"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Ha, ha! Reprieve, I call it, because if the skipper had gone on with his silly argument much longer he would have had to be knocked out of the way. I could hardly hold myself in on account of the precious minutes. However, his guardian angel ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the wake of the Lady Fani. Hoddan picked up his bag and followed. This, he considered darkly, was in the nature of a reprieve only. And if those three spaceships overhead did come ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... is to die before he can reveal to the king the hiding-place of a vast treasure which would enable him to outwit the plots of some rebels who are even now conspiring to kill him. The king, hearing this, immediately orders a reprieve, and, questioning the Fox in secret, learns that the conspirators are Brown the Bear, Isegrim the Wolf, and others. To reward the Fox for saving her husband's life, the queen now obtains his pardon, which Noble grants in exchange ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... overlooking the Castle Green, Raleigh saw Markham, a very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey led out, he could see his face light up with a gleam ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... not all Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall? Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart An hour's importance to the poor man's heart. Thither no more the peasant shall repair To sweet oblivion of his daily care; No more the farmer's news, the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... stood, and told her errand. She had come across the ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. Prisoners often died without reprieve, he seemed to be aware. This cold civility warmed the petitioner's speech. Her mother would have been satisfied, Madeline Desperiers would have been overwhelmed with grief and horror, to have heard this young girl's testimony in regard to prison-life. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... you are not an aristocrat," cried Hughes from beside the cart, "and I will move heaven and earth to reprieve you." ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... true—which may permit us to gag you and tie you securely in this room, where you will be left in peace for at least forty-eight hours, after which time a telegram can be despatched to any address you choose to supply us with. But really, owing to unforeseen circumstances, this chance of a reprieve is remote. It wholly depends upon the arrival, or otherwise, at this house, of a gentleman whom we expect ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... like the cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were silent ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... two individuals, who swore that, before the trial, she had told them Lesurques had never had any relations with the culprits; but that he was a victim of his fatal likeness to Dubosq. These testimonies threw doubt in the minds of the magistrates, who hastened to demand a reprieve from the Directory, which, terrified at the idea of seeing an innocent man perish through a judicial error, had recourse to the Corps Lgislatif; for every other resource was exhausted. The message of the Directory to the Five Hundred was pressing; its aim was to demand a reprieve, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... off so easy," said Jack, but he did as Melville wished. But the colonel had a short reprieve. On his way to jail, a bullet from some unknown assailant pierced his temple, and Jerry Lane, the notorious road agent, died, as ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Old Peg was as a reprieve from death! The trot had almost dislocated her bones, and shaken her up like an addled egg, and the change to racing speed afforded infinite relief. She could scarcely credit her senses, and she felt a tendency to laugh again as she glanced over her shoulder. ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... I felt sure that this would prove my Manassas. I was inexpressibly relieved to discover that the problems, complicated enough to bring on a slow fever, were all unravelled; indeed, my feelings bore no small resemblance to those of a criminal at the gallows just presented with a reprieve. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... unfortunate orphan that none will own, none will regard: distress, in whatever form it appears, excites compassion, but particularly in the helpless. Whoever puts an infant into the arms of decrepit old age, passes upon it a sentence of death, and happy is that infant who finds a reprieve. The tender sprig is not likely to prosper under the influence of the tree which attracts its nurture; applies that nurture to itself, where the calls occasioned by decay are the most powerful—An old woman and a sprightly nurse, are characters ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... Here was a dreadful state of affairs, and all brought on an innocent man by those wicked piskies! There was no escape either, or hope of reprieve, for people were not so tender-hearted in those days as in these, and a man was not only sentenced to death for a trifle, but no one ever took any trouble to get ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... without difficulty, the presence of the chief administrator of justice, who, having read the memorial and the note I had affixed to it, said, "That is sufficient, sir; have the goodness to assure madame la comtesse du Barry, my cousin, that the reprieve she desires is already granted; and as my fair relation appears to fear trusting implicitly to my personal friendship and humanity, I will set her mind at rest by putting you in possession of the legal forms requisite for the ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Staines was nearly dressed; at a quarter past ten she demanded ten minutes; at half-past ten she sought a reprieve; at a quarter to eleven, being assured that the street was full of carriages, which had put down at Mrs. Lucas's, she consented to emerge; and in a minute they ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... hear such a result when first the old woman began her tale. I now felt like one who had received his reprieve after condemnation. Instead of the mysteries, disguises, scaling of walls and windows, drawn scimitars, and bloody wounds attendant on a Turkish intrigue, I saw nothing before me but riches, ease, and repose from all future care. I blessed my star; in ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... may sing himself hoarse with his prayer to fall like a soldier, but when the bullets begin to wail around him, it is a thousand to one that he will duck his head. A man may be reasonably convinced that, since he must die some day, and his reprieve cannot be extended long, it is best to die in battle and shoot full-blooded into the spiritual land; nevertheless, if the shadow of a rock gives some shelter from the guns, he will crawl behind it. A few years ago there was a great Oxford philosopher who, after lecturing ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... if he still realized the situation. He believed that he did. It was merely a matter of human nature. Death, he had supposed, was a fixed and foregone thing. He had believed that only a few hours of life were left for him. And now it was given back to him, for months at least. It was a glorious reprieve, and— ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... and dejectedly drew near the house, they saw a horse and a farm wagon at the door, and through the window they discovered that Uncle and Aunt Kittredge, Clorinda, and Cyrus were all in the kitchen. There was a visitor. Here was at least a slight reprieve. They went around through the woodshed; it seemed advisable to approach Aunt Kittredge with caution, even in the presence ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. Night would ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... his body out of a cabin-window. The transom was high, and the man very heavy; so I was a good while in dragging the load up to the necessary height. Just as I got it there, the fellow gave a groan, and I felt a relief that I had never before experienced. It seemed to me like a reprieve from ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... fear in his heart and a red-faced woman on his arm he approached the box-office. "Not a seat left," sounded to his hen-pecked ears like the concluding words of the black-robed judge: "and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul." But a reprieve came, for one of the aforesaid beacon lights of hope rushed forward, saying: "I have two good seats, not far back, and only ten apiece." And the gentleman with fear in his heart and the red-faced woman on his arm ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... is nonsense to expect any aid from Weyler, who always staunchly supports his lieutenants, whether right or wrong, and in the second place, we do not want a reprieve. We've got to get them clean away from here before they will be safe—clean off the blooming island. I'll take them back to the old Mariella—that's the safest place for them. I wish to goodness ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... subject. I was sick of thinking. Like the wretch who long has tossed upon the thorny bed of pain, I only wanted to repair my vigour lost and breathe and walk again. To be on horseback, galloping over the green pampas, in sun and wind. For after all it was only a reprieve, not a commutation of sentence—though one of a kind unknown in the Courts, in which the condemned man is allowed out on bail. My pardon was not received until a few years later. I returned with a new wonderful ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... with the march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... came again in this instance to the front. The moral which he drew from his doubts and fears was that "the stewardship we are about to resign is not a reprieve from the responsibilities of the future." And in obedience to this conviction he accepted, with fourteen of his old colleagues, membership in the board of education, of which he served for two years as vice-president, resigning in January, 1855, at which time he had ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... Forgiveness. — N. forgiveness, pardon, condonation, grace, remission, absolution, amnesty, oblivion; indulgence; reprieve. conciliation; reconcilement; reconciliation &c. (pacification) 723; propitiation. excuse, exoneration, quittance, release, indemnity; bill of indemnity, act of indemnity, covenant of indemnity, deed of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... "Sure. Okay. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and report success instead of failure. "But what's going on in Miami?" ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a gig. Consequently it might be though that there was no romance in Cowfold. There could not be a greater mistake. The history of every boy or girl of ordinary make is one of robbery, murder, imprisonment, death sentence, filing of chains, scaling of prison walls, recapture, scaffold, reprieve, poison, and pistols; the difference between such a history and that in the authorised versions being merely circumstantial. The garden of Eden, the murder of Cain, the deluge, the salvation of Noah, the exodus from Egypt, David and Bathsheba, with ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... his administrative duties, the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment. A pardon fully exempts the individual from the punishment imposed upon him by law; a reprieve, on the other hand, is simply a temporary suspension of the ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... returned Carnegie, as the others exchanged greetings, the captain appearing in a duck coat and trousers which quite transformed him, "but found a day's reprieve awaiting me, which has lengthened out, as my men have had to undergo some formalities of registration here. I have been too busy to see you sooner, though it was hard to keep away. I met old Quint on the street to-day, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... another of robbing the United States mail, when the mail was intercepted with a view of capturing letters from the Federal officers in the western counties to the authorities at the capital. In both instances President Washington granted first a reprieve, then a pardon. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... to this young man: 'We will try, but it will be hard work. One oughtn't to begin dancing at twenty-eight.' I limbered him up as best I could. I had only two weeks to do it in. I begged him to put off his departure, to obtain a reprieve of three or four months—I could have made something of him. He would not. He went without knowing anything. I often think of him. He will represent us out there; he will represent us very badly; he will not ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... not declare war without the consent of the chambers; but through the conduct of foreign affairs he may at any time, very much as may the President of the United States, create a situation by which war will be rendered inevitable. Finally, the President is vested with the powers of pardon and reprieve, although amnesty may ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... wishing them a good-morning, and blithe to see their backs. Indeed, a condemned thief with the rope about his neck, and the white cowl tied over his eyes, to say nothing of his hands yerked together behind his back, and on the nick of being thrown over, could not have been more thankful for a reprieve than I was, at the same blessed moment. It was like Adam seeing the deil's rear marching out of Paradise, if one may be allowed to think ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... light-hearted in comparison to their fellow travellers, because they had a short reprieve before they would have to say good-bye. But Ruth sat looking about her, at the sad-eyed girls and women who had just parted from their husbands and sons and sweethearts, and who were most of them weeping, and felt anew the great burden of the universal sorrow upon her. She wondered ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... as a reprieve. But to Callandar it was but a lengthening out of torture. Man's love must always, in its essence, be different from woman's; though many women seem incapable of recognising this fact. To Esther, now that she had put aside her first half-understood glimpse of passion, it was sweet ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... efforts were in vain, that she herself would be publicly disgraced, and that Leucha would naturally never speak to her again. These things might come to pass at once. As it was, they did come to pass a little later on, but on this special Saturday there was a slight reprieve both ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... far-fetched, impossible tangles of sex. They enjoyed it. Ruth enjoyed it. That she could do so is wonderful, perhaps, but then, so many human capabilities are wonderful! Men about to be hanged eat a hearty meal with relish.... How much more might Ruth find pleasure since she had been granted a reprieve! ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... as he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, but ah, Lord! how full of love—near to his! If she could! ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... apparently sincere and hearty interest towards her. Although her uncle had forborne to trouble her upon that hateful subject, after he had first proposed it, she knew his disposition too well to regard the reprieve as an abandonment of his ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the reprieve would be but for a short time, and though I had no wish to die, I must confess that I rather wished the ordeal over and the peace ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... her head upon listening to her own acts, for the first time appreciating their enormity and recognizing the justice of their tremendous punishment. But at the same time she was relying upon a good-natured reprieve in exchange for all which she had revealed, upon a gallant clemency ... because ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... grey goose by her sleeve, And said: "Madam Grey Goose, by your leave I'll take you away without reprieve, And carry ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... the wicked doers; and thou shalt surely find them of all men the most covetous of life, even more than the idolaters: one of them would desire his life to be prolonged a thousand years, but none shall reprieve himself from punishment, that his life may be prolonged: God seeth that which they do. Say, Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel (for he hath caused the Koran to descend on thy heart, by the permission of God, confirming that which was before revealed, a direction, and good tidings to the faithful); ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... reprieve to one about to be executed. I could only weep and thank God, once more believing in my Father in heaven. But it was a humbling thought, that, if he had not thus helped me, I might have ceased to believe in him. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... he, I have made many Errands hither, but 'tis for your sake; for you are my chief Business, and your incomparable and Peerless Beauty, has made that Impression in my heart as will put a sudden Period to my Life unless your Compassion will grant me a Reprieve: for nothing can retrieve it, but the Enjoyment of your Love, and Beauty.—I can't believe, Sir, says she, that that poor Stock of Beauty I am Owner of, can ever produce any such fatal Effects as those you speak of. But 'tis the common Theam that you are pleas'd to entertain our ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... of January, the lieutenant-governor being chief judge.... All ... were cleared, saving three.... The deputy-governor signed a warrant for their speedy execution, and also of five others who were condemned at the former court.... But ... I sent a reprieve; ... the lieutenant-governor upon this occasion was enraged and filled with passionate anger, and refused to sit upon the bench at a superior court, at that time held at Charlestown; and, indeed, hath from the beginning hurried on these matters with great precipitancy, and by ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... by Germany with the resources at her disposal; but she had not won the war. She had won a respite from defeat, as she was to do again in 1916 and in 1917, and her successes enabled her to postpone the reckoning from 1916 to 1918. But it was a fatal reprieve which she only used to weave her winding-sheet; and her efforts to snatch a German peace out of the transient balance of power, which her victories had set up, involved her in that fight to a finish with civilization which made her an outcast in disgrace ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... perchance, have I done? In what way, please, have I sinned? Have I with my feet perhaps smashed your crockery? I beg of you, Mr. Cook, I entreat you, if such be the case, kindly grant the supplicant a reprieve.' ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... was the consequence of the policy adopted by him. But no sooner had the law pronounced her doom than the tide turned with startling rapidity, and a gigantic agitation was at once set on foot for a reprieve. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... of Kate's visit arrived, a letter from Professor Fraser, to the purport that if Mrs Forbes did not mind keeping Kate a little longer he would be greatly indebted to her, came to Alec like a reprieve from execution. And the little longer lengthened into the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... so well, that, after the fit had continued a decent time, she again revived, to their great satisfaction: but as to the captain, all experiments of bleeding, chafing, dropping, &c., proved ineffectual. Death, that inexorable judge, had passed sentence on him, and refused to grant him a reprieve, though two doctors who arrived, and were fee'd at one and the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... a thousand kokus of revenue, and was therefore a man of experience, acted for the others; and we grieve that he alone should suffer for all. Yet in his case we reverently admit that there can be no reprieve. For his wife and children, however, we humbly implore ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... would please, you should not know. But since that knowledge, more than death, will grieve, Know, Indamora gained you this reprieve. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... dispatched to the great square with this reprieve, and the court rose. I delayed a little in order to enter into the necessary recognizances in behalf of Noah, taking up at the same time the bonds given the previous night, for his appearance to answer to the ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... offenders out of common discretion or fear. None will shortly remain with them, but men of desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must hang without it, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... reprieve I was remanded to the custody of that young Lieutenant Tybee whom you have met and known as Falconnet's second in the duel. Interpreting his orders liberally, he suffered me to keep my own room for the night. ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... had it brought, and Julia, wheeling in the tea-cart, offered a moment's reprieve. And Ralph ate the Lady-bread-and-butter, and the little pound cakes with the nuts and white frosting which had been meant for Derry, and then he walked around the tea-cart and took her hand, ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... the detection of the plot, in 65 A. D., he, with the other chiefs of the conspiracy, was arrested. For long he denied his complicity; at last, perhaps on the threat or application of torture, his nerve failed him; he descended to grovelling entreaties, and to win himself a reprieve accused his innocent mother, Acilia, of complicity in the plot.[257] His conduct does not admit of excuse. But it is not for the plain, matter-of-fact man to pass judgement lightly on the weakness of a highly-strung, nervous, artistic ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... suppose, for he believed that to solidify a quicksand was impossible. The effect on him was so great that he was mentally prostrated, and although the company generously and justly relieved him from his engagement, the reprieve came too late, for he died. It then came to be a question whether or not the tunnel should be abandoned. Many advised that it should. At this juncture Mr Robert Stephenson, son of the great George, came forward and undertook the work. He placed his chief dependence ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... to go back, however, and would have done so when vacation came; but a classmate invited him to his home, and there he went, glad of the reprieve from an embarrassing, and, as it seemed to him now, an undignified conflict with a civilian. But the surrender brought its ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... not assault me! You dare not torture me! You must hand me over to the bwana collector to be tried in court of law. Nothing else is permissible! I shall receive short sentence, that is all, with reprieve after two-thirds time on account of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must manage ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... ceased. The Indians withdrew to the base of Wheeling Hill, and the uproar of yells and musketry was replaced by a short season of quiet. It was a fortunate reprieve for the whites. Their powder was almost exhausted. Had the assault continued for an hour longer their rifles must ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... was looked upon as a reprieve, and when a traveller, expressing sympathy, suggested that "it might sicken her a bit of camp life," Jack clung to ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... scaffold which had been erected near the block fell down, and several persons were killed, and many injured; but the proceedings of the day went on. No reprieve, no thoughts of mercy ever came to shake the fortitude of the old man. At eleven, the Sheriffs of London sent to demand the prisoner's body: Lord Lovat retired for a few moments to pray; then, saying, "I am ready," he left his chamber, and descended the stairs, complaining ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... not think of going to poor Thekla for comfort, he went to his grim dreams. "I git my property all straight for Thekla, and then I quit," said he. Perhaps he gave himself a reprieve unconsciously, thinking that something might happen to save him from himself. Nothing happened. None of the "boys" came to see him, except Carl Olsen, the very stupidest man in the shop, who put Lieders beside himself fifty times ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... sake one might let him live; But the first fault was a green seed of shame, And now the flower, and deadly fruit will come With apple-time in autumn. By my life, I would they had slain him there in Edinburgh; But I reprieve him; lo the thank I get, To set the base folk muttering like smoked bees Of shame and love, and how love comes to shame, And the queen loves shame that comes of love; Yet I say nought and go about my ways, And this mad fellow that I ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... in the resurrection of Lazarus, our own happy history? Yes! happier history, for it will not then be to come forth once more, like him, into a weeping world, to renew our work and warfare, feeling that restoration to life is only but a brief reprieve, and that soon again the irrevocable sentence will and must overtake us! Not like him, going to a home still covered with the drapery of sorrow,—a few transient years and the mournful funeral tragedy to be repeated,—but ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... instant of despair! It was freedom: although they did not know into what Mystery and what Fear the act would dispatch them, it was freedom from Ray and Chan, none the less. And Ben welcomed the plan as might a prisoner, waiting in the death-cell, welcome a reprieve. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... is on the alert, and unless they shoot us without the usual twenty-four hours' reprieve, he will have Montgomery ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... was the first day. I was as thin as a rail, as white as the pillow from which I had just raised my head. Death's reprieve was written all over me. I dragged along wearily, leaning on a stick. I was thinking of her, thinking, thinking always. As I scanned the faces of the crowds that thronged the streets, I thought only of her face. Then suddenly she ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... was not shared by Pasque nor Manginot, who were now fully persuaded that the prisoner had only wanted to gain time, or some chance of escape. They thought of abandoning the search and returning to Paris, but Querelle begged so vehemently for twenty-four hours' reprieve that Manginot weakened. The third day, therefore, they explored the environs of Taverny and the borders of the forest as far as Bessancourt. Querelle now led them by chance, thinking he recognised a group of trees, ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... that your secret thoughts escaped me? No, no, I read them all! You trusted that you should still have time for repentance. I saw your artifice, knew its falsity, and rejoiced in deceiving the deceiver! You are mine beyond reprieve: I burn to possess my right, and alive you ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like a criminal whose reprieve is over, and the day of ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to be near his end when we read that the Lords ordained Mr William Spence to be taken to the Cross of Edinburgh on Wednesday next, July 22nd, and there to be hanged. Before that day arrived, however, he got a reprieve, and on August 17th he was allowed to remove to a chamber in Edinburgh because of sickness—quite unaccountable leniency at a time when the authorities did not scruple to hang dying men in their night-shirts. The Magistrates were made responsible for his safe keeping, and he undertook to re-enter ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... to have a reprieve of a few hours, though they rode in that dark shadow of death which was closing in ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... murder of De Witt made him supreme, he kept away from The Hague, but then saw that the murderers were recompensed. Eighty years later a deserter from one of our regiments was under sentence to be shot. The officer commanding the firing party, another Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, had received a reprieve, with secret orders not to produce it until the culprit stood facing the levelled muskets. At that moment, as he drew the reprieve from his pocket, his handkerchief, coming with it, fell to the ground. The soldiers took it for their signal ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... it was filled with surprise and disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed himto read had been his own reprieve. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... May 1954 meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... of Boston. Then you will, be arrested, tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happy day. You will be converted—you will be converted just as soon as every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed—and then!—Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns. This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... weariest aught, and when Ulysses' son Shall come, he will with vest and mantle fair Cloath thee, and send thee whither most thou would'st. 410 To whom Ulysses, toil-inured. I wish thee, O Eumaeus! dear to Jove As thou art dear to me, for this reprieve Vouchsafed me kind, from wand'ring and from woe! No worse condition is of mortal man Than his who wanders; for the poor man, driv'n By woe and by misfortune homeless forth, A thousand mis'ries, day by day, endures. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... the man waiting for three weeks when her answer was ready? Her stepmother she knew would soon force her answer from her, and her father would be anxious to know what had been the result of her meditations. The real period of her reprieve had been that of her absence at Cheltenham, and that period was now come to an, end. At each station as she passed them she remembered what Reginald Morton had been saying to her, and how their conversation had been ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Nobody comes near us. There's only the night left now!' moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. 'Do you think they'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves come in the night, afore now. I've known 'em come as late as five, six, and seven o'clock in the morning. Don't you think there's a good chance yet,—don't ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... and onhappy. He has such spells every little while. I mistrusted and he just as good as owned up to me that it wuz partly owin' to his bein' dressed up all the time; it wuz a dretful cross to him. He wears frocks to hum, round doin' the barn chores, and loose shues, but now of course he had no reprieve from night till mornin' from tight collars and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... of disgruntled murmurings and the booming of the drums died down in disappointment. The worshippers had been cheated of their sadistic pleasure. There was something wrong with the timing of the rite; their mysterious fire-god had granted the captives a reprieve. ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... Unbelieving of the reprieve, both the aviators stared an instant at that martial figure clad in brazen armor liberally studded with enormous diamonds and emeralds, then leaped forward with the speed of desperation, for from behind came a ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... tomorrow morning," he commanded. With a sigh of relief at the reprieve, Rainey slipped ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... strike again into his heart if he should go back to it under that coward's reprieve, and Alice—Alice ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... said kindly, and helped herself to bread and butter. Claire had a miserable conviction that her reply had had a deceptive effect, and that the shock when it came, would be all the more severe. Nevertheless, she was thankful for the reprieve; thankful to see Cecil eat sandwiches with honest enjoyment, until the last one had disappeared ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... time—a respite and reprieve— A little truce, my passion to allay, Till fortune teach my baffled love to grieve. Grant, sister, this, the latest grace I pray, And Death with interest shall the debt repay." She spake; sad Anna to the Dardan bears Her piteous ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... to sweet Life; and I shall think my self ever obliged to my dear Wife, for this kind Reprieve;—had she been cruel, I had been strangled, or hung in the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Prince had lived, or if Richard II. had inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the ecclesiastical system would have been spared the misfortune of a longer reprieve." ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... adding a foul metaphor, and turned with the others towards the press-room again. "Wait for the end of the spell, mate," said the albino over his shoulder—an afterthought. The swart man waited for the albino to precede him. Denton realised that he had a reprieve. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... 23, Chesterfield Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but secretly assisting one another, were, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my She Advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... night. When he sank into a troubled sleep he imagined he was laid by the heels and about to be shot suddenly. In some unaccountable way Jane rushed up as the soldiers were about to fire, with a reprieve. He awoke quivering with joyful excitement at being saved from sudden death. It gave him ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould |
