"Stray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the worm, the wild duck cries, But in the love-light of thine eyes I, trembling, loose the trap. So flies The bird into the air. What will my angry mother say? With basket full I come each day, But now thy love hath led me stray, And ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... made him ache to think of Dorothy, with her feeble mother, the boys, as wild as preacher's sons proverbially are, and the old farm running down on her hands; the fences all needed mending, and there went Reuben Barton, now, careering over the fields in chase of a stray yearling. His mother's house was big, and lonely, and empty; and he flushed as he thought of the "one ewe-lamb" he coveted, out of Friend Barton's rugged pastures. As he raised the gate, and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle through the "trunk," ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... curious sensation in the soles of his feet, and, startled, looked down to find that he was standing in a tiny pool of water. With a cry of alarm he sprang to where the big copper sat. A glance confirmed his worst fears; a stray bullet had torn a great hole in the vessel near the bottom, and of their precious store of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... so planted round a bird's ears, that however ruffled or wet, they can't get in—and possibly they conduct sound. Birds have no need of ears with a movable cowl over them, to turn and twist for the catching of stray sounds, as foxes have, and hares, and other four-footed things; for a bird can turn his whole head so as to put his ear wherever he pleases in the twinkling of an eye; and he has too many resources, whatever bird he may be, of voice and gesture, to need any power ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... fallen into the hands of these Seminoles who had not fled from this part of the country upon the return of the French, as the latter had supposed, but had lingered in the hope of capturing any white men who might incautiously stray beyond the protecting walls. They desired to capture these that their tortures might form part of the festivities with which they proposed to celebrate their return to their stronghold in the great swamp, and to which the rest of the band, bearing the plunder ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe
... But these stray American instances were of course quite outnumbered by the English, and there is scarcely an ill which was not in this controversy charged upon tobacco by its enemies, nor a physical or moral benefit which was not claimed for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... from Calton Hill on Salisbury Crags and over the Firth of Forth, then descended to dark old Holyrood, where the memory of lovely Mary lingers like a stray sunbeam in her cold halls, and the fair, boyish face of Rizzio looks down from the canvass on the armor of his murderer. We threaded the Canongate and climbed to the Castle; and finally, after a day and a ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... one, then the other, with the delighted surprise of a mother bird who sees her offspring in their first gayety of full plumage. She picked a thread from Jerome's coat, she put back a stray lock of Elmira's hair, she bade them turn this ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of the village come to see you; keep him here till I come back. I'm after some stray sheep'; and shutting the door with a bang ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... band That knits me to thy rugged strand? Still, as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems, as to me, of all bereft, Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; And thus I love them better still, Even in extremity of ill. By Yarrow's stream still let me stray, Though none should guide my feeble way; Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, Although it chilled my withered cheek; Still lay my head by Teviot stone, Though there, forgotten and alone, The bard may draw his ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... was so altered, both inside and out, that the real pain was less than she had anticipated. It was not like the same place. The garden, the grass-plat, formerly so daintily trim that even a stray rose-leaf seemed like a fleck on its exquisite arrangement and propriety, was strewed with children's things; a bag of marbles here, a hoop there; a straw-hat forced down upon a rose-tree as on a peg, to the destruction of a long beautiful tender branch laden with flowers, which ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... or woman can tell any tidings of a horse with four feet, two ears, that did stray about the seventh hour, three minutes in the forenoon the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... fairly radiated whiteness, and stood out spectrally in their pallid surroundings, like the ghost of some departed heater. Scotty gave the new master's desk an extra coat, and even polished up a stray book and dinner pail, unluckily left behind the day before, just to have them in harmony ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... itself in all his movements, was apparent in the play of every muscle, spoke plainly as speech in the way he carried himself, and made his glorious furry coat if anything more glorious. But for the stray brown on his muzzle and above his eyes, and for the splash of white hair that ran midmost down his chest, he might well have been mistaken for a gigantic wolf, larger than the largest of the breed. From his St. Bernard father he had inherited size and weight, but ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... simply content ourselves with saying, that when his journey was accomplished, he mostly found the original number with which he had set out increased by three or four, and sometimes by half a dozen. Pigs in general resemble each other, and it surely was not Phil's fault if a stray one, feeding on the roadside or common, thought proper to join his drove and see the world. Phil's object, we presume, was only to take care that his original number was not diminished, its increase ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... Mother Ceres, "but you must take care not to stray away from them, and you are not to play in the fields by yourself with no one to take ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... payments and the "distributions" which the great leaders of the old world had thought necessary for the fulfilment of democracy. There was secondly the very obvious fact that the government was reaping a golden harvest from the provinces and merely scattering a few stray grains amongst its subjects. There was thirdly the consideration that much had been done for the landed class and nothing for the city proletariate. Other considerations of a more immediate and economic character were doubtless present. The ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... that a wrong of some kind was being done to her and (this was more important) to Clem, and she connected it with the loss of their liberty. Until this moment she had known no schooling. Her grandmother in stray hours had taught her the alphabet and some simple reading, and the rest of her knowledge she had picked up for herself. She well remembered the last of these stray hours. It fell on a midsummer evening, three years ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... can give it no milder name! I and your father will die childless before we consent! And it is for the love of this woman, whose heart is so cold that I shiver only to think of it—for this waif and stray, who has nothing but her ragged pride and the mere scrapings of a lost fortune, which never could compare with ours—for this thankless creature, who can hardly bring herself to bid me, your mother, such a civil ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The field-driver takes stray animals to the pound, and then notifies their owner; or if he does not know who is the owner he posts a description of the animals in some such place as the village store or tavern, or has it published in the nearest country newspaper. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... in simple Christianity. There would usually be a couple of prefects from Silchester, one or two 'Varsity men, two or three bluejackets or marines, an odd soldier or so, a naval officer perhaps, a stray priest sometimes, an earnest seeker after Christian example often, and often a drunkard who had been dumped down at the door of St. Agnes' Mission House in the hope that where everybody else had failed Father Rowley might succeed. Then there ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... Airy whisperings of all trees, With their music will supply All we need of sympathy. Now and then a graver guest For one moment here will rest Loitering in his pastoral walk, And with us hold kindly talk. To himself we've heard him say, "Thanks that I may hither stray, Worn with age and sin and care, Here to breathe the pure, glad air, Here Faith's lesson learn anew, Of this happy vernal crew. Here the fragrant shrubs around, And the graceful shadowy ground, And the village tones afar, And ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... could go for safety—for this forest was so close to her father's castle that she might be seen and recognized by the first passer-by, and, besides that, it was full of lions and wolves, who would have snapped up a princess just as soon as a stray chicken. So she began to walk as fast as she could, but the forest was so large and the sun was so hot that she nearly died of heat and terror and fatigue; look which way she would there seemed to be no end to the forest, and she was so frightened that she fancied every minute that she ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... looked, the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth, to whom the wayside and the maple shade were as a secret chamber, with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. Perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside, so as to intercept it. And having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... reached our first balanced budget, I asked that we meet our responsibility to the next generation by maintaining our fiscal discipline. Because we refused to stray from that path, we are doing something that would have seemed unimaginable seven years ago: We are actually paying down the national debt. If we stay on this path, we can pay down the debt entirely in 13 years and make America ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... never seen old Mr. Govers stray an inch aside from the straight path of fidelity; but his wife had enhanced him with a lifelong suspicion that eventually ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... to a rick that may be one living mass within (a thing very common, adds our writer), and there shall not be one visible; or dive into a cellar, that may be perfectly infested with them, rats you shall not see, so much as a tip of a tail, unless it be that of a stray one "popping across for a more safe retreat." As men seldom see them, they seldom think of them. "But this I say," goes on our author, "that if rats could by any means be made to live on the surface of the earth, instead of holes and corners, and feed and run about ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... excellent. Who would not take a trip to Margate? There's only one thing that rather adulterates the felicity—a drop of gall in the cup of mead!—and that is the horrid sea-sickness! learnedly called nostalgia; but call it by any name you please, like a stray dog, it is pretty sure ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... few seconds for her confidence, but she waited in vain. Lady Priscilla had retired completely behind her shield, and it was quite obvious that she had no intention of exposing herself any further to stray shots. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... odd to me, too," she answered, letting her eyes stray from his and rest upon the bowl of japonicas of a glowing pink, which stood in the centre of the table. The candle-light made little starry points in her dark eyes as she looked at the rich-hued blooms. "The last person in the world I was ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... look to their soles and their skirt braids. The next row kneeled and peered over the shoulders of the first. The third row stood up and saw what it could. The others stood up and saw nothing, unless they were very tall or had been lucky enough to secure a place on a stray chair or a radiator. The balcony railings and posts were draped with bunting, and in every hand waved banners and streamers, purple and yellow on one side, red and green on ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... at breakfast, is the most reasonable. It is quite plain, slightly waved, and has a few stray hairs carelessly curved where it joins the forehead. No. 2 is for rainy weather; the curls are fuzzy and evidently baked in; it requires a durable veil to keep it in countenance. Evan calls it the "rasher of bacon front." No. 3 is for calling and all entertainments where the bonnet stays on; ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... and order had been established in recognised courts and tribunals, the titles of property had been ascertained and secured, not without loss, no doubt, to many arrogant lords who had seized upon stray land without any lawful title, or on whom it had been illegally bestowed during the Albany reign—but to the general confidence and safety. And the condition of the people had no doubt improved in consequence. It is difficult to form any estimate of what this condition ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... she proceeded carelessly to munch some pieces of melon rind. To this small yard or poultry-run a length of planking served as a fence, while beyond it lay a kitchen garden containing cabbages, onions, potatoes, beetroots, and other household vegetables. Also, the garden contained a few stray fruit trees that were covered with netting to protect them from the magpies and sparrows; flocks of which were even then wheeling and darting from one spot to another. For the same reason a number of scarecrows with outstretched ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... bargained with a stray blackfellow to bring her some wood, and while he was at work she went in search of a missing cow. She was absent an hour or so, and the native black made good use of his time. On her return she was so astonished to see a good heap of ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... not often they are minded to let us stray to the edge of the forest. I think there is something stirring that we are not to hear, and that is why our fingers are kept busy. My mother and Goodwife Prudence Hubbard were deep in talk together; but when I passed they put their fingers on ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... hear him go, but when I spoke again there was no answer, and I devoted all my energy to my task, though it had become so monotonous that my thoughts began to stray, and I found myself wondering how matters were going in the cabin—whether they were very much alarmed by the noise of the steam, or whether they felt as confident as the mate did about our ultimate mastery of the fire, and how ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... far from me vanity and lies,' Psa. 119. Every deviation from rectitude and truth is sin. Who that knows any thing of the corruption of the human heart, and its strange tendency to stray, to err, yea, even to pervert the plainest, simplest, and most obvious truths, but must see the propriety of his joining the psalmist, and crying out, Lord, remove far from me the ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... greatest epic poets and satirists have always transcended rules to follow "Nature's light"; Pope, over-topping them all, has "still corrected Nature as she stray'd" (pp. 19, 21). But perhaps Harte's most successful attempt to elevate The Dunciad comes in section two of his poem. Unlike Dryden, in whose Discourse the account of the "progress" of satire is confined almost exclusively ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... stiff with his great age and the cruel rheumatism that is the doom of the field-worker; and against the brass and leather of his boots the stubble whispered loudly. Overhead the rooks and gulls gave short, harsh cries as they circled around hoping for stray grains; but the thousand little lives which had thriven in the corn—the field mice and frogs and toads—had been stilled by the sickles; some few had escaped to the shelter of the hedges, but most ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... was therefore impossible for such a ship to keep the seas for any length of time, even had their build fitted them for the buffetings of the stormy home waters. For short cruises, coast work, rapid forays, and "shock tactics," she was admirable; but she could not stray far from a friendly port, nor put out in foul weather. The roundship, dromond, or cargo boat, was often little more than two beams long, and therefore far too slow to compete with ships of the galley type. She ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... Dijon franc tireurs were the first who appeared upon the scene of action; and the Prussians were, consequently, in entire ignorance of the vicinity of any armed body of the enemy and, at worst, apprehended a stray shot from a straggler from one of the French armies, hidden in ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... hill, which was now flooded with moonlight. And as he saw how short was the distance to its summit—although, alas! the shortness was only seeming—his heart bounded with gladness and relief; for in spite of his courageous bearing, poor Darby was dreadfully afraid. All the stray stories and ridiculous remarks—many of them never meant for his ears—that he had ever heard concerning highwaymen, robbers, tramps, poachers, foreigners, and wicked people generally, came crowding to his memory thick and fast, and for ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... soleil and the blaeberry had not been plainly causal and effectual, I might have called him Filius Gunni, for at the very moment of that shudder, by which he leapt out of non-life into life, the Marquis's gamekeeper fired his rifle up the hill, and brought down a stray young stag,) these two are happily with me still, and at this moment she is out on the grass in a low easy-chair, reading Emilie Carlen's Brilliant Marriage, and Dick is lying at her feet, watching, with cocked ears, some noise in the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... would bring them down bail to any amount; they tossed their money away at the public- houses, like gentlemen; thanks to the Game Laws, their profits ran high, and when they had swept the country pretty clean of game, why, they would just finish off the season by a stray highway robbery or two, and vanish into Babylon and their ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... I can't get out I may as well go to sleep. The rebels are gone and some of our fellows are sure to stray out here foraging. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... in the morning and gave every sign of extreme dissatisfaction. "What were these Prussian soldiers doing there? Had they come to spy out the land and the city in preparation for an invasion? Was there a stray prince or duke among them who wanted to marry the Grand Duchess? The music was over. These Kriegs-Herren had better go home at once—at once, did they understand?" Yes, they understood, and they went by the next train, which took them to Trier ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... had come now to look on Ruth's destiny as something for which she was personally responsible—a fact which was noted and resented by others, in particular Ruth's brother Bailey, who regarded his aunt with a dislike and suspicion akin to that which a stray dog feels towards the boy who saunters towards him with a ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... days, or lose their slates and pencils; to help to lace their boots, and put on their hats neatly; to make Milly and Kitty wear their gloves, and prevent Robin and Wilfred from filling their pockets with nut shells, stones, frogs, or other unsuitable articles which were apt to stray out in class and call down the vials of the mistress's wrath upon their heads. She saw that they learnt their home lessons, did their sums, practised their due portions upon the piano: and it took up so much of her own time, that she had to work ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... of some good people here, I think,' said the Duke of Burlington, who, though the most dignified, was the most considerate of men; 'at least, here are a stray couple or two staring as if they wished us to understand we ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... nicht, Mr Dow?" said Robert, who treated him with oily respect, because he was not only acquainted with all Annie's affairs, but was a kind of natural, if not legal, guardian of her and her property. "And whaur did ye fa' in wi' this stray lammie o' oors?" ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and ally, Bob M'Corkindale, was equally hard up with myself, and, if possible, more averse to exertion. Bob was essentially a speculative man—that is, in a philosophical sense. He had once got hold of a stray volume of Adam Smith, and muddled his brains for a whole week over the intricacies of the "Wealth of Nations." The result was a crude farrago of notions regarding the true nature of money, the soundness of currency, and relative ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... numberless things in it that, to the last, remained wrapped in obscurity, or concerning which I could only lose myself in vague speculations. I was as a Roman Jew of the Middle Ages, confined to the Jews' quarter of the town, and forbidden to stray beyond my limits. Or I was as a modern traveller in the same famous city, forced to quit it at last without gaining ingress to the most mysterious haunts—the innermost shrine of the Pope, and the dungeons ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... the youngest Voukotitch tempted the major—who was in splendid mood—suggesting that it was rather tame to go home after having come within mere bowing distance of the Austrians, and that a few stray bullets would ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... in the power of terrestrial weapons, the Martians retreated to their original position upon Horsell Common; and in their haste, and encumbered with the debris of their smashed companion, they no doubt overlooked many such a stray and negligible victim as myself. Had they left their comrade and pushed on forthwith, there was nothing at that time between them and London but batteries of twelve-pounder guns, and they would certainly have reached the capital in advance of the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... shall,' said the old woman. 'If you can take care of my mare for three days I will give you a horse for wages, but if you let her stray you will lose your head'; and as she spoke she led him into a courtyard surrounded with palings, and on every post a man's head was stuck. One post only was empty, and as they ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... of the orange-trees till you come to a big gate in a fence," Carmen explained. "Shut it after you, please, because dogs might stray into the garden if you left it open. No cattle graze on that part of the ranch any more. They're going to irrigate there and to plant alfalfa, the soil's likely to be so good. But I've been weak enough to let gipsies camp on the place once or twice, and ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... a youth of your abilities to be seeking a stray falcon? A throne is a richer prize. Betake yourself at once ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... they were very sympathetic and blamed themselves for not warning the boys that stray burros and coyotes were a menace ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... cloy'st me with delight; Sweet thoughts, you kill me if you lower stray! O many be the joys of one short night! Tush, fancies never can desire allay! Happy, unhappy thoughts! I think, and have not. Pleasure, O pleasing pain! Shows nought avail me! Mine own conceit doth glad me, more I crave not; ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... the other hemisphere talked of the United States as little as we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the foreign papers that came into the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must go over them first, and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that alluded to America. This was a little cruel sometimes, when the back of what was cut out might be as innocent as Hesiod. Right in the midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan would find a great hole, because on ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... perfectly evident to Farintosh that though a stray capitalist might risk a thousand pounds or so on a speculation of this sort, Rothschild himself would hardly care to invest such a sum as had passed through his hands without having some ground on which to go. Having formed this conclusion, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), altho from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he called himself Quixana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's-breadth from the truth in the telling ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... detected from an unexpected quarter. Four men armed with matchlocks showed themselves. Much quicker than it takes me to record it, the rule or sight vane was run up my long and open sleeve, and I began to pretend to be looking about for stray roots; the intruders were thrown off the scent, and after a while assisted the Saiad in looking for odd roots for the ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... me, and I'm glad to duck any dealin's with stray dames; for when it comes to the surprisin' sex you never know what you're goin' to be let in for. Besides, my part of his executor game was only to O.K. J. Bayard's final schemes and see that he spent the ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... ladies going to do with yourselves?" he said. "Will you come out and sit under the trees and look on—taking the chance of being hit by a stray nut now and then?" ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... so little and his blue eyes were big with a troubled wonder. From time to time his glance would stray from the gaudy pages of the picture book down to Grimm in the room below. And each time the wonder in his eyes became tinged with ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... gone far through a small clump of timber when she came upon the corpse of a Filipino soldier who had been shot in the previous day's engagement,—perhaps by a stray ball. Hastily stealing the cross which hung from a small cord about his neck, and a valueless ring from one of his fingers, she seized his Mauser rifle and his cartridge belt which was partly filled with ammunition, ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... (who had read the books) having found a stray poodle suffering from a broken leg, conveyed the poor creature to his home, and after setting and bandaging the injured limb gave the little outcast its liberty again, and thought no more about the matter. But how great was his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and he was on his journey southward. This was the only species of thrush I saw in the Adirondacks. Near Lake Sandford, where were large tracks of raspberry and wild cherry, I saw numbers of them. A boy whom we met, driving home some stray cows, said it was the "partridge-bird," no doubt from the resemblance of its note, when disturbed, to ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... occurred to him, for none of these things was part of his duty. The landlord would do the welcoming, the blue-shirted porter take my knapsack and show me the way to the coffee-room. His business was to sit still and guard that archway. Paying guests, and those known to the family,—yes! But stray mountain goats, chickens, inquisitive, pushing peddlers, pigs, and wandering dogs,—well, he would ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... price on his head, and a fire burning in his heart night and day—can stand his life if he don't drink? When he thinks of what he might have been, and what he is! Why, nearly every man he meets is paid to run him down, or trap him some way like a stray dog that's taken to sheep-killin'. He knows a score of men, and women too, that are only looking out for a chance to sell his blood on the quiet and pouch the money. Do you think that makes a chap mad and miserable, ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... parent, from knowing and helping the growth of grace after the Gospel has been published, is like the exclusion of the farmer from his seed after it has been committed to the ground. He can help it, and does help it much by his care. He keeps the fences up, that the field may not be trampled by stray cattle: he keeps the drains open and the furrows clear, that water may not stand on the field, but run off as soon as it falls: he gathers off the stones, that they may not crush the seed, and pulls out the weeds that they ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... you see anything of a stray parcel, with some lace and other things inside of it? or have I really tossed it into ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... preparation startles and pleases; when even ladies are not ashamed to eat, and formality appears quite banished. Game of all kinds, teal from the lake, and piles of beautiful fruit, made the table alike tempting and picturesque. Then there were stray bottles of rare wine disinterred from venerable cellars; and, more inspiriting even than the choice wine, a host under the influence of every emotion, and swayed by every circumstance that can make a man happy and delightful. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... o'clock in the morning when the ship first appeared. At once there was the greatest excitement in the village. It was a British warship. What would she do? Would she tack about in the bay to pick up stray coasters as prizes, or would she land soldiers to burn the town? In either case there would be ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... in London I do the same, and at one time made a point of spending a day now and then wandering about the East End of London for the purpose of studying character; and it was while so occupied that I happened to stray into our National Portrait Gallery. I was astonished and disgusted at such a collection having such a name, and there and then decided that I would make this the subject of my lecture, and the following is briefly my indictment as I then laid it before the Grand Jury, ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... said Face-of-god; 'for they shall take the dead felons and cast them where they be not seen if perchance any more stray hereby. For if they wind them, they may well happen on the path down to the Vale. Also, my friend, it were well if thou wert to bid a good few of the carles that are in the Vale to keep watch and ward about here, lest there be more ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... creek and bay, With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals Of fish, that with their fins and shining scales Glide under the green wave in sculls that oft Bank the mid sea: part single or with mate Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance Show to the sun their waved coats dropt with gold, Or in their pearly shells at ease attend Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food In ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... things at which nuns work so patiently to fill up their long hours. She had an insatiable love of dress, and attired herself daily in successions of varied colors and shapes merely to look at herself in the glass, and on the chance of showing herself to any stray traveller who might come. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the Proscenium; the stage has rotted so, that a narrow wooden gallery is thrown across it, or it would sink beneath the tread, and bury the visitor in the gloomy depth beneath. The desolation and decay impress themselves on all the senses. The air has a mouldering smell, and an earthy taste; any stray outer sounds that straggle in with some lost sunbeam, are muffled and heavy; and the worm, the maggot, and the rot have changed the surface of the wood beneath the touch, as time will seam and roughen a smooth hand. If ever Ghosts act plays, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... wherefrom all the servant-maids had been expelled at the beginning of the interview, and now stood clustered by the palings with half-covered faces in a chatter of curious speculation. He forgot himself there trying to catch a stray word through the bamboo walls, till the captain of the steamer, who had walked up with the girl, fearing a sunstroke, took him under the arm and led him into the shade of his own verandah: where Nina's trunk stood already, having been landed by the steamer's men. As soon ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... then stray to the Latinian cave, nor do I alone burn with love for fair Endymion; oft times with thoughts of love have I been driven away by thy crafty spells, in order that in the darkness of night thou mightest work thy sorcery at ease, even the deeds dear to thee. And now thou ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... Germans in the landscape. One looked for another cause. Away to one side, against the skyline, one had a momentary glimpse of three or four Australians going along, bent low, making for some advanced position. It must be some stray bullet meant for them. Then ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... as this great public duty was cast upon the Banking Department of the Bank, the principal statesmen (if not Parliament itself) would have enjoined on them to perform it. But no distinct resolution of Parliament has ever enjoined it; scarcely any stray word of any influential statesman. And, on the contrary, there is a whole catena of authorities, beginning with Sir Robert Peel and ending with Mr. Lowe, which say that the Banking Department of the Bank of England is only a Bank like any other banka ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... not found among the dead of his own regiment at Cedar Creek, though he fell among them during the fight. The three girls searched the field for him, but he was not there. As darkness came on, and they were returning to the house, Gertrude suddenly seized the bridle of a stray horse, sprang upon its back and rode away to the South, into the woods at the foot of Three Top Mountain. The other two girls watched for her in vain. She did not return, and we have heard nothing from ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... the piazza and the street, and other openings into a large court behind, surrounded by small, dark bedrooms. The large room is furnished with two dilapidated cane sofas, a few chairs, a small table, and three or four indifferent prints, which we have ample time to study. For company, we see a stray New York or Philadelphia family, a superannuated Mexican who smiles and bows to everybody, and some dozen of those undistinguishable individuals whom we class together as Yankees, and who, taking the map from Maine to Georgia, might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... far away among the mountains old, A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold, Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighbouring by— And in the midst a silent tarn there lay, A narrow pool, cold as the tide that flows Where monstrous bergs beyond Varanger stray, Rising from sunless depths that no man knows; Thither as clustering fireflies have I seen At fixed seasons all the stars come down To wash in that cold wave their brightness clean And win the special fire wherewith they crown The wintry heavens in frost. ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... Mitchell, a rumor was spread of a joint conspiracy of Indians and negroes. At Claiborne the panic was still greater: the slaves were said to be thoroughly organized through that part of the State, and multitudes were imprisoned; the whole alarm being apparently founded on one stray copy of the ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... animals led her to pat every dog she met, and more than once she caught a stray cat and took it home to pet it. A story is told that seeing a lame chicken she wrapped it in her apron and took it home and bandaged its leg neatly, tending it with such devotion that she soon had the happiness of seeing it able to run about to seek ...
— Clara A. Swain, M.D. • Mrs. Robert Hoskins
... the condition inside houses, utensils kicking about, maids lolling about, no work going on, nothing to please the eye; and moreover such side glances, and stray shots as it were, distort the soul, and are unhandsome, and the practice is a pernicious one. When Diogenes saw Dioxippus, a victor at Olympia, driving up in his chariot and unable to take his eyes off a handsome woman who was watching the procession, but ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... need to hush my boy,—the silence there, so subduing, checked with its mysterious awe even his inquisitive young mind. The venerable high-priest sat with his face jealously covered, lest his eyes should tempt his thoughts to stray. I changed my position to catch a glimpse of his countenance; he drew his fan-veil more closely, giving me a quick but gentle half-glance of remonstrance. Then raising his eyes, with lids nearly closed, he chanted ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... despise those who do.[422] A prejudice also existed against white cows in Scotland, and Dalyell ventures upon the acute supposition that this was on account of the unlawfulness of consuming the product of a consecrated animal.[423] These are not stray notes of inexperienced observers, and with two centuries between them it must be that they contain the essence of the people's conception—a conception which leads us back to totemism ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... distinction between our countenance and that of our Simian prototypes. In this woman I thought it was, perhaps, her chief attraction. Round the temples and summit her light hair lay in thick loose curls. It did not "stray" anywhere. On the contrary, it was very intelligent hair, and knew exactly what to do with itself, how to curl upwards here and catch the light, how to cluster together there in adorable circles ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... at home, but they are continually picking up knowledge in their rides and rambles about. They know the old city that was afraid to stray above Union Square, they know the modern city with its fifty years of improvements, and they will grow up to womanhood in Greater New York, the Star City ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... window which has a hood over it, meant to exclude—the Sun! I have increased my Family by two broods of Ducks, who compete for the possession of a Pond about four feet in diameter: and but an hour ago I saw my old Seneschal escorting home a stray lot of Chickens. My two elder Nieces are with me at present, but I do not think will be long here, if a Sister comes ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... heavens, doth endless worlds contain; Each day's a world where good or ill holds sway: For through life's spacious vistas as we stray Hour after hour we sow with varying grain. Sown even to the wayside, down the plane Of Time thus passes every flying day— Never, till Time's brief seasons fade away Into Eternity, to rise again. But 'neath the ripening rays of righteous fate, To blade and ear the seed grows ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... danger," he returned sharply. "Two other men are on the watch-out for strangers. Take that short cut there"—he pointed to the left—"and skirt round to the road. Quarter of a mile'll bring you. Chaps at your end ought to see to it that none of the special hands stray up this way. ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... with morn was begun, Nor dreaded the dark and the dew? Some sweet thieves have made off with our fun! Would our paddles were free to pursue! Ah, could we but catch them anew, Clip their wings, forbid them to stray, Then more blithely we'd sing than we do— Many ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... happened one night in my travels To stray into Butterfly Vale, Where my wondering eyes beheld butterflies WITH WINGS THAT WERE WIDE AS A SAIL. They lived in such houses of grandeur, Their days were successions of joys, And the very last fad these butterflies had WAS ...
— An Elementary Study of Insects • Leonard Haseman
... the greatest of national anthems, but fails to realize that it is primarily a battle song. This morning for the first time I heard it sung as such, and as such shall forever remember it. I was walking down the Rue de Sevres toward the Boulevard Montparnasse, hoping to pick up a stray taxicab which would carry me to the Embassy. Suddenly, and with startling abruptness, I was brought to a full stop by a wave of sharp, staccato vocal sound. Wave beat upon wave,—a great volume of male voices shouting in unison. There was something so strange, so startling, and so appalling ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... tell you, Brer Rastus. W'en I went ter dat chu'ch, I went des ez umbill ez de nex' one. I went dar fer ter sing, an' fer ter pray, an' fer ter wushup, an' I mos' giner'lly allers had a stray shin-plarster w'ich de ole 'oman say she want sont out dar ter dem cullud fokes 'cross de water. Hit went on dis way twel bimeby, one day, de fus news I know'd der was a row got up in de amen cornder. Brer Dick, he 'nounced dat dey wern't nuff money in de box; an' Brer Sim said if dey ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... pipes, indolence and beer! The atmosphere is impregnated with it, the dust sifts it into your clothes and hair, the sunlight filters it through your brain, the stray snatches of music now and then beat it rhythmically into your mind. There are some who work, yes, and a few places outside of the saloons that seem to be animated with a business motive. There are even some who push their way ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... he could take care of himself. Even his masters admitted that, when they weren't carping at him for his daydreaming. Take that model of a spaceship they had brought to school one day, with a retired astrogator to explain to the pupils how the thing was run, and how it avoided stray meteors. He had sat down at the controls, and even the astrogator had been surprised at how confidently he took over the role of pilot, how he got the idea ...
— Runaway • William Morrison
... across that end of the conservatory without a moment's hesitation, stopped before the opposite stand, and stretched out his hand to place it upon a pot, about whose contents it began to stray, was withdrawn, extended again, and then wandered to the pots on either side; but only to be finally withdrawn, the poor fellow looking puzzled, and Mrs Mostyn smiled, nodded, and placing her lips close to the bailiff's ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... disappeared, and Ken sat down, with his back against the bluff. He had had a bad shake up, and was glad of a few moments' rest. He was quite safe where he was, for the bluff protected him from stray Turkish bullets. ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... its glory, the weekly glory of a Sydney Saturday night, of the one day in the week when the poor man's wife has a few shillings and when the poor caterer for the poor man's wants gleans in the profit field after the stray ears of corn that escape the machine-reaping of retail capitalism. It was filled by a crushing, hustling, pushing mass of humans, some buying, more bartering, most swept aimlessly along in the living currents that moved ceaselessly to and fro. In one ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... world. You can't fail to have it. You have a real husband as I have a real wife. Let us thank heaven we have escaped from the moon vapour of the Ideal, in which we poor humans are apt to lose our way and stray God knows whither. I am sending you a real ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... surprised by the enemy, and a sharp conflict began. I took poor Allan's note-book and watch, and, remembering his mother, I managed to cut off a lock of his curly hair; but, before I had gone far, I myself was struck by a stray shot, and knew nothing more until I awoke in a border hospital two months afterwards, pale and weak, the very shadow of my former self. As memory came back, I thought of the captain. The relics had been preserved, and, as soon as I was able, I sent them ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... breakfast, thanks to the strenuous imitation of diagrams, were it not that, in addition to being generally in a hurry, he is preoccupied. He is preoccupied by the sense of doom, by the sense that he has set out on the appointed path and dare not stray from it. The train or the tram-car or the automobile (same thing) is waiting for him, irrevocable, undeniable, inevitable. He wrenches himself away. He goes forth to his fate, as to the dentist. And just as he would enjoy his breakfast in the home, ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... the surface of the rock is crumbled a little by its action; then its own decay furnishes a very little addition to that. In favourable situations a stray oak leaf or two falls and lies there, and also decays, and by and by there is a little coating of soil or a little lodgment of it in a crevice or cavity, enough for the flying spores of some moss to take root and ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... six were foregathered from the length and breadth of the Pacific. There was a Maori from New Zealand, a Koriak tribesman from Kamchatka, two Kanakas, a stray from Ponape, and an Aleut. The six natives, Martin discovered, had all been with the ship for years, were old retainers of Captain Dabney. The four white men, and the cook, who rejoiced in the name of Charley Bo Yip, had been newly shipped ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... who lie Cast out from bliss, the days of joy come back, And all the soul with wormwood sweetness rack, So in that trance of dreadful ecstasy The vision of her girlhood glinted by:— And how the father through their garden stray'd, And, child with children, play'd, And teased the rabbit-hutch, and fed the dove Before him from above Alighting,—in his visitation sweet, Led on by little ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... the children pass many hours serving as draught animals or drivers. The bull-roarer, made by putting a thin piece of bamboo on a cord and whirling it about the head, makes a pleasing noise, and is excellent to use in frightening stray horses. Blow-guns, made out of bamboo or the hollow tubes of plants, vie in popularity with a pop-gun of similar construction. A wad of leaves is driven through with a plunger, and gives a sharp report, ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... himself down at full length on the ground, he engaged in the interesting diversion of making faces at a Korak baby. Viushin's time, as soon as his eyes recovered a little from the effects of the smoke, was about equally divided between preparations for our evening meal, and revengeful blows at the stray dogs which ventured in his vicinity; while the Major, who was probably the most usefully employed member of the party, negotiated for the exclusive possession of a polog. The temperature of a Korak tent in winter seldom ranges above 20 deg. or 25 deg. Fahr., ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... is apt to be so refreshing!—But believe me, Quita, the most perfect marriage is not quite perfect till it becomes 'the trio perfect,' three persons and one love. That's not fantastic idealism but simple fact. Besides," she hesitated and caressed a stray tendril of Quita's hair, "doesn't it seem to you a bigger thing, on the whole, to make men and women to the best of one's power, than to make books ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... on a hen sitting on her nest. He came nearer, she took alarm and ran away, not clucking, but cackling loudly. There were a dozen eggs of two different styles, all bright and clean, and the hen's comb was bright red. Yan knew hens. This was easy to read: Two stray hens laying in one nest, and neither ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... desirable; and if they were only used on the side and in the service of virtue and religion, if they were contrived and kept up by the guardians and instructors of youth, instead of by those whose interest it is to demoralize and destroy, young people would have no temptation to stray into ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... pull up the ladder in case a stray puddin'-thief happens to be prowling around. If a friend calls to have a quiet chat, or to join in a sing-song round the fire, they let ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... Attack, though both are simply developments of the one idea of concentration. It is unfortunate for us that Nelson, like most men of action, reveals his reasoning processes, not in ordered discussion, but by stray gleams of expression, too often unrecorded, from which we can infer only the general tenor of his thought. It is in the chance phrase, transmitted by Stewart, coupled with the change of object, so definitely announced in the second instance,—the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... on the subject, were equally anxious as to whether the horses would face it; but the moment their heads came round, whether only that it was another turn with its fresh hope, or that the wind brought some stray odour of hay or oats to their wide nostrils, I cannot tell, but finding the ground tolerably clear, they took to it with a will, and tore up with the last efforts of all but exhausted strength, Cosmo and Aggie running along beside them, and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... a kiss. The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened by her indulgence, I threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and glossy curls which realized my daydreams of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... glittered in the sun. He knew well what he meant to do with them when the pile grew large enough; but its growth was a very slow one, and required much self-denial on Geordie's part, seeing that the component parts of each shilling were generally gathered in a stray penny now and then, which he earned by holding a market-going farmer's cob; and if, by a rare chance, a sixpence happened to be the unexpected result of one such service, then Geordie felt that he was really getting rich, ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... to give you 'Lucinda.' Having never met her I feel able to say nothing good about her and I call the company present to witness that I shall say nothing bad either. I gather from what I have had a stray chance of picking up that Lucinda is all that she should be, and nothing frisque. The latter quality is too bad, but it's not my fault. Therefore, I say again 'Lucinda', and here's to her very good health. May she never regret that ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... clouds of dawn,— The clouds, whose snow-white canopy is spread Athwart, yet hiding not, at intervals, The azure beauty of the summer sky; And, at far distance heard, a bodiless note Pours down, as if from cherub stray'd from Heaven! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... replied, his eyes blazing with scorn. 'You, who were truth itself have you so well learned to lie? Talk on. Tell me that he held you here perforce, and that you passed the days and the nights in weeping. Have I not heard of your smiles and your contentment? Whither did you stray this morning? Did you go into the wood to say ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing |
