"Hindmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and sixteen, the foot soldiers of Leo and Constantine were formed eight deep; but the cavalry charged in four ranks, from the reasonable consideration, that the weight of the front could not be increased by any pressure of the hindmost horses. If the ranks of the infantry or cavalry were sometimes doubled, this cautious array betrayed a secret distrust of the courage of the troops, whose numbers might swell the appearance of the line, but of whom only a chosen band would ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... to happen, the stubborn retreat broke into a rout. It was every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The pirates fled for the after cabin-house, there to take cover behind the timbered walls and use the small port-holes for musketry fire. Thus they could find respite and it would be immensely ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... the marriage party are coming on the stage, the hindmost are still upon the heights. The ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... men in the hindmost canoes discovered a large brown (grizzly) bear lying in the open grounds, about three hundred paces from the river. Six of them, all good hunters, immediately went to attack him, and concealing themselves by a small eminence came unperceived within forty ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... before she could take her leave, She had to puff up her monstrous sleeve. Then a little dab here and a wee pat there. And a touch or two to her hindmost hair, Then around the room with the utmost care She thoughtfully circulated. Then she seized her gloves and a chamoiskin, Some breath perfume and a long stickpin, A bonbon box and a cloak and some Eau-de-cologne and chewing-gum, Her opera glass and sealskin muff, A fan and a heap of other ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... It's kind of useless talkin' it again out here, I know. We've talked an' talked it in that darn sick room of yours till I'm sick to death trying to git sense into you. We know the game from A to the hindmost letter of the darn alphabet. We haven't shouted it, you an' me, because there wasn't need. But Idepski's been right here since ever he got his nose on your trail. It was his gun that took you weeks ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... avalanches at the crossing of a raving cataract down the mountain side. And still the staving pace at which we started was kept up by those on the lead, and imitated by the boy driving our carriage, which was hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should know his own business best, yet if I were to drive down a steep mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I deserved it, when, as we turned a sharp zig-zag on a steep grade at a stiff trot, our carriage tilted, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... means—'failing to make money,' I do not think there is any heaven possible that would suit one well. In brief, all this Mammon gospel of supply-and-demand, competition laissez faire, and devil take the hindmost (foremost, is it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?), 'begins to be one of the ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... incredible swiftness, but when they saw him they started off also. It was soon evident, that both were doomed to destruction, his speed being greater that that of the young brutes, for he rapidly gained upon them. The moment he got within reach of the hindmost he threw a stick which he had seized while running, with unerring precision, and striking it full in the ribs stretched it on the ground. As he passed the animal he gave it a blow on the head with another stick, and bounding on after the other was soon out of ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... The pair in the hindmost sleigh diverged equally far from the aurora; for heavy upon Edith's heart lay the fact that the mortgage was at last about to be foreclosed, and they should leave Daisy Burn. This very evening, her father coming late to Mrs. Vernon's corn-shelling bee, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... suffocation in this last place. Men and women faint and are carried out. Some fall and are trodden down. Sometimes, as at the table this year, some unfortunate pays for her curiosity with her life. It is "Devil take the hindmost!" and if any one is down, he is leaped over by men and women indiscriminately, for there is no time to be lost. In the Chapel, when once they are in, all want to get out. Shrieks are heard as the jammed mass sways ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... can be distinguished from the broad dagger by the shape of the handle, which is curved or indented in the case of the dagger, but straight across in the case of the halberd. There is, however, another point. The hindmost rivets, both in the case of the blades with four rivets and those with three only, are shorter than those in front of them. The shortness of the end-rivets and slope of the heads imply that the handle was rounded off behind the ...
— The Bronze Age in Ireland • George Coffey
... artists from Pesaro and other places in the duchy whose works were there in competition. In all there were some ten competitors: poor Luca, who had set his own work on the table with the rest as he was obliged to do, stood hindmost of all, shrinking back, to hide his misery, into the deepest shadow of the ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... The hindmost ranks are continually rising from the ground, and dropping in front of the others. This is the proper time to fire, just as the hind-rank are a couple or three feet from the ground; firing the second barrel as the ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... distinguish himself, galloped out with the keenest of the troopers and charged the Vitellians, inflicting only slight loss; for, on the arrival of reinforcements, the tables were turned and those who had been hottest in pursuit were now hindmost in the rout. Their haste had no sanction from Antonius, who had foreseen what would happen. Encouraging his men to engage with brave hearts, he drew off the cavalry on to each flank and left a free passage in the centre to receive Varus and his troopers. Orders were ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... despair, would quit the stage; And to an age less polished, more unskilled, Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield. As with the greater dead he dares not strive, He would not match his verse with those who live: Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast, The first of this, and hindmost of the last. A losing gamester, let him sneak away; He bears no ready money from the play. The fate, which governs poets, thought it fit He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. The clergy thrive, and the litigious bar; Dull heroes fatten with the spoils ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... pigeons on a roof-slope, that he stopped a moment to regard them before coming close. Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in the transparent tissue as in an aviary. Angel's eye at last fell upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed laughter at their dilemma, could not ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... and a list in the other hand, stood apart in front of us, and called name after name in the tone of a command. At each name you would see a family gather up its brats and bundles and run for the hindmost of the three cars that stood awaiting us, and I soon concluded that this was to be set apart for the women and children. The second or central car, it turned out, was devoted to men travelling alone, and the third to the Chinese. The ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... To the hindmost wall of the scene an upper story could be added; whenever, for instance, it was wished to represent a tower with a wide prospect, or the like. Behind the great middle entrance there was a space for the Exostra, a machine of a semicircular form, and covered above, which represented ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... Gen. Kearney's quarters, about the middle of the afternoon, we were looking for a place to camp for the night, when we saw eleven Indians coming for us full tilt. Jim Bridger was riding in the lead, I being the hindmost one. Jim being the first to see them, he turned as quick as a wink and we all rode to the center. Each man having a saddle-horse and five pack-horses, they made good breastworks for us, so we all dismounted and awaited the impolite arrival. I drew my rifle down across the back of one of the horses ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... perfect poem in any language," but in my opinion it is far inferior to other books in the Bible. The adjective perfect is not applicable to a poem so obscure that more than half its meaning has to be read between the lines, while its plan, if plan it has, is so mixed up and hindmost foremost that I sometimes feel tempted to accept the view of Herder and others that the Song of Songs is not one drama, but a collection ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... in the rear to keep up those who could not move so quickly as the others. As pace was apparently of importance, and as it seems to have been a punishable offence to lag behind in the dance, this is possibly the origin of the expression 'The Devil take the hindmost'. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... and children, but none were hurt. A ledge of rock prevented an attack. The captain commanded them to dismiss. "We will," they replied, "when the service is over, if you promise us no harm." The promise was given, yet the treacherous troops dashed upon the hindmost and captured eighteen. ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... be taken from the hindmost Part of the Right Heel to the Left Heel near the Ancle. The Point of the Right Foot must be opposite to the Adversary's, turning out the Point of the Left Foot, and bending the Left Knee over the Point of the same Foot, keeping the Right ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... as were most obnoxious to him, and continued the pursuit of the flying royalists with the utmost diligence, through difficult and almost impracticable roads, where no provisions could be procured, always coming up with some of the hindmost of the enemy. Gonzalo likewise sent on several Indians with letters to the principal officers who served under the viceroy, urging them to put him to death, and offering them their pardons for the past and to give them high rewards. He continued the pursuit above fifty ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... every pair carrying between them one of the small poles above-mentioned on their shoulders. We were told, that the small pieces of sticks fastened to the poles were yams; so that probably they were meant to represent this root emblematically. The hindmost man of each couple, for the most part, placed one of his hands to the middle of the pole, as if, without this additional support, it were not strong enough to carry the weight that hung to it, and under which they all ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... fight. Thus Daunia's ancient river fares, Proud Aufidus, with bull-like horn, When swoln with choler he prepares A deluge for the fields of corn. So Claudius charged and overthrew The grim barbarian's mail-clad host, The foremost and the hindmost slew, And conquer'd all, and nothing lost. The force, the forethought, were thine own, Thine own the gods. The selfsame day When, port and palace open thrown, Low at thy footstool Egypt lay, That selfsame day, three lustres gone, Another victory to thine hand Was given; another field was won By grace ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... catch the fever of the moment, and closed up with me, leaving his master the solitary tenant of the dell. For perhaps three miles we galloped like the wind, and my brave little traveller overtook the hindmost of the troop, and retained the position. Thrice there were discharges ahead; I caught glimpses of the Major, the Captain, and the wolfish sergeant, far in the advance; and once saw, through the cloud of dust that beset them, the pursued and their individual pursuers, turning ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... good. If we were all angels, things would be different. If this were the Millennium, every thing would doubtless be agreeable to every body. But it is not—how very sad! True, how very sad! Where was I? Oh! it's all devil take the hindmost. And because your neighbors are dishonest, why should ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... what else to do, When the fields were so white, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! He stole away,—I tell you true,— Upon the road from Moscow. 'Tis myself, quoth he, I must mind most; So the devil may take the hindmost. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... abreast. Keep then the path, For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an ent'red tide they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... traitor. They groped for one another's throats and finally, as though by one impulse, crowded for the exit. They fought and pounded and kicked at each other. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. Wilson helped them along by continued shooting—aiming high and low. In five minutes the cabin was cleared save for the wounded, who managed, however, to ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... compositor, and proof-reader were evidently engaged in a "stampede,"—the (Printer's) Devil having strict orders to make seizure of the hindmost. Part of a Spanish poem, borrowed, without acknowledgment, from Prescott, seems to have gone to "pie" on the imposing-stone, and been suffered to remain in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... at the outer gate, and proceeding along a beautiful path leading above the cliffs. The mules kept in one long string, Bekir with the foremost, which was thus at some distance from the hindmost, which carried Ulysse and was attended by Arthur, while the master rode his own animals and gave directions. The fiction of illness was kept up, and when the bright eyes looked up in too lively a manner, Yusuf produced some of the sweets, which were ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Besides, no one has. It is all done on credit, and the devil take the hindmost. But if I really had a million—eh! I know what I ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Freedom must not be simply negative. It must be positive. If on account of the immaturity or over-maturity of a people, there be no sturdy middle class among them, unlimited competition may become what Bazard calls a general sauve-qui-peut (let the devil take the hindmost); what Fourier designates as a morcellement industriel, and a fraude commerciale; what M. Chevalier denominated "a battle-field on which the little are devoured by the big;" and in such case, as Bodz-Reymond says, the word competition, meaning simply that each one is permitted to run ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Courthouse steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... hindmost person, who was none other than the parson of Slaidburn. "That lantern, I think, is unquenchable. Does thy master ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... its waters into Lake St. Clair. So, along the Canadian Thames, at the time just named, two small armies were to be seen, each measuring ground with uncommon expedition; the foremost hurriedly, being in loose retreat; the hindmost rapidly, being in tight pursuit. Over the van of the retreating army ungallantly dangled the crimson, lion-emblazoned banner of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; over the van of the pursuing army gallantly ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb. When ance her ring-banes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl'd, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa or three wooks ridin' at fifty miles a day, the deil-stickit a five gallopers acqueesh Clyde and Whithorn could cast ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... his merry men all, By one, and by two, and three; Earl Marshal was wont to be the foremost man, But the hindmost man was he. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... said Templandmuir. "The costs must have been enormous, and then there's the damages. He would have been better to settle't and be done wi't, but his pride made him fight it to the hindmost! It has made touch the boddom of his purse, I'll wager ye. Weel, weel, it'll help to subdue his pride a bit, and muckle was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... all, he'd seem as if he'd woke up out of a dream, and he'd sing out, in a way that made them fellows scatter, 'What the —— are all you men doing here at this time of night? Go forrard, every man jack of you! Go forrard, I tell you!' and it was 'Devil take the hindmost!' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... with the sound of the pitiless whips falling perpetually upon the backs of the hindmost, the prisoners jostled and struggled at the narrow entrance to the prison house. Already it was occupied by some thirty captives, lying upon the swamped mud floor or supported against the wall in the last extremities of ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... on them to surrender. However, they fled, firing as they went, but were closely pursued. Captain Hammond was riding a powerful horse, which he had taken from his home, and as his blood was up, he determined to capture one of the party at least, at all hazard. He soon came up to the hindmost, a strong man, with whom he exchanged several shots at close quarters, but without effect on either side, owing to their fearful gait through the timber and down a hill. Hammond's pistol became fouled by a cap, and the cylinder would not revolve. ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... the old pump like true Britons, and began to sponge it out as if they had been bred to gunnery from childhood, while the limber was detached and galloped to the rear. In this operation the cart was smashed to pieces, and the two hindmost horses were thrown; but this mattered little, as they had got round a corner, and the French did ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... succeeded in dispersing and driving before us a rather numerous band, I came up with one of the hindmost Cossacks, and I was about to strike him with my Turkish sabre when he took off his ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... sentiments of loyalty and devotion, they all return. I am not exaggerating a whit when I say that the Utopian school is an ideal community, a community whose social system, instead of being inspired by that spirit of "competitive selfishness" which makes "each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost" its motto, seems to have realised the Socialistic dream of "Each for all, and all ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... going to say your cat. There would be cats in my home too if I could but get it. I may seem to you 'the impersonation of life,' but my life is the impersonation of waiting, and that's a poor creature. God help us all, and the deil be kind to the hindmost! Upon my word, we are a brave, cheery crew, we human beings, and my admiration increases daily - primarily for myself, but by a roundabout process for the whole crowd; for I dare say they have all their poor little secrets and anxieties. ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way-train from Tilgate Junction to Guildford was passing through, a segment of the roof of the tunnel collapsed, under pressure of the dislocated rock on top, and bore down with enormous weight upon the carriages beneath it. The engine, tender, and four front waggons escaped unhurt; but the two hindmost, it is feared, were crushed by the falling mass of earth. It is not yet known how many passengers, if any, may have been occupying the wrecked compartments; but every effort is now being made ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... to greet us. I felt, as we shook hands, that it was much the same sort of handshake that one sees in the prize ring— to be followed by the clang of a bell, then all going to it, in battle royal, with the devil after the hindmost. ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... a line in order to have the benefit of the path), gave one to each man as he passed by. They observed the same method in distributing the water which they brought; and were particularly careful that the foremost did not drink too much, lest none should be left for the hindmost. But at the very time these were relieving the thirsty and hungry, there were not wanting others who endeavoured to steal from them the very things which had been given them. At last, to prevent worse consequences, they were obliged to fire a load of small shot at one who was ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... besides the right path, as they are journeying from hence to their eternal rest. This is evident from the plain text, "Remember," saith God, "what Amalek did unto thee by the way when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary, and he feared not God" (Deut 25:17,18). Many such Amalekites there be now in the world that set themselves against the feeble ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... dogs, being intellectually as well as physically powerful beyond their fellows, understood the uncomplimentary term and lost their tempers, but certain it is that the words were no sooner uttered than the hindmost dog made an unprovoked assault on the dog in front of it. Of course the latter defended itself. The dog next to that, being probably pugnacious, could not resist the temptation to join in, and the leader, feeling ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... mockery. Take the instant way; For Honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path, For Emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue; if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forth-right, Like to an entered tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost;— Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Tho' less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... man solely on his OWN welfare, the salvation of his OWN soul or body. These two forces have therefore been disruptive to the last degree; they mark the culmination of the Self-conscious Age—a culmination in War, Greed, Materialism, and the general principle of Devil-take-the-hindmost—and the clearing of the ground for the new order which is to come. So there is hope for the human race. Its evolution is not all a mere formless craze and jumble. There is an inner necessity by which Humanity unfolds from one degree or plane of consciousness to ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... courser To the best of all the stables, To the best of resting-places, To the hindmost of the stables. Tether there the bridegroom's courser, To the ring of gold constructed, 100 To the smaller ring of iron, To the post of curving birchwood, Place before the bridegroom's courser, Next a tray with oats overloaded, And with softest hay ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... gave command that the front of his army, and such as were in sight of the enemy, should form as if ready to engage, and those in the rear should cast up the trenches and fortify the camp; so that the hindmost in succession wheeling off by degrees and withdrawing, their whole order was insensibly broken up, and the army encamped ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... bran dance were deserted. The cumbrous wagons, all too slow, were wending with such speed as their drivers could coerce the ox-teams to make along the woodland road homeward, while happier wights on horseback galloped past, leaving clouds of dust in the rear and a grewsome premonition of being hindmost in a flight that to the simple minds of the mountaineers had a ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... we could only come quietly together in convention, and declare by unanimous resolution, or even by a two-thirds vote, that edge-tools should hereafter cut everybody's fingers but his that played with them; that, when two men ride on one horse, the hindmost shall always sit in front; and that, when a man tries to thrust his partner out of bed and gets kicked out himself, he shall be deemed to have established his title to an equitable division, and the bed shall be thenceforth ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... saleable ground lying north of the city was owned by a man named Smith—a shrewd, wide-awake individual, whose motto was "Every man for himself," with an occasional addition about a certain gentleman in black taking "the hindmost." ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... hope, as Gyas slacks his pace, Fires the two hindmost. Now they near the mark; Sergestus, leading, takes the inside place. Yet not a length divides them, for the Shark Shoots up halfway and overlaps his bark. Mnestheus, amidships pacing, cheers his crew; "Now, now lean to, and let each ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Paris, and brag and bluster over our misfortune? Is there any magnanimity in hallooing and huzzaying because five or six hundred brave fellows have been caught by ten thousand on a seashore, and that fate has overtaken them which is said to befall the hindmost? I had a mind to design an authentic picture of the rejoicings at London upon our glorious success at St. Malo. I fancied the polished guns dragged in procession by our gallant tars; the stout horse-grenadiers ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is the Abdominal fish, forming the fourth of the orders of Linnaeus. They are distinguished from the other fishes by having two dorsal fins, of which the hindmost is fleshy and without rays. They have teeth both on the tongue and in the jaws, whilst the body is covered with ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... roared the boy, aiming a shot at the leader's left ear, and bringing the thick end of the whip down on the flanks of the six hindmost dogs. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... force, a name better known than the town, on account of that of the same name in Asia. As the lieutenant-general was returning to the consul with a great quantity of spoil, Athenagoras, one of the king's generals, falling on his extreme rear, in its passage over a river, threw the hindmost into disorder. On hearing the shouting and tumult, Apustius rode back in full speed, ordered the troops to face about, and drew them up in order, arranging the baggage in the centre. The king's troops could not support the onset of the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... without there, whoever you are! Lock the gate! or I'll knock you down when I come up, whoever you are;" cried Bullying Bob, who was hindmost in ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... marble benches, applauding with his hands, and now and then shouting a word of encouragement to the combatants, as they wheeled by him in the mazes of their half angry sport. It was not long, however, before their strife was brought to a conclusion; for, almost as the friends entered, the hindmost horseman of the two made a thrust at the other, which taking effect merely on the lower rim of his antagonist's parma, glanced off under his outstretched arm, and made the striker, in a great measure, lose his balance. As quick as light, the other wheeled ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... muse my Lord of Gloster is not come: 'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man, What e're occasion keepes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... thrown away their armour and fled like rats from a burning granary, so that their leaders could not hold them. He, with a few strong helpers, had covered his flying troops, and the brave Emperor Conrad, giant in strength, the greatest swordsman of the world, was even now fighting at the hindmost rear of the army to save ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... folly; where it is worthy to be observed that as to the order of words, Folly for its advantage is put in the last place. Thus Ecclesiastes wrote, and thus indeed did an ecclesiastical method require; namely, that what has the precedence in dignity should come hindmost in rank and order, according to the tenor of that evangelical precept, The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was author of the holy book which bears that name) in the forty-fourth chapter, the excellency of folly above ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... heavy fire was encountered by the hindmost from some caves near the road-side, occasioning fresh disorder, which continued all the way to Kutter-Sung, where the advance arrived at dawn of day, and awaited the junction of the rear, which did not take ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... phenomenon, it instantly stops, and the head begins to play its part by licking its shoulders, and performing other necessary movements. In this way the hunters attain the very centre of the herd without exciting suspicion, and have leisure to single out the fattest. The hindmost man then pushes forward his comrade's gun, the head is dropt, and they both fire nearly at the same instant. The herd scampers off, the hunters trot after them; in a short time the poor animals halt to ascertain the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... on the other side of our boundary, where they were presently joined by half a dozen others. We had one point in our favor. In such a rush it is every man for himself, with a broad invitation to the devil to take the hindmost. Somebody called the fellow who wanted to break into our shaft for the needful evidence a much-emphasized jackass, and pointed to the wagon-tracks leading straight ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... from all parts, bivouacked on line marked by military, and on appointed day, at fixed hour, at sound of gun, made the dash into the Promised Land. Lack some of those particulars here. But the passion just the same; equally reckless; every man first, and the Sergeant-at-Arms take the hindmost." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 25, 1893 • Various
... in Wales, and men still living can remember how the people who assisted at the bonfires would wait till the last spark was out and then would suddenly take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices, "The cropped black sow seize the hindmost!" The saying, as Sir John Rhys justly remarks, implies that originally one of the company became a victim in dead earnest. Down to the present time the saying is current in Carnarvonshire, where allusions to the cutty black sow are still occasionally made to frighten children. ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... spoke, but griefe stopt vp her breath, For me (quoth she) my Loue is done to death, And shall I liue, sighes stopt her hindmost word, When speechlesse vp she tooke the bloudy sword, And then she cast a looke vpon her Loue, Then to the blade her eye she did remoue. And sobbing cride, since loue hath murthred thee, He shall not chuse but likewise murther me: ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... hears little about its principles. The causes of this secrecy are obvious. Women, in the last analysis, can prevail against men in the great struggle for power and security only by keeping them disarmed, and, in the main, unwarned. In a pitched battle, with the devil taking the hindmost, their physical and economic inferiority would inevitably bring them to disaster. Thus they have to apply their peculiar talents warily, and with due regard to the danger of arousing the foe. He must be attached without any formal challenge, and even without any suspicion of challenge. ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost': that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done for before you know it. I've seen a good deal of this sort of thing, and hope you'll get on better than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... pines, Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide. They left me then when the grey-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far; And envious darkness, ere they could return, Had stole them ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... hindmost chairs, and there he had to stay until everybody had passed out. "Yes, I was very anxious to take part in this great day," he said, "and I wanted to bring mother with me, but she thought her clothes weren't respectable enough." Kalle wore a new gray linsey-woolsey suit; he had grown smaller ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... that base idea conquers, and selfishness, not self-sacrifice, is the ruling spirit of a State, men move on, one step forward towards realising that kingdom of the devil upon earth, 'Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.' Only, alas! in that evil equality of envy and hate, there is no hindmost, and the ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... disregarded. Proverbs are generally supposed to be a condensation of facts or experiences. Whence comes "Every one for himself, and God for us all"? or, the more vulgar one, "Go ahead, and the d——l take the hindmost?" What are they but concentrations of the fact that selfishness is man's ruling passion? What are most laws made for, but to restrain men by human penalties from a broach of the law of love? and, if ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... slaughter went on. All the resistance seemed to go out of the warriors when they saw their sacred monarch dragged away by the invading Earthmen. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. And the Devil, in the form of the commander's ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... insomuch that in a few years the navigation of that part of the river will be entirely obstructed. Nevertheless, every one of these gentlemen- watermen hopes it will last his time, and so they all cry, The devil take the hindmost. But yet I judge it highly necessary that this be made a national concern, like Dagenham breach, and that these hills be removed by some ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... a tone so full of contraband anxiety and so free from lover's jealousy, the men who followed him had been descending one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened that when the hindmost took his leap, the cord slipped which sustained his tubs: the result was that both the kegs fell into the road, one of them being stove ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... greatly by this official recognition of the Kahal. It enabled them to free the members of their families from enrollment in the army. In their hands, it became an instrument for the oppression and exploitation of the poor. "The devil take the hindmost!" expresses the state of mind of the Russian Jews in the middle of the nineteenth century, during the whole of the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... to Rickman but that the experience had sobered him. He rose from the embraces of the Tragic Muse. Yet dizzy with the august rapture, he resisted and defied the god. He thrust his tragedy from him into the hindmost obscurity of his table-drawer. Then he betook himself, in a mood more imperative than solicitous, to Hanson. Hanson who had labelled him Decadent, and lumped him with Letheby. It was no matter now. Whatever Hanson thought of his ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... empty pockets, who have everything to gain by success, and nothing to lose by failure.—A sort of "rough and tumble" fight, in which those with the easiest consciences, the loudest tongues and the wildest promises, come to the fore, letting "the devil take the hindmost!" ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... great republic of the organic world the motto of the majority is, and always has been as far back as we can see, what it is, and always has been, with the majority of human beings: "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." Overreaching tyranny; the temper which fawns, and clings, and plays the parasite as long as it is down, and when it has risen, fattens on its patron's blood and life—these, and the other works ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... fallen from that narrow path. Blue-spot then, backed by mighty Oscar and fearless Tige—but the Wolf is next the rock and the flash of combat clears to show him there alone, the big Dogs gone; the rest close in, the hindmost force the foremost on—down-to their death. Slash, chop and heave, from the swiftest to the biggest, to the last, down—down—he sent them whirling from the ledge to the gaping gulch below, where rocks and snags of trunks were sharp ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... a gharrie I was obliged to take off my boots and wrap them in handkerchiefs. The dust was deep and made heavy walking, and the level straightness of a great part of the road is wearisome. Overtaking even at my slow rate of progress a string of creaking buffalo carts, I got upon the hindmost, but after a little rest found the noise, dust, and slow progress intolerable, and plodded on as before, taking two and a half hours to walk three miles. About a mile from Cholen there is an extraordinary burial-ground, said to cover an area of twenty square miles. (?) It is thickly peopled with ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... the unruly fowls, and pressed upon them and buffeted them, until the turkeys were right glad to defy the vision of the old brown sensationalist, and take refuge in their house. Pocahontas closed the door with a sharp bang almost upon the tail of the hindmost one, locked it, and then turned cordially to her companion and invited him to remain and take tea ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... camp was terrible. It was every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost. If one, in desperation, approached the authorities for a word of suggestion to improve this or that, officialdom merely shrugged its shoulders and candidly admitted impotence to recommend a remedy. So we had to depend essentially ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... not have seen it, the weather was so thick. But all went well till we had come thirteen and a half miles. Then Hanssen had to cross a crevasse a yard wide, and in doing it he was unlucky enough to catch the point of his ski in the traces of the hindmost dogs, and fall right across the crevasse. This looked unpleasant. The dogs were across, and a foot or two on the other side, but the sledge was right over the crevasse, and had twisted as Hanssen fell, so that ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... my wighty men, As fast as ye can drie; For he that is hindmost of the thrang Shall ne'er get ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... proving unsuccessful he committed suicide; his body was afterwards found on the Landes of Bordeaux half devoured by wolves; was surnamed the "Virtuous," as Robespierre the "Incorruptible"; was of the Girondist party; had "unalterable beliefs, not hindmost of them," says Carlyle, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Greeks, while Hector in the van Advanced, death menacing in every look. As some fleet hound close-threatening flank or haunch 390 Of boar or lion, oft as he his head Turns flying, marks him with a steadfast eye, So Hector chased the Grecians, slaying still The hindmost of the scatter'd multitude. But when, at length, both piles and hollow foss 395 They had surmounted, and no few had fallen By Trojan hands, within their fleet they stood Imprison'd, calling each to each, and prayer With lifted hands, loud offering to ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... slippery frozen snow, two individuals who purpose forming the freight of the toboggin pose themselves, the foremost holding the reins, which, however, are more for effect than use, sitting between the feet of the hindmost traveller, who steers with ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... for himself and the devil take the hindmost! Think I'm going to drown here like a rat in a trap? No, sir, I'm going to ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was by far the most calamitous to our men; it had this result, however, that on that day the largest number of the enemy was wounded and slain, since they had crowded beneath the very rampart, and the hindmost did not afford the foremost a retreat. The flame having abated a little, and a tower having been brought up in a particular place and touching the rampart, the centurions of the third cohort retired from the place in which they were standing, and drew off all their men: they began to call on the ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... sometimes. During the war they did nobly, giving their time and money, their sons and selves to the good cause, and I was proud of them. But now too many of them have fallen back into the old ways, and their motto seems to be, 'Every one for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.' Cheating, lying and stealing are hard words, and I don't mean to apply them to all who swarm about below there like ants on an ant-hill—they have other names for these things, but I'm old-fashioned and use plain words. There's a deal too much ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... elapsed. Then they reappeared on the top of the porch, having come out through the window to which it served as a balcony. Here they put on their boots, and stepped on to the wall of the fruit garden. As they crawled along it, the hindmost boy whispered. ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. now then, thought i, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost. .. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... downlings with the Runtie straggling far in the rear. Redruff, yards behind, preening his feathers on a high log, had escaped the eye of the squirrel, whose strange, perverted thirst for birdling blood was roused at what seemed so fair a chance. With murderous intent to cut off the hindmost straggler, he made a dash. Brownie could not have seen him until too late, but Redruff did. He flew for that red-haired cutthroat; his weapons were his fists, that is, the knob-joints of the wings, and what a blow he could ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... another example two apples, one partly covering the other, as in a, Fig. 72, where one apple is supposed to be behind the other, and so implies distance. There is no means of expressing this distance in carving. Lowering the surface of the hindmost apple would merely throw out the balance of masses without giving a satisfactory explanation of its position, while to cut a deep groove between the two would be an equally unsightly expedient. The difficulty ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... us all," he declared as he rode away, "and the devil take the hindmost. Good-bye, I'm going home. I still have one ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... and he came to the Cretans, going through the throng of men. But they were armed around warlike Idomeneus. Idomeneus, on his part, [commanded] in the van, like a boar in strength; but Meriones urged on the hindmost phalanxes for him. Seeing these, Agamemnon, the king of men, rejoiced, and instantly accosted Idomeneus, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... Thus he was in no state to perceive that he had only shot-to the bolt of the door of the cage; and his behaviour had so irritated the beast that, after so dealing with him that he lay in a most dangerous state, he had dashed out at the door in rage and terror, and, after seizing the hindmost of the flying crowd, had lain down between the shafts of the waggon, as ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moment, when a second onset must have brought them into collision with those who stood on the defensive within, in which case great loss of life and bloodshed would inevitably have ensued,—the hindmost portion of the crowd gave way, and the rumour spread from mouth to mouth that a messenger had been despatched by water for the military, who were forming in the street. Fearful of sustaining a charge in the narrow passages in which they were so closely wedged ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... soldiers in small bodies of various shapes, teaching them to turn, advance; retreat; wheel in a variety of ways, sometimes in considerable masses, sometimes man by man, sending the foremost suddenly to the rear, or bringing the hindmost ranks to the front, and began to attempt all this in narrow fields as well as in wide ones, and when the enemy was in sight, men stood aghast at his want of reverence, or laughed at him as a pedant. But there came a day when they did not laugh, neither friends nor enemies. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... refrained from looting on their own account; but when they saw that officers, even of the higher ranks, took possession of plunder, these scruples were cast to the winds—it was "every man for himself, and the d—- l take the hindmost," and a general desire was evinced for each to enrich himself with the prize lying ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... before, one of the hounds was soon seen to head the pack, and press forward at the top of his speed. The one that first led, as soon as the antelope turned from its original course, fell back, rejoined the pack, and was now lagging among the hindmost! His ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... at less personal risk. The room was clear in something under five minutes, and England, France, and Germany stood triumphant. The little Levantine crowd streamed down the winding stair, and Campbell added insult to injury and injury to insult by picking up the hindmost small man and dropping him on to the heads of those who had gone before him. We all laughed heroically; but when we got downstairs, after the outgoing crowd, the aspect of affairs ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... saw how the men were enjoying themselves when Gustav's nags were put in. He concealed his irritation, but when they exultantly placed Gustav's cart hindmost in the row, it was too much for him, and he ordered it to be driven in front of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the Greeks was descending from the hills into the villages, being now overtaken by darkness, (for, as the way was narrow, their ascent of the heights, and descent to the villages, had lasted the entire day,) some of the Carduchi, collecting together, attacked the hindmost, and killed and wounded some of them with stones and arrows. They were but few; for the Greek troops had come on them unawares; 11. but had they assembled in greater numbers, a great part of the army would have been in danger of being destroyed. For this night, accordingly, they took up their ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... Gallienus, "in this age the devil is taking the hindmost, and we are the hindmost. There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in Bithynia, and three days' darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to mention. At this moment some ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... many of them from easily preventable causes. The whole spirit of the American continent in such matters is more "casual" than that of Europe; the American is more willing to "chance it;" the patriarchal regime is replaced by the every-man-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost system. When I hired a horse to ride up a somewhat giddy path to the top of a mountain, I was supplied (without warning) with a young animal that had just arrived from the breeding farm and had never even seen a mountain. Many and curious, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... but turning from one vice, that he is weary of, to entertain himself with another that is fresh. He lives above the state of his body as well as his fortune, and runs out of his health and money as if he had made a match and betted on the race, or bid the devil take the hindmost. He is an amphibious animal, that lives in two elements, wet and dry, and never comes out of the first but, like a sea-calf, to sleep on the shore. His language is very suitable to his conversation, and he talks as loosely as he lives. Ribaldry and profanation are his doctrine ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... they took, these two, of the hindmost seat in the canoe, for the back of each was unspeakable from the spear-prods. Without a word McElroy took his punishment as the lagging became more pronounced from arms overtaxed at the paddles, but the long-haired adventurer from ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... began to tie together the stern of the Long Serpent and of the Short Serpent, he called out loudly, "Bring the Long Serpent forward; I will not be the hindmost of all my men in this fleet ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... boats loaded with planks, to finish that his brother had commanded." But when this would not satisfy them, but that still they urged him with words and supposals: "If you will needs," said he, "adventure! It shall never be said that I will be hindmost, neither shall you report to my brother, that you lost your voyage by any cowardice you found ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... alike in structure, and can hardly be divided, as they are by some naturalists, into molars and premolars. They take the three hindmost as molars, regarding the others as premolars. Sometimes these grinders have roots, but are more commonly open at the end and grow from a permanent pulp. They are composed of tubular and convoluted portions of enamel filed up with dentine, and their worn surfaces show ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... until only their heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine-needles thrown up into his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... time dot we vasn't doing the same," said Otto, who, catching the top of the wall with both hands, drew himself upward and peered over. He was gratified with the sight of the two hindmost warriors just vanishing from sight. The whole party ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... sweated and shivered with cold; he has abstained from love and wine; he who sings the Pythian strains, was a learner first, and in awe of a master. But [in poetry] it is now enough for a man to say of himself: "I make admirable verses: a murrain seize the hindmost: it is scandalous for me to be outstripped, and fairly to Acknowledge that I am ignorant of that which I ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Our monarch's hindmost year but ane Was five and twenty days began; 'Twas then a blast o' Januar' win' Blew hansel in on ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... fan, when it tosses The grain in its breath, the grain flashes, So over the field of their losses Fly the vanquished. But now in their course Starts a squadron that suddenly dashes Athwart their wild flight and that stays them, While hard on the hindmost dismays them The pursuit of the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... replied the hindmost burier. "We entered yon large house, the door of which stood open, and in one of the rooms found, an old woman in a fainting state, and the body of this young girl, wrapped in a sheet, and ready for the cart. So we clapped it on the board, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... moving as Wemple dashed up to its hindmost car, his horse staggering and their pursuers ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... as the summum bonum,—no matter how obtained, or at what sacrifice. Money is our god: "Devil take the hindmost" our motto. The spirits of ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... and then a string of asses, their panniers filled with stones or with wood for Carmona; the drivers sat on the rump of the hindmost animal, for that is the only comfortable way to ride a donkey. A peasant trotted briskly by on his mule, his wife behind him with her arms about his waist. I saw a row of ploughs in a field; to each were attached two ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost'; that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done for before you know it. I've seen a good deal of this sort of thing, and hope you'll get on better than some do, when it's known that you are the rich ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... after all, it is only a convention of our own to count the limbs from before backwards. To inspect a lobster's limbs, we lay it on its back (as Aristotle did), and see the legs overlapping, each hinder one above the one before; the hindmost is the first we see, and the one we must first lift ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... companions' stampede, I yet did not lose my senses. Neither did I cry out or whimper. Children have gone into convulsions and become idiotic for less cause. I was phenomenally healthy, and, as I have said, no coward. Before the hindmost deserter gained the draw-bars my reason was on the return path. I had the signal advantage above my comrades of not believing in ghosts. My father had asserted to me positively, once and again, that no such things ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... the greater the silent understanding between it and himself. They now had races of all sorts and daily. Hurdles had given place to great hedges and ditches, which most of the animals distinguished themselves in leaping. Monty was still the hindmost in everything, yet showed his pluck in sticking to his saddle at all risks, and ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... shoulder, the hindmost fugitive observed the king was trapped and that his retainers were still some distance to the rear. Here was a chance for revenge. Swinging his heavy canoe paddle, which he had been too frightened to drop, the fisherman ...
— Legends of Wailuku • Charlotte Hapai
... Everhard is right," he said. "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, the let-alone policy of each for himself and devil take the hindmost. As Mr. Everhard said the other night, the function you churchmen perform is to maintain the established order of society, and society ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... inclined to laugh at him, looked at Applehead with a new respect. The Indians, having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a closer group than before, shooting as they rode—at the four men first, and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed bedding, but ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... rest, a large horse pistol. With this in hand she ran to meet her children. Some hunter had broken the bear's fore leg with a bullet a few days before, which accounted for its strange, waddling gait; but it was almost within reach of the hindmost child when the mother arrived. The bear at once turned its attention to the newcomer, and with a terrific snarl rushed 5 at her. On sped the children, screaming and crazy with fright. It was a moment of imminent peril to the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... call, and a wild, unreasoning fright came over him. He dug his heels into the palfrey's heaving sides and urged him up the hill through the cloud of dust that came rolling down behind the horsemen. The hindmost riders had plunged into those before, and the whole array was struggling, shouting, and wrangling in wild disorder; but out of the flurry Carew and the bandy-legged man with the ribbon in his ear spurred furiously and came galloping after him at the top ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... the little man said "swish," and away went the steed, galloping over the sea without wetting hair or hoof. But fast as he galloped the nine little pipers were always ahead of him, although they seemed to be going only at a walking pace. When at last he came up rather close to the hindmost of them the nine little pipers disappeared, but the children heard the music playing beneath the waters. The white steed pulled up suddenly, and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... why take accidents So bitterly? It's all a rough-and-tumble Of accidents, from the accident of birth To the last accident that lays us out— A go-as-you-please, and the devil take the hindmost. It's pluck that counts, and an easy seat in the saddle: Better to break your neck at the first ditch, Than waste the day in seeking gates to slip through: Cold-blooded crawlers I've no sort of ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... arches a little as far as the loins, whence it goes off at a flat slope to the hindmost parts, where not any tail is visible. A tail, however, may be found by carefully passing the finger over the flat slope in a line with the backbone. After separating the hairs, it is seen of some five tenths ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... Self-p-p-preservation is the first law, and so we must imitate the rest of the b-b-brute creation, and live off of each other! The big ones must feed upon the little and the strong upon the weak. 'Every man for himself and the d-d-devil take the hindmost!' That's my religion." ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... whether this or that hole— If we only found a way; Up among the iron furrows Of the rocks, where hid in burrows Safe the rats in shelter lay. No misgiving, not a fear— Nor was I the last astraddle Nor the hindmost in the rear When the bugle sounded clear— "Boot ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... favour of these Pines, Stept as they se'd to the next Thicket side To bring me Berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable Woods provide. They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n Like a sad Votarist in Palmers weed Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain. 190 But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts, 'tis likeliest They had ingag'd their wandring steps too far, And envious darknes, e're they could return, Had stole them from ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... string out in single file, but kept bunched together. Indeed, this came through no accident, but there was a method in their madness; because, you see, no fellow would want to be the hindmost in ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... my rhyme-composing billie! Your native soil was right ill-willie; [unkind] But may ye flourish like a lily, Now bonnilie! I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, [last gill] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... will—when a sudden outcry roused me. It came from my companion, a hired muleteer, and sounded angry. The fellow had been riding on ahead. I now saw that he had overtaken other travellers—two men astride of one donkey—and had entered into conversation with them. One of the two, the hindmost, was a Turkish soldier. Except the little group they made together, and a vulture, a mere speck above them in the blue, no other living creature was in sight. Something had happened, for the soldier seemed ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... of the wintergreen, frozen, but plump and sweet-fleshed. Half a handful of these served for the moment to cajole his hunger, and he pressed briskly but warily along the ridge, availing himself of the shelter of every rampike in his path. At last, catching sight of the hindmost stragglers of the herd, still far out of range, he crouched like a cat, and crossed over the crest of the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and nearer to the smoker's nose. Its mode of progression was in the highest degree unsightly. It glided, never, so far as I could see, removing its tentacles from the stem of the pipe. It slipped its hindmost feelers onward until they came up to those which were in advance. Then, in their turn, it advanced those which were in front. It seemed, too, to move with the utmost labor, shuddering as though it were ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... for a space in silence. The foremost two rode downcast upon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept down the vastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the wind grew in strength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a line of dark bulks—wild hog perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of that he said ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... hastily across the azotea in the direction of the sounds. I looked over the parapet. Down the slope of the hill two men were running at the top of their speed, one after the other. The hindmost held in his hand a drawn sabre. It was Holingsworth ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... on, my michty men, As fast as ye can drie; For he that 's hindmost o' my men Will ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... the organic world, the motto of the majority is, and always has been as far back as we can see, what it is, and always has been, with the majority of human beings, "Every one for himself, and the devil take the hindmost." Over-reaching tyranny; the temper which fawns, and clings, and plays the parasite as long as it is down, and when it has risen, fattens on its patron's blood and life—these, and the other works of the flesh, are the works of average ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... broke from those who stood hindmost, and in strode the witch, with serpents round her neck and arms and hair. At a sign from her they flung themselves with a hiss upon the maidens, whose flesh was pierced with their poisonous fangs. Then turning ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... walked me in the garden, all in the garden fair, And mused upon my hindmost sole all in the open air. When lo! I heard above my head a sound all like a wisk, I stepped me aside thereat out of the ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... fuller breath; Nine strides and then a louder beat that warn'd me of her spring, I felt her rising in the air like eagle on the wing— But oh! the crash!—the hideous shock!—the million sparks around! Her hindmost hoofs had struck the crest ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... evening, his lordship whispered to one of the flunkies to bring in some things—they could not hear what—as the company might like them. The wise ones thought within themselves that the best aye comes hindmost; so in brushed a powdered valet, with three dishes on his arm of twisted black things, just like sticks of Gibraltar- rock, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... will all live as brothers, and divide it amicably among them. If they cannot agree, and the devil of contention gets among them, it is no fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good strong, sharp axe, and break open my strong box. Let them scramble for what it contains, and the Devil seize the hindmost." The people of Auvergne still recount with admiration the daring feats ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the time, the Fortune of Scotland. He now led the van, now checked his bounding steed till the rear had come up, exhorted the leaders to keep a steady, though rapid pace, and commanded those who were hindmost of the party to use their spurs, and allow no interval to take place in their line of march; and anon he was beside the Queen, or her ladies, inquiring how they brooked the hasty journey, and whether they had any commands for him. But while Seyton thus busied himself in the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last: Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast, And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away, For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay, Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore The cloudy ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... fare, Nor find their stamacks ever at a stand. Fu' hale an' healthy wad they pass the day; At night, in calmest slumbers dose fu' sound; Nor doctor need their weary life to spae,[23] Nor drogs their noddle and their sense confound, Till death slip sleely on, an' gie the hindmost wound. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... my cigar. Left it on the window-ledge, in the hindmost car. Be back in a moment." This time, for a wonder, Stagers allowed me to leave unaccompanied. I hastened through to the back car, and gained the platform at its nearer end, where I instantly cut the signal cord. Then I knelt down, and, waiting until the two cars ran together, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various |
