"Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... etaient impliques dans cette affaire. The brothers Desbouleaux were drowned by night in the Canale Orfano, pour ne point ebruiter l'affaire; and the instructions sent to the Admiral who was to drown Pierre were to fulfil his commission avec le moins de bruit possible. Accordingly that ruffian, and forty-five of his accomplices, were drowned at once sans bruit. Interrogatoire des Accuses, translated by Daru, vol. viii. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... cuirass! What a fortunate thing, dear Monsieur Chicot; and you were saying that the ruffian ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... that this affair of Lord Lufton's was ended, but it now appeared to Mark that it was not quite ended. "Tell Lufton, you know," said Sowerby, "that every bit of paper with his name has been taken up, except what that ruffian Tozer has. Tozer may have one bill, I believe,—something that was not given up when it was renewed. But I'll make my lawyer Gumption get that up. It may cost ten pounds or twenty pounds, not more. You'll remember that when you see Lufton, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... wretched inmates. Some of these have secret passages connecting them with other buildings, and are used for purposes of crime, or they have hiding places known only to the initiated, where the offender against the law may hide from the police, or where a ruffian may conceal or imprison his victim, without fear of detection. Rum, gin, whisky, and other liquors of the vilest kind, are used in profusion here. Some of these wretches never leave their dens, but remain in them "the year ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... about it, and puffed furiously at his cigar for some minutes. The eyes of the other ruffian wandered alternately from Dick Merton to myself. I knew that I was in the presence of a desperate man, that a quiver of my lip might be the signal for him to plunge a weapon into my heart, but I betrayed more self-command than ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... attend to yours and mine, too. I'm not going to have that ruffian ogling you, I know ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... to a man? I rushed in, seized the ruffian by the throat, which loosened his hold upon the weaker party, and hurling him with all my force against the ground, broke his ugly skull upon the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... and by this wealth will flow into your coffers down in San Francisco. Just now there is little disturbance, but it is bound to come. Several robberies and shootings have already taken place. There is one man whom I'd call an evil genius—a gambler, a handsome ruffian and a dead shot, so they tell me. It's rumored that he has a fancy for the little Burthen girl. Lord save her! Perhaps you know the rascal, for he hails, I understand, from San Francisco, one ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... see this ruffian at Halifax first, if you ask me." The angry color flushed his face again as he thought of the insult to which he had ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... optimism. He had been at sea, and shipwrecked on several islands in the Pacific; he had passed a rainy season at Panama, and a yellow-fever season at Vera Cruz, and had been carried far into the interior of Peru by a tidal wave during an earthquake season; he was in the Border Ruffian War of Kansas, and he clung to California till prosperity deserted her after the completion of the Pacific road. Wherever he went, he carried or found adversity; but, with a heart fed on the metaphysics of Horace Greeley, and buoyed ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... for a moment—but he, as if also surprised, drew back; I felt quite sick with sudden terror—I really thought some ruffian had broke into the house, or ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... that also will convince of or make known sin; For by the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). If thou dost call even nature itself, the light of Christ; That also doth shew, that sins are a shame, even those sins which some leap over (1Cor 11:14), and ruffian-like they will wear long hair, which nature itself forbiddeth, and is commended for the same by the apostle. The Spirit of Christ also will convince of sin. That, because these several things will convince of sin, therefore will they needs be the Spirit ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... interested professionally in seeing what it was like. He chased the flying scrap and overtook it. It was a leaf from some old history of Joan of Arc, and pictured the hard lot of the "maid" in the tower at Rouen, reviled and mistreated by her ruffian captors. There were some paragraphs of description, but the rest was ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... what seemed in the twilight a club, but which turned out eventually to be an umbrella, against the attacks of a tall, strapping fellow, in a rough frieze coat, who was endeavouring to wrest his weapon from him. A still more formidable adversary was, however, approaching in the shape of a second ruffian, who had armed himself with a thick stake out of the hedge, and was creeping cautiously up behind the shorter man, with 231the evident intention of knocking him on the head. I instantly determined to frustrate his benevolent design, nor was there much time to lose, if I wished my assistance ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... successfully. The path was steep, and numerous creepers of a tropical vegetation crossed it. In one of these the big Frenchman must have caught his foot; he stumbled, and before he could recover himself young Doull sprung like a tiger on his throat, and held him tight. The ruffian still attempted to retain ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... lay hid till he had heard all Nancy said; then he slipped out and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back to Fagin. The latter sent for Bill Sikes, knowing him to be the most brutal and bloodthirsty ruffian of all, and told ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... had been given to the Irish in these days, that they were bound to take what they could get. Lord Scroope and the Countess, had they known the priest's views on this matter, would have regarded him as an unscrupulous intriguing ruffian, prepared to destroy the happiness of a noble family by a wicked scheme. But his views of life, as judged from the other side, admitted of some excuse. As for a girl breaking her heart, he did not, perhaps, much believe in such a catastrophe. Of a sore heart a girl must ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... the ends knotted similarly about the waists of the man before me and the man behind me. Agathemer was made secure in a like fashion. When he lay down to sleep, after he had composed himself to rest, a blanket was spread over him and a burly ruffian lay down on either side of him, the edges of the blanket under them. I slept similarly guarded. On day marches Caburus kept Agathemer close to him; I was never out of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... fist in H. O.'s face, and H. O. was still holding on to the bottle we had brought out the methylated spirit in for the lamp, in case of anyone wanting tea, which they hadn't. 'If I was Jim,' said the second ruffian, for such indeed they were, when he had snatched the bottle from H. O. and smelt it, 'I'd chuck the whole show over the hedge, so I would, and you young gutter-snipes after it, ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... do an' thou hadst a bow and arrows, Guilford?" said John. "Shoot all the Papists," replied the child. "Thou bloodthirsty little ruffian!" cried Mr Underhill, yet laughing. "Nay," said John to him, "blame not the child: he doth but take mightily after a certain father of his, that I know." Whereat (said John) Mr Underhill laughed till the tears ran from ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... and earnest pleading, with such fear and distress in her lovely eyes, that I must have been more than human to resist taking her part. I was in a hot rage, as it was, and I did not hesitate an instant. I shot out with my right arm—a straight, hard blow from the shoulder that took the ruffian between the eyes. He reeled ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... electricity by rubbing), but is excited by the contemplation of evil. It is part of the marks of a good man that he kindles into wrath when he sees 'the oppressor's wrong.' If you went out hence to-night, and saw some drunken ruffian beating his wife or ill-using his child, would you not do well to be angry? And when nations have risen up, as our own nation did seventy years ago in a paroxysm of righteous indignation, and vowed that British soil should no more bear the devilish abomination ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... tongue in your head for a while," said the ruffian to himself, as he hastened towards ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... "You are a ruffian to treat me so," wept La Cibot, now released,—"me that would go through fire and water for you both! Ah! well, well, they say that that is the way with men—and true it is! There is my poor Cibot, he would not ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... and cruelly persecuted, and then to have him show the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances, will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to his doom" over a cliff a thousand ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... the tramp of heavy feet Is heard along the bloody street; Nearer and nearer yet they come With clanking arms and noiseless drum. Now whispered curses, low and deep, Around the holy temple creep; The gate is burst; a ruffian band Rush in and savagely demand, With brutal voice and oath profane, The ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... a lamentably scattered family. Another Scops owl, with one eye, lives in the eastern aviary, in Church's care. He is a charming, furious little ruffian (I am speaking of the owl, and not of Church), and perfectly ready to peck any living thing, quite irrespective of size. Where he lost his eye is a story of his own, for he was first met with but one. He sits on his perch with a furious ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... double-faced, deceitful gipsy!" I began. "Who would have thought you would be sitting, hand locked in hand, with a horrid fellow like the ruffian that was with you ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... little scarecrow out of a training-ship, for whom, because of the tender immaturity of his nerves, this display of German Ocean frightfulness was too much (before the year was out he developed into a sufficiently cheeky young ruffian), his desolate whimpering, I say, heard between the gusts of that black, savage night, was much more present to my mind and indeed to my senses than the green overcoat and the white cap of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... she was a woman of her word, and that an undrained cabbage would be the signal for the execution of her threat. From the first she had assumed despotic power over Wiggleswick, of whose influence with his master she had been absurdly jealous. But Wiggleswick, bent, hoary, deaf, crabbed, evil old ruffian that he was, like most ex-prisoners instinctively obeyed the word of command, and meekly accepted ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... ruffian fired his first shot with the revolver at his powerless victim. The captain winced slightly, and I saw the bullet had carried off part of one ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... tragic cheek is truly pale, And colder than the rude and ruffian air That howls into her ear a horrid tale Of storm and wreck, and uttermost despair, Saying, "Leander floats amid the surge, And those are dismal waves that sing ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... morality for which (it is affirmed) society is prepared to pay so horrible a price—what is it? A physical condition! A state of body, which any man can destroy! an "honour" which lies at the mercy of a ruffian! A woman raped is a woman "dishonoured." Are her "morals" then at the mercy of another person? Is "morality" not a state of mind or of will, a spiritual passion for purity, but a material, physical thing which is only hers as long as no one snatches ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... town. They say she's rich! Let's go and clean out her crib!" cried a ruffian who did not belong to Bill's party, but most likely held some ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... marvellously nimble; although Jack made a dart after him pistol in hand, meaning to wreak summary vengeance upon him, the ruffian ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... with that engaging ruffian of the feathered world, the rook. It has no more music in its voice than a tin kettle; but what jollier sound is there on a late February morning than the splendid hubbub of a rookery when the slovenly nests are being built in the naked and swaying branches of the elms? ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... strange. Your house is grown a nuisance to its neighbours, Where twice in every week, if not more frequent, A motley crowd at midnight hour assembles; Whose ruffian-like attendants in the street, Alarm the peaceful, and disturb ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... President of the United States. You shan't do it!" bellowed the blackguard, shaking his fist at Mr. Garrison. But Mr. Garrison, with that extraordinary serenity of manner which was all his own, parleyed with the ruffian, as if he was no ruffian and had no mob at his back. "You ought not to interrupt us," he remonstrated with gentle dignity. "We go upon the principle of hearing everybody. If you wish to speak, I will keep order, and you shall be heard." ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... of course, for our men have swept it clear! Forward! How the ponies enjoy a gallop! But I didn't tell you what the miserable ruffian said." ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... contribute a few sous to the fund for making cannon. When I got there it was about 8.30. The venerable Blanqui was seated at a table on the tribune; before him were two assessors. One an unwholesome citizen, with long blond hair hanging down his back, the other a most truculent-looking ruffian. The hall was nearly full; many were in blouses, the rest in uniform; about one-fifth of the audience was composed of women, who either knitted, or nourished the infants, which they held in their arms. A citizen ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... partisan leader the world ever saw, unless it were the Irishman, Sarsfield. But not only was the light of genius extinguished then, and a heroic spirit lost to earth—as kindly and as noble a heart as was ever warmed by the constant presence of generous emotions was stilled by a ruffian's bullet. ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... was instantly plain. I had been entrapped for my watch and jewellery—like many another medical man in London has been before me; doctors being always an easy prey for thieves. The ruffian shamming illness sprang from his bed fully dressed, and at the same moment two other blackguards, who had been hidden in the room, flung themselves upon me ere I could realize ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... son of a butcher or of a day-labourer. Boxing and fisticuffs were entirely forbidden among students, so that there remained nothing to a young student who wanted to escape from the insults of a young ruffian, but to call him out. As soon as a challenge was given, all abuse ceased at once, and such was the power of public opinion at the universities that not another word of insult would be uttered. In this way much mischief is prevented. Besides, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... it by a ligature. Younger drilled a hole in a man's jaw and implanted a tooth, and proved that it was not necessary to use a fresh tooth. Ottolengni mentions the case of a man who was struck by a ruffian and had his two central incisors knocked out. He searched for them, washed them in warm water, carefully washed the teeth-sockets, and gently placed the teeth back in their position, where they remained firmly attached. At the time of report, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... brave old fellow, made one dash at the ruffian as he threatened dad; and, seizing him by the throat, dashed him ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... ruffian stept into his father's place, And more than half begot him.—Mary Queen ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... one of the crew remaining on board, hastily belayed the clewline at the fife-rail, hauling it just taut enough to hold Bitts, without choking him to death. As the ruffian leaped into the boat, to which he had been assigned, Perth gave the order to shove off, and the runaways pulled with all their ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... when the door was opened and a drunken ruffian entered, I awoke from my troubled slumbers. "Hi, Dutchy, and have yez any tin?" he threatened. "Kind sir," I replied, "when I departed for the West I left all my wealth behind me." Verily, now I ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... robbery!" sniffed the young ruffian, now using that half-whining, half-sneering form of discourse peculiar alike to the vicious chevalier of Paris and his confrere of the provincial centres. Accent and slang alone distinguish between them; the argot, however, is practically ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... of heathery turf, with some red soil underneath but speak to her, or give her a cat to deal with, be it bigger than herself, and what an incarnation of affection, energy, and fury—what a fell unquenchable little ruffian. ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... ruffian grinned, and appeared to comprehend and to enjoy the equivoque. He was in no hurry to clear scores with Bertram; but leisurely pursued the boat with a truculent leer; nailed Bertram with his eye; and, when the boat was just within proper ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... existence of human governments. Denying to civil governments the right to use force, they easily deduce that family governments have no such right. They carry out the 'non-resistant' theory. To the first ruffian who would demand our purse or oust us from our house, they are to be unconditionally surrendered unless moral suasion be found sufficient to induce him to desist from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... leave the village—she, however, taking care to assure me in a whisper, that she would meet me on the following day in Syracuse. The lady was now conducted by the Committee through the mob to the sleigh. Not a word was spoken by a single ruffian in the crowd. All were silent until the driver put whip to his horse, when a general shout was sent up, as of complete and ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... neither," said Somers resolutely, as he discharged his pistol in the direction from which the voice of the grayback came; for he dared not take aim, lest the bullet of the ruffian should ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... that made them peculiarly acceptable to me; but discipline is discipline, and must be maintained, at all hazards, even when a crew has been picked up in such irregular fashion as mine had been; and I was determined to at once impress upon this Irish ruffian the fact that I was skipper of the brig, and that I intended to exact from him the respect and deference of manner due to the position. So I ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... swaggering ruffian," replied the pedlar; "it is of the other, who, for aught I know—But when go they? or wherefore ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... recognize his Duke with any real sympathy in the Angevin prince whom he saw moving along the border at the head of Brabancon mercenaries, in whose camp the old names of the Norman baronage were missing and Merchade, a Provencal ruffian, held supreme command. The purely military site that Richard selected for a new fortress with which he guarded the border showed his realization of the fact that Normandy could now only be held by force of ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... His brow darkened with anger. For a moment he lost even the superficial semblance of a gentleman, and showed himself a ruffian in ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Officer, you are a disgrace to your coat! Arrest that man, I say. I would have had the Court cleared long ago, but that I hoped that you would have arrested the ruffian if I gave him a ...
— The Tables Turned - or, Nupkins Awakened. A Socialist Interlude • William Morris
... extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse. But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that I had too much ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... in 1889, and that was, "I cannot and will not allow threats of personal violence to deter me from the regular performance of my judicial duties at the times and places fixed by law. As a judge of the highest court of the country, I should be ashamed to look any man in the face if I allowed a ruffian, by threats against my person, to keep me from holding the ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, "We'll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond)." And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. "Ah, rogue!" he ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... by a very small looking-glass, and a very large pincushion. Then the window—an unusually large window. Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me. It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian, looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking intently upward—it might be at some tall gallows at which he was going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... and legislators—titles self-assumed by men who have abolished all other titles; and who have disgraced and debased the former denomination, and under the latter have enjoined triple perjuries, and at last cannot fix on any code which should exact more forswearing. I own I am pleased that that ruffian pedant Condorcet's new constitution was too clumsy and unwieldy to go down the throats of those who have swallowed every thing else. I did but just cast my eyes on the beginning and end, and was so lucky as to observe the hypocrite's contradiction: ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... and I observed that a drawn knife glittered in one of his hands, while he grasped what appeared to be a piece of parchment in the other. His voice, when he spoke, was deep and sonorous. He said, "I am a murderer. I am a ruffian. I crouch when I walk. I step noiselessly. I know something of the Spanish Main. I can do the lost treasure business. I have charts. Am able-bodied and a good walker. Capable of haunting a large park." He looked toward me beseechingly, but before I could make a sign I was paralyzed by the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... pen of Homer (though they say he never used one), or even that of the worthy who wasted precious years in writing a Homer Burlesqued, what heroic exploits might not I immortalise! In every stupid serf and cunning ruffian there, there was a heart as brave as Ajax's own; but then they fought with sticks instead of lances, and hammered away on fustian jackets instead of brazen shields; and, therefore, poor fellows, they were beneath 'the dignity of poetry,' whatever that may mean. If one of your squeamish ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... mother with a laugh. "After the scene enacted in front of our windows the other day, when one of them had so much trouble, and suffered such awful pommelling from the drunken ruffian he took up, I am quite prepared to admit that policemen are ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... enlightened thought or beneficent action, who knew no other way to magnify his own importance than by suffocating the rights and insulting the self-respect of others. He had a protege in Argall, a disorderly ruffian who was made deputy-governor of the colony in 1617. His administration was that of a freebooter; but the feeble and dwindling colony had neither power nor spirit to do more than send a complaint to London. Lord Delaware had in the meantime sailed for Virginia, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... of the lowly ruffian's presence, Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed. He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots, however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast. Swithin's yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the ruffian skipper, "here take this and this and this!" and he distributed the contents of his revolver amongst the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... trouble with the drunken bully, slipped into the shadow of a house until he passed. As usual, there was no policeman visible, and Jentham went bellowing and storming through the quiet summer night like the dissolute ruffian he was. He was making for the country in the direction of the palace, and wondering if he intended to force his way into the house to threaten Dr Pendle, the chaplain followed immediately behind. But he was careful ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... signs of unconquered emotion he regrets, as weaknesses. He looks only for the calm purity of the human creature, in living conquests of its passions and of fate. That is idealism; but you cannot teach anyone else that preference. Take a man who likes to see and paint the gambler's rage; the hedge-ruffian's enjoyment; the debauched soldier's strife; the vicious woman's degradation;—take a man fed on the dusty picturesque of rags and guilt; talk to him of principles of beauty! make him draw what you will, how you will, he will leave the stain of himself on whatever he touches. You had ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... forgotten it. Regaining my full senses, I struck the man nearest me a blow that sent him sprawling in the dirt. A blade gleamed under the sickly light of the fish-oil lamp overhead, but a man crashed through from behind and caught the ruffian's sword-arm and flung him back ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... young man, "nothing can cure my grief; this day my dear mistress is to be sacrificed to a rich old ruffian of a husband who ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... the young man will come to himself; and let us hope that it will be a better and wiser self," said Mr. Carrington. "But what was it all about? What did that truculent young ruffian want with Rupert?" ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... a screw loose in my intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... in danger of being called upon to answer some false, some trumped-up accusation. A subscription list, nominally for a charitable purpose, for building a bridge, or repairing a road, is sent to him by a local magistrate, and woe be to him if he does not head it with a handsome sum. A ruffian may threaten to charge him with murder unless he will compromise instantly for Tls. 300; and the rich man generally prefers this course to proving his innocence at a cost of about Tls. 3000. He may be accused of some trivial disregard of prescribed ceremonies, giving ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... tires burst now ... both of them.... But who, in the devil's name, can the ruffian be?... Just let me get hold of him, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... offended. You thought I was a blackguardly ruffian who wanted to trap you into commanding a slaving craft for me, so that I could engage in that horrible trade of baying and selling my fellow-creatures; and you spoke out like a man. Here, shake hands, Captain Chubb. I honour you for your outspoken ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... weekdays, to slake his thirst for solitude amid the scenes of natural loveliness which immediately surround us. At every second step, he will find the growing charm dispelled by the voice and personal intrusion of some ruffian or party of carousing blackguards. He will seek privacy amid the densest foliage, all in vain. Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most abound—here are the temples most desecrate. With sickness of the heart the wanderer ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... supposition of being heretical to thy creed, and yet how few truly adhere to the purity of thy precepts! How few are sincere in the expression of their adoration!—nay, how limited the number of those who really understand the essence of thy doctrine! The sanguinary ruffian considers himself as zealous in the service of honor, as the high minded and courageous man who has a sword to avenge the wrongs of his country, and a heart to sympathise with the picture of human misery. All are swayed by the magic word, Honor; for even those who affect ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... under mono-mania, but pure and gentle as the babe new-born—not satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness, probably a murderer—ay, the murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian [Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge], a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the whole ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... "Thus, when the third ruffian rushed at me with a large sheath-knife, I knocked his hand aside quite neatly with the concussor and drove him out of range with a heavy blow of my left fist. But at this moment I observed Bamber frantically lugging something from his hip-pocket; something that was certainly not ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... this, Bob!" he cried in a choking voice. "You'll report nothing! You'd better not monkey with those fellows. That young Irish ruffian was improvising as he went along. And I'm awfully sorry, Bobby dear, but I'm afraid I've won my bet," he added, allowing his laughter to overcome him, "because—because—oh, Holy Maria, hold me up, I'm going to die!—because Big Scalper speaks a language ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... she had been treated. "Il n'y a pas de mal, mon ami," replied Madame de Fontanges. This was a Jesuitical sort of answer, and M. de Fontanges required further particulars. "Elle avait temporise" with the ruffian, with the faint hope of that assistance which had so opportunely and unexpectedly arrived. M. de Fontanges was satisfied with his wife's explanation; and such being the case, what passed between Jackson and Madame de Fontanges can be no concern of the reader's. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... to feel? Shall Mercy's tears no longer flow? Shall ruffian threats of cord and steel, The dungeon's gloom, the assassin's blow, Turn back the spirit roused to save The Truth, our ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... from the sea, which speaks very well, and cries Pall so pleasantly, that made my Lord give it my Lady Paulina; but my Lady, her mother, do not like it. Home, and observe my man Will to walk with his cloak flung over his shoulder, like a Ruffian, which, whether it was that he might not be seen to walk along with the footboy, I know not, but I was vexed at it; and coming home, and after prayers, I did ask him where he learned that immodest garb, and he answered me that it was not immodest, or some such slight answer, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... "Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes, Rousing elate in these degenerate times; View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, As guileful Fraud points out the erring way; While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue The life-blood equal sucks of Right ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... attempts to rescue his wife, who is being dragged away by one of the brigands in the background; he stretches out his arms towards, and looks upon her, but is kept from her by the strong arm of the ruffian at his side, who grasps him by the collar, and holds a bloody sword above his head; the brigand partially faces the audience; the officer stands in a side position; the wife is seen kneeling in the background, with hands clasped and eyes raised to a brigand, who grasps ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... such he was, and one, too, whose name will live for many a year in the ruffian histories of Madrid; I answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... and a comparatively low standard of morality, the consequences cannot be doubtful in the majority of cases. They gradually lose self-respect, cease to think of reformation or amendment, in time they come to envy the hardened stoicism and "gameness" of the practised ruffian, learn his language, imbibe his notions of life, and finally resolve, since character, self-respect, and all else that bind them to morality and virtue are lost, that they will compel society to make amends for the ruin it has brought upon them. ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... paused for a moment to look round on hearing the howl of his comrade, and as he did so Edgar's sword fell on his wrist with such force that hand and dagger both fell to the ground. The remaining ruffian, who was roughly endeavouring to stifle the shrieks of a young girl, seeing himself alone with two adversaries, also darted off and plunged into a narrow alley ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... Jones. Don't forget that low-browed ruffian, Bill Jones, the pirate of the piece," he replied, ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... to your mother about that drunken ruffian in the village, and his ill-treatment of his miserable children, I caught sight of the girl's eyes fixed on me, wide open, expressing wonder and pain. She had never, I feel sure, even heard of such things as I spoke about. I seemed to ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... Who was he, that he should suspect new outrage or guess he was about to be used in a game he did not understand? He would have stopped all work to beg for extra pay at the merest suggestion of such a thing; but as it was he raised both fists and lapsed into his own tongue to apostrophize the ruffian who dared jostle King. A Northerner who did not seem to understand Punjabi almost cost King his balance as he thrust broad shoulders between him ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... discourse as if no interruption had occurred. "Pray continue your story. I am dying to know what happened to checkmate that scoundrel of a mate as he was going to take another shot at you, thus defeating the design of the murdering ruffian." ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and told her that she was now at liberty to return to her home or go where she pleased. The joy expressed by the girl and by all who witnessed this scene was very great; for they had all considered him to be a mere ruffian, incapable of ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... a native of Connecticut, and in the opinion of his trading associates rather a ruffian. He was strongly suspected of having murdered an amiable Swiss fur trader named Wadin, and at a later date he actually did kill his ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... Lord ESHER pales When thinking of its crimson wales. His feelings will not stand the strain, Of dwelling on the ruffian's pain. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 22, 1890 • Various
... passed this very moment by thy doors, And found them guarded by a troop of villains; "The sons of public rapine were destroying." They told me, by the sentence of the law They had commission to seize all thy fortune: Nay, more, Priuli's cruel band had signed it. Here stood a ruffian, with a horrid face, Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate, Tumbled into a heap for public sale: There was another making villainous jests At thy undoing: he had ta'en possession Of all thy ancient, most domestic ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... calamity consisted in condoling with the misfortunes of others, coming into the forum to read the list, and finding himself among the proscribed, cried out, "Woe is me, my Alban farm has informed against me." He had not gone far, before he was dispatched by a ruffian, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... one of the 'young bloods' of Peru, and, being a cadet of a wealthy family, able to do much as he pleased. He was always a thorough ruffian, and the common people hated him like poison. His pranks, however, were hushed up by those in authority, until, for some offence more startling than usual, your father got him clapped in prison. The Dons howled finely, but ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... grain like a poor man, though I was a prince in my own country, just like Suwarora. Surely Suwarora could not permit this if he knew it; and if they would not suffice, I should have to stop here until called again by Suwarora. The ruffian, on hearing this, allowed the wires to lie in his hut, and said he was going away, but hoped, when he returned, I should have, as I had got no cloths, 20 wires, and 1000 necklaces of extra length, strung and all ready ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... that thou hadst left us altogether, Although I could not choose but fancy thee Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether Thou shouldst be seen in such a company Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps. But yet I may not, chide: fall to thy books, Fall to immediately without complaint— There they are lying, hills and ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... asking questions? He had a fine flow of language, and his adjectives were very vigorous. He ended a string of abuse by a vicious backhander, which I failed to entirely avoid. The next few minutes were delicious. It was a straight left against a slogging ruffian. I emerged as you see me. Mr. Woodley went home in a cart. So ended my country trip, and it must be confessed that, however enjoyable, my day on the Surrey border has not been much ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to wait. Then she locked me up and set this idiot to watch. There are no windows to get out of from above, nothing but that skylight, so I finally forced the door at the foot of the stairs, and then again this. Here was that ruffian, armed with a cudgel, and—the rest ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... their execution two hours after they were taken; and when some one ventured a remonstrance he curtly replied, "Nous ne faisons pas de la legalite, nous faisons de la revolution." Some ruffian in the mob cried out the word "liberte," which reached Darboy's ears, and he said, "Do not profane the word of liberty; it belongs to us alone, because we die for it and for our faith." This sainted man was the first to be shot. He died ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... had received him kindly, and that she had promised to be married the next Sunday. This Katharine denied, saying she would rather see him hanged on Sunday, and reproached her father for wishing to wed her to such a mad-cap ruffian as Petruchio. Petruchio desired her father not to regard her angry words, for they had agreed she should seem reluctant before him, but that when they were alone he had found her very fond and loving; and he said to her: 'Give me your hand, Kate; I ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... quick work, M. Marston," said he, taking my hand. "As the ruffian in the school fable says, 'Hodie tibi, cras nihi'—twelve hours will probably make ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... excellencies in the seclusion of his own study. The compliment to the Countess is rather awkwardly wedged in between descriptions of "gentle Spring" with her "shadowing roses" and "surly Winter" with his "ruffian blasts." It should have commenced ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... A certain hulking ruffian, with an Australian digger's beard, had turned up of late to disturb the tranquillity of the partners. He had been asking what they regarded as an exorbitant price for his silence in respect to the construction of that adit which has just been mentioned, and had been fobbed off from time ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... he whispered cheerily, "you look about the greatest ruffian I ever saw! These masks alone will down a nigger, if we meet one. But I'm glad I remembered to tell you not to shave. You'll pass for Whitechapel if the worst comes to the worst and you don't forget to talk the lingo. Better sulk like a mule if you're not sure of it, and leave ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... 'What a ruffian!'—(puff)—observed Mr. Waffles, taking his cigar from his mouth as he sat on the bench, dressed as a racket-player, looking on at the game, 'he shalln't ride roughshod ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... carried, but it must be the hall of some Venetian palace. Then, without movement, very slowly and stealthily I had a peep at the men who surrounded me. There was the gondolier, a swart, hard-faced, murderous ruffian, and beside him were three other men, one of them a little, twisted fellow with an air of authority and several keys in his hand, the other two tall young servants in a smart livery. As I listened to their talk I saw that the small man was the steward of the house, and that ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused of ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any because you know the standard ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... "Is that the cane you strike your wife with, you ruffian!" Belsize seized and tore him out of the saddle, flinging him screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street; a hundred people were round Sir Barnes in ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... disgraceful scene in a room full of ladies, but he, not I, provoked it and was the ruffian, as I'm sure he will be ready to confess ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... thus rendering Charlie impotent to obstruct him in any way the ruffian said nothing whatever. Now, however, standing off a minute, and looking at his victim with much satisfaction, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... discipline, was among the worst. It was the first voyage he had made with Captain Tredeagle, to whom he had been recommended as a steady man. One of his mates, Tom Hulk,—well named, for he was a big hulking ruffian,—was quite as bad, and with several others ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... of maintaining by argument the thesis they are maintaining, which is probably that two and two make five, they branch off and begin to adduce arguments which do not go to prove that, but to prove that the man who maintains that two and two make four is a fool, or even a ruffian. Some good men are subject to this infirmity—that if you differ from them on any point whatever, they regard the fact of your differing from them as proof, not merely that you are intellectually stupid, but ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... dealt forth punishment to that man, if he caught him within his grasp. Those who had hitherto known Morton in the island, could not recognise the man as he came forth on that day, thirsty after blood, and desirous to thrust himself into personal conflict with the wild ruffian who had injured him. The meek Presbyterian minister had been a preacher, preaching ways of peace, and living in accordance with his own doctrines. The world had been very quiet for him, and he had ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... of party endorsement. You are no more sanguine today than were the men and women, myself included, in 1867, that those Free State men, who had given up every comfort which human beings prize for the sake of liberty, who had fought not only through the border ruffian warfare but through the four years of the rebellion, would vote freedom to the heroic women of Kansas. Where would you ever expect to find a majority more ready to grant to women equal rights than among those old Free State men? You have ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... gasped. "I'm past all surgery; but thank God I've given that ruffian what'll send him to hell before I get there! And you—you"—and here he made a frantic grab for the revolver that lay upon the floor, but Gleason kicked it away—"you, young hound, I meant to have wound you up before I got through. But I can jeer at you—God-forsaken ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... fires, and wrecks, Harangues and hailstorms, brawls and broken necks; Where half-fledged bards, on feeble pinions, seek An immortality of near a week; Where cruel eulogists the dead restore, In maudlin praise, to martyr them once more; Where ruffian slanderers wreak their coward spite, And need no venomed dagger while ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... advised him to enter the French service. In his younger days, my father had served extensively under many princes, and had found in every other military service a spirit of honor governing the conduct of the officers. Here only, and for the first time, he found ruffian manners and universal rapacity. He could not draw his sword in company with such men, nor in such a cause. But at length, under the pressure of necessity, he accepted (or rather bought with an immense bribe) the place of a commissary to the French ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... opening all the door, of which the ruffian wind made wrong by casting her figure in high relief—and yet a pardonable wrong—"father, you are quite wise to come home, before your dear nose is quite cut off.—Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I never ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... watchfulness and care was, however, unavailing to prevent assaults. The most serious instance of this kind was the act of an Irish ruffian, who so far forgot the traditions and sufferings of his own people as to cast himself upon Drayton with a huge dirk and cut off a piece of his ear.[6] For a few moments all the horrors incident ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... falsehoods of the malignant slanderer who vilified Mr. De—ce-ce, and beg to offer that gentleman the only reparation in our power for having thus tampered with his unsullied name. We disbelieve the RUFFIAN and HIS STORY, and most sincerely regret that such a tale, or SUCH A WRITER, should ever have been brought forward to the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not used to that sort of work; and I was somewhat struck to observe that in some respects he was not unlike the fellow who was addressing me—that is to say, he had quite as hanging a face as his companion, though he wanted the other's breadth and squareness, and ruffian-like set of figure; but his forehead was low, and his eyes black and restless, and he was close-cropped, with some days' growth of beard, as was the case with the other. He was dressed in a bottle-green spencer ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... Mrs. Forrester. "An injured lady, half a million in treasure, a black cannibal, and a wooden-legged ruffian. They take the place of the ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have been that rascal's wife by this time. The priest was here. They would have been married as sure as you're born. You, ma'am, would have had to see this poor, trembling, broken-hearted, despairing girl torn from your arms, and bound by the marriage tie to a ruffian and a scoundrel whom she loathed. And now, ma'am, I save her from this. I have my priest too, ma'am. He ain't a Roman Catholic, it is true—he's an orthodox parson—but, at the same time, I ain't particular. Now I propose to avail myself this day of his invaluable ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Determining, at all events, to sell your life dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out right and left with arms and legs, and yelling lustily the while, and at last something gives way, and you find your head in the fresh air. Two feet off, you dimly observe a half-dressed ruffian, waiting to kill you, and you are preparing for a life-and-death struggle with him, when it begins to dawn ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... were staggered. They stared in helpless anger at the small shop, which had suddenly become the most important in their ken. Already they saw their families brought to the gutter by this hunchback ruffian, who hit them below the belt in the most ungentlemanly fashion in preference to starving. But the simple manoeuvre of cutting down the prices of his rivals was only a taste of the unerring instinct for business that was later to make him as much feared ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... put out, for I thought his bold glances would have made her angry. But my dear Flavia was a woman, and so—she was not put out. On the contrary, she thought young Rupert very handsome—as, beyond question, the ruffian was. ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... gate." They then advance to the Junior Warden (who represents JUBELA, one of the ruffians), who exclaims, "Who comes here?" [The room is dark, or the candidate hoodwinked.] The conductor answers, "Our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff." "Our Grand Master, Hiram Abiff!" exclaims the ruffian, "he is the very man I wanted to see (seizing the candidate by the throat at the same time, and jerking him about with violence); give me the Master Mason's word, or I'll take your life." The conductor replies, ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... poor sailors were the only ones who did not enjoy the joke. Our service caps were also forbidden, and we had all sorts of headgear. I had a long scarf wipped round my head in turban fashion and was said to be the worst looking ruffian of ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... friends with the ruffian set to watch over me, and I plied him with wine until he fell on the grass and was unable to rise. I then dammed the stream, and climbed down its empty bed. It was difficult work, as the rocks were wet and the night was very dark. I was covered with bruises when I reached a platform of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... plant. "Dolt! ass! inhuman brute! If I had the kicking of you—" here he recovered his silence; found pebbles to kick, and pursued them savagely up one path and down another. A mental flash-light showed him the ruffian who had wounded this bright creature; had led her on to love him, and then—either betrayed his brutal nature so that hers rose up in revolt, or—just as likely—that kind of man would do anything—gone off and left her. His picture revealed a smart-looking person with black ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... the court, some of them called out to her, and asked her where she was going with all that candy. She took no notice of them, for they spoke very rudely, and were no friends of hers. Among them was Johnny Grippen, whose acquaintance the reader made on the pier of South Boston bridge. This young ruffian led half a dozen others down the court in pursuit of her, for possibly they were not satisfied with the cavalier manner in ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... all this belonged to a dark, close-shaved ruffian, with silver rings and a yellow handkerchief, who scowled and prowled about her, and looked as if he was likely enough to beat her when they got home. But she hands up an ivory bowl for contributions amongst the young dandies on the roof of a neighbouring ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... The shorter ruffian was scratching right merrily among the dead leaves, making all the noise he could, so as to impress the prisoner with a sense of his perilous condition. While he worked he kept talking, half to himself, and no doubt uttering all sorts of terrible ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... de Roi was crowded, and I thought some of the people looked at me strangely, but this might have been mere fancy. Once, indeed, a man placed himself purposely in my path. It was the ruffian who had spoken to me in the inn, but, not desiring his company, I placed a finger on my lips to indicate silence, ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... upon either the prejudices of class, caste, wealth, or power. I protest in the name of a constituency whose early history was a sublime and persistent struggle against the prejudices of pampered and arrogant ruffianism at home, and the worse than ruffian spirit of the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, and the Democratic traitors who at that time constituted a majority of this House, and were engaged in preparing the nation for its harvest of blood. We must go back to the spirit and purposes ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... last in that form which he lived to complete, another fancy may be copied from which, though not otherwise worked out in the tale, the relation of Lizzie Hexam to her brother was taken. "A man, and his wife—or daughter—or niece. The man, a reprobate and ruffian; the woman (or girl) with good in her, and with compunctions. He believes nothing, and defies everything; yet has suspicions always, that she is 'praying against' his evil schemes, and making them go wrong. He is very much opposed to this, and is always ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... hugging the northern side, where the Lufu torrent adds its tribute to the waters, convinced me that the charms of Congo scenery had not been exaggerated. Yet the prospect had its element of sadness; the old ruffian, Gidi Mavunga, recounted how he had burned this place and broken that, where palm-clumps, grass-clearings, and plantations lying waste denoted the curse of Ham upon ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... sailing, and so, much against his will, he was forced to forego his vengeance until his return. But this was destined to be his last voyage. While at Rio Janeiro he became engaged in a fracas with the keeper of a low grogshop, when the latter, who was a desperate ruffian, snatched a knife from his girdle, and drove it into the heart of the unhappy captain, who fell back on the floor and expired without a groan. Thus terminated a misguided and ill-spent life. I should have been glad to report Ben Haley's reformation instead of his death, but for ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... men. A tall ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footing someone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands; and a hard flat object crashed against ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet
... the hut with Lillian, while the other boy remained long enough to loosen the rope around his waist, and bind the young ruffian securely. Then he placed him in a corner of the room. Locking the door behind him, Sandy joined Gilbert in the skiff, and together they paddled furiously out of the creek into ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... first impulse is to show fight. Naturally Leonard began to plunge and to double his fists. But he could not keep this up, for the man whose arm was round him quickly retired and stood a few paces off, looking wan and haggard, and very unlike a thief or ruffian. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... respect to Louis Napoleon is stronger, and it tends more to unanimity every day. The Orleans confiscation has, I think, almost too much weight given to it. After his other crimes the mere robbery of a single family, ruffian-like as it is, is ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... at him as he sat, plump and rosy and complacent, puffing at his cigarette, and my heart warmed to the old ruffian. It was impossible to maintain an attitude of righteous iciness with him. I might loathe his mode of life, and hate him as a representative—and a leading representative—of one of the most contemptible trades on earth, but there ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... violently refused to be comforted. It is beside an awful aggravation of such afflictions, that the lady herself might have co-operated in the later stages of the tragedy with the purposes of the imperial ruffian. Lamia had been suffered to live, because as a living man he yielded up into the hands of his tormentor his whole capacity of suffering; no part of it escaped the hellish range of his enemy's eye. But this advantage for the torturer had also its weak and doubtful side. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... why Great Britain does not keep him in order. If there is a military mutiny in Egypt, or a Jehad in the Soudan, it is still Great Britain who has to set it right. And all to an accompaniment of curses such as the policeman gets when he seizes a ruffian among his pals. We get hard knocks and no thanks, and why should we do it? Let Europe do its ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... "You ruffian—Posse!" he continued to call, alternately, first to one and then to the other; for his fear paralyzed all but his tongue. "You ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... the office pens; secretaries of ball-committees clamor to have the glories of their last dance more fully expounded; strange ladies rustle in and say:—"I want a hundred lady's cards printed at once, please," which is manifestly part of an Editor's duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for employment as a proofreader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, and Kings are being killed on the Continent, and Empires are saying—"You're another," and Mister ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... uneducated audience. In fact, it is probable that the majority of genuine French names belong to a later period; for, although the baron who accompanied the Conqueror would in many cases keep his old territorial designation, the minor ruffian would, as a rule, drop the name of the obscure hamlet from which he came and assume some surname more convenient in his new surroundings. Local names of Old French origin are usually taken from the provinces and larger towns which had a meaning for English ears. ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley |
