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More "Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... barricade the brown, paintless farmhouses. Swine, hanging by the ham-strings in the neighboring shed; the barn-yard speckled with the ruffled poultry, some sedate with recent bereavement, others cackling with a dim sense of temporary reprieve; the rough-coated steer butting in the fold, where the timid sheep huddle together in the corner; little boys on a single skate improving the newly frozen horse-pond—these furnish the foreground of the picture during the earlier ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... ambassador came back from the mission with which the poor young gentleman had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have a short reprieve, because Dick has had to go away again; not to his mother, this time, but to London. A telegram was forwarded to him from Gloucester, where he had left sending-on instructions; and he knocked at my door early yesterday morning (at Tintern) to say he ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... his friend to the last moment. Poor Forster was being gradually overpowered by the rising bronchial humours with which, as he grew weaker, he could not struggle with or baffle. It was then that Quain, bending over, procured him a short reprieve and relief in his agony, putting his fingers down his throat and clearing away ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... impenitence. His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is part despair, part calculated horror. In his last revolt against death and all his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve his purpose and gain a reprieve:— ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... stand, also in line, with their backs against a huge rock which was to serve as a background; and Jim found himself, for the second time in his life, facing a firing-party and condemned to death. But this time there seemed to be no hope or possibility of reprieve. He was surrounded by cruel men who had no feelings save those of a brutal nature, and it seemed as though no power ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... semi-torpor to plead for a reprieve. Not yet—not yet! Whatever she had to face, let her rest for a little first. They had parted with her for the night; they would not go to her room, she knew—outcast as she now was from the sympathy of them all; they would not miss her before the morning. ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... to the imprisoned atmosphere in our artificial inclosures, and there it ends. That marvelous protective economy of Nature within us, to which we have referred, is no perpetual guaranty against the consequences of our negligence; it is only a limited reprieve, to afford space for repentance; and unless we hasten to improve the day of grace, the suspended sentence comes down, upon us at last with force ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... to administer the law of the land. A sterner and healthier spirit was called for at the present juncture. The time had come to make an example, and a more suitable case than the one now before him could not have been found for such a purpose. He would accordingly hold out no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisoner to make the best use of the short ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... that they struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain, but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at the wounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eye caught sight of Virginia's form. With a roar ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... courage, I should have done so. A coward, I let slip the opportunity. I thought of the communication-cord, but how could I move to it? He would be too quick for me. He would be very angry with me. I would sit quite still and wait. Every moment was a long reprieve to me now. Something might intervene to save me. There might be a collision on the line. Perhaps he was a quite harmless man...I ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... his good humour, "since you are certainly better to-day without the draught, discontinue it also to-morrow. I will make an alteration for the day after." So that night Madame Dalibard visited in vain her niece's chamber: Helen had a reprieve. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... number of different ideas are by this means wrapped up in one short sound, and how much of our time and breath is thereby saved, any one will see, who will but take the pains to enumerate all the ideas that either REPRIEVE or APPEAL stand for; and instead of either of those names, use a periphrasis, to make any ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... thirteen plus one third miles. But only two and a half hours were given to walking; the other one and a half to riding. No day was a day of rest; absolutely none. Days so stormy that they "kept the raven to her nest," snow the heaviest, winds the most frantic, were never listened to as any ground of reprieve from the ordinary exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for I never saw her, but through the reports of her many friends) an intrepid lady, [Footnote: If I remember rightly, some account is given of this palstric lady and her stern Pdo-gymnastics, in a clever ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... afternoon. There's worse than oil on the place—and it's all yours now for keeps." With Rose Mary in his arms Everett had entirely forgotten to announce to her such a minor fact as the saving of her lands and estate, but to the two little old ladies his sympathy had made him give the words of reprieve with his first free breath. The bundles on the floor and the old trunk had smote his heart with a fierce pain that the impulsive warmth of his greeting and the telling of his rescue ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... succeeded his father as marechal of Burgundy) the widow of the Baron d'Alegre, Madeleine de Miolans, a daughter of a once illustrious Savoyard family. To her devotion and that of his de Vergy's relatives, who spared nothing but the necessary funds to avert his impending ruin, Michel owed a short reprieve from the execution of his creditors. Four months' delay was granted his wife in which to raise the interest due on the loans; but although journeying to Paris and soliciting every influence to procure the required sum, the countess ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... work wonders with her eloquence, her tears, her pleading glances. On hearing her prayer for a reprieve of twenty-four hours, swearing that after that she would never see Jeannin again, the commander and the chevalier were obliged to bite their lips to keep from laughing outright. But the former soon regained his self-possession, and while Angelique, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... foul metaphor, and turned with the others towards the press-room again. "Wait for the end of the spell, mate," said the albino over his shoulder—an afterthought. The swart man waited for the albino to precede him. Denton realised that he had a reprieve. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... his fate with resignation. He wrote to his daughter that he was tired of life, and that his death was the best thing that could happen for her mother and herself. But, as time went on and the efforts of his advocate to obtain a commutation of his sentence held out some hope of reprieve, Eyraud became more ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... special taboo. Only could he marry, he explained, when the Southern Cross rode highest in the sky. Knowing his astronomy, he thus gained a reprieve of nearly nine months; and he was confident that within that time he would either be dead or escaped to the coast with full knowledge of the Red One and of the source of the Red One's wonderful voice. At first ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... had overtaken Carver House, Kaiser Bill had gained a temporary reprieve. In the excitement over Nyoda's going away he had been forgotten entirely for a whole week, and of course nothing would be done about his execution until she returned. Kaiser Bill was making the most of his reprieve by breaking ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... Ned Ferry—that cockerel! Here was I in the barrel, and able only to squeal in irate terror at whoever looked down upon me. I could have crawled under a log and died. At the door of the Major's tent I paused to learn and joy of one to whom comes reprieve when the rope is on his neck, I overheard Harry Helm, the General's nephew and aide de-camp, who had been with us, telling what a howling good joke Smith had ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... confessing anything of which he himself had been accused, but by relating certain matters in which my Lord Shaftesbury was concerned. However, he did not; yet the tale had gone about that perhaps he would; and that a reprieve might come even upon ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... if she were about to fall. "Then it is only a reprieve," she moaned, "and I am none the less ruined. Those cursed letters will necessarily be read, and all will be discovered. They will see——" The thought of what they would see endowed her with the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... are mined; we feel the throe From underground of our night-mantled foe: 10 The flame-winged feet Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, Are mercilessly fleet, And at a bound annihilate Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve; Surely ill news might wait, And man be patient of delay to grieve: Letters have sympathies And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 To senses finer than the eyes. Their errand's purport ere we break the seal; They wind a sorrow round with circumstance To stay its feet, nor all unwarned ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... is behind time, and a terrible railway collision occurs. A leading firm with enormous assets becomes bankrupt, simply because an agent is tardy in transmitting available funds, as ordered. An innocent man is hanged because the messenger bearing a reprieve should have arrived five minutes earlier. A man is stopped five minutes to hear a trivial story and misses a train or steamer ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... girl!" Cecil said kindly, and helped herself to bread and butter. Claire had a miserable conviction that her reply had had a deceptive effect, and that the shock when it came, would be all the more severe. Nevertheless, she was thankful for the reprieve; thankful to see Cecil eat sandwiches with honest enjoyment, until the last one had disappeared ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to tell all about it. They were at once taken down. This was the signal for an outbreak, and shouts of "burn 'em, burn 'em" burst from the multitude. Mr. Moore then asked the sheriff to delay execution till he could see the Governor and get a reprieve. He hurried off, and soon returned with a conditional one. But, as he met the sheriff on the common, the latter told him that it would be impossible to take the criminals through the crowd without a strong guard, and before that could arrive, they would be murdered by ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... burned with a slow fire, that he may continue in torment for eight or ten hours and continue burning in said fire until he be dead and consumed to ashes"; and several others were saved only by the royal governor's reprieve and the queen's eventual pardon. Such animosity was exhibited by the citizens toward the "catechetical school" that for some time its teacher hardly dared show himself on the streets. The furor gradually subsided, however, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... give me unprevisioned new, Or give to change reprieve! For new in me is olden too, That I for sameness grieve. O flowers! O grasses! be but once The grass ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... was that: the destruction of all her hopes, pleasures, and affections. It had now become to her a sin to love that dearest one of all things lovely on this earth: duty, paramount and stern, commanded her, without a shadow of reprieve, to execute on herself immediately the terrible sentence of banishing her own betrothed: nay, more, she must forget him, erase his precious image from her heart, and never, never see that brother more. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... official hoping for a reprieve from the deadlines expressed in these orders was likely to be disappointed. In response to queries on the subject, the services quoted their instructions, and if they excused continued segregation during the 1954 school year they were adamant about the September 1955 integration date.[19-76] ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... to stand there until the horses, save for the wounded one still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve. They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two strikes which might yet reduce him to a ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... child. Two of the soldiers were sentenced to be hanged for desertion, and the officer in command hurried forward the execution, although an express had been sent to lay the case before the general at another post. The offence was only a desertion in name, and the reprieve was promptly granted, but it came ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... ground all the rustlers sat down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. Night ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... despatch an Express to the Congress. This repulse, if I mistake not (or victory, as Carleton may call it), will stand 'em but in little stead—'t will be only a temporary reprieve—we'll reinforce our friends, let the consequence be what it may—Quebec must fall, and the lofty strong walls and brazen gates (the shield of cowards) must tumble by an artificial earthquake; should they continue ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... The week's reprieve has ended; my Judgment Day has come. Never, never, surely, did seven days race so madly past, tumbling over each other's heels. Even Sunday—Sunday, which mostly contains at least forty-eight hours—has gone like a flash. Morning service, afternoon service, good looks, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... was a criminal in a cart Agoing to be hanged— Reprieve to him was granted; The crowd and cart did stand, To see if he would marry a wife, Or, otherwise, choose to die! 'Oh, why should I torment my life?' The victim did reply; 'The bargain's bad in every part— But a wife's ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... regard it as a desperate case, that he did not say a few hours must end it, was at first felt, beyond the hope of most; and the ecstasy of such a reprieve, the rejoicing, deep and silent, after a few fervent ejaculations of gratitude to Heaven had been offered, may ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... one forgets those little things! And yet no woman ever forgave a man who forgot to make love when she expected him to do so. For a woman, who is a woman, never forgets to be exigent. And now there is no reprieve, for I have committed myself, am sentenced, and condemned to be made ridiculous in your eyes. Can there be anything more contemptible, more laughable, more utterly and hopelessly absurd, than an old and ugly man declaring his unrequited passion for a ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... share—that fires are kindled towards evening, a dozen in one field sometimes, where they are to be milked, to keep the torments away. The cows are wonderfully clever, they know the value of the fires, and all huddle close up to them, glad of the restful reprieve, after the worry they have endured all day. Poor patient beasts, there they stand, chewing the cud, first with one side of their body turned towards the flames and then the other, the filmy smoke, the glow of the fire and the rays of the sunlight, hiding and showing distinctly by turns the girls ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... a pleasant prospect, and yet it was a reprieve. One is thankful for small mercies when a hairy savage with a blood-stained knife is standing at one's elbow. He dragged me from the room and I was thrust down the stairs and back into my cell. The door was locked and I was left ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... it be of a homely, ordinary kind!—I send a message by my Servant, and he delivers it faithfully: but whether it is to be called my message, or is not to be called my message, is to depend entirely on the subject-matter!... Thus, if a King, refusing to appear in person, should issue a reprieve to prisoners under sentence of Death, a proclamation of Peace or of War, an address to the representatives of the constitution, (Clergy, Lords, and Commons,) in parliament assembled,—the message ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... obvious impatience to the young warriors who had so ably argued against a reprieve—and starting to his feet, as soon as the others had concluded, he urged his former request with great earnestness. He briefly, but strongly recapitulated his own services, and the many and weighty instances of attachment ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... C.P. iii. c. 8) places the Horreum, the statue of Maimas, the house of Craterus, the Modius, and the arch bearing the two bronze hands, after passing which a criminal on the way to punishment lost all hope of reprieve, near this church; basing that opinion on the statement of Suidas that these buildings stood near the Myrelaion. But there was a Myrelaion also (Codinus, De aed. p. 108) in the district in which the Shahzade mosque is situated. The buildings above mentioned were near this second ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... of the city guard, a man of a brutal disposition, and abandoned morals, being provoked by the insults of the mob, commanded his soldiers to fire upon the crowd, by which precipitate orders several innocent persons were killed; Porteus was tried and condemned to die, but obtained a reprieve from the Queen, who was then Regent. The mob, however, were [sic] determined to execute the sentence; they accordingly rose in a tumultuous manner, forced open the prison doors, dragged forth Porteus, and hanged him ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... and told her errand. She had come across the ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. Prisoners often died without reprieve, he seemed to be aware. This cold civility warmed the petitioner's speech. Her mother would have been satisfied, Madeline Desperiers would have been overwhelmed with grief and horror, to have heard this young girl's testimony in regard to prison-life. The old man, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... in his capacity as watch-dog he might have been considered as ex officio the guardian. This vile malefactor had been ordered for execution, and the noose was already coiled for his caitiff neck, when a neighbor of his master's—a great raiser of sheep—begged for him a reprieve, kindly volunteering the use of a truculent, but valuable ram belonging to him, for the purpose of illustrating the homaeopathic theory above alluded to. At nightfall the ram was brought and turned into a paddock, where he was left ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Peg was as a reprieve from death! The trot had almost dislocated her bones, and shaken her up like an addled egg, and the change to racing speed afforded infinite relief. She could scarcely credit her senses, and she felt a tendency ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... idols, and remained in their houses praying and fasting. They were accused before Decius, and they confessed themselves to be Christians. However, the Emperor gave them a little time to consider what line they would adopt. They took advantage of this reprieve to dispense their goods among the poor, and they retired, all seven, to Mount Celion, where they ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... wizened and clerkly in appearance, he was of a lofty courage; and Moll was heard to declare that had she not been sworn to celibacy, she would have cast an eye upon the faithful Ralph, who was obedient to her behests whether at Gaol Delivery or Bear Garden. For her he would pack a jury or get a reprieve; for him she would bait a bull with the fiercest dogs in London. Why then should she fear the law, when the clerk of Newgate and Gregory the Hangman ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... clearly confounds the father with the son when he speaks of the Earl of Norwich's trial and reprieve (iii. 408.). Three letters printed in Mr. W.'s second volume (pp. 172. 181, 182.), and signed "Goring", are probably letters of the father's, but given by Mr. Warburton to ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... The voice of prayer around him, but the soul Beyond its reach. The kneeling Pastor rose Sadly, as when the Shepherd fails to snatch A wanderer from the Lion. But the truth Couch'd in that dismal cry of parting life He treasured up, and bore to those who held Power to investigate and to reprieve; And authorized by them with gladness sought The gloomy prison. Conrad there he found In sullen syncope of sickening thought, And cautiously in measured terms disclosed His liberation. Wondering doubt look'd forth ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... his only regret is to die before he can reveal to the king the hiding-place of a vast treasure which would enable him to outwit the plots of some rebels who are even now conspiring to kill him. The king, hearing this, immediately orders a reprieve, and, questioning the Fox in secret, learns that the conspirators are Brown the Bear, Isegrim the Wolf, and others. To reward the Fox for saving her husband's life, the queen now obtains his pardon, which Noble grants in exchange for information in regard ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... I suppose she has made some application to Mr. G—— for a respite for Edie, on finding how terribly unfit she is for work; or perhaps Mr. ——, to whom I represented her case, may have ordered her reprieve; but she came with much gratitude to me (who have, as far as I know, had nothing to do with it), to tell me that she is not able to be sent into the field for another week. Old Sackey fully confirmed Edie's account ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... said and done," said she, harking back for a reprieve, "perhaps you only recollected Sonnenberg in your dream better than I did ... just now...." She hung fire of repeating ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... some attempts to save him. The Dutch ambassador made vigorous efforts to procure a reprieve, while the French and Spanish ambassadors were inert. The ambassadors from the states nevertheless persevered, and early in the day of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from Fairfax. "But we found," they say in their despatch, "in front of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... at once, from resolve and menace, into unutterable horror, anguish, and despair. He recoiled several steps; his knees trembled violently; he seemed stunned by a death-blow. Isabel, the boldest and haughtiest of her sex, seized that moment of reprieve; she sprang forward, darted through the draperies into the apartments occupied by her train, and, in a moment, the pavilion resounded with her cries for aid. The sentinels were aroused; retainers sprang from ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... himself. "Your eyes are like a startled fawn's. Have I been too abrupt—too thoughtless and inconsiderate? You would forgive me, love, if you knew how I have longed for you; have yearned for this meeting as Dives yearned for water—as the condemned yearn for reprieve. Have you no smile for me, sweetheart?—no word of welcome for the man whose heaven is your love? You knew I would come. You knew I loved ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... reading it several times. When he again raised his face it was filled with surprise and disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed himto read had been his own reprieve. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... what could be expected of her!" So Dora was to go to the married cousins in London, who, by thus taking her in, would be enabled to have a superior governess for their own tribe. Poor Dora! how fiercely she showed her love for me all those weeks of reprieve, and how hard I laboured to impress upon her that her intended system of defiance to the whole Horsman family was not, by any means, such a proof of affection as either Harry or ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... precautions you please, if it is any satisfaction to you to do so; but rely upon my obtaining the reprieve I seek." ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... discovered, by computation, that there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker's ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... girl?—Who was it fired?" exclaimed the Skipper.—"What means this?" he continued, relaxing his grasp, and advancing up the chancel with a beating heart and a rapid step. Burrell took advantage of the momentary reprieve, and was hastily proceeding round to the window, when the tramp of many horses came upon his ear. The steel caps and polished blades of a detachment of Cromwell's own Ironsides glittered amid the ruins and trees that surrounded the chapel, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... sweet and dear, Is the kind relenting Fair, Who Reprieve us in Despair; Oh! that thus my Nymph wou'd say, Come, come my Dear thy Cares repay, Be Blest my Love, be mine to Day: Come, come my dear, thy Cares repay, Be blest my ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... O.K. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and hand it to Burris on a silver platter. "But why ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... looked upon as a reprieve, and when a traveller, expressing sympathy, suggested that "it might sicken her a bit of camp life," Jack clung to that ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the House of Lords, an address was voted to the King, petitioning that his Majesty would reprieve such of the rebel lords as deserved his mercy. The royal answer was couched in these terms: that "the King on this, and all occasions, would do what he thought consistent with the dignity of the Crown and the safety of his people."[218] It was unfortunate that, both ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... out in a new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that it was a ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... felt it a kind of reprieve when she heard from Mr. Strafford that they might delay their journey safely for a month. The sober middle age which had come upon her before its time, as her life rolled on out of the anguish and tumult of the past, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... the wooden cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw me ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... piracy and condemned. The crew were pardoned, but Browne was ordered to be executed. The captain appealed to the Assembly to have the benefit of the Act of Privateers, and the House of Assembly twice sent a committee to the Governor to beg a reprieve. Lord Vaughan refused this and ordered the immediate execution of Browne. Half an hour after the hanging the provost-marshal appeared with an order, signed by the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... says Fairthorn, bluntly and coarsely, urging at least reprieve; "why, if it must be, not wait till you are no more? Why must the old house ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hand; both are born of an extreme sensitiveness, and the man who smiles at the trivial misfits of life realizes also that all men who tread the earth are living under a sentence of death, and that Fate has merely allowed them an indefinite, but limited, reprieve. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... life of a man." Malesherbes wished to speak, but could not. Sobs prevented his utterance; he could only articulate a few indistinct words of entreaty. His grief moved the assembly. The request for a reprieve was received by the Girondists as a last resource; but this also failed them, and ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... not lost upon thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... to bring the last tidings of one who had given his life for right and justice. It was only a reprieve that what it actually brought was the intelligence that he was still alive, and more sensible, and had been able to take much pleasure in seeing the friend of his youth, Captain Coles, who was there with his ship, the Douro. Then there had been a relapse. Captain Coles had brought ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... much troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious Algebra and that black art of Geometry) will, no doubt, determine once in their lives to become figure-casters, and so vote them all to be throwen into the fire, if some good body doe not reprieve them for pye-bottoms, for which purposes you know analogicall numbers are incomparably apt, if ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... sad hour, this feeble frame to save, (Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave, The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried The golden banks that bound the western tide. With full success I calm'd the clamorous race, Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace; And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... speak; and then could only utter the words—number 7? "Still in the wheel," was the answer. "Our messenger is not yet returned from Guildhall, with news of what has been drawn this last hour. If you will call again at three, we can answer you." The man seemed to feel this as a reprieve; but as he was retiring, there came one with a slip of paper in his hand. This was the messenger from Guildhall, who handed the paper to the clerk. He read aloud, "Number 7. Were you not inquiring ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower Administration ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... would read his revulsion in his eyes, would suspect how time and his very constancy had given her the one rival with whom she could never compete; the memory of her old self, of her gracious girlhood, which was dead. Might not she too, actually, welcome a reprieve; however readily she would have submitted out of honour or lassitude, to a marriage which could only be a parody ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... and reprieve I was remanded to the custody of that young Lieutenant Tybee whom you have met and known as Falconnet's second in the duel. Interpreting his orders liberally, he suffered me to keep my own room for the night. I had ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... cruelly false to play with another at the passion which was such a tragedy to her. This was the point that, put aside however often, still presented itself, and its recurrence, if he could have known it, was mercy and reprieve from the only source out of which these ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... brought low with her, but, in the last thin treble of second childhood, she trembled forth mild complaints of her neighbours' troubles, but very little of her own. We left her to enjoy her frugal meal and her noontide reprieve in peace, and came back to the middle of the town. On our way I noticed again some features of street life which are more common in manufacturing towns just now than when times are good. Now and then one meets with a man in the dress of a factory worker selling newspapers, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... "They may reprieve him yet. If his sentence is not commuted to imprisonment I will speak, so help me God ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... true—which may permit us to gag you and tie you securely in this room, where you will be left in peace for at least forty-eight hours, after which time a telegram can be despatched to any address you choose to supply us with. But really, owing to unforeseen circumstances, this chance of a reprieve is remote. It wholly depends upon the arrival, or otherwise, at this house, of a gentleman whom we ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... strangled man was then removed; while fresh exertions were made to obtain his reprieve; this time with a better result; and, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the master, Dick's life was spared; though it was only to undergo the horrors of a stricter servitude. This he bore for some three ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... there were some who looked for signs of a swift-coming messenger. But the cart came nearer, slowly and surely; the space round the gallows was kept clear with difficulty, and there was no sign of hurrying reprieve. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... many years there is no need for lack of candor in discussing the events of 1885. To put it plainly Riel's fate turned almost entirely upon political considerations. Which was the less dangerous course,—to reprieve him or let him hang? The issue was canvassed back and forth by the distracted ministry up to the day before that fixed for the execution when a decision was reached to let the law take its course. The feeling in Quebec in support of the ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... in the depth of his own sorrow, he perceived a grief he could not touch—the anguish of a remorse which might have no end in this life. As the doctors came down stairs John went to meet them, for even a minute's reprieve from his torturing anxiety was worth going for. The foremost made a slight movement, a motion of the lips and eyes which somehow conveyed a hope, and when he heard the words, "She may recover," he hastened back to Richard, and said, ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... assurance, Edith was forced to be content, for she saw, by the officer's resolute face, that she could hope for no reprieve. ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... therefore should he demand to see our novice, even let his wish be gratified— this hated youth is ours beyond reprieve, this Venoni whom Josepha preferred to me, this Venoni to whom alone I impute my disappointment. I had worked upon the superstition and enthusiasm of the weak-minded Hortensia; I had persuaded her, that happiness ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... somewhat freely the election-promises made on this subject by himself and other Ministers. It would be better, he implied, to accept a composition than to put the debtor into the Bankruptcy Court. This is common sense, no doubt, always provided that the Hun does not misinterpret his reprieve, and, instead of laying golden eggs for our benefit, resume the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... loud in the heart of his consciousness; the rest hung more in his nerves than in his brain. He thought: 'Well, I will speak it out to her in the morning'; and thought so sincerely, while an ominous sigh of relief at the reprieve rose from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sentence of death. I heard Miss McDowell make an eloquent plea for an old oak that had been rather recklessly harboring mistletoe and many squirrels, until it was thought probable that, like our first parents, it might have a fall. It was a plea more eloquent than "O Woodman, spare that tree." A reprieve for a year was granted; and I thought, as I cast my vote on the side of mercy, that the jury that could not be won by such a young woman as that was hopelessly dead at the top and more hollow at the heart than the old oak under whose ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... "The pirate vessel on which he sailed was captured, and he has been hanged. One or two of the crew were granted a reprieve, but Roger was the most bloodthirsty man among them, and to ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... praised! The joyful tidings are just announced of Land!! Oh! who can conceive our feelings now? The wretch condemned to the scaffold, who receives, at the moment he expects to die, the joyful reprieve, he can best conceive ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of his reprieve, Jack saw things through a haze for a moment. But he neither broke ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... post. Mr. Harley at sight of them came as near fainting as any gentleman coarsely grained and hearty ever comes. Ten minutes went by in stupid gazing, and in handling and feeling those certificates that were to him as is the reprieve that comes to one who else ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... express the ecstasies and transports that my soul felt at the happy deliverance. It was like a reprieve to a dying malefactor, with a halter about his neck, and ready to be turned off. I was wrapt up in contemplation and often lifted up my hands, with the profoundest humility, to the Divine Powers, for saving, my life, when the rest of my companions ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... Chesterfield Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but secretly assisting one another, were, as Richard the 3rd calls it, a weak device of the ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... upon listening to her own acts, for the first time appreciating their enormity and recognizing the justice of their tremendous punishment. But at the same time she was relying upon a good-natured reprieve in exchange for all which she had revealed, upon a gallant clemency ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... I'll do, my dear. I'll speak to Dr. O'Farrell myself in the morning, and I'll ask him whether something can't be done in the way of a reprieve. I'll tell him we don't mind paying for Josephine to be sent away for ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... a great crowd of superannuated benchers of the Inns of Court, senior fellows of colleges, and defunct statesmen: all whom I ordered to be decimated indifferently, allowing the rest a reprieve for one year, with a promise of a free pardon ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... petitioners, All for his life assail'd the throne, All would have bribed the skies by offering up their own. So great a throng not Heaven itself could bar; 'Twas almost borne by force as in the giants' war. The prayers, at least, for his reprieve were heard; His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd: Against the sun the shadow went; Five days, those five degrees, were lent To form our patience and prepare the event. The second causes took the swift ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... also GRANT REPRIEVES AND PARDONS if he sees good reason for doing so. A reprieve is a delay of punishment. When a person is convicted of murder, the judge sentences him to be put to death on a certain day. But there may be reason for further inquiry into the case, and to give time for such inquiry the governor may postpone the execution of the sentence—that ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... "When the bell stopped, he wanted to rise once more; he fancied he was a boy at school again," said the nurse, "and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago." So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... face procured his reprieve this time. Dr Winter may have been used to "mistakes" of this kind. At any rate, he contented himself with cautioning the new boy against unpunctuality generally, and, by way of punishment, gave him ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... time will come for the potion to lose its force. And Fenice, who hears his grief, struggles and strives for strength to comfort him by word or glance. Her heart almost bursts because of the sorrow which he shows. "Ah Death!" he says, "how mean thou art, to spare and reprieve all things despicable and vile—to let them live on and endure. Death! art thou beside thyself or drunk, who hast killed my lady without me? This is a marvellous thing I see: my lady is dead, and I still live on! Ah, precious one, why does your lover live to see you dead? ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... This task Admetus performed by the assistance of his divine herdsman, and was made happy in the possession of Alcestis. But Admetus fell ill, and being near to death, Apollo prevailed on the Fates to spare him on condition that some one would consent to die in his stead. Admetus, in his joy at this reprieve, thought little of the ransom, and perhaps remembering the declarations of attachment which he had often heard from his courtiers and dependents, fancied that it would be easy to find a substitute. But it was not so. Brave warriors, who ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... a short time at Gibraltar, and you may imagine that I was soon on shore making the best use of the few hours' reprieve granted to the "Hollander's" weary engines. I had an idea that I should do better alone, so I declined all offers of companionship, and selecting a brisk young fellow from the mob of cicerones who ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... in the wake of the Lady Fani. Hoddan picked up his bag and followed. This, he considered darkly, was in the nature of a reprieve only. And if those three spaceships overhead did come from Walden—but ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive Unless her prayers, whom Heaven delights to hear And loves to grant, reprieve him from ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... gave both boys a sort of holiday feeling and they were in no hurry to go home. For Jerry it was a reprieve from his worry about the charge account, which by now had become a burden. Once having picked it up, he had to go on carrying it. Here in town with Andy, ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... innocent Jesus to save sinful man was ordered by God or was voluntary on the part of Jesus, it represents a theory of reprieve from punishment long since abandoned as unethical. If sin must be punished, there is no justice in relieving the sinner and placing the burden ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... downstairs for a nothing. At a word from mademoiselle she would trip down the whole five flights. When she was seated, her feet danced on the floor. She brushed and scrubbed and beat and shook and washed and set to rights, without rest or reprieve, always at work, filling the apartment with her goings and comings, and the incessant bustle that followed her about.—"Mon Dieu!" her mistress would say, stunned by the uproar she made, just like a child,—"you're turning ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... fear in his heart and a red-faced woman on his arm he approached the box-office. "Not a seat left," sounded to his hen-pecked ears like the concluding words of the black-robed judge: "and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul." But a reprieve came, for one of the aforesaid beacon lights of hope rushed forward, saying: "I have two good seats, not far back, and only ten apiece." And the gentleman with fear in his heart and the red-faced woman ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... made such an appeal as men are rarely able to make, because a regenerated life was also vocal in utterance. To him a miracle seemed to have been wrought, and he listened to each word as if to a reprieve ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... this, she dismissed doubts, and, with a clear conscience, gave herself up to the enjoyment of her sister's visit, each minute of which seemed of diamond worth. Perhaps the delights were the more intense from compression; but it was a precious reprieve when Arthur's answer came, rejoicing at Violet's having a companion, and hoping that she would keep her till his return, which he should not scruple to defer, since she was so well provided for. He had just been deliberating whether he could accept ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... though a man is condemned to die in a week's time and is shut up in a prison from which it is certain that he cannot escape, he will always hope that a reprieve may come before the week is over. Besides, the prison may catch fire, and he may be suffocated not with a rope, but with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while exercising in the prison yards. When the morning ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... just before this announcement, Washington thus adverts to the delay in forming a quorum of Congress: "I feel for those members of the new Congress, who, hitherto, have given an unavailing attendance at the theater of action. For myself, the delay may be compared to a reprieve; for, in confidence, I tell you (with the world it would obtain little credit) that my movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution; so unwilling am I, in the evening of life, nearly consumed in public ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Whether this was deliberately aimed at by Tressamer or not, it was the consequence of the policy adopted by him. But no sooner had the law pronounced her doom than the tide turned with startling rapidity, and a gigantic agitation was at once set on foot for a reprieve. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... N. {ant. 132} lateness &c. adj.; tardiness &c. (slowness) 275. delay, delation; cunctation, procrastination; deferring, deferral &c. v.; postponement, adjournment, prorogation, retardation, respite, pause, reprieve, stay of execution; protraction, prolongation; Fabian policy, medecine expectante[Fr], chancery suit, federal case; leeway; high time; moratorium, holdover. V. be late &c. adj.; tarry, wait, stay, bide, take time; dawdle &c. (be inactive) 683; linger, loiter; bide one's time, take one's time; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... statue. Yet she had never missed an hour in the schoolroom, nor omitted one iota of the usual routine of mental labor. Rigorously the tax was levied, no matter how the weary limbs ached or how painfully the head throbbed; and now nature rebelled at the unremitted exaction, and clamored for a reprieve. Mrs. Williams had been confined to her room for many days by an attack of rheumatism, and the time devoted to her was generally reclaimed from sleep. It was no mystery that she looked ill and spent. Now, as ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... No graces can your form improve, But all are lost, unless you love; While that sweet passion you disdain, Your veil and beauty are in vain: In pity then prevent my fate, For after dying all reprieve's too late. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, but ah, Lord! how full of love—near to his! If ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... a very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey led out, he could see his face light up with a gleam of hope, as he stealthily ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... Her bent head, her face raised with no appeal for a temporary reprieve, showed that quick observer of human nature that she thought it better that the whole truth ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... list, and you begin with them calmly to parcel out the names by sixes and eights, and then to arrive at an opinion when your day of execution will be. If your name comes at the head of the list, you wish that you were "YOUNG, Carolus, e Coll. Vigorn." that you might have a reprieve of your sentence. If your name is at the end of the list, you wish that you were "ADAMS, Edvardus Jacobus, e Coll. Univ." that you might go in at once, and be put out of your misery. If your name is in the middle of the list, you wish that it were elsewhere: ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at least, to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... General Maximilian. Many a time and oft have I waited on him when visiting your ladyship at the Wartebrunn. But here I dare not show my face. Der Henker! if the Landgrave knew that Michael Klotz was in Klosterheim, I reckon that all the ladies in St. Agnes could not beg him a reprieve till to-morrow morning!" ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... grown almost unendurable, came with the arrival at Suda of the Psyche, with Admiral Lord Clarence Paget, direct from Constantinople, to inform us that the Arethusa frigate had been ordered to Crete. If the Psyche had been a reprieve the Arethusa was a pardon. The hilarious blue-jackets flying over the plains of Crete brought all the Mussulman world to its senses, and we took down our barricades; but for the poor Cretans there was no change,—the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... enlistment. Fortunately, his friends discovered, by computation, that there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker's corps, commonly called the Kirk's ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... hang 'em, they live upon Scandal, and we are Scandal-proof.—They say too, that I was a Tinker, and running the Country, robb'd a Gentleman's House there, was put into Newgate, got a Reprieve after Condemnation, and was transported hither; —and that you, Boozer, was a common Pick-pocket, and being often flogg'd at the Carts-tale, afterwards turn'd Evidence, and when the Times grew ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... hour after sunset. It may come any night, though I expect at least a fortnight's reprieve. Nevertheless, I intend to act as if tonight may witness the ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... GRANT REPRIEVES AND PARDONS if he sees good reason for doing so. A reprieve is a delay of punishment. When a person is convicted of murder, the judge sentences him to be put to death on a certain day. But there may be reason for further inquiry into the case, and to give time for such inquiry the governor may postpone the execution of the sentence—that ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... sinful race, and we are treated as such. Slavery is one of God's chastisements. Instead of destroying every wicked nation by war, pestilence, or famine, he grants some of them a reprieve, and commutes their punishment from death to bondage. Those whom he allowed to be slaves to his people Israel were highly favored; they enjoyed a blessing which came to them disguised by the sable cloud of servitude; but in their endless happiness many of them ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... prisoner. If a Judge may not deal with the fallacies of a defence by placing before the jury the true trend of the evidence, what other business has he on the Bench? And it was for thus clearly defining the issue that some one suggested a petition for a reprieve, on the ground that the evidence was purely circumstantial, and that my "summing up was against the weight of the evidence." Truly a strange thing that circumstances by themselves ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... the assembly of divines, who kindly offered him their utmost interest if he would make some petitionary acknowledgment, and submit to take the covenant, which he refused. But that he might obtain a reprieve, he wrote several letters to the earl of Northumberland, the earl of Stamford, and others of the nobility, from whom he received favours. In the House of Commons he was particularly obliged to Sir John Corbet, and ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... be my last writing. To-morrow morning the hour is set. The governor has declined to pardon or reprieve, despite the fact that the Anti-Capital-Punishment League has raised quite a stir in California. The reporters are gathered like so many buzzards. I have seen them all. They are queer young fellows, most of them, and most queer is it that they ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... second act occur the bridal ceremonies, prior to which, moved by Ortrud's entreaties, Elsa promises to obtain a reprieve for Telramund from the sentence which has been pronounced against him. At the same time Ortrud takes advantage of her success to instil doubts into Elsa's mind as to her future happiness and ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... the father of Diane de Poitiers, whose footsteps we followed at Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... marriage; and I failed not to do it in the most earnest manner. He answered me at first with procrastinations, declaring, from time to time, he would mention it to my father; and still excusing himself for not doing it. At last he thought on an expedient to obtain a longer reprieve. This was by pretending that he should, in a very few weeks, be preferred to the command of a troop; and then, he said, he could with ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... we seem at last to be near his end when we read that the Lords ordained Mr William Spence to be taken to the Cross of Edinburgh on Wednesday next, July 22nd, and there to be hanged. Before that day arrived, however, he got a reprieve, and on August 17th he was allowed to remove to a chamber in Edinburgh because of sickness—quite unaccountable leniency at a time when the authorities did not scruple to hang dying men in their night-shirts. The Magistrates were made responsible for his safe keeping, and he ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... thirst securely, for thou shalt not die before Thou hast drunk that cup of water—this reprieve ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... enjoy'd it still: With death before her, and her fate in view, Unsated vengeance in her bosom grew: Sullen she was and threat'ning; in her eye Glared the stern triumph that she dared to die: But first a being in the world must leave - 'Twas once reproach; 'twas now a short reprieve. She was a pauper bound, who early gave Her mind to vice and doubly was a slave: Upbraided, beaten, held by rough control, Revenge sustain'd, inspired, and fill'd her soul: She fired a full-stored barn, confess'd the ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... ceased. The Indians withdrew to the base of Wheeling Hill, and the uproar of yells and musketry was replaced by a short season of quiet. It was a fortunate reprieve for the whites. Their powder was almost exhausted. Had the assault continued for an hour longer their rifles must ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... "Sure. Okay. It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and report success instead of failure. "But what's going ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... pleasant prospect, and yet it was a reprieve. One is thankful for small mercies when a hairy savage with a blood-stained knife is standing at one's elbow. He dragged me from the room and I was thrust down the stairs and back into my cell. The door was locked and I was left ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... agony of the accused man awaiting the decision of his judges, life, death, reprieve ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... that I have a short reprieve,—given to me by circumstances,—"time to write to you," our good colonel says. Forgive him, father, he only does his duty; he would gladly save me if he could; and do not lay my death up against Jemmie. The poor boy is broken-hearted, and does nothing but beg ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... pirate vessel on which he sailed was captured, and he has been hanged. One or two of the crew were granted a reprieve, but Roger was the most bloodthirsty man among them, and to ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape until ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... last, firm grasp. One struggle with the feeble frame, and the wrestle for life was over for ever. His biographers write of this sleep, that was watched with so much anxiety by his physicians: "It was hoped that a favourable crisis had arrived." It had. It marked the advent of the last reprieve, that release that can never be recalled. The clouds have passed away for ever, and in the sunshine came the solace of all cares, the finality of pain, and the soothing and the solution of all sorrow. Heaven had sent its last ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... mispronunciations; and Ned Ferry—that cockerel! Here was I in the barrel, and able only to squeal in irate terror at whoever looked down upon me. I could have crawled under a log and died. At the door of the Major's tent I paused to learn and joy of one to whom comes reprieve when the rope is on his neck, I overheard Harry Helm, the General's nephew and aide de-camp, who had been with us, telling what a howling good joke Smith had just got off ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... them and returned to their camp with the head carried on a pole. More than once it happened that condemned men were paraded before the troops for execution with the graves dug and the coffins lying ready. The death sentence would be read, and then, as the firing party took aim, a reprieve would be announced. The reprieve in such circumstances was omitted often enough to make the condemned endure the real agony ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... be some doubt. The last really authentic trial in England for witchcraft took place in 1712, when the jury convicted an old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village in the north of Hertfordshire, and she was sentenced to be hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace. With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is recorded that in the year 1628, Dr. Lamb, a so-called wizard, who had been under the protection of the Duke of ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... were sentenced to be hanged for desertion, and the officer in command hurried forward the execution, although an express had been sent to lay the case before the general at another post. The offence was only a desertion in name, and the reprieve was promptly granted, but it came fifteen minutes ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... his father as marechal of Burgundy) the widow of the Baron d'Alegre, Madeleine de Miolans, a daughter of a once illustrious Savoyard family. To her devotion and that of his de Vergy's relatives, who spared nothing but the necessary funds to avert his impending ruin, Michel owed a short reprieve from the execution of his creditors. Four months' delay was granted his wife in which to raise the interest due on the loans; but although journeying to Paris and soliciting every influence to procure the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... Stunned by his reprieve, doubting that he was awake, Glaucus had been led by the officers of the arena into a small cell within the walls of the theater. They threw a loose robe over his form and crowded around in congratulation and wonder. There was an impatient and fretful cry without ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... I have a short reprieve, because Dick has had to go away again; not to his mother, this time, but to London. A telegram was forwarded to him from Gloucester, where he had left sending-on instructions; and he knocked at ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... their fear had suggested; the Athenians being glad to go out, as they thought they ran more risk than the rest, and further, did not expect any speedy relief, and the multitude generally being content at being left in possession of their civic rights, and at such an unexpected reprieve from danger. The partisans of Brasidas now openly advocated this course, seeing that the feeling of the people had changed, and that they no longer gave ear to the Athenian general present; and thus the surrender was made and Brasidas was admitted by them ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... something more and better than free the blacks," said Mrs. Wesley; "it freed the whites. Dear me!" she added, glancing at Sheridan and Ulysses, who, in a brief reprieve from bed, were over in one corner of the room dissecting a small wooden camel, "I cannot be thankful enough that the children are too young to ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... could speak; and then could only utter the words—number 7? "Still in the wheel," was the answer. "Our messenger is not yet returned from Guildhall, with news of what has been drawn this last hour. If you will call again at three, we can answer you." The man seemed to feel this as a reprieve; but as he was retiring, there came one with a slip of paper in his hand. This was the messenger from Guildhall, who handed the paper to the clerk. He read aloud, "Number 7. Were you not inquiring for ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... possibly drop astern sufficiently to disappoint them in the length of their bridge. If I saw a hope of the final return of the boats, this expedient would not be without its use, particularly if delayed to the last moment, as it might cause the Arabs to lose another tide, and a reprieve of eight or ten hours is an age ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... freely. There are cases in which to obtain time for thought seems the one essential thing—cases in which a reprieve is as ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Andrew Daney with twenty-five hundred dollars might have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two years on that! She was free—at last! The knowledge exalted her—in the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the Evening, a Fellow in a Soldier's Coat, with the Dog very carefully wrapp'd up in one of the Lappets, is knocking at the Door. A Reprieve to a Malefactor the Morning of Execution, or the News of a rich Father's Death to an extravagant Heir, cannot be more welcome than two or three Yelps of the absent Animal shall be to all the Servants: Happy is that Servant who ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... said. The mules were turned about; and leaving that great eye to guard the lonely canyon, we retraced our steps in silence. Day had not yet broken ere we were once more at home, condemned beyond reprieve. ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... long there sweeps from out the cold north a mighty wind like a final sentence of death, the cruel ending to a reprieve, and soon the poor leaves, brown, red and golden, shaken too unkindly, strow the ground; the snow covers them, and the white expanse has only for adornment the sombre green of trees that alter not their garb-triumphing now, as do those ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... to Littlebath, intent on enjoying her short reprieve. Something might happen; she did not ask herself what. The old gentleman might not last long; but she certainly did not speculate on his death. Or;—she had a sort of an idea that there might be an "or," though she never allowed herself to dwell on it as a reality. But on ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... go free in Helium for a year, in accordance with the conditions of your reprieve, there is little fear that the people would ever insist upon the execution of ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for the losses they had suffered during the Civil War. Petitions began to pour in for mercy or at least for an extension to the time-limit, but though on the latter point some concessions were made, few individuals were allowed any reprieve. The landowners were marked men, and they were obliged to go. It would be impossible to describe the hardship and miseries suffered by those who were forced to leave their own homes, and to seek a refuge in what was to them a strange country. To ease the situation ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... Teale, and approved—as I was glad to learn—by Dr. Forbes, are working a good result. Consumption, I am aware, is a flattering malady, but certainly Anne's illness has of late assumed a less alarming character than it had in the beginning: the hectic is allayed; the cough gives a more frequent reprieve. Could I but believe she would live two years—a year longer, I should be thankful: I dreaded the terrors of the swift messenger which snatched Emily from us, as it seemed, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... way, clearly confounds the father with the son when he speaks of the Earl of Norwich's trial and reprieve (iii. 408.). Three letters printed in Mr. W.'s second volume (pp. 172. 181, 182.), and signed "Goring", are probably letters of the father's, but given by ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... Berquin, who had been arrested, was liberated, and Lefevre recalled from exile. But the respite was brief. Two years later, Berquin was again arrested, tried, condemned, and executed speedily to prevent reprieve on April 17, 1529. But the triumph of the conservatives was more apparent than real. Lutheranism continued to gain ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... indeed, with a great brilliance the dull printer's ink expended on the assemblage of the few letters that form the ship's name to the anxious eyes scanning the page in fear and trembling. It is like the message of reprieve from the sentence of sorrow suspended over many a home, even if some of the men in her have been the most homeless mortals that you may find among ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... hour, this feeble frame to save, (Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave, The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried The golden banks that bound the western tide. With full success I calm'd the clamorous race, Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace; And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous shore, Their wealth to nations, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Mrs Gibson's cough, and should like Molly to give up a party at Mrs Goodenough's, to which they were all three invited, but to Which Molly alone was going. Molly's heart leaped up at the thoughts of stopping at home, even though the next moment she had to blame herself for rejoicing at a reprieve that was purchased by another's suffering. However, the remedies prescribed by her husband did Mrs Gibson good; and she was particularly grateful and caressing ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Wilson railed and scoffed at them from the foot of the gallows the two brave men were hanged. The halter had been placed upon Mrs. Dyer when her son, who had come in all haste from Rhode Island, obtained her reprieve on his promise to take her away. The bodies of the two men were denied Christian burial and thrown uncovered into a pit. All the efforts of husband and son were unable to keep Mrs. Dyer at home. In the following spring she returned to Boston and on the first day ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... beasts, like those which Daniel saw in vision, contending together in fierce warfare,—the old Babylonish beast, horrid with the blood of saints, and its cruel executioner—the monster of Atheistic Liberalism; but Christ has identified His cause with neither. No reprieve from the prince awaits the condemned culprit; and with the disreputable and savage executioner he will hold no intercourse. Destruction, from which there is no escape, awaits equally ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... Lest her kind Usage my Salvation wrought; Her happy Aid I labour'd to obtain, Hop'd for Success, yet fear'd her sad Disdain, Tortur'd like dying Convicts whilst they live, 'Twixt fear of Death, and hopes of a Reprieve. First for her smallest Favours did I sue, Crept, Fawn'd and Cring'd, as Lovers us'd to do? Sigh'd e'er I spoke, and when I spoke look'd Pale, In words confus'd disclos'd my mournful Tale? Unpractised and Amour's fine Speeches coin'd, But could ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... a sort of holiday feeling and they were in no hurry to go home. For Jerry it was a reprieve from his worry about the charge account, which by now had become a burden. Once having picked it up, he had to go on carrying it. Here in town with Andy, the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... ever sprang from Eve! While Time allows the short reprieve, Just look at me! would you believe 'Twas once a lover? I cannot clear the five-bar gate; But, trying first its timber's state, Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... the United States paused in the midst of the important business under discussion, and with the gravity due to a solemn occasion, took a card and wrote on it an order of reprieve for the turkey, which Tad seized, and fled with all speed, and Jack's life was saved. He became very tame, and roamed peacefully about the grounds at will, enduring petting and teasing alternately, ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... reached me, O auspicious King, that quoth the Death-messenger to the King, "Well-away, well-away! this may be in no way. How can I grant thee a reprieve when the days of thy life are counted and thy breaths numbered and thy moments fixed and written?" "Grant me an hour," asked the King; but the Angel answered saying, "The hour was in the account and hath sped, and thou unheeding ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... he would be shot by his comrades in the execution field, at the rear of the city barracks. It was a sad and melancholy fate for so young and brave an officer; but the law was imperative, and there was no reprieve for him. ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... with jealousy; she melted with grief. She played on him with all a woman's artillery; and at last actually wrung from him what she called a reprieve. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... they came. Nearer, nearer still. Then suddenly a sharp exclamation broke from the watcher. It was a cry which had in it a strange thrill. It might have been the gasp of the condemned man at the sound of the word "reprieve." It might have been the cry of one momentarily ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... provocation and in the face of an outbreak which might well appear to resemble riot. The Government in London came to the conclusion that it would not do to hang John Porteous, and a message was sent by the Duke of Newcastle notifying her Majesty's pleasure that Porteous should have a reprieve for a period of six weeks—a preliminary step to the consequent commutation of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... time, and a terrible railway collision occurs. A leading firm with enormous assets becomes bankrupt, simply because an agent is tardy in transmitting available funds, as ordered. An innocent man is hanged because the messenger bearing a reprieve should have arrived five minutes earlier. A man is stopped five minutes to hear a trivial story and misses a train ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... interview, and before the day was out it had spread over the town and over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole district into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. The district ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... resolve and menace, into unutterable horror, anguish, and despair. He recoiled several steps; his knees trembled violently; he seemed stunned by a death-blow. Isabel, the boldest and haughtiest of her sex, seized that moment of reprieve; she sprang forward, darted through the draperies into the apartments occupied by her train, and, in a moment, the pavilion resounded with her cries for aid. The sentinels were aroused; retainers sprang from their pillows; they heard the cause ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Twentyman; but why should she keep the man waiting for three weeks when her answer was ready? Her stepmother she knew would soon force her answer from her, and her father would be anxious to know what had been the result of her meditations. The real period of her reprieve had been that of her absence at Cheltenham, and that period was now come to an, end. At each station as she passed them she remembered what Reginald Morton had been saying to her, and how their conversation had been interrupted,—and perhaps occasionally aided,—by the absurdities ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... with the march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Nobody comes near us. There's only the night left now!' moaned Dennis faintly, as he wrung his hands. 'Do you think they'll reprieve me in the night, brother? I've known reprieves come in the night, afore now. I've known 'em come as late as five, six, and seven o'clock in the morning. Don't you think there's a good chance yet,—don't ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... ferocious of the bushrangers was Jeffries: he obtained his reprieve in Scotland, to act as executioner.[170] Being transported to this country, he was employed as a scourger, and thus trained to cruelty, entered the bush. He robbed the house of Tibbs, a small settler, and after wounding, compelled him, with his wife, to proceed to the forest. ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... assistance of his divine herdsman, and was made happy in the possession of Alcestis. But Admetus fell ill, and being near to death, Apollo prevailed on the Fates to spare him on condition that some one would consent to die in his stead. Admetus, in his joy at this reprieve, thought little of the ransom, and perhaps remembering the declarations of attachment which he had often heard from his courtiers and dependents, fancied that it would be easy to find a substitute. But it was not so. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... new resolution in force. The immediate apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted, by an assurance that he might yet live for days, though his punishment was inevitable. A reprieve, to one abject and wretched as Abiram, temporarily produced the same effects as a pardon. He was even foremost in assisting in the appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that solemn tragedy, his voice alone ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... warden and told him the story of the boy's life, then went to the boy, or man, himself and gave him some money. He was introduced to the Governor through influential friends and permitted to tell the tale. There was much delay, a reprieve, a commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment—the best that could be done. But he was so grateful for that, so pleased. You would have thought at the time that it was his own ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. Prisoners often died without reprieve, he seemed to be aware. This cold civility warmed the petitioner's speech. Her mother would have been satisfied, Madeline Desperiers would have been overwhelmed with grief and horror, to have heard this young girl's testimony in regard to prison-life. The old man, as he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews, afterward Lord Llandaff, among the guests. The trial was over, the verdict given, and the two murderers were under sentence of death. But there was a strong agitation going on in favor of a reprieve; and what made the discussion of it, in this country-house party, particularly piquant was that the case, at that very moment, was a matter of close consultation between the judge and the Home Secretary. It was not easy, therefore, to talk ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... this aged man and poor; But no—already had his deathbell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung: His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve: Another way he went, and soon among Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, And all night kept awake, for sinners' ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... narrative of Suetonius[144] connects these shows with the well-known tale of the unhappy gladiators who fondly hoped that a kind word from the Emperor meant a reprieve of their doom. He had determined to surpass all his predecessors in his exhibition of a sea-fight, and had provided a sheet of water large enough for the manoeuvres of real war-galleys, carrying some five hundred men apiece.[145] The crews, eleven thousand in all, made their usual preliminary ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner, whipt on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her relations. And this flight, which was certainly more owing to terror than guilt, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Vane, at length, "have you settled it? Upon my word I feel almost like a man under sentence of death waiting for a reprieve. But, after all, why should I? I haven't touched a drop of alcohol for over a year. I needn't say anything about the work I have done, for you know as much about that as I do myself. I am as sane and healthy as any man of my age need ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... brethren of the South, the catastrophe is but deferred, not avoided. Out of the Union, the more extreme Southern States—those in which King Cotton has already firmly established his dynasty—are, if we may judge by passing events, ripe for the result. The more Northern have yet a reprieve of fate, as having not yet wholly forgotten the lessons of their origin. The result, however, be it delayed for one year or for one hundred years, can hardly admit of doubt. The emergency which is to try their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... to his administrative duties, the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in the case of impeachment. A pardon fully exempts the individual from the punishment imposed upon him by law; a reprieve, on the other hand, is simply a temporary suspension of ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... were in quest, might have shifted their encampment, in which case it would be time enough to kill the horse to escape starvation. Mr. Hunt, therefore, was prevailed upon to grant Pierre Dorion's horse a reprieve. ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... guest of theirs, "some one of the name of Davenant." For an instant he felt that he must ask her to telephone and put them off, but on second thoughts it seemed better to let them come. It would be in the nature of a reprieve, not so much for himself as for Olivia. It would give her one more cheerful evening, the last, perhaps, in her life. Besides—the suggestion was a vague one, sprung doubtless of the hysterical element in his suppressed excitement—he might test his avowals ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... UFO investigation said. "There's no such thing as a flying saucer." He went on to say that all people who saw flying saucers were jokers, crackpots, or publicity hounds. Then he gave the airline pilots who'd been reporting UFO's a reprieve. "They were just fatigued," he said. "What they thought were spaceships were ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... had always one eye in their own camp, and the other in the enemy's; and all their efforts were paralysed by their fear of being too successful. Their situation had become desperate: if any event in the chapter of human accidents should fall out to give them a reprieve, the only consequences would be, that as they had dwindled, dwindled before, they would dwindle, dwindle again. There was no stock of good luck which such conduct would not run out. It was clear what was coming: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... their monstrous fore-arms, hung with sharp, bony claws, ready and anxious to hug his body in a close and most loving embrace. There was not much time for Kit to scratch his head and cogitate. In fact, one instant spent in thought then would have proved his death warrant without hope of a reprieve. Messrs. Bruin evidently considered their domain most unjustly intruded upon. The gentle elk and deer mayhap were their dancing boys and girls; and, like many a petty king in savage land, they may have dined late and were now enjoying a scenic treat of their ballet ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... night, into a French detachment of eight hundred men. We were two hundred at the most. My scouts had sold me. I was thrown into the prison of Andernach, and they talked of shooting me, as a warning to intimidate others. The French talked also of reprisals. My father, however, obtained a reprieve for three days to give him time to see General Augereau, whom he knew, and ask for my pardon, which was granted. Thus it happened that I saw Prosper Magnan when he was brought to the prison. He inspired ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... he asked. When she replied in the affirmative he pulled her from the line and took her place in the squad of the condemned, saying that they would have to shoot him before they could shoot Yashka whom he knew and loved. After a stormy argument a reprieve was shown to the executioners and Yashka was allowed to be taken from the field of ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... then thought she could sleep, and, in fact, sank to rest. She felt refreshed on awakening and said, 'I wish it was over; it is only a reprieve to make me suffer a little longer; I cannot recover, but my nasty heart will not break yet.' She had an impression that she should die on a Wednesday: she had, she said, been born on a Wednesday, married on a Wednesday, crowned on a Wednesday, her first child was born on a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... A reprieve however was obtained, and perhaps some new stratagem might have succeeded another spring; but my uncle unhappily made amorous advances to my mother's maid, who, to promote so advantageous a match, discovered ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... though simple enough in some respects, was not quite such a fool as that. Sometimes the Jinn could be mollified and induced to grant a reprieve by being told stories, one inside the other, like a nest of Oriental boxes. Unfortunately Fakrash did not seem in the humour for listening to apologues, and, even if he were, Horace could not think of or improvise any just then. "Besides," he thought, "I can't sit ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... there was some blood on them, and some pieces of linen and lint lying about, and that was all he knew. He had not spoken to, nor seen Signor Paolo that night. Zappa's anger was very great at hearing this, and he was very nearly revoking the reprieve he had granted to the other prisoners. He believed that treachery had been practised, though, except Paolo and Nina, he knew not whom to suspect; and, while she denied all knowledge of the event, her brother was nowhere to be found; so, weary as he was, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... on the alert, and unless they shoot us without the usual twenty-four hours' reprieve, he will have Montgomery ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... you for this reason. This morning when the traitor Shadrach was being led out to execution at the hands of these men, the officers of the law, he begged for a delay. When asked why, as his petition for reprieve had been refused, he said that if his life was spared he could show how your companion, he whom they call Black Windows, may ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... symptoms. "I have now got to my last refuge," writes he to a friend, "where I must receive my final sentence, which at present Dr. Forbes will not pronounce. He leaves me, however, I think, like a criminal condemned, though not without hopes of reprieve. But this I am to obtain by meritoriously abstaining from flesh of every sort, all strong liquors, and by riding as much as I can bear. These are the only terms on which I ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... have done so. A coward, I let slip the opportunity. I thought of the communication-cord, but how could I move to it? He would be too quick for me. He would be very angry with me. I would sit quite still and wait. Every moment was a long reprieve to me now. Something might intervene to save me. There might be a collision on the line. Perhaps he was a quite harmless man...I ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the leaves of the books placed before him. Still utterly incapable of preparing myself in any way for the disclosure expected from me; without thought or hope, or feeling of any kind, except a vague sense of thankfulness for the reprieve granted me before I was called on to speak—I mechanically looked round and round the room, as if I expected to see the sentence to be pronounced against me, already written on the walls, or grimly foreshadowed ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the morrow. Needless to say what cries of delight, what acclamations followed this discovery. To use Carteret's own comparison, the feelings of surprise and comfort experienced by the crew can only be likened to those of a criminal, who at the last moment on the scaffold receives a reprieve! It was Nitendit ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... carried on a pole. More than once it happened that condemned men were paraded before the troops for execution with the graves dug and the coffins lying ready. The death sentence would be read, and then, as the firing party took aim, a reprieve would be announced. The reprieve in such circumstances was omitted often enough to make the condemned endure the real ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... ANNIE, as you'll easily believe. "O GILBERT, you must spare him, for I bring him a reprieve, It came from our Home Secretary many weeks ago, And passed through that post-office which I used to ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the Wolf. He also declares his only regret is to die before he can reveal to the king the hiding-place of a vast treasure which would enable him to outwit the plots of some rebels who are even now conspiring to kill him. The king, hearing this, immediately orders a reprieve, and, questioning the Fox in secret, learns that the conspirators are Brown the Bear, Isegrim the Wolf, and others. To reward the Fox for saving her husband's life, the queen now obtains his pardon, which Noble grants in exchange for information ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... wooden cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw me back on ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... a quart of it as eagerly as if it had been wine. We tried to catch fish, but could not; and we now began to repine at our fate, and abandon ourselves to despair; when, in the midst of our murmuring, the captain all at once cried out 'A sail! a sail! a sail!' This gladdening sound was like a reprieve to a convict, and we all instantly turned to look at it; but in a little time some of us began to be afraid it was not a sail. However, at a venture, we embarked and steered after it; and, in half an hour, to our unspeakable ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... hanged all sorts and conditions of men—men who kept on vainly hoping against hope for an eleventh-hour reprieve long after the last chance of reprieve had vanished, and who on the gallows begged piteously for five minutes, for two minutes, for one minute more of precious grace; negroes gone drunk on religious exhortation who died ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... of this reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner, whipt on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her relations. And this flight, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were silent ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... is my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my She Advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... took all that he could get, and, leaving his friend sitting in the stocks in his shirt-sleeves, he disappeared as swiftly as one could wish a man to carry a reprieve. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... them my forgiving right. I feel a tenderness within me spring, I am my Peoples Father, and their King, And tho I think, they may have done me wrong. I can't remember their offences long. Nature is mov'd, and sues for a Reprieve, They are my Children, and I must forgive. My many jealous fears I shan't repeat, My Heart with a strong pulse of Love doth beat; Nature I feel has made a sudden start, And a fresh source springs from the Father's heart. A stubborn ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... So with fear in his heart and a red-faced woman on his arm he approached the box-office. "Not a seat left," sounded to his hen-pecked ears like the concluding words of the black-robed judge: "and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul." But a reprieve came, for one of the aforesaid beacon lights of hope rushed forward, saying: "I have two good seats, not far back, and only ten apiece." And the gentleman with fear in his heart and the red-faced woman on his arm ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... Richard; for, even in the depth of his own sorrow, he perceived a grief he could not touch—the anguish of a remorse which might have no end in this life. As the doctors came down stairs John went to meet them, for even a minute's reprieve from his torturing anxiety was worth going for. The foremost made a slight movement, a motion of the lips and eyes which somehow conveyed a hope, and when he heard the words, "She may recover," he hastened back to Richard, and said, "There ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... deliberately aimed at by Tressamer or not, it was the consequence of the policy adopted by him. But no sooner had the law pronounced her doom than the tide turned with startling rapidity, and a gigantic agitation was at once set on foot for a reprieve. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... and the heavy sails flapped and cleared themselves of their icy varnishing—then all was over. There was an iceberg of another shape astern of us, the gale recommenced, the waves pressed each other on as before, and we felt the return of the gale, awful as it was, as a reprieve. That was a dreadful voyage, Jacob, and turned one-third of my hair grey; and what made it worse was, that we had only three fish on board on our return. However, we had reason to be thankful, for eighteen of our vessels were lost altogether, and it was the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... night I had a dreadful dream about Eagle March. Somehow or other, he had been condemned to death by Major Vandyke (who had unbecomingly turned into a judge) and Eagle was to be executed unless I could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon—I didn't quite know which—that I had got from Washington. I waked up crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too late. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... it is true, come over his character; he became more desperate, but if was only because the deeper had become this affection. The incident of the reprieve of la Tour, which had meanwhile reached him, sank deeper into his heart than the whole round of his pleasures, and made him anxious for the moment when he ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... whore or shameless bawd, Nor stubborn clown or daring parasite, No lying servant or bold sycophant. We are not wanton or satirical. These have their time and places fit, but we Sad hours and serious studies to reprieve, Have taught severe Philosophy to smile, The Senses' rash contentions we compose, And give displeas'd ambitious Tongue her due: Here's all; judicious friends, accept what is not ill. Who are not such, let them do ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... cried, turning to the master, "this letter," waving it in his hand, "is like a reprieve to a man on the scaffold." Maclise stood gazing in amazement ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... her invocation. Wayside prayers were no more a novelty than wayside curses in this region, and the officer rolled indifferently by. "Now go back to your hotel, and get to bed," pleaded the man, gasping like a criminal with a reprieve. "Things will look brighter in the morning. I'll be in to see you ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Grandison rather rallied the spirits of our travellers. When they arrived at Falmouth, they found, however, that the packet, which waited for government despatches, was not yet to sail. Sir Ratcliffe scarcely knew whether he ought to grieve or to rejoice at the reprieve; but he determined to be gay. So Ferdinand and himself passed their mornings in visiting the mines, Pendennis Castle, and the other lions of the neighbourhood; and returned in the evening to their cheerful hotel, with good appetites for their agreeable banquet, the mutton of Dartmoor ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... perfectly safe. The evening glow was almost gone, the stars faintly gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... hell (I use the word as indicating mental or physical suffering—in my case, the former—not with any local significance) there are moments when the anguish-stricken spirit is mercifully allowed a temporary reprieve. Such a moment occurred after the first awful paroxysm of self-loathing and torture which I experienced when my past life was made known to me in its true colours, and it was in this saner and comparatively painless interval that I met one whom I had known on earth as a woman of the purest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at least, to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news, the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But the unceasing ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... for the defence in the trial of Jacques Aubrieux, has been received at the lyse. We are informed that the President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man and that the execution will take ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... St. Mary Axe, where he lived. And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an houre before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none came, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloake. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people in the street. So I home all ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... first well-meaning rude petitioners All for his life assail'd the throne; All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own. So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar; 'Twas almost borne by force, as in the giants' war. The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard: His death, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... found me deceived—in a political prediction. Within twelve months (should life be spared to me) I shall be in office again. If the same to you, I would rather wait till then formally and amicably to resign to you my lands and this house. If you grant that reprieve, our connection can thus close without the eclat and noise which may be invidious to you, as it would be disagreeable to me. But if that delay be inconvenient, I will appoint a lawyer to examine your ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him, and he thought, in the emphatic words of Scripture on a similar occasion, that surely the bitterness of death was past. Some of his friends, however, who had watched the manner and behaviour of the crowd when they were made acquainted with the reprieve, were of a different opinion. They augured, from the unusual sternness and silence with which they bore their disappointment, that the populace nourished some scheme of sudden and desperate vengeance; and they advised Porteous to lose no time in petitioning the proper authorities, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... as a reprieve. But to Callandar it was but a lengthening out of torture. Man's love must always, in its essence, be different from woman's; though many women seem incapable of recognising this fact. To Esther, now that she had put aside her first half-understood glimpse of passion, it was sweet to ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... been a hastily summoned court-martial, and in the presence of very clear evidence a verdict approved by General Grant. The man would be shot at seven the next morning. "A hopeless case, Mr. Rivers," said the Provost, "any appeal for reprieve will be useless—utterly useless—there will be no time given for appeal to Mr. Lincoln. We have had ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... was tried by a court-martial, and condemned to death, a circumstance which, as may naturally be supposed, was very distressing to us. Madame de Bourrienne applied to the commanding officer for the man's pardon, but could only obtain his reprieve. The regiment departed some weeks after, and we could never learn what was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the present juncture. The time had come to make an example, and a more suitable case than the one now before him could not have been found for such a purpose. He would accordingly hold out no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisoner to make the best use of the short time ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... great surprise hung. The rope broke twice, and the country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the memory of this man ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... first light of morning Escobedo came. The Republican general unfolded a paper, and began to read. But instead of the death sentence, it was reprieve. President Juarez had postponed execution for ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... was within a few hours of ending. Till the last moment they had hoped for a reprieve; but the accommodating Streffy had been unable to put the villa at their disposal for a longer time, since he had had the luck to let it for a thumping price to some beastly bouncers who insisted on taking possession at ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... success of his undertaking, sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at the stake ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... Ferry—that cockerel! Here was I in the barrel, and able only to squeal in irate terror at whoever looked down upon me. I could have crawled under a log and died. At the door of the Major's tent I paused to learn and joy of one to whom comes reprieve when the rope is on his neck, I overheard Harry Helm, the General's nephew and aide de-camp, who had been with us, telling what a howling good joke Smith had just ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... this remark why Lina had asked her to go home with her. It was not because she wished to hear any of Dotty's brilliant stories, for she had not asked a single question about Out West; it was because she hoped for a reprieve from ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... fibres cold: Space's blue walls are mined; we feel the throe From underground of our night-mantled foe: 10 The flame-winged feet Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, Are mercilessly fleet, And at a bound annihilate Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve; Surely ill news might wait, And man be patient of delay to grieve: Letters have sympathies And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 To senses finer than the eyes. Their errand's purport ere we break the seal; They wind a sorrow round with circumstance To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to be hanged for desertion, and the officer in command hurried forward the execution, although an express had been sent to lay the case before the general at another post. The offence was only a desertion in name, and the reprieve was promptly granted, but it came ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... just about to be shot, is miraculously saved by his mistress, who cuts the matter very fine indeed, by rushing in between "present" and "fire;" and, having ejaculated "a reprieve!" with all her might, falls down, overcome by fatigue—poor dear! as well she may—having run twenty-three miles in the changing of a scene, and carried her baby on her arm all the blessed way, in order to hold him up in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... this interview, and before the day was out it had spread over the town and over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole district into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... with twenty-five hundred dollars might have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two years on that! She was free—at last! The knowledge exalted her—in the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, barren future, she gave no thought to the extreme unlikelihood of anyone's daring ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... yet for all that should I weep; but now that I am about to enter the presence of the King of kings, the Holy One—blessed be He forever and ever!—whose anger would be everlasting, whose sentence of death or imprisonment admits of no reprieve, and who is not to be pacified with words nor bribed with money, and in whose presence there are two roads before me, one leading into Paradise and the other into Hell, and should I not weep?" Then ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... and guiding him by the hand after alighting. Their humble means were exhausted in these offices of reverence and affection. One of the noble girls made her way to Boston, sought out the Governor, and implored a reprieve for her mother; but in vain. The sight of these young women, leading their blind father to comfort and provide for their "honored mother,—as innocent," as they declared her to be, "of the crime charged, as any person in the world,"—so ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Castle Green, Raleigh saw Markham, a very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey led out, he could see his face light up with a gleam of hope, as he stealthily stirred ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... bowers; with that sad path and seat Which none but light-heeled nymphs and fairies beat, Their solitary life, and how exempt From common frailty, the severe contempt They have of man, their privilege to live A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve What ages they consume: with the sad vale Of Diophania; and the mournful tale Of the bleeding, vocal myrtle:—these and more, Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score To thy rare fancy for. Nor dost thou fall From thy ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... there was silence beyond the door, and then the woman grunted, and Barbara heard her turn back, muttering to herself. The girl breathed a deep sigh of relief—she had received a brief reprieve from death. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... helped himself, and his eyes began to roll round and round with a frightful glare, and every now and then they turned upon me, and I thought my last moment had come; but one of his companions, in a tone which had lost all respect for him, called off his attention for a moment, and I had a reprieve. It was but for a few minutes. I became once more the subject of conversation. Again the cups were filled and quaffed. I sat as motionless as a statue. A sign of fear, or even of consciousness, would only tend to enrage my captors. The countenance ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious Algebra and that black art of Geometry) will, no doubt, determine once in their lives to become figure-casters, and so vote them all to be throwen into the fire, if some good body doe not reprieve them for pye-bottoms, for which purposes you know analogicall numbers are incomparably apt, if they be ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... boy at school again," said the nurse, "and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago." So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Brent in the presence of a jailer, and solemnly asseverated his respect for her dead lover's memory. Monday buzzed with rumors; the evening papers chronicled them hour by hour. A poignant anxiety was abroad. The girl would be found. Some miracle would happen. A reprieve would arrive. The sentence would be commuted. But the short day darkened into night even as Mortlake's short day was darkening. And the shadow of the gallows crept on and on and seemed to mingle ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... the uncertainty of Peel's position. I can't understand his motive for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Convention received the news of victory. It was really their reprieve, for news of disaster would have cut short their career. Jubilant over a prompt success, their joy was savage and infernal. With the eagerness of vampires they at once sent two commissioners to wipe the name of Toulon from the map, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... way deceived by the appearance of friendliness which the Stag had assumed. They knew that henceforth there was bitter hatred between them, and that their very lives were insecure. As to Ethel, it was, they knew, only a short reprieve which had been granted her. The Stag would not risk a division in the tribe for her sake, nor would attempt to bring her to a formal execution; but the first time she wandered from the hut, she would be found dead with a ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... resemble riot. The Government in London came to the conclusion that it would not do to hang John Porteous, and a message was sent by the Duke of Newcastle notifying her Majesty's pleasure that Porteous should have a reprieve for a period of six weeks—a preliminary step to the consequent commutation of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... their opposition became violent, he directed the guard to fire among them; whereby six persons were killed, and eleven severely wounded. For this he was prosecuted at the expense of the city, and condemned to die. But, a short reprieve having been obtained, the mob, determined to defeat it, assembled in the night preceding the seventh day of September, whereon he was to have been executed pursuant to the sentence, and, in a very riotous ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... Olivia gravely, "inasmuch as the moon came up in the east to-night instead of the west, I shall be generous and give you one day's reprieve." ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... disputed that the women were tried for high treason (that is to say, for refusing to abjure the Covenant and to attend Episcopal worship) and condemned to death; but it has been denied that the sentence was ever carried into effect, on the strength of a reprieve granted by the Council at Edinburgh before the day of execution. That a reprieve, or rather a remand, was granted is certain, as the pages of the Council register remain to this day to testify. But it is not so certain that the decision of the Council at Edinburgh ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... relate the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her." Memoirs and Travels of Sir ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... pressed into naval service; paupers were handed over to the colonizing companies to be shipped to their settlements; repeatedly the prisons were emptied to provide colonists, and commissions were appointed, as in England in 1633, "to reprieve able-bodied persons convicted of certain felonies, and to bestow them to be used in discoveries and other foreign employments." [Footnote: Cal. of State Pap, Domestic, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... love not; if he grieve, His tears are barren as the unfruitful rain That rears no harvest from the green sea's plain, And as thorns crackling this man's laugh is vain. Nor can belief touch, kindle, smite, reprieve His heart who has ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... books placed before him. Still utterly incapable of preparing myself in any way for the disclosure expected from me; without thought or hope, or feeling of any kind, except a vague sense of thankfulness for the reprieve granted me before I was called on to speak—I mechanically looked round and round the room, as if I expected to see the sentence to be pronounced against me, already written on the walls, or grimly foreshadowed in the faces ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... case of impeachment), upon such conditions as lie may think proper, subject to such regulations as may be provided by law relative to the manner of applying for pardons. He shall biennially communicate to the General Assembly each case of reprieve, commutation or pardon granted, stating the name of each convict, the crime for which he was convicted, the sentence and its date, the date of commutation, pardon or reprieve, and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and report success instead of failure. "But what's going ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... FORD—If I did think there were a reprieve to come for you I would be contented to spin out the time thus; but in good earnest I expect none; unless you had an apprehension you were not to die you would not spin out the time thus, not thus ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... informally to dinner, bringing with them a guest of theirs, "some one of the name of Davenant." For an instant he felt that he must ask her to telephone and put them off, but on second thoughts it seemed better to let them come. It would be in the nature of a reprieve, not so much for himself as for Olivia. It would give her one more cheerful evening, the last, perhaps, in her life. Besides—the suggestion was a vague one, sprung doubtless of the hysterical element in his suppressed excitement—he might test his avowals on Temple and Davenant, getting a foretaste ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... beside him for an instant as if to give a steadiness to me. "I want you to take me out to the State Prison. I want to talk face to face with a man who killed his own brother, in cold blood, it is said. A pretty powerful influence is at me day and night for a reprieve and I—I don't know what to do about it. It is a difficult case. If I went in my official capacity to see the man it might give his friends undue hopes; and suddenly I felt that I could run away from the ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... him. The hour for the execution passed, and, being now free for the time, he fled the country. He went to Africa, and there he so disgraced the state that bore him that of late times I hear he has been sent for to come back to Austria. Even yet the Emperor may suspend the reprieve and send him to the block for his ancient crime. If he had a thousand heads, he could not atone for the worse crimes ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... shawl was about her shoulders. But this day of misfortune had set Mrs. Hooven adrift in even worse condition than her daughter. Her purse, containing a miserable handful of dimes and nickels, was in her trunk, and her trunk was in the hands of the landlady. Minna had been allowed such reprieve as her thirty-five cents would purchase. The destitution of Mrs. Hooven and her little girl had begun from the very moment of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain, but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at the wounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eye caught sight of Virginia's form. With a ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... the savages trailed off into a chorus of disgruntled murmurings and the booming of the drums died down in disappointment. The worshippers had been cheated of their sadistic pleasure. There was something wrong with the timing of the rite; their mysterious fire-god had granted the captives a reprieve. ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... dissipation, consecrated and meritorious as they fondly believed, and gratifying their desire for change and variety. She was a kindly person of good reputation, trustworthy, and kind to the poor, and stout John Hall, her husband, could manage the business alone, and was thought not to regret a little reprieve from her continual tongue. ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out the names by sixes and eights, and then to arrive at an opinion when your day of execution will be. If your name comes at the head of the list, you wish that you were "YOUNG, Carolus, e Coll. Vigorn." that you might have a reprieve of your sentence. If your name is at the end of the list, you wish that you were "ADAMS, Edvardus Jacobus, e Coll. Univ." that you might go in at once, and be put out of your misery. If your name is in the middle of the list, you wish that it were elsewhere: and then you wish that it were out ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... keep the pleasure of telling him of his week's reprieve till he should come home to sup, as he had promised to do, in her mother's room. She was not sorry to hear him sigh as he passed the knapsack, which she had been packing up for his journey. "How delighted he will be when he hears the good news!" ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... disturb your mirthful hour; And further, to avoid all blame Of cruelty upon my name, To give you time for preparation, And fit you for your future station, Three several warnings you shall have Before you're summoned to the grave; Willing for once I'll quit my prey, And grant a kind reprieve; In hopes you'll have no more to say, But, when I call again this way, Well pleased the world will leave." To these conditions both consented, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... this, the last request that I shall send, A gentle ear; I wish that he may find A happy passage, and a prosp'rous wind. The contract I don't plead, which he betray'd, 130 Nor that his promised conquest be delay'd; All that I ask is but a short reprieve, Till I forget to love, and learn to grieve; Some pause and respite only I require, Till with my tears I shall have quench'd my fire. If thy address can but obtain one day Or two, my death that service shall repay.' Thus she entreats; such messages with tears Condoling Anne ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... time while the carriage was conveying Mr. Eldridge home; and yet when he came in sight of the house, he wished a longer reprieve from the dreadful task of informing Mr. and Mrs. Temple of ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... it is nonsense to expect any aid from Weyler, who always staunchly supports his lieutenants, whether right or wrong, and in the second place, we do not want a reprieve. We've got to get them clean away from here before they will be safe—clean off the blooming island. I'll take them back to the old Mariella—that's the safest place for them. I wish to goodness ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... in the captain's heart was pity. He forgot all about the crime in commiseration of the wretchedness of the criminal. Yet he knew it was useless to hold out any hope of a reprieve, even if that had been to be desired. All he could do was to let the poor fellow know at least that he was not friendless; and this sign ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... person and behaviour of Mr. Wilks[199] has no small share in conducing to the popularity of the play; and when a handsome fellow is going to a more coarse exit than beheading, his shape and countenance make every tender one reprieve him with all her heart, without waiting till she hears his ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... cares On which the day is closing, The hour of eve brings sweet reprieve, O come, come away. O come where love will smile on thee, And round its hearth will gladness be, And time fly merrily, O ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... disposition, and abandoned morals, being provoked by the insults of the mob, commanded his soldiers to fire upon the crowd, by which precipitate orders several innocent persons were killed; Porteus was tried and condemned to die, but obtained a reprieve from the Queen, who was then Regent. The mob, however, were [sic] determined to execute the sentence; they accordingly rose in a tumultuous manner, forced open the prison doors, dragged forth Porteus, and hanged him on a dyer's pole; after which they quietly ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... "Ha, ha! Reprieve, I call it, because if the skipper had gone on with his silly argument much longer he would have had to be knocked out of the way. I could hardly hold myself in on account of the precious minutes. However, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and walking with unwilling steps away, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but secretly assisting one another, were, as Richard the 3rd calls ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... a man is condemned to die in a week's time and is shut up in a prison from which it is certain that he cannot escape, he will always hope that a reprieve may come before the week is over. Besides, the prison may catch fire, and he may be suffocated not with a rope, but with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while exercising ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the May 1954 meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... 'tis my doom, love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if, to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... melted with grief. She played on him with all a woman's artillery; and at last actually wrung from him what she called a reprieve. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... rests my sin against you. This paper, dated only a few months before my father's death, was in this pocket-book, the other paper in the deed box, of which his executors took possession. No one knew of this paper but me. I kept it back, granting the reprieve for your sweet sake. If I had obtained possession of you I might have told you of it—I do not know. I cannot answer for myself—my old self,' he repeated. 'God forgive me, I am ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... the word. It was like proclaiming a reprieve to a wretch upon the scaffold about to be launched into eternity. It caused such excitement in the minds of the motley crew—all of them suffering from extreme thirst—that, without further hesitancy, they bent eagerly to their oars,—putting ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... doubts, and, with a clear conscience, gave herself up to the enjoyment of her sister's visit, each minute of which seemed of diamond worth. Perhaps the delights were the more intense from compression; but it was a precious reprieve when Arthur's answer came, rejoicing at Violet's having a companion, and hoping that she would keep her till his return, which he should not scruple to defer, since she was so well provided for. He had just been deliberating whether he could accept an invitation ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deferment, procrastination, postponement, respite, reprieve; retardation, retention, obstruction; dawdling, lingering, dalliance. Antonyms: dispatch, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he fabricated a special taboo. Only could he marry, he explained, when the Southern Cross rode highest in the sky. Knowing his astronomy, he thus gained a reprieve of nearly nine months; and he was confident that within that time he would either be dead or escaped to the coast with full knowledge of the Red One and of the source of the Red One's wonderful voice. At first he had fancied the Red One ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... his agents. The audience enjoys some delightful thrills while watching this situation—whichever it may be—develop, but is spared any acute anxiety, knowing from experience that just at the last moment the rescuing boat, or the heroic firemen, or the troops, or a reprieve from the Governor, will arrive and save the leading man or woman and the play from a premature end and for ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... who doth compassionate My sickness and my long unrest, that unto him I may Make moan of all that I endure for dole and drearihead And of my sleepless eyes, oppressed of wakefulness alway? My night in torments is prolonged; I burn, without reprieve, In flames of heart-consuming care that rage in me for aye. The bug and flea do drink my blood, even as one drinks of wine, Poured by the hand of damask-lipped and slender-waisted may. The body of me, amongst the lice, is as an orphan's good, That in an unjust Cadi's hands doth dwindle and decay. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... hideous and unparalleled battle, and having worked them up into a warlike and blood-thirsty state of mind, to put them off without any havoc and slaughter would have been as bitter a disappointment as to summon a multitude of good people to attend an execution, and then cruelly balk them by a reprieve. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the condemned man's life. My father, at first obdurate, would gradually be melted by my mother's entreaties. Turning aside to brush away a furtive and not unmanly tear, he would suddenly tear the death-warrant to shreds, and taking up another huge placard headed REPRIEVE, he would quickly fill it in and sign it. He would then hand it to the Private Secretary, who would instantly start post-haste for Cork. As the condemned man was being actually conducted to the scaffold, the Private Secretary ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... severity would be carried any further than the mere terror of execution. When the decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction, he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders, looked on the ground, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... drew her back with its light clatter. Perhaps at last it had good tidings to offer. Unless it brought them soon it would bring them too late—like a reprieve after execution. She took the narrow thread of paper in her hand and glanced at its latest entries. As she watched the small type wheel revolve and stamp, it broke upon her that the inanimate herald was spelling out, letter by ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Not worse then by his shield and spear Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument, Defended Israel from the Ammonite, Had not his prowess quell'd thir pride In that sore battel when so many dy'd Without Reprieve adjudg'd to death, For want ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... pulled her from the line and took her place in the squad of the condemned, saying that they would have to shoot him before they could shoot Yashka whom he knew and loved. After a stormy argument a reprieve was shown to the executioners and Yashka was allowed to be taken from the field of death ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... enjoyed it. Ruth enjoyed it. That she could do so is wonderful, perhaps, but then, so many human capabilities are wonderful! Men about to be hanged eat a hearty meal with relish.... How much more might Ruth find pleasure since she had been granted a reprieve! ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... for your sweet sake one might let him live; But the first fault was a green seed of shame, And now the flower, and deadly fruit will come With apple-time in autumn. By my life, I would they had slain him there in Edinburgh; But I reprieve him; lo the thank I get, To set the base folk muttering like smoked bees Of shame and love, and how love comes to shame, And the queen loves shame that comes of love; Yet I say nought and go about my ways, ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Servant, and he delivers it faithfully: but whether it is to be called my message, or is not to be called my message, is to depend entirely on the subject-matter!... Thus, if a King, refusing to appear in person, should issue a reprieve to prisoners under sentence of Death, a proclamation of Peace or of War, an address to the representatives of the constitution, (Clergy, Lords, and Commons,) in parliament assembled,—the message would be his. But if, on the contrary, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... not, you're a good little girl, Becky, and I'm your vriend, mind," said Sir Pitt, and putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away—greatly to Rebecca's relief; for it was evident that her secret was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... any man, snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded gravely, and, with his shoulders squared, took up the new position, straightened his back, and ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... it is settled what is to be done with them; excepting always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called 'Roncesvalles;' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass at once into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into the fire without any reprieve." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... footsteps—there was a general hush, and then another bang of the mallet on the ball and then a clapping of hands. Sir Patrick was a privileged person. He had been allowed, in all probability, to try again; and he was succeeding at the second effort. This implied a reprieve of some seconds. Blanche ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... inexpressibly relieved to discover that the problems, complicated enough to bring on a slow fever, were all unravelled; indeed, my feelings bore no small resemblance to those of a criminal at the gallows just presented with a reprieve. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... declarations que les Deputes ont faites a chacune des seances (Paris, Froulle, 1793, in-8). He gives the names of the deputies who voted on each of the five appeals, until at length the terrible sentence was pronounced, 310 voting for the reprieve and 380 for the execution of their monarch. The deputies were so ashamed of their work that they doomed the recorder of their infamous deed to share the punishment of ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... time from his friends who are breathing leisurely about him,—I suppose the minutes lengthen as time approaches eternity, in the same manner as the miles get longer as you travel northward),—after hanging four minutes, according to the best calculation of the bystanders, a reprieve came, and I was ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... country, with such a climate, it seems as if one could almost make repair equal waste, and thus keep death indefinitely at bay. But all men, even the strongest, are living under a death sentence, with but an indefinite reprieve. And even yet, with all of our science and health, we can not fully account for those diseases which seemingly pick the very best flower of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... perfectly self-possessed, expecting no mercy, no reprieve, made answer in a clear, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Mrs Goodenough's, to which they were all three invited, but to Which Molly alone was going. Molly's heart leaped up at the thoughts of stopping at home, even though the next moment she had to blame herself for rejoicing at a reprieve that was purchased by another's suffering. However, the remedies prescribed by her husband did Mrs Gibson good; and she was particularly grateful and caressing ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pressed on eagerly, for I love to witness a reprieve, such as many a time it hath been mine to see when the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... fell on his coat at her feet, and with the instinct of grasping at any pretext, for a moment of thought and reprieve, she exclaimed: ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Glad of every moment's reprieve, I willingly agreed to the proposal; and Mrs. Selwyn had but just time to shut me in, before ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... an Express to the Congress. This repulse, if I mistake not (or victory, as Carleton may call it), will stand 'em but in little stead—'t will be only a temporary reprieve—we'll reinforce our friends, let the consequence be what it may—Quebec must fall, and the lofty strong walls and brazen gates (the shield of cowards) must tumble by an artificial earthquake; should they continue in their ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... raving blasphemy and foaming impenitence. His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is part despair, part calculated horror. In his last revolt against death and all his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve his purpose and gain a reprieve:— ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... made him supreme, he kept away from The Hague, but then saw that the murderers were recompensed. Eighty years later a deserter from one of our regiments was under sentence to be shot. The officer commanding the firing party, another Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, had received a reprieve, with secret orders not to produce it until the culprit stood facing the levelled muskets. At that moment, as he drew the reprieve from his pocket, his handkerchief, coming with it, fell to the ground. The soldiers took it for their signal and fired. Glenlyon exclaimed, "It ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... your form improve, But all are lost, unless you love; While that sweet passion you disdain, Your veil and beauty are in vain: In pity then prevent my fate, For after dying all reprieve's too late. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... for he believed that to solidify a quicksand was impossible. The effect on him was so great that he was mentally prostrated, and although the company generously and justly relieved him from his engagement, the reprieve came too late, for he died. It then came to be a question whether or not the tunnel should be abandoned. Many advised that it should. At this juncture Mr Robert Stephenson, son of the great George, came forward and undertook ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... thy implied command, I quit at length this long-disputed land: Assist me still!—and grant my native shore One hour of rest, one tranquil season more! Enough her ancient crimes have teem'd with woes; Let her long griefs be paid with short repose: Or, if I seek that kind reprieve in vain, Let future years, at least, dissolve her chain! Protect my honoured mother: and assuage The woes that wreck my sister's youthful age:— If yet on earth the beauteous flow'ret bloom, Or wither'd moulder in the silent tomb, I must not know—Enough—thy gracious ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... but the legal authorities had prosecuted the case; and he, at that moment, lay in jail a criminal, condemned to die. The gallows was standing ready to exact its victim within two hours; the post from London would arrive in an hour with or without a reprieve. His father and mother, what were they then doing, thinking, suffering? On them and him I was meditating when the words of the turnkey ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... ingenious robust Youth, who, I hope, will not take it ill if I refer giving you an account of their several Recreations to another Opportunity. In the mean time, if you would but bestow a little of your wholesome Advice upon our Coachmen, it might perhaps be a Reprieve to some of their Necks. As I understand you have several Inspectors under you, if you would but send one amongst us here in the Temple, I am persuaded he would not want Employment. But I leave this to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... stagnation of chivalric feeling in the army. Szekuli, colonel of the Prussian hussars, condemned several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest Polish families at Znawrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in momentary expectation of death, until it, at length, pleased him to grant a reprieve, couched in the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Hughie's evil courses, he'd never guessed the worst, nor anything like it. Not a doubt had he, nor could have, that Hughie was guilty; but he went straight from the court to his young woman and said, "I've saved money for us to be married on. There's little chance that I can win Hughie a reprieve; and, whether or no, it will eat up all, or nearly all, my savings. Only he's my one brother. Shall I go?" And she said, "Go, my dear, if I wait ten years for you." So he borrowed a horse for a stage or two, and ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had better wait." He was big with news which he had come to tell, but which he knew could not be told without much discussion. He had hurried away to Plumstead as fast as two horses could bring him, and now, finding himself there, he was willing to accept the reprieve which dinner ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... no less than grief doth murder men. The thief, even at the gallows, may be killed If, while through every vein with fear he's chilled, Sudden reprieve do set ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... have felt that there was no explaining what she suffered. She had only to act, to plunge. First she fixed her mind on Harry Oxford. To be able to speak his name and see him awaiting her, must have been relief, a reprieve. She did not waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over. Oh, brave girl! what do you think of me? But I have no Harry Whitford, I am alone. Let anything be said against women; we must be very bad to have such bad things written of us: only, say this, that to ask ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the letters is poor, he is open to bribery. So, no, we must make Jacques Collin speak. What a duel! He will beat me. The better plan would be to purchase those letters by exchange for another document—a letter of reprieve—and to place the man in my gang. Jacques Collin is the only man alive who is clever enough to come after me, poor Contenson and dear old Peyrade both being dead! Jacques Collin killed those two unrivaled spies on purpose, as it were, to make a place for himself. So, you ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... until the horses, save for the wounded one still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve. They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two strikes which might yet reduce him to a ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... superior officer, Sir Harry Burrard, took up the direction of the army immediately the battle ended, and Wellesley had to acquiesce in a suspension of operations at a moment when the enemy seemed to be within his grasp. Junot made the best use of his reprieve. He entered into negotiations for the evacuation of Portugal, and obtained the most favourable terms in the Convention of Cintra, signed on the 30th of August. The French army was permitted to return to France with its arms ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... asleep, he sat before the blaze in the big fireplace, on the hearth cleanly swept with its turkey-wing and buffalo-tail. There was to be one more night of his reprieve from solitude. The three women of the house and the man were sleeping around the room in bunks. The child's bed had been placed near him on the floor after she slept, as he had asked it to be. He had no thought of sleep for himself. He was too intensely awake with apprehension. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... railroad, altogether about forty miles from town, but for want of regular traffic and proper means of conveyance an exceedingly tedious and unpleasant drive thence to the said farm. Here there is indeed pure air for the children, and a blessed reprieve from the confinement of the city; but so uncivilized a life for any one who has ever been accustomed to the usual decencies of civilization, that it keeps me in ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... it yesterday, when I saw that you had recognized me. It was very merciful in you to reprieve me, even for a few hours; but you will pardon me if I say it ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... hailed this as a reprieve, and thanked Miss Fennimore, adding the few particulars he had told his sister. 'I hope the girls are ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... save her from so horrible a doom he offered to any man who would redeem the tax, his crown, his kingdom, and all his wealth. But the people would hear of no exchange. They demanded that the king should bear the stroke of fate in common with the meanest citizen. Then the king asked for a reprieve of eight days to lament his child and prepare her for her death. Meanwhile the dragon, infuriated at the unusual delay, hung continually about the city gates, expecting his victim, and poisoned all the sentinels and ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... Glad of any reprieve from giving the answer she hated to make, the girl left the room in haste, as if intent upon summoning the lad. But she was gone longer than seemed necessary, nor did the waiting grandmother hear the boyish voice she loved, despite its stammering; and ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... used to denominate all wheeled vehicles) it will be to his own extreme detriment and inconvenience, but for once in my life I'll not mind this, or bother my head about it. I'll come—God knows with a thankful and joyful heart—glad of a day's reprieve from labour. If you don't send the gig I'll walk. Now mind, I am not coming to Brookroyd with the idea of dissuading Mary Taylor from going to New Zealand. I've said everything I mean to say on that subject, and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... objections to their plans. Yet they could see that he was consenting to his exile only because he had no argument with which to meet theirs. He refused to resign from the Patent Office until the last moment, as if hoping for some reprieve from the sentence which his family had pronounced. He was moody, irritable, a changed boy from the one who had hippity-hopped with Leila on Constance's ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... you are certainly better to-day without the draught, discontinue it also to-morrow. I will make an alteration for the day after." So that night Madame Dalibard visited in vain her niece's chamber: Helen had a reprieve. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no possible chance of escape for the Master. He had virtually condemned Himself by His own words. There was no retreat or reprieve. He was roughly pushed from the hall and like a common criminal was turned over to the taunts and revilings of the mob, which availed itself of its privileges to the full in this case. Insults, curses, revilings, ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... seized, imprisoned, and, after a summary trial, were sent to the gallows. The two men were executed; but at the moment when Mary Dyer was standing, calm and resigned, with the rope around her neck, expecting to be launched into eternity, a reprieve arrived, and the victim was released. But it was only for a little time. She was again banished; and again returned, as if to seek her fate. A second trial took place, and she was again condemned. Her husband, who knew not of her return to Boston until ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... convicted of arson, another of robbing the United States mail, when the mail was intercepted with a view of capturing letters from the Federal officers in the western counties to the authorities at the capital. In both instances President Washington granted first a reprieve, ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... wonderful success of their preaching. He mentions, that ten years ago, when a magistrate condemned for high treason was led to execution with a halter about his neck, the citizens ran in a body to the hippodrome to beg a reprieve; and the emperor, who was not able to reject the request of the whole city, readily granted the criminal a full pardon. Much more easily will the Father of mercy suffer himself to be overcome by the concord of many in prayer, and show mercy to sinners. Not only men join the tremendous voice ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the Castle Green, Raleigh saw Markham, a very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey led out, he could see his face light up with a gleam ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... love and friendship—those drops of honey in the cup of gall—did not their sweetness in this hour of desolation atone for the bitter dregs, and hold him to earth? The mighty struggle was to rend asunder these new-formed and holy ties. For him there existed no hope of a reprieve. Wise and good men had tried and found him guilty of a crime which, in all ages, had been held in execration by mankind. He was not a common criminal; for him there existed no sympathy, no pity. The voice of humanity ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... and Clover entered the hotel, very glad of the reprieve, and of one more quiet evening alone with papa. They needed to get their ideas straightened out and put to rights, after the confusions of the day and Lilly's extraordinary talk. It was very evident that the Nunnery was to be quite different ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... bark to the shore from which I am not distant. But this momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. A geographical line coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated, and every irritation will mark it deeper and deeper. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... eights, and then to arrive at an opinion when your day of execution will be. If your name comes at the head of the list, you wish that you were "YOUNG, Carolus, e Coll. Vigorn." that you might have a reprieve of your sentence. If your name is at the end of the list, you wish that you were "ADAMS, Edvardus Jacobus, e Coll. Univ." that you might go in at once, and be put out of your misery. If your name is in the middle of the list, you wish that ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... gradually thus the truth dawned upon her, and as he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, but ah, Lord! how full of love—near ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... do! You dare not assault me! You dare not torture me! You must hand me over to the bwana collector to be tried in court of law. Nothing else is permissible! I shall receive short sentence, that is all, with reprieve after two-thirds time on account ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... office, tomorrow morning," he commanded. With a sigh of relief at the reprieve, Rainey slipped back into ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... he had left. Ten thousand and some hundreds of francs remained. He might with this sum take a journey, prolong his life two or three months; but he repelled with disdain the thought of a miserable subterfuge, of a reprieve in disguise. He imagined that with this money he might make a great show of generosity, which would be talked of in the world; it would be chivalrous to breakfast with his inamorata and make her a present of this money at dessert. During the meal he would be full of nervous gayety, of cynical ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... Bordeaux to beg for their lives at the feet of Dona Margarita. She received him most graciously, and promised to send a special courier to her husband to intercede in their behalf. Before the King's reprieve could possibly have ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... beautiful and Sovereign Lady," said Murray aside to Morton. "Happy man! he knows not whether the execution of her commands may not cost him his head; and yet he is most certain that to leave them unexecuted will bring disgrace and death without reprieve. Happy are they who are not only subjected to the caprices of Dame Fortune, but held bound to account and be responsible for them, and that to a sovereign as moody and fickle ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... she somewhat better?—Blessings upon thee without number or measure! Let her still be better and better! Tell me so at least, if she be not so: for thou knowest not what a joy that poor temporary reprieve, that she will hold out yet a day or ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... the adoption of sons. They become the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. This is their pedigree and they rejoice to declare it. A human governor or ruler may pardon a guilty criminal, and grant him a reprieve, but he never takes him into his own family. He may forgive the guilty one, but he cannot bestow upon him a new nature, nor can he consent to recognize him as a brother or a son. But God not only remits the sins of those ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... me that it wuz partly owin' to his bein' dressed up all the time; it wuz a dretful cross to him. He wears frocks to hum, round doin' the barn chores, and loose shues, but now of course he had no reprieve from night till mornin' from tight collars and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and walking with unwilling ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... for me, Daubrecq; yes, by Jove! I have a trump card, the son's head, and I am playing it. When I have procured a nice little death-sentence for Gilbert, when the days go by and Gilbert's petition for a reprieve is rejected by my good offices, you shall see, M. Lupin, that his mummy will drop all her objections to calling herself Mme. Alexis Daubrecq and giving me an unexceptionable pledge of her good-will. That fortunate issue is inevitable, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... play, and his panther-skin tunic caused almost as much trouble and discussion as Clytemnestra's spasmodic succession of lovers, who broke down on probation with alarming uniformity. When the cast was at length fixed beyond hope of reprieve matters went scarcely more smoothly. Clovis and the Baroness rather overdid the Sumurun manner, while the rest of the company could hardly be said to attempt it at all. As for Cassandra, who was expected ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... that telegram. I don't know who "Belle" is. I get my orders from the Courts. No one but the Governor can order a reprieve." ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... impossible to get at while we were at sea. Such was our situation, when, on the 12th, at break of day, we discovered land: The sudden transport of hope and joy which this inspired, can perhaps be equalled only by that which a criminal feels who bears the cry of a reprieve at the place of execution. The land proved to be a cluster of islands, of which I counted seven, and believe there were many more. We kept on for two of them, which were right a-head when land was first discovered, and seemed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the righteous. But if the righteous are finally acquitted at the judgment, so are the wicked finally condemned. If the righteous are said to enter into "life eternal," so are the wicked to "go away into everlasting punishment." The Scriptures say not one word of any reprieve from this condemnation, or of any other period of merciful visitation. But they close with the most solemn assurance, that, from that awful day, he that is unjust shall be unjust still; and he that is filthy shall be filthy still; and he that is ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin
... witchcraft took place in 1712, when the jury convicted an old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village in the north of Hertfordshire, and she was sentenced to be hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace. With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is recorded that in the year ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... and at nine o'clock I sent Frison out again; and at ten and eleven—always with the same result. I was like a man waiting and looking and, above all, listening for a reprieve; and as sick as any craven. But when he came back, at eleven, I gave up hope and dressed myself carefully. I suppose I had an odd look then, however, for Frison stopped me at the door, and asked me, with evident alarm, where ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... guilty? In his pleasant way the Captain used to tell how he acted in the dilemma. He went round to the twelve condemned wretches, and asked each man separately if, being under sentence of death, he desired a reprieve or wished for death. As luck would have it, of the twelve men, six pleaded for life and six as earnestly prayed that they might be sent to the scaffold. So the Captain hanged the six men who wished to live, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Put aside regret; it clogs. Regret nothing; what's done is done past recall. Live out your life, no matter what the struggle. Count this life as yours to make the best of. Live, I say; live, work, make good; it is in any man's power who has received a reprieve like yours. I know whereof I am speaking. I'll go further: it would be in your power even if you had ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... subject of last night's discussion in the council, but the fact that the delegates were doing penance proved that the matter was still pending, and that no conclusion had been reached. There was consequently time before her still, and the reprieve amounted to about four days. She had time to reflect and to prepare her course of action. The sooner she was alone and left to her own musings the better, and that was why she turned away so abruptly from the young man. Hayoue drew from ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... his home-coming, and I did not; I dreaded it too much. Whenever the last steamers of the season were due, I nerved myself to look the passenger lists over; and when his name was missing, it was a reprieve. Neither my father nor my grandfather had believed in divorce; in their eyes it was disgrace. It seemed right, for Silva's sake, out of the rich placers David continued to find, he should contribute to my support. So—I lived my life—the best I was able. I had many interests, and always ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... approaching footsteps—there was a general hush, and then another bang of the mallet on the ball and then a clapping of hands. Sir Patrick was a privileged person. He had been allowed, in all probability, to try again; and he was succeeding at the second effort. This implied a reprieve of some seconds. Blanche ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... sketch the plot. Damon and Pythias with their servant Stephano arrive in Syracuse in the reign of the tyrant, Dionysius. There Damon is arrested on the denunciation of the informer Carisophus, and is sentenced to death as a spy. Reprieve for six months is allowed him on the pledge of Pythias's life as bail, and at the last minute he returns, just in time to save the life of his devoted and willing friend. Such signal proofs of the sincerity of their ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... in February, and found the Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews, afterward Lord Llandaff, among the guests. The trial was over, the verdict given, and the two murderers were under sentence of death. But there was a strong agitation going on in favor of a reprieve; and what made the discussion of it, in this country-house party, particularly piquant was that the case, at that very moment, was a matter of close consultation between the judge and the Home Secretary. ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... red-hot pincers, to be torn asunder by four horses, and to be quartered. Before the execution of this frightful sentence, he was, by order of the court, put to torture. But, instead of reiterating his former accusations, he retracted almost every point.[240] To purchase a few moments' reprieve, he sought an interview with the first president of the parliament, Christopher de Thou; and we have it upon the authority of that magistrate's son, the author of an imperishable history of his times, that, entering into greater detail, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... anxiety for some word of love from him, it was cruelly false to play with another at the passion which was such a tragedy to her. This was the point that, put aside however often, still presented itself, and its recurrence, if he could have known it, was mercy and reprieve from the only source out of which these ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Staines was nearly dressed; at a quarter past ten she demanded ten minutes; at half-past ten she sought a reprieve; at a quarter to eleven, being assured that the street was full of carriages, which had put down at Mrs. Lucas's, she consented to emerge; and in a minute ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... came like a reprieve. How was it, he said, that they were let in for him? Or rather, why had they ever ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw me back ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... feeble frame to save, (Unblest reprieve) and rob the gaping wave, The morn broke forth, these tearful orbs descried The golden banks that bound the western tide. With full success I calm'd the clamorous race, Bade heaven's blue arch a second earth embrace; And gave the astonish'd age that bounteous shore, Their wealth to nations, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... Burgundy) the widow of the Baron d'Alegre, Madeleine de Miolans, a daughter of a once illustrious Savoyard family. To her devotion and that of his de Vergy's relatives, who spared nothing but the necessary funds to avert his impending ruin, Michel owed a short reprieve from the execution of his creditors. Four months' delay was granted his wife in which to raise the interest due on the loans; but although journeying to Paris and soliciting every influence to procure the required sum, the countess of Gruyere failed in her efforts. The poor lady now saw ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... sense of such kindness as this, and therefore they take no notice of it. How many times has God said to this dresser of his vineyard, 'Cut down the barren fig-tree,' while he yet, by his intercession, has prevailed for a reprieve for another year! But no notice is taken of this, no thanks is from them returned to him for such kindness of Christ. Wherefore such ungrateful, unthankful, inconsiderate wretches as these must needs be a continual eye-sore, as I may say, and great provocation to God; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... words blankly. Was this to be a reprieve? But he was not sure that he wanted a reprieve. He thought, the sooner the plunge was made, the better, maybe. Looking forward to it had become ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... R. FORD—If I did think there were a reprieve to come for you I would be contented to spin out the time thus; but in good earnest I expect none; unless you had an apprehension you were not to die you would not spin out the time thus, not thus ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... author asks knowledge and industry before it may be attempted, but in the end it is the critic, not the author, who is judged by it, and, where his sympathies have been too narrow, or his sight too dim, condemned without reprieve, and buried ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... true, come over his character; he became more desperate, but if was only because the deeper had become this affection. The incident of the reprieve of la Tour, which had meanwhile reached him, sank deeper into his heart than the whole round of his pleasures, and made him anxious for the moment when he might again ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... till after the Wil'sbro' business," said Raymond, glad of the reprieve. He could not bear the prospect of banishment for his mother or himself from the home to which both were rooted; and the sentence of detachment from her was especially painful when she seemed his only ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their hands have sent before them; God knoweth the wicked doers; and thou shalt surely find them of all men the most covetous of life, even more than the idolaters: one of them would desire his life to be prolonged a thousand years, but none shall reprieve himself from punishment, that his life may be prolonged: God seeth that which they do. Say, Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel (for he hath caused the Koran to descend on thy heart, by the permission of God, confirming that which ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... and joy that such a scene could yield. Then at the last moment, just as father had one leg in the cab, the Taxes called. Father went back into the house to write a cheque. Mother and Mabel had retired in tears. Maurice used the reprieve to go back after his postage-stamp album. Already he was planning how to impress the other boys at old Strong's, and his was really a very fair collection. He ran up into the schoolroom, expecting to find it empty. But some one was there: Lord Hugh, in the very ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... expressions, if truly reported, seem to imply that he might have saved himself by criminating the queen: but besides the extreme improbability that the king would have shown or promised any mercy to such a delinquent, we know in fact that the confession of Smeton did not obtain for him even a reprieve: it is therefore absurd to represent Norris as having died in vindication of the honor of the queen; and the favor afterwards shown to his son by Elizabeth, had probably little connexion with any tenderness for the memory of her mother, a sentiment which she ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... 23, Chesterfield Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but secretly assisting one another, were, as Richard the 3rd calls it, a weak device ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... stars faintly gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must manage it as ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... which are quite as splendid; but I do it in order that certain gentlemen in Paris may understand that I, who am able here to tell about the fate of Monsieur Caratal, can also tell in whose interest and at whose request the deed was done, unless the reprieve which I am awaiting comes to me very quickly. Take warning, messieurs, before it is too late! You know Herbert de Lernac, and you are aware that his deeds are as ready as his words. Hasten then, ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my misery allay. Lives there a true and tender friend, who doth compassionate My sickness and my long unrest, that unto him I may Make moan of all that I endure for dole and drearihead And of my sleepless eyes, oppressed of wakefulness alway? My night in torments is prolonged; I burn, without reprieve, In flames of heart-consuming care that rage in me for aye. The bug and flea do drink my blood, even as one drinks of wine, Poured by the hand of damask-lipped and slender-waisted may. The body of me, amongst the lice, is as an orphan's good, That ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... an unhappier face I have never seen. She looked like a criminal whose reprieve is over, and ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... common discretion or fear. None will shortly remain with them, but men of desperate fortunes or enthusiasts: those who dare not ask pardon, because they have transgressed beyond it, and those who gain by confusion, as thieves do by fires: to whom forgiveness were as vain, as a reprieve to condemned beggars; who must hang without it, or starve ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... glad? I could not tell. It was a reprieve; but then I knew positively it was nothing more than a reprieve. The sentence must be executed. Julia came to me, bent her cheek toward me, and I kissed it. That was our usual salutation when ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... was forced to be content, for she saw, by the officer's resolute face, that she could hope for no reprieve. ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... I need hardly say that my own feelings were of a very distressing kind. Conscious that if the unfortunate man really was guilty, he was at least not deserving of capital punishment, I exerted myself to procure a reprieve. In the first place I waited privately on the judge; but he would listen to no proposal for a respite. Along with a number of individuals—chiefly of the Society of Friends—I petitioned the crown for a commutation of the sentence. But being unaccompanied with ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... that he could get, and, leaving his friend sitting in the stocks in his shirt-sleeves, he disappeared as swiftly as one could wish a man to carry a reprieve. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... it him. There was something apologetic about his smile. "It is a reprieve," he admitted. "I left her a week ago," he went on to explain,—"it must have been the day Doctor Wollaston fell ill—on a promise not to come back until I had got this opera of mine into the shape she wants. I came back to-day to tell her that ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... 1954 meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... on earth, and never will be. Death—death inexorable, is declared by God's judgments on the world and on nations; and he has declared death as its punishment by his law—death to both male and female, without pardon or reprieve, and beyond the power of ...
— The Negro: what is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed. • Buckner H. 'Ariel' Payne
... intended to make it,—had not, in truth, thought of it. But when her mother talked of Harry's destiny, as though some terrible evil had come upon him,—as though she were speaking of a poor wretch condemned to be hanged, when all chances of a reprieve were over,—then her spirit rose within her. She had not meant to say that she was going. Harry had never asked her to go. "If you talk of his destiny I am quite prepared to share it with him." That was her meaning. But her mother already saw her only child ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... gratitude of his country was expressed, inadequately in comparison with the rewards bestowed on others for less important services, by raising him to the peerage, by the title of Baron Nelson of the Nile, with a pension of L2,000. The Court of Naples, to which the battle of Aboukir was as a reprieve from destruction, testified a due sense of its obligation by bestowing on him the dukedom and domain of Bronte, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... and her own state of unpreparedness, left him so white of face that she felt guiltily sorry for him for many days to follow—felt guiltier still at the relief she experienced when she had established that reprieve. The other interview was longer, and took place days earlier, but it was no more of ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... was empty, and the front door stood open to the cool of the summer night. From the ballroom came the swaying lilt of the music and the beat of the dancers' feet. Ethne drew a breath of relief at her reprieve from her duties, and then dropping her partner's arm, crossed to a ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... is out for the day,' said the girl who opened the door. 'Leastways, she went out yesterday and won't be back till to-night.' Providence had sent him a reprieve! But he almost forgot the reprieve, as he looked at the girl and saw that she was Ruby Ruggles. 'Oh laws, Mr Montague, is that you?' Ruby Ruggles had often seen Paul down in Suffolk, and recognized him as quickly as he did her. It occurred to her at once that he had ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... was everything to strengthen and so to quiet one in the way in which he faced the message which comes to all—a message so deeply dreaded by most of us, yet which, when it does come, proves to be not a sentence, but a reprieve—the mandatory word that does not imprison us, but sets us free, which flings the gates and lets us see the open heaven, instead of the walls and vaulted ceiling of the cells of which we have ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... long has tossed upon the thorny bed of pain, I only wanted to repair my vigour lost and breathe and walk again. To be on horseback, galloping over the green pampas, in sun and wind. For after all it was only a reprieve, not a commutation of sentence—though one of a kind unknown in the Courts, in which the condemned man is allowed out on bail. My pardon was not received until a few years later. I returned with a new wonderful zest to my old sports, shooting and fishing, and would ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... is on the alert, and unless they shoot us without the usual twenty-four hours' reprieve, he will have Montgomery come to ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... tour de force, too entirely by the de par le roi, to deserve the praise bestowed on the rest of the piece. It resembles, in short, too nearly the receipt for making the "Beggars' Opera" end happily, by sending someone to call out a reprieve. But as it manifested at the same time the power of the prince, and afforded opportunity for panegyric on his acuteness in detecting and punishing fraud, Moliere, it is certain, might have his own good reasons ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... the poor young gentleman had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. Esmond, innocent ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... felt almost light-hearted in comparison to their fellow travellers, because they had a short reprieve before they would have to say good-bye. But Ruth sat looking about her, at the sad-eyed girls and women who had just parted from their husbands and sons and sweethearts, and who were most of them weeping, and felt anew the great burden of the universal sorrow upon her. ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... man and poor; But no—already had his deathbell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung: His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve: Another way he went, and soon among Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... this was not so. At all times, and especially since he knew that he had got consumption, Semenoff had dreaded death. At the outset of his malady, he was in a state of abject terror, much as that of a condemned man for whom hope of a reprieve there was none. It almost seemed to him as if from that moment the world no longer existed; all in it that formerly he found fair, and pleasant, and gay had vanished. All around him was dying, dying, and ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... members of the assembly of divines, who kindly offered him their utmost interest if he would make some petitionary acknowledgment, and submit to take the covenant, which he refused. But that he might obtain a reprieve, he wrote several letters to the earl of Northumberland, the earl of Stamford, and others of the nobility, from whom he received favours. In the House of Commons he was particularly obliged to Sir John Corbet, and Sir Henry Cholmondley. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... anything. When Keith came in he would without murmur have accepted the advice: "Give yourself up!" He was prepared to pitch away the end of his life as he pitched from him the fag-ends of his cigarettes. And the long sigh he had heaved, hearing of reprieve, had been only half relief. Then, with incredible swiftness there had rushed through him a feeling of unutterable joy and hope. Clean away—into a new country, a new life! The girl and he! Out there he wouldn't ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was filled with surprise and disapproval. But beneath, I saw a dawning look which he could not keep down, of a great hope. It was as though he had been condemned to death, and the paper Beatrice had handed himto read had been his own reprieve. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... within the great fold. While the good minister blamed his cowardice in times past, which had deterred him from risking his person, to save, perhaps, an immortal soul, he resolved no longer to be governed by such timid counsels, but to endeavour, by application to his officers, to obtain a reprieve, at least, if not a pardon, for the criminal, in whom he felt so unusually interested, at once from his docility of temper ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... cruelty upon my name, To give you time for preparation, And fit you for your future station, Three several warnings you shall have Before you're summoned to the grave; Willing for once I'll quit my prey, And grant a kind reprieve; In hopes you'll have no more to say, But, when I call again this way, Well pleased the world will leave." To these conditions both consented, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the fulfillment of his own purposes under the cloak of obedience to her orders. He was the destroying angel, and his mission was death. He could not know of the change which had come over her; nor could he dream of the possibility of a change. She alone could bring a reprieve from that death, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... power slight, I'le still keep for them my forgiving right. I feel a tenderness within me spring, I am my Peoples Father, and their King, And tho I think, they may have done me wrong. I can't remember their offences long. Nature is mov'd, and sues for a Reprieve, They are my Children, and I must forgive. My many jealous fears I shan't repeat, My Heart with a strong pulse of Love doth beat; Nature I feel has made a sudden start, And a fresh source springs from the Father's heart. A stubborn Bow, drawn by the force of men, The force remov'd, flies swifty ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... is condemned to die in a week's time and is shut up in a prison from which it is certain that he cannot escape, he will always hope that a reprieve may come before the week is over. Besides, the prison may catch fire, and he may be suffocated not with a rope, but with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while exercising in the prison yards. When the morning is come on which the poor ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... which was to serve as a background; and Jim found himself, for the second time in his life, facing a firing-party and condemned to death. But this time there seemed to be no hope or possibility of reprieve. He was surrounded by cruel men who had no feelings save those of a brutal nature, and it seemed as though no power on earth ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... apparently sincere and hearty interest towards her. Although her uncle had forborne to trouble her upon that hateful subject, after he had first proposed it, she knew his disposition too well to regard the reprieve as an abandonment ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an hour before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none come, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloak. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... such conditions as lie may think proper, subject to such regulations as may be provided by law relative to the manner of applying for pardons. He shall biennially communicate to the General Assembly each case of reprieve, commutation or pardon granted, stating the name of each convict, the crime for which he was convicted, the sentence and its date, the date of commutation, pardon or reprieve, and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... then rather chuse death Then me to be his bride? is his life mine? Why, then, because the Law makes me his Judge, Ile be, like you, not cruell, but reprieve him; My prisoner shall ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... with his hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... a bell in him and never stopped for a moment: six weeks! six weeks! six weeks! all his waking movements went to that intolerable rhythm; he was like a man under a gallows, with a reprieve coming to him, at the mercy of all the elements. It was observed at the bank that he worked harder and longer and much alone: they said the American blood was coming out at last, and ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... had followed Phoebe, hailed this as a reprieve, and thanked Miss Fennimore, adding the few particulars he had told his sister. 'I hope the girls are ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in order of these verses which I have thus endeavoured to reprieve from immediate oblivion, was originally addressed "To the Author of Poems published anonymously at Bristol." A second edition of these poems has lately appeared with the author's name prefixed: (Joseph Cottle) and I could not refuse myself the gratification of seeing the name of that ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... and turned with the others towards the press-room again. "Wait for the end of the spell, mate," said the albino over his shoulder—an afterthought. The swart man waited for the albino to precede him. Denton realised that he had a reprieve. ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... — N. {ant. 132} lateness &c. adj.; tardiness &c. (slowness) 275. delay, delation; cunctation, procrastination; deferring, deferral &c. v.; postponement, adjournment, prorogation, retardation, respite, pause, reprieve, stay of execution; protraction, prolongation; Fabian policy, medecine expectante[Fr], chancery suit, federal case; leeway; high time; moratorium, holdover. V. be late &c. adj.; tarry, wait, stay, bide, take time; dawdle &c. (be inactive) 683; linger, loiter; bide one's time, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... moment's reprieve, I willingly agreed to the proposal; and Mrs. Selwyn had but just time to shut me in, before her presence ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... but their voices were drowned by the beating of drums. While the Rev. John Wilson railed and scoffed at them from the foot of the gallows the two brave men were hanged. The halter had been placed upon Mrs. Dyer when her son, who had come in all haste from Rhode Island, obtained her reprieve on his promise to take her away. The bodies of the two men were denied Christian burial and thrown uncovered into a pit. All the efforts of husband and son were unable to keep Mrs. Dyer at home. In the following spring she returned to Boston and on the first day of June was again taken ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... may save your Puritan yet. We sent your hostage to Oxford for safe-keeping. News came of your death, and but now the King sent an order to have the fellow shot. But you can overtake the order, outstrip it. Here is a reprieve for ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... my case. I've been becalmed four years, and while I pray for a little wind to take me—home, you rock me in the trough of uncertainty. Suspense is very gall and wormwood. You know what the jailer said to the criminal who was hanging on a reprieve: 'Rope deferred maketh the heart sick.' Marion, give me the hour, or give ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... seen In their large bowers; with that sad path and seat Which none but light-heeled nymphs and fairies beat, Their solitary life, and how exempt From common frailty, the severe contempt They have of man, their privilege to live A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve What ages they consume: with the sad vale Of Diophania; and the mournful tale Of the bleeding, vocal myrtle:—these and more, Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score To thy rare fancy for. Nor dost thou fall From thy first majesty, or ought at all Betray consumption. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the first tumult was a sudden panic, occasioned by the running of some of the guards who arrived late; the second was due to the appearance of Sir Anthony Browne, whom the people fancied had been sent with a reprieve. ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... vice chancellor to the Empress Anna, and had also brought about the downfall of Biron the Regent. Now his turn had come. He was taken to the place of execution with the rest; his gray head was laid upon the block, his collar unbuttoned and gown drawn back by the executioner—when a reprieve was announced. Her Gracious Majesty was going to permit him to go to Siberia. He arose, bowed, said: "I pray you give me back my wig," calmly put it on the head he had not lost, buttoned his shirt, replaced his gown, and started to join ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... liable. With this impression, and believing that it is their actual duty to destroy, as far as lies in their power, every source of unhappiness, it has been a custom among them from time immemorial, to destroy every one that they could convict of so heinous a crime; and in fact there is no reprieve from ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
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