"Empty-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it? But God, wouldn't it be easy? I got him square inside the sights. Jest press the trigger and Anthony Bard is done for. He walks up to Drew. He's got no gun on. He's empty-handed jest like Drew. He's said something short and quick and starts to step ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... shore. Daylight was beginning to fade as they lighted the fire. No time was lost before mixing the dough, and it was in readiness by the time that there were sufficient glowing embers to stand the pot in. The kettle was filled and hung on a tripod over the fire. In a short time the Indians returned empty-handed. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... almost wholly to single undertakings, while in the long run the rule will hold good. Two pearl-divers, equally expert, dive together and work with equal energy. One brings up a pearl, while the other returns empty-handed. But let both persevere and at the end of five, ten, or twenty years it will be found that they succeeded almost in exact proportion to their skill ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... after breakfast the ladies set out upon their rounds. Berenice did not go empty-handed. Hampers of food and bundles of clothing filled up every available space in the carriage. It was a very pleasant drive. To every cottage that the countess entered she brought relief, comfort, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... here. They leave me all alone, Alone in this sore anguish of suspense. And I must wear the outward show of calmness Before my sister, and shut in within me The pangs and agonies of my crowded bosom. It is not to be borne. If all should fail; If—if he must go over to the Swedes, An empty-handed fugitive, and not As an ally, a covenanted equal, A proud commander with his army following, If we must wander on from land to land, Like the Count Palatine, of fallen greatness An ignominious monument! But no! That day I will not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... in the village I found my neighbors getting ready to divide my property among themselves, since they were satisfied I would never return to claim it. They did not think it strange that I came back empty-handed. That I had come back at all was a wonder. For the sake of the security of the two women I let it be known that I had seen strange sights on the volcano's top, and that it was a perilous journey ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... [6530]Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of Macedonia, sent two statues of pure gold to Apollo at Delphos. [6531]Croesus, king of Lydia dedicated a hundred golden tiles in the same place with a golden altar: no man came empty-handed to their shrines. But these are base offerings in respect; they offered men themselves alive. The Leucadians, as Strabo writes, sacrificed every year a man, averruncandae, deorum irae, causa, to pacify their gods, de montis praecipitio dejecerent, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... seven centuries would burst upon the power of England, not in the shape of an undisciplined peasantry armed with pikes, and scythes, and pitchforks, as in 1798—not in the shape of a half famished and empty-handed crowd, led to battle by orators and poets, as in 1848, but in the shape of an army, bristling with sharp steel, and flanked with thunderous cannon—an army skilled in the modern science of war, directed by true military genius, and inspired by that ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Spoken to his lady's order. Soon a knock, which sounds familiar. Lo! it is the dunning trader, Who is sorely run to hold him From the stream of dangerous rumours; But the answer thus is told him— "Not at home, my lady is not." So the tradesman from her doorway, Empty-handed, homeward turns, Thinks not such a ready answer Is an utter fabrication. Sero, from his seat beholding, Saw this lounging lump of matter, Puffed up in pomp and splendor. He was moved to indignation, And said, in a scornful ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... eyes out of respect to my father, who was of higher rank than he, and speaking softly. "They are thy dead wife's relatives, and are of good blood. And thou hast shamed them—and thyself as well—by sending them away empty-handed." ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... who was carrying the canoe, became separated from Hubbard and me. The wind was blowing hard, and he had difficulty in keeping the boat above his head. Suddenly I heard a call, and, looking back, saw George running after me, empty-handed. Hubbard did not hear the call, and went on. I dropped my pack, and waited for George ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... He was standing empty-handed save for the torch he carried, his great figure upright against the wall, facing Hill ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... 'Forgive me, for I weep for my evil and loathe myself.' Nor does he say, 'Forgive me, for I could not help doing it, or because I was tempted; or because the thing that I have done is a very little thing after all.' He comes empty-handed, and says, 'For ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... lady pecked furtively at her plate. As for myself I could not eat for sheer fright. Every nerve in my body was vibrating at the thought of the evening before me. If I could not avoid the interview, I was resolutely determined to give Master von Boden the slip rather than return to the frontier empty-handed. I had not braved all these perils to be packed off home without, at least, making an attempt to find Francis. Besides, I meant if I could to get the other ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... through the hall where her trunk stood and up the creaking stairs. She turned up the gas. Emma lay asleep with red eyelids and cheeks. Miriam did not look at Ulrica. Hurriedly and desolately she packed her bag. She was going home empty-handed. She had achieved nothing. Fraulein had made not the slightest effort to keep her. She was just nothing again—with her Saratoga trunk and her hand-bag. Harriett had achieved. Harriett. She was just going home with nothing ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... her in the course of a week, and some had the happy faculty of relieving their minds of what they saw and heard regardless of the social status of the listener. Mrs. Haldene never came away from the hair-dresser's empty-handed; in fact, she carried away with her food for thought that took fully ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... Flushing. On either side of the river thousands of refugees were fleeing from the invaders. They swarmed along the banks in continuous lines, a vast pilgrimage of the hopeless, many laden with household possessions which they had been able to gather at almost a moment's notice. Numbers were empty-handed and burdened at that in dragging their weary bodies along the miles which seemed never ending. It was a heartrending spectacle. Infinite pity must go out to those broken victims of the war, bowed veterans driven from home, going they ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... most fragmentary and lurid view of the poverty of East London, and quite unfair. I should have been shown either less or more, for I went away with no notion of the hundreds of men and women who had gallantly identified their fortunes with these empty-handed people, and who, in church and chapel, "relief works," and charities, were at least making an effort ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... cents and a half for powder; and if he wanted his pleasure to last, he had to be careful. Of course he wanted his pleasure to last, but he would rather have had no pleasure at all than be careful, and most of the boys woke Christmas morning empty-handed, unless they had burst their pistols the night before; then they had a little powder left, and could go pretty well into the forenoon if they could find some other boy who had shot off his powder but had a whole pistol left. Lots of fellows' pistols got out of order ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the following morning, shot at wildebeests at all known ranges, from two hundred yards up to five hundred yards—but our luck was against us. We came back empty-handed, and our chief reward for the morning's work was the great privilege of seeing both Mount Kenia, ninety miles north, and Kilima-Njaro, nearly two hundred miles southeast, as clear as a cameo against ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... being so short, I gladly encouraged his inclination to come over when he could claim a leisure hour; and in consequence I saw him about five or six times a month on my own leisure afternoons. He rarely came empty-handed; either he had a book to read, or brought one to be exchanged. When the weather permitted, we always sat in an arbor at the end of a spacious garden, and—in Boswellian dialect—"we had a good ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... came to this farm, I came empty-handed. I was the veritable pattern of the city-made failure. I believed that life had nothing more in store for me. I was worn out physically, mentally and, indeed, morally. I had diligently planned for Success; and I had reaped defeat. I came here without plans. I plowed and harrowed and planted, ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... partook of and the strong wine he drank brought on the fatal stroke), and there at the table he declared that, even in case you, his nephew, should accept of the inheritance, the Maticza should not be left empty-handed, but should receive all the ready ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... is destined to the gibbet, Van Galgebrok," replied the Master, joining in the laugh, "it'll never be choked by a footman's cravat, that's certain; but, in regard to going back empty-handed," continued he, altering his tone, and assuming a dignified air, "it's quite out of the question. With Baptist Kettleby, to engage in a matter is to go through with it. Besides, this is an affair which no one but myself can settle. Common offences may be decided upon by deputy; but outrages ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with a force that caused him to wince with absolute pain. "You're a man; an' if the people in this town don't know it already, they shall find it out from yours truly. I reckon we can ante up a little something in this 'ere matter, so the kid won't go home empty-handed; for I tell you there's nothin' in Antelope ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis
... together, taking with him a slender stock of food, and wrapping his blanket about him at night, when he seeks his resting-place amongst the crevices of these barren rocks. It is seldom that he returns empty-handed if he takes up a good position over-night, for the flocks of wild sheep descend from the least accessible parts at the earliest dawn in search of pasture, and one generally falls a victim to the unerring bullet of the rested Juzzyl. The distant view of the barrier ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... had expected to have the pillage of the city, when they came to Rome empty-handed railed against Camillus among their fellow-citizens, as a hater of the people, and one that grudged all advantage to the poor. The People were exasperated against him. Gathering, therefore, together his friends and fellow-soldiers, and such as had borne command ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the deep gulf that gapes a hideous welcome! You sigh at your weakness of heart, or of endeavor, and your sighs float out into the breeze, that rises ever from the shock of the waves, and whirl, empty-handed, to Heaven. You avow high purposes, and clench them with round utterance; and your voice, like a sparrow's, is caught up in the roar of the fall, and thrown at you from the cliffs, and dies away in the solemn thunders of nature. Great thoughts of life come over you—of its work and ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... had no dog, and dreadfully neglectful of the boys not to have noticed. No, no!" as Thorne moved away from the coop, "you must not leave all those; you have none for yourself, and you'll be disgraced as a sportsman if you go home empty-handed. They won't believe you've killed a thing. We never do, when our men come home with nothing to show. Jim Byrd never dared face Nina, or me, without, at ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... whole indescribably beautiful and grotesque at the same time. It is not strange that the carved figure of a plump and well-fed Holy Father, with his book in one hand and food in the other, sitting beside an empty-handed and mild-faced sheep, should have called forth such lines as the following from some local poet, evidently intended for ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... been dealing in secret with the Entente. The alliance with Turkey rested mainly on Talaat and Enver. Talaat told me in Bucharest, however, quite positively that he would be forced to send in his resignation if he were to return empty-handed, and in that case the secession of Turkey ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... which, having heard it twice, from the poet and the king, he would do. Then the king would say to the poet: "I have also a slave-girl who can repeat it," and, ordering her to do so, stationed behind the curtains, she would repeat what she had thus thrice heard; so the poet would go away empty-handed. The celebrated poet Al-Asma'i, having heard of this device, determined upon outwitting the king, and accordingly composed an ode made up of very difficult words. But this was not the poet's only preparative measure—another will be presently explained; ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Bliss is right," he said, "though I hope I can keep my doubts to myself and not brag about 'em, just to be the style. But it does look as if poor Ellen Ember came into the world empty-handed. As if the Lord didn't give her much of anything ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... forgotten the flower she had promised to wear, and she sent her maid in haste to see whether she could find one of any sort in the house. It was the middle of December, and it was not probable that such a thing could be found in the Palazzo Macomer. The maid came back empty-handed. Veronica told her to find an artificial one, and Elettra, after some searching, produced a very beautiful artificial gardenia, which Veronica pinned in her white bodice, with a smile. She glanced at herself once ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... morning: "Get story. Come home. What do you think you're doing?" and he tried to make up his mind to end the whole affair by taking the night train to Boston. But he hated to go back empty-handed from a four days' assignment. Besides, though he knew himself a fool for it, he wanted to see ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... comely about his tables, I have seen him generously distributing his wealth, And his meadhorns filled with generous liquors. I never returned empty-handed from the North. The bards prophesy that he shall have the government and sovereign power; Every prediction is at ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... and salt now being exhausted. Game was scarce in the neighbourhood, and with their utmost care the supply of food could not hold out until spring. Two of the men, with the only horses that remained, were sent to Platte Bridge to obtain supplies; but the animals were lost, and they returned empty-handed. Presently the meat was all consumed, and then their only resource was the hides, which were cut into small pieces and soaked in hot water, after the hair had been removed. When the last hide had been eaten, nothing remained but their boot-tops and the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... are not to be obtained by coin, but only by intimidation. I at first tried the usual agent, money. Dthemetri, with one or two of my Arabs, went into the village near which I was encamped and tried to buy the required provisions, offering liberal payment, but he came back empty-handed. I sent him again, but this time he held different language. He required to see the elders of the place, and threatening dreadful vengeance, directed them upon their responsibility to take care that my tent should be immediately and ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... said, replacing the coin, "we shan't go back empty-handed, anyhow. There must be a couple of thousand pieces in each box, and there are eighteen boxes. I suppose this was the money to pay ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... ineffectual attempts to force it open by pushing with his shoulder against it, he faced about and disappeared in the barn. While the boys were trying to make up their minds whether or not they ought to run up and corner him there, he came out again, and he did not come empty-handed either. He carried a bag of meal on his shoulder—the one Mr. Owens had put in the barn that morning for the use of his horses—and in his hand something that looked like a stick of stove-wood; but it was in reality a strong ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... moonlight had vanished beyond the world, Scundoo came among the people huddled about the house of Hooniah. He walked with a quick, alert step, and those who saw him in the light of Hooniah's slush-lamp noticed that he came empty-handed, without rattles, masks, or shaman's paraphernalia, save for a great sleepy raven ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... Philippe, the architect; Honore, whom we dubbed "Deshonore," because he used always to return empty-handed when we went hunting together. ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... carts piled high with the household belongings which they hoped to save. Old men, old women, the lame, the halt, the blind; dogs, cats, goats, with here and there a dogcart, all struggling to the rear. Many came empty-handed, facing they knew not what, and looking with pity upon the French troops who were moving forward to ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... visit of the previous day, Pratt had been prepared for all eventuality. He had made ready for flight. And he was not going empty-handed. He had a considerable amount of Mrs. Mallathorpe's money in his possession; by obtaining her signature to one or two documents he could easily obtain much more in London, at an hour's notice. Those ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... having wounded the sentry and blown the N.C.O. off the firestep with a bomb, now escaped, taking the Lewis Gun with them. The N.C.O., Cpl. Watts, got up and gave chase, but lost touch with the enemy amongst the craters, and after being nearly killed himself had to return empty-handed. Our predecessors in the line seemed to have made no effort to wire this part of the line at all, presumably thinking the line of craters a sufficient protection. A few nights later 2nd Lieut. Boarland reconnoitred ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... suppose they would welcome us if we went to them empty-handed?" asked Farmer. "No, no, that will never do. If we join the Spaniards we must take the ship with us to ensure a welcome; and I'm half inclined to think that will be the best thing we can do. But not now; that must be thought over at leisure. Meanwhile, ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... justly blame me for sending my messenger empty-handed, your situation considered; and yet that very situation (so critical!) is partly the reason for it: for indeed I knew not what to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... other high officers of state whom we knew were present, and, of course, the Professor, Merna, Eleeta, and Siloni, as well as many others whom we had come to regard as personal friends; and they did not allow us to depart empty-handed. ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... we'll nail him. And, if he puts his gun in my face today, he won't catch me empty-handed the second time. (Draws automatic from his pocket.) I'm ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... I would not keep her here. It isn't fit. If you like her, and she can like you, it will be a good match for her. You have my leave to ask her. She brought nothing here, but she has been a good girl, a very good girl, and she will not leave the house empty-handed.' ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... gold and silver; which when I saw, I rejoiced and said to myself, 'Herewith I will settle all claims upon me and there will remain as much again.' So I took the money and going inside said in my mind, 'It were ignoble to let them fare away empty-handed.' Whereupon I brought out the hundred thousand dinars I had by me and gave it to them, thanking them for their kindness; and they pouched the monies and went their way, under cover of the night so that none might know of them. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... judge. "About six years ago the woman was seen at her father's home in North Carolina. I reckon Gatewood had cast her off. She didn't go back empty-handed. She had run away from her husband with a child—a girl; after a lapse of twenty years she returned to her father with a boy of two or three. There are two questions that must be answered when I find Gatewood: what became of the woman and what became of the child; are they living ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... anxiety, promised regard for their wishes, and set out towards the south; but as luck would have it, although he hunted diligently, he found no game. Nor had he more success to the east or west, so that, being a keen sportsman, and determined not to go home empty-handed, he forgot all about his promise, and turned to the north. Here also he was at first unsuccessful, but just as he had made up his mind to give up for that day, a white hind with golden horns and silver hoofs flashed past him into a thicket. So quickly ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... not have done so when addressed in that manner. The blood rushed to her cheeks, but she stifled her resentment and continued to search in every likely and unlikely place. It couldn't be lost, that was impossible. Yet in ten minutes she returned empty-handed. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... return to my friend Tommy. Just before I sailed I went to pay his mother a visit. I found the widow sitting, as was her wont, knitting at her window, waiting for her son's return. I went not empty-handed, for besides my pasty, which I had saved, I had bought a loaf and a lump of cheese and a bundle of lollipops at Bideford. First presenting her with these treasures and emptying my pockets of the very small ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... my father, though you may not take me back with you, you shall not go away empty-handed. I have that to send home with you which shall, I trust, rejoice the hearts of all Domremy; and if you find it hard to forgive that which your child has been called upon to do, yet methinks there will be others to bless her name and pray ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... I was going empty-handed, with no fixed program or goal. After the settlers were on the ground, there would be many obstacles which must be overcome. Down to earth again! Even in the initial colonizing I would have to depend on my own initiative, on my influence with the people, and ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... of a colonel, who I found was under me in charge of a branch—a new hand like myself, but whose apartment nobody in the place could indicate. A War Office messenger despatched to find him came back empty-handed. Another War Office messenger sent on the same errand on the morrow proved no more successful. On the third day I summoned a boy scout into my presence—a very small one—and commanded him to find ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... was ordained priest at Ottobeuren, and celebrated his first mass. Some of his letters are to friends inviting them to be present, and adjuring them to come empty-handed, without the customary gifts. In these early years there was ample leisure for study. In 1505 he began Greek, and in 1508 Hebrew. He speaks of reading Aeneas Sylvius, Pico della Mirandola, Cyprian, Diogenes Laertius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Dionysius the Areopagite. He ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... dozen times, the thought came to me that if I wanted to save myself I must give up the idea of saving the body, which after all would be a useless task, since I felt certain that the lad was dead. But no; I could not return to the ship and face the lad's mother empty-handed. I could picture her despair under such circumstances, for Julius was Mrs Vansittart's only son, and, spoiled as he was, I believed that she loved him more than her husband, more than her daughter, more than her own life. No, it was not to be thought ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... therefore sure. He believed in the Lord and He counted it to him for righteousness. He left home and country and ventured among hostile tribes in an assured confidence that he should gain a possession, though empty-handed, and a countless posterity, though yet childless, and that all this would be granted him not for his own glory, but that all nations might be blest in him. And this subordination of self and this ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... with fatigue of watching the helm, fell asleep. The mariners seized the opportunity, and one of them said to the rest, "A fine time has this leader of ours; wherever he goes he is sure of presents, when we come away empty-handed; and see what King Aeolus has given him, store no doubt of gold and silver." A word was enough to those covetous wretches, who quick as thought untied the bag, and, instead of gold, out rushed with mighty noise all ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... to Benton with two or three of the trout tucked inside his blouse; but he wouldn't tell how he got 'em—not even to Jack Harvey, to whom he was loyal in all else. Most folks came back empty-handed. ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... forty-five, and then we shan't be far wrong. We certainly can't attack that number openly, but we may drive them off empty-handed if we take them by surprise." He examined the ground for another minute or two, and then said: "I think we might make our way down among these rocks to within three hundred yards of the house. I will send six more down ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... suddenly brace up and smile. Let's possess our souls in patience. Incidental to the process we might restore the shattered faith of some of our deluded correspondents. During the past six days it has pained me to observe the postman arrive, full-handed, to turn away, alas, empty-handed. I ask you as man to man—why this thusness? Now that we are about to depart, it might be well to apprise our ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... said Mother Mayberry, and a most delicious laugh fell on the overcharged air and in itself began to clear the atmosphere, "so you empty-handed, cross-faced boys think you look more stylisher for the wedding than ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and at last, I was off the sea, nor had I returned thence empty-handed. There lay the schooner, clear at last from buccaneers and ready for our own men to board and get to sea again. I had nothing nearer my fancy than to get home to the stockade and boast of my achievements. Possibly I might be blamed a bit for my truantry, but the recapture of the HISPANIOLA ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the mountains, Heard that sudden cry of anguish, Heard the voice of Minnehaha Calling to him in the darkness, "Hiawatha! Hiawatha!" Over snow-fields waste and pathless, Under snow-encumbered branches, Homeward hurried Hiawatha, Empty-handed, heavy-hearted, Heard Nokomis moaning, wailing: "Wahonowin! Wahonowin! Would that I had perished for you, Would that I were dead as you are! Wahonowin! Wahonowin!" And he rushed into the wigwam, Saw ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... ill-furnished, ill-provided, ill- stored, ill-off. slack, at a low ebb; empty, vacant, bare; short of, out of, destitute of, devoid of, bereft of &c 789; denuded of; dry, drained. unprovided, unsupplied^, unfurnished; unreplenished, unfed^; unstored^, untreasured^; empty-handed. meager, poor, thin, scrimp, sparing, spare, stinted; starved, starving; halfstarved, famine-stricken, famished; jejune. scant &c (small) 32; scarce; not to be had, not to be had for love or money, not to be had at any price; scurvy; stingy &c 819; at the end of one's tether; without ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... work of Christ's kingdom. Another marked instance of like teaching was in the case of the young ruler who wanted to know the way of life. We try to make it easy for inquirers to begin to follow Christ, but Jesus set a hard task for this rich young man. He must give up all his wealth, and come empty-handed with the new Master. Why did he so discourage this earnest seeker? He saw into his heart, and perceived that he could not be a true disciple unless he first won a victory over himself. The issue was his money or Jesus—which? The way was made so hard that for that day, at least, the ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... undeceived. A few days after he had arrived at Plymouth, he met the man whom he had sent to Cadiz with the hides forlorn and empty-handed. The Inquisition, he said, had seized the cargo and confiscated it. An order had been sent to St. Domingo to forfeit the reserved slaves. He himself had escaped for his life, as the familiars had ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... a rapturous smile. "I had not thought of that," she whispered; "I will not go empty-handed after all. Perhaps He will say of me, as of one of old, 'She hath done what ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... high explosive Wilbraham got to try and never did," Collins returned casually. "Saw it in his office to-night and thought it was better with us than with Macartney. Don't know just how it works, so I'm treating it gingerly." He moved on into the darkness of his own tunnel and came back empty-handed. "What are we going ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... be an addition to our dinner," said Ready; "we do not go back empty-handed, and, therefore, as the saying is, we shall be more welcome; now, then, let us start, for we must pull here again this afternoon, and with a full ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... brief trial of the lagoon, at various depths, soon convinced us that it contained no pearl-shell, both George and the Rotumah man coming up empty-handed after each dive, and pronouncing the bottom to be oge, i.e., poverty-stricken as regarded shell. But we made one rather pleasing discovery, which was that the lagoon contained a vast number of green turtle. We could see the creatures, some of them being of great size, swimming about ...
— Yorke The Adventurer - 1901 • Louis Becke
... is the reader with the liberal mind who is called to the task. He is in sympathy, at least, with change, and knows that the history of civilization has been a struggle to break away from tradition and yet not go empty-handed; he can understand the passion to express old things in a new and better way, or he is not intellectually liberal. It takes a liberal mind to distinguish ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... Omaha packing-houses. Their comrades were sorry for them. Ed didn't have any "folks" of his own, but he had expected letters all the same. Willy was sure his mother must have written. When the last ragged envelope was given out and he turned away empty-handed, he murmured, "She's Bohunk, and she don't write so good. I guess the address wasn't plain, and some fellow in another comp'ny has ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the famishing mother and child, I felt such impatience with the fact and so much anxiety as to the condition of those I had left behind me that I questioned whether it would not be better for me to return to them empty-handed than to leave them so long without the comfort of my presence, when the fascination of the scene again seized me and I found myself lingering to mark its conclusion with an avidity which can only be explained by my sudden and intense consciousness ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... answered. "Yours is a good place—I've often caught plenty of fish there—only not to be relied on as this pool is. I've really never known this particular spot fail—the fish seem to live in it all the year round. However, I'm glad you've had decent luck—it's not a bit jolly to go home empty-handed, I know. And now, what's the next thing to be done? The afternoon's getting on—don't you think it's time you came to pay me a ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... All his hopes—lately running so high—were crushed in a single moment. His whole property taken from him—the object of his enterprise lost—his long, perilous, and painful journeyings made for nothing. He should return empty-handed, poorer than when he set out—for his own five pack-mules were gone among the rest. The oxen, and his faithful steed, tied to the carretas, alone remained. These would scarce serve to carry provision for himself and party on their journey home; no cargo—not ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... it seems impossible to make them understand that the Consuls are bound to send them away empty-handed, in order to avoid trouble between this ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... their gasoline schooner into open water and go pop-popping south to Vladivostok. But there would be those there who waited and hoped for gold to aid them in the battle against hunger, disease and death. Could they go empty-handed? ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... with his loot of the Indian camp—'twas not in his nature to come off empty-handed, however hard pressed he had been for time. In the raffle of it, guns and pistols, dressed skins and warrior finery, he came upon my good old blade and Richard's great claymore—trophies claimed by the head men of the Cherokees after our taking, ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Cadmeians' vigilance, To bring thy father all the oracles Concerning Oedipus, and didst make thyself My faithful lieger, when they banished me. And now what mission summons thee from home, What news, Ismene, hast thou for thy father? This much I know, thou com'st not empty-handed, Without a warning ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... imposing more labour upon them, which is no hard task to those that have been accustomed to it; and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own country, which indeed falls out but seldom, as they do not force them to stay, so they do not send them away empty-handed. ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... wind sprang up, their ice-floe parted from the land ice and drifted away from the island. Dark-green water and white foaming surge yawned behind them. There was no time to think. They were drifting out to sea as fast as they could. But to go back empty-handed would have been too vexatious; so they cut off a quarter of a hide and dragged it with some lumps of blubber to the kayaks. They reached the land in safety, dead tired after an adventurous row, and sought the shelter ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... pleasure their friends by some little present. And if ye might bring no more than an handful of daisies from the field, yet is our Lady so gracious that she will deign to accept even so small an offering. Ye need not be empty-handed." ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... in the great forest from morning until night, but found nothing. Not wishing to go home empty-handed, they went to the island to see what they could ...
— More Jataka Tales • Re-told by Ellen C. Babbitt
... Roy was, by a sudden depression of markets, and, as a friendly tradition adds, by the bad faith of a partner named MacDonald, whom he had imprudently received into his confidence, and intrusted with a considerable sum of money, rendered totally insolvent. He absconded, of course—not empty-handed, if it be true, as stated in an advertisement for his apprehension, that he had in his possession sums to the amount of L1000 sterling, obtained from several noblemen and gentlemen under pretence of purchasing cows for them in the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... into the embers of the bivouac-fire. Never had we seen him so utterly unlike himself as on this burlesque of a scout, and now that we were virtually homeward-bound, and empty-handed too, he was completely weighed down by the consciousness of our lost opportunities. If something could only have happened to Gleason before the start, so that the command might have devolved on Blake, we all felt that a ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... soldiers, who had expected to have the pillage of the city, when they came to Rome empty-handed, railed against Camillus among their fellow-citizens, as a hater of the people, and one that grudged all advantage to the poor. Afterwards, when the tribunes of the people again brought their motion for dividing the city to the vote, Camillus appeared ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... watchers grew sick. To the tutor especially, tied as he was to the scene of the tragedy, those three weeks were a period of torture. He urged Dr Brandram to go over to Paris to make inquiries; but the Doctor, after a fortnight of fruitless search, returned empty-handed. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... honeyed words and dulcet promises, and she inclines her coquettish ear—most of the month she is all ear—to the highest bidder. But when she comes to her full—and is all eye—then she perceives her swain faithless and empty-handed, and straightway she plights her troth to his clamorous and expostulant fellow, who dangles his untried promises before her disappointed vision. And the days pass, and she rises and sets; but lo! the bridal gifts linger still, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... really suffering and in need, but so great is the greed of mankind that many without are in no necessity whatever, but only seek to enrich themselves at your expense. Therefore I propose you examine carefully each case that presents itself, and unless the beggar is in need of alms turn him away empty-handed, as being ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... interesting and picturesque surroundings. Arsene Lupin, the eccentric gentleman who operates only in the chateaux and salons, and who, one night, entered the residence of Baron Schormann, but emerged empty-handed, leaving, however, his card on which he had scribbled these words: "Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar, will return when the furniture is genuine." Arsene Lupin, the man of a thousand disguises: in turn ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... "While they are children their mother can see by their plays whether her husband, when he is out hunting, will be successful or not. When the twins play about and feign to bite each other, he will be successful; if they keep quiet, he will return empty-handed" (404. 92). ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... nothing. The she-wolf suckled other founders beside those of Rome. Especially when I read of the adventures of Russian and Polish exiles in Siberia—men of aristocratic lineage wandering amid snow and arctic cold, sleeping on rocks or in hollow trees, and holding their own, empty-handed, against hunger and frost and their fiercer brute embodiments do I recognize a hardihood and a ferity whose wet-nurse, ages back, may well have been this gray slut of ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... disappointed, she was returning empty-handed to the deck where Sir Tristram impatiently awaited her, when, close by the couch of Dame Bragwaine, she spied a beautiful golden flask full of a rich sparkling liquid. With a cry of relief she snatched it up, and running up on deck, "Drink, drink," ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... neither horse nor man was killed. Next, a man, sent ahead to cut down the brush that blocked the path, cut himself badly on the inside of his thigh and bled copiously. The hunters sent out for game returned empty-handed. The fishermen caught no fish, but broke the two Indian gigs, or contrivances for catching fish, with which they had been provided. The stock of salt had given out, the bulk of their supply having been left on the mountain. Several large mushrooms ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... down, and none of the others moved. Then Messenwah advanced before his men to meet Stedman, and on Stedman's opening and shutting his hands to show that he was unarmed, the King threw down his club and spears, and came forward as empty-handed ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... though for the sword cut from behind the shoulder. A soft thud followed, Harry's horse cleared the sods like a bird, and I blazed off my rifle at a venture toward the hollow as they thundered neck and neck past me. It was clear that empty-handed they had ridden either over or through ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... had sworn to my lady that I would bring back to her the fugitive unharmed, and I would never return to her empty-handed, confessing failure. Michael's queer behaviour disconcerted me. From the outset of the chase he had turned sour and inaccessible, and now he was so ill-tempered that I feared he would pick a quarrel at the slightest ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... back empty-handed!" he cried. Her heart stood still, then leaped in anticipation of what he would say. Her soul hungered for the words, the words that should not only comfort her, but should be to her the excuse for many things. She saw him—shadowy, graceful against the dim gray of the river and ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... whatsoever I of him demand, I empty-handed never go away; Now pearl, now ring will he shake from him, and Now gift me with some rich and fair array. Yet tell madonna he is at her command; But not for gold; for him no gold can pay; But if I for one night her arms ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... comrades. He obtained prestige as having a father like-to-die, but another boy turned up who had learned to chew tobacco. Then Hedrick was pronounced inferior to others in turning "cartwheels," but succeeded in a wrestling match for an apple, which he needed. Later, he was chased empty-handed from the rear of an ice-wagon, but greatly admired for his retorts to the vociferous chaser: the other boys rightly considered that what he said to the ice-man was much more horrible than what the ice-man said to him. The ice-man had a fair vocabulary, ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... She was quite happy and confident; Antoine loved her with all his heart, and told her so every day. What more could she want? He brought her lovely bunches of red and white roses, little trinkets, sweetmeats, ribbons; indeed, he seemed never to come empty-handed. She used to take walks with him when his day's work was over, in the Luxembourg gardens, and once or twice they went out as far as the Champs-Elysees. Oh, yes, Antoine loved her dearly, and she was very happy; they should certainly be married before long. We were already in November, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... and sometimes the cupboard was bare before the end of the winter; whatever was eatable had been eaten by the tune spring came on, and most often father and son knew what it was like to go hungry. Whenever the weather was fit, they put off in their boat but often rowed back empty-handed or with one skinny flat-fish in the bottom. This did not affect their outlook. They never complained; they bore their burden of distress, heavy as it was, with the same even temper as they showed in the face of good fortune on the rare occasions it smiled on them; ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... live upon the salvage of valuable cargoes. So they do, and God knows it is no great living that they get out of the deadly risks they run. But put that hope of gain aside. Let these rough fellows be asked, in any storm, who volunteers for the life-boat to save some perishing souls, as poor and empty-handed as themselves, whose lives the perfection of human reason does not rate at the value of a farthing each; and that boat will be manned, as surely and as cheerfully, as if a thousand pounds were told down on the weather-beaten pier. For this, and for the recollection ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... when Chang brought in supper, Anarky walked by his side in solemn state, empty-handed, dignified, watchful. He appeared totally unconscious of his escort, and I made no remark; but Mr. Smith sent him into the hall on an errand, and during his absence Anarky rose to explain: "Which you see all dem biskit, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... rascals as they were prowling about the camp. A rush was instantly made by the trappers, with rifles in hand, to save their horses. Shots were fired and one Indian fell. The rest of the band made off as empty-handed as they came, with one exception. One brave had succeeded in capturing and mounting a horse before the white men could reach him. Notwithstanding he had a dead brother lying on the ground, he appeared to be altogether too polite to make the trappers a longer ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... preamble, as he entered her house, she holding the door open for his passage, "I come back to you licked. Your daughter absolutely declines even to consider the proposition I put before her. As a plenipotentiary extraordinary I admit I'm a teetotal failure. I return to you empty-handed—and licked." ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... grandfather was an official at the same place as our old master; that hence it came that they joined ancestors; that these few years there hasn't been much intercourse (between their family and ours); that some years back, whenever they came on a visit, they were never permitted to go empty-handed, and that as their coming on this occasion to see us is also a kind attention on their part, they shouldn't be slighted. If they've anything to say," (our lady continued), "tell lady Secunda to do the necessary, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... us whether Mme. Goupil had indeed arrived late for mass, not one of us could inform her. Instead, we increased her anxiety by telling her that there was a painter at work in the church copying the window of Gilbert the Bad. Francoise was at once dispatched to the grocer's, but returned empty-handed owing to the absence of Theodore, whose dual profession of choirman, with a part in the maintenance of the fabric, and of grocer's assistant gave him not only relations with all sections of society, but an encyclopaedic ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... companion to try and stalk what he believed to be birds of paradise; but they had evidently chosen the wrong time, for to their disappointment not a sound was heard, and they would have gone back to the yacht empty-handed if it had not been for ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... restitution to Sweden, the treaty between the two northern powers being signed at Lund on the 26th of September. Freely had she spent her blood and her treasure, only to emerge from the five years' contest exhausted and empty-handed. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... over his spark of light and warmth and comfort, a key was put into his door. "Ah! here's supper," thought he, "and I am so hungry." It was not supper, it was Fry who came in empty-handed, leaving the door open. Fry went to his gaslight and put his finger and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... answer, not only the window, but the door in the gate was opened, and stooping low to enter, Kit Smallbones came in, and not empty-handed. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not set out on their journey empty-handed. Lucy, by direction of her father, had packed a basket with provisions enough to last them two or three days. The shepherd wished also to lend them some ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... fiercely. "There will be knaves and fools enough who will try and put the idea of our using him into his simple heart without that. No! Let him do as he likes with it—but let him be himself. I'd rather have him come back to us even after he's lost the money—his old self and empty-handed—than try to change the stuff God put into him and make ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... baaby—under your breast! Think of meetin' him in time to come, wi' another soul got in sheer love! Better to faace the people an' let the bairn come to fulness o' life than fly them an' cut your days short an' go into the next world empty-handed. Caan't you see it? What would Clem say? He'd judge you hard—such a lover o' li'l childer as him. 'T is the first framework of an immortal soul you've got unfoldin', like a rosebud hid in the green, an' ban't for you to nip that life for your awn ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... beside a dry water hole. From the camp, the San Felipe trail led in one direction straight to Rubio City and in the other to the main road in the heart of the Basin half way between Kingston and Frontera. At this camp Jefferson Worth made his headquarters. Not a man, whether he presented himself empty-handed or with team and tools, but was forced to talk with Mr. Worth in his tent office before he was set to work under Abe Lee and his three ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have—evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars—Bang! Bang!—No good!—Off it went into ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... Do you know the meaning of the Transfiguration?' 'To be quite brief,' I replied, 'our Lord wished to show himself to His disciples in all His glory.' 'Very well,' he said, 'here is a little image in memory of me.' I fell at his feet. 'I thank you, your Holiness....' I did not go away from him empty-handed." ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... He returned empty-handed and closed the window. Ronnie had entered, and was standing by his sister, who had dropped upon her knees by the sofa and hidden her face in the cushions, sobbing with a pasionate abandonment that testified to nerves that had given way utterly at last beneath a strain too severe ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... and threes, the Indians who had gone to look for firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had not been able to find a single stick of wood for a fire! No one ever can, as a matter of fact, in that ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... But at the door, I ran head foremost into a party of soldiers ringing down the butt-ends of their muskets on our doorstep. This apparition caused the dinner party to rise hastily, while Mrs. Joe who was re-entering the kitchen, empty-handed, stopped short in her lament of "Gracious goodness, gracious me, what's gone—with the—pie!" and stared at ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... agreed to give him as his share of what there might be of the good things of the world among the Shands generally. As Shand himself said of both of them, he was about to go forth as a prodigal son, with a perfect assurance that, should he come back empty-handed, no calf would be killed for him. But he was an active man, with a dash of fun, and perhaps a sprinkling of wit, quick and brave, to whom life was apparently a joke, and who boasted of himself that, though he was very fond of beef and beer, he could live on ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the man, steadying his voice. "I was only thinking that I had expected to go through the gate, when my turn came, with my arms piled full of sheaves,—but I've come to the end too soon. It seems so hard to come down to death empty-handed, when I have longed all these years to do so much for my people. Oh, my poor people!" he cried out desperately; "so helpless and so needy, and my life that was to have been given to them going out in vain! ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... that day. In the morning we children got our bannocks to breakfast. They were small, and it was unlucky to leave any portion of them, although this was frequently done. The first-foot was an important episode. To visit empty-handed on this day was tantamount to wishing a curse on the family. A plane-soled person was an unlucky first-foot; a pious sanctimonious person was not good, and a hearty ranting merry fellow was considered the best sort of first-foot. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... moment. He knew well how desperate their enemies might become. He hated to lose the time but he realized it would be worse than useless to face a gang of four or more empty-handed. There was no telling what Sobber, Crabtree and the others might do ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... influence—his sterility of intellect and imagination as well as his slackness in enterprise—his unchangeable rudeness of relations with the gods, which led him to scourge and prick Pan if he came back empty-handed from the chase; while the inhabitant of Phokaea or Miletus exemplifies the Grecian mariner, eager in search of gain—active, skilful, and daring at sea, but inferior in steadfast bravery on land—more excitable in imagination as well as more mutable in character—full of pomp and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... possessed Bullard. Caw was helpless for the present, and it was not the old housekeeper's business to answer the bell. The visitor would have to wait awhile. Anyway, there was plenty of time for escape.... But was he going to flee empty-handed, leaving ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... hundred people a day cross the border from the United States. Before the year has closed a hundred thousand of them will have merged themselves into Western Canada's melting-pot, drawn by that strongest of lures—the lure of the land. And these hundred thousand people do not come empty-handed. It is estimated that they bring with them in settlers' effects and cash one thousand dollars each, thus adding in portable property to the wealth of Western Canada one hundred million dollars. In addition they bring the personal producing-factor, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... officer with shining eyes like so many schoolboys. Parcels are handed out first, but we throw these aside to be opened later, and snatch for the letters. But luck is not always good to all of us, and possibly it will be old Bill who has to turn away empty-handed and alone. No letter. Are they all ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... encouragement. With three companions, in midwinter, he made a mining excursion to the much exploited Humboldt region, returning empty-handed after a month or two of hard experience. This is the trip picturesquely described in Chapters XXVII to XXXIII of Roughing It.—[It is set down historically in Mark Twain 'A Biography.' Harper & brothers.]—He, mentions the Humboldt ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wanted and entered into the spirit of it. She met me on the evening of the feast with a sorrowful expression on her handsome face, for she had sent a fisherman out very early in the morning into the bay to catch some of the little sea hedgehogs which were to form one course, but he had come back empty-handed. The menu stood as under, and we none of us ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... travel was over, and, worse, the freshness and buoyancy of youth had departed. His limbs, alas! were stiff and sore. He had a mountain of gold, not one atom of which he could use for himself or others. And now he must return to his father's house empty-handed, and void of truths or incidents to ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... not hence empty-handed," said Edward fondly. "Thy father's halls sheltered the exile, and the exile forgets not the sole pleasure of a king—the power to requite. We may never meet again, William,—age creeps over me, and who will succeed to my thorny throne?" William longed to answer,—to tell the hope ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The leaders tried to arrest Him, but are held back by some hidden influence, nobody seeming willing to take the lead. Then the clique of chief priests send officers to arrest Him. But they are so impressed by His presence and His words, that they come back empty-handed, to the disgust of their superiors. Great numbers listening believe on Him, but some of the leaders, mingling in the crowd, stir up discussion so sharp that with hot passion, and eyes splashing green light, they stoop down and pick up stones to hurl ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... issuing them. Mr. Fisk saw a way out of the difficulty. The Secretary gave the certificate books to an employe of the road, with directions to carry them carefully to the transfer office. The messenger returned in a moment empty-handed, and told the astonished Secretary that Mr. Fisk had met him at the door, taken the books, and 'run away with them!' On the same day the convertible bonds corresponding to these certificates were placed on the Secretary's desk, and as soon as Vanderbilt had forced up the price ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... logs, all kneeling, were the hag, Standing Buffalo and Brown Mink. The chief held the match; the old woman, a knife; the girl was empty-handed. But she was not ill—not wasted—not dying! She was full-figured. Her face was round. Her cheeks and lips were as bright as the dab of paint at the part in her hair—as crimson with ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... settlement of this great stock market manipulation. And this does not include the pickings of Gould and Fisk and the smaller fry, of which there is no official record. But that these gentlemen did not go empty-handed there is not the shadow ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... he, "I walked about all the forenoon, till I was as tired as an old donkey, without seeing a single grunter—not so much as a track of one; but as I was determined not to return empty-handed, I resolved to ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... barely whispered the low voice died away. The Indian lad came forth into the light again, empty-handed; plucked at Lola's gown, pointed to Natzie, for the moment forgotten, now urgently beckoning. Bending low, they ran to her. She was pointing across the deep gorge that opened a way to the southward. Something far down toward its yawning ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... of the police office, were daily dispatched to the shop in all kinds of disguises, inquiring, with great seeming anxiety, for "Gypsy books," and offering high prices for copies. They, however, returned to their employers empty-handed. My Gallegan was on his guard, informing all who made inquiries, that books of no description would be sold at the establishment for the present. Which was in truth the case, as I had given him particular orders to sell no ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... haggard face and set lips, gazing up the ravine, for, although he scarcely fancied that either of the others had expected anything else, he shrank from going back as empty-handed as when he had left them. The light was getting very dim, but he could still see the ice fringe upon the pool in front of him, and a mass of rock that rose black against the creeping dusk not very far away. Beyond it on the one side there ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... not go empty-handed to pay a visit to a religious preceptor, a god or a king. Never betray a trust or violate confidence. Never praise yourself with your ...
— The Siksha-Patri of the Swami-Narayana Sect • Professor Monier Williams (Trans.)
... hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the wife of Ali the Cairene, seeing her husband return empty-handed, went forth to beg of her neighbours the wherewithal to keep themselves alive and repaired to a woman, whom she had known in former days. When she came in to her and she saw her case, she rose and receiving her kindly, wept and said, "What ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... exaggerated; yet, even allowing for this, she was prepared to take a long and difficult journey that she might see his face and prove for herself how far her difficulties could be solved by him. And she came not empty-handed; she came not only to receive, but also to give, "with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones," not because she thought Solomon poor and needy, but because she knew ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... Kallolo, breaking off the shaft, turned the animal on its back. It was alive, but from the weak way in which it moved its legs it was evident that life was ebbing fast. We should, at all events, not return empty-handed. ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... your way of life," said this homely comforter; "your sort comes home empty-handed one day, and money in both pockets the next. I'm glad to see you home at all, for I've been in care about you. You're very welcome, Joe. If you are come home honest and sober, why, that is the next best thing ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... see that, for after two hours' hard pulling we got near enough to throw a harpoon, and after it was fixed he jumped clean out of the water. Then there was the usual battle. It was fierce and long; so long that I began to fear we would have to return empty-handed to the ship. We put ten harpoons into him, one after another, and had a stiff run between ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... intently down through the water with which the cabin was filled, they could see nothing whatever. With a boat-hook which they found jammed in the port bulwarks, they poked and groped about for a considerable time, but hooked nothing, and were finally obliged to return empty-handed to ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... So, empty-handed, the messengers returned to Queen Meav. And she, full of anger, decided to make good the boastful words of her messenger and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the fashions to-morrow at the Abbey. I shall LOOK THE LADIES WELL OVER, I promise you. And, Betty, I have thought of the most charming present for Miss Somers, as papa says it's good never to go empty-handed to a great house, I'll make Miss Somers, who is fond, as her maid told you, of such things—I'll make Miss Somers a present of that guinea-hen of Susan's; it's of no use to me, so do you carry it up early in the morning to the Abbey, with my ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... to Placide's shout—the well-known mountain-cry which he was delighted to revive—their followers appeared on all sides, some bringing in their game, some empty-handed. The French officers saw that escape was impossible. Neither had they any thought, but for a passing moment, of fighting for their liberty. The Ouvertures were completely armed; and there never was an occasion when a man would lightly engage, hand-to-hand, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of "Gracious goodness gracious ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... go away empty-handed," said he to himself, seizing the Khichri pot; "if I can't get the taste I'll ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... valley in which there is water. Many Milenga gardens, but the people keep out of sight. The highlands are of a purple colour from the new leaves coming out. The donkey began to eat to my great joy. Men sent off to search for a village return empty-handed, and we must halt. I am ill and losing ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone |
