"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he had brought a ball with him, for they had lost theirs. He threw his ball to him. But aren't you coming to play with us? Not to-day, Joseph answered. I'm on my way to school. Well, to-morrow? Not to-morrow. I may not play truant from learning, Joseph answered sententiously, walking away, leaving his former playmates staring after him without a word in their mouths. But by the next day they had recovered their speech and cried out: the fishmonger's ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... stickleback in a basin of water in charge of his nest. When the young ones were hatched it was most curious to notice his anxiety for their welfare. Of course young sticklebacks, like young children, are of an inquisitive turn of mind, and apt to play truant too occasionally; but should some little fellow wander too far from the nest, Father Stickles hurries after him, takes the little truant in his mouth, and spits him out right over the nest. This I repeatedly witnessed myself, and I have ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... stocked, all squandered now. At ending, he prevailed, and Reub was won To turn and follow. Jerry, though he knew Not yet the father's name, said he that way Was going, too, and he would intercede Between the truant and his father. Back Together then they went. But on the way, As now they passed from pines to farming-land, The boy asked more. "'T is queer you should have come From these same parts, and run away like me! You did not tell ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... professional in the Isle of Man. In due course we all went to the little village school; but I fear, from all that I can remember, and from what I have been told, that knowledge had little attraction for me in those days, and I know that I very often played truant, sometimes for three weeks at a stretch. Consequently my old schoolmaster, Mr. Boomer, had no particular reason to be proud of me at that time, as he seems to have become since. He never enjoys a holiday so much in these days as when he comes over from Jersey ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... nature of the country in which the sheep is straying; and also the nature of the sheep that is straying there. He knows the roughness of the mountain passes, and the silliness of the solitary truant sheep; he divines accordingly what track it will take. He conjectures beforehand, with a considerable measure of accuracy, the pit in which it will be found lying, or the thicket in which it will be seen struggling. He follows and finds the fugitive. Wearied by its journey, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... whipped for playing truant,' she said; 'and I should also punish thee for tearing ...
— Knights of Art - Stories of the Italian Painters • Amy Steedman
... the way; here is the gate, This little creaking wicket; Here robin calls his truant mate From out the lilac-thicket. The walks are bordered all with box,— Oh! come this way a minute; The snowball-bush, beyond the phlox, Has chippy's nest hid in it. Look at this mound of blooming pinks, This balm, these ...
— The Nursery, No. 107, November, 1875, Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... It goes, however, slower and slower, and curving its journey less and less, until at last its motion in remote obscurity is again so sluggish, that the sun's attraction is once more predominant, and able to recall the truant towards its realms of light. Such is the history of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... church, saw nothing of their running into school, and their minds were so taken up with play, that they never heard the clock strike, and continued playing so long till they were afraid to go in; so at last they agreed to play truant, and they all went together a bird's nesting. The first nest they found was a poor little Robin Redbreast's, which one of them, whose name was Harry Harmless, and who was not so hard-heated as the rest, (indeed his chief fault was keeping company with these ...
— The History of Little King Pippin • Thomas Bewick
... in the same great, blind, inexorable Governmental machine. Here, too, was a miniature fair, the path being lined by itinerant temptations. There was brisk traffic in toffy, and gray peas and monkey-nuts, and the crowd was swollen by anxious parents seeing tiny or truant offspring safe within the school-gates. The women were bare-headed or be-shawled, with infants at their breasts and little ones toddling at their sides, the men were greasy, and musty, and squalid. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... breast, Among the broom, and thorn, and whin, A truant-boy, I sought the nest, Or listed, as I lay at rest, While rose on breezes thin, The murmur of the city crowd, And, from his steeple jangling loud, Saint Giles's mingling din. Now, from the summit to the plain, Waves all the hill with yellow grain And o'er the landscape ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... fighting, and thought it would be bad policy. Tim was tolerably tractable now that he was having his own way, and was not very strenuous in support of his own pugnacious views. When their plans were fully digested they left the island to prepare the stakes. Before noon they separated, and the truant returned home about the ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... was, and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew— Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, The love he bore for ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... What, thou! Methought Thou wert a stranger in these parts? Ah, truant, Some village beauty lured thee;—thou art now ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... there," said George, self-defensively. "I played moocher," he continued,—by which he meant truant,—"and then they whopped I, and a went home to mother, and she kept un at home, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... tenaciously to such scraps and shreds of memories as were connected with it. The mummy room of the British Museum had been one of the chief delights of her childhood. That forbidding pile was the goal of her truant fancy, and she was sometimes taken there for a treat, as other children are taken to the theatre. It was long since Alexander had thought of any of these things, but now they came back to him quite fresh, and had a significance they did not have when they ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... point of slipping away on the Easter Tuesday afternoon; he determined to drink tea with the Misses La Sarthe. He went to his room with important letters to write, and then sneaked down again like a truant schoolboy, and when he got safely out of sight, struck obliquely across the park to the one vulnerable spot in the haw-haw, and after fumbling a good deal, from his side, managed to get the spikes out and to climb down, and repeat the operation upon ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... visible reason why she should have had it put out, except as a picturesque and imaginative way of rubbing her altruism into its nearest victim. Unless, indeed, it was done in order that the darkened window should seem to announce to the returning truant that she had gone to bed, and to lull his mind to unconsciousness of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... accept as some consolation until he found that it was stereotyped. Within a few hours it was despatched to another firm of publishers, taken at random from the advertisement columns of the Times. An hour or two afterwards Alfred arrived, with no label around his neck, but a veritable truant. Of the two he was the more self-possessed as ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... municipal governments of the Nation, in all such matters as supervision of the housing of the poor, the creation of small parks in the districts inhabited by the poor, in laws affecting labor, in laws providing for the taking care of the children, in truant laws, and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... district some twenty miles distant from his home. Ned's disposition was a singular compound of good and evil, and his conduct depended in a great measure, upon the companions he associated with. He was easily persuaded, and often during his father's frequent and lengthened absences from home he played truant from school, and associated with the worst boys in the village. I well remember the first morning he entered our school. He was then about twelve years of age; but, owing to his carelessness and inattention, he had made but slight progress in study. ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... those drear solitudes and frowsy cells, Where Infamy with sad Repentance dwells; Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast, And deal from iron hands the spare repast; Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin, Blush at the curious stranger peeping in; Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar, Resolve to drink, nay, half, to whore, no more; Where tiny thieves not destin'd ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... at the ferries and steamboat landings. Others are detailed to examine the steam boilers in use in the city. Others execute the orders of the Board of Health. Another detachment, nine in number, look after truant children. Others are detailed for duty at banks and other places. The Detectives ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... every morning, and to bring them home again in the evening. Each morning he called at the various houses, he led the children out, he carried the little ones, some on his back and some in his arms, he chastised with a stick those who were inclined to play truant, and he landed them all safely at ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... of an education. But they say it is always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is its own reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this I should plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with more deliberate care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. One consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to say of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in the corner Sits greeting on a stool, And sair the laddie rues Playing truant frae the school; Then ye'll learn frae silly Sandy, Wha's gotten sic a fright, To do naething through the day That may ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... a spur of this hill, lo! the lake; and not far from the foot of a tree, behold! our truant brother. Beside him was Dash, and not a great way off, tied to a dwarf algaroba tree, stood the mule. Dugald was sitting on the ground, with his gun over his arm, gazing up ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... battles, in which the latter, like his dog, always came off the victor. The upshot of all these contests was, the expulsion of Dick from the Sabbath-school, into which he carried the bickerings engendered through the week. Another reason for his expulsion was the frequency with which he played truant, and of his having, in several instances, enticed other boys away from the school for ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... the weather that certain lads, imbued with that spirit of lawlessness and adventure which seems inherent in the nature of the young Briton, had conspired together to defy the authority of their schoolmaster by playing truant from afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship gliding up the Sound before the soft ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... Maypole. Nine Men's Morris was another popular game, and Falstaff, referring to his treatment when he escaped from Ford's house disguised as the fat woman of Brentford, says, "Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what it was to be beaten, since lately." Goose-plucking was a particularly barbarous pastime. We know that hockey and football were played in Elizabethan England, and that the corporation of Stratford kept a bowling-alley at the municipality's expense for ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... him that they were overheard and must respect the conventions here. The door had just been opened anew, and an old lady had come in, followed by a young man in whom the journalist recognized the truant schoolboy, perpetrator of the famous and as yet unforgotten "tres chic" of the Blonde Venus first night. This lady's arrival caused a stir among the company. The Countess Sabine had risen briskly from her seat in order to go and greet her, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... try calling the rooster back, when he starts to play truant, with all that mouthful of ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... flush risen to her cheeks at the thought? At another time she would have refused to listen to the voice which answered; but now, as the object of her thoughts lay dying on her pillow, her mind would not play truant to her heart. Sometimes the approach of love is so imperceptible that it does not provoke analysis. We wake suddenly to find it in our hearts, so strong and splendid that we submit without question.... All, all her dreams had vanished, ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... braided blades of grass Where the truant had to pass; And they wriggled through the rushes And the reeds of the morass, Where they danced, in rapture sweet, O'er the leaves that laid a street Of undulant mosaic for The ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... childhood. When he began to run wild with the other boys he preferred their savage freedom; and he got out of going to school by most of the devices they used. He had never quite the hardihood to play truant, but he was subject to sudden attacks of sickness, which came on about school-time and went off towards the middle of the forenoon or afternoon in a very strange manner. I suppose that such complaints are unknown at the present time, but the Young People's fathers can ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... mock me, when with tears of rapture He bathed my hand; knelt; sighed; as had his voice By pleasure been o'erwhelmed, a while was silent; But soon came words, sweet as those most sweet kisses Which grateful Venus gave the swain whose care Brought back her truant doves!——So sweet, so sweet—— Distrust, herself, must have believed those words. Oh! and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... rising from the depth of the pond, the white top of his float. Fred gave a half shriek at what he saw, for to him it seemed a feat of unsurpassed daring, as Harry clasped the bough with his legs, and swinging himself head downwards, he plunged his hands into the water and grasped his truant line. ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... to drink; father invalided and being helped by a Sick Society, 3/- a week, and Parish 5/- a week. Housing: five in two rooms. They are in a burying club. Children fleabitten. Two have died. Food is rather scanty. Wife very quarrelsome and drunken. The boys play truant often. Two were given free food and clothes two winters ago, and this winter one has free dinners and clothes given. A Mission has given cheap clothes. Evidence from School-master, Police, Poor Law Officer, C.O.S. branch, Church, School Charity, Sick ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... perfect right, besides sound reason, to do. It was a great while before our grandmothers' daughters could peaceably stitch and overcast a seam, instead of over-sewing and felling it. I know women who feel to this moment as if to sit down and read a book of a week-day, in the daytime, were playing truant to the needle, though all the sewing-machines on the one hand, and all the demand and supply of mental culture on the other, of this present changed and bettered time, protest ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... said he, "it's no reason why you shouldn't." So he put Young Gerard to work, first as sheepboy to his own flock, but later the boy had a flock of his own. There was no love lost between these two, and kicks and curses were the young one's fare; for he was often idle and often a truant, and none was held responsible for him except the old shepherd who was selling him piece-meal, year by year, to their master. Because of what depended on him, Old Gerard was constrained to show him some sort of care when he would liever have wrung ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... We crossed the country without obstacle, mounted on two powerful Mecklenburgers; and before noon, were deep in Brabant. The very rashness of the undertaking seemed to restore to Don John his forgotten hilarity of old! He was like a truant schoolboy, that has cheated his pedagogue of a day's bird-nesting; and eyes more discerning than those of the stultified natives of these sluggish provinces, had been puzzled to detect under the huge patch that blinded him of an eye, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... its rich vengeance." Silently, Bowing his head, Sidney withdrew. But Drake, So fiercely the old grief rankled in his heart, Summoned his swiftest horseman, bidding him ride, Ride like the wind through the night, straight to the Queen, Praying she would most instantly recall Her truant courtier. Nay, to make all sure, Drake sent a gang of seamen out to crouch Ambushed in woody hollows nigh the road, Under the sailing moon, there to waylay The Queen's reply, that she might never know It reached him, if it proved ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Betham,—Not my will, but accident and necessity made me a truant from my promise. I was to have left Merton, in Surrey, at half-past eight on Tuesday morning with a Mr. Hall, who would have driven me in his chaise to town by ten; but having walked an unusual distance on the Monday, and talked and exerted myself ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... returned from the West Indies, but without having recovered her truant husband. On her return, one or two more letters Burns wrote to her in the old exaggerated strain—the last in June, 1794—after which Clarinda ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... had longed to make a little gentleman of him, but he refused to be made. He would give a little contemptuous curve to his lip, and take on a shy, charity-boy grin, when refinement was thrust upon him. He played truant from the High School, sold his books, his cap with its badge, even his very scarf and pocket-handkerchief, to his school-fellows, and went raking off heaven knows where with the money. So he spent two very ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... audible, but that was all, and, deeply pained, Ellen retired to her own room, which she did not quit, even to see her favourite cousin decked for the ball. Emmeline sought her, however, and tried by kisses to recall the truant rose, the banished smile, but Mrs. Hamilton did not come to wish her good night, and Ellen's ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... of Long Ago! O drowsy winds, awake, and blow The snowy blossoms back to me, And all the buds that used to be! Blow back along the grassy ways Of truant feet, and lift the haze Of happy summer from the trees That trail their tresses in the seas Of grain that float and overflow The orchard lands ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... not so!—and still, as ever, Time's a jewel in its loss; But, possessed in plenty, never Held as ought but worthless dross. Like lost truant-boys we linger Whimpering in Life's mazy wood, Heedless of the silent finger Ever pointing for our good; Each, in plodding darkness groping, Clothes his day in dreamy night, 'Stead of boldly climbing, hoping, Up the steeps towards the light, Where, as metal plucks the lightning Flashing ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... anticipated. "Shall we go to school?" he asked. "We shall have time to get there before it opens." "No," I replied; "you have persuaded me to come here, and now I shall stay." We both did. I never played truant again after this day. Did the schoolmaster become acquainted with this breach of discipline? No; or I am afraid he would not have given me such a testimonial as I now hold ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... Talbot, his uncle's dearest and most intimate friend. He informed Waverley that on his return from abroad he had found both Sir Everard and his brother in custody on account of Edward's reported treason. He had, therefore, immediately started for Scotland to endeavour to bring back the truant. He had seen Colonel Gardiner, and had found him, after having made a less hasty inquiry into the mutiny of Edward's troop, much softened toward the young man. All would have come right, concluded Colonel Talbot, had it not been for our hero's joining ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... old woman opened the door and Maria slept in her house. The king was very angry at her for playing truant, but when she returned home the next day, she found the plants of her sisters withered away, because they had disobeyed their father. Now the window in the room of the eldest overlooked the gardens of the king, ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... gaily-crowded streets was sweet to him as a lazy truant ramble in the woods during church-time. Everything that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the glossy coats of mettlesome, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... the other side said: 'I observe you lay great stress on a painter's eye; what do you mean by that expression?' 'A painter's eye,' replied Gainsborough, 'is to him what the lawyer's eye is to you.' As a boy at the Grammar School of his native town, it is to be feared he loved to play truant. One day he went out to his usual sketching haunts to enjoy the nature which he loved heartily, previously presenting to his uncle, who was master of the school, the usual slip of paper, 'Give Tom a holiday,' in which his father's handwriting was so exactly imitated that not the slightest suspicion ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... by which the childish mind attempts to achieve an indirect purpose and at the same time keep his peace with his conscience. It is when he already has a certain fear of lying, and is not yet thoroughly sincere and truth-loving, that he will come home from the truant fishing party and ingeniously tell you that a "friend of Harry's" caught the fish, instead of saying that he himself did it. His conscience is quite satisfied with the reflection that he is a friend of Harry's. In this stage of his career ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... the traveller did nothing which was worthy of such careful record. Sometimes she did but bathe the weary feet of her little children, but the angel over the right shoulder—wrote it down. Sometimes she did but patiently wait to lure back a little truant who had turned his face away from the distant light, but the angel over the right shoulder—wrote it down. Sometimes she did but soothe an angry feeling or raise a drooping eye-lid, or kiss away a little grief; but the angel over ...
— The Angel Over the Right Shoulder - The Beginning of a New Year • Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps
... are a-bloom once more. The lilac buds are bursting with the joy of the new spring. A veil of silver-gray floats over Moose Hillock. The idle brook, like a truant boy, dances in the sunshine, singing to itself as it leaps ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... fact, but one member of the household he did not exclusively claim. This was the married daughter, Salina, whose life had been embittered by a truant husband,—no other, in fact, than the erring son of the worthy Mrs. Sprowl. The day when the infatuated girl made a marriage so much beneath the family dignity, Toby, in great grief and indignation, gave her up. "I washes my hands ob her! she ain't no more a chile ob mine!" said the old servant, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... instance, on the road to 'Frisco and New York, where Pa had resolved to go, at all costs, come what might—it was one step nearer London!—at Honolulu—ten days there and such a success!—the child played truant in the gardens teeming with birds and fruit, climbed apple-trees, was caught one day and scampered off at full speed, pursued by Ma, who threatened to give her a sound smacking this time, the little thief! But Pa thought it ridiculous, for the ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... us with Egyptian exactness and Spartan severity, and the most vexatious and grievous fact of all is, that the strong arm of the law of the land loses its power when it comes our turn to receive justice. The law either plays truant, or openly acknowledges that it has no power to defend us. But the God of law and {pg 199} justice, who broke down one form of slavery, will break down this, too. Still, there is a part for us to do. On this line, as on others, the man who needs help ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various
... that the dog which should have wrought the spit had disappeared. He attempted to employ another, but it bit his leg and fled. Soon after, however, the refractory dog entered the kitchen, driving before him the truant turnspit, which immediately, of its own accord, went into the wheel. A company of turnspits were assembled in the Abbey Church of Bath, where they remained very quietly. At one part of the service, however, the word "spit" was pronounced, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... took from him and plunged into hot water. Between four and five he was sent to school, his parents thinking to keep him out of mischief of this kind. But he had not the least interest in school knowledge, and constantly played truant; and when he did come to school he brought with him all kinds of horrid insects, reptiles, and birds. One morning during prayers a jackdaw began to caw, and as the bird was traced to the ownership of Thomas Edward, ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... tell you:—he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's 20 beam; because I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with me: I'll tell you all, Master Brook. Since I plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, I knew not what 'twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me: I'll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on 25 whom to-night I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... not, O Freya, weep no golden tears! One day the wandering Oder will return, Or thou wilt find him in thy faithful search On some great road, or resting in an inn, Or at a ford, or sleeping by a tree. So Balder said;—but Oder, well I know, My truant Oder I shall see no more To the world's end; and Balder now is gone, And I am left uncomforted in Heaven." She spake; and all the Goddesses bewail'd. Last from among the Heroes one came near, No God, but of the hero-troop the chief— Regner, who swept the northern sea with fleets, And ruled o'er ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Fancy's two-winged doorway slow doth close. The birds begin to twitter and to sing. All nature waketh and on pointed toes Young truant Morpheus stealeth gently in. Oh, happiness of reinstalled repose, And balsam for thy cold and sweated skin! 'Twas worse than all the nightmares, blessed wight; This vigil with these ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. The clear light of the bright autumn morning had no terrors for youth and health like hers. She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat. Then, woman-like, she did the unlocked for, and laughed at him, a low, full ripple of wholesome ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Evesham keepsake," touching his side, "burst forth again one evening, and left me so spent, that Bessee sent the boy to get me a draught of wine. The boy—mountebank as he is—lost her groat, and played truant; and she, poor wench, got into such fear for me that she went herself, and fell in with a sort of insolent masterful rogues, from whom this young knight saved her. I took her home safe enough after that, and thought to be rid of the knaves when they saw my wallet; ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is seldom that her wishes cross the limits of the domestic circle, which to her is earth itself, and all that it contains which is most desirable. Her husband and children compose her little world, and beyond them and their sympathies, it is rare indeed that her truant affections ever wish to stray. A part of this concentration of the American wife's existence in these domestic interests, is doubtless owing to the simplicity of American life and the absence of temptation. Still, so devoted is the ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... was that Jose and Patch, who had gone a-hunting, had not returned when the party had left for Bell Hammer. It was possible that, during their absence, the dogs had come back, and Anthony did not like to think that truant Patch might be wandering around the house, seeking admission in vain. Consequently, after the car had been noiselessly bestowed—out of consideration for their employers' rest, the four had alighted before they left the road and had man-handled a silent Ford up the drive and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... brain had doggedly resisted the little instruction he might have received. For instance, he had been to the Carmelite's school at ——, and instead of showing any aptitude for work, he had played truant with a keener delight than any of his school-fellows. His was an eminently contemplative nature, kindly and indolent, but proud and almost savage in its love of independence; religious, yet opposed to all authority; somewhat captious, very suspicious, and inexorable with hypocrites. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... found the outdoor air very fresh and sweet after the closeness of the school-house. It had just that same odor in his boyhood, and as he escaped he had a delightful sense of playing truant or of having an unexpected holiday. It was easier to think of himself as a boy, and to slip back into boyish thoughts, than to bear the familiar burden of his manhood. He climbed the tumble-down stone wall across the road, and went along a narrow path ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... played truant all day from school, was lolling on his mother's best sofa in the drawing-room with his leather boots tucked up on the satin cushions, and nothing to do but to suck a few oranges, and nothing to think of but how much sugar to put upon them, when suddenly ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... reported noticing one of the Briarcroft boarders in Mansfield Road on several successive evenings could give no account of the truant's personal appearance. It had been dusk at the time, and they had only seen a girl in a sailor hat with a blue-and-white striped band hurrying rapidly past, as if anxious to escape observation. They thought she had dark hair, and ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... with upturned gaze Idly dreaming away his days. No companions? Yes, a book Sometimes under his arm he took To read aloud to a lonesome brook. And school-boys, truant, once had heard A strange voice chanting, faint and dim— Followed the echoes, and found it him, Perched in a tree-top like a bird, Singing, clean from the highest limb; And, fearful and awed, they all slipped by To wonder in ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... over the unrivalled scene, and gave it a silvery lustre which sweetly harmonized with the silence of the night. The clock's iron tongue, in a neighboring belfry, proclaimed the hour of twelve, as the truant and unfaithful husband seated himself by the side of his devoted and loving wife, and inquired if she ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... kind friend; but beware of making marriage a mere convenience. There may be folly in calling each truant inclination that deep sentiment and secret sympathy which firmly knits heart to heart, and doubtless a common fortune may bind the worldly-minded together; but this is not the holy union which keeps noble qualities in a family, and which fortifies against the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... rosy East gives warning, 'Tis the wished-for nuptial morning. Sweetest truant from Elysium, Golden morning of the May! All the guests are in their places— Lilies with pale, high-bred faces— Hawthorns in white wedding favours, Scented with celestial savours— Daisies, like sweet country maidens, Wear white scolloped frills to-day; 'Neath her hat of straw the Peasant Primrose ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... Southampton," roared the bosun in reply, "run a-truant from Doggy-Trang. And who ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... gratitude. Before doing so, however, and having said much in commendation, Captain Widdrington will perhaps permit us to offer him a slight and well-intended hint in the contrary sense. When next the truant-fit comes over him, and he favours us with the result of his researches and observations in Spain or any other country—and we hope it will not be long before he does thus favour us—may he be able to devote rather more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... I play truant from Parkhurst, and that transgression was attended with consequences so tragical that to this day its memory is as vivid and impressive as if the event I am about to record had happened only last week, instead of a ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... team a powerful St. Bernard, so trained that all he had to do was to show him the collar of the missing dog and then send him after the truant. Hamilton gave one smell at the collar and then was off. If that dog was anywhere within two miles he was driven into the camp in a hurry. If a stubborn, obstinate dog objected to march in before him, he gave him a shaking that never had to ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... more especially, of a revelation in colour and form. If our modern education, in its better efforts, really conveys to any of us that kind of idealising power, it does so (though dealing mainly, as its professed instruments, with the most select and ideal remains of ancient literature) oftenest by truant reading; and thus it happened also, long ago, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... proposition to a young widower that he shall undertake re-marriage with a young widow, well-to-do, of another parish; of his going a-wooing with the rather incongruous adjuncts of a pretty young servant girl, who is going to a "place," and his own truant elder sonlet; of the benighting of them as above by the side of a mere or marsh of evil repute; of the insult offered to Marie on the arrival at her new place; of the discomfiture of Germain, the hero, at finding ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... from writing home till he had secured himself a position in which he could maintain himself. When he did communicate with Thursley, it was through Mehetabel, because Simon had forbidden any allusion to the truant boy, and Mrs. Verstage was not herself much of a scholar, and did not desire unnecessarily to anger her husband by having letters in his handwriting come to her by ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed by Person:—'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's middling style.... But what ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... The truant quarrier seemed rather inclined to stay where he was and finish the mug of ale, but Pierston quickened him, and he ascended the staircase. As soon as the lower room was empty Pierston leant with his elbows on the table, and covered his ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... crisp thickness. To her maiden fancy something of his strong virility had escaped even to this wayward little lock of hair. She had wondered then how the Senorita Valdes could keep from loving this splendid fellow if he cared for her. All the more she wondered now, for her truant heart was going out to him with the swift ardent passion of her race. It was as a sort of god she looked upon him, as a hero of romance far above her humble hopes. She found herself longing for chances to wait upon him, to do little services that would draw the approving ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... well to quit the churchyard at once for some place where he was not likely to be seen; he had never played truant before, and for the next hour or two was thoroughly miserable as he slunk about the premises of a neighboring farm, and finally took refuge in a shed, and began to consider his position. He would remain hidden till nine o'clock, and then go home. If nothing were ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... it was sharpened, and the man turned to me with, "Now, you little rascal, you've played truant! Scud to school, or you'll ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... the schoolmaster has to deal. In Macaulay's time he used to be guided by his 'common-sense,' and to intellectualise the whole process. The unfortunate boys who acted upon an ancient impulse to fidget, to play truant, to chase cats, or to mimic their teacher, were asked, with repeated threats of punishment,'why' they had done so. They, being ignorant of their own evolutionary history, were forced to invent some far-fetched lie, and were punished for that as well. ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... was a pleasure to see the expression of Reed's face when he came upon a new book really after his mind, or, still better, an old book, "Anything fifteenth century or early sixteenth," he used to say; any relic or scrap from Caxton's or De Worde's Press; any specimen of a "truant type" on the page of an early book; or a Caslon, or a Baskerville in good condition; or one of the beauties from Mr Morris's modern Press. Charles Lamb himself could not have looked more radiant or more happy in ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... throwing down the novel which had occupied the moments intervening the completion of the extravagant toilet and the arrival of an admirer. "I feel very much inclined to impose severe punishment upon you. Is it becoming a suitor to play truant when he wishes to hear favorably ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... some day know. What is more, I am satisfied that the larger one has more than an ordinary interest in Stephens. She has twice already saved his life; and I should not be surprised if she were now to lay him once more under the obligation. Ha, truant," he said, turning to one of his staff who had come from a nigh tree-clump, where he had been writing, "you should have been here to see the beautiful Metis maiden. She was in disguise, but her beauty was not less divine than that of your own Iena. Fancy the feelings ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... gowns with white bows in their caps, running about the house in a state of excitement and agitation which it would be impossible to describe. The old lady was dressed out in a brocaded gown, which had not seen the light for twenty years, saving and excepting such truant rays as had stolen through the chinks in the box in which it had been laid by, during the whole time. Mr. Trundle was in high feather and spirits, but a little nervous withal. The hearty old landlord was trying to look very cheerful and unconcerned, but failing signally in the attempt. All the girls ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... one of the soundest thrashings I ever got in my life by playing truant from school in order to follow the Slasher to a wretched little race meeting, held at a place called The Roughs, on the side of the Birmingham Road, in the parish of Hands-worth. My hero was there in glory, followed about by an innumerable tag-rag and bobtail, and I am afraid that ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... heard some news of the truant lover. The fact is, this young lady was as intelligent as she was inexperienced; and she had asked Jacintha to tell Dard to talk to every soldier that passed through the village, and ask him if he knew anything about Captain Dujardin of the 17th regiment. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... like to say, I'm sure, I shouldn't like to say Why I hear your voice, so fresh and pure, In the dash of the laughing spray. Nor why the wavelets that all the while, In many a diamond-glittering file, With truant sunbeams play, Should make me remember your rippling smile— I shouldn't ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... these barren cliffs the ravenous vulture dwells, Who never fattens on the prey which from afar he smells; But, patient, watching hour on hour upon a lofty rock, He singles out some truant lamb, a victim, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... "cumbered with much serving," and his sister generally remaining with some of her friends in the village during the interval between the morning service and Sunday school, it was comparatively easy for Master Sam to play truant, as indeed he sometimes did from the day school, where his chances of punishment were much greater, Mr. Ford being far more alive to the advantages of a "good education" than to the need of the knowledge which "maketh wise unto salvation." So that, when ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Sir Bruin, "let me alone with Reynard; I am not such a truant in discretion to become a mock to his knavery;" and thus, full of jollity, ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... the street, keeping close to the wall. It seemed unnatural being there at that hour; everything had a quiet, unfamiliar look. The white walls of the houses reproached the truant with ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... (ah, joy!) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, 45 What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... caused an old man's gray hair to turn black and his teeth to grow again—if he only took it long enough; and he had, besides, remedies which would cure chickens that had the pip, horses that kicked, old women with the rheumatism, dogs that howled at the moon, boys who played truant, and cats ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton |
