"Red-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high- shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,—the waist ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... were found slain and the slayer could not be found, a fine of 46 marks (L30 13s. 4d.) was to be paid into the Treasury by the township and hundred. The Pipe Rolls contain many instances of payments for murders of which the doers were not taken red-handed, the fines varying in amount. In 14 Henry II. the Sheriff of Devon accounted for 100s. for one murder in Wonford Hundred, 10 marks for several murders in Axminster Hundred, and 20s. for a murder in North Tawton Hundred. Another sum of 20s. was remitted by the village or township ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... disaster; and it was no less a personage than Oliver Cromwell who overcame the hitherto invincible Allen. A handful of the gang attacked Oliver on his way from Huntingdon, but the marauders were outmatched, and the most of them were forced to surrender. Allen, taken red-handed, swung at Tyburn; Hind, with his better mount and ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... notorious character, and cruel in the extreme. Finally a game warden caught him red-handed, arrested him, and took him to Cody for trial. It happened that the judge on the bench had once trapped with him, and therefore "he set the game-killer free, while the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... out of the bad business. Already six days had passed since the Arabs and Nubians had left him alone in his camp; and though it was lucky that we had learned what was going on, it might be too late to profit by the information. Even if we caught Corkran red-handed, he might have hidden his spoil where none but he, or some ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... except just enough to see him with no choice of party allegiance but between a rabble up to the elbows in robbery and an old regime red-handed ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... because I ordered you to come with me; because if you hadn't I would have killed you back there in the shack, you red-handed murderer. Now listen, Hughes. I know what you are—a cattle thief. You and Le Fevre belong to the same outfit, only he was the smarter of the two. I have spared your life for a purpose, and if you fail me now I ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... colony composed themselves to await in such tranquillity as they could command, the ordeal of sleeping, sitting bolt upright in a French diligence, upon a dark, tempestuous night, and surrounded on all sides by the dreadful presence of "red-handed war." The last thing I remember ere the drowsy god "MURPHY" sent his fairies to weave their cobwebs about my eyelids, was "OLD CONNECTICUT." She didn't look like the battering-ram that she was. ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... natural for me to mistake you for Mrs. Wharton," he said after awhile. "You had the gray jacket, the sailor hat, the purple parasol, and you are beautiful. And, besides all that, you were found red-handed in that ridiculous town of Fossingford. Why shouldn't I have suspected you with such a preponderance of evidence against you? Anybody who would get off of a night train in Fossingford certainly ought to ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... in; bear a hand, lend a hand; pull an oar, run in a race; mix oneself up with &c (meddle) 682. be in action; come into operation &c (power at work) 170. Adj. doing &c v.; acting; in action; in harness; on duty; in operation &c 170. Adv. in the act, in the midst of, in the thick of; red-handed, in flagrante delicto [Lat.]; while one's hand is in. Phr. action is eloquence [Coriolanus]; actions speak louder than words; actum aiunt ne agas [Terence]; awake, arise, or be forever fall'n [Paradise Lost]; dii pia facta vident ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... world, nay, more, in no land of barbarians would it be possible to duplicate the scenes of brutality that are reported from New Orleans. In the heat of blind fury one might conceive how a mad mob might beat and kill a man taken red-handed in a brutal murder. But it is almost past belief to read that civilized white people, men who boast of their chivalry and blue blood, actually had fun in beating, chasing and shooting men who had no ...
— Mob Rule in New Orleans • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... prayerful mother. As boys of ten, they had become "town talk" and were held responsible for all pranks and practical jokes perpetrated in Donaldsville or thereabout, unless other guilty ones were captured red-handed. Multiply your conception of a "bad boy" by two and you will have Will at twelve; repeat the process and you will have John. They possessed one quality—dare we call it virtue?— which kept them dear to Doctor Jim's heart ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... next lead him? He fell out of his own car while it still moved, and leaped up the garden walk. The front rooms of the house were empty, but from his bedroom he heard, raised in excited tones, the voice of Griswold. The audacity of the man was so surprising, and his own delight at catching him red-handed so satisfying, that no longer was Cochran angry. The Lord had delivered his enemy into his hands! And, as he advanced toward his bedroom, not only was he calm, but, at the thought of his revenge, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... deadened in delicate perceptions were these people that the landlord observing a rare plant in one of our hands, he actually called the butcher in to tell us its name. The man, having at that moment ended his first stroke of business, came in red-handed, and proved a botanist. It was a Woodsia hyperborea—that was the Latin name—and was rare in those parts, he said; but the Herrschaft should come earlier for flowers. July was the month. Then there ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... one caught red-handed in guilt, and in doing so, moved far enough to one side to expose the last remnants of written sheets of paper, which flames were rapidly consuming. A moment more and these were crisp ashes which whirled about ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... down the pier how this ship of pirates had been captured, red-handed, her own captain still on board,—the good ship Alarm having seen a redness in the sky, and heard some firing in the night before; and how Captain How had put it to his crew, Would they fight or not? And they had fought, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... you well enough, you old fox, and we'll catch you red-handed yet, and hang you. But we're not hunting after your kind to-day. Did you see anything of a fellow in scarlet jacket along here last night, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... too well populated about here to suit me," replied Banborough. "But the police haven't been idle since we started, and our flight has probably been telegraphed all over the countryside. Perhaps we'd better run the risk, for if we're caught red-handed with the Black Maria we'll find some difficulty in proving ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... did not seem to notice it. Still it was a ghastly sight, and one from which we were glad to escape; indeed, I never remember anything of the kind that affected me more than seeing those gallant soldiers thus put out of pain by the red-handed medicine men, except, indeed, on one occasion when, after an attack, I saw a force of Swazis ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... has been caught red-handed from the murder of his wife. His crime is patent. He has himself confessed it under torture. His only hope of reprieve lies in the colour which he may be able to impart to it; and his speech is cunningly adapted ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Heaven who caught her son red-handed, so to speak. She was dressed in her best, and just driving off to Woodmucket to spend a day or two with her married daughter, and soothe her nerves with the uproar incident to a town of six hundred inhabitants. She delayed ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... 'to ask for your hearts and nothing but your hearts.' As she did not allude to her debts, the populace threw up their caps; the Prince de Monaco, just cured of his wound at Crecy, placed his sword at her service; and the Baron de Benil, red-handed from a cruel murder, besought her patronage which, perhaps from a fellow-feeling, she promised with great alacrity. At Grasse she won all hearts and made many more promises, and finally, arriving at Avignon, she found Clement covetous of the city and well-disposed ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... that the Tumlins had established a bad precedent. A "squaw man" driving out a brown wife to make room for a white is not a heroic figure. It had been done before, but it would not hand down well in the traditions of the settling of this great country. Trespass of law and order, with their swift, red-handed reckoning, were but moves of the great game of colonization. But to shove out a brown woman for a white was a mean move. Few stopped at the Rodneys' ranch, though it marked the first break in the journey from ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... was the most important moment of Inspector Brown's life, and it was little wonder that he was agitated and strung up. While the great detective from Scotland Yard was doing nothing, here had he, the Inspector, actually discovered the criminal, caught him red-handed, so to speak! ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... Secret Service. Think of it, man. There's an organization, right here in this city, a sort of assassin's club, as it were, aimed at all the powerful men the world over. Why, the most refined and intellectual reformers have joined with the most red-handed ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... Government enforcement agents, game protectors, State Constabulary, all keep an eye on Clinch. Harrod's trespass signs fence him in. He's like a rat in a trap. Yet Clinch makes money at law breaking and nobody can catch him red-handed. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... forgot the silly beginnings of this upset and the endless troubles it had caused. All he saw was a typical ragamuffin of humanity in the grip of the policeman, Nemesis. Adair had been caught trying to do what thousands of other ragamuffins achieved daily with success. He had been arrested red-handed in the act of stealing forbidden happiness. It was his first offense. He was inexpert and had bungled. He had bungled because, while assuming the role of roguery, he had remained at heart an honest man. Now that ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... "Nonsense; you were caught red-handed," said Noah; "my grandfather told me so. And now that I've got a chance to slip in a word edgewise, I'd like mightily to have you explain your statement, Mr. Barnum, that I am responsible for your errors. That is a serious ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... he had little fear of the revolver, provided he could take his adversary unawares. If the worst came to the worst, and he could not give the Harrises the slip, he would take them with him, and they would all come upon Gardiner red-handed with the loot. Then he would explain to Harris how he had discovered Gardiner's plot and frustrated it...The idea grew upon Riles, and he rode along in a frame of ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... minutes. Wasn't it far better to catch him red-handed as we have? You will at least admit that it was far neater. I say I have the place. I say we are all going to it at two in the morning. I say, let us sleep till a little after one. Was it not obvious what would happen? The only ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... from fear of being killed just as Estada was. He has no heart in this job, and would accept any chance to square himself with those cut-throats below. I'll have trouble with him before we are done, but prefer to catch the man red-handed." ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... him!" gasped an astonished voice. "Well, of all effrontery! Got him, you miserable thief? The police are coming and they'll get you, and I can identify you, if they don't succeed in nabbing you red-handed." ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... married sister of the terrible priest who led the brigand band. But she was not sent away for that reason. Instead, the Duke used his influence successfully to obtain a pardon for her husband, the priest's brother-in-law, when he was taken red-handed for robbery and murder between Carmona and Seville; and in gratitude for this the man promised that his sons and sons' sons should be always at the disposal of the ducal house. For the rest, the story goes that more than once in the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... even murder and robbery are presented as rather pleasant excitement, and worth doing for the sake of what is got thereby. Are the desirable consequences so sure? Is there no chance of being caught red-handed, and stoned then and there, as a murderer? The tempters are discreetly silent about that possibility, as all tempters are. Sin always deceives, and its baits artfully hide the hook; but the cruel barb is there, below the gay silk and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the paper here," said Detective Ferrett. "We've got him dead to rights. Aim for a goose and you hit a gander. This fellow's a red-handed thug from Canada. They've had the alarm out for him a couple of years. You kids never knew that, hey?" And by way of a pleasantry he hit Roy a rap with his bulging wallet. "We'll measure him ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... stable in the morning the beautiful creature was seen covered with foam, bathed in perspiration, trembling as if it had just come in from a long gallop; and at last it was found out that Parson Darby belonged to the gang of highwaymen on Bagshot Heath. He was caught red-handed, and hanged close to the Golden Farmer in chains on a gibbet of which the posts were still standing forty years ago. But what became of his black horse no one ever could tell me. Now the London road is as safe and quiet as any ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... brightness of his countenance was not accounted for by his answer: "I believe she has treated me with it once or twice already, and I still survive. In fact, I am inclined to think the doctor caught her red-handed on one ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... criminal justice if the tongs went gayly on shooting each other up and incidentally taking the lives of innocent bystanders? Wasn't the law intended to cover Chinamen as much as Italians, Poles, Greeks and niggers? And now that one of these murdering Celestials had been caught red-handed it was up to the D.A. to go to it, convict him, and send him to the chair! They did not express themselves precisely that way, but that was the gist of it. But Peckham knew that it was one thing to catch a Chinaman, even red-handed, and another to ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... for a desertful of Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the British Army for months on end. I tell you, Sir, I wished I was in Cincinnatah that summer evening. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... hiding myself in the conservatory, shall await Bagwell. You in the meantime will be in the gallery with Thesiger. When you hear me call out, come in at once. Our only hope is to take that wretch red-handed." ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... rifle shot of the fort, and at daybreak opened a hot fire into the portholes. The men begged their leader to let them storm the fort, but he dared not risk their lives. A party {16} of Indians that had been pillaging the Kentucky settlements came marching into the village, and were caught red-handed with scalps hanging ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... as abstract liberty; it is not even thinkable. If you ask me, "Do you favor liberty?" I reply, "Liberty for whom to do what? Just now I distinctly favor the liberty of the law to cut off the noses of anarchists caught red-handed or red-tongued. If they go in for mutilation let them feel what it is like. If they are not satisfied with the way that things have been going on since the wife of Duke Albert the Pious was held under water with a pole, and since the servitors of the Suabian nobleman ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... over their final plans in detail to make sure that everything is understood. The darkness will let us slip up closer to the house, and we may be able to overhear what they say. Don't forget, too, that our main job is to catch the Hoffs red-handed." ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... thousands of enemies; the people curse and groan at him; if he were stabbed by an Italian, 'Oh, another of those Camorristi wretches!' would be the cry. The agent must come from England, and, if he is taken red-handed, then let him say if he likes that he is connected with an association which knows how to reach evil-doers who are beyond the ordinary reach of the law; but let him make it clear that it is no Camorra affair: ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... W.S.P.U. had; before the outbreak of War turned suddenly the revolting women into the stanchest patriots and the right hands of muddling ministers. For in addition to many a rich find in No. 94 and a dozen captives caught red-handed in making mock of the Authorities, the plain-clothes policemen made themselves thoroughly at home in Mr. Michaelis's quarters till the following Monday. And when in the fore-noon of that day, Mr. Michaelis entered his rooms, puzzled and perturbed at finding the outer door ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Reade. "As long as the unknown enemy feels that he can harass us without much risk of being caught red-handed, just so long will he go on with his ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... by both of whom I had the honour of being much hated, had worked out a different, and to them, a much more satisfactory ending. If Conde's assassin could be caught, red-handed as it were, and slain by the angry people, there would be an end to the business. For this purpose they had conducted the mob to my prison, but the speedy arrival of the soldiers had upset their plans; Maubranne was dead, and I lay on a mattress in ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... Marian, what is the use of words when I have had such an example of deeds? I have caught you, red-handed, in the act of giving a millionnaire his conge. In the face of this stern fact do you suppose I am going to try to fish up some germs of manhood for your inspection? As you have suggested, I must do something, or I'm out of the race with you. I honestly believe, though, I am not such a fool ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the little office where Mary Carstairs waited, fresh from more cheap plotting in which she was the innocent central figure; and faced her, uncomfortable, ill at ease, disquieted inwardly as a conspirator taken red-handed. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... anyway," he answered indirectly. "You know him. You told me you used to dance with him. He was caught red-handed, lyin' on the body of a scab he beat to death. Old Jelly Belly's got three bullet holes in him, but he ain't goin' to die, and he's got Chester's number. They'll hang'm on Jelly Belly's evidence. It was all in the papers. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... skulked the tramp and the outcast thief with loathsome wrecks that had once laid claim to the name of woman. Every foot of it reeked with incest and murder. Bandits' Roost, Bottle Alley, were names synonymous with robbery and red-handed outrage. By night, in its worst days, I have gone poking about their shuddering haunts with a policeman on the beat, and come away in a ferment of anger and disgust that would keep me awake far into the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... enemy was vengeance for a great wrong. Having accomplished his purpose he quietly walked out of the cafe and went away. I happened to be on the spot shortly afterwards, and inquired, with some surprise at the escape of the murderer, why he had not been arrested red-handed. "He had a sword in his hand!" said the person to whom I had addressed myself, in a tone which implied that that quite settled the matter—that of course it was absolutely out of the question to attempt to interfere with a man who had a sword ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... there won't. When a master begs men to own up, it means that he's up the spout. It's much more fun catching a fellow red-handed. And, after all, you two are the last ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... called Tom to his chum, as the latter gave him this information. "The Firefly is tuned up for a hundred miles an hour! We'll be there in ten minutes! We must catch him red-handed, if possible!" ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... infinite forest spreads breathless and far, 'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy of claw (Striped and spotted destroyers!) he sees, pale with awe, On the menacing edge of a fiery sky, Grim Doorga, blue-limb'd and red-handed, go by, And the first thing he worships is Terror. Anon, Still impell'd by necessity hungrily on, He conquers the realms of his own self-reliance, And the last cry of fear wakes the first of defiance. From the serpent he crushes its poisonous soul; Smitten down in his path see the ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... taken advantage of his position for personal gain. What this instance was his informant could not at that moment say—the facts were being carefully compiled, but the evidence was beyond dispute. This autocrat, who talked of principle and honor, had been caught red-handed in the very act against which he pretended to stand; and, of course, this instance was but one of many. Doctor Jekyll could take it upon himself to deliver platitudes upon moral rectitude, while Mr. Hyde gathered in the shekels on ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... after—or else the day after that, when the long rattle of the musketry had left off—we heard at intervals the "feu de peloton" in a field behind the church of St.-Vincent de Paul, and knew that at every discharge a dozen poor devils of insurgents, caught red-handed, fell dead in a ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... nevertheless, continued to receive visitors. It had long been decided that she must be taken in the act of sorcery, and warning had that day been given that she expected illustrious company in the evening. The watch were to find her red-handed, so to speak; the leech was to prove whether her house was indeed plague-stricken; and in either case the senate wished to have the sorceress safe in prison and at their mercy, though even Philippus had not been ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the matter. I could swear to you. But I would not, lad—not if I caught you red-handed. You must know, Clarke, since there is none to overhear us, that in the old days I was a Justice of the Peace in Surrey, and that our friend here was brought up before me on a charge of riding somewhat late o' night, and of being ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... passed rapidly. I was anxious about the ascent, for gusts of ominous sound swept through the pines at intervals. Then wild animals howled, and "Ring" was perturbed in spirit about them. Then it was strange to see the notorious desperado, a red-handed man, sleeping as quietly as innocence sleeps. But, above all, it was exciting to lie there, with no better shelter than a bower of pines, on a mountain 11,000 feet high, in the very heart of the Rocky Range, under twelve ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... given them by the Germans for their property. At one place where I was quartered the proprietor had lost 40,000 francs worth of stock and wine. He was rather "frosty" to the British. That is why we suspected some of being snipers, and there are some cases on record where they were caught red-handed in the act. Our experience had taught us to put a dead line of sentries several miles behind the line of trenches, and our vigilance was rewarded because the Germans throughout were unable to locate our batteries and were at sea as to what was taking place behind ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... paid by the bundle, and they told me this morning lathe would run short before they was through. I knew I had ordered an extra hundred on the architect's figgers, but I didn't say anything. Just prospected 'round and came back unexpected, and caught one of them red-handed. He was tucking a bunch between the ceiling and the upper floor, without even cutting the string. I made them rip off the lathe, and there they were stored thick, a full bundle to 'bout ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... Museum,—the Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high-shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,—the waist plunging downwards into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... they were tried before the Lord Provost, and each sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour. I was called to give evidence in the court, and chagrined the two London sharpers must have felt to find out how they had been caught red-handed. This was my first appearance ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... headed some one of the many small riots against Rome which were perpetually sputtering up and being trampled out by an armed heel. There had been bloodshed, in which he had himself taken part ('a murderer,' Acts iii. 14). And this coarse, red-handed desperado is the people's favourite, because he embodied their notions and aspirations, and had been bold enough to do what every man of them would have done if he had dared. He thought and felt, as they did, that freedom was to be won by the sword. The popular ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... placed above, dripped its contents. To these elements of combustion the sun added its power, and sixteen hours afterwards the fire broke out. Happily it was instantly extinguished; and the agents that produced it were caught, red-handed as it were, in the act. The chances are that such a particular combination of circumstances might not occur again in a thousand years. The sawdust will not be swept again into such a position under the oil, or the bottle will not break over ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... a very prettily laid trap," was the grim answer. "No, my dear young lady, we are not going to leave the cave unguarded. I'll have men watching day and night until we catch them red-handed. It is sure to come sooner ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... yourself that? What have you to do with journalistic adulteries? Only wait: you shan't complain that the sequel is commonplace, and perhaps, one day, when you read in the papers the sequel to the sequel, you will remember and be entertained. He caught us red-handed, you see. It was one evening when we hadn't expected him home until after midnight, and at ten o'clock the door opened and he stood suddenly in the room. Squalid enough, isn't it? To this day I don't know whether he had laid a trap for us, or whether he was as surprised as we were. He stood there ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... not yet realized. The rest of the West came up to specifications, but this one essential failed. In Spanish Gulch he had, to be sure, encountered a number of girls. But they were red-handed, big-boned, freckled-faced, rough-skinned, and there wasn't a Tam o' Shanter in the lot. Plainly servants, Bennington thought. The Mountain Flower must have gone on a visit. Come to think of it, there never was more than one Mountain Flower ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... asked no questions as to their destination; he was too broken in heart and too shaken in body to be curious; life in those days was for him too much of a hideous phantasmagoria of waste and blackness out of which appeared vengeful, red-handed figures, out of which echoed dismal, despairing ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... short engagement was that he would disappear like a dream. She agreed with everything he said; even carrying her new allegiance to the point of laughing a little at her own people: the layer cakes her mother made for the Sunday noonday dinner; the red-handed, freckled swain who called on her younger sister in the crisp, moonlighted winter evenings; and the fact that her father ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... suddenly? Marjorie hated to be puzzled over things. 'There can be but one explanation,' she thought, 'and that is, Thomas has been too late to catch the boat, and they could not wait for him. It serves him right.' She hoped he would now be caught red-handed. The sun had sunk low in the horizon by the time the dinghy reached the vessel, and nothing could be more beautiful than the slowly sailing ship moving across the great ball of fire. It looked like a fairy craft as ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... seen in the darkness below. Doubtless the miserable heiress of the Lorringtons had found a grave in the bed of soft, deep snow which surrounded its base. Then, stricken through heart and brain with the curse of madness which had already sent her mistress red-handed to death, Virginie Giraud fled across the lawn—through the parkgates—out upon the bleak common beyond, and was gone. The old priest laid aside the manuscript and took a fresh pinch of rappee from the silver snuff box. "Monsieur," said he, with a polite inclination ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... and grievous transgression outweighs with God all his former good deeds. It is a defiance of the Deity, a greater insult than all his previous life was a service and homage. It is as though a loyal regiment had mutinied, or a hitherto decent and orderly citizen were taken red-handed in murder. If however God deigns to draw the offender to repentance, and to pardon him, the balance is restored. Thus everything finally depends on man being free from guilt of grievous transgression at the instant of death, or at the end of his period of probation, whenever and wherever ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... did not hit him either, now I can think of it. Ah, slow and sure, that's my motter! I takes my man on his boat, in the very middle of his laces and his brandy and his silk—I takes him, sir, in the very act of illegality, red-handed, so to speak, and then, if he shows fight, or if he runs away, then I shoots, sir, and then if I hits, why it's a good job too—but none of this promiscuous work for Augustus Hobson. Slow ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of the men, seeing how the wind lay, swore before heaven that he saw me shoot the deer, and took me red-handed, with my bow in my hand. And when one sheep leads the way, the others follow. They all swore it was I; while some added that my comrade lay asleep under a tree, and knew nothing of the ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... itself and all that hurrying about in the dark had shocked and excited me! The whole theater of life had changed. Its audience had suddenly enlarged and was rushing over the stage and a kind of terror was in every face and voice. There was a red-handed villain behind the scenes, now, and how many others, I wondered. Men were no longer as they had been. Even the God to whom I prayed was different. As I write the sounds and shadows of that night ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... be telling us the truth," urged Paul Breslin. "Foy may very well have ridden here alone before Vorhis got here. I've known the Major a long time. He isn't the man to protect a red-handed murderer." ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... if it come with storm, and blood, and fire, When midnight darkness veils the earth and sky! Wo to the innocent babe—the guilty sire— Mother and daughter—friends of kindred tie! Stranger and citizen alike shall die! Red-handed slaughter his revenge shall feed, And havoc yell his ominous death-cry, And wild despair in vain for mercy plead— While hell itself shall shrink and sicken ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... I thought," said Chester. "Now I am almost positive that the conspirators will gather for one more session before the German advance, if only to make sure that nothing has gone amiss. We can surround the house and capture them red-handed." ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... bitterly, in Irish, "but I doubt the red-handed villain has cut short the lives of my two brave sons! I only hope he may stop in the country: I'm not widout friends an' followers that 'ud think it no sin in a just cause to pay him in his own coin, an' to take from him an' his ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... the bank's money and a steamship ticket made out in a fictitious name, it was prima-facie evidence that he had done the job and had the balance somewhere. What would his denials, his protestations of innocence count for? He was an ex-convict, a hardened criminal caught red-handed with a portion of the proceeds of robbery—he had succeeded in hiding the remainder of it ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... depths below, crushing or drowning them like rats. At another point, when baffled in their efforts to overturn a sleeping-car in front of a patrol engine, and dispersed by a dozen well-aimed shots, the rioters impanelled their coroner's jury, and declared the red-handed participants innocent spectators and the officer and his men murderers. At a third, when a great railway centre was found in the hands of the strikers and the troops were ordered to clear the platform, one surly specimen not only refused to budge, but lavished ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... safe here any longer. Howell probably intends to play us false! We shall know from The Sparrow the reason we are here, and, for aught we know, the police are watching and will arrest us red-handed. No," he added, "we must leave this place—all three of us—as soon as possible. You, Lisette, had better go to Paris and explain matters to The Sparrow, while I shall fade away to Switzerland. And you, Mr. ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... this? but that was long ago - Months. Now I know not—yet I think I know - Whether I fear or fear not it. Hard by Men fight even now—they strike and kill and die Red-handed; nay, we hear the roar and see The lightning of the battle: can it be That what no soul of all these brave men fears Should sound so fearful save in foolish ears? But all this while I know not where it lay, Thy ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... suspected as to be almost a certainty, otherwise he would be on his guard; and it was Frobisher's intention, if Admiral Ting agreed, to leave the man in ignorance of the suspicions he had aroused, until he should grow careless and over-bold, and then to pounce suddenly upon him and catch him red-handed. The Englishman knew that unless the man were actually caught in the act, so that there could be no possible doubt as to his treachery, he possessed sufficient money and influence to worm himself out of almost any predicament, however strong ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... it was not long before two stealthy figures came tiptoeing in, and were taken red-handed in the very act of constructing an apple-pie bed. The vials of wrath which descended upon the would-be practical jokers were enough to damp the spirits of even such madcaps as Raymonde and Aveline. After all, monitresses are monitresses, and to affront them is rather like twisting a lion's ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... which of course means to his ministers at the capital. The Chinese, however, being, as has been so often stated, an eminently practical people, understand that certain cases admit of no delay; and to prevent the inevitable lynching of such criminals as kidnappers, rebels, and others, caught red-handed, high officials are entrusted with the power of life and death, which they can put into immediate operation, always taking upon themselves full responsibility for their acts. The essential is to allay any excitement of the populace, and to preserve ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... conspirators, including fifty or sixty men of various regiments, was to take place on a certain night at a certain place. Lumsden patiently awaited the event, intending with the Guides to surround and capture the conspirators red-handed. But, on the night fixed for the meeting, a retainer of General Khan Singh came to visit one of the Guides, with whom he was on friendly terms, and in the course of conversation made it evident that his master was not easy ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... day, and for several days following, made out exhaustive lists of eatables, bedding and utensils such as would have provided amply for a regiment of soldiers. In the midst of the preparations Sarah was caught red-handed packing her drawn-work ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... Toledo, halfway in time and territory to Granada and the Midland Sea. And since then how many royal feet have trodden this breezy crest,—Sanchos and Henrys and Ferdinands,—the line broken now and then by a usurping uncle or a fratricide brother,—a red-handed bastard of Trastamara, a star-gazing Alonso, a plotting and praying Charles, and, after Philip, the dwindling scions of Austria and the nullities of Bourbon. This height has known as well the rustle of ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Grange, his education in the practice and theory of vampires will be complete, and he will be a very proper and well- qualified inmate of Earlswood Asylum. The most awful Japanese vampire, caught red-handed in the act, a hideous, bestial incarnation of ghoulishness, we have carefully refrained ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... Time's noblest heritage are they,— Though countless aeons pass them by, They rise at last to day. The spirits of our fathers rise Triumphant through the starry skies; And we may hear their choral song,— The firm in faith, the noble throng,— It bids us crush a deadly wrong, Wrought by red-handed Cain. AND WE SHALL CONQUER! for the Right Goes onward with resistless might: His hand shall win for us the fight. WE, too, shall ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mouth opened and then clicked shut as his Colt swung down. But he did not shoot; something inside of him held his trigger finger and he swore instead. The idea of a man stealing his horse, being caught red-handed and unarmed, and still possessed of sufficient courage to call his captor a name never tolerated or overlooked in that country! And the idea that he, Hopalong Cassidy, of the Bar-20, could not shoot such ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... pray you," rejoined Crystal proudly, "go and seek a quarrel with the man who has unmasked you; who caught you red-handed with the money in your possession which you had stolen from us, who forced you to give up what you had stolen, and whom then you and your friend Victor de Marmont waylaid and robbed once more. Go then, Mr. Clyffurde, and seek a quarrel with the Marquis de St. Genis, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... red-handed murderer!" broke out the woman, fiercely. "He is probably a thief; he killed my poor husband, and then sat down like a cold-blooded villain that he ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... at once!" cried Benassis, and he made straight for the little wood, urging his horse at a furious speed across the ditches and fields, as if he were riding a steeplechase, in his anxiety to catch the sportsman red-handed. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... stronger and more suited to fan the public rage. The recent trial was called an outrageous travesty on justice; attention was directed to the damnable vagaries of recent juries which had been impaneled to try red-handed ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... "I'm sorry you are against me, for I would be your friend. I've told you how to reach the secret cave. The chests are there. The passage is closed. You can trap him in the attempt to rob the bank. I could have taken him red-handed and given him over to Lord Deppingham. But you would never have known the truth. Now I ask you to judge for yourselves. Give him a fair trial, Rasula—as you would any man accused of crime—and be just. If ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... the vengeance of those two assassins," Guertin said; "how narrowly, neither you nor she will ever know. For months I have watched them closely, both here and in France and Germany, in order to catch them red-handed; but they have been too clever for me, and we must rely upon the evidence which that back-garden in Porchester Terrace will now yield up. The gang is part of a great criminal association, that society of international thieves of which one member was the man ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... aversion to bloodshed, but finally consented; upon which Frankl went away, and took cab for Scotland Yard: his idea being to have Harris arrested red-handed ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... Aristophanes, the stage has claimed the right to deal with extremes. He who, sinning and laden with the burden of human guilt, has once fallen a victim to the Eumenides, cannot, as a figure in a drama, go off on pleasure trips, nor can he go about the usual business of daily life. Fate seizes him red-handed, causes him to see blood in every glass of champagne and to read his warrant of arrest on every chance scrap of paper. And the Comic Muse is even less indulgent. When Aristophanes would mock the creations of Euripides, which are meant to move the public by their ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... From that to holding out fares to get more money to squander was only a step for the young fool, and he took it. Having baited the trap and set it, Hallock sprung it. One fine day Jackson was caught red-handed and turned over to the company lawyers. There had been a good bit of talk and they made an example of him. He's got a couple of years to serve ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Froissart. "The spies and their boat must be caught red-handed, but not till after the false news of the mining of the battle-cruisers has been carried to Holland. But how shall we make certain that the sleepless English Navy will not butt in and catch ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... together.... Pearce was approached by one of this secret vigilante band, an' he planned to sell the Border Legion outright. There was to be a big stake in it for him. He held off day after day, only tippin' off some of the gang. There's Dartt an' Singleton an' Frenchy an' Texas all caught red-handed at jobs. Pearce put the vigilantes to watchin' them jest to prove his claim.... Aw! I've got the proofs! Jest wait. Listen to me!... You all never in your lives seen a snake like Red Pearce. An' the job he had put up on us was grand. To-day ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... his purpose. He thought his position one uncommonly difficult. As Maitland, he had on his hands a female thief, a hardened character, a common malefactor (strange that he got so little relish of the terms!), caught red-handed; as Maitland, his duty was to hand her over to the law, to be dealt with as—what she was. Yet, even while these considerations were urging themselves upon him, he knew his eyes appraised her with open admiration and interest. She stood before him, slight, delicate, pretty, appealing in ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... he was caught red-handed firing the grass on Warenda Station, on his way to Boulia. He was brought before the Boulia justices, who sentenced him to three months' imprisonment under the "Careless Use of Fire Act." This was the maximum penalty that could be inflicted. On completion of his term the grass-burner ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... Court of Vesta, the Temple of Castor and Pollux; we have a more vague notion of the Senate Hall; the hideous arch of Septimius Severus stares us in the face; so does the lovely column of evil Phocas, the monster of the east, the red-handed centurion-usurper who murdered an Emperor and his five sons to reach the throne. And perhaps we have been told where the Rostra stood, and the Rostra Julia, and that the queer fragment of masonry by the arch is supposed to be the 'Umbilicus,' the centre of the Roman ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... of night betakes himself to Rome. He and his accomplices enter the house of Pietro Comparini and his wife, and, not content with slaying them, also murders Pompilia. But they are discovered, and Guido is caught red-handed. Pompilia's evidence alone is damnatory, for she was not slain outright, and lingers long enough to tell her story. Franceschini is not foiled yet, however. His plea is that he simply avenged the wrong done to him by his wife's adulterous connection with the ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... he was going to Boston for a blind." And for many a week after that she slyly watched his fingers, to see if she could catch him red-handed so to speak, wearing one of those rings! Yet even while she glanced she had the grace to smile ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... three of us gets together an' has a talky-talk, an' we lays it out as how Cock-eye must be watched and caught red-handed. ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... "Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock, the heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur, "brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... boy," he warned. "I've caught you red-handed in the commission of a crime that may send you to State's prison. You'd better take heed ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... and then of stealing a pie from the cook, and taking it into his own tent and eating it there. The Chink kept missing his pies, and got a helper to spy out the offender. The result was they caught the old man red-handed in the act. The Chink armed himself with the biggest butcher-knife he had and went on the warpath. He found the old fellow sitting in his storeroom contentedly eating the pie. The old man had his eyes on the cook, and saw the knife just in time to jump behind some kegs of nuts and bolts. The Chink ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... not hungry, which, in the circumstances, was as well. Mistress MacWalter had caught him red-handed on one occasion. He was taking a bit of hard oatcake out of the basket of "farles" which swung from the black, smoked beam in the corner. Kit had cause to remember the occasion. Ever since, she had cast it up to him. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... each from the trampled hill slope, bearing on stretchers their ghastly burden of bleeding and wounded men. Although coming within musket-range of the American force, no molestation was offered. Their work of humanity was felt to be too sacred for even red-handed War to disturb. Indeed, both American and British wounded were ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... to go on deck, I stole cautiously up the companion-stairs, expecting to catch Van Luck red-handed in the act of playing the spy upon us, but when I reached the skylight I could see no sign of him. From where I stood, however, I was able to observe the captain counting the pearls, and I determined to warn him to have a cover made for the skylight, or a blind inside that might be drawn ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... as he could see, nothing had been taken from the apartment. Evidently the man was disturbed at his work and, when suddenly surprised, had made the bluff that he was calling on Mr. Underwood. They had got the right man, that was certain. He was caught red-handed, and in proof of what he said, the valet pointed to Howard's right hand, which was still covered ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... him! He saw the marauder crawling in through the Rectory window! He saw him fumbling now to the left, now to the right, all through the front hall! He followed him up the stairs to a closet where the silver was evidently kept! He caught the man red-handed as it were! Or rather—white-handed," flushed the Master of the House for some quite unaccountable reason. "To be perfectly accurate," he explained conscientiously, "he was caught with a pair of—of—" ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... man be?" asked Ailill of Fergus. "Indeed, but we know him," Fergus made answer; "the wild, red-handed, [3]rending[3] lion; the fierce, fearful bear that overcometh valour. [4]He is the high doer of deeds, warlike, and fierce,[4] Errge Echbel ('Horse-mouth'), from Bri Errgi ('Errge's Mound') in the north, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... that I was guilty of the foul crime which had been committed; for murdered she had been, of that there was no doubt. Branded as a murderess I was borne off to prison. Many thought me guilty. It was cruelly said that I was found red-handed by the side of my victim. But even in prison I sought support, and obtained it whence alone it was to be afforded. As King David, I could say, 'I have washed my hands in innocency. I cried unto the Lord and He heard me.' Oh, my young friends, keep ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... Darrell Standing. I was caught red-handed. Now the right and the wrong of this affair with Professor Haskell I shall not discuss. It was purely a private matter. The point is, that in a surge of anger, obsessed by that catastrophic red wrath ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... push on into the city," Trent informed his ensigns. "Twenty more 'Long Island' men will reach us within three minutes. We are to silence snipers, and kill them if we catch them red-handed in firing on our forces. Above all, we are directed to be on the alert for any Americans or other foreigners who may be in need of help. We are likely to have ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... often, when a man, who on the river corresponds to the sneak thief ashore, is caught red-handed stealing rope or metal or ships' oddments there is resistance. But always the police win. They know the game. A hand-to-hand struggle in a swaying boat, even a fall overboard with a desperate prisoner, does not concern ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... guard, splendid in their unrelieved gold, and the officers of the court, at their head Cassyrus, the premier, who had manifestly been compounded of Heaven to be a drum-major, and had so undeviating a look that he seemed always to have been caught, red-handed, at his post. Last came Prince Tabnit, dressed in pure white save for a collar of precious stones from which hung the strange green gem that St. George remembered. His clear face and the whiteness of his hair lent to him an air of almost unearthly distinction. His delicate hands wearing ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... shock for her, poor girl, to leave a happy home with her heart full of innocent mirth, only to encounter murder lurking red-handed ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... unselfishness and of a sublime charity runs through all his work. Every man, black or white, was "neighbor" to him, and he ever fulfilled the command of his Lord, to "love his neighbor as himself." Against oppression he could, however, be stern and severe. Not a few ruffians whom he caught red-handed in flagrant acts of cruelty were executed without mercy. So that the same man who, by the down-trodden people, was called the "Good Pasha," was to the robber and murderer a ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... But still red-handed at your horrid trade You wrought, to reason deaf, and to compassion. But now with gods and men your peace is made I beg you to be good and in ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... operations upon innocent wives—operations made necessary by disease which their husbands bought of the prostitute, perhaps years before marriage—we cannot regard her and her criminal male partners as anything less than the red-handed slayers of good women. While the eye doctors attribute one-fourth of blindness, particularly of helpless babies, to the same source, we cannot quote except to condemn, this sophistry that makes the worse appear the better cause and garlands the woman whose ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... but the thin boughs broke beneath him, so he had to be content with staying in the lower part of the tree on the thicker boughs; so there he sat, hugging the millstone in his arms. Presently some robbers came along that way, red-handed from their work, and they too prepared to pass the night under the tree. So they cut them down firewood, and made them a roaring fire beneath a huge cauldron, and in this cauldron they began to boil their supper. They ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... justice angered Gay far more than the original poaching had done. To be flouted in his own pasture on the subject of his own game by a handsome barbarian, whom he had caught red-handed in the act of stealing, would have appealed irresistibly to his sense of humour, if it had ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... But," he went on, holding the gangway railing as she turned to descend, "it's only the first part of the game that's over. Our friend has won on the sea, but I have an idea that we shall have him on land. We shall have him yet, and we'll catch him red-handed if I have anything to do with it. Will you ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... forcibly to impose Prelacy on her as a stepping-stone to Popery, had no difficulty in finding ecclesiastical and courtly bravos to carry out his designs; and for a long series of dismal years persecution stalked red-handed through the land. ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... exterior. Hearts, the policeman knew, just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier air of Seven Dials, but you have to pinch them just the same when they disturb the peace. His gaze, as it fell upon Jill, red-handed as it were with the stick still in her ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... He is the august companion with whom one walks with the gods. He is also in league with the Noseless One. His way leads to truth naked, and to death. He gives clear vision, and muddy dreams. He is the enemy of life, and the teacher of wisdom beyond life's wisdom. He is a red-handed killer, and he ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... the same interjection uttered simultaneously by the three Frenchmen, but each had a very different note; in the Judge it was deep interest, in the detective triumph, in the Commissary indignation, as when he caught a criminal red-handed. ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... from the quality of the delayed dinner down to the things that the guests were likely to be saying in her absence. Then, young as she was, she took her resolution. After that, she would catch her father suddenly, and bring him back, red-handed. A man like Doctor Keltridge ought not to be reduced to the conventional dead level of his fellow townsmen; it would be a waste of rare material. Rather, as the phrase is, he should be featured. And Olive proceeded to feature him accordingly, to the solid satisfaction of her father and to ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... told, including Cowperwood and Stener. Two of them were confederate housebreakers who had been caught red-handed at their ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... luncheon for himself and Rendel in the best German he could muster. Unfortunately, however, the proprietor of the establishment was engaged in his cellar on important business, and the dialect spoken by the red-handed and red-cheeked maiden who received them was not very intelligible. However, by dint of nodding of heads and pointing out items on the bill of fare, they came to an understanding, Wentworth taking for granted that something quite ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... clenched hands in wild despair. They were caught like birds in a trap. No hope!—no escape! Nothing left for it now, but to die red-handed. He dashed into the house with the old hut-keeper and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... profile or the smooth delight of her tone at some of her own cruelties. Some day he would have it out with her when the right moment came. Before he reached the house he had had time to sketch a number of scenes in which she, caught extraordinarily red-handed, was forced to listen to his exposition of the evil of such methods as hers. He would say to her, "I remember that you once said to me, Mrs. Farron—" Anger cut short his vision as a cloud of her phrases came back to ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... the station. Craft had been sighted and signals exchanged, and then the suspected craft disappeared for weeks. The men who guarded the coast knew these buccaneers had emissaries, and could have laid hands on them, but preferred to catch them red-handed. ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... impossible," he said. "Perhaps you do not know your position. You are not at New Orleans. Here I am both the civil and military chief and this is my own place. I can put you to death as brigands or guerillas, caught red-handed upon Spanish soil." ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... heard of the misfortune; but it was by the hand of Arabi's soldiers that he fell; not that of the English. Arabi's soldiers, or plunderers who called themselves such. The English sailors caught them red-handed, and hung them up for it then ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... friendly to our own. It was considered, in its day, one of the most traitorous crimes in our history. And you, sir, a citizen of high standing and repute, were detected in the act of transferring many of these important papers to a spy, thus periling the safety of the nation. You were caught red-handed, so to speak, but made your escape and in a manner remarkable and even wonderful for its adroitness have for years evaded every effort on the part of our Secret Service Department to effect your ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... So said that Messiah of whom I spoke to thee, and it was truly said. If thou slayest this innocent woman, I say unto thee that thou shalt be accursed, and pluck no fruit from thine ancient tree of love. Also, what thinkest thou? How will this man take thee red-handed from the slaughter of her who loved and ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... Soldiers' Field. In this year there was great rivalry between the players representing Harvard and Pennsylvania. The contest was sharp and bitterly fought all the way through. Both teams had complained frequently to Edwards, the Umpire. Finally he caught two men red-handed, so to speak. There was no argument. Both men admitted it. It so happened that both men were very valuable to their respective teams. The loss of either man would be greatly felt. Both captains cornered Edwards and both agreed that he was perfectly right in his ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... when Rodney made his next break, which branded him as a red-handed criminal to several in the parish. The Ladies' Aid Society was meeting at the rectory on a beautiful afternoon. There was a good attendance, and the members freely discussed ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... savage vikings these Jomsburgers are the worst. Red-handed they are, sparing none, and it is said of them that they will sacrifice men to the gods they worship before a great fight. Nor are they all of one race, but are the fiercest men of all the races of the Baltic gathered into that one ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... boy's news was that my Lord the Governor had gone to Fifanti's house. The boy had never waited to see the Legate come forth again; but had obeyed his instructions to the letter, and it was Gambara whom Fifanti came to take red-handed and to kill as he ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... already avenged it sternly, O Red-handed Concobar," Catbad made answer, "by winning the battle over the four provinces ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... of 'em. I'm boss of a few dozen of these floating palaces at present. In fact we're a patrol and I've caught you red-handed on my own beat, and what I want to know is what the devil are you doing on it? Not trying to elope with that little bit of fluff, I hope, because I can assure you she doesn't love you ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... then Alfred drew in his breath and bore down upon Jimmy with fresh vehemence. "The only time I get even a semblance of truth out of Zoie," he cried, "is when I catch her red-handed." Again he pounded the table and again Jimmy winced. "And even then," he continued, "she colours it so with her affected innocence and her plea about just wishing to be a 'good fellow,' that she almost makes me doubt my own eyes. She is an artist," he declared with a touch of enforced ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... and turning, rend those who now preyed upon them. It would be "dog eat dog" again, with positions reversed, and he saw for one instant of time that splendid house sacked to its foundations, the tables overturned, the pictures torn, the hangings blazing, and Liberty, the red-handed Man in the Street, grimed with powder smoke, foul with the gutter, rush yelling, torch in ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... stopped to lunch, we left the canoes in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud-voiced; and they and their broad jokes are about all I remember of the place. I could look up my history-books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or two; for it figured rather largely in the English wars. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a tavern appositely labeled the "Inn of Good Morals," he began to throw bottles at some stevedores who had accepted a cut in wages; and when the police came in to restore order, they caught him, red-handed, chasing his enemies over the tops of the tables with his knife drawn. More than one week-end he spent in the jail at headquarters whence his mother's tears and the "pull" tio Mariano had as a politician and distributor of election ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... when they were camped near the kraal of a small Basuto tribe, his companions becoming hungry, stole a goat and killed it. Zinti ate of the goat, for they told him that they had bought it for some beads, and while they were still eating the Basutos came upon them and caught them red-handed. Next day they were tried by the councillors of the tribe and condemned to die as thieves, but the chief, who wanted servants, spared their lives and set them to labour in his gardens, where they were watched ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... a reputation like mine," grinned the amiable rogue. "They won't even believe me when they catch me red-handed. Once a liar, always a liar. That's their idea, eh? If I was to turn around and say I didn't do it, I suppose they'd believe me? Well, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... but he was caught red-handed Killing the king's deer. By the forest law He should of rights be blinded; for, as ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes |
