"Ruffian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... muscular, whose every movement spoke courage and self-confidence. Auberry was his name, and as I talked with him he told me of days passed with my heroes—Fremont, Carson, Ashley, Bill Williams, Jim Bridger, even the negro ruffian Beckwourth—all men of the border of whose deeds I had read. Auberry had trapped from the St. Mary's to the sources of the Red, and his tales, told in simple and matter-of-fact terms, set my very blood atingle. ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... spirit, capacity, and love of their country, which providentially happened at this time, could ward off the ruin of the kingdom. Such Athelstan was; and such was his brother Edmund, who reigned five years with great reputation, but was at length, by an obscure ruffian, assassinated in his own palace. Edred, his brother, succeeded to the late monarchy: though he had left two sons, Edwin and Edgar, both were passed by on account of their minority. But on this prince's death, which happened after a troublesome reign of ten years, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... deck the captured crew of an unarmed merchant vessel which he had sunk, destroyed their boats, took from them their life-belts, carried them miles away from any floating wreckage, and then projected them into the sea to drown, this unspeakable monarch approved the awful deed and decorated the ruffian ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... "Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deafening clamour in the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... wasn't your fault, I'll be bound," was the gracious reply. "What a ruffian you must be, George, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... criminals, in being no more than half guilty. His training told him of the contempt women entertain toward the midway or cripple sinner, when they have no special desire to think him innocent. How write, or even how phrase his having merely breathed in his ruffian's hearing the wish that he might hear of her husband's defeat! And with what object? Here, too, a woman might, years hence, if not forgive, bend her head resignedly over the man's vile nature, supposing strong passion his motive. But the name for the actual motive? It would not bear writing, or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cannot indeed really believe that this vulgar ruffian, this grim scarecrow, this Guy ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... thought there was a screw loose in my intellects,—and that involved the probable loss of a boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I understand to be the professional ruffian of the neighboring theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping voce di petto, to Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-knife; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... but feared nothing,—the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her and she to them; and although her shy and quiet traits were not sufficiently understood to make her universally beloved, not a loafing ruffian in town but knew her modest face, her odd attire, and her straightforward walk; and the rudest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... returning. The situation ceased to be menacing; it became safe and puzzling and even a bit mysterious. Casey reached for his plug, remembered his manners and took away his hand. Robbed of his customary inspiration he stood undecided, scowling at the feebly blinking ruffian called Joe. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... The ruffian looked with some doubt upon the youth—inquiringly, as if to account in some way for the singular coolness, not to say contemptuous scornfulness, of his replies and manner. There was something, too, of a searching ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... "must be content to exchange your decent and court-beseeming rapier, which I will retain in safe keeping, for this broadsword, with an hundredweight of rusty iron about the hilt, and to wear these huge-paned slops, instead of your civil and moderate hose. We allow no cloak, for your ruffian always walks in cuerpo; and the tarnished doublet of bald velvet, with its discoloured embroidery, and—I grieve to speak it—a few stains from the blood of the grape, will best suit the garb of a roaring boy. I will leave you to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... deceiver!" shouted I. "Turn, ruffian, and defend yourself!" But old Jowler, when he saw me, only whistled, looked at his lifeless daughter, and slowly ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not all. Warning is, in ordinary cases, the principal end of punishment; but it is not the only end. To remove the offender, to preserve society from those dangers which are to be apprehended from his incorrigible depravity, is often one of the ends. In the case of such a knave as Wild, or such a ruffian as Thurtell, it is a very important end. In the case of a powerful and wicked statesman, it is infinitely more important; so important, as alone to justify the utmost severity, even though it were certain that his fate would not deter ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the young ruffian!" said Mrs. Badger as soon as he came within hearing distance. "Here comes the wicked boy who tried to kill ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... interspersed with ringing reminiscences of the heroic early history of Kansas. Mrs. S. N. Wood, who in the Border Ruffian days went through the enemy's lines and at great personal peril brought into beleaguered Lawrence the ammunition which enabled it to defend itself, came to the platform to add her good word for equal suffrage. It was a great pleasure ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... The point is that it belongs to Schomberg's wife. That Schomberg seems to be an unconscionable ruffian—don't you ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Mr. King, of Alabama, who occupied the chair, ordered the galleries to be cleared, while Mr. Benton, in a towering rage, denounced the offenders and demanded their arrest. "Here is one," said he, "just above me, that may be easily be identified—the bank ruffian." Mr. King revoked his order to clear the galleries, but directed the arrest of the person pointed out by Mr. Benton, who was soon brought before the bar of the Senate. It was Mr. Lloyd, a practicing lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not permitted ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... "You do more than ever deserve death!!" Then turning again towards Pei Ming, "You ruffian!" he said, "what ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... amass as much wealth as Solomon; and thou shalt repent so devoutly, that thy repentance shall be more famous than thy villainy—and that is a bold word. But for all this, Tressilian must be looked after. Thy ruffian yonder is gone to dog him. It concerns our ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... inside of sixty can run, like blazes, when he is scarce able to stand upon his pins because of the quantity of bricks in his beaver. Mrs. Jones ran towards her dwelling, but before she could reach it, the ruffian at her heels clasped her! Just as she was about to give an awful scream, wake up all the neighbors and police ten miles around, she saw—Jones! ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... obsolete; it was Scott who called into life the Vigilance Committee which expatriated York's friend, Jack Hamlin; it was York who created the "Sandy Bar Herald," which characterized the act as "a lawless outrage," and Scott as a "Border Ruffian"; it was Scott, at the head of twenty masked men, who, one moonlight night, threw the offending "forms" into the yellow river, and scattered the types in the dusty road. These proceedings were received in the distant and more civilized outlying ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... fragments with an axe. He then packed his body in a box, and sprinkling it with salt, despatched it to a packet bound for New Orleans. Suspicions having been excited, he was seized and tried before Judge Kent. The trial is, perhaps, the most disgraceful upon the records of any country. The ruffian's mistress was produced in court, and examined, in disgusting detail, as to her connection with Colt, and his movements during the days and nights succeeding the murder. The head of the murdered man was bandied to and fro in the court, handed up to the jury, and commented on by witnesses ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... virtuous. But the extremities are rotten, and sentiment has rotted them both. Parliament has become a hissing and a scorn. No man of any party in all broad England could be found to deny this, and many would say more. The sentimentalist has said that loutishness shall not be curbed, that a bawling ruffian who is silenced is martyred, that every man shall talk as he likes, and the veto of the Polish Assembly which enabled any one man to ruin the work of a session is revived in sober, solid England. So it is that all has gone to wreck; and an assembly once the noblest on earth is treated ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... at me; the ruffian Anra Mainyu, the deadly, wrought against me nine diseases and ninety, and nine hundred, and nine thousand, and nine times ten thousand diseases. So mayest thou heal me, O Holy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... lover's demeanour, on his return to Grassdale, brought unspeakable joy to the heart of Madeline Lester. But hardly had Aram left Houseman's squalid haunt in Lambeth when a letter was put into the ruffian's hand telling of his daughter's serious illness. For this daughter Houseman, villain as he was, would willingly have given his life. Now, casting all other thoughts aside, he set forth, not for France, but for Knaresborough, where ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... horror for herself beat upon her spirit. But a memory of her first resolve came to her. From stark necessity, she put her whole reliance on an effort to temporize. She felt that her only recourse in this emergency must lie in deceiving the ruffian who thus beset her. Much as she abhorred him, she had no choice. There was none to whom she could appeal for succor. She must depend absolutely upon her ability to beguile him. She must hide the revulsion inspired by his mere presence. She must arm herself with the world-old weapons of her sex, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... Father McCabe would have done that; he has got me into a great deal of trouble, but you are wronging him. He would not get a ruffian to break into ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens all. "But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, "the greatest sinner may return." I have been cheered to see symptoms of effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope the period of STURM UND ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would have ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... was esteemed erudite amongst the most learned of his order. My attention was called reluctantly from the judge to the second case of the day, which now came for adjudication. The court was hushed as a ruffian and monster walked sullenly into the dock, charged with the perpetration of the most horrible offences. I turned instinctively from the prisoner to the judge again. The latter sat with his attention fixed, his elbow resting on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... very easy man, but would work you hard and never allow you any chance night or day; he was a farmer, about fifty, stout, full face, a real country ruffian; member of no church, a great drinker and gambler; will sell a slave as quick as any other slave-holder. He had a great deal of cash, but did not rank high in society. His wife was very severe; hated a colored man to have any comfort in the world. They had ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the war against America broke out, his gaiety all forsook him. The idea of a ruffian soldiery overrunning his native land, preyed incessantly on his spirits, and threw him into those brown studies which cost his lady full many a tear. Unable to bear his disquietude, he fled at length from his wife ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... enough that there was not a tittle of solid evidence against the man Nicolet, nor had I the power to move the police of His Majesty the King from their decision. In my heart of hearts I had the firm conviction that the ginger-polled ruffian knew all about Carissimo and all about the present whereabouts of that rascal Theodore. But what could I say, Sir? What could ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... approaching spectacle, and very sensibly he went through the performance. He was arrayed on these occasions in the full dress of a green velvet dressing-gown, worn in the style affected by the FEROCIOUS RUFFIAN in small theatres, and, in place of a bugler, was accompanied by a pipe-bearer. This aide followed him over the battle-field, wherever the exigencies of the service required, and supplied him with whiffs of the fragrant weed to compose his nerves at intervals during the action. Their united ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... than fear at Pickersgill. Mr Hautaine's dress became him; he was a handsome, fine-looking man, and had nothing of the ruffian in his appearance; unless, like Byron's Corsair, he was half savage, half soft. She could not help thinking that she had met many with less pretensions, as far as appearance went, to the claims of a gentleman, at Almack's and other ...
— The Three Cutters • Captain Frederick Marryat
... no. Don't do that, sir. You mustn't for a moment give up facing that old ruffian. If you do he will get ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... over-confidence, when the Rebels reckoned on taking Washington, the air was to be darkened with the gibbeted carcasses of dogs and caitiffs. Pollard, in the first volume of his Southern History of the War, prints without comment the letter of a ruffian who helped butcher our wounded in Sudley Church after the first battle of Manassas, in which he says that he had resolved to give no quarter. In Missouri the Rebels took scalps as trophies, and that they made personal ornaments of the bones of our ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... and lasses," continued the ruffian, "dinna meet at Muschat's Cairn at midnight to crack nuts," and he again attempted to take hold ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... that were woefully unlike to those of the bold, lion-like scout of former days, he told how he had fainted and fallen on the breast of his master, how he had lain all night on the battle-field among the dead and dying, how he had been stripped and left for dead by the ruffian followers of the camp, and how at last he had been found and rescued by one of the ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... into exile the cruel recollection of the name "brigand" (ruffian), which had been formerly abusively replied to him, and that keen desire for vengeance which was one day to prove so fatal ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... nimble; although Jack made a dart after him pistol in hand, meaning to wreak summary vengeance upon him, the ruffian ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... when the door was opened and a drunken ruffian entered, I awoke from my troubled slumbers. "Hi, Dutchy, and have yez any tin?" he threatened. "Kind sir," I replied, "when I departed for the West I left all my wealth behind me." Verily, now I was proving myself the worthy scion of valiant ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... her voyage along the thirty-seventh parallel. In the meanwhile, Lady Glenarvan undertook to vanquish the resistance of the ruffian. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... 1791, vol. lxi., part ii. p. 1169: "Early in the morning of the first of January the Faex Populi assemble together, carrying stangs[86] and baskets. Any inhabitant, stranger, or whoever joins not this ruffian tribe in sacrificing to their favourite Saint day, if unfortunate enough to be met by any of the band, is immediately mounted across the stang (if a woman, she is basketed), and carried, shoulder height, to the nearest public-house, where the payment of ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... for this assault," stormed Mr. Drayne, applying a handkerchief to the bruised spot under his eye. "Both you and Prescott—-your ruffian friend for assaulting ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... drunken ruffian!" cried the doctor, in a rage. "You've been down in the cabin helping yourself to the spirits, or you would not dare to ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... the King said, "Serve him right, the rebellious ruffian! And now, as those lions won't eat ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the painters came from, and where the brutes of students went to. A similar mystery hangs over the intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have perplexed the least observant. The ruffian, at least, whom I now carried Pinkerton to visit, was one of the most crapulous in the quarter. He turned out for our delectation a huge "crust" (as we used to call it) of St. Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly in an exhausted ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was, at first blush, more gratifying to Simon than the original statement. Yet, when Eliza was gone, he went and looked in his bit of a looking-glass, half hoping to find some touch of the latent ruffian in his face. All he saw there was a kindly, unalarming countenance, with a full blond beard, and thick blond hair. The eyes had a look of bewilderment which did not lessen their habitual mildness. He straightened ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... in "Whimzies" were an Almanac-maker, a Ballad-monger, a Decoy, an Exchange-man, a Forester, a Gamester, an Hospital-man, a Jailer, a Keeper, a Launderer, a Metal-man, a Neater, an Ostler, a Postmaster, a Quest-man, a Ruffian, a Sailor, a Traveller, an Under-Sheriff, a Wine-Soaker, a Xantippean, a Jealous Neighbour, a Zealous Brother. The collection was enlarged by addition under separate title-page of "A Cater-Character, thrown out of a box ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... was usually a gentleman, but in his cups he became little short of a ruffian in manner. He ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... present to a clever and muscular ruffian one of the most formidable weapons of offence he could possibly possess, as he can, and frequently does, inflict the deadliest blows upon his captor. Another great drawback is the fact that these handcuffs do not fit all wrists, and often ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... she'd have split! The one ambition she has left is to be with Tippoo Tib in Paradise. But he can intercede for her and get her in—provided he feels that way; so she rounded on me in the hope of winning his special favor! But the old ruffian knows better! He'll no more pray for her than tell me where the ivory is! The Koran tells him there are much better houris in Paradise, so why trouble to take along a toothless favorite ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... to think it a little hard, when their enemies will not please to distinguish between the rebellious riot committed by that brutal ruffian, Sir Phelim O'Neal[2] with his tumultuous crew of rabble; and the forces raised afterwards by the Catholic lords and gentlemen of the English pale, in defence of the King after the English rebellion began. It is well known, that His Majesty's affairs were in great distraction some time ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... had once more gone within; there was no one abroad, and if there were, no one probably would take any notice of a burly ruffian brow-beating a child. ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... make them see the necessity. It was impossible for Northern men to fathom the spirit and the desperate exigencies of the slave system and its outbreak, and consequently to comprehend the desperate nature of the struggle. We were like a policeman endeavoring to arrest a boy-ruffian, and, for the sake of his friends and for old acquaintance sake, doing it with all possible tenderness for his person and his feelings—till all of a sudden he feels the grip on his throat and the dagger's point at his breast, and knows that it is ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... perhaps for ever gone.— Tell me, thou silly Manager of Love, How got this Ruffian in? how was it possible Without thy Knowledge ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... the account of what he himself was an eye-witness to, after the affair of last night. These are the particulars. About midnight my aunt received twelve wounds from a ruffian, of which she died. I also received six successive stabs, which alarmed the people of the house, who set up a shouting: whereupon the assassin run off. Besides being without food or the means of providing any, this misfortune has befallen ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the ruffian, "I am at your service. Tell me the name of the fellow who has wronged you and I will kill him right off. I would kill Jesus Christ ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... world to have had an honourable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take off the dark covering of antiquities, and trace them to their first rise, that we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners or preeminence in subtlety obtained the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... the ruffian's reply; "women of all ages are fools: what is it to you whether this young fellow is shot or hanged? He was taken in arms against the Republic—one and indivisible. All the enemies of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... what I would give so much to know. The kindly, charitable, good old governor—how could he have fallen into the clutches of such a ruffian! But I am so glad that you have come, Holmes. I trust very much to your judgment and discretion, and I know that you will advise ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... insatiate, from the prostrate and howling Child Sir Galahad, after an onslaught delivered the precise instant the curtain began to fall upon the demoralized "pageant." And then—oh, pangs! oh, woman!—she slapped at the ruffian's cheek, as he was led past her by a resentful janitor; and turning, flung her arms round the Child ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... murderous qualities, in addition to their own private stock. But it seems we are always to be of a party with the last and victorious assassins. I confess I am of a different mind, and am rather inclined, of the two, to think and speak less hardly of a dead ruffian than to associate with the living. I could better bear the stench of the gibbeted murderer than the society of the bloody felons who yet annoy the world. Whilst they wait the recompense due to their ancient crimes, they merit new punishment by the new offences they commit. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a night riot in the streets of Ilo, knives gleamed in ruffian hands, curses and blasphemy fell from sodden lips. Shots were fired in the thick of the struggling mass, as the mob crowded in frenzy about some central figure. The crowd from behind pressed forward and Thompson and I were carried along by the crush of humanity, until of necessity ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... "Insolent ruffian!" muttered Tharon this day, frowning above her daddy's pipes on the desk top. "He's goin' t' get one run for his money from now till one of us is whipped. It may be me, but I'll leave my mark ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... the smile of women's eyes, the flush of wines, and the excitation of gaming hazards as well as they did; and hence his influence had a weight that probably a more strictly virtuous man's would have strained for and missed forever. The coarsest ruffian felt ashamed to make an utter beast of himself before the calm eyes of the patrician. The most lawless pratique felt a lie halt on his lips when the contemptuous glance of his gentleman-comrade taught him that falsehood was poltroonery. Blasphemous tongues learned to rein in their ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... bed and the house silent, Seppi quitted the room on tiptoe, locked the door on the outside, and crept noiselessly along the passage and down the stairs. Andre had not forgotten to leave the outer door unlocked, and pushing back the bolt with the greatest caution, the ruffian slipped out, and as soon as he had got clear of the village hurried away at the top ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... shaking her fist in Malipieri's face. "You reptile, you accursed ruffian, you false, ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... the huge figure of Doug Hill standing on the opposite bank with a gun over his shoulder and a bottle of whiskey in his uplifted hand. By his side was his henchman, Patsy Clark. The situation was a trying one for Dic. He could not fight the ruffian in Rita's presence, and he had no right to tell him to move on. So he paid no attention to Doug's hail, and in a moment that worthy Nimrod passed up the river. Dic and Rita were greatly frightened, and when Doug passed out of sight ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... the right-hand ruffian, my man, also stirred, so sharply that I thought he had heard something. Apparently, however, he was only haunted by dreams resulting from an evil life, or perhaps by the prescience of its end, for after waving his arm and muttering something in a frightened voice, he too, wearied out, poor devil, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... The "Good for nothing," the "Bad'un;" not some forgotten ruffian of the day, but the hero of a tale antedating The Nights in their present form. See ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... for your matron's likeness was a very handsome Sepoy havildar whom we took at Lucknow, a capital soldier before the mutiny, and then an ineffable ruffian." ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the man with a violent knocking at the door. The old ruffian appeared with a sputtering lamp which might have belonged to a cave man, and a head of matted grey hair which suggested the same origin. He was old and suspicious, but at Lewis's bidding he hobbled forth and ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... in courting their destruction by a desperate advance at all hazards, as we should have in any case been obliged eventually to renew the difficulty when retracing our route. I therefore cantered in upon my mule, with the guide who always lost his way, Hadji Christo. This man was a great ruffian, and had laws existed for the prevention of cruelty to animals, I would have prosecuted him; nominally he had the charge of the mule and two ponies, but he illtreated these poor animals, and the donkeys also, in a disgraceful manner. However, I ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Terpsichorean novelties. But they taught the careless to feel that travellers in such a country should not be without the means of defence. It is quite true that arms may do you a bad turn, either by tempting you to a hasty display, or by being of so costly a character as to excite the cupidity of some ruffian. But it is just as true that any other thing you possess may do you the like ill turn among men who would shoot you for the value of your skin. The golden mean is to be armed usefully, but not showily; and, above all things, to be very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... [by one of the Inferior Doors of the Palace] the Steward of Admetus: he has stolen away to get a moment's respite from the hateful hilarity of this strange visitor—some ruffian or robber he supposes—on whom his office has condemned him to wait, and thereby to miss paying the last offices to a mistress who has been more like a mother to him. The guest has been willing to enter, and though he saw the ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... caballero into the blue room," said Miss Mayfield, white as Jeff. "And hark ye, Manuel! You know every ruffian, man or woman, on this road. That horse and those saddle-bags must be here to-morrow, if you have to pay DOUBLE WHAT ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... suffer fops sometimes very patiently for the sake of their extravagances." This man was notoriously foppish and extravagant. My answer pleased, and we soon got rid of him at the Palace of Chevreuse. But he thought to have despatched me, for he hired one Grandmaison, a ruffian, to assassinate me, who apprised me of his design. The first time I met M. d'Aumale, which was at the Duc d'Orleans's house, I did not fail to let him know it; but I told it him in a whisper, saying that I had too much respect ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... unavailing; the ruffian seemed to instinctively and immediately divine my purpose, and in a flash he had whipped a pistol and a long knife—the blade of which I noticed was smeared with blood—from his belt, and levelled the former straight at my head. ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... gallantry, even if his fealty to Miss Kate Belthorpe had permitted him to do so. This fair young lady was the sister of Lieutenant Belthorpe, and Deck had made her acquaintance on the evening of the "Battle of Riverlawn," when he had rescued her from the grasp of a ruffian. He was too young to be absolutely in love with the maiden, though he believed she was the prettiest girl ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... incessant, furious; no quarter being given. The state wanted these wretches extirpated, and whenever an encounter took place the conflict was sure to be a sanguinary one. Soon the shattered ranks of the ruffian band scattered for the sand-hills, and the captain, knowing that the bandits would have the advantage once the hills were reached, sounded the recall. Reluctantly, his men ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... sadness the evil effects of sending boys or lads to prison for a few days or weeks for some petty theft, and placing them in constant contact and association with the habitual and reputed scoundrel and ruffian. These men are always willing to make a convert, and they generally succeed, for the battle is half won ere they bring their forces on the field. It is here that the juvenile offender is nursed in villainy, here he learns the inducements to crime, and from the lips of the hardened ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... in virtue of some agreement with the Christians, and in that case he wished people to believe him. He saw this, too, from his face; hence in one moment, without showing doubt or astonishment, he raised his eyes and exclaimed,—"That was a faith-breaking ruffian! But I warned thee, lord, not to trust him; my teachings bounded from his head as do peas when thrown against a wall. In all Hades there are not torments enough for him. He who cannot be honest must be a rogue; what is more difficult than for a rogue to become honest? But to fall ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the fellows, with long black hair and bushy beard,—a hideous squint adding to the ferocity of his appearance,—advanced with a horse-pistol in one hand, the other outstretched as if to seize the major's rein. At the same time a short but strongly-built ruffian, with a humpback, sprang towards me, evidently intending to drag me off my horse, or to haul the animal away, so that I might ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... justice,—the right which Marston saw through wrong, and which he had intended to carry out,—is now beyond his power. Stripped of those comforts he had enjoyed, his offspring carried off as trophies of avarice,—perhaps for sale to some ruffian who would set a price upon their beauty,—he sits down, sick at heart, and weeps a child's tears. The mansion, so long the scene of pleasure and hospitality, is like a deserted barrack;-still, gloomy, cold, in the absence of familiar faces. No servant comes to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... He laid his hand upon the crupper. And said,—"You're just in time for supper." They led him to the smoking board. And placed him next to the castle's lord. He looked around with a hurried glance: You may ride from the border to fair Penzance, And nowhere, but at Epsom Races, Find such a group of ruffian faces, As thronged that chamber; some were talking Of feats of hunting and of hawking, And some were drunk, and some were dreaming, And some found pleasure in blaspheming. He thought, as he gazed on the fearful crew, That the ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... All precedents, believe it, a flesh'd ruffian, That hath so often taken the Strappado, That 'tis to him but as a lofty trick Is to a tumbler: he hath perused too All Dungeons in Portu[g]al, thrice seven years Rowed in the Galleys for three ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Barbarossa. Wounded, shaken, bruised, his fortress in the hands of his enemy, the dying shrieks of his murdered garrison still ringing in his ears, the amazing spirit of the man was still utterly unsubdued. "It is to the treason of a ruffian that you owe your triumph," he said to his captor, "and not to your valour: had I received the smallest relief I could still have repulsed and kept you at bay. You have my maimed and mutilated body in your possession, and I hope that you are satisfied. But my body is accustomed to pain, ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... draw a nation's eyes, And win a nation's love, Let not thy towering mind despise The village and the grove. No slander there shall wound thy fame, No ruffian take his deadly aim, No rival weave the secret snare: For Innocence, with angel smile, Simplicity, that knows not guile, And Love and ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... touch And thrill, cling closer in the eerie sense Of fear that lurks amid the tumbled stones Of robbers' lair. Here, once upon a time, When might was right, and men made wrongful Gain of Nature's fastnesses, a ruffian couched And preyed upon his kind. Long time he throve, But vengeance woke at length, and the heavy tread Of frowning men from far Loch Tay—skiff-laden. Adown the glen they came one moonless night, Goaded by tingling sneer of white-hair'd sire. They rest where Tarken pours his ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... to show me, villain? What! I warrant me, you thought it would be an easy matter, and no sin, to rob and murder a parson on his way home from dinner. You said to yourself, doubtless, "We'll waylay the fat parson (you irreverent knave), as he waddles home (you disparaging ruffian), half-seas-over, (you calumnious vagabond)." And with every dyslogistic term, which he supposed had been applied to himself, he inflicted a new bruise on his rolling and roaring antagonist. "Ah, rogue!" he proceeded, "you can roar now, marauder; you were silent enough when you ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... hurry to enter. The dramatic old ruffian understood too well the value of the impression he made standing there. The room was crowded with about eighty men, seated on mats and cushions, with a piece of carpeted floor left unoccupied all down the centre—a high-walled room with beautifully vaulted ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... ruffian regained consciousness, Dick was still sitting on the edge of the table, calmly swinging his feet, but in his hand was his ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... cases, not to resist. There is something hid away somewhere in most men's hearts which makes them ashamed of smiting the offered left cheek, and then ashamed of having smitten the right one. 'It is a shame to hit him, since he does not defend himself,' comes into many a ruffian's mind. The safest way to travel in savage countries is to show oneself quite unarmed. He that meets evil with evil is 'overcome of evil'; he that meets it with patient love is likely in most cases to 'overcome evil with good.' And even if he fails, he has, at all events, used the only ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the 'Chuck-Farthing,' trebled its circulation, and invented a new style, which has put me at the head of all 'our own correspondents.' I wish you were at Paris; I would give you a dinner at the Rocher, which would make up for all our dinners at that ferocious ruffian, Joe's. I gave a dinner the other day to forty of them, all 'our own correspondents,' or such like. Do you know, my dear fellow, when I looked round the room, there was not a man who had not done his best to crush me; ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... a time unconscious of the lowly ruffian's presence, Swithin presently took it into his head that he was being guyed. He laid his whip-lash across the mares flank. The two chariots, however, by some unfortunate fatality continued abreast. Swithin's yellow, puffy face grew red; he raised his whip to lash the costermonger, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... As for Tom Jones, he does not come into comparison with "Perry" at all, and he would doubtless have been most willing and able—competent physically as well as morally—to administer the proper punishment to that young ruffian by drubbing him within ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... saw but one bonnet rouge, which I had supposed would be the revolutionary headdress. It was worn by an ill-looking ruffian, who sat with his back to the Quai, his legs straddled across the foot-walk, his drunken head fallen forward on his naked, hairy breast, a broken pipe between his knees, his doubled fists upon the stones ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... this ruffian?" he demanded, drawing his tall form up more haughtily than before. "A servant ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... "Yes; that ruffian struck him with the revolver or something. And I say, Nell, I haven't heard your share in this affair yet. Drake told me that ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... boy who dares to take a bird's nest is occasionally fined and severely reproved. The ruffian-like crew who go forth into the pastures and lanes about London, snaring and netting full-grown birds by the score, are permitted to ply their trade unchecked. I mean to say that there is no comparison ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... what they did, their eyes falling abashed before Sedgwick's quiet glance and air, as devoid of a trace of fear as it was of ostentatious defiance. The calm, unquestioning assumption that no one would presume to stop him, was a moral force which paralyzed the arm of the most reckless ruffian in the crowd. And so, checking his horse when he would have gone faster, his features as composed as if he were sitting in the Senate, and his bearing as cool and matter of course as if he were on a promenade, he rode ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... is burst. A ruffian band Rush in and savagely demand, With brutal voice and oath profane, The ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... are two great laws in this country. One is the slave law. That is the law of the President of the United States; it is the law of the Commissioner; it is the law of every Marshal, and of every meanest ruffian whom the Marshal hires to ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... his face purple with anger that this tipstaff ruffian should take such a tone with him. But in that instant I seized ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... is to show fight. Naturally Leonard began to plunge and to double his fists. But he could not keep this up, for the man whose arm was round him quickly retired and stood a few paces off, looking wan and haggard, and very unlike a thief or ruffian. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... half so melodramatic,' he answered. 'I'll give you a fair chance on the ground; but, if you do not move out of my path now, I'll shoot you as I would any other disagreeable ruffian,' and he put his hand into his breast, where, I knew, he ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of such insolence?" sputtered Mr. Downes. "You see, Mary, what this young ruffian has done to poor Paul? Stand still, will you?" he added, jerking Paul around as he tried to untie the cod line. Paul began to snivel; I reckon his father pulled the line so tight that it cut into ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... told him his daughter had received him kindly, and that she had promised to be married the next Sunday. This Katharine denied, saying she would rather see him hanged on Sunday, and reproached her father for wishing to wed her to such a mad-cap ruffian as Petruchio. Petruchio desired her father not to regard her angry words, for they had agreed she should seem reluctant before him, but that when they were alone he had found her very fond and loving; and he said to her, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... insult to that clergy whose willing slave she had become, that the only method of reclaiming the sinner had been long forgotten, in genuine horror at his sin. "Is it not enough," she went on, sternly, "that you should have become the bully and the ruffian of all the fens?—that Hereward the leaper, Hereward the wrestler, Hereward the thrower of the hammer—sports, after all, only fit for the sons of slaves—should be also Hereward the drunkard, Hereward the common fighter, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... ruffian!" exclaimed Edward. "I'm a better and more loyal subject than you, who provoke resistance to the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... in his remarks, uttered in a loud voice; and after every sort of insult expressed in words, he had the impudence to put his arm round the lady's waist. My friend indignantly asked the colonel what he meant; upon which the ruffian spat in my friend's face: but he did not get off with impunity, for my friend, who had a crab stick in his hand, caught him a blow on the side of the head, which dropped him. The Frenchman jumped up, and rushed at the Englishman; but they were ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... The brave little fellow, it seemed, from the story told by the doctor, had been cruelly cut down by the wretch I had killed, in revenge for the child having resented with a blow an attempted insult to his mother made by the ruffian after all the crew and male passengers of the Indiaman had been secured. I am not ashamed to say that on hearing this I regretted having slain the villain, I felt that death by the sword was too good for him, hanging in chains ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... the wicked reign, Instead of help will find his bane. The Doves had oft escaped the Kite, By their celerity of flight; The ruffian then to coz'nage stoop'd, And thus the tim'rous race he duped: "Why do you lead a life of fear, Rather than my proposals hear? Elect me for your king, and I Will all your race indemnify." They foolishly the Kite believed, Who having now the pow'r received, Began upon the Doves to prey, And ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... yet I never before handled a pick and shovel), I hear a rattling noise among the brush. My faithful dog, Bonaparte, would not keep under my control. "What's up?" "Your licence, mate." was the peremptory question from a six-foot fellow in blue shirt, thick boots, the face of a ruffian armed with a carbine and fixed bayonet. The old "all right" being exchanged, I lost sight of that specimen of colonial brutedom and his similars, called, as I then learned, "traps" and "troopers." I left off work, and was unable to do a stroke ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... advent. Mac would have some new yarns to spin and a fresh turn-over to his celebrated liver. He was a comforting, humorous old ruffian; but there were few men in the Orient more deeply read in psychology and physiognomy. It was, in a way, something of a joke to the doctor: psychology and physiognomy on an island which white folks did not visit more than three or four times a year, only then when they had to. Why did the ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always some levelling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong and fierce for society and by temper and position a bad citizen,—a morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him?—Nature sends him a troop of pretty sons and daughters who are getting along in the dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and felspar, takes the boar ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... he, "while we talk this ruffian who has escaped us makes good pace from Dover. Let the Duke of Monmouth and the Duke of Buckingham each take a dozen men and scour the country for him. I shall be greatly in the debt of either who brings ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... strangers write all manner of letters to him about their homes and hearths, and how this same Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf by itself. Indeed, it is the greatest success, as I am told, that this ruffian and ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... justice-of-peace marriage with Jean Armour. Burns, with all his faults, was an honest and a high-spirited man, and he loved the mother of his children. Had he hesitated to make her his wife, he must have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian, or that misery of miseries, the remorse of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... received still another assailant. Seizing him below the knees, then rising, he hurled the ruffian over backward on his head, the fall nearly snapping the owner's spine at the neck ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... the hut with Lillian, while the other boy remained long enough to loosen the rope around his waist, and bind the young ruffian securely. Then he placed him in a corner of the room. Locking the door behind him, Sandy joined Gilbert in the skiff, and together they paddled furiously out of the creek ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... have interested the chief of Shere Subz in our favour by presents and fair words, might not the same means have been employed for the rescue of poor Stoddart? The only way to deal with a ruffian like him of Bokhara would have been by pitting against him some of ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... sorry that my young friend should have considered me so much of a blood-thirsty ruffian. But the ale of Boston is no doubt strange to him, and his confusion at finding himself in a large city quite natural. Besides, his suspicions were in some degree reciprocated. When I saw him flying out of the window, I was convinced that he must be an ingenious burglar, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... of superiority Upset me not a little, and I answered peremptorily;—"Indeed, you old ruffian! What do you think I have given ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a ruffian to treat me so," wept La Cibot, now released,—"me that would go through fire and water for you both! Ah! well, well, they say that that is the way with men—and true it is! There is my poor Cibot, he would not be rough with me like this. . . ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the ruffian, "if only I had him by the throat! He has led me to perdition—men lost, boat lost, credit lost. I dare never show ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... of Heidrek, seeing that I am a Northumbrian," he said. "The track of that ruffian lies black on our coasts; but I have not heard of his son. We have naught against his ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... There were no means of apprising the police, or obtaining succour from without. Poor Andres, severely wounded, weak from loss of blood, without arms, and unable to use them had he had any, lay at the mercy of a ruffian intoxicated with rage and jealousy. All this because he had ogled a pretty manola at a bull-fight. It is allowable to suppose that at that moment he regretted the tea-table, piano, and prosaic society of Dona Feliciana de los Rios. Nevertheless, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... lodgings, there was such baking, boiling, roasting, and stewing, as if Cook Ruffian had been there to have scalded the devil in his feathers: and after supper a fire of fir-wood as high as an indifferent May-pole: for I assure you, that the Earl of Mar will give any man that is his friend, for ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... in existence nearly a hundred years. Early in the nineteenth century it became a place of varied amusements, from balloon ascents to comic songs. Dickens visited the place about 1835. The titles of some of the pieces he mentions as having been sung there are real, while others (such as 'Red Ruffian, retire') appear to ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... us have the credentials of this reformer before we listen to his accusation. I refuse to be judged by a dissolute ruffian, a divorced man and one accused of embezzling the funds of an investment society. Why did Councillor Quirk leave Goldenvale?" cried Councillor ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin |
