"Reprieve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... GRANT REPRIEVES AND PARDONS if he sees good reason for doing so. A reprieve is a delay of punishment. When a person is convicted of murder, the judge sentences him to be put to death on a certain day. But there may be reason for further inquiry into the case, and to give time for such inquiry the governor ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... carried on a pole. More than once it happened that condemned men were paraded before the troops for execution with the graves dug and the coffins lying ready. The death sentence would be read, and then, as the firing party took aim, a reprieve would be announced. The reprieve in such circumstances was omitted often enough to make the condemned endure the real ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... ANNIE, as you'll easily believe. "O GILBERT, you must spare him, for I bring him a reprieve, It came from our Home Secretary many weeks ago, And passed through that post-office which I used to ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... the Wolf. He also declares his only regret is to die before he can reveal to the king the hiding-place of a vast treasure which would enable him to outwit the plots of some rebels who are even now conspiring to kill him. The king, hearing this, immediately orders a reprieve, and, questioning the Fox in secret, learns that the conspirators are Brown the Bear, Isegrim the Wolf, and others. To reward the Fox for saving her husband's life, the queen now obtains his pardon, which Noble grants in exchange for information ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... wooden cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw me back on ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... he continued she lost the sense of his spoken thoughts in the mad cross- tides of her own unuttered. Now her crying instinct was for rescue at all costs, at any hazard. Prayers, entreaties, cravings for reprieve thronged unvoiced and not to be voiced through every fibre of her body. Could he not spare her? Could he not? If she could turn suddenly upon him, clasp his knees, worm herself between his arms, put her face—wet, shaking, tremulous, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... a quart of it as eagerly as if it had been wine. We tried to catch fish, but could not; and we now began to repine at our fate, and abandon ourselves to despair; when, in the midst of our murmuring, the captain all at once cried out 'A sail! a sail! a sail!' This gladdening sound was like a reprieve to a convict, and we all instantly turned to look at it; but in a little time some of us began to be afraid it was not a sail. However, at a venture, we embarked and steered after it; and, in half an hour, to our unspeakable ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... hanged all sorts and conditions of men—men who kept on vainly hoping against hope for an eleventh-hour reprieve long after the last chance of reprieve had vanished, and who on the gallows begged piteously for five minutes, for two minutes, for one minute more of precious grace; negroes gone drunk on religious exhortation who died ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... of this reprieve, went up stairs; and while Sally was laying out the law, and prating away in her usual dictorial manner, whipt on another gown, and sliding down the stairs, escaped to her relations. And this flight, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long after the lips which uttered the words were silent ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... is my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my She Advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... took all that he could get, and, leaving his friend sitting in the stocks in his shirt-sleeves, he disappeared as swiftly as one could wish a man to carry a reprieve. ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... them my forgiving right. I feel a tenderness within me spring, I am my Peoples Father, and their King, And tho I think, they may have done me wrong. I can't remember their offences long. Nature is mov'd, and sues for a Reprieve, They are my Children, and I must forgive. My many jealous fears I shan't repeat, My Heart with a strong pulse of Love doth beat; Nature I feel has made a sudden start, And a fresh source springs from the Father's heart. A stubborn ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... So with fear in his heart and a red-faced woman on his arm he approached the box-office. "Not a seat left," sounded to his hen-pecked ears like the concluding words of the black-robed judge: "and may the Lord have mercy upon your soul." But a reprieve came, for one of the aforesaid beacon lights of hope rushed forward, saying: "I have two good seats, not far back, and only ten apiece." And the gentleman with fear in his heart and the red-faced woman on his arm ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... Richard; for, even in the depth of his own sorrow, he perceived a grief he could not touch—the anguish of a remorse which might have no end in this life. As the doctors came down stairs John went to meet them, for even a minute's reprieve from his torturing anxiety was worth going for. The foremost made a slight movement, a motion of the lips and eyes which somehow conveyed a hope, and when he heard the words, "She may recover," he hastened back to Richard, and said, "There ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... deliberately aimed at by Tressamer or not, it was the consequence of the policy adopted by him. But no sooner had the law pronounced her doom than the tide turned with startling rapidity, and a gigantic agitation was at once set on foot for a reprieve. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... out in a new place every day, and every time he broke out it cost the house money. Finally, I made up my mind to swallow the loss, and Mister Jim was just about to lose his job sure enough, when the orders for Extract began to look up, and he got a reprieve; then he began to make expenses, and he got a pardon; and finally a rush came that left him high and dry in a permanent place. Jim was all right in his way, but it was a new way, and I hadn't been broad-gauged enough to see that it was a ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... and the heavy sails flapped and cleared themselves of their icy varnishing—then all was over. There was an iceberg of another shape astern of us, the gale recommenced, the waves pressed each other on as before, and we felt the return of the gale, awful as it was, as a reprieve. That was a dreadful voyage, Jacob, and turned one-third of my hair grey; and what made it worse was, that we had only three fish on board on our return. However, we had reason to be thankful, for eighteen of our vessels were lost altogether, and it was the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... night I had a dreadful dream about Eagle March. Somehow or other, he had been condemned to death by Major Vandyke (who had unbecomingly turned into a judge) and Eagle was to be executed unless I could arrive in time to save him, armed with a reprieve or pardon—I didn't quite know which—that I had got from Washington. I waked up crying out, because a hand had been stretched forth through darkness to clutch my shoulder, and prevent me from getting to El Paso until too late. ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... it is true, come over his character; he became more desperate, but if was only because the deeper had become this affection. The incident of the reprieve of la Tour, which had meanwhile reached him, sank deeper into his heart than the whole round of his pleasures, and made him anxious for the moment when he ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... whore or shameless bawd, Nor stubborn clown or daring parasite, No lying servant or bold sycophant. We are not wanton or satirical. These have their time and places fit, but we Sad hours and serious studies to reprieve, Have taught severe Philosophy to smile, The Senses' rash contentions we compose, And give displeas'd ambitious Tongue her due: Here's all; judicious friends, accept what is not ill. Who are not such, let them do ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... cried, turning to the master, "this letter," waving it in his hand, "is like a reprieve to a man on the scaffold." Maclise stood gazing in amazement ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... her invocation. Wayside prayers were no more a novelty than wayside curses in this region, and the officer rolled indifferently by. "Now go back to your hotel, and get to bed," pleaded the man, gasping like a criminal with a reprieve. "Things will look brighter in the morning. I'll be in to see you ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Grandison rather rallied the spirits of our travellers. When they arrived at Falmouth, they found, however, that the packet, which waited for government despatches, was not yet to sail. Sir Ratcliffe scarcely knew whether he ought to grieve or to rejoice at the reprieve; but he determined to be gay. So Ferdinand and himself passed their mornings in visiting the mines, Pendennis Castle, and the other lions of the neighbourhood; and returned in the evening to their cheerful hotel, with good appetites for their agreeable banquet, the mutton of Dartmoor ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... perfectly safe. The evening glow was almost gone, the stars faintly gleaming out in the blue above; a gentle sea breeze stirred the branches and went along with Faith on her errand. Now was this errand grievously unpleasing to Faith, simply because of the implication of that one year of reprieve which she must ask for. How should she manage it? But her way was clear; she must ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... hell (I use the word as indicating mental or physical suffering—in my case, the former—not with any local significance) there are moments when the anguish-stricken spirit is mercifully allowed a temporary reprieve. Such a moment occurred after the first awful paroxysm of self-loathing and torture which I experienced when my past life was made known to me in its true colours, and it was in this saner and comparatively painless interval that I met one whom I had known on earth as a woman of the purest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at least, to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with the Countess Teresa as fast as possible if they wished to see the condemned man alive. Undaunted by the news, the brave wife sought an interview with the Empress, in whom she found a warm advocate, but who was obliged to own, after several attempts to obtain a reprieve, that she despaired of success. Teresa Confalonieri hurried back to Milan through the bitter winter weather, in doubt whether she should arrive before the execution had taken place. But the unceasing ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... for the defence in the trial of Jacques Aubrieux, has been received at the lyse. We are informed that the President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man and that the execution will take ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... St. Mary Axe, where he lived. And there I got for a shilling to stand upon the wheel of a cart, in great pain, above an houre before the execution was done; he delaying the time by long discourses and prayers one after another, in hopes of a reprieve; but none came, and at last was flung off the ladder in his cloake. A comely-looked man he was, and kept his countenance to the end: I was sorry to see him. It was believed there were at least 12 or 14,000 people in the street. So I home all ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... first well-meaning rude petitioners All for his life assail'd the throne; All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own. So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar; 'Twas almost borne by force, as in the giants' war. The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard: His death, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... found me deceived—in a political prediction. Within twelve months (should life be spared to me) I shall be in office again. If the same to you, I would rather wait till then formally and amicably to resign to you my lands and this house. If you grant that reprieve, our connection can thus close without the eclat and noise which may be invidious to you, as it would be disagreeable to me. But if that delay be inconvenient, I will appoint a lawyer to examine your ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ever sprang from Eve! While Time allows the short reprieve, Just look at me! would you believe 'Twas once a lover? I cannot clear the five-bar gate; But, trying first its timber's state, Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... him, and he thought, in the emphatic words of Scripture on a similar occasion, that surely the bitterness of death was past. Some of his friends, however, who had watched the manner and behaviour of the crowd when they were made acquainted with the reprieve, were of a different opinion. They augured, from the unusual sternness and silence with which they bore their disappointment, that the populace nourished some scheme of sudden and desperate vengeance; and they advised Porteous to lose no time in petitioning the proper authorities, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... as a reprieve. But to Callandar it was but a lengthening out of torture. Man's love must always, in its essence, be different from woman's; though many women seem incapable of recognising this fact. To Esther, now that she had put aside her first half-understood glimpse of passion, it was sweet to ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... been a hastily summoned court-martial, and in the presence of very clear evidence a verdict approved by General Grant. The man would be shot at seven the next morning. "A hopeless case, Mr. Rivers," said the Provost, "any appeal for reprieve will be useless—utterly useless—there will be no time given for appeal to Mr. Lincoln. We have had ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... was tried by a court-martial, and condemned to death, a circumstance which, as may naturally be supposed, was very distressing to us. Madame de Bourrienne applied to the commanding officer for the man's pardon, but could only obtain his reprieve. The regiment departed some weeks after, and we could never learn what was ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the present juncture. The time had come to make an example, and a more suitable case than the one now before him could not have been found for such a purpose. He would accordingly hold out no hope of a reprieve, but would counsel prisoner to make the best use of the short time ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... great surprise hung. The rope broke twice, and the country people believe that the breaking of the rope gave him a right to a pardon. They tell me that the sheriff, a personal enemy, in spite of the signs and tokens of the breaking ropes, hung him while he had a reprieve in his pocket. There is a kind of Rob Royish flavor about the memory of this man ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... first light of morning Escobedo came. The Republican general unfolded a paper, and began to read. But instead of the death sentence, it was reprieve. President Juarez had postponed execution for ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... was within a few hours of ending. Till the last moment they had hoped for a reprieve; but the accommodating Streffy had been unable to put the villa at their disposal for a longer time, since he had had the luck to let it for a thumping price to some beastly bouncers who insisted on taking possession at ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... success of his undertaking, sparing none of those who had mocked him for a sucker and a fool. A cool breath of reviving wind was moving, fresh, sweet, rain-scented; as hopeful, as life-giving, as a reprieve to one chained among faggots at the stake ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... Ferry—that cockerel! Here was I in the barrel, and able only to squeal in irate terror at whoever looked down upon me. I could have crawled under a log and died. At the door of the Major's tent I paused to learn and joy of one to whom comes reprieve when the rope is on his neck, I overheard Harry Helm, the General's nephew and aide de-camp, who had been with us, telling what a howling good joke Smith had just ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... they came. Nearer, nearer still. Then suddenly a sharp exclamation broke from the watcher. It was a cry which had in it a strange thrill. It might have been the gasp of the condemned man at the sound of the word "reprieve." It might have been the cry of one momentarily relieved ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... this remark why Lina had asked her to go home with her. It was not because she wished to hear any of Dotty's brilliant stories, for she had not asked a single question about Out West; it was because she hoped for a reprieve from ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... fibres cold: Space's blue walls are mined; we feel the throe From underground of our night-mantled foe: 10 The flame-winged feet Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod run Through briny abysses dreamless of the sun, Are mercilessly fleet, And at a bound annihilate Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve; Surely ill news might wait, And man be patient of delay to grieve: Letters have sympathies And tell-tale faces that reveal, 20 To senses finer than the eyes. Their errand's purport ere we break the seal; They wind a sorrow round with circumstance To stay its feet, nor all unwarned displace ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... to be hanged for desertion, and the officer in command hurried forward the execution, although an express had been sent to lay the case before the general at another post. The offence was only a desertion in name, and the reprieve was promptly granted, but it came ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... just about to be shot, is miraculously saved by his mistress, who cuts the matter very fine indeed, by rushing in between "present" and "fire;" and, having ejaculated "a reprieve!" with all her might, falls down, overcome by fatigue—poor dear! as well she may—having run twenty-three miles in the changing of a scene, and carried her baby on her arm all the blessed way, in order to hold him up in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... this interview, and before the day was out it had spread over the town and over the Five Towns, and it was in the Signal. The Signal spoke of Daniel Povey as 'the condemned man.' And the phrase startled the whole district into an indignant agitation for his reprieve. The district woke up to the fact that a Town Councillor, a figure in the world, an honest tradesman of unspotted character, was cooped solitary in a little cell at Stafford, waiting to be hanged by ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... with twenty-five hundred dollars might have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two years on that! She was free—at last! The knowledge exalted her—in the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, barren future, she gave no thought to the extreme unlikelihood of anyone's daring ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... yet for all that should I weep; but now that I am about to enter the presence of the King of kings, the Holy One—blessed be He forever and ever!—whose anger would be everlasting, whose sentence of death or imprisonment admits of no reprieve, and who is not to be pacified with words nor bribed with money, and in whose presence there are two roads before me, one leading into Paradise and the other into Hell, and should I not weep?" Then ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... and guiding him by the hand after alighting. Their humble means were exhausted in these offices of reverence and affection. One of the noble girls made her way to Boston, sought out the Governor, and implored a reprieve for her mother; but in vain. The sight of these young women, leading their blind father to comfort and provide for their "honored mother,—as innocent," as they declared her to be, "of the crime charged, as any person in the world,"—so ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Castle Green, Raleigh saw Markham, a very monument of melancholy, led through the steady rain to the scaffold. He saw the Sheriff presently called away, but could not see the Scotch lad who called him, who was Gibb riding in with the reprieve. He could see Markham standing before the block, he could see the Sheriff return, speak in a low voice to Markham, and lead him away into Arthur's Hall and lock him up there. He could then see Grey led out, he could see his face light up with a gleam of hope, as he stealthily stirred ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... bowers; with that sad path and seat Which none but light-heeled nymphs and fairies beat, Their solitary life, and how exempt From common frailty, the severe contempt They have of man, their privilege to live A tree or fountain, and in that reprieve What ages they consume: with the sad vale Of Diophania; and the mournful tale Of the bleeding, vocal myrtle:—these and more, Thy richer thoughts, we are upon the score To thy rare fancy for. Nor dost thou fall From thy ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... felt it a kind of reprieve when she heard from Mr. Strafford that they might delay their journey safely for a month. The sober middle age which had come upon her before its time, as her life rolled on out of the anguish and tumult of the past, ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... there was silence beyond the door, and then the woman grunted, and Barbara heard her turn back, muttering to herself. The girl breathed a deep sigh of relief—she had received a brief reprieve from death. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... helped himself, and his eyes began to roll round and round with a frightful glare, and every now and then they turned upon me, and I thought my last moment had come; but one of his companions, in a tone which had lost all respect for him, called off his attention for a moment, and I had a reprieve. It was but for a few minutes. I became once more the subject of conversation. Again the cups were filled and quaffed. I sat as motionless as a statue. A sign of fear, or even of consciousness, would only tend to enrage my captors. The countenance ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... troubled at the sight of so many crosses and circles in the superstitious Algebra and that black art of Geometry) will, no doubt, determine once in their lives to become figure-casters, and so vote them all to be throwen into the fire, if some good body doe not reprieve them for pye-bottoms, for which purposes you know analogicall numbers are incomparably apt, if they be ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... Chenonceaux, was once imprisoned here. Even the powerful influence of Diane scarcely gained her father's pardon from Francis I. His sentence had been pronounced and he was mounting the steps of the scaffold when the reprieve came. ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... boy at school again," said the nurse, "and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago." So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Brent in the presence of a jailer, and solemnly asseverated his respect for her dead lover's memory. Monday buzzed with rumors; the evening papers chronicled them hour by hour. A poignant anxiety was abroad. The girl would be found. Some miracle would happen. A reprieve would arrive. The sentence would be commuted. But the short day darkened into night even as Mortlake's short day was darkening. And the shadow of the gallows crept on and on and seemed to mingle ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... the uncertainty of Peel's position. I can't understand his motive for constantly poking his coercive bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally. They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Convention received the news of victory. It was really their reprieve, for news of disaster would have cut short their career. Jubilant over a prompt success, their joy was savage and infernal. With the eagerness of vampires they at once sent two commissioners to wipe the name of Toulon from the map, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... way deceived by the appearance of friendliness which the Stag had assumed. They knew that henceforth there was bitter hatred between them, and that their very lives were insecure. As to Ethel, it was, they knew, only a short reprieve which had been granted her. The Stag would not risk a division in the tribe for her sake, nor would attempt to bring her to a formal execution; but the first time she wandered from the hut, she would be found dead with a ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... resemble riot. The Government in London came to the conclusion that it would not do to hang John Porteous, and a message was sent by the Duke of Newcastle notifying her Majesty's pleasure that Porteous should have a reprieve for a period of six weeks—a preliminary step to the consequent commutation of the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... their opposition became violent, he directed the guard to fire among them; whereby six persons were killed, and eleven severely wounded. For this he was prosecuted at the expense of the city, and condemned to die. But, a short reprieve having been obtained, the mob, determined to defeat it, assembled in the night preceding the seventh day of September, whereon he was to have been executed pursuant to the sentence, and, in a very riotous ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... Olivia gravely, "inasmuch as the moon came up in the east to-night instead of the west, I shall be generous and give you one day's reprieve." ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... disputed that the women were tried for high treason (that is to say, for refusing to abjure the Covenant and to attend Episcopal worship) and condemned to death; but it has been denied that the sentence was ever carried into effect, on the strength of a reprieve granted by the Council at Edinburgh before the day of execution. That a reprieve, or rather a remand, was granted is certain, as the pages of the Council register remain to this day to testify. But it is not so certain that the decision of the Council at Edinburgh ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... relate the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her." Memoirs and Travels of Sir ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... pressed into naval service; paupers were handed over to the colonizing companies to be shipped to their settlements; repeatedly the prisons were emptied to provide colonists, and commissions were appointed, as in England in 1633, "to reprieve able-bodied persons convicted of certain felonies, and to bestow them to be used in discoveries and other foreign employments." [Footnote: Cal. of State Pap, Domestic, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... love not; if he grieve, His tears are barren as the unfruitful rain That rears no harvest from the green sea's plain, And as thorns crackling this man's laugh is vain. Nor can belief touch, kindle, smite, reprieve His heart who has ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... books placed before him. Still utterly incapable of preparing myself in any way for the disclosure expected from me; without thought or hope, or feeling of any kind, except a vague sense of thankfulness for the reprieve granted me before I was called on to speak—I mechanically looked round and round the room, as if I expected to see the sentence to be pronounced against me, already written on the walls, or grimly foreshadowed in the faces ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... case of impeachment), upon such conditions as lie may think proper, subject to such regulations as may be provided by law relative to the manner of applying for pardons. He shall biennially communicate to the General Assembly each case of reprieve, commutation or pardon granted, stating the name of each convict, the crime for which he was convicted, the sentence and its date, the date of commutation, pardon or reprieve, and ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... It isn't urgent." He was just as glad of the reprieve; it gave him one more chance to work matters through to a solution, and report success instead of failure. "But what's going ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... FORD—If I did think there were a reprieve to come for you I would be contented to spin out the time thus; but in good earnest I expect none; unless you had an apprehension you were not to die you would not spin out the time thus, not thus ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... informally to dinner, bringing with them a guest of theirs, "some one of the name of Davenant." For an instant he felt that he must ask her to telephone and put them off, but on second thoughts it seemed better to let them come. It would be in the nature of a reprieve, not so much for himself as for Olivia. It would give her one more cheerful evening, the last, perhaps, in her life. Besides—the suggestion was a vague one, sprung doubtless of the hysterical element in his suppressed excitement—he might test his avowals on Temple and Davenant, getting a foretaste ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... beside him for an instant as if to give a steadiness to me. "I want you to take me out to the State Prison. I want to talk face to face with a man who killed his own brother, in cold blood, it is said. A pretty powerful influence is at me day and night for a reprieve and I—I don't know what to do about it. It is a difficult case. If I went in my official capacity to see the man it might give his friends undue hopes; and suddenly I felt that I could run away from the ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... him. The hour for the execution passed, and, being now free for the time, he fled the country. He went to Africa, and there he so disgraced the state that bore him that of late times I hear he has been sent for to come back to Austria. Even yet the Emperor may suspend the reprieve and send him to the block for his ancient crime. If he had a thousand heads, he could not atone for the worse crimes ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... shawl was about her shoulders. But this day of misfortune had set Mrs. Hooven adrift in even worse condition than her daughter. Her purse, containing a miserable handful of dimes and nickels, was in her trunk, and her trunk was in the hands of the landlady. Minna had been allowed such reprieve as her thirty-five cents would purchase. The destitution of Mrs. Hooven and her little girl had begun from the very moment of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... struck, her bullets did not penetrate the brain, but they did give Bill an instant's reprieve. The bear struck at the wounds they made, then halted, bawling, in the snow. His roving eye caught sight of Virginia's form. With a ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... the savages trailed off into a chorus of disgruntled murmurings and the booming of the drums died down in disappointment. The worshippers had been cheated of their sadistic pleasure. There was something wrong with the timing of the rite; their mysterious fire-god had granted the captives a reprieve. ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... dissipation, consecrated and meritorious as they fondly believed, and gratifying their desire for change and variety. She was a kindly person of good reputation, trustworthy, and kind to the poor, and stout John Hall, her husband, could manage the business alone, and was thought not to regret a little reprieve from her continual tongue. ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... narrative of Suetonius[144] connects these shows with the well-known tale of the unhappy gladiators who fondly hoped that a kind word from the Emperor meant a reprieve of their doom. He had determined to surpass all his predecessors in his exhibition of a sea-fight, and had provided a sheet of water large enough for the manoeuvres of real war-galleys, carrying some five hundred men apiece.[145] The crews, eleven thousand in all, ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... out the names by sixes and eights, and then to arrive at an opinion when your day of execution will be. If your name comes at the head of the list, you wish that you were "YOUNG, Carolus, e Coll. Vigorn." that you might have a reprieve of your sentence. If your name is at the end of the list, you wish that you were "ADAMS, Edvardus Jacobus, e Coll. Univ." that you might go in at once, and be put out of your misery. If your name is in the middle of the list, you wish that it were elsewhere: and then you wish that it were out ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... keep the pleasure of telling him of his week's reprieve till he should come home to sup, as he had promised to do, in her mother's room. She was not sorry to hear him sigh as he passed the knapsack, which she had been packing up for his journey. "How delighted he will be when he hears the good news!" ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... some attempts to save him. The Dutch ambassador made vigorous efforts to procure a reprieve, while the French and Spanish ambassadors were inert. The ambassadors from the states nevertheless persevered, and early in the day of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from Fairfax. "But we found," they say in their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... disturb your mirthful hour; And further, to avoid all blame Of cruelty upon my name, To give you time for preparation, And fit you for your future station, Three several warnings you shall have Before you're summoned to the grave; Willing for once I'll quit my prey, And grant a kind reprieve; In hopes you'll have no more to say, But, when I call again this way, Well pleased the world will leave." To these conditions both consented, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... this, the last request that I shall send, A gentle ear; I wish that he may find A happy passage, and a prosp'rous wind. The contract I don't plead, which he betray'd, 130 Nor that his promised conquest be delay'd; All that I ask is but a short reprieve, Till I forget to love, and learn to grieve; Some pause and respite only I require, Till with my tears I shall have quench'd my fire. If thy address can but obtain one day Or two, my death that service shall repay.' Thus she entreats; such messages with tears Condoling Anne ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... time while the carriage was conveying Mr. Eldridge home; and yet when he came in sight of the house, he wished a longer reprieve from the dreadful task of informing Mr. and Mrs. Temple of ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... it is nonsense to expect any aid from Weyler, who always staunchly supports his lieutenants, whether right or wrong, and in the second place, we do not want a reprieve. We've got to get them clean away from here before they will be safe—clean off the blooming island. I'll take them back to the old Mariella—that's the safest place for them. I wish to goodness ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... in the captain's heart was pity. He forgot all about the crime in commiseration of the wretchedness of the criminal. Yet he knew it was useless to hold out any hope of a reprieve, even if that had been to be desired. All he could do was to let the poor fellow know at least that he was not friendless; and this sign ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... person and behaviour of Mr. Wilks[199] has no small share in conducing to the popularity of the play; and when a handsome fellow is going to a more coarse exit than beheading, his shape and countenance make every tender one reprieve him with all her heart, without waiting till she hears his ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... cares On which the day is closing, The hour of eve brings sweet reprieve, O come, come away. O come where love will smile on thee, And round its hearth will gladness be, And time fly merrily, O ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... disposition, and abandoned morals, being provoked by the insults of the mob, commanded his soldiers to fire upon the crowd, by which precipitate orders several innocent persons were killed; Porteus was tried and condemned to die, but obtained a reprieve from the Queen, who was then Regent. The mob, however, were [sic] determined to execute the sentence; they accordingly rose in a tumultuous manner, forced open the prison doors, dragged forth Porteus, and hanged him on a dyer's pole; after which they quietly ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... "Ha, ha! Reprieve, I call it, because if the skipper had gone on with his silly argument much longer he would have had to be knocked out of the way. I could hardly hold myself in on account of the precious minutes. However, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. These being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and walking with unwilling steps away, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... Street.—I received yesterday a reprieve from Gloucester, and Harris's sanction for my staying here a week longer; so that the meeting, and the report of Mr. Guise and Mr. Burrow's declaring themselves both as candidates upon separate interests, but secretly assisting one another, were, as Richard the 3rd calls ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... a man is condemned to die in a week's time and is shut up in a prison from which it is certain that he cannot escape, he will always hope that a reprieve may come before the week is over. Besides, the prison may catch fire, and he may be suffocated not with a rope, but with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while exercising ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... the May 1954 meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its 'work and play' sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... 'tis my doom, love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she-advowson fly Incumbency? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but how soon the market fails, Your sex lives faster than the males; And if, to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... melted with grief. She played on him with all a woman's artillery; and at last actually wrung from him what she called a reprieve. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... rests my sin against you. This paper, dated only a few months before my father's death, was in this pocket-book, the other paper in the deed box, of which his executors took possession. No one knew of this paper but me. I kept it back, granting the reprieve for your sweet sake. If I had obtained possession of you I might have told you of it—I do not know. I cannot answer for myself—my old self,' he repeated. 'God forgive me, I am ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... the word. It was like proclaiming a reprieve to a wretch upon the scaffold about to be launched into eternity. It caused such excitement in the minds of the motley crew—all of them suffering from extreme thirst—that, without further hesitancy, they bent eagerly to their oars,—putting ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... doubts, and, with a clear conscience, gave herself up to the enjoyment of her sister's visit, each minute of which seemed of diamond worth. Perhaps the delights were the more intense from compression; but it was a precious reprieve when Arthur's answer came, rejoicing at Violet's having a companion, and hoping that she would keep her till his return, which he should not scruple to defer, since she was so well provided for. He had just been deliberating whether he could accept an invitation ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... deferment, procrastination, postponement, respite, reprieve; retardation, retention, obstruction; dawdling, lingering, dalliance. Antonyms: dispatch, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he fabricated a special taboo. Only could he marry, he explained, when the Southern Cross rode highest in the sky. Knowing his astronomy, he thus gained a reprieve of nearly nine months; and he was confident that within that time he would either be dead or escaped to the coast with full knowledge of the Red One and of the source of the Red One's wonderful voice. At first he had fancied the Red One ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... his agents. The audience enjoys some delightful thrills while watching this situation—whichever it may be—develop, but is spared any acute anxiety, knowing from experience that just at the last moment the rescuing boat, or the heroic firemen, or the troops, or a reprieve from the Governor, will arrive and save the leading man or woman and the play from a premature end and for ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... who doth compassionate My sickness and my long unrest, that unto him I may Make moan of all that I endure for dole and drearihead And of my sleepless eyes, oppressed of wakefulness alway? My night in torments is prolonged; I burn, without reprieve, In flames of heart-consuming care that rage in me for aye. The bug and flea do drink my blood, even as one drinks of wine, Poured by the hand of damask-lipped and slender-waisted may. The body of me, amongst the lice, is as an orphan's good, That in an unjust Cadi's hands doth dwindle and decay. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... hideous and unparalleled battle, and having worked them up into a warlike and blood-thirsty state of mind, to put them off without any havoc and slaughter would have been as bitter a disappointment as to summon a multitude of good people to attend an execution, and then cruelly balk them by a reprieve. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the condemned man's life. My father, at first obdurate, would gradually be melted by my mother's entreaties. Turning aside to brush away a furtive and not unmanly tear, he would suddenly tear the death-warrant to shreds, and taking up another huge placard headed REPRIEVE, he would quickly fill it in and sign it. He would then hand it to the Private Secretary, who would instantly start post-haste for Cork. As the condemned man was being actually conducted to the scaffold, the Private Secretary ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... looked upon as a reprieve, and when a traveller, expressing sympathy, suggested that "it might sicken her a bit of camp life," Jack clung ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... severity would be carried any further than the mere terror of execution. When the decisive period approached, and he was to receive the extreme unction, he looked wistfully round, and when there still appeared no prospect of a reprieve, he turned to Julian Romero, and asked him once more if there was no hope of pardon for him. Julian Romero shrugged his shoulders, looked on the ground, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... drew her back with its light clatter. Perhaps at last it had good tidings to offer. Unless it brought them soon it would bring them too late—like a reprieve after execution. She took the narrow thread of paper in her hand and glanced at its latest entries. As she watched the small type wheel revolve and stamp, it broke upon her that the inanimate herald was spelling out, letter by ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... Not worse then by his shield and spear Had dealt with Jephtha, who by argument, Defended Israel from the Ammonite, Had not his prowess quell'd thir pride In that sore battel when so many dy'd Without Reprieve adjudg'd to death, For want ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... pulled her from the line and took her place in the squad of the condemned, saying that they would have to shoot him before they could shoot Yashka whom he knew and loved. After a stormy argument a reprieve was shown to the executioners and Yashka was allowed to be taken from the field of death ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... reprieve to Conrade, and the loss of one tooth of Francis's, and when the rewards had been laid out, and presents chosen for all the stay-at-home children, including Rose, Lady Temple became able to think about other matters. The ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... enjoyed it. Ruth enjoyed it. That she could do so is wonderful, perhaps, but then, so many human capabilities are wonderful! Men about to be hanged eat a hearty meal with relish.... How much more might Ruth find pleasure since she had been granted a reprieve! ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... ground all the rustlers sat down around it. They had brought food and drink. Jean had to utter a grim laugh at their coolness; and he was reminded of many dare-devil deeds known to have been perpetrated by the Hash Knife Gang. Jean was glad of a reprieve. The longer the rustlers put off an attack the more time the allies of the Isbels would have to get here. Rather hazardous, however, would it be now for anyone to attempt to get to the Isbel cabins in the daytime. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... for your sweet sake one might let him live; But the first fault was a green seed of shame, And now the flower, and deadly fruit will come With apple-time in autumn. By my life, I would they had slain him there in Edinburgh; But I reprieve him; lo the thank I get, To set the base folk muttering like smoked bees Of shame and love, and how love comes to shame, And the queen loves shame that comes of love; Yet I say nought and go about my ways, ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Servant, and he delivers it faithfully: but whether it is to be called my message, or is not to be called my message, is to depend entirely on the subject-matter!... Thus, if a King, refusing to appear in person, should issue a reprieve to prisoners under sentence of Death, a proclamation of Peace or of War, an address to the representatives of the constitution, (Clergy, Lords, and Commons,) in parliament assembled,—the message would be his. But if, on the contrary, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... not, you're a good little girl, Becky, and I'm your vriend, mind," said Sir Pitt, and putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away—greatly to Rebecca's relief; for it was evident that her secret was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... any man, snatched back to life in such a fashion would start and tremble at the reprieve, or would break down altogether, but this boy turned his head steadily, and followed with his eyes the direction of the officer's sword, then nodded gravely, and, with his shoulders squared, took up the new position, straightened his back, and ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... it is settled what is to be done with them; excepting always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called 'Roncesvalles;' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass at once into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into the fire without any reprieve." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... discovered, by computation, that there remained but a fortnight to elapse of the engagement he had formed, and to which, though certain it was never to be renewed, no power on earth could make him false. With some difficulty they procured a reprieve for this short space, after which they found him perfectly willing to come under any engagements they chose to dictate. He entered the service of the Estates accordingly, and wrought himself forward to be Major in Gilbert Ker's corps, commonly ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... footsteps—there was a general hush, and then another bang of the mallet on the ball and then a clapping of hands. Sir Patrick was a privileged person. He had been allowed, in all probability, to try again; and he was succeeding at the second effort. This implied a reprieve of some seconds. Blanche ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... inexpressibly relieved to discover that the problems, complicated enough to bring on a slow fever, were all unravelled; indeed, my feelings bore no small resemblance to those of a criminal at the gallows just presented with a reprieve. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... declarations que les Deputes ont faites a chacune des seances (Paris, Froulle, 1793, in-8). He gives the names of the deputies who voted on each of the five appeals, until at length the terrible sentence was pronounced, 310 voting for the reprieve and 380 for the execution of their monarch. The deputies were so ashamed of their work that they doomed the recorder of their infamous deed to share the punishment of ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... time from his friends who are breathing leisurely about him,—I suppose the minutes lengthen as time approaches eternity, in the same manner as the miles get longer as you travel northward),—after hanging four minutes, according to the best calculation of the bystanders, a reprieve came, and I was ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... country, with such a climate, it seems as if one could almost make repair equal waste, and thus keep death indefinitely at bay. But all men, even the strongest, are living under a death sentence, with but an indefinite reprieve. And even yet, with all of our science and health, we can not fully account for those diseases which seemingly pick the very best flower of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... perfectly self-possessed, expecting no mercy, no reprieve, made answer in a clear, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Mrs Goodenough's, to which they were all three invited, but to Which Molly alone was going. Molly's heart leaped up at the thoughts of stopping at home, even though the next moment she had to blame herself for rejoicing at a reprieve that was purchased by another's suffering. However, the remedies prescribed by her husband did Mrs Gibson good; and she was particularly grateful and caressing ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pressed on eagerly, for I love to witness a reprieve, such as many a time it hath been mine to see when the ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... fell on his coat at her feet, and with the instinct of grasping at any pretext, for a moment of thought and reprieve, she exclaimed: ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Glad of every moment's reprieve, I willingly agreed to the proposal; and Mrs. Selwyn had but just time to shut me in, before ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... an Express to the Congress. This repulse, if I mistake not (or victory, as Carleton may call it), will stand 'em but in little stead—'t will be only a temporary reprieve—we'll reinforce our friends, let the consequence be what it may—Quebec must fall, and the lofty strong walls and brazen gates (the shield of cowards) must tumble by an artificial earthquake; should they continue in their ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... raving blasphemy and foaming impenitence. His desperate venom and blasphemous raillery is part despair, part calculated horror. In his last revolt against death and all his foes, he snatches at any weapon, even truth, that may serve his purpose and gain a reprieve:— ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... made him supreme, he kept away from The Hague, but then saw that the murderers were recompensed. Eighty years later a deserter from one of our regiments was under sentence to be shot. The officer commanding the firing party, another Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, had received a reprieve, with secret orders not to produce it until the culprit stood facing the levelled muskets. At that moment, as he drew the reprieve from his pocket, his handkerchief, coming with it, fell to the ground. The soldiers took it for their signal and fired. Glenlyon exclaimed, "It ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... your form improve, But all are lost, unless you love; While that sweet passion you disdain, Your veil and beauty are in vain: In pity then prevent my fate, For after dying all reprieve's too late. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... for he believed that to solidify a quicksand was impossible. The effect on him was so great that he was mentally prostrated, and although the company generously and justly relieved him from his engagement, the reprieve came too late, for he died. It then came to be a question whether or not the tunnel should be abandoned. Many advised that it should. At this juncture Mr Robert Stephenson, son of the great George, came forward and undertook ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... thy implied command, I quit at length this long-disputed land: Assist me still!—and grant my native shore One hour of rest, one tranquil season more! Enough her ancient crimes have teem'd with woes; Let her long griefs be paid with short repose: Or, if I seek that kind reprieve in vain, Let future years, at least, dissolve her chain! Protect my honoured mother: and assuage The woes that wreck my sister's youthful age:— If yet on earth the beauteous flow'ret bloom, Or wither'd moulder in the silent tomb, I must not know—Enough—thy gracious ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... but the legal authorities had prosecuted the case; and he, at that moment, lay in jail a criminal, condemned to die. The gallows was standing ready to exact its victim within two hours; the post from London would arrive in an hour with or without a reprieve. His father and mother, what were they then doing, thinking, suffering? On them and him I was meditating when the words of the turnkey ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... ingenious robust Youth, who, I hope, will not take it ill if I refer giving you an account of their several Recreations to another Opportunity. In the mean time, if you would but bestow a little of your wholesome Advice upon our Coachmen, it might perhaps be a Reprieve to some of their Necks. As I understand you have several Inspectors under you, if you would but send one amongst us here in the Temple, I am persuaded he would not want Employment. But I leave this to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... stagnation of chivalric feeling in the army. Szekuli, colonel of the Prussian hussars, condemned several patriotic ladies, belonging to the highest Polish families at Znawrazlaw, to be placed beneath the gallows, in momentary expectation of death, until it, at length, pleased him to grant a reprieve, couched in the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... Hughie's evil courses, he'd never guessed the worst, nor anything like it. Not a doubt had he, nor could have, that Hughie was guilty; but he went straight from the court to his young woman and said, "I've saved money for us to be married on. There's little chance that I can win Hughie a reprieve; and, whether or no, it will eat up all, or nearly all, my savings. Only he's my one brother. Shall I go?" And she said, "Go, my dear, if I wait ten years for you." So he borrowed a horse for a stage or two, and ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... had better wait." He was big with news which he had come to tell, but which he knew could not be told without much discussion. He had hurried away to Plumstead as fast as two horses could bring him, and now, finding himself there, he was willing to accept the reprieve which dinner ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... no less than grief doth murder men. The thief, even at the gallows, may be killed If, while through every vein with fear he's chilled, Sudden reprieve do set ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... the morrow. Needless to say what cries of delight, what acclamations followed this discovery. To use Carteret's own comparison, the feelings of surprise and comfort experienced by the crew can only be likened to those of a criminal, who at the last moment on the scaffold receives a reprieve! It was Nitendit Island, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... have felt that there was no explaining what she suffered. She had only to act, to plunge. First she fixed her mind on Harry Oxford. To be able to speak his name and see him awaiting her, must have been relief, a reprieve. She did not waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over. Oh, brave girl! what do you think of me? But I have no Harry Whitford, I am alone. Let anything be said against women; we must be very bad to have such bad things written of us: only, say this, that to ask ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the letters is poor, he is open to bribery. So, no, we must make Jacques Collin speak. What a duel! He will beat me. The better plan would be to purchase those letters by exchange for another document—a letter of reprieve—and to place the man in my gang. Jacques Collin is the only man alive who is clever enough to come after me, poor Contenson and dear old Peyrade both being dead! Jacques Collin killed those two unrivaled spies on purpose, as it were, to make a place for himself. So, you ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... until the horses, save for the wounded one still kicking fruitlessly, were gone. Travis felt a sense of reprieve. They might not be able to get at the Red, but he was hurt and afoot, two strikes which might yet reduce him to a ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... superior officer, Sir Harry Burrard, took up the direction of the army immediately the battle ended, and Wellesley had to acquiesce in a suspension of operations at a moment when the enemy seemed to be within his grasp. Junot made the best use of his reprieve. He entered into negotiations for the evacuation of Portugal, and obtained the most favourable terms in the Convention of Cintra, signed on the 30th of August. The French army was permitted to return to France with its arms ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... asleep, he sat before the blaze in the big fireplace, on the hearth cleanly swept with its turkey-wing and buffalo-tail. There was to be one more night of his reprieve from solitude. The three women of the house and the man were sleeping around the room in bunks. The child's bed had been placed near him on the floor after she slept, as he had asked it to be. He had no thought of sleep for himself. He was too intensely awake with apprehension. ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... railroad, altogether about forty miles from town, but for want of regular traffic and proper means of conveyance an exceedingly tedious and unpleasant drive thence to the said farm. Here there is indeed pure air for the children, and a blessed reprieve from the confinement of the city; but so uncivilized a life for any one who has ever been accustomed to the usual decencies of civilization, that it keeps me in ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... it yesterday, when I saw that you had recognized me. It was very merciful in you to reprieve me, even for a few hours; but you will pardon me if I say it ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... hailed this as a reprieve, and thanked Miss Fennimore, adding the few particulars he had told his sister. 'I hope the girls are ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... save her from so horrible a doom he offered to any man who would redeem the tax, his crown, his kingdom, and all his wealth. But the people would hear of no exchange. They demanded that the king should bear the stroke of fate in common with the meanest citizen. Then the king asked for a reprieve of eight days to lament his child and prepare her for her death. Meanwhile the dragon, infuriated at the unusual delay, hung continually about the city gates, expecting his victim, and poisoned all the sentinels and ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... Glad of any reprieve from giving the answer she hated to make, the girl left the room in haste, as if intent upon summoning the lad. But she was gone longer than seemed necessary, nor did the waiting grandmother hear the boyish voice she loved, despite its stammering; and ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... used to denominate all wheeled vehicles) it will be to his own extreme detriment and inconvenience, but for once in my life I'll not mind this, or bother my head about it. I'll come—God knows with a thankful and joyful heart—glad of a day's reprieve from labour. If you don't send the gig I'll walk. Now mind, I am not coming to Brookroyd with the idea of dissuading Mary Taylor from going to New Zealand. I've said everything I mean to say on that subject, and ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... objections to their plans. Yet they could see that he was consenting to his exile only because he had no argument with which to meet theirs. He refused to resign from the Patent Office until the last moment, as if hoping for some reprieve from the sentence which his family had pronounced. He was moody, irritable, a changed boy from the one who had hippity-hopped with Leila on Constance's ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... you are certainly better to-day without the draught, discontinue it also to-morrow. I will make an alteration for the day after." So that night Madame Dalibard visited in vain her niece's chamber: Helen had a reprieve. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
