"Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two notable ecclesiastics from Sussex, the Abbot of Battle and the Prior of Lewes. The testimony to Cade's character is that he was the unquestioned and warmly respected leader of the host. The Cade depicted by his enemies—a dissolute, disreputable ruffian—was not the kind of man to have had authority as a chosen captain over country gentlemen and clerical landowners ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... ruffian struck him with the revolver or something. And I say, Nell, I haven't heard your share in this affair yet. Drake told me ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... across the temple, and attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, with hands clasped and eyes raised to a brigand, who grasps ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... smoothing old Jim's neck, crooning over him, talking to him in her motherly way, telling him what a ruffian he was and how ashamed she was of him for getting the hair worn off under his collar, and he a horse old enough to know better, Bobby's "Toodles," an animated doormat of a dog, sniffing at her skirt, when Otto and his ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... should have been trying to murder such a man Lysias does not seem to have considered. But when he heard the courteous, respectful Greek speech of the Apostle he saw at once that he had got no uncultured ruffian to deal with, and in answer to Paul's request and explanation gave him leave to speak. That has been thought an improbability. But strong men recognise each other, and the brave Roman was struck with something in the tone and bearing of the brave Jew which made him instinctively ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... loyalty to him was the most precious thing of his life, Therefore, the thought of that swarthy ruffian hunting her down as a hound hangs to the trail of a doe awoke in him a terrible anger. Second only to his hatred for the guerrilla chief was his bitterness against the traitor, Pancho Cueto, who had capped his villainy by setting ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... little drama closely, saw that the ruffian was plainly taken off his feet by this. He had not expected—or so it seemed clear—that he would encounter any opposition in carrying out his rascally plan of playing off the safety of a boy and a girl who had never wronged him for the sake ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... of France, awake to glory! Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary, Behold their tears and hear their cries! Shall hateful tyrants, mischief breeding, With hireling hosts, a ruffian band, Affright and desolate the land, While ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... all," rejoins the ruffian, interrupting. "There is one," he continues, looking askant at the Indian, with the leer of a demon, "one, I take it, whom the young Tovas chief would wish to retain as an ornament to his court. Pretty creature the nina was, when ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... Isabella's flight it had no unworthy motive. If this stranger was accessory to it, she must be satisfied with his fidelity and worth. I observed, did not you, Bianca? that his words were tinctured with an uncommon infusion of piety. It was no ruffian's speech; his phrases were becoming a ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... who had charge of the execution of this order was a stern and ruffian-like officer named Sir Richard Ratcliffe. This man is quite noted in the history of the times as one of the most unscrupulous of Richard's adherents. He was a merciless man, short and rude in speech, and reckless in action, destitute ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... "The ruffian!" He reached into his pocket and produced a gold cigarette- case, repeatedly snapping the heavy sides together with vicious force. When he attempted to light a match it broke in his fingers, then in a temper he threw the cigarette from him and hurried ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... Good examples of their kind; early part of the nineteenth century. Picked them up one cruise in the Indies. That faded one belonged to Morgan, the bloodthirsty ruffian. I've always regretted that I wasn't born a hundred years ago. Think of bottling them up in a shallow channel and raking 'em fore and aft!" With a bang of his fist on the desk, setting the ink-wells rattling like old bones, "That ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... liable to be hurried from me and sold to the highest bidder, or doomed to any drudgery her master might put her to, and even flogged at will. There was only one remedy that could be applied; and the specific was dollars. My friend was so kind as to negotiate with the ruffian. One thousand was demanded, and cheerfully paid. I carried the manumission home to my sorrowing Mary. From her I learned, as she lay in bed—her beautiful face buried in the clothes, and her voice choked by sobs—that the wretch who had called on me was her own father, whose ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... with a satanic grin. She sought to escape by him with the loud cry that Dennis heard, but the ruffian planted his big grimy hand in the delicate frill of her night-robe where it clasped her throat, and with a coarse laugh said: "Not so fast, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... quiet glance and air, as devoid of a trace of fear as it was of ostentatious defiance. The calm, unquestioning assumption that no one would presume to stop him, was a moral force which paralyzed the arm of the most reckless ruffian in the crowd. And so, checking his horse when he would have gone faster, his features as composed as if he were sitting in the Senate, and his bearing as cool and matter of course as if he were on a promenade, he rode through the mob, and had passed out of musket shot by the time the demoralized ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... upturned to his own face. Near the door at the end of the court stood the man who had been known in Lancaster as Ralph's shadow. Their eyes met, but there was no expression of surprise in either face. Close at hand was the burlier ruffian who had insulted the girl that sang in the streets. In the body of the court there was another familiar face. It was Willy Ray's, and on meeting his brother's eyes for an instant Ralph turned his own quickly away. Beneath ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... posthumous work of 1592, his malicious feelings towards Shakspeare, could not have failed to notice it. For, be it remembered, that a judicial flagellation contains a twofold ignominy. Flagellation is ignominious in its own nature, even though unjustly inflicted, and by a ruffian; secondly, any judicial punishment is ignominous, even though not wearing a shade of personal degradation. Now a judicial flagellation includes both features of dishonor. And is it to be imagined that an enemy, searching with the diligence of malice ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... she cried, "the man by your side, a cowardly ruffian, a drunken swaggerer, and the companion of the vilest people in the country. We have sought to save her from him, John Penryn; and now, thank God, our ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... Scoundrel! Ruffian! Why do you go sniffin' around me now! Who are you? What has I done? You stuck to my heels! You followed me an' baited me an' snapped at me ... Rascal ... worse'n a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... end did it serve? Did it arm me with caution to elude or fortitude to bear the evils to which I was reserved? My present thoughts were, no doubt, indebted for their hue to the similitude existing between these incidents and those of my dream. Surely it was frenzy that dictated my deed. That a ruffian was hidden in the closet was an idea the genuine tendency of which was to urge me to flight. Such had been the effect formerly produced. Had my mind been simply occupied with this thought at present, no doubt the same impulse ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... a resolute ruffian," said De Vaux, "who valued his own life as little as it deserved, and would troop to the gallows as merrily as if the hangman were his partner ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... your oars, bullies!" cried the ruffian at the bow, who was still standing up like an evil genius who had taken momentary command over events. "Lay on your oars, bullies; they'd better have ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... rude hand in ruffian anger Raised its bloody steel against Beauty so divinely fashioned? ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... who occupied the chair, ordered the galleries to be cleared, while Mr. Benton, in a towering rage, denounced the offenders and demanded their arrest. "Here is one," said he, "just above me, that may be easily be identified—the bank ruffian." Mr. King revoked his order to clear the galleries, but directed the arrest of the person pointed out by Mr. Benton, who was soon brought before the bar of the Senate. It was Mr. Lloyd, a practicing lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not permitted to say a word in ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... but Turnus shook his head, and said, "Ruffian! thy threats are but as empty sound; They daunt not Turnus; 'tis the gods I dread, And Jove my enemy." Then, glancing round, He marked a chance-met boulder on the ground, Huge, grey with age, set there in ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... that such a ruffian could not be Prince Roland. He was indeed the rude mechanic he proclaimed himself. No man of noble blood ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... unworthy materials," he said, "which go to the building of a great structure. Youth rebels at their use but age and experience recognize their necessity. The anarchist of your halfpenny papers and Police News is not always the bloodthirsty ruffian that you who read them are led to suppose. Very often he is a man who strenuously seeks to see the light. It is not always his fault if the way which is shown him to freedom must cross the ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hand for the ransom, the long-suffering Captain Michael Driver turned southward again, now in the schooner Mary, and he flew a flag of truce to indicate his errand. This meant nothing to the ruffian who commanded the English privateer Revenge. He violently seized the innocent Mary and sent her into New Providence. Here Captain Driver made lawful protest before the authorities, and was set at liberty with vessel and cargo—an act of justice quite unusual in the Admiralty ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... when necessary; and that even now, I confess that nothing but the reign of terror and gross prejudice by which I was surrounded at that time could justify many expressions I have here applied to them. Fact is, these people have disarmed me by their kindness. I expected to be in a crowd of ruffian soldiers, who would think nothing of cutting your throat or doing anything they felt like; and I find, among all these thousands, not one who offers the slightest annoyance or disrespect. The former is the thing as it is believed by the whole country, the latter the true state ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... stripped my mother," screamed the boy. The ruffian caught the saree with a fearful oath and turning on him said: "Now I can deal with you. I will fetch a brick from yonder kiln and pound the breath out of you," With these words he strode forward, tying the jewels in the saree as he went. Now her sorely-tried nerves gave way, and, distracted with ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... hulking ruffian, with an Australian digger's beard, had turned up of late to disturb the tranquillity of the partners. He had been asking what they regarded as an exorbitant price for his silence in respect to the construction of that adit which has just been mentioned, and had been fobbed off from time to time ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill's, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... procession, with its sizzling band and its abhorrent orange-and-blue flags, following in the wake of Bill Kenna, whose proud post was at the head of the procession, carrying a cushion on which was an open Bible. The fact that Bill was a notorious ruffian—incapable of reading, and reeling drunk—had no bearing on his being chosen as Bible carrier. The Bible fell in the dust many times and was accidentally trampled on by its bearer, which was unfortunate but not important. Bill bore the emblem of ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... I see behind, My father to Red Raymond lending, His war-horse, fleeter than the wind, And on our chase, the traitor sending: He holds the lighted aquebus, Bearing death to both of us; Speed, my gallant Memnon, speed, Nor let us 'neath the ruffian bleed." ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... launch'd; light o'er the deep, Too kind, she wafts a ruffian band; Her blue track lengthens to the bark, And soon on deck ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... ruffian, "since the Devil is for Richelieu!" and taking one hand from the hold of his slippery support, he threw a roll of wood into the cabin. Laubardemont rushed back upon the treaty like a wolf on his prey. Jacques in vain held out his arm; he slowly glided away ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thought about Miss Picolet," she said. "Her people must be dreadfully common. Friends with a ruffian who plays a harp on a ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... me, sir?" said the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, replied, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir, that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... compared to a man? I rushed in, seized the ruffian by the throat, which loosened his hold upon the weaker party, and hurling him with all my force against the ground, broke his ugly skull upon the rock on which ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... hope that my exertions have afforded satisfaction at home, but if not, let me be allowed to state that it was not in my power to accomplish more than I have. I have borne hunger and thirst, cold and fatigue, I have exposed myself to danger from robbers, and was near losing my life from the ruffian soldiery at Arrayolos, whose bullets so narrowly missed me. I have been as economical as possible, though the charges in Portugal for everything are enormous, and a stranger there is like a ship on shore, a mark for plunder. In Spain the people are far more honest, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... everything was completed when the host came in and took his seat at the head of the table. A bear out of the woods could hardly have been rougher, with his unshaven hair and unkempt beard. He answered to the type of border ruffian, and his appearance suggested the dark deeds that might be done here in secret, and hidden in the forest gloom. Imagine the astonishment of the travellers when this rough backwoodsman rapped on the table ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Child Sir Lancelot was dragged, insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an onslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon the demoralized "pageant." And then—oh, pangs! oh, woman!—she slapped at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor; and turning, flung her arms round the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... dear Oswald, I cannot stand by to see you thus insulted by this ungrateful young ruffian," said Voules. "He has threatened to shoot you, and he looks like a fellow capable of doing what he says. The sooner he is taken up and sent ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... robbery!" sniffed the young ruffian, now using that half-whining, half-sneering form of discourse peculiar alike to the vicious chevalier of Paris and his confrere of the provincial centres. Accent and slang alone distinguish between them; the argot, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... at that moment that I had been bred a gentleman, else in another instant his lifeless body would have lain at my feet. A plebeian blade would have made short work with the ruffian, and I confess that my instincts of fair-play were sorely tried. I had before me a man who had sought my life—a deadly foe—a deadly foe to her I loved—a perjured villain—a murderer! With such titles for himself, he had none to the laws of honour; and I confess that for ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... had a cathedral, but during the worst period of the Terror that exemplary ruffian, Joseph Lebon of Arras, the unfrocked priest, who organised pillage and massacre throughout the Pas-de-Calais, frightened the good people of Aire into a frenzy of destruction and devilry. The Church of St.-Pierre was then a collegiate church, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the man, and had been expelled. He had fallen through his violence into some terrible misfortune at Paris, had been brought before a public judge, and his name and his infamy had been made notorious in every newspaper in the two capitals. After that he had fought a ruffian at Newmarket, and had really killed him with his fists. In reference to this latter affray it had been proved that the attack had been made on him, that he had not been to blame, and that he had not been ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... inclined to peace, they have been forced into various wars, both with native Africans and Europeans; and in these wars they have acquitted themselves admirably, and given proofs that a pacific people when need be can fight just as well as those who are continually exulting in the ruffian glory of ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... precedents, believe it, a flesh'd ruffian, That hath so often taken the Strappado, That 'tis to him but as a lofty trick Is to a tumbler: he hath perused too All Dungeons in Portu[g]al, thrice seven years Rowed in the Galleys for three several murthers, ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... CLEVELAND City of Cleveland two twice (the heavy shell) mollusk unfamiliar word dictionary Johnson's JOHNSON son bad son (thievish bay) dishonest boy (back) Mac McKINLEY kill Czolgosz (zees) seize ruffian rough rider rouse ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... at once," returned the ruffian, "he'll not escape by refusing to do so; we'll search every corner ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... at this cowardly action, and his eyes, as they met the gaze of the ruffian, contracted with their characteristic steely glow, as if some powerful force within the depths of his being were at white heat and only this pale flash ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... marriage with Jean Armour. Burns, with all his faults, was an honest and a high-spirited man, and he loved the mother of his children. Had he hesitated to make her his wife, he must have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian, or that misery of miseries, the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... with you! The girl is gone! If you want to know where she is, apply to the police. Now, don't show your lying face here again! I will have you arrested! You are a child stealer! You and your ruffian had better never darken ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... his side. You cheapen and degrade yourself and you bring shame upon your brother and me by your disgraceful affair with this ruffian. Don't look shocked! You meet him secretly, I know—how much farther you have gone with him I don't know. ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... "Who's a drunken ruffian?" yelled Case, more angry than ever. "I'm not drunk; but I'm going to be, and cut some of you white-livered border mates. Here, you old masthead, drink this to my health, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... conducted to the presence of Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly unsubdued. "It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph," he said to his captor, "and not to your valour: had I received the smallest relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... in turn drove the enemy. Slowly and sullenly the Rebels fell back to the hill where James and his friend were lying. There they made a stand, and for half an hour fought desperately, but were at last overborne and forced back again. As they were on the eve of retreating, a tall, ragged ruffian came up to James, and demanded the watch and ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... thing to do would be to apply to the police, have the ruffian run to earth and arrested, no matter what his position. The worst of it is, though, I'm not anxious to have the eye of the Spanish police turned upon me, and there are those who ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wind. He saw that it was printed—was interested professionally in seeing what it was like. He chased the flying scrap and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and pictured the hard lot of the "maid" in the tower at Rouen, reviled and mistreated by her ruffian captors. There were some paragraphs of description, but the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... terrible story that we are about to narrate, and we warn the lover of pleasant books to lay down our volume at the first page. We shall see Cunningham, that burly, red-faced ruffian, the Provost Marshal, wreaking his vengeance upon the defenceless prisoners in his keeping, for the assault made upon him at the outbreak of the war, when he and a companion who had made themselves obnoxious to the republicans were mobbed and beaten in the streets of ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... saw that the end of the little play was murder; that its motive was a sacrilegious robbery—the theft of a diamond cross from the body of a woman lying dead in a church; that the man was a drink-besotted ruffian; that the woman was his illicit partner; that the atmosphere was assuredly brutal. Material eyes saw all this. Material senses reasoned that, given all these qualities, such a play must be horrible, and unduly strenuous. But intuition ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... here, Marables," said I, coming on deck, "and I am witness that you tried to save me, until you were struck senseless by that ruffian, Fleming, who threw me overboard, that I might not give evidence as to the silver and gold which I found in the cabin; and which I overheard him tell you must be put into sacks and sunk, as two of the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... against the attacks of a tall, strapping fellow, in a rough frieze coat, who was endeavouring to wrest his weapon from him. A still more formidable adversary was, however, approaching in the shape of a second ruffian, who had armed himself with a thick stake out of the hedge, and was creeping cautiously up behind the shorter man, with 231the evident intention of knocking him on the head. I instantly determined to frustrate his benevolent design, nor ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... struggle. There are times when what should exasperate a people, strikes them with terror. The population of Paris felt that a ruffian had his foot upon his throat. It no longer offered any resistance. That same evening Mathieu (of the Drome) entered the place where the Committee of Resistance was sitting and said to us: 'We are no longer in Paris, we are no longer under the Republic; we are ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... right, Seth Huntington!" exclaimed Claire, coming to Marion, and putting an arm, around her. "If there's any ruffian it's you, ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... greasy, swaggering ruffian, but he only swore, and reiterated his threats. Then I told him to be gone for an insolent savage, and that if I found him prowling about the Fort again, I should send my men to take charge of him. Thereat his squaws began to jeer, and cut capers; and squatting ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... he heard this, the ruffian was stung to fury and burst into such wild and ungovernable rage that in the presence of her own son he heaped insults, such as he might have used to his own wife, on the purest and most modest of women. In the presence of many witnesses, whom, if you ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... I am unworthy of having such an angel," replied the old man, "but unless you were a cruel and a heartless ruffian, you would not at this moment mention her, or bring the thoughts of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... from seven and twenty to seven and forty? But that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle-pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues of what ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... horse; and they had many secret meetings, and much wanton familiarity; the which being discovered by the Earle, to prevent the pursuit thereof, when Generall of the Low Countreys, hee tooke Blunt with him, and theire purposed to have him made away: and for this plot there was a ruffian of Burgundy suborned, who, watching him in one night going to his lodging at the Hage, followed him and struck at his head with a halbert or battle-axe, intending to cleave his head. But the axe glaunced, and withall pared off a great piece of Blunt's skull, which was very dangerous ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 233, April 15, 1854 • Various
... to my mind," said Hardy; "just the sort of insolent young ruffian whom I should have liked to buy at my price, and sell at his own. He must have been very like some of our gentlemen-commoners, with the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... thing to a young, strong man," she added, shudderingly, after a moment, and she pressed her hands against her eyes as if to shut out a vision from which she shrank. "May he not still be in danger from this ruffian's revenge?" she asked, looking up in ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the love of dress, I was most struck with the fineness of the voices and beauty of the intonations of both sexes. Every common ruffian-looking fellow, with a slouched hat, blanket cloak, dirty under-dress, and soiled leather leggins, appeared to me to be speaking elegant Spanish. It was a pleasure, simply to listen to the sound of the language, before I could attach any meaning to it. They have a good deal of the Creole ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the penalty for his youthful dissipations in failing health, but he continued to write with great expenditure of time and energy. 'The History of Jonathan Wild the Great,' a notorious ruffian whose life Defoe also had narrated, aims to show that great military conquerors are only bandits and cutthroats really no more praiseworthy than the humbler individuals who are hanged without ceremony. Fielding's masterpiece, 'The History of Tom Jones,' ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... thing was that her name had already been bandied about from a ruffian's lips. Lee winced at that even as he had winced at the remembrance of having been brutally rough with her himself. But what was past was past; Quinnion had talked ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... extended his arms straight out from either side, his head thrown back. He was a good-natured ruffian, with clear and ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... Calavangoo") hugging the northern side, where the Lufu torrent adds its tribute to the waters, convinced me that the charms of Congo scenery had not been exaggerated. Yet the prospect had its element of sadness; the old ruffian, Gidi Mavunga, recounted how he had burned this place and broken that, where palm-clumps, grass-clearings, and plantations lying waste denoted the curse of Ham upon ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Peter sees, while in the shade He stood beside the cottage-door; And Peter Bell, the ruffian wild, Sobs loud, he sobs even like a child, "Oh! God, I can ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... ridiculous optimism. He had been at sea, and shipwrecked on several islands in the Pacific; he had passed a rainy season at Panama, and a yellow-fever season at Vera Cruz, and had been carried far into the interior of Peru by a tidal wave during an earthquake season; he was in the Border Ruffian War of Kansas, and he clung to California till prosperity deserted her after the completion of the Pacific road. Wherever he went, he carried or found adversity; but, with a heart fed on the metaphysics of Horace Greeley, and buoyed up by a few wildly interpreted ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... which usually wore an expression of quiet dignity, seemed to degenerate into a mass of coarse but powerful features, so that, had I seen him thus at a first meeting, I should have thought at once, "This man is a sensualist and a ruffian!" His answers were distinctly rude; he said the question was foolish (probably it was)—that people had been pestering him with that kind of thing ever since he left India; in short, he gave me to understand ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... pause for breath, and in tones that were woefully unlike to those of the bold, lion-like scout of former days, he told how he had fainted and fallen on the breast of his master, how he had lain all night on the battle-field among the dead and dying, how he had been stripped and left for dead by the ruffian followers of the camp, and how at last he had been found and rescued by one of the ambulance-wagons ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... constitution and playing false when he went there, but was persuaded by his mother and terrified by the lengths to which the constitutional party was disposed to go. The Duke said the Government would be very foolish to interfere for Pedro, who was a ruffian, and for the constitution, which was odious, and that Pedro would never have more than the ground he stood on; talked of our foreign policy, his anxiety for peace, but of France as our 'natural enemy!' ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... were sitting at table, lashed to their chairs, pale and trembling, while six of the most ruffian-looking scoundrels I ever beheld stood on the opposite side of the table in a row fronting us, with the light from the lamps shining full on them. Three of them were small but very square mulattoes; one was a South American Indian, with the square high-boned visage ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... were staggered. They stared in helpless anger at the small shop, which had suddenly become the most important in their ken. Already they saw their families brought to the gutter by this hunchback ruffian, who hit them below the belt in the most ungentlemanly fashion in preference to starving. But the simple manoeuvre of cutting down the prices of his rivals was only a taste of the unerring instinct for business that was later to make him as much feared ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... spirit, capacity, and love of their country, which providentially happened at this time, could ward off the ruin of the kingdom. Such Athelstan was; and such was his brother Edmund, who reigned five years with great reputation, but was at length, by an obscure ruffian, assassinated in his own palace. Edred, his brother, succeeded to the late monarchy: though he had left two sons, Edwin and Edgar, both were passed by on account of their minority. But on this prince's death, which happened after a troublesome ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... humanity. Intricate and unclean intrigues ended, by a curious turn of the wheel, in the election of a grotesque divine, whom Pattison, with an energy of phrase that recalls the amenities of ecclesiastical controversy in the sixteenth century, roundly designates in so many words as a satyr, a ruffian, and a wild beast. The poor man was certainly illiterate and boorish to a degree that was a standing marvel to all ingenuous youths who came up to Lincoln College between 1850 and 1860. His manners, bearing, and accomplishments ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... furious "that you are a drunken ruffian and a disgrace to the uniform you wear. I shall report your conduct immediately," with which he proceeded to the Customs desk to lodge ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... scarce observed, the knowing and the bold Fall in the general massacre of gold; Wide-wasting pest! that rages unconfined, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws, For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws; Wealth heap'd on wealth, nor truth, nor safety buys, The dangers ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Professor Gaubius of Leyden, physician to the Prince of Orange, in a conversation which I had with him several years ago, and he expanded it thus: 'If (said he) a man tells me that he is grievously disturbed, for that he imagines he sees a ruffian coming against him with a drawn sword, though at the same time he is conscious it is a delusion, I pronounce him to have a disordered imagination; but if a man tells me that he sees this, and in consternation calls to me to look at it, I ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... turned from him to the other man. It was Brockman, the burly ruffian who had seized the bridle of Falcon on the night of his flight to Redmead—the ruffian who struck the blow which ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... and are piloting me thither; only to conclude by their actions, the next minute, that they have not the remotest conception of my wants, beyond reaching the other side of the city. Now and then some ruffian in the crowd, in a spirit of wanton devilment, utters a wild, exultant whoop and raises the cry of "Fankwae. Fankwae." The cry is taken up by others of his kind, and the whoops and shouts of "Fankwae" ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... "The owdacious young ruffian!" ejaculated Mrs. Fox. "To beat my poor, dear Joel so! Never mind. Joel, dear, I'll give you a piece of pie and some cake. As for that boy, he'll be ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... thou do an' thou hadst a bow and arrows, Guilford?" said John. "Shoot all the Papists," replied the child. "Thou bloodthirsty little ruffian!" cried Mr Underhill, yet laughing. "Nay," said John to him, "blame not the child: he doth but take mightily after a certain father of his, that I know." Whereat (said John) Mr Underhill laughed till the ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... me, you ruffian!" exclaimed Allison, the oldest of the midshipmen. "It's poison! What have you ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... how she arrived at the conviction; it must have been from pulpit denunciations of the small Bethel on the outskirt of Bristol. Her uncle, J. Perkins, was a great ruffian, certainly, and Williams was dissolute enough, if one wished to call his festive imbecilities by a hard name. But these two could, by no means, be said to belong to the upper classes. And these two, apart from ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... informed the Spaniards of the state of the French settlement, when Pedro de Menendez, who was engaged in the colonisation of the West Indies, landed on the coast, some miles south of the River Saint John, at the head of a large band of ruffian troops. Guided by a party of the treacherous Indians, he and his band made their way through the forests, and fell suddenly, sword in hand, on the almost defenceless colonists. Not a human being who could be overtaken was allowed ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... no excuse, sir," bellowed Uncle Wattleberry. "No one but an unmitigated ruffian would pull ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... greater trouble comes. I could not hold out for another fight. I am almost finished. Let the king fight the battles of his friends. The ruffian that escaped will return with re-enforcements, and I am not ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... followers—mostly rollicking and arrogant foreign adventurers—who robbed and devastated the land, and thrashed and even mutilated passers-by for fun, people looked forward with great fear to the accession of such a ruffian. A few years of responsibility, and failure, soon changed him into the noblest and most law-abiding of the Plantagenets. It was Wales which gave him his first lesson. He first tried his hand at the reorganisation ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... thousand pressures to bare his bosom to the lunacy of public dinners, lecture platforms, and what not pleasant folderol. He must be privileged apparent ruffian discourtesy. He has his own heart-burn to consider. One thinks of Rudyard Kipling in this connection. Mr. Kipling stands above all other men of letters to-day in the brave clearness with which he has made it plain that he consorts first of all ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... seven and forty? But that second volume is very good for you as far as it goes. It is a great advance, and a thoroughly straight and swift one, to be led, as it is the main business of that second volume to lead you, from Dutch cattle pieces, and ruffian-pieces, to Fra Angelico. And it is right for you also, as you grow older, to be strengthened in the general sense and judgment which may enable you to distinguish the weaknesses from the virtues ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... Two masked men were covering with revolvers a third, who was tied helpless in a chair. The captive's face was ghastly and blood-stained, and at first she thought he was dead. Then she saw his lips move in curious twitchings that showed his teeth. He seemed to be trying to speak, but the ruffian at his right would not give ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... the Dwarf,—"that cool-blooded, hardened, unrelenting ruffian,—that wretch, whose every thought is infected with crimes,—has thewes and sinews, limbs, strength, and activity enough, to compel a nobler animal than himself to carry him to the place where he is to perpetrate his wickedness; while I, had I ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... rather unquotable in this nineteenth century; but it was a very odd compliment to Queen Henrietta Maria to presume that these words must refer to her—something like Hugo's sarcasm that, when the Parisian police overhear any one use the terms "ruffian" and "scoundrel," they say, "You must be speaking of the Emperor." The Histrio-Mastix was, in fact, so big and so complex a thicket of confusion, that it had been licensed without examination by the licenser, who perhaps trusted that the world would have as little inclination to peruse it as he had. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... "Horror!" "Tyranny!" "Liberty!" "Rights!" "Taxes!" "Death!" "Destruction!" and a host of other patriotic phrases, were bolted forth before he had time to close his lips. Peter took no notice of the skulking throng, but strode up to the brawling, bully-ruffian, and pulling out a huge silver watch, which might have served in times of yore as a town-clock, and which is still retained by his descendants as a family curiosity, requested the orator to mend it and set it going. The orator humbly confessed ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... known sin; For by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). If thou dost call even nature itself, the light of Christ; That also doth shew, that sins are a shame, even those sins which some leap over (1Cor 11:14), and ruffian-like they will wear long hair, which nature itself forbiddeth, and is commended for the same by the apostle. The Spirit of Christ also will convince of sin. That, because these several things will convince of sin, therefore will they needs be the Spirit ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... even by the slightest insult to that clergy whose willing slave she had become, that the only method of reclaiming the sinner had been long forgotten, in genuine horror at his sin. "Is it not enough," she went on, sternly, "that you should have become the bully and the ruffian of all the fens?—that Hereward the leaper, Hereward the wrestler, Hereward the thrower of the hammer—sports, after all, only fit for the sons of slaves—should be also Hereward the drunkard, Hereward the common fighter, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great you can read a pleasanter account of the Emperor's business at Roncaglia about this time than our Italian chroniclers will give you. Carlyle loves a tyrant; and if the tyrant is a ruffian and bully, and especially a German, there are hardly any lengths to which that historian will not go in praise of him. Truly, one would hardly guess, from that picture of Frederick Redbeard at Roncaglia, with the standard ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... and despise you, old wretch that you are, seeking to tempt a poor child like me to her ruin. Oh! you are rich, and have the manners of a gentleman before the world,—and yet you are more base, mean and cowardly than the commonest ruffian that ever stole a purse or cut a throat! Let me go hence, I command you; you dare not refuse me, for I know there is a law to protect me, as well as the richest and the highest, and I will go to those who execute the law, and have you dragged to the bar of ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... in Belgium," said a Belgian jurist. "Our ability to suffer and to hold fast to our hearths has kept us going through the centuries. Flemish and French, we have stubbornness in common. Now a ruffian has come into our house and taken us by the throat. He can choke us to death, or he can slowly starve us to death, but he cannot make us yield. No, we ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... understand, and some that he could guess at: "Night work pays better than day work any time," etc. Then he heard his own name and a voice, "Let's go up and settle it with him now." Whatever their plan, it was clear that the drunken crowd, inspired by the old ruffian, were intent on doing him bodily harm. He heard them stumbling and reeling up the steep stairs. He heard, "Here, gimme that whip," and knew he was in peril, maybe of his life, for they were whiskey-mad. He rose quickly, locked the door, rolled ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... torture was practised. The females experienced brutality and murder, and the tenderest infants were perhaps transfixed to the mother's heart by a ruthless weapon—caught up by ruffian hands, and dashed against the rocks or the trees—or wantonly thrown up into the air, and caught on the point of the warrior's spear, where it writhed in agony, and died, ... some having two or three infants hanging on the spear they bore ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... battle, to a small dark cabin in one of the most densely inhabited parts of the town, where, secure in their privacy, she found Nanse M'Collum, who had never left the town since the night of the robbery, together with the man called Rody, and another hardened ruffian with ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... ronin or "wave man," one who had left the service of his feudal lord and was independent,—sometimes a gentleman and a scholar, oftener a ruffian ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... said I. "I have known a lesser ruffian who was hanged until he was dry, whereas you march along the lane with nought to your discouragement but three cracks in ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... The ruffian crew occupied the greater raft; but who were the two individuals who had intrusted themselves to that frail embarkation,— seemingly so slight that a single breath of wind would scatter it into fragments, and send its occupants ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... and our aims are just! Behold, we seek Not merely to preserve for noble wives The virtuous pride of unpolluted lives, To shield our daughters from the ruffian's hand, And leave our sons their heirloom of command, In generous perpetuity of trust; Not only to defend those ancient laws, Which Saxon sturdiness and Norman fire Welded forevermore with freedom's cause, And handed scathless ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... first place, we must bear in mind that he lived in the woods. The West of that day was not wild in the sense of being wicked, criminal, ruffian. Morally, and possibly intellectually, the people of that region would compare with the rest of the country of that day or of this day. There was little schooling and no literary training. But the woodsman has an education of his own. The region was wild in the sense that ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... heavens. It would mean, said his brother, to whom he spoke of it, the Golden God worshiped in the West,—the Buddha. Buddhism had first come into China in the reign of Tsin Shi Hwangti; but that imperial ruffian had made short work of it:— he threw the missionaries into prison, and might have dealt worse with them, but that a "Golden Man" appeared in their cell in the night, and opened all doors for their escape. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... her mother with a laugh. "After the scene enacted in front of our windows the other day, when one of them had so much trouble, and suffered such awful pommelling from the drunken ruffian he took up, I am quite prepared to admit that policemen are neither ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... that when the culprit was discovered the Irish law officers hesitated to prosecute; suppose that when a prosecution took place the Attorney-General showed that his heart was not in the matter, and that the jury acquitted a ruffian clearly guilty of murder, is it not as clear as day that smuggling would flourish and no customs be collected? In the same way the Irish Ministry might by mere apathy, by the very easy process of doing nothing, nullify the effect ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... none, amiable in every relation of life, a stanch friend, a fond husband, a devoted father, as useful a member of society as you might find in a day's journey, and obnoxious only to political opponents, who fear him more than he dislikes them, is called a 'liar,' a 'coward,' and a 'heartless ruffian.' He is nothing of the kind; he is proudly conscious of this fact; his accusers do not even believe it; the world—that portion of it in which he moves—is satisfied that he is a remarkable instance of truth, of courage, and extreme tenderness of spirit. The revilers have ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... ruffian,' said Ralph; 'a vagabond from beyond the sea where he travelled for his crimes; a felon let loose to run his neck into the halter; a swindler, who has the audacity to try his schemes on me who know him well. The next time he tampers with you, hand him over to the police, for attempting to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... supporters; he kidnapped the Queen and Maitland—not one of his supporters-with her. A scandalous divorce was pronounced between him and his wife, and Mary wedded him. The only credible explanation is that she was over-mastered by a passion for the daring ruffian who at least had always stood by her. The lords—accomplices in the murder with the rest—were almost immediately in arms to "rescue" the Queen, who took the field by her husband's side. The opposing forces met at Carberry Hill; Bothwell, seeing ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... flesh or iron,—no chains, and little dying, but very liberal running away. Thus ended the war in Kansas. It seems impossible that Slavery should not make in this case a rather better fight, where all is at stake. But it is well to remember that no Border Ruffian of Secession can now threaten more loudly, swear more fiercely, or retreat more rapidly, than his predecessors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... such a thing to happen either. London in the darkness of the night was a terrible place. Out from all the dens of Whitefriars and other like places swarmed the ruffian and criminal population that by day slunk away like evil beasts of night into hiding. The streets were made absolutely perilous by the bands of cutthroats and cutpurses who prowled about, setting upon belated pedestrians or ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... outer door, went down two or three of the steps which led from the house to the road, and began to whistle for his companions. The girl (who had hitherto had presence of mind enough to remain perfectly quiet) now jumped up, rushed behind the ruffian, and pushed him down the steps. She then shut the door, locked it, and ran upstairs to try and wake the family, but without success: calling, shouting, and shaking were alike in vain. The poor ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... ease can save each object of his love; Wide as his will, extends his boundless grace; Nor lost in time nor circumscribed by place. Happier his lot, who, many sorrows' pass'd, Long labouring gains his natal shore at last; Than who, too speedy, hastes to end his life By some stern ruffian, or adulterous wife. Death only is the lot which none can miss, And all is possible to Heaven but this. The best, the dearest favourite of the sky, Must taste that cup, for man ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... to show fight. Naturally Leonard began to plunge and to double his fists. But he could not keep this up, for the man whose arm was round him quickly retired and stood a few paces off, looking wan and haggard, and very unlike a thief or ruffian. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... consul at Zanzibar, if there is one there now, of which I am not sure, and of course no warship. The English made what inquiries they could for me, but could find out little or nothing, since all the country about Kilwa was in possession of Arab slave-traders who were supported by a ruffian who called himself the Sultan ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... he would like glass eyes, the ruffian!" he muttered to himself, "but I will not have the mockery. I will fill the sockets and sew up the eyelids, and the face shall be as ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... passionately fond of them. Admitted to the stage, they naturally took the place of interludes or afterpieces. When a man imitated e.g. a muleteer (Petr. Sat. 68), he had his mule with him; or if he imitated a causidicus, or a drunken ruffian (Ath. 14, 621, c.), some other person was by to play the foil to his violence. Thus arose the distinction of parts and dialogue; the chief actor was called Archimimus, and the mime was then developed after the example ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... ruffian took courage, his quick brain telling him that the woman also was seeking to avoid recognition. And when she had taken her ticket, he contrived to see the book and, finding a name which he did not know as hers, he tracked her to the inn where she was ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... nightcaps." But she was sympathetic about scalp troubles. "Without a fine head of hair, no woman can be really beautiful.... The dogs would bark at and run away from her in the street." To be well covered on top was, she held, "quite as important for the opposite sex." "How like a fool or a ruffian," she remarked, "do the noblest masculine features appear if the hair of the head is bad. Many a dandy who has scarcely brains or courage enough to catch a sheep has enslaved the hearts of a hundred girls with his ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham |
