"Straggler" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is only an accidental straggler in Greenland. It is very similar to our Blue Heron and is the one which was formerly used to furnish sport for the royalty when falconry was at ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... them, the "Colored American," in New York city; Samuel E. Cornish, Philip A. Bell, and Charles B. Ray, at different times, Editors. "The Demosthenian Shield," issued from a Literary Society of young colored men, in the city of Philadelphia. "The Straggler," by Philip A. Bell, New York, out of which the Colored American took its origin. The "National Reformer," an able monthly periodical, in pamphlet form, in Philadelphia; William Whipper, Editor. "The Northern Star," ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany
... eggs still, and squab-young. The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August; it was a straggler. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... greenwood spent Were but to-morrow's merriment: But hosts may in these wilds abound, Such as are better missed than found; To meet with Highland plunderers here Were worse than loss of steed or deer.— I am alone;—my bugle-strain May call some straggler of the train; Or, fall the worst that may betide, Ere now ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... presence and were trying to encompass their destruction. But I am glad it happened that way. Perhaps they may have more respect for Uncle Sam's Flying Squadron after this, and fight shy of running their heads into trouble. I'll have the guards at the camp doubled at night time, and any straggler will be apt to find it pretty warm around there: I'd advise all persons who have no business at our headquarters to give the camp a wide berth, or something not down on the bills might happen, to their ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... above, no earth beneath. The interior of a raised biscuit could not have been more densely uniform than the atmosphere. It seemed as if the world had slipped its moorings and drifted off its course into companionless space, leaving me behind, as an ocean steamer sometimes leaves a straggler on an uninhabited shore. I felt like sending forth a call that should give my bearings and bring back a boat to the rescue. I groped my way down the steps, and, following an intuition, sought the station. Ahead of me I heard muffled steps, yet saw no form. But suddenly a doorway opened in ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... men who had known the Marne, the Yser, Champagne, who had known death for nearly two years, night and day, almost constantly. Yet during the fifteen minutes I watched there was not one order, not one straggler; there was a sense of the regularity with which the blood flows through the human arteries in this tide, and it was ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... creeks. One the horses could wade, but the other was so deep that they were compelled to swim. On the further bank of the second they stopped a while to rest the horses and to count the men to see that no straggler had dropped away in the darkness. Then they sprang into the saddle again and rode on as before through a country ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... case, that of some straggler stopping behind, merely to rest for rest's sake, and hindering you in front and us behind alike from pressing on the march. If he got a blow with the fist from me it saved him a thrust with the lance from the enemy. In fact, the opportunity ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... have eggs still, and squab young. The last swift I observed was about the 21st August; it was a straggler. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... Hamburg, a German Harizi both in the character of his work and by reason of his position as a straggler of the Meassefim, was a disciple and imitator of Wessely. His Makamat Pene Tebel ("The Face of the World", Amsterdam, ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... haven't been evicted," said Bart, unconsciously beginning to apologize to an unknown straggler. "I own this place and my home is yonder; we are camping here for our health and pleasure. Come, it's time you gave an account of yourself, as you are trespassing." That the situation suddenly began to annoy ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... solitary indeed seemed the huge pile of untenanted buildings as the evening breeze swept through them. The last straggler had gone; Dunstan was still in his cell arranging or destroying certain papers, the guide and lay brothers held six strong and serviceable horses in the courtyard below, near the open gate, impatient to start, and blaming secretly the dilatoriness of their great chieftain. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... opened the door. I could just discern the figure of a bent old man standing in the hallway, when a gust of wind suddenly put out the candle. The door leading to the street was open, and the old man was probably a straggler come to importune me for shelter or for something to eat. As I relit the candle, he entered my room and stood facing me, but he did not speak. His clothes were dripping and he was blinking at me with strange, gleaming ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... Wars touch it nearly. Barnstaple and Dunster were taken and retaken by the Parliamentarian troops, and armies marched from Dunster west to Bideford across Exmoor and the great commons, but no armed troops came down into Lynton; perhaps hardly even a straggler found his way there. In the tragic rebellion of 1685 a bloody little drama was enacted here indeed, but that is connected with the history of the de Wichehalses, the family of chief interest and importance who have lived at Lynton. They did not come to Lynton before ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... his lonely errand, he carried Henri's bicycle back of the hedge. Then he mounted his own, and coasted down the hill. His object was to seem entirely indifferent, should some German scout or straggler spy him, but plainly the Germans had decided to leave the ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... eager blast, and angled in between the herd and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches long. He was not alarmed,—but it was a new kind of coyote that faced him now, one that had learned ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... was a wild region, with many bears and other animals still in the woods.... There were some schools, so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' to the rule of three.' If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a wizard.... Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three. But that was all.... The ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... downlings with the Run tie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yards behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the of the squirrel, whose strange perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat; his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and what a blow he could strike! At the first onset ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... from giving an alarm, came the knowledge, I know not how, that he who had stumbled upon me was no less frightened than I, and, clutching Sergeant Corney's leg nervously to attract his attention, I sprang upon the newcomer, believing him to be some Indian straggler whom it was absolutely necessary we should silence in order to save ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... creature; but if a herd of animals, or party of men, should be travelling together, the caution of the brute asserts itself, and he will often dog their footsteps for a great distance, in hopes of securing a straggler. Birds are struck down by a single blow of the puma's ready paw, and so quick are his movements that even though a bird has risen on the wing, he can often make one of his wonderful bounds, and with a light, quick stroke, arrest the winged prey ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... troops got to the ridge they encountered precipitous heights. They were led most gallantly, as American regular officers always lead their men; and the men followed their leaders with the splendid courage always shown by the American regular soldier. There was not a single straggler among them, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any trooper to fall out in order to assist the wounded or carry back the dead, while so cool were they and so perfect their fire discipline, that in the entire engagement the expenditure ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... village, a party of Blackfeet, numbering thirty or forty, came stealing through the Crow country, killing every straggler, and carrying off every horse they could lay their hands on. The Crow warriors immediately started after them and pressed them so closely that they could not escape. The Blackfeet then threw up a semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, and awaited the approach of their ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... straggler here, but was not able to get him into our lines by myself, on account of his lying down and refusing to come; so I broke his musket, but not feeling inclined even then to leave him, I knelt down to protect myself a little from the enemy's shot, ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... succeeded in the return voyage; but a single ship, of whatever strength or force, seldom escaped the vigilance of the pirates. They followed such fleets as they judged it unsafe to attack, and a slow sailer or a straggler was inevitably captured. So daring were these robbers, that even before they were enabled to obtain a smaller craft, a crew of fifty-five of them in one of the large canoes sailed into the Southern Ocean, and proceeded along the coast of the continent as far north as California. On their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and declared their saying each to the other, and to them knightly Nestor of Gerenia began discourse: "O friends, is there then no man that would trust to his own daring spirit, to go among the great-hearted Trojans, if perchance he might take some straggler of the enemy, yea, or hear perchance some rumour among the Trojans, and what things they devise among themselves, whether they are fain to abide there by the ships, away from the city, or will retreat again to the city, now that they have conquered ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... enormous guilt, that it could not without violence be thought of as indicative of a general constitution of things, either in the country or the government; but that it was a kind of lusus naturae, in the moral world—a solitary straggler out of the circumference of Nature's law—a monster which could not propagate, and had no birth-right in futurity. Accordingly, the first expectation was that the government would deem itself under the necessity of disanulling the Convention; ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... occupied by the soldiers of Julian, who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, * or Persian general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of Gassan, incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day less favorable to the operations ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... tried. The promise, in his case, was fulfilled—"Train up a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it when he is old;" and though no mother's voice of warning was heard in that wild region of the earth, and no guardian's hand was there to beckon back the straggler from the paths of rectitude, yet he was not "let alone;" the arm of the Lord was around him, and His voice whispered, in tones that could not be misunderstood, "Remember the Sabbath-day, ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... to stand with him—perhaps a more commendable wifely attitude. I mean that the discipline incident to a life of success which was not without its rigors had become to her almost a second nature. The order of the day was cooeperation, team-work; in the grand advance she was no straggler, no malingerer. It was a matter of pride to keep step with him; she was now beyond the fear which possibly for the first few years had troubled her—the fear that he, by word, or look, or even by silence, might hint to her that she was not fully "keeping up." Johnny himself was now rather ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... been observed at Boston Road, Brentford, and a local ornithologist writes to say that the bird is probably an accidental straggler from King's Bishop's Fourth. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... wretch, as he stood upon the spot late occupied by his victim, looking down over the cliff. "Dead he must be; unless a man can fall two hundred feet and still live; which isn't likely. That clears the way, I take it; and unless I have the ill luck to meet some one coming up—a straggler—it'll be all right. As sound ascends, I ought to hear them before they could see me. I shall ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... for another hour to avoid the chance of their being surprised by any straggler. Then, proceeding to the shore, they launched a small boat. Hawtry stepped the mast and hoisted the sail, and they were soon making their way off the land. The wind was light, and their progress slow. For a time they ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... every side watched and threatened them, the continued assaults of the Cossacks who hung around them in clouds by day and by night, rushing on every detached party, disturbing every bivouack, breaking up bridges before, and destroying every straggler behind them, and the terrible severity of the climate, the frost, the snow, the wind—the sufferings of this once magnificent army were such as to ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... before the third day. It was the second, after having crossed the first great torrent, that I met some soldiers from Missolonghi. I had let them all pass me, ere I had resolution enough to enquire the news from Missolonghi. I then rode back, and demanded of a straggler the news. I heard nothing more than—Lord Byron is dead,—and I proceeded on in gloomy silence." The writer adds, after detailing the particulars of the poet's illness and death, "Your pardon, Stanhope, that I have thus turned aside from the great cause in which I am embarked. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... calm; when the last straggler had marched through to the front and Johnston's junction with Magruder was accomplished. The rosy clouds faded into gray again; and, though the fluttering pulse of Richmond beat a little more steadily, it was not entirely normal. Rumors came from Yorktown of suffering ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher, beyond reading, writing, and ciphering to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... most of them is tangled and difficult of passage beyond description; the air is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for which no running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under an equatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe betide the straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such-as to forbid an adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The impatient ship waits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining undiscovered, up goes a stake on the ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... branches higher than he could hold out to reach; so he fell back to the ground. Then came the inexorable demands of breakfast, with which no one who has been up since four o'clock will decline to comply. On my return, the straggler was mounted on a post that held a tennis net, three or four feet from the ground. One of the old birds was on the rope close by him, and there I left them. Once more I saw him fall, but I concluded that since ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... erect. The thin, rounded, finely notched leaves, measuring barely an inch in length, are clustered in whorls next the ground. Whether one comes upon colonies of this gregarious little plant, or upon a lonely straggler, the "single delight" (moneses), as Dr. Gray called the solitary flower, is one of the joys of a ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... together, and topped by a sack of buffalo-chips that, at each slow step, rolled first to one hand and then to the other. Yet with all the difficulty of balancing the fuel-sack and preventing its falling to the ground, the straggler did not fail to keep in place ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the 13th of April, as I have remarked from many years' observation. Not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier: and in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happened early ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... something nice, but the last one is whipped for its laziness. And it is said to be very funny to see how the ducks will waddle, and run, and fly over each other's backs, that they may escape the punishment which they know awaits the last straggler. ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... outside softened to a wail, the angry beating of the rain against the panes diminished to a tranquil patter, and one by one the noises in the street subsided, until the hurrying footsteps of the last belated straggler died away in the distance ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... shouting now and then, and once, when I climbed a high rock, I caught sight of the glow of their bivouac fires. Imagination conjured up the shrieks of tortured victims, for we had all seen enough of late to know what would happen to any luckless straggler they might have caught and brought to make sport by the fires. But there was no imagination about the calls of Kagig's men, posted above us on invisible dark crags and ledges to guard against surprise. We slept in comfortable consciousness that a sleepless watch was being kept—until ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... traveler, wayfarer, voyager, itinerant, passenger, commuter. tourist, excursionist, explorer, adventurer, mountaineer, hiker, backpacker, Alpine Club; peregrinator[obs3], wanderer, rover, straggler, rambler; bird of passage; gadabout, gadling[obs3]; vagrant, scatterling[obs3], landloper[obs3], waifs and estrays[obs3], wastrel, foundling; loafer; tramp, tramper; vagabond, nomad, Bohemian, gypsy, Arab[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... his knee, and he had to sit down a long time by the road-side to rest. He reached Ayrton at ten o'clock, but even then he could not summon up courage to pass through the town where he was so well known, lest any straggler should recognise him,—and he took a detour in order to get to Fairholm. He did not arrive there till eleven o'clock; and then he could not venture into the grounds, for he saw through the trees of the shrubbery that there was no light in any of the windows, and it was ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... The straggler suddenly began kicking feebly at the prop of the cross with his foot, and then dragged himself off after the column. The cross fell forward with a dull splintering splash into the ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... not the heat, though full and high The sun has scorched the autumn sky, And scarce a forest straggler now To shade us spreads a greenwood bough; These fields have seen a hotter day Than e'er was fired by sunny ray, Yet one mile on—yon shattered hedge Crests the soft hill whose long smooth ridge Looks on the field below, And sinks so gently on the dale That not ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... last straggler of the party had disappeared from Lydia, who had watched their retreat from the door of the Warren Lodge. When she turned to go in she saw Cashel cautiously entering from the room in which he had lain concealed. His excitement had passed off; he looked cold and anxious, as if a ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... window and drew the curtains. There was nothing to see. He ordered Morris, who stood behind his chair, to have the ground searched and to bring in any straggler. Already both the officers were on their way to the door, and at this point it opened and let in a soldier. He said that as he and his comrade were returning from their duty with Radisson they saw a man lurking in the grounds and seized him. He had made no resistance, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cats, both of whom are particularly fond of young mocking-birds. These parents are wiser than the crow blackbirds, for not a sound betrays the accident in the family, unless, indeed, the little one is disturbed, when they make noise enough. They keep out of sight, no doubt closely watching the straggler until he gets away from people, for although he has proved that he cannot fly, the young mocker is by no means discouraged; he trusts to his legs, and usually at once starts off on a run "anywhere, anywhere, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... her contingent with all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the little army that was to fight a fight in which was neither medal nor honour for the winning, against an enemy none other than 'the sickness that destroyeth in ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... cape, being the Canada goose (Bernicla canadensis). In the Palaearctic region we have the O. tarda already mentioned, extending from Spain to Mesopotamia at least, and from Scania to Morocco, as well as a smaller species, O. tetrax, which often occurs as a straggler in, but was never an inhabitant of, the British Islands. Two species, known indifferently by the name of houbara (derived from the Arabic), frequent the more southern portions of the region, and one of them, O. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... nature of the demonstration. This was the fault of the reporter on the staff of the Worfield Intelligencer and Farmers' Guide, who saw in the thing a legitimate "march-out," and, questioning a straggler as to the reason for the expedition and gathering foggily that the restoration to health of the Eminent Person was at the bottom of it, said so in his paper. And two days later, at about the time when Retribution had got seriously to work, the Daily Mail reprinted the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... market-place, and the tradesmen's doors, and some old people were dozing in chairs outside an alms-house wall; but scarcely any passengers who seemed bent on going anywhere, or to have any object in view, went by; and if perchance some straggler did, his footsteps echoed on the hot bright pavement for minutes afterwards. Nothing seemed to be going on but the clocks, and they had such drowzy faces, such heavy lazy hands, and such cracked voices that they surely must have been too slow. The very dogs were ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... life—his course direct! How suddenly it has grown dark— How very dark without—hush! hark! 'Tis but the creaking of the door; It opens wide, and nothing more. Then wind and snow came in; I thought Some straggler food and shelter sought; But more I feared, for fear is weak, That some one came of him to speak: To tell how long he braved the storm, How long he kept his bosom warm With thoughts of home, how long he cheered His ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... sisters took their wide-channelled, hard-tempered swords in their hands, and prepared to slay the Fianna, but before doing so they gave one more look from the door of the cave to see if there might be a straggler of the Fianna who was escaping death by straggling, and they saw one coming towards them with Bran and Sceo'lan leaping beside him, while all the other dogs began to burst their throats with barks and split their noses with snorts and wag their tails off ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... that to fall out on the march was a disgrace. Before a month "had passed," he says, "the brigade had learned how to march, and in the Valley with Jackson covered long distances without leaving a straggler ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... roofs still dark with wet, all down the line the dingy white blinds were drawn in the upper windows. Not a soul walked the street; every one was asleep after the exertions of the night before; even on the main road it was only at intervals that some straggler paddled by. Presently a woman in a brown Ulster shuffled off on some errand, then a man in shirt-sleeves poked out his head, holding the door half-open, and stared up at a window opposite. After a few minutes he slunk in again, and three loafers came slouching down ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... was! The wide village street seemed empty, with the exception of a black collie lying asleep in the middle of the road, and a patient donkey belonging to a travelling tinker. The clean, sleek country sparrows were enjoying a dust bath, and a long-legged chicken—evidently a straggler from the brood—was pecking fitfully at a cabbage stalk, unmindful of the alarmed clucking of ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... primitive movement. To call the great vital art of the Liang, Chen, Wei, and Tang dynasties a development out of the exquisitely refined and exhausted art of the Han decadence—from which Ku K'ai-chih is a delicate straggler—is to call Romanesque sculpture a development out of Praxiteles. Between the two some thing has happened to refill the stream of art. What had happened in China was the spiritual and emotional revolution that followed the onset ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... and river, and until spring should come no fleet could aid him. Three enemies of the English, the French said exultingly, would aid to retake Quebec: the ruthless savages who haunted the outskirts of the fortress and massacred many an incautious straggler; the French army which could be recruited from the Canadian population; and, above all, the bitter cold of the Canadian winter. To Murray, as to Napoleon long afterward in his rash invasion of Russia, General February was indeed the enemy. About the two or three British ships left at Quebec ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... tries Fu' to be cross, er once loses dat smile? Whah did you git dem teef? My, you's a scamp! Whah did dat dimple come f'om in yo' chin? Pappy do' know you—I b'lieves you's a tramp; Mammy, dis hyeah's some ol' straggler got in! ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... toward the south. The body of it was solid black, with figures which at the distance blended into one mass, but on the flanks hung stragglers, lawless old bulls or weaklings, and outside there was a fringe of hungry wolves, snapping and snarling, and waiting a chance to drag down some failing straggler. ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... pattue."—Though its visits seem not so absolutely confined to the autumn as the Common Buzzard, the Rough-legged Buzzard is a much more uncommon visitant to the Channel Islands, and can only be looked upon as a rare occasional straggler. Mr. MacCulloch informs me that one was killed near L'Hyvreuse, which is perhaps now more commonly known as the New Ground, in Guernsey, about Christmas, 1870, and I found one at the bird-stuffer and carpenter's shop at Alderney, which had been shot by his ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... committed by the soldiers in a friendly country, had led to the severest orders against marauders; and all who should be caught thieving, were threatened with the halter. Wallenstein himself having met a straggler in the open country upon the field, commanded him to be seized without trial, as a transgressor of the law, and in his usual voice of thunder, exclaimed, "Hang the fellow," against which no opposition ever availed. The soldier pleaded and proved his innocence, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... considered savage and unjustifiable, which was also the official view. It was the act of a very young subaltern, mistakenly interpreting an order. In the other case an Arab was caught red-handed, lurking in a ditch on our line of march, with one of their loaded knobkerries for any straggler. I do not know what happened, but have no doubt ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... faith in the owl, Robert, is beginning to shake too. It may be an Indian belonging to the band that the scout told about, but I still don't think we're in any danger of attack. We're in too small force to try it down here, but they might cut off a straggler." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pure innocence,— Where Rama lived and loved her tenderly. Her father died of hunger on the way, And the lone creature wandered in the streets Of towns from door to door, and vainly begged For food, till some, deep moved by the sad tales Of the lone straggler, safely lodged her in A famine camp, where, heavy laden with A double sorrow (for her lover too, She thought, had died), her tedious life she spent. And days and weeks and months thus rolled away, Until at last her ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... horseman rode with an address and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle mass of them down in the shadow of the ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... done my best. I would make any sacrifice to obey you, but I cannot give up my freedom to love the woman that attracts me as I have never been attracted before. I would sooner live a poor and unsuccessful straggler in the art I have chosen, with her to help me live, than be the mightiest man in England without her—even with Julia, whom I admire ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... counted, but there may be a straggler or two to come in later. Does the Shining One no longer know where his own thunderbolts have struck, that he sends his hired servants to gather up ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... downwards like streams of light into the flood, and emerging instantly afterwards with their finny prey. The opposite bank of the river displayed a sandy country covered with dark scrub; and beyond this was the sea, with a view of Rottnest and the Straggler rocks. A few white cottages relieved the sombre and death-like appearance of that opposite shore. Unpromising as was the aspect of the country, it yet afforded sufficient verdure to support in good condition a large herd of cattle, which supplied ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... Indians, fortunately, had turned southward and gone jogging leisurely away towards their reservations, until warned of the pursuit by ambitious young braves still hovering about the troops in hope of slicing off the scalp of some straggler. Then, every man for himself, they had apparently scattered over the face of the country, laughing gleefully to think what fun the white chief would have in deciding which trail to follow. The situation on the third day out had been summarized by Crounse, the guide, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... regularly or only as a straggler in Cashmere we do not know; it is always overlooked and passed by as a "Common Crow." Future visitors to Cashmere should try and clear up both the identity of the bird and all ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... greatly from the bee in his mode of honey-hunting: he does not bustle about in a business-like manner from one buttercup or dead-nettle to its nearest fellow; but he flits joyously, like a sauntering straggler that he is, from a great patch of color here to another great patch at a distance, whose gleam happens to strike his roving eye by its size and brilliancy. Hence, as that indefatigable observer, Dr. Hermann Mueller, has noticed, all Alpine or hill-top flowers have very large and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... no answer. She glanced around to make sure that no straggler was near who could by any chance have heard Joan's cries. Then she swathed the child's head in her shawl again, and, with Joe striding in front and Darby dragging at his heel, the party set off at a rapid rate, which sorely tried Darby's short, tired legs, sturdy though they were. But ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... interesting. Their herds were feeding together near them. The moment one was seen to stray, one or two lads threw themselves on their own steeds, which they kept tethered near, and galloped off in pursuit of the straggler. They had, too, to defend their cattle from the wolves—often hazardous work. They offered me some milk, and then each lad helped himself to some potatoes; they had an abundance cooked, so that I was not depriving them of their food. They were ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... guests—or, rather, his wife's guests—until that whole brilliant company was packed into the small white room. Someone had thoughtfully closed the shutters of the windows giving on Park Lane, and securely screwed them; so that, when the last straggler had entered, and the door was shut, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... down half a yard of green drapery from the hedge. It was so lavishly decorated that the damage they did to it was not noticeable. By and by we went on ahead of the cows, then, if one stayed too long or strayed into some inviting side-lane, he would turn and utter a long, soft call, whereupon the straggler would leave her browsing ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... small boy or girl perched on one of their broad backs. He flourishes a little stick, and issues his commands like a general. It is one of the quaintest imaginable sights to see this little fellow get off his steed, run after a straggler, and beat him with his stick. The buffalo eyes his master, whom he could abolish with one shake of his head, submissively, and takes the beating, which he probably feels about as much as if a straw fell on him, good-humouredly. ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... had to capture a "tongue"—that is, a man from the enemy column. That morning's attack on the wagons had been made so hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he could tell them nothing definite about ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Gatun when the train-guard handed me one of those frequent typewritten orders calling for the arrest of some straggler or deserter from the marine camp of the Tenth Infantry. That very morning I had seen "the boss" of census days off on his vacation to the States—from which he might not return—and here I was coldly and peremptorily called upon to go forth and arrest and deliver to Camp Elliott on its hill "Mac," ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... our march from Fort Cumberland to Frazier's (which is within 7 miles of Duquesne) without meeting any extraordinary event, having only a straggler or two picked up by the French Indians. When we came to this place, we were attacked (very unexpectedly) by about three hundred French and Indians. Our numbers consisted of about thirteen hundred well-armed men, chiefly Regulars, who were immediately struck with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... floated out from the white-painted meeting-house, all ablaze with light; or as much ablaze as a kerosene chandelier and six side lamps could make it. The horse sheds were crowded with teams of various sorts, the horses well blanketed and standing comfortably in straw; and the last straggler was entering the right-hand door of the church as Dick neared the steps. Simultaneously the left-hand door opened, and on the background of the light inside appeared the figure of Mrs. Todd, the wife of his ancient enemy, the senior deacon. Dick could see that a sort of dressing-room had ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... plied the man with questions. He told them that he had killed it the day before, really. It had been prowling for the last week or more about Kernore's bush; probably it was a straggler from up north. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Third is remarkably fond of pies, and a notorious straggler withal. He has just returned to camp after being away for some days, and accounts for his absence by saying that he was in the country looking for pies, when Morgan's men appeared suddenly, shot his ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... boat effectively concealed my movements from any prying eyes ashore. Everyone aboard would be clustered forward, curiously watchful of that line of soldiers filing across the gangplank and seeking quarters upon deck. The only danger of observation lay in some straggler along the near-by bank. I lowered myself the full length of my arms, dangling there an instant by clinging to the framework; then loosened my grip and dropped silently ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... gazed, the Chimes stopped. Instantaneous change! The whole swarm fainted! their forms collapsed, their speed deserted them; they sought to fly, but in the act of falling died and melted into air. No fresh supply succeeded them. One straggler leaped down pretty briskly from the surface of the Great Bell, and alighted on his feet, but he was dead and gone before he could turn round. Some few of the late company who had gambolled in the tower, remained there, spinning over and over a little longer; but these became at every ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... of the family were seated around the latter hearth, while a straggler from the other room, of more than usual curiosity, had placed himself among them, marking the distinction in ranks, or rather in situation, merely by the extraordinary care which he took that none of the scrapings should litter the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... more sensible of its advantages than myself, who had no title to be included in it. Having already satisfied myself as to the several modes in which the four others attained felicity, I next set my mind at work to discover what enjoyments were peculiar to the old "Straggler," as the people of the country would have termed the wandering mendicant and prophet. As he pretended to familiarity with the Devil, so I fancied that he was fitted to pursue and take delight in his way ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... biscuits they didn't care for much, and the cakes of soap which they began to eat could not honestly be said to be an entire success as comestibles. But while we watched them at these hors d'oeuvres to the banquet at which we were expected to take a prominent part, a straggler came up with some reserve supplies; I saw them; tins of dynamite—we carried dynamite for blowing up the snags that obstructed the narrower reaches of the river. We watched the thieves crowd around the bearer of the tins, and we saw that the general impression that prevailed in regard to them was ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... The last straggler had slipped into the back seat, the church was filled, and every eye was turned expectantly towards the vestry door. It opened presently and the aged minister came forth. As he went up the steep pulpit stair, Duncan Polite's loving eye caught ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... being at intervals to prevent them from running away; in which case the runner is invariably fired at The supply of ammunition is in the centre, carried generally by about fifteen natives, and strongly escorted by guards. The rear of the party is closed by another flag behind which no straggler is permitted. The rear flag is also guarded by six or eight men, with a box of spare ammunition. With these arrangements the party is always ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... captain turned his face, pale with fright, to the imperturbable Deyoe, and, striking him on the shoulder, said with as much composure as he could muster, "Captain, we have had hard times of it out there, but don't be afraid, don't be afraid." Deyoe, turning his face toward that of the straggler with a look of unruffled coolness and unmitigated contempt, replied, "Well, who the d—is afraid? Oh, yes, I see, you are. Well, you had better get away from ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... times before it gets through: it runs on seemingly at random, winding at its "own sweet will," though the path it holds is much nearer a straight line than a circle; and it stops, not where the starting foresaw, but where the matter so carries it. Thus it is a sort of lingual straggler, if you please, and may be said to wander with little or no conscience of the ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... because, there being no shops in the old village of Saint Ronan's, the said commercial emissaries, for the convenience of their traffic, always took up their abode at the New Inn, or Hotel, in the rising and rival village called Saint Ronan's Well, unless when some straggler, by chance or dire necessity, was compelled to lodge himself at the Auld Town, as the place of Meg's residence began to be generally termed. She had, therefore, no sooner formed the hasty conclusion, that the individual in question belonged ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... was our own trail. Therefore we kept our rifles at hand and our eyes open for a straggler. But none came, though we baited craftily with portions of our deer. All we gained was a rattlesnake, and he seemed a bit out of place so ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... of autobiography which he left behind him, "with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three.' If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education." But in the case of this ungainly boy there was no necessity of any external incentive. A thirst for knowledge ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... sacred elephant, took off his chains and led him from the compound. Immediately six of the marauders trotted far ahead toward the gate they knew to be the least guarded. The sacred elephant, passing through the streets, attended by three men, aroused no suspicions in any straggler who saw. So remote was the walled city, so seemingly impregnable, and so little interfered with that it was only human that its guardians ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... of war, a voyage to India was a perilous and lengthy undertaking. A whole fleet was collected, containing merchant, convict, and transport vessels, all under the convoy of the ships of war belonging to the Company; and, as no straggler might be left behind, the progress of the whole was dependent on the rate of sailing of the slowest, and all were impeded by the disaster of one. The Union, in which a passage was given to the chaplain, contained, besides the crew, passengers, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... said the straggler, as he leant his back against the barn, and his two companions sat down on the ground in the shelter, "I have heard a lot about the Cause, but all I know is that my Lord of Essex sent to call out five-and-twenty men from our parish, and the squire, he was in a proper rage with ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... found Shawn enjoying the surprising event of being cordially welcomed by the inhabitants of the town. The worst sort of straggler is often astonished at the kindly interest accorded him upon returning to his old home. Old Doctor Hissong greeted him by saying, "Hello, been seeing the world, have you?" When he went up to the Alden home, he found the same good friend ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... singers drop off into a deep sleep. The town becomes as silent as the graveyards which have been filled with its victims. Not a sound is heard save the crackling of the flames and the challenges of the sentries to some belated newspaper man or straggler. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the sun was shining, and there was a confusion of voices close at hand. He could not catch the drift of conversation; but, as the tongue spoken was Spanish, he lay motionless and listened, expecting each moment to be discovered by some straggler. For several hours his unseen neighbors cooked, ate, smoked cigarettes, laughed, and talked without suspecting his presence within a few yards of them; while he, desperately hungry, cramped, and filled with impatience at this aggravating detention, wondered if they ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... unspeakable pap, "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, or Cytherea's breath." How the brother and sister would croon over him "with murmurs made to bless," calling him their "tender novice" "in the first bloom of his nigritude," their belated straggler from the "rear of darkness thin," their little night-shade, not deadly, their infantile Will-o'-the-wisp caught before his sins, their "poor Blot," "their innocent Blackness," their ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... all their humors quaint,— The parson ambling on his wall-eyed roan, Grave and erect, with white hair backward blown,— The tough old boatman, half amphibious grown,— The muttering witch-wife of the gossip's tale, And the loud straggler levying his black mail,— Old customs, habits, superstitions, fears, All that lies buried under fifty years. To thee, as is most fit, I bring my lay, And, grateful, own the debt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... army called them "guerillas." They were the terror of our army stragglers. They were "good Union men" when our army was passing, but just as soon as the army had passed they were in their saddles, picking up every straggler and any who may have had to fall behind from sickness. In that way they got quite a few prisoners. This man did not hesitate to tell us the mode of their operations. He said his farm had been literally stripped of hay, grain, and cattle by our cavalry under General Stoneman. All he ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... themselves in their few poor quilts, and struggled bravely on into a white, stinging fog of snow. Each morning there were more and more of them to bury. And even the burial was a mockery, for wolves were digging at the graves almost before the last debilitated straggler had left the camping-place. The heavy snows continued, but movement was necessary. Into the white jaws of the beautiful, merciless demon ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... death and sorrow—where were they? Alas! all the bewitching charms of her former being had gone down into the grave of her mother and sister; and she, their support and idol, seemed no more now than she really was—a wayworn, solitary, and isolated straggler for ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... cut them out and work them away from the friendly shelter and refuge of the trees. A bush-reared calf is an irresponsible being, with a great fund of energy and spirits—and, while Norah loved her day, she was thoroughly tired as they rode home in the late evening, the last straggler yarded in readiness for the branding next day. Mr. Linton sent her to bed early, and she did not wake in the morning until the dressing gong boomed its ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... along the rugged coasts of New England, and surveyed, ill pleased, the surf-beaten rocks, the pine-tree and the fir, the shadows and the gloom of mighty forests. Here man and nature alike were savage and repellent. Perhaps some plundering straggler from the fishing-banks, some manstealer like the Portuguese Cortereal, or some kidnapper of children and ravisher of squaws like themselves, had warned the denizens of the woods to beware of the worshippers of Christ. Their ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... we got them in some sort of order, we had quite lost the rest of the column. The orders were to push on, no matter what happened, and every one left to look out for himself. After some time trying to find the path, we came across a straggler, who told us which way the regiment had gone, and eventually we found them on the top of a hill. We were ordered, as soon as we got on the hill, to put up sangars, which we worked at by the light of a very small moon till daylight. Then the Boers began on us all ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... the scene was without alloy, the colouring splendid, and up the road above us, beyond which rose the hill, a shepherd was leading his flock of sheep, now and then clapping his hands or shouting to a straggler, but as a rule walking quietly on, the whole flock following in a continuous line. Not wishing to be idle, I took out my pencil to indulge in a poetic eulogy. How far I succeeded may be judged from the following lines, ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... State came into the Union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin' and cipherin'' to the Rule of Three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... bringing folk to doors and windows to see them pass, the war-cry of the men that fight the flames. Charioteers behind blood-horses bathed in foam; heads helmeted in flashing splendour; eyes all intent upon the track ahead, keen to anticipate the risks of headlong speed and warn the dilatory straggler from its path. Nearer and nearer—in a moment it will pass and take some road unknown to us, to say to fires that even now are climbing up through roof and floor, clasping each timber in a sly embrace fatal as the caress of Death itself:—"Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!" Close upon us ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... RANGE—N. Africa, Asia, as far east as Japan, Europe including Britain, and has occurred as a rare straggler in Leicestershire. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... boy, I pray, that could thy blessed favors slight! Back to the ranks the straggler bring ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... dark places of the commandant's mind, and although the gas-jets continued contumacious (the gas-workers were all called up to the colours) the maire was not molested. It was here that we heard a shameful story (for the truth of which I will not vouch) of a certain straggler from our army, a Highlander, who tarried in amorous dalliance and was betrayed by his enchantress to the Huns, who, having deprived him of everything but his kilt, led him mounted upon a horse in Bacchanalian procession round the town. As to what became of him ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... would choose his course, And my life was safe with the old grey horse. But man and horse had a favourite job, When an outlaw broke from a station mob, With a right good will was the stockwhip plied, As the old horse raced at the straggler's side, And the greenhide whip such a weal would raise, We could use the whip ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... ammunition expended by the two squadrons engaged in an incessant advance for one hour and fifteen minutes averaged less than ten rounds per man. The fine quality of these troops is also shown by the fact that there was not a single straggler, and in not one instance was an attempt made by any soldier to fall out in the advance to assist the wounded or carry back the dead. The fighting on the left flank was equally creditable and was remarkable, and I believe unprecedented, in volunter troops so quickly raised, ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... Captain Clerke's party returned with their lost companion; and my boats having now no object left, I called them back by signal. This poor fellow must have suffered far greater distress than the other straggler, not only as having been lost a longer time, but as we found that he was too squeamish to drink ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... grieved, that he had lost an opportunity of showing his confidence by a voluntary communication. It was, therefore, agreed, that she should leave the valley with them; and that, in the mean time, she should watch, lest any other straggler should, by chance or curiosity, follow them ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... figures came through the dark to gather in a wide, waiting circle all about the fire. Within the limits of their brutish minds lay the knowledge that fires would die down, that strength of man and beast would fail, and that, once a straggler could not go on, patient waiting always made him their prey at last. Felix cocked his gun, took long aim at a pair of green eyes glittering in the dark, but in the end lowered the muzzle without firing. The flash of a rifle ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... will give reality to the picture. George Marshall, a mulatto, was taken up with others as a straggler, and ordered to receive fifty lashes. With each lash the unfortunate man gritted his teeth and turned his head, whether from pain or anger is uncertain. The provost-marshal construed this into a threatening ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the contrary, I kept strolling about from street to street, sometimes thinking upon Julia, sometimes upon Mr. Tims. The night was of the most melancholy description—a cold, cloudy, windy, rainy December night. Not a soul was upon the streets excepting a solitary straggler, returning hither and thither from an evening sermon, or an occasional watchman gliding past with his lantern, like an incarnation of the Will-o'-wisp. I strolled up and down for half an hour, wrapped in an olive great-coat, and having a green silk umbrella over my head. It was well I chanced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... himself by reading. Outside, the "Great Day for Indian Spring" was slowly evaporating in pale mists from the river, and the celebration itself spasmodically taking flight here and there in Roman candles and rockets. An occasional outbreak from revellers in the bar-room below, a stumbling straggler along the planked sidewalk before the hotel, only seemed to intensify the rustic stillness. For the future of Indian Spring was still so remote that Nature insensibly re-invested its boundaries on the slightest relaxation of civic influence, and Mr. Ford lifted his head from the glowing columns ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... her abode rather earlier than usual, having succeeded in cutting off a straggler from the peccary herd and killing it before its cries could bring the other numerous members of the band to its rescue. Spurred on by some subtle sense of intuition she had eaten hurriedly and then made for her home where the cub had been left ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... was talking away, with responsibility and worry, and that heavy weight on the truck back there, quite gone out of the world. She was in it, and himself—the world was full. The girl seemed to be as oblivious of outside facts, as he, for it was quite two minutes, and the last straggler from the boat had disappeared into the street before she broke into one ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... "One straggler brought back to camp," said Eudoxia. "To-morrow I shall try to bring back one or ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the travellers at home; they had no idea of spoiling it by attacking them, although the numbers were about equal; besides, they had got all the plunder and spoil, and a battle would only endanger the success already obtained. So they lay in cover until the last straggler had disappeared in the direction of Aescendune, and then continued their course, with many a jest at ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... free before, but the chicken had given him his wish for freedom, and he meant to have the chicken. With one swift spring he caught the bird, and in another moment his teeth were buried in its breast and back, and the unfortunate straggler from the home roost was giving his last cry, choked in its infancy by ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... heading toward some safe refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary—that with all senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming this far out into the prairie—but I had told ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... were employed. In the first place, Hurry removed some pieces of bark that lay before the large opening in the tree, and which the other declared to be disposed in a way that would have been more likely to attract attention than to conceal the cover, had any straggler passed that way. The two then drew out a bark canoe, containing its seats, paddles, and other appliances, even to fishing-lines and rods. This vessel was by no means small; but such was its comparative lightness, and so gigantic was the strength of Hurry, that the latter ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the evacuation was completed, the army was gotten clear of Nashville, the last straggler driven out, all the stores which could not be carried off, nor distributed to the citizens, burned, and the capitol of Tennessee (although we did not know it then) was abandoned finally to the enemy. Morgan's squadron was the last to leave, as ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... I am not one of them. And as to regular meals, I have fasted from the Sunday's dinner to the Tuesday's dinner, without any inconvenience[900]. I believe it is best to eat just as one is hungry: but a man who is in business, or a man who has a family, must have stated meals. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there.' EDWARDS. 'Don't you eat supper, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' EDWARDS. 'For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in order ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... all we seen for the moment. About three o'clock the first straggler came limpin' in, his wings hangin', his mouth open, his eyes glazed with the heat. By sundown fourteen had returned. All the rest had disappeared utter; we never seen 'em again. I reckon they just naturally run themselves into a sunstroke ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... that it would be prudent for him to comply with the invitation thus cordially given. So he sat down and made himself at home. Up there in the woods there exists a genuine hospitality that never hesitates to extend the right hand of fellowship to any straggler who chances to enter the camp. There seems to be something in the healthy ozone of the wilderness that makes all men comrades for the time being. The latchstring is always out in camp; and never does an appeal for help ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... streets, from the pyramids of Egypt and the gates of Greece, to Pater Noster Row and the Old Corner Book Store—nearly all of them trying to make the wrong connections with the right things or the right connections with things they have no connection with, and only now and then a straggler lagging behind perhaps, at some left-over bookstall, who truly knows how to read, or some beautiful, over-grown child let loose in a library—making connections for himself, who knows the ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... discoverer who, in annexing new realms to her chart, unsettles your arbitrary landmarks. Verily, retribution shall await you! In those spaces which your sight has disdained to explore you shall yourself be a lost and bewildered straggler. Hist! I see them already! The gibbering phantoms are gathering ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was deserted save for an occasional straggler making his weary way home after a day spent in ministering to the wants and the pleasures of the strangers who now crowded ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... between two other corrals. The darkness favored them, and the rustlers swept by. Arizona only waited long enough for them to get well clear, then his gun rang out again, and Tresler's too. But the game was played out. A straggler sighted them and gave the alarm, and instantly the ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... joy of it lighted up my face, and Brennan turning toward me as the last limping straggler disappeared over the ridge, saw it, and grew ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... no soul's in town! And darkness reigns where lamps once brightened; Shutters are closed, and blinds drawn down— Untrodden door-steps go unwhitened! The echoes of some straggler's boots Alone are on the pavement ringing While 'prentice boys, who smoke cheroots, Stand critics to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Indians. These enemies soon became a cause of great trouble to the colonists, and it was dangerous to pass beyond the palisades, as the Indians would hide for days, waiting to assail any unfortunate straggler. Although Maisonneuve was brave as man could be, he knew that his company was no match for the wily enemy, owing to their ignorance of the mode of Indian warfare; therefore he kept his men as near ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... proper to be discussed in this place; but they will easily offer themselves to the skilful in maritime affairs. However, as the Manilla ships are the only ones which have ever traversed this vast ocean, except a French straggler or two, which have been afterwards seized on the coast of Mexico; and as, during near two ages, in which this trade has been carried on, the Spaniards have secreted with the utmost care all accounts of their voyages from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Mexico. It wasn't much regular up and down fighting we had, though we had some toughish battles too, but it were skirmishing here, skirmishing there, keeping one eye always open, for man, woman, and child hated us like pison, and it was little mercy that a straggler might expect if he got caught away from his friends. Their partisans chiefs, half-soldier, half-robber, did us more harm than the regulars, and mercy was never given or asked between them and us. Me and Rube Pearson worked mostly together. ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... there this night those eyes were on him. Presently the last straggler had left the deck. It was a clear night, but there was no moon—objects ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... down over a ploughed field—half clay and half chalk, and ankle deep—to the margin of a rapidly running and coffee-colored stream, which three of them had to cross by means of a very shaky plank. Lord Beauregard, Major Stuart, and Macleod remained on this side, keeping a lookout for a straggler, but chiefly concerned with the gradually opening and brightening sky. Then far away they heard a slight tapping on the trees; and almost at the same moment another sound caused the hearts of the two novices to jump. It was a quick cuck-cuck, accompanied by a ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... this there was a reason as simple as casting up the number of shillings in the pound. No matter how penniless the sailor himself might be, he was always worth that sum at the rendezvous. Twenty shillings was the reward paid for information leading to his apprehension as a straggler or a skulker, and it was largely on the strength of such informations, and often under the personal guidance of such detestable informers, ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... said Uarda thoughtfully, "and yet I am alone—for the first time really alone. In Thebes I have often looked after the wild swans as they passed across the sky; one flies in front, then comes the body of the wandering party, and very often, far behind, a solitary straggler; and even this last one I do not call lonely, for he can still see his brethren in front of him. But when the hunters have shot down all the low-flying loiterers, and the last one has lost sight of the flock, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... came on before much had been accomplished on this first day of the siege. It was scarcely dusk when a messenger, much exhausted and terrified, made his appearance at Count Ernest's tent. He was a straggler who had made his escape from Oudenburg, and he brought the astounding intelligence that the archduke had already possession of that position and of all the other forts. Ernest instantly jumped into a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had separated from us in the morning. In crossing towards these hills I fell through the ice into the lake, with my bundle on my shoulders, but was soon extricated without any injury; and Mr. Back, who left us to go in search of the straggler, met with a similar accident in the evening. We put up on a ridge of sand hills, where we found some pines, and made a large fire to apprize Mr. Back and Fontano of our position. St. Germain having killed a deer in the afternoon, we received ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... hunter said. "Not a soul must show his nose outside the tent except that one of the redskins'll keep watch to be sure that no straggler has come across our tracks and followed 'em up. Ef he was to do that, he might bring the hull gang down on us. Ye'd best get as much sleep as ye can, for ye don't know when ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... perceive. They keep each to their own territory, except on the occasion of a grand "corroborie," when the whole assemble. They are at present on terms of peace nominally. Should a safe opportunity of cutting off a straggler offer, I have no doubt it would be taken advantage of. They are cowardly and treacherous in the extreme. The "Gudang" tribe, claiming the land from Cape York to Fly Point, at the entrance of Albany Pass, is small in numbers, having, I fancy, been seriously thinned by their ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... of these Prussians, and how they marched. Difficult ways; the hard road is for their artillery; the men march on each side, sometimes to mid-leg in water,—never mind. Wholly in order, wholly silent; Valori followed them three leagues close, and there was not one straggler. Every private man, much more every officer, knows well what grim errand they are on; and they make no remarks. Steady as Time; and, except that their shoes are not of felt, silent as he. The Austrian ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... given to disembark, the unpaid passengers are made up into small parties and marched through the town to the depots under the escort of the brokers and several of their assistants, with much yelling and good deal of rough handling, and an occasional halt while a straggler or a would be runaway is brought back to the party. That the coolies are frequently successful in their attempts to escape is shown in the Report of the Chinese Protectorate, 160 being returned as 'absconded either when landing or at depot' in Singapore, ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... Thou straggler into loving arms, Young climber-up of knees, When I forget thy thousand ways Then ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... plentifully watered country, the movement slowly progressed. They had not advanced far when a shell screamed over their heads, uncomfortably close to the Surgeon and Chaplain, some fifty yards in the rear, and mangled awfully a straggler at least half a mile further back. As may be supposed, his fate was a standing warning against straggling for the balance of ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... life, but leads a short and joyous existence. It dances over the surface of the water for three or four hours, dropping its eggs as it flits, and then disappears for ever. Myriads come forth about the hour of eight in the evening; but by ten or eleven o'clock not a single straggler can ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... will you order a horse to be brought round at once for the surgeon, then hurry to the barracks. Order the colonel to turn out a troop of horse instantly, and let him scour the country between the north gate and the camp, and arrest every straggler he comes across." ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... "I had," says Barnum, "competent agents who could exhibit him without my personal assistance, and I preferred to relinquish a portion of the profits rather than continue to be a travelling showman. I had now been a straggler from home most of the time for thirteen years, and I cannot describe the feelings of gratitude with which I reflected that, having by the most arduous toil and deprivations succeeded in securing a satisfactory competence, ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... straggler for social honors—they have been mine without the struggling. I was born to a position. It is mine by right of inheritance. There is no strong odor of lately acquired greenbacks about our old and very respectable establishment. ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... the march from the Lech to Ingolstadt, and thence to Munich, from the attacks of the country people, who were excited against them by the priests. Every straggler who fell into their hands was murdered with horrible cruelty, the hands and feet being cut off, and other savage mutilations being performed upon them, in revenge for which the Swedes and Scots ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty |
