"Red flag" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is decided by the two Captains to dispense with the aid of the telephone proper, and communicate by bell alone. Captain Wagstaffe's tall figure strides back across the heather; the red flag on the butts flutters down; and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... how large a part has been played in history by revolutionary and political songs it is both lamentable and strange that at the present time only one of the numerous political faiths has a hymn of its own—"The Red Flag." The author of the words owes a good deal, I should say, to the author of "Rule Britannia," though I am inclined to think he has gone one better. The tune is that gentle old tune which we used ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... would be the special train, come through from the other coast; the prize-fight special,—and the last section, at that. There was no man up the tracks with a red flag to guard against a pile-up. And they also looked bored; they must have been standing there quite a while. And hot. So, you see, his plight was not so bad! He didn't have to breathe that air and sit in a slippery red-plush seat. ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... plundering the shipping. The Bay colony sent out an armed sloop, the Mary (Samuel Pease, commander), in October of that year, to attempt to capture Hawkins. Pease found the pirate in Buzzard's Bay. Hawkins ran up a red flag and a furious engagement began. The crew of the Mary at last boarded the pirates, and the captain, Pease, was so severely wounded that ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... true. Sir Gervaise knows better; and then he understands what the Caesar is; and what she can do, and has done. But it's a very different matter with his youngsters, who fancy because they carry a red flag at the fore, they are so many Blakes and Howards, themselves. There's Jack Oldcastle, now; he's always talking of our reefers as if there was no sea-blood in our veins, and that just because his own father happened to be a captain—a commodore, he says, because he happened once to have three ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... with a vague presentiment that he would find the lovers there. And, indeed, he at last caught sight of his cousin on the seat where she was waiting for Silvere. Seeing her wrapped in her long pelisse, with the red flag at her side, resting against a market pillar, he began to sneer and deride her in foul language. The girl, thunderstruck at seeing him, was unable to speak. She wept beneath his abuse, and whist ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... shall [see] the general engage, or [he] shall make a sign by shooting off two guns and putting a red flag on the fore topmast-head, that each ship shall take the best advantage they can to engage with the enemy ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... wounded. The Texans had not perished unavenged. The sun rose in the skies until it was an hour high. In the fort all was still; but the waters of the aqueduct surrounding resembled in their crimson hue the red flag of death flying in the town. The Alamo was the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... splendid building, one of the most commodious institutions of the kind in the world. There the arrival of each mail from England is announced by the hoisting of a large red flag, with ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... as the doctor read aloud to us some of these items, "what part did the followers of the red flag take in the establishment of the new order of things? They were making considerable noise the ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... know the ship. As she goes by, shell set all her flags a-flying, and, if Father isn't at home, Mother will send up our great red flag on the garden pole. Oh dear! I could nearly cry for joy to ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... porters, I threaded my way at a snail's pace through the dense crowd of waiting passengers, swarthy-faced sons of Italy, apparently bound for the steerage. The great gray bulk of the Re d'Italia loomed before me, floating proudly at her stern the green, white, and red flag ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... "The red flag is over Langlois' cabin!" he cried. "I fired my rifle and shouted. There is no life! Langlois ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... busy at home to have time for neighborly visits, and went around the block rather than pass a door where he saw the doctor's gig. When one has a family, one owes it duties that should not be neglected. Mrs. Upjohn declared the panic to be ridiculous. She shouldn't be scared away by a red flag, like a crow from a cornfield. There had never been a case of typhoid known in Joppa, and places were like people, they never broke out with diseases that were not already in their constitutions. It was ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... brother, escapes to Coblentz. July 9. M. de Cazeles resigns his place as a deputy. 10. The national guards ordered to the frontiers. 11. The body of Voltaire transferred to the Pantheon. 14. Grand celebration of the anniversary of this day. 17. Insurrection in the Champ de Mars—the red flag (the signal of danger) continues flying a long time. Disorders in the Pays-de-Caux, and at Brie-Compte-Robert. 23. Violent decree against emigrant nobles. The assembly proceeds rigorously against those ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... as to command the defiles near Sellasia. Philopoemen was among the cavalry that day with his fellow-citizens, and next to him were posted the Illyrians, numerous and warlike, who covered the flank of the allies. Their orders were to remain in reserve until they saw a red flag raised upon a pike by king Antigonus on the other wing. The generals of the allies attacked the Lacedaemonians with the Illyrian troops, but Eukleides, the brother of Kleomenes, perceiving that by this movement the foot were completely severed from ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... arranges and waves his scarlet flag, and walks up to the obstinate animal, perhaps flicks him in the nostrils with his pocket-handkerchief and calls him vacca (cow)! At last, seemingly out of good nature, the bull rushes at the red flag, has the highly decorated dart stuck between his shoulders, by the daring espada who may perform some other feat, listens to the applause, and laughs to himself when he hears the bugle-call and sees the trained oxen rush in with their long bells and their attendant herdsmen, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... English fleet came back in July Champlain had a ragamuffin, half-starved retinue of precisely sixteen men. Yet he haggled for such terms that the English promised to convey the prisoners to France. On July 20, for the first time in history, the red flag of England blew to the winds above the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... The sound was heard for the third time, and this time more plainly. The children answered again by shouting loudly. After some time, they also recognized that it was no flame they had seen but a red flag which was being swung. At the same time the shepherd's horn resounded closer to them and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... helped to keep down his figure. When the matter, however, had in our presence to be referred to with nods and pronouns, with significant hiatuses and interpolations in the French tongue, then the red flag was flown, the storm-cone hoisted, and by a studious pretence of inattention we were not long in plucking out the ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... at Semyonov about it. "We all know you're a very brave man," she cried. "But you're not so brave as Mr." And Semyonov, because he knew that Trenchard was a fool and that he himself was not, was vexed, as a bull is vexed by a red flag. These things made him think a great deal about Trenchard. I have seen him watching him with angry and puzzled gaze as though he would satisfy himself why this gnat of a man ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... a quarter of a minute. Then there came on a little twitching at the corners of the mouth. Then. the blue eyes began to shine with a kind of veiled glimmer. Then the blood came up into her cheeks with a great rush, as if the heart had sent up a herald with a red flag from the citadel to know what was going on at the outworks. The message that went back was of discomfiture and capitulation. Poor Susan was overcome, and gave herself up to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... There was a red flag on that car and I used it for an apron. Some chef, hey? The heating stove was in the little ticket office and I just passed the tin cups out through the window, and each time I called "one coffee" and slapped it down on the counter. I guess I'll be a waiter ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Republic. Desmoulin's Attack on La Fayette. Petitions of the People. Robespierre's Popularity. Popular Meeting in the Champ de Mars. Absence of the Ringleaders. "The Altar of the Country." The Remarkable Signatures. Advance of the National Guard, preceded by the Red Flag. Fearful Massacre. The Day after. The Jacobins take Courage. Schisms in the Clubs. Attempts of Desmoulins and Petion to restore Unity. Malouet's Plan for amending the Constitution. Power of the Assembly. The New Men. Condorcet. Danton. Brissot ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... were to be extended to all ships and fleets whatsoever, would satisfy those fresh mutineers. It was not so. On the 20th of May, many of the ships lying at the Nore, and soon afterwards nearly all those belonging to the North Sea fleet, hoisted the red flag, chose two delegates from every ship, and elected a president, who styled himself "President of the floating republic." The demands made by these mutineers were a greater freedom of absence from ships ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... environed it round on every side. But first, for two days together, they hung out the white flag to give the townsfolk time to consider; but they, as if they were unconcerned, made no reply to this favourable signal, so they then set the red flag upon the mount called ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... fluttering red flag with the white centre. Some of them had taken more or less interest in sending and receiving messages; but the boy in the tree proved too fast for any of them to follow. They suspected that it was Jud Elderkin himself; for outside of Paul and Jack, he was the best hand ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... The blood-red flag on this donjon was, at the era engaging us, the disenchanter of the Greeks; insomuch that in passing the Sweet Waters of Asia they hugged the opposite shore of the Bosphorus, crossing themselves and muttering ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... foremost boat flew the red flag of England. As it drew near, cheer after cheer broke from the excited garrison, while from the rampart above them a loud-voiced cannon boomed forth it assurance that the fort still ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... pioneered America, but, when all is said, was a most imprudent navigator. His Life is not the kind of thing one would like to put into the hands of young people; rather, one would do one's utmost to keep it from their knowledge, as a red flag of adventure and disintegrating influence in life. The time would fail me if I were to recite all the big names in history whose exploits are perfectly irrational and even shocking, to the business ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a vessel or vessels concealed in one or other of the numerous creeks which we knew to exist in our immediate vicinity. Accordingly, on the reappearance of the second lieutenant on deck, I stepped up to him and directed his attention to the suspicious-looking red flag, and mentioned my surmises as ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... believe in revolutions that aren't bloody," said Josephine. "Wouldn't I love it! I'd go in front with a red flag." ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... be sure, to see Angelina at the grammar-school examination, multiplying mentally 351,426 by 236,145, and announcing the result in two minutes and thirteen seconds as 82,987,492,770! I remember how you stood trembling as she staggered under the monstrous load, and how your cheek hung out the red flag of parental exultation when she can out safe. But when I looked at her colorless visage, sharp features, and shiny consumptive skin, I groaned inwardly. It seemed as if that crop of figures, like the innumerable florets of the whiteweed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... and looked at the fort. A great red flag on which was the word T-E-X-A-S floated from its battlements, and there were two men standing on its roof, with ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... those dogs have caught her, [3]the red flag of the people will float on a barricade in[3] every street till we find her! It was foolish of her to go to the Grand Duke's ball. I told her so, but she said she wanted to see the Czar and all his cursed brood face ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... And the little girl showed everything to the boy, and the elder-tree continued to breathe forth sweet perfume, while the red flag with the white cross was streaming in the wind; it was the flag under which the old sailor had served. The boy became a youth; he was to go out into the wide world, far away to the countries where the coffee ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... emancipation had begun to be talked about by some politicians, and that the sullen roar of the majority of Englishmen, at the bare idea of it, was surging in the distance with ominous threatenings; the very mention of such a measure before the squire was, as Osborne well knew, like shaking a red flag before a bull. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and his nine-hundred-dollar piano are soon parted. The red flag of the auctioneer announces its transfer to a drawing-room frequented by persons capable of enjoying the refined pleasures. Bright and joyous is the scene, about half past nine in the evening, when, by turns, the ladies try over their newest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... exasperating; but when the explosions of the cartridges commence the animal becomes frantic. As he makes a lunge towards one horseman, another runs a spear into him. He turns towards his last tormentor when a man on foot holds out a red flag; the bull rushes for this and is allowed to take it on his horns. The flag drops and covers the eyes of the animal so that he is at a loss what to do; it is jerked from him and the torment is renewed. When the animal is worked into an uncontrollable frenzy, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... been hovering on the coast or his armies trampling on our soil, the people would probably have committed their defence to that same direful conqueror who had wrought their own calamity and would permit no interference with his sway. This conqueror had a symbol of his triumphs: it was a blood-red flag that fluttered in the tainted air over the door of every dwelling into ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, Better the rule of One, whom all obey, Than to let clamorous demagogues betray Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, Or Murder with his silent ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... in. A towel is tied about his head with a big blotch of red ink over his temple. He carries a broom as a flagstaff to which a red bandanna handkerchief is attached as a red flag.] ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... he answered; "I don't like the look of things. You must know, Jack, that the ships at the Nore have again hoisted the red flag, and the mutineers swear that they'll make every ship of the fleet join them. What they now want, I don't know. They have got all the chief grievances redressed, and everything which reasonable men could ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... exclusively striving to alarm his hearers. He made all possible use of the terror which had reigned in Paris, and figuratively brandished the corpse of the poor little victim, the pretty errand girl, as if it were a blood-red flag, before pointing to the pale hand, preserved in spirits of wine, with a gesture of compassionate horror which sent a shudder through his audience. And he ended, as he had begun, by inspiriting the jurors, and telling them ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... walk again, after my wounds were healed, I went into one of the tents distinguished by a red flag, having been told that these were coffee-houses. Whilst I was drinking coffee I heard a stranger near me complaining that he had not been able to recover a valuable ring he had lost, although he had caused his loss to be published for three days by the public crier, offering a reward of two ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... a bad description," said the other, laughing heartily again. "Hullo, though, they are going to fire now! Don't you see they've just run up a red flag on that spar we have forward as an apology ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... standing close to me and waving the red flag he carried—the emblem of the Terror. "Down with the Czar! Kill the vermin he sends to us! Long live freedom! Kill them!" he shrieked. "They have killed your wives and daughters. Men of Ostrog, remember your duty to-day. Set an example to Russia. Do not ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... whose red flag fluttered toward the sky, there came a magnificent Brazilian three-master; it was perfectly white and wonderfully clean and shining. I saluted it, I hardly know why, except that the sight of the vessel gave me ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... at the fold; one of the mastiffs was kept at the men's hut, while the other's kennel was placed by the house; the retrievers, as usual, sleeping in-doors. A flagstaff was erected upon the lookout, with a red flag in readiness to be run up to summon those who might be away on the plain, and a gun was kept loaded to call attention to the signal. The boys, when they went out for their rides, carried their carbines instead of their guns. The girls fulfilled the duties ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... ruin to their enterprise and possibly death to themselves. They waited with intense anxiety, each minute of delay seeming to stretch almost into an hour. The next train came. They watched it pass with hopeful eyes. Ah! upon its rear floated that fatal red flag, the crimson emblem of death, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Bad words did not venture to pass the lips. Oaths rumbled harmlessly behind teeth. And Matts Wik, the shoemaker, the terrible blasphemer, stood now as standard-bearer by the platform. He, too, was one of the believers. The red flag caressed his ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... lowest and inmost leaves next the bole are, as usual, of the most delicate yellow and green, like the complexion of young men brought up in the house. There is an auction on the Common to-day, but its red flag is hard to be discerned amid this ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... outward and visible signs of change were many, what though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others-somewhat faded-floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms and eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the fierce gorodovoye (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen militia patrolled the ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... "the brigade hospitals are short handed. We need experienced nurses badly." And he pointed across the fields toward a hillside where a group of farm-houses and barns stood. A red flag napped darkly against the sky from the cupola ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... themselves into two parties, called Heike and Genji. These names represent two great old rival clans of the feudal days. Every Heike carries a red flag on his back, every Genji a white one. Each combatant also wears a helmet, consisting of a kind of earthenware pot. The combat is joined, and the small warriors hack at each other with bamboo swords. A well-directed blow will dash to pieces the earthenware ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Japan • John Finnemore
... 1793, a.m. Hazy weather. Squadron in company. Saw a strange ship to the southward, who hoisted an Union Jack at the main topmast head and a red flag at the fore. The Phoenix being ahead made the private signal, but the stranger not answering she made the signal for an enemy. We immediately made the general signal to chase. At 10 the Phoenix and Latona fired a few shots at her, upon which ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... The Hotel of Foreign Affairs, then the residence of M. Guizot, was in the Rue de Choiseul. At the head of that street a well-armed detachment broke off from one of the processions, and, bearing with them the blood-red flag of insurrection, advanced ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Madeira were promptly disposed of; and when (the horses being once more put to) they resumed their seats, with the case-bottle full of the best substitute for milk-punch that could be procured on so short a notice, the key-bugle sounded, and the red flag waved, without the sightest ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... the beach we landed on, curiously painted. Our cacique seemed to understand but little of their language, and it sounded to us very different from what we had heard before. However, they made us comprehend that a ship had been upon the coast not far from where we then were, and that she had a red flag: This we understood some time after to have been the Anne pink, whose adventures are particularly related in Lord Anson's Voyage; and we passed through the very harbour she ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... pulled a red flag. It seemed that he carried it there for just such emergencies. He tied it to his pick handle, and stuck the latter in the track some distance away ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... joined in the great movement initiated by Karl Marx, it is absolutely certain that neither the Englishman nor the American could have given you the slightest notion as to who these individuals were. Thrones might be tottering all over Europe; the red flag might wave in a score of cities—what would all this signify, so long as Britannia ruled the waves, while Columbia's feathered emblem shrieked defiance three ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... fine ruby red; a pleasant contrast to the grey, sun-dried woodwork. Just as we clear our eyes off her, from seaward behind us comes an Arab dhow, a ship from the past, surging along finely! An out-and-out pirate, you can tell at a glance, even though she does fly a square red flag astern with a white edge. Her bows are viking or saucer-shaped, prettier than the usual fiddle-bow we see here, and her high bulwarks on her long sloping quarter deck you feel must conceal brass guns. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... nonplused, gave his permission; I quickly found my paper, where I had carefully omitted any identification mark except my roll call number. Unwarned by the "red flag" of my name, the instructor had given a high rating to my answers even though they were ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the first day of the Provisional Government, a mob having demanded that the red flag of Communism should be substituted for the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Although the Tarapai sheriff knew nothing about wireless telegraphy, he did understand some of the methods which savage tribes in many countries use in order to send news hundreds of miles; sometimes by a chain of drums stationed on the hill tops miles apart; or it may be by the waving of a red flag. ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... the hillside, surrounded by the clouds, the fair seems isolated and afar off. A great cart-horse is being trotted out before the little street of booths to make him show his paces; they flourish the first thing at hand—a pole with a red flag at the end—and the huge frightened animal plunges hither and thither in clumsy terror. You must look out for yourself and keep an eye over your shoulder, except among ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... confined in his cell, attracted considerable attention, by his maniac shouts and singing. At one time holding up a piece of blanket, stained with Boyga's blood, he gave utterance to his ravings in a sort of recitative, the burden of which was—"This is the red flag my companions ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... Frederic were fairly pitted against each other. It was Greek meeting Greek. The queen immediately recalled the army from Alsace, and in person repaired to Presburg, where she summoned a diet of the Hungarian nobles. In accordance with an ancient custom, a blood-red flag waved from all the castles in the kingdom, summoning the people to a levy en masse, or, as it was then called, to a general insurrection. An army of nearly eighty thousand men was almost instantly raised. A cotemporary historian, ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... heirloom, in fact, my dear," the old lady chuckled. "You must leave it in fee to your eldest girl." She pinched May's white arm and watched the colour flood her face. "Well, well, what have I said to make you shake out the red flag? Ain't there going to be any daughters—only boys, eh? Good gracious, look at her blushing again all over her blushes! What—can't I say that either? Mercy me—when my children beg me to have all those gods and goddesses painted out ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton |
