"Vigil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meaning of this warning, Britomart decided not to open it, but to take up her vigil fully armed beside the altar. As the clock struck midnight, the mysterious door flew open, and through its portals came a strange procession of beasts and queer mortals, leading the doleful Amoret, who had a dagger thrust into her heart and stumbled along ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... was invaluable in the ceaseless vigil for the submarine. England early stretched a cordon of airship guards all about her coasts and crippled the U-boats' work thereby. The airship had a greater range of vision and a better downward view than any sea-vessel; it could travel more slowly, ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... spared Fay the ordeal of that vigil. But the Bishop was inexorable. He bade her remain. And shrunk away in a corner, shivering to her very soul, Fay listened hour by hour to the wild feeble voice of her victim, back once more in the cell where ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... the turning-point in Rienzi's life, and he made it a Vigil of Arms and Prayer. In the mysterious nature of the destined man, the pure spirit of the Christian knight suddenly stood forth in domination of his soul, and he consecrated himself to the liberation of his country by the solemn office ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... small piece of tobacco from a black plug Sinnet offered him, and chewed it with nervous fierceness, his eyebrows working, as he looked at the other eagerly. Deadly as his purpose was, and grim and unvarying as his vigil had been, the loneliness had told on him, and he had grown hungry for a human face and human companionship. Why Sinnet had come he had not thought to inquire. Why Sinnet should be going north instead of south had ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... three in the morning, even Fred could hold out no longer. He dropped off, leaving Tom to keep the vigil by himself. But ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... their net, although they could not yet put their hands upon them. That was why he listened and watched so closely, and that was why he would break his word to Paul and not waken him, keeping the nightlong vigil himself. ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... broth, he fell asleep with the spoon in his hand. He jerkily flung back his head and opened his eyes. Cuffy still lay close to the prisoner, evidently prepared for an all-night vigil with short light naps from which the least movement would instantly ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... word to answer. Greatly as he shrank from the ordeal, he must encounter it without show of reluctance! He dared not even propose to sit in the kitchen and smoke. With better courage than will, he consented to share their vigil. "And then," he reflected, "if she should come to herself, there would be the advantage he had foreseen ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... oblivion, while a glare As of far, flickering torches, seems to bear The challenge of the gods. Awake, awake! Make ready for the tempest, ere it break! Drive tent-pins deeper, stretch the covering tight— Hobble the ponies, scattering in affright Before the thunder-peals. When all is fast, Keep vigil, then, till ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... various and manifold to the point of madness. They were taken seriously because they were avowedly useless extras, like the whole dinner and the whole club. There was also a tradition that the soup course should be light and unpretending—a sort of simple and austere vigil for the feast of fish that was to come. The talk was that strange, slight talk which governs the British Empire, which governs it in secret, and yet would scarcely enlighten an ordinary Englishman even if he could overhear it. Cabinet ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... party separated; and, while two of them wended their way back to the tug at Laughing Fish, the others prepared for the long vigil ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... little space deprived of flowers and life— "The house of sandal wood," said Taka, pointing, And there, the last home of a chief, it lay. White shells and snowy pebbles girt him round In his great mould of clay, and all his spears And clubs of war kept vigil, showing still His might in battle. Shrill the parrot's scream Rang on the desolation, and the trees Seemed to withdraw their shadows from the place Sacred to death, the violent crime of war. A little shadow darkened Taka's heart, Could this sweet world contain both ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... vigil hours could not be told. How they sat now in long silences, gazing into the glowing coals, and again conversing in low voices lest Mr. Penny's vocal slumbers should be disturbed; how Marjorie told the short and simple story of her life, to Kalman all wonderful; how Kalman told ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... morning and evening, I see this old man trudge laboriously, staggering always towards the left, down the street, until he disappears in the clump of willows that overshadow the cemetery gate, and I know that he is going for a lonely vigil to the grave of the dishonored woman, his lost wife, pain, keen as a Damascus ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... closed his eyes during the long uneventful night. When not watching, he was hovering over Charley's bedside administering medicine or working over the bitten leg. Yet daylight found him as cool and fresh as ever, apparently unaffected by his long vigil. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... ON the vigil of St. Mark, after Easter, the Crusaders having mustered at Acre, flocked on board their ships and prepared to set sail for Europe. On that day also the King of France, leaving Geoffrey de Segrines with a hundred knights to aid in the defence of what remained of the once grand kingdom of Godfrey ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... sake, have counted every thing as nothing worth. For they wept and mourned, day and night, that they might gain everlasting comfort: they humbled themselves willingly, that there they might be exalted: they afflicted the flesh with hunger and thirst and vigil, that there they might come to the pleasures and joys of Paradise. By their purity of heart they became a tabernacle of the Holy Ghost, as it is written, 'I will dwell in them and walk in them.' They crucified ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... Bonner, it was known, had not turned in again after two o'clock, and the discovery that 'Tonio was missing. He was dozing on the porch in his easy-chair when first call sounded for reveille, and Lilian, like gentle-hearted Amelia, lay dreaming of her wearied knight as having kept vigil with the sentries to the break of day that she and those she loved might sleep in security, and now, of course, he must ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... of the long vigil of the night. All about its base were little nests, where the tired dogs had bedded down and kept their weary watch. Their incessant barking had served to keep the cougar treed, but it cost them a temporary loss of voice. Poor devils, they had ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... tiresome vigil. And the night was chilly. Frank began to walk briskly up and down the block. A dozen times he did this without result. Then the sudden rumble of a motor car spun him about. He saw two men hasten down the steps of Heney's office, almost leap into the car. Instantly it drove off. Frank, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... there not even a worse stumbling-block in aesthetics, delusive and deceptive, casting a veil of borrowed splendour and sham beauty over everything? They sang of "The Knights' Vigil of Light." What knights' vigil? With patents of nobility and students' certificates; false testimonials, as they might have told themselves. Of light? That was to say of the upper classes who had the greatest interest in keeping the lower classes ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... superior of his vigil on the speed-boat—of the almost invisible flash against the ship's mast. "He reached it, Chief," he concluded; "he felt or saw his way down and through the side of that ship. And he fired their ammunition from God ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... faint sounds came up to her to remind her that down stairs there were well-beloved people who did not know and should never know of her little vigil. Her father must be coming home. It was time for her to put on her armor and go down. Armor is one of the necessities of life. If we can't wear it in steel plates on the outside, we must mask the face with impenetrability and the manner ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Tremblingly she drew down the covering and looked upon her dead. They were hers—these men were hers even in death! Chokingly she stifled her sobs, and then the decision came to her that she would keep a night vigil until break of day. Of the two, Screech Owl knew not which ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... shut himself in silence, keeping vigil night and day; Vainly haunted shrines and churches where the Christians came ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... vigil. Lighted by the far devastation, its roof shone gray, its cornice white, its tree-tops green above the darkness of grove and garden. From its upper windows you might have seen the townward bends of the river gleam red, yellow, and bronze, or the luminous smoke of destruction ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... before Irala learned of the catastrophe. In the belief that his chief was still in the land of the living, he waited with his ships and men at the point where Ayolas had disembarked, varying his vigil from time to time by a cruise down-stream in search of provisions. The news came to him at length, shouted out by hoarse defiant voices from the recesses of the forest on the banks. For a while the Spaniards would not believe the surly ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Polynesia's busiest corner. Our ship's company. A patriotic celebration rudely interrupted. In the grip of the elements. Necessary repairs. A night vigil. Land ho! ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... his patient vigil was rewarded. A splendid coach drawn by milk-white horses appeared ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... into night, and hour by hour night crept on until midnight came and passed, yet the lone watcher waited still, his horse beside him, the gloom around him, the rain still plashing on the sodden road. It was a wearing vigil, and only a critical need could have kept him there through those slow ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... what passed within, the knowledge would have yielded him no clue to this mysterious vigil. At twilight, Mr Haredale shut himself up, and at daybreak he came forth. He never missed a night, always came and went alone, and never varied his proceedings in the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... excitement. No sleep came to my eyes, and I think Browning—to whom I said nothing—believed that I had taken leave of my senses. The faithful old servant did not retire, for at five in the morning I found him seated dozing in a chair outside in the hall, tired out by the watchful vigil ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... waken him. Estelle believed the injured man would want her when he woke again. The doctor could say nothing till some hours had passed, so she went home, but returned a few hours later to stop the night and help, if need be, to nurse the patient. A professional nurse shared the vigil; but their duties amounted to nothing, for Raymond slept through the greater part of the night and declared himself better ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the genial heartiness of a man who knows that he has finished his vigil and that he can now lie down to rest. The guarding of a large herd at night is always an anxious time. Cattle are strange things to handle. A stampede will often involve a week's weary scouring ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... at all times at the high pressure conduced by business and the vast city. When they return to their homes they are required to go to a ball, to the opera, into society, where they can make clients, acquaintances, protectors. They all eat to excess, play and keep vigil, and their faces become bloated, flushed, ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... neighborhood. Something smooths the toss'd pillow. Beneath a gray hood Of rough serge, two intense tender eyes are bent o'er him, And thrill through and through him. The sweet form before him, It is surely Death's angel Life's last vigil keeping! A soft voice says... "Sleep!" And he sleeps: he ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... country air. Although soon to pass the fifty-seventh milestone, his sane, temperate habits had kept him young in heart and vigorous in body, and in this same year he was to be rewarded for his long and lonely vigil during the dark decades of his middle life, and to enter upon an Indian Summer of happy ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... hero fell, a column falls! Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold, A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat! Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle! Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled, Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home, Lit by the wan light of the horned moon, The ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... but Bostil kept his vigil. The hours passed. Afternoon came and wore on. The sun lost ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the afternoon before her vigil was rewarded. Not from just the direction in which he had galloped away, but from farther up the valley, Haig reappeared. He rode as rapidly as before, straight to the door of the stable, reined up a moment there, and was off again,—this time down the valley on a white ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... and once more spent the afternoon at his vigil. But the fair silent calm of the day before was broken and thrilling with life. His heart sang a careless, happy hymn. He sat on the curb of the grave, and set down the song he heard in pencil in a notebook ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... his Discourse to Those Who Keep Virgins in Their Houses, "has seen many men who have bound their bodies with chains, clothed themselves in sacks, retired to the summits of mountains where they have lived in constant vigil and fasting, giving the example of the most austere discipline and forbidding all women to cross the thresholds of their humble dwellings; and yet, in spite of all the severities they have exercised ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her, she almost pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out her daughter's renewed strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... even so. Brother Filippo saw him stand last night In solitary vigil till the dawn Lept o'er the Arno, and his face was such As men may wear in Purgatory—nay, E'en in the inmost core of ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... this. I believe I even swore at the disturbing effect of these words. They attacked all the self-possession that was left to me. In my endless vigil in the face of the enemy I had been haunted by gruesome images enough. I had had visions of a ship drifting in calms and swinging in light airs, with all her crew dying slowly about her decks. Such things had been ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... Further, the human soul's knowledge is more alert while one wakes than while one sleeps. Now some, during sleep, naturally foresee the future, as the Philosopher asserts (De Somn. et Vigil. [*De Divinat. per Somn. ii, which is annexed to the work quoted]). Much more therefore can a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... her cover away and sat up, all her senses acutely alive. The fire was out, but the air was not chill. She glanced at Markham's recumbent figure, at Cleofonte and Luigi, and then stealthily arose. Tomasso, the bear, who of all the vagabond company had alone kept vigil, eyed her whimsically from his small eyes and moved ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... at Roslyn, L. I., when the light ceased to shine through the crack under the door, and he awoke with a sense of dull incredulity to the realisation that the occupants of the drawing-room had called it a day and that his vigil was over. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... thorough disorder. His meals were still being served him there by his dismayed servants. The mattress still lay in the corner; on it the rumpled blankets showed where he had been sleeping. For the hundredth time during his long vigil the Banker, still wearing his dressing-gown and slippers and needing a shave badly, put his face down close to the ring. His heart leaped into his throat; his breath came fast; for along the edge of the ring a tiny little line of ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... that evening as usual, but he felt very tired, and Lucy, going in at nine o'clock, found him dozing in his chair, his collar half choking him and his face deeply suffused. She wakened him and then, sitting down across from him, joined him in the vigil that was to last until they heard the ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in Marty Burke than in her daughter's future, but a titanic struggle fired her imagination more than a pitiful little romance. She felt a pang of self-reproach when she saw that Mr. Lanley had come to share the child's vigil, that he seemed to be suffering under an anxiety ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... to be tempted once in this way; and I remember it was on the day before the vigil of Corpus Christi,—a feast to which I have great devotion, though not so great as I ought to have. The trial then lasted only till the day of the feast itself. But, on other occasions, it continued one, two, and even ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... supplicatory sacrifices were made, and Juno propitiated by the matrons, first in the Capitol, then upon the nearest shore, where, by water drawn from the sea, the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled; and the ceremony of placing the goddess in her sacred chair, and her vigil, were celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... not answer for a moment. He was thinking of that vigil upon the Embankment, of the long walk home, of the battle with himself, the continual striving to tear from his heart this new thing, for which, with a curious and most masculine inconsistency, he persisted in ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... steal towards the other bungalow. It would have been madness to start prowling in the dark on unknown ground. And for what end? Unless to relieve the oppression. Immobility lay on his limbs like a leaden garment. And yet he was unwilling to give up. He persisted in his objectless vigil. The man of the ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... sprawled out in a big armchair, as Burke had said, by one of his assistants only a few hours before when he had come to the laboratory in the morning to open it. Evidently he had been there undisturbed all night, keeping a gruesome vigil ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... and I had our vigil at the Preacher's Synagogue, where many other young men would gather for the same purpose. We would sit up reading, side by side, until the worshipers came to morning service. To spend a whole night by his side was one of the joys of my existence ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... subjects the doctor thought over during his vigil in that garden it is hard to say, but never in his whole life, probably, had he such a glorious opportunity for the most undisturbed contemplation of subjects requiring deep thought to analyze, than as he had then. At least he felt that since his marriage he had never been so ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... almost the entire night taking turns in our tireless vigil. But no more disturbances occurred. My father was deeply moved and I scarcely less so. Accustomed as we had become to the thought that wireless telegraphy would place us more readily in touch with the sidereal universe than with distant points upon our earth, presuming indeed, ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... finding the little nodule of quiet space that forms the center of every windstorm. Standing upright in it, flaming wings erect, she would whirl through space like an autumn leaf. Gradually, she became less suspicious of the other men. She often passed in their direction on the way to her afternoon vigil ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... of the night the siege was raised and Phoebe, the dauntless, brilliant, arrogant Phoebe had capitulated. No love-lorn woman of the ages ever palpitated more thoroughly at the thought of her lover than did she as she kept vigil ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... again, they turned the boat's head upstream, towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonely vigil. As they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole took the boat in to the bank, and they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs on the tow-path, gave him his marching orders and a friendly farewell pat on the back, and shoved out into mid-stream. They watched ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... Secretary and Treasurer, was sitting up too, small, iron-gray, in feature and bearing every inch the capable, dignified official, but his necktie had slipped off during the night. The bearded Councillors had the best of it, seeming after their vigil less stale in the face than the member from Silver City, for instance, whose day-old black growth blurred his dingy chin, or the member from Big Camas, whose scantier red crop bristled on his cheeks in sparse wandering arrangements, like spikes on the barrel of a musical box. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... favourite haunt, and such are known among the hunters as "panther-ledges." It selects such a position in the neighbourhood of some watering-place, or, if possible, one of the salt or soda springs (licks) so numerous in America. Here it is more certain that its vigil will not be a protracted one. Its prey—elk, deer, antelope, or buffalo—soon appears beneath, unconscious of the dangerous enemy that cowers over them. When fairly within reach, the cougar springs, and pouncing down upon the shoulders of the victim, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... was not only the longest I have ever known, but it was by far the dreariest, and, if I may use the word in this connection, the most unearthly. Indeed, I cannot think of it to this day without a shudder; its effect being much the same upon my memory as that of a vigil in some underground tomb, where each moment was emphasized with horror lest the dead lying before me might stir beneath their cerements and wake. The continual presence of one or both of the brothers at my side did not tend to alleviate ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... was fine, but still it was a very weary vigil. Of course it has the sort of excitement about it that the sportsman feels when he lies beside the water-course and waits for the big game. It was very long, though—almost as long, Watson, as when you and I waited in that ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... I lay me down to sleep, While the summer stars a vigil keep; And I hear from the Sparrow a gentle trill, Which means, "Good Night; ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... and has not that settled, ever-present sorrow upon those pale features; have not those grief-traced lines around the compressed mouth, and across the once smooth and polished brow; has not the sad garb of the mourner, which speaks of the lone vigil, the weary watching, the hope deferred, or it may be the sudden stroke of the dread tyrant Death, no appeal to thy frozen sympathies? Canst thou suffer thy better nature to resume its deep and trance-like sleep again, and rob that poor widowed mother of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... all night, an age-long vigil, straining her ears for the things that went on below in the darkness, and keeping motionless lest some stealthy beast should discover her. Man in those days was never alone in the dark, save for such rare accidents as this. Age ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... watered his mules at in the corral of any venta in Spain, and thereby entirely misses the point aimed at by Cervantes. It is the mean, prosaic, commonplace character of all the surroundings and circumstances that gives a significance to Don Quixote's vigil ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with her face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil—what gift that helped her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced, she was as joyous and frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of laughter or fun, but the brightness of her every-day manner, teasing and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, coquetting very naturally with me. It ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... a nerve racking vigil that Jimmie Dale kept, sitting there in the chair—waiting. It was so dark he could not have seen his hand before his face. And it was silent, in spite of that queer composite sound of voices, and shuffling feet, and the occasional ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... doubted not that he would come, though no special appointment on the subject had been made between them. There were few "off evenings" now, that he did not spend with her. Saturday in most of the cities of Italy is, or was, an off night at the theatre, being the vigil of the Sunday feast-day. The ecclesiastical proprieties are less attended to now in matters theatrical, as in other matters in Italy. But Saturday used, in ante-revolutionary times, to be an evening ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... the prairie grass in front of me. Yet I felt secure in the belief that Smilax had not been taken. Without question, he and Echochee were still in flight, heading toward some safe refuge; coaxing, by shot or cry, the furious pack that tore hopefully after them. I knew that my vigil here was unnecessary—that with all senses focused on the chase no straggler would by any chance be coming this far out into the prairie—but I had told Sylvia it ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... said, "trials which might have dignified the history of a martyr. She has spent the day in darkness and the night in vigil, and never breathed a syllable of weakness or complaint. In a word, Mr. Osbaldistone, she is a worthy offering to that God to whom I dedicate her, as all that is left dear or precious ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... their weight sustains: And those who sleep neath open skies, Whose food the wave or air supplies, And hermits pure who spend their nights On ground prepared for sacred rites; Those who on hills their vigil hold, Or dripping clothes around them fold: The devotees who live for prayer, Or the five fires(418) unflinching bear. On contemplation all intent, With light that heavenly knowledge lent, They came to Rama, saint and sage, In Sarabhanga's hermitage. ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the night rose to a stiff breeze, but no one paid much attention to the increasing volume of bitter spray which swept the deck as the grey-green rollers put on their white caps of foam, for the ship was heading towards the harbour and their vigil was over until darkness again ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... bundle, she looked about her, and saw how the spaces of shadow between the grey branches might easily seem to take solid form and weird shape to a brain that was fevered with excitement of crime and of flight and enforced vigil. She had a painful thing to tell this man—that she could not, as she had hoped, release him from his desperate prison that night; but she did not tell him until she had fed him first and given him drink ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... the miserable prospect before her when this trying vigil should be over. How grieved mamma would be! dear mamma, whom she loved with true daughterly affection; how stern and angry Grandpa Dinsmore, how astonished and displeased all the others; how wicked and supremely silly they ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... his hand, and he watched by the bed till midnight, warning off with a lifted finger any who came from the Countess for news of him. Hard thinking sped the vigil: he wondered what could have happened to bring her so near her death or ever he could have word of her. Galors, he was pretty sure, had got to work again; it was good odds that he had been running in couple with the lady ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... of Peru, a city abounding with convents, and celebrated for the wealth and power of its secular clergy, Dr Vigil, a priest of irreproachable conduct and profound learning, has published a voluminous work, in which he attacks and pulverises the pretensions of the Roman Court, defends the independence of the bishops, and demonstrates, in the most luminous manner, the necessity of an ecclesiastical reformation, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... I began a third long vigil beside a lion. The rest was more than welcome. An hour and a half passed before I heard the sliding of stones below, which told me that Emett was coming. He appeared on the slope almost bent double, carrying the lion, head downward, ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... angry storms are o'er, And fear no longer vigil keeps; When winds are heard to rave no more, And ocean's troubled spirit sleeps; There's rest when to the pebbly strand, The lapsing billows slowly glide; And, pillow'd on the golden sand, Breathes soft ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... caught by her brothers, and once he trailed Mr. Morse down town and studied his face in the lighted streets, longing all the while for some quick danger of death to threaten so that he might spring in and save her father. On another night, his vigil was rewarded by a glimpse of Ruth through a second-story window. He saw only her head and shoulders, and her arms raised as she fixed her hair before a mirror. It was only for a moment, but it was a long moment to him, during which his blood turned ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... apparently a gentleman. I had in oysters and champagne—for the receipts were excellent—and, being in a high state of nervous tension, kept the table in a roar. Indeed, I was never in my life so well inspired as when I described my vigil over Harry Miller's literature or the series of my emotions as I faced the audience. The lads vowed I was the soul of good company and the prince of lecturers; and—so wonderful an institution is the popular press—if you had seen the notices next day in all the papers you must have supposed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they moved him, and late that night Beth kept her vigil by him, sitting over the fire with her elbows on her knees and her face between her hands, listening dreamily to the clang and clamour of the church-bells, which floated up to her over the snow, mellowed by distance and full-fraught with manifold associations. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... he remained in the vicinity of the house until long after nightfall. But he was wholly unrewarded for his vigil, and at last, distressed, humiliated, and angry, he took a car for the college grounds, raging like a lion against Donald Pike. Even an enemy of Badger must ...
— Frank Merriwell's Reward • Burt L. Standish
... came that cry of terror, arousing those two girls—the one from her sleep, the other from her mournful vigil—and drawing the family together, in ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... work," but, in truth, it was by two nights' work, for on the first we drew entirely blank. I sat up with Sir Henry in his rooms until nearly three o'clock in the morning, but no sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon the stairs. It was a most melancholy vigil and ended by each of us falling asleep in our chairs. Fortunately we were not discouraged, and we determined to try again. The next night we lowered the lamp and sat smoking cigarettes without making the least sound. It was incredible ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... from his long vigil, locked up his books at last, turned out the lights, and locking the doors behind him walked into the silent street. Instinctively he turned his steps westwards. This might well be the last night on which he ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of August when the southwest wind Blows after sunset through the leisuring air, And on the sky nightly the mythic hind Leads down the sullen dog star to his lair, After the feverous vigil of July, When the loud pageant of the year's high noon Passed up the ways of time to sing and part, Grief also wandered by From out the lovers and the leaves of June, And by the wizard spices of his hair I knew his heart was very Love's own heart. Deep within dreams he led me out of doors As from ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... O woman! the sun on flower and tree, And beautiful the balmy wind that dreameth on the sea; And softly soundeth in thine ear, the song of peasants reaping, The dove's low chant among the leaves, its twilight vigil keeping. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... night passed slowly. Dyke Darrel dared not sleep, and so he kept his lonely vigil beside the dead, seated in the shadows, with revolver ready to use at a ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... Nathcrantail till day with its light came for him to attack Cuchulain. He set out early on the morrow to attack Cuchulain. Cuchulain arose early [5]and came to his place of meeting[5] and his wrath bided with him on that day. And [6]after his night's vigil,[6] with an angry cast he threw his cloak around him, so that it passed over the pillar-stone [7]near by, the size of himself,[7] and snapped the pillar-stone off from the ground between himself and his cloak. And he was aware of naught because ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... cold stern light Stared threateningly beyond the Western height, Wrapped in the closing shadows of the night; And all the peaceful earth had slept But that eye stern vigil kept. ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... being pressed back into Brussels by the Allies. They may let us go. No, the Germans, maddened by defeat, might order us all to be shot," was one idea. "How does it feel to be blindfolded and stood up against a wall by a firing squad?" was another pleasant companion idea that kept vigil with me through the midnight hours. Then my fancies took a frenzied turn, "Suppose these be brutes of soldiers and they run us through, saying we ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... had been few more adroit politicians, considered from his point of view. His punning device was "Vita mortalium vigilia," and he acted accordingly, but with a narrow interpretation. His life had indeed been a vigil, but it must be confessed that the vigils ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with emotion, fell asleep in his arm-chair; and the marquise in her turn, watched his charming face, paled by his feelings and his vigil of love. She heard him murmur her name ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... hovering like a dark cloud some twenty miles away, had been reinforced, and a fierce battle was in progress. The news of it had travelled by some mysterious telepathy to every village along the line, and at every crossing groups of pale-faced women, silent and intent, kept a restless vigil. They looked like ghosts in the moonlight; no cheer escaped them as we passed, no hand waved an exuberant greeting. In the twilight we had already seen red-trousered soldiers, vivid as poppies against the grass, digging trenches along the line, and at one point a group of sappers ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... action and stress of great passion. His mind seemed full of beautiful solemn bells of blessing, resonant, ringing the wonder of an everlasting unchangeable truth. Night fell—the darkness thickened—the old trapper kept his vigil—and Neale sank to sleep, and the sweet, low- toned bells claimed him ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... invalid Madame Morin, who would naturally have the best bedroom situated in the comfortable main block of the house, but from that of somebody else. Madame Morin was therefore ruled out. So was Toinette—ridiculous to think of her keeping all night vigil. There remained only Jeanne. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... climbed the storm-swept steep, She who the foaming wave would dare, So oft love's vigil here to keep, Stranger, albeit, thou think'st I dote; I know, I know, she ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... him to his afternoon vigil, after Holmes had taken a look at the bulldog chained up near the horses downstairs,—and returning to the castle we all entered the library, where the Earl called the butler, ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... on number three fell in, and Dodge stepped out to take up his vigil, Corporal Hasbrouck gave added instructions to the new ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... on, sweet bride of sleep! With golden visions for thy dower, While I this midnight vigil keep, And bless thee in thy silent bower; To me 'tis sweeter than the power Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurled, That I alone, at this still hour, In patient love ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... but it went untouched. For one whole week he lay in the wind and weather in the hole he had dug on the grave. There the children found him on the eighth morning curled up and apparently asleep. His long quest and vigil were ended, for he had reached the happy hunting grounds. Who shall say that a beloved hand and voice did ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... breakfast with her. She was conscious that somehow her vigil had affected his estimate of her, for his speech was frank and direct, as though he considered her now more fit to be ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... as did the vigil of Nort and Snake, nothing more important occurring than the distant howls ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... night the vigil of the holy St. Bernard, their patron saint, was held; now, there was no one to light the altar candles for her, for her maid, who had grown old along with her, lay a-dying, and she was too old and weak herself to stretch up so high. And the idle Lutheran heretics ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... in the sea of the infinite and resting in night shows the present state of humanity. But, "the blush of dawn" is ready to gladden the soul, and the expectant seer, from his lonely vigil on the hilltop, awaits the sunlight which will soon flood the ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... midnight veiled the sky, You'd hear his hasting step go by, To gain the bridge beside the deep, That where its wildest torrents leap Hangs thread-like o'er the surge, Just there, upon its awful verge, His vigil-hour to keep. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-moon; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... ready for anything, and could not be surprised; so that we may commend as wisdom the Spanish discretion that let them alone. The ship that was the nearest neighbor of Admiral Dewey for months of his long vigil flew the flag of Belgium. She is a large, rusty-looking vessel, without a sign of contraband of war, or of a chance of important usefulness about her; but she performed a valuable function. I asked half a dozen times what her occupation was before any one gave a satisfactory ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... letter had not done its office. Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister struggled, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said Miss Daisy, opening her fan. "She's going to try to get Eugenio to talk to him. But he isn't afraid of Eugenio. Eugenio's a splendid courier, but he can't make much impression on Randolph! I don't believe he'll go to bed before eleven." It appeared that Randolph's vigil was in fact triumphantly prolonged, for Winterbourne strolled about with the young girl for some time without meeting her mother. "I have been looking round for that lady you want to introduce me to," his companion resumed. "She's ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... were deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed cheeks there was a certain pallor, a grayness caught from many a vigil. It was as though, after Nature had done her worst with that face, some fine chisel had gone over it, chastening and almost transfiguring it. To-night, as his muscles twitched with emotion, and the perspiration dropped from his hair and chin, there was a certain convincing power ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... prone, crying so; but at last arose and, folding back the curtain with hot hands, began her vigil for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... contraction of the throat muscles that made swallowing difficult. "What if there were twenty-four more of it!" Could she stand it? She was tired to exhaustion with walking, with the strain of resisting the cold, and the all-night vigil—weak, ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... months, the rose had run away to be the bride of the south wind, and the daisy had wedded the brook and was taking a bridal tour to the seaside watering-places. But the violet still lingered in the greenwood, and kept her vigil at the grave of the robin. She was pale and drooping, but still she watched and sang over the spot where her love lay buried. Each day she grew weaker and paler. The oak begged her to come and live among the warm lichens that protected him from the icy breath of the storm-king, but the violet ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... I sob; and when grey dawn rises and grants me a little grace of rest, the swallows cry around and about me, and bring me back to tears, thrusting sweet slumber away: and my unclosing eyes keep vigil, and the thought of Rhodanthe returns again in my bosom. O envious chatterers, be still; it was not I who shore away Philomela's tongue; but weep for Itylus on the mountains, and sit wailing by the hoopoe's court, that we may sleep a little; and perchance ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... birds! it hath still been so; Through the halls of kings doth the tempest go! But the huts of the hamlet lie still and deep, And the hills o'er their quiet a vigil keep: Say, what have ye found in the peasant's cot, Since last ye parted from that ...
— Landscape and Song • Various
... of Pentecost come round, and many were the knights that Arthur had made after he founded the Order of the Round Table; yet no knight had appeared who dared claim the seat named by Merlin the Siege Perilous. At last, one vigil of the great feast, a lady came to Arthur's court at Camelot and asked Sir Launcelot to ride with her into the forest hard by, for a purpose not then to be revealed. Launcelot consenting, they rode together until they came to a nunnery hidden deep in the forest; and there the lady ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... was long, and the following morning, at about four o'clock, shortly after Pascal had fallen asleep, after a happy vigil filled with hopes and dreams, he was wakened by a dreadful attack. He felt as if an enormous weight, as if the whole house, had fallen down upon his chest, so that the thorax, flattened down, touched the back. ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... him to carry on connected conversation with Manikawan or the other Indians. Denied this privilege for so long, he talked almost incessantly to the three trappers, while the four sat through the hours until daybreak, keeping vigil with Death. He talked of the prospect of continued life, and what a blessed thing it was to know that he was still to be in and of the great and glorious world; of his trying experiences since he had ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... and the dawn came faintly in at the east: and he shivered in his vigil, and fell to pondering on his dream; for he doubted not that it came from God. So, when he had pondered a little, he was amazed and said in his prayer, "Woe is me that I cannot see light." And as he said the words the sun brightened up the sky, and in a moment the monk saw what the ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... approved himself to the searching eyes of Prowess, and been accepted by Humility. After the bath, it was customary for him to spend a night in vigil; and this among the Teutons should have taken place in church, alone before the altar. But the Italian poet, after his custom, gives a suave turn to the severe discipline. His donzel passes the night in bed, attended by Discretion, or the virtue of reflection. She provides fair ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... detail to be distinct; and the canvas is too large for the eye to encompass. But this is no more the case when our recollections have been strained long enough through the hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen of so much thought, the charm and comfort of so many a vigil. All that is worthless has been sieved and sifted out of them. Nothing remains but the brightest lights and the darkest shadows. When we see a mountain country near at hand, the spurs and haunches crowd up in eager rivalry, and the whole range seems ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... care-free children of this tropic realm drowsed through the long, hot days and gossiped and danced in the soft airs of night. Rosendo held his unremitting, lonely vigil of toil in the ghastly solitudes of Guamoco. Jose, exiled and outcast, clung desperately to the child's hand, and strove to rise into the spiritual consciousness in which she dwelt. And thus the year fell softly into the yawning arms of the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... that purpose was gained, the false strength which had sustained her so long gave way utterly. Her weary frame was at last extended upon a bed from which she would no longer be compelled to rise for the watch and the march and the vigil. Her labor was over. Now came the reaction. Rapidly she yielded. It seemed as though joy had killed her. Not so. A great purpose had given her a fictitious strength; and now, when the purpose was accomplished, the strength departed, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... tidings. Mrs. Chadron kept up a moaning like an infant whose distress no mind can read, no hand relieve. Now and then she burst into a shrill and sudden cry, and time and again she imagined that she heard Nola calling her, and dashed off along the road with answering shout, to come back to her sad vigil at the gate by and by on Frances' arm, crushed by this one great and sudden sorrow of ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... peered down at us from time to time from crags that looked inaccessible, shouting now and then curt recognition before leaning again on a modern rifle to resume the ancient vigil of the mountaineer, which is beyond the understanding of the plains-man because it includes attention to all the falling water voices, and the whispering of ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... the vigil in Hume's rooms wore on. Unlike the preceding one, the two young men were almost entirely silent; when they did speak, it was in tones so low as to ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... soldier suffered as much as the ponies. He had felt that every time he re-entered his tent (which was also Captain Scott's) that he took in more wet snow and helped to increase the general discomfort. This being the case when he went out to the ponies, he stopped out, and kept his vigil crouching behind a drifted up pony-wall. We others could not help laughing at him, after the blizzard, when he wrung the icy water out of his clothing. His personal bag was in a fearful state, his sodden tobacco had discoloured everything, and as he ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... which Josephine dwelt, locked and barred. No, he opened the doors wide, and bade her come out, and talked to her. Passionate and wild and loving words he used, and Beatrice was nothing to him. He did not go to bed that night. In the morning his face showed symptoms of the vigil he had passed through. His mother noticed the haggard lines round his eyes, and she gave vent to a sigh—scarcely audible, it is true, ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... time at last sets all things even; And if we do but watch the hour, There never yet was human power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... surrounding the celebration of the birth of Christ are made by human instinct so as to insist and re-insist upon this crucial quality. Everything is so arranged that the whole household may feel, if possible, as a household does when a child is actually being born in it. The thing is a vigil and a vigil with a definite limit. People sit up at night until they hear the bells ring. Or they try to sleep at night in order to see their presents the next morning. Everywhere there is a limitation, a restraint; at one moment the door is shut, at the moment after it ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... the shelving crest, Sage-matted now and rimmed with chaparral, The dim reminders of the olden times, The life of stir, of blood, of Indian raid, The hunt of buffalo and antelope; The camp, the wagon train, the sea of steers; The cowboy's lonely vigil through the night; The stampede and the wild ride through the storm; The call of California's golden flood; The impulse of the Saxon's "Westward Ho" Which set our fathers' faces from the east, To spread resistless o'er ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept: So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— That endless vigil kept, And through each brain on hands of ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... At twenty-one the boy was knighted, and of this the Church made an impressive ceremonial. After fasting, confession, a night of vigil in armor spent at the altar in holy meditation, and communion in the morning, the ceremony of dubbing the squire a knight took place in the presence of the court. He gave his sword to the priest, who blest it upon the altar. He then ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY |
