the borders of the forest as far as Bessancourt. Querelle now led them by chance, thinking he recognised a group of trees, a turn of the road, even imagining he had found a farm "by the particular ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... glaring, he was tried and to his great surprise hung. The rope broke twice, and the country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the memory of this ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... did not think of going to poor Thekla for comfort, he went to his grim dreams. "I git my property all straight for Thekla, and then I quit," said he. Perhaps he gave himself a reprieve unconsciously, thinking that something might happen to save him from himself. Nothing happened. None of the "boys" came to see him, except Carl Olsen, the very stupidest man in the shop, who put Lieders beside himself ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... saw anybody so electrified as Jones. For a good minute he couldn't even speak. It was like bringing a horseback reprieve to the hero on the stage. He repeated "Stuffenhammer, Stuffenhammer," in tones that Henry Irving might have envied, while I gently undid the noose around his neck. I led him under a tree and told him to buck up. He did so—slowly ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... splendours could not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care; No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail; ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... hotel he was surprised to find a woman he had never seen before installed in Madame Poulain's kitchen. Still, the presence of the stranger brought a sense of reprieve. ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... A reprieve however was obtained, and perhaps some new stratagem might have succeeded another spring; but my uncle unhappily made amorous advances to my mother's maid, who, to promote so advantageous a match, discovered ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... 'em, they live upon Scandal, and we are Scandal-proof.—They say too, that I was a Tinker, and running the Country, robb'd a Gentleman's House there, was put into Newgate, got a Reprieve after Condemnation, and was transported hither; —and that you, Boozer, was a common Pick-pocket, and being often flogg'd at the Carts-tale, afterwards turn'd Evidence, and when the Times grew honest was ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... interview, and before the day was out it had spread over the town and over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole district into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. The district ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... law, sir," said Mercy, dryly, and retired to the window-seat; that was the first obvious preliminary. Then she fiddled with her apron, and hemmed, and waited in hopes a reprieve might come; but a peevish, relentless voice ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... entirely by the de par le roi, to deserve the praise bestowed on the rest of the piece. It resembles, in short, too nearly the receipt for making the "Beggars' Opera" end happily, by sending someone to call out a reprieve. But as it manifested at the same time the power of the prince, and afforded opportunity for panegyric on his acuteness in detecting and punishing fraud, Moliere, it is certain, might have his own good reasons for unwinding and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... saw it first some years ago as Doctor Holmes's dedication to his Songs in Many Keys." Of course, my first impulse was to prepare this man's remains for burial, but upon reflection I said I would reprieve him for a moment or two and give him a chance to prove his assertion if he could: We stepped into a book-store, and he did prove it. I had really stolen that dedication, almost word for word. I could not imagine how this curious thing had happened; for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... been taken on board the squadron as prisoners, had made their escape by swimming to the shore, three miles off; and this feat encouraged a bold pilot of Seville, named Ledesma, who was on board the admiral's caravel, to attempt a similar exploit. Never was bearer of reprieve for the condemned more welcome. Ledesma communicated with the Adelantado, and conveyed to the admiral intelligence of the desperate state of affairs. The result was, that when in a few days the wind moderated, ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... anxious to hug his body in a close and most loving embrace. There was not much time for Kit to scratch his head and cogitate. In fact, one instant spent in thought then would have proved his death warrant without hope of a reprieve. Messrs. Bruin evidently considered their domain most unjustly intruded upon. The gentle elk and deer mayhap were their dancing boys and girls; and, like many a petty king in savage land, they may have dined late and were now enjoying a scenic treat of their ballet troupe. At all events ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... that I promise you. I will keep my mind open to the last. But—I should like to say—it would not be any easier to me to throw myself into an agitation for reprieve because this man was tempted to crime by my property—on my land. I should think it right to look at it altogether from the public point of view. The satisfaction of my own private compunctions—of my own private ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... at Gibraltar, and you may imagine that I was soon on shore making the best use of the few hours' reprieve granted to the "Hollander's" weary engines. I had an idea that I should do better alone, so I declined all offers of companionship, and selecting a brisk young fellow from the mob of cicerones who offered their services, saw more of the art of fortification in an hour or so ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... a slow fire, that he may continue in torment for eight or ten hours and continue burning in said fire until he be dead and consumed to ashes"; and several others were saved only by the royal governor's reprieve and the queen's eventual pardon. Such animosity was exhibited by the citizens toward the "catechetical school" that for some time its teacher hardly dared show himself on the streets. The furor gradually subsided, however, and Mr. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... daughter. To save her from so horrible a doom he offered to any man who would redeem the tax, his crown, his kingdom, and all his wealth. But the people would hear of no exchange. They demanded that the king should bear the stroke of fate in common with the meanest citizen. Then the king asked for a reprieve of eight days to lament his child and prepare her for her death. Meanwhile the dragon, infuriated at the unusual delay, hung continually about the city gates, expecting his victim, and poisoned all the sentinels and men-at-arms ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... notice her confusion, told her she was very sorry she was obliged to go out herself, and contrived, under various pretences, to keep her maid in the room. Miss Belfield, supposing this to be accidental, rejoiced in her imaginary reprieve, and soon recovered her usual chearfulness: and Cecilia, who really meant to call upon Mrs Delvile, borrowed Mrs Harrel's carriage, and set down her artless young friend at her new lodgings in Portland-street, before she proceeded to St James's-square, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... dozen actions of mine which are quite as splendid; but I do it in order that certain gentlemen in Paris may understand that I, who am able here to tell about the fate of Monsieur Caratal, can also tell in whose interest and at whose request the deed was done, unless the reprieve which I am awaiting comes to me very quickly. Take warning, messieurs, before it is too late! You know Herbert de Lernac, and you are aware that his deeds are as ready as his words. Hasten ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must hang without it, or starve ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... breathing leisurely about him,—I suppose the minutes lengthen as time approaches eternity, in the same manner as the miles get longer as you travel northward),—after hanging four minutes, according to the best calculation of the bystanders, a reprieve came, and I ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Regina derived some consolation from the reflection that she was entirely alone in the house, and could at least escape scrutiny and curious criticism; for she hoped that Mr. Palma, forgetting her, would go directly from his office to Mrs. Tarrant's, allowing her a reprieve until morning. During the second year of her residence beneath his roof, she had at his request taken her breakfast with him, sitting at the head of the table, where Mrs. Palma presided at all other times. Olga and her mother generally ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to express, to the life, what the ecstasies and transports of the soul are, when it is so saved, as I may say, out of the very grave: and I do not wonder now at the custom, when a malefactor, who has the halter about his neck, is tied up, and just going to be turned off, and has a reprieve brought to him - I say, I do not wonder that they bring a surgeon with it, to let him blood that very moment they tell him of it, that the surprise may not drive the animal spirits from the ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... plead passionately for the condemned man's life. My father, at first obdurate, would gradually be melted by my mother's entreaties. Turning aside to brush away a furtive and not unmanly tear, he would suddenly tear the death-warrant to shreds, and taking up another huge placard headed REPRIEVE, he would quickly fill it in and sign it. He would then hand it to the Private Secretary, who would instantly start post-haste for Cork. As the condemned man was being actually conducted to the scaffold, the Private Secretary would appear, brandishing the liberating document. All then would ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... to his administrative duties, the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment. A pardon fully exempts the individual from the punishment imposed upon him by law; a reprieve, on the other hand, is simply a temporary suspension of ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... reprieve was granted; and those who had been menacing my life drew back—though still muttering their discontent—and shrunk once more ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... vanished like a tin-canned pup. He was the most relieved youth in Bear Cat. At least he had a reprieve. Mrs. Gillespie would know what to do and how to ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... be extended towards himself; which letter was sent on shore by the captain's gig, when it left the ship the next morning, and was received by Captain L—— at the very same time that young Aveleyn, who had not been sent on shore till late in the evening, called upon the captain to request a reprieve from his hard sentence. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... poor young gentleman had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray |
