"Truant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whistle; for it is strongly attracted by the soul-stuff of its friends in the packet. But the doctor has still to catch it, a feat which is not so easily accomplished as might be supposed. It is now that the whip of souls comes into play. Suddenly the doctor heaves up his arm and lashes out at the truant soul with all his might. If only he hits it, the business is done, the soul is captured, the doctor carries it back to the house in triumph, and restores it to the body of the poor sick man, ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... by his blunt, indifferent reply, but before she could frame another question, Miss Murch appeared from an inner office, at the same moment that Miss Keith stepped through the doorway from behind them in search of her truant patient; and Peace suffered herself to be led docilely away. So absorbed was she in her new discovery that even her pleasure in her ability to walk again ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Berry and the ways of their population; of the proposition to a young widower that he shall undertake re-marriage with a young widow, well-to-do, of another parish; of his going a-wooing with the rather incongruous adjuncts of a pretty young servant girl, who is going to a "place," and his own truant elder sonlet; of the benighting of them as above by the side of a mere or marsh of evil repute; of the insult offered to Marie on the arrival at her new place; of the discomfiture of Germain, the hero, at finding ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... reaching their destination, the gentlemen parted with the understanding that they would dine together at a certain restaurant the next day. The appointed hour came, but not the Englishman; and my friend's appetite and patience were keen set, when, after an hour's delay, the truant made his appearance, looking pale, triste and exhausted. He soon explained the cause of his detention. He had gone to the police court to prove and regain his valise, and found at the bar a young man of genteel address and remarkable ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... papers we observe that the truant Mr. Bergdoll was discovered at Eberbach in Baden. Well, well, we meditate, Herr Bergdoll is not wholly devoid of sense, if he is rambling about that delicious valley of the Neckar. And if we were a foreign correspondent, anxious to send home to the papers ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... them regarding "th' latest from th' Hills." Waffles made a rush for Hopalong, but fell over Big-foot's feet and all three were piled up in a heap. All were beaming with good nature, for they were as so many school boys playing truant. Prosaic cow-punching was relegated to the rear and they looked eagerly forward to their several missions. Frenchy told of the barb-wire fence war and of the new regulations of "Smith of Buffalo" regarding cow-punchers' guns, and from the caustic remarks explosively given ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... companions try in vain to keep up with her. Soon her clear voice is heard as she sings, keeping time with the strokes of the axe she uses so skilfully. A peal of laughter rouses the old woman, her mother, who goes to bring the truant home, but she is gone, and when she returns, in time to see the red sun fade away in the bright horizon, she tells her mother that she went out with two or three other girls, to assist the hunters in bringing in the ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... situation was more peculiar than pleasant. He was seated on a log, three hundred miles from any civilised habitation, smiling blandly at a broken axe (his only one), the half of which was tightly grasped in his right hand, pointing to the truant iron in the trunk of a huge tree, the first of a thriving forest of fifty acres he purposed felling; and, thus occupied, a solitary traveller passed our uncle Job Bucket, serene as the melting sunshine, and thoughtless as the wild insect that sported round the owner "of the lightest of light ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... quarter of a century ago, or more, may possibly recollect the parish sexton. Bob Martin was held much in awe by truant boys who sauntered into the churchyard on Sundays, to read the tombstones, or play leap frog over them, or climb the ivy in search of bats or sparrows' nests, or peep into the mysterious aperture under the eastern window, which opened ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... in his shirt, a wasp's nest, which his father took from him and plunged into hot water. Between four and five he was sent to school, his parents thinking to keep him out of mischief of this kind. But he had not the least interest in school knowledge, and constantly played truant; and when he did come to school he brought with him all kinds of horrid insects, reptiles, and birds. One morning during prayers a jackdaw began to caw, and as the bird was traced to the ownership of Thomas Edward, he was ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... the district doctor, was a blue-eyed youngster in knickerbockers and a sailor blouse. He was playing truant, no doubt—Klaus had his lessons at home with a private tutor—and would certainly get a thrashing from his father ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... action, and quick as a flash the truant lines recurred to her, and to the great chagrin of her rival in the wings, she went on with her part ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... a ray of sunlight piercing through this plumy dais which overhung his head. Shading his eyes, the King glanced up and perceived that there was an opening in the canopy. One bird was missing from its post. In great displeasure Solomon demanded of the Eagle the name of the truant. Anxiously the Eagle called the roll of all the birds in his company; and he was horrified to find that it was Solomon's favorite, the Hoopoe, who was missing. With terror he announced the bird's desertion to the most ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... time before, he could not now be found. The fact is, the wretched man, who had been working in the vegetable-garden, had been watching all morning for an opportunity to steal away and get a drink. Finding the coast clear, when Mrs. Ashton and Allie had gone in with Mamie, he, like a truant child stealing away from its parents, glided out on to the sidewalk, and hastily made his way to the ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... disobedience, temporal or spiritual. Slaves, as well as slaveholders, use it with an unsparing hand. Our devotions at Uncle Isaac's combined too much of the tragic and comic, to make them very salutary in a spiritual point of view; and it is due to truth to say, I was often a truant when the time for attending the praying and flogging of Doctor Isaac ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... others for his cue. What he saw disturbed him. Shorty Kilrain, like a boy caught playing truant, edged little by little back against the rock; Butch Conklin, his eyes staring, had grown waxy pale; Steve Nash himself was sullen and ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... by stream and meadow, They searched 'neath hedge and tree; "Where," said the puzzled children, "Where can the truant be?" ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... tell his sweetheart how much he loved her. So he "sought fit words, studying inventions fine, turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow, some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain." But "words came halting forth" until he bit his truant pen and almost beat himself for spite. Then said the Muse to him, "Fool, look in thy heart and write." And without that first word, this is the advice that should be given to all speakers. "Look in your heart, mind, ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... red men,—axe in hand,— Behold the guests advancing! How fast the stragglers join the throng, From stall and work-shop gathered; The lively barber skips along And leaves a chin half-lathered; The smith has flung his hammer down, The horse-shoe still is glowing, The truant tapster at the Crown Has left a beer-cask flowing; The coopers' boys have dropped the adze, And trot behind their master; Up run the tarry ship-yard lads;— The crowd is hurrying faster. Out from the mill-pond's purlieus gush, The streams of white-faced millers, And down their slippery alleys ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... stronger argument of a mother's tears. Messengers were dispatched in every direction; the police scoured the roads for miles outside the city; friends and acquaintances were warned not to harbor the truant. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... and activity. The usual occupations of the sons of Japanese peasants, such as grass-cutting and rice-weeding, were not to the taste of young Monkey-pine, as the villagers called him, and he spent his time in the streets, a keen-witted and reckless young truant, who feared and cared for no one, and lived ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... comfortable, though he would have died before he admitted it to Dora. Now that the exhilaration of truant delights had died away, his conscience was beginning to give him salutary twinges. After all, perhaps it would have been better to have gone to Sunday School and church. Mrs. Lynde might be bossy; but there was always a box of cookies ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a long, long time; and never a word from the truant since the day she had left the village. Martha had waited, at first impatiently, then anxiously, and finally with a pathetic hopefulness that was more than half assumed. It was she who had insisted that Tony must go to the office every day, and during those long years, every ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... well round the corner, and running fast towards the cricket field. Vivian was very much disturbed and distressed. She scarcely knew what she ought to do. She ventured a little way into the grounds, but not a trace of any truant was to be seen, so she thought it useless to search far. One of the girls must have gone out; on that point ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... drover with intense longing. He was sure of a sympathetic listener in Malcolm, who listened with approval to the tales of the various scrapes into which he had got since his last visit; of how, instead of going to school, he had played truant and with another boy his own age had embarked in a fisherman's boat and gone down the river and had not been able to get back until next day; how he had played tricks upon his dominie, and had conquered in single combat ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... made Millie a devotee of active pursuits. She hunted, she rode, she played lawn-tennis, and, when at the seaside, golf; when all failed, she walked resolutely four or five miles on the high-road, swinging along at a healthy pace, and never pausing save to counsel an old woman or rebuke a truant urchin. On such occasions her manner (for we may not suppose that her physique aided the impression) suggested the benevolent yet stern policeman, and the vicar acknowledged in her an invaluable assistant. By a strange coincidence ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... girls had tried it,) she would have broken through. Her caution, I must say, was of the right kind; it always preceded her undertaking. She had such a 'wholesome fear of consequences,' that she never played truant, as one whom I could mention did. Indeed, antecedents and consequents were always associated in her mind. She never risked any thing for herself or any one else.... Of course, she is still Miss Nancy, (I am 'Aunt Molly' to all my friends' children,) though it is said that she might ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... now so long—more than a year—since I saw my runaway and truant that, notwithstanding the protests of Aunt Anna and the forebodings of Aunt Rachel, I have determined to give my old legs a journey and my old eyes a treat. Therefore take warning that I intend to come up to London forthwith, that I may see the great city for the first time in my life, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the weather that certain lads, imbued with that spirit of lawlessness and adventure which seems inherent in the nature of the young Briton, had conspired together to defy the authority of their schoolmaster by playing truant from afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship gliding up the Sound before the soft ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... Sir Bruin, "let me alone with Reynard; I am not such a truant in discretion to become a mock to his knavery;" and thus, full of jollity, ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... how I long to be at home again and in my old place. In my dreams and in my waking hours, I am often back at the old homestead; my thoughts play truant while I pore over my books, and even while I listen to my teacher in the class-room. I would give so much to know what you are all doing—so much to feel that now and then I am in your thoughts, and that you do indeed miss me ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... washed clean by the rain, while Robert walked on reading his book. At last, John, calling after his brother, said, "I do not see what is the use of going to school this fine morning; let us play truant." ...
— Child's New Story Book; - Tales and Dialogues for Little Folks • Anonymous
... calling the rooster back, when he starts to play truant, with all that mouthful of words?" queried ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... a little stray dog attached himself to me and followed me home; I took him into the house and had him fed, intending to keep him until I could discover the owner. For this act of kindness the dog expressed thanks in the usual way. Rover, although used to play the truant, from the moment the little stranger entered the premises, never quitted us till he saw him fairly off. His manner towards us became more ingratiating than usual, and he seemed desirous, by his assiduities and attentions, to show us, that we stood in need of no other favourite ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... great deal to do with schools after his docile childhood. When he began to run wild with the other boys he preferred their savage freedom; and he got out of going to school by most of the devices they used. He had never quite the hardihood to play truant, but he was subject to sudden attacks of sickness, which came on about school-time and went off towards the middle of the forenoon or afternoon in a very strange manner. I suppose that such complaints are unknown at the present time, but the Young ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the lamp out! To be sure there was no visible reason why she should have had it put out, except as a picturesque and imaginative way of rubbing her altruism into its nearest victim. Unless, indeed, it was done in order that the darkened window should seem to announce to the returning truant that she had gone to bed, and to lull his mind to unconsciousness of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... felt, indeed, seriously discomposed by the prolonged absence of this the only member of his family. It was unjustifiable, as he remarked twenty times a day, unfeeling, unheard-of, unaccountable. He rang for the servants at his private residence every quarter of an hour or so to learn if the truant had returned. He questioned the boy at the office sharply and repeatedly as to orders left with him by Mr. Ryfe before he went away, only to gather from the answers of this urchin, who would, indeed, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... some consolation until he found that it was stereotyped. Within a few hours it was despatched to another firm of publishers, taken at random from the advertisement columns of the Times. An hour or two afterwards Alfred arrived, with no label around his neck, but a veritable truant. Of the two he was the more self-possessed as he ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this truant husband of thine, my lady?' asked the marquis, as soon as Dr. Bayly had said grace. 'Know you whether he eats at all, or when, or where? It is now three days since he has filled his place at thy side, yet is he in the castle. Thou knowest, my lady, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossom'd furze unprofitably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, The village master taught his little school; A man severe he was, and stern to view,— I knew him well, and every truant knew; Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace The day's disasters in his morning face. 1591 GOLDSMITH: Des. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... uniformity in type have held the bad boy to a path which, in view of his character, seems singularly narrow. In book after book he indulges in the same practical jokes upon parents, teachers, and all those in authority; brags, fibs, fights, plays truant, learns to swear and smoke, with the same devices and consequences; suffers from the same agonies of shyness, the same indifference to the female sex, the same awkward inclination toward particular little girls. For the most part, thanks to the ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... not hope, that any of her lost ones would ever be restored to her, she fell down on the shore in a swoon with the names of her husband and sons upon her lips. None was there to administer cold water or aught else that might recall her truant powers; her animal spirits might even wander whithersoever they would at their sweet will: strength, however, did at last return to her poor exhausted frame, and therewith tears and lamentations, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... way of escape, was about to obey this order, when the truant, Marmion, came in sight, trotting leisurely up the path, carrying in his mouth the rabbit, which he had succeeded in gnawing out of the log. He stopped short on discovering Pierre, dropped his game, and gathered himself for ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... person whose imagination plays no truant pranks like this," replied Mr. Allison. "And this shall be at least ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... who was about three years old when his learned education commenced; and at length he made such progress in language, as to be able to articulate no less than thirty words. It appears, however, that he was somewhat of a truant, and did not very willingly exert his talents, being rather pressed into the service of literature, and it was necessary that the words should be first pronounced to him each time before he spoke. The French Academicians who mention this anecdote, add, that unless they had received the testimony ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... there I was alone in a big grass field, with strong notions that I should have to walk an unknown number of miles home. Judge of my delight as I paced slowly along—running was of no use—at seeing Frank G—— returning with my truant in hand. Such an action in the middle of a run deserves a Humane Society's medal. To struggle breathless into my seat; to go off at score, to find a lucky string of open gates, to come upon the hounds at a check, was my good fortune. But our fox was doomed—in another ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... was not to get his holiday so easily. There came a shout from the forest, and a boy on a brown moor pony went racing off after the truant beast, while a lady and a young girl looked on laughing. It was a very pretty chase, but at last Roger came back in triumph and tethered the donkey, repentant and ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... of the girls there, and I've played truant, and—yes, I think I shall go back presently, when I have taken my fill of freedom and ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... Uledi and Ferajji, who had been despatched after the truant Khamisi, returned with him and all the missing articles. Khamisi, soon after leaving the road and plunging into the jungle, where he was mentally triumphing in his booty, was met by some of the plundering Washensi, who are always ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... door had been closed in the customary manner, without using the fastenings. The bed had evidently not been entered, for the linen was smooth and untouched. In short, so complete was the order of the place, that, yielding to a powerful natural feeling, the Alderman called aloud on his truant niece, by name, as if he expected to see her appear from some place, in which she had secreted her person, in idle sport. But this touching expedient was vain. The voice sounded hollow through the deserted rooms; and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... be admitted into it, it is especially a school for boys, as you will understand when you learn that it is a Truant School. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 32, June 17, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... talking in metaphor," rejoined Brandon, smiling; "they who begin it always get the worst of it. In plain words, dear Lucy, I can give no more time to my own ailments. A lawyer cannot play truant ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the main reception-room for the truant expedition. He was hoping against hope. Orders had been given that Popova, Kalora and the whole disobedient crew should be brought before him as soon as they arrived. His wrath had not cooled, but somehow his confidence in himself ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the verra nicht o' the Latin prose I cam up to speak aboot the college, and ye thocht Geordie hed been playing truant." ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... beg her to come back," said Huldbrand; and he began to call in the most earnest manner: "Undine! Undine! Pray come back!" The old man shook his head, saying, that all that shouting would help but little, for the knight had no idea how self-willed the little truant was. But still he could not forbear often calling out with him in the dark night: "Undine! Ah! dear Undine, I beg you to ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... once more, no intention of playing the truant or traitor, and does his duty bravely and successfully. But the new King has a niece and the Count himself has a mother, who, motherlike, is convinced that her son's mysterious love is a very bad person, if not an actual maufes or devil, and is very anxious ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... fell from the latter's lips as the truant returned to his post. A tender gracious smile was the only sign of ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... model brother? Not even a word of thanks to Molly de Savenaye for bringing the truant to his home at last? But you malign yourself, my dear Rupert. I believe 'tis but excess of joy ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... spent in Norfolk; and we learn from his own lips that he plucked geese, played truant, and whipped top, and that he did not escape beating. That he had brothers and sisters we know; for he tells us that he is John with them and Sir John with all Europe. We do not know the dame or pedant who taught his young idea how to shoot and formed his manners; but Falstaff ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... were in the same state of mind. They also went along with Lieutenant Lawton. It was arranged that Miss Jenny Ann and Jeff should wait for the truant. They would then bring Madge and Tom to the hotel at Portsmouth where ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... the matter was that Jose and Patch, who had gone a-hunting, had not returned when the party had left for Bell Hammer. It was possible that, during their absence, the dogs had come back, and Anthony did not like to think that truant Patch might be wandering around the house, seeking admission in vain. Consequently, after the car had been noiselessly bestowed—out of consideration for their employers' rest, the four had alighted before they left the road and had man-handled ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... or seven miles from Newmarket) was ordained subdeacon in the Benedictine monastery of Bury St Edmunds in 1389[62], he was probably sent as a boy to a monastic school. At any rate, as he sketches his early escapades—apple-stealing, playing truant, &c.,—for us in his Testament[63], Ishall quote the youth's bit ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... "the service you have done me." And with that, and before my lord had finally taken up his meaning, he had slipped about the table, touched Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and left the room. In face of the outbreak of his lordship's lamentations she made haste to follow the truant. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... question "Quid muliere levius?" the scandalous Latin writer answers "Nihil," for which I would suggest "Niger." At the supreme moment the interpreter, who had been deaf to the charmer's voice (offering fifty dollars) for the last three days, succumbed to the "truant fever." He knew something of Portuguese; and, having been employed by the French factory, he had scoured the land far and wide in search of "emigrants." He began well; cooked a fowl, boiled some eggs, and made tea; after which he cleared out a hut that was declared ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... train Samson was surprised to discover that, after all, he had Mr. William Farbish for a traveling companion. That gentleman explained that he had found an opportunity to play truant from business for a day or two, and wished to see Samson comfortably ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... out of bed, and rushed out upon the upper piazza. In the yard below, looking as conscious as a truant child, was Duke. ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... the sound of sweet laughter became audible among the trees. His heart beat fast; he advanced a few steps and stopped. In a moment more the nymph of the island appeared, in her white robe, ascending the cliff in pursuit of her truant bird. She saw the strange man, and suddenly stood still; struck motionless by the amazing discovery that had burst upon her. The Captain approached, smiling and holding out his hand. She never moved; she stood before him in helpless ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... Miss Betham,—Not my will, but accident and necessity made me a truant from my promise. I was to have left Merton, in Surrey, at half-past eight on Tuesday morning with a Mr. Hall, who would have driven me in his chaise to town by ten; but having walked an unusual distance on ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... sharpened, and the man turned to me with, "Now, you little rascal, you've played truant! Scud to school, or ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... in charge of his nest. When the young ones were hatched it was most curious to notice his anxiety for their welfare. Of course young sticklebacks, like young children, are of an inquisitive turn of mind, and apt to play truant too occasionally; but should some little fellow wander too far from the nest, Father Stickles hurries after him, takes the little truant in his mouth, and spits him out right over the nest. This I repeatedly witnessed myself, ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... of what may be called the domestic noises of the ship: such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling down of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from exhilarating sounds raised in their various state-rooms by the seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to breakfast. I say nothing of them: for although I lay listening ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... Though such she be all language as exceeds. She with a glance who rules us as her own, Opening my breast my heart in hand to take, Thus said to me: "Of this no mention make." I saw her then, in alter'd air, alone, So that I recognised her not—O shame Be on my truant mind and faithless sight! And when the truth I told her in sore fright, She soon resumed her old accustom'd frame, While, desperate and half dead, a ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... hospital-cot collection at the children's service last Sunday. He had only fourpence halfpenny. I remember it all now. Oh, how stupid I've been, to be sure!' It was an intense relief to have chased successfully the truant halfpence. 'Now, Queenie,' went on Theo gleefully, 'in five minutes I shall be ready for you, and we are going to have a good time in the boat. ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... inclined to play knight-errant to children and attendant damsels, and he would probably have continued to watch the little scene without advancing, had not the girl, halting distressfully to call the truant, chanced to turn her face so that the strong morning light fell full upon it. Why, it was the violinist! Or was he deceived by some chance resemblance? Sydney did not think so, but it behoved him instantly to go ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... better than to go loafing through town with a truant school-girl you hardly know. I suppose it's my fault for introducing you to her. I want you to tell me how you managed this. Did you telephone her or write a note? Sit down here now ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... N. absence; inexistence &c. 2[obs3]; nonresidence, absenteeism; nonattendance, alibi. emptiness &c. adj.; void, vacuum; vacuity, vacancy; tabula rasa[Lat]; exemption; hiatus &c. (interval) 198; lipotype|!. truant, absentee. nobody; nobody present, nobody on earth; not a soul; ame qui vive[Fr]. V. be absent &c. adj.; keep away, keep out of the way; play truant, absent oneself, stay away; keep aloof, hold aloof. withdraw, make oneself scarce, vacate; go away &c. 293. Adj. absent, not present, away, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Sullenly one of them gave an address far up in the Bronx, ten miles away. They had not been home for a week, he said. Was he lying? What was to be done? Somewhere in the city their homes must be discovered. And the talk of the truant officer made Roger feel ramifications here which wound out through the police and the courts to reformatories, distant cells. He thought of that electric chair, and suddenly he felt oppressed by the heavy complexity of ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... to acknowledge, to my shame, that I was often a truant to the discussions of the School, which met three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon. The weather was hot and the air in the Orchard House was drowsy. There were many outside attractions, ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... amount to very much with Roger. Still, I did make him square things with Fisher that day he played truant and went off with you," admitted Win with the ghost of a smile. "Mother only lectured him for bunking, but I persuaded him to apologize and to put in the next Wednesday ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... answered Owen, smiling as he spoke. "Most grateful I am for the kind way in which you have received me, after I had played truant so many long years; but I could not have come back before, unless you had sent for me, and I have received no letters ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with their thumbs, quarrelling ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... truant, you have given me a world of anxiety. Why do you persist in such delightful ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... peeping under people's elbows, trying not to annoy others and yet to make a thorough hunt in a short time so as not to keep the others waiting. Then in the music room, or East Parlor, as it is often called, she found the truant, gazing with rapt eyes at the quaint old harpsichord which had belonged ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... handicraftsman, journeyman, mechanic, workman, laborer, operative, industrial. Antonyms: idler, drone, dabbler, sluggard, truant, dilettante, loafer, shirker. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... some news of the truant lover. The fact is, this young lady was as intelligent as she was inexperienced; and she had asked Jacintha to tell Dard to talk to every soldier that passed through the village, and ask him if he knew anything about Captain Dujardin of the 17th regiment. Dard cross-examined about a hundred invalided ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Cypress and the moaning Pine. The broad old belt of short flowery turf at the base, the Violet, the Gilliflower, and the vermilion spotted Mignonette, on their breast, and the chaplet of wilding shrubs upon their brows, give them a charm in the most common-place observation. With me, truant as I have been to the Classic page, it seemed a natural process of my desultory mind, to revert from a contemplation of such pensive dreamy realities of waking enjoyment as I have described, to visions, startling in their august grandeur, of the everlasting past,—visions of their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... tree ceased immediately, but at first the man could not locate the truant. Finally he discovered Black Bruin away up in the top of the tree, where he was well ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... they demanded, pointing to the truant duckling who was bobbing about on the rippling water. "Aren't you going to ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be a theatre of events—as if outside of Radville only could there be things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant together fifty years ago—hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... moment Arthur caught sight of his truant hen, it was passing under a carriage, quietly pecking among the grass and ferns in its march. So he approached, and cautiously bent down on his hands and knees to get at the hen. It was almost within his grasp ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Abroad," the author tells how he once spent a night in his father's office and discovered there a murdered man. This was a true incident. The man had been stabbed that afternoon and carried into the house to die. Sam and John Briggs had been playing truant all day and knew nothing of the matter. Sam thought the office safer than his home, where his mother was probably sitting up for him. He climbed in by a window and lay down on the lounge, but did not sleep. Presently he noticed what appeared to be an unusual shape on the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... home-coming than she had been at the marriage, and much searching went on before she was found. She was unearthed at last. The gardener had seen her shrink away into the shrubbery when the carriage-wheels were heard coming up the road, and he gave information to the cook, by whom the truant was tracked and brought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... of the guns, the common people came out along the road with fowling-pieces and pitchforks, in hopes to catch the truant. The gendarmes seemed very anxious to be on the look-out for him too. The price of a deserter was fifty crowns to those ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... schoolmaster missed him. He came to ask if Benny was ill. The mother was vexed when she found that he had staid away from school. She went to look for the naughty boy. After a while she found the little truant. He was hard at work in his garret. She saw what he had been doing. He had not copied any of his new en-grav-ings. He had made up a new picture by taking one person out of one en-grav-ing, and another out of another. He had ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... usual classic themes, of which his first remarkable achievement was the Orpheus; then a series of Christian or religious illustrations, from Adam and Saul to Christ at the Well of Samaria; next, individual portraits; a series of domestic figures, such as the "Children in the Wood," or "Truant Boys"; and, finally, what may be termed national statuary, of which Beethoven and Washington are eminent exemplars. Like Thorwaldsen, Crawford excelled in basso-rilievo, and was a remarkable pictorial sculptor. Having made early and intense studies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... of responsibility vanished. As soon as the decorous swish of Sunday silks had ceased in the corridor outside, she caught up a book and a cushion, and, creeping down by the side stairs, set gaily out across the sunlit lawn, with the deliciously guilty thrill of a truant little boy who has ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... of my playing truant to the Rectory a second time. Once, when he was expected, I took my nightshirt from my pillow, and followed by Rubens, presented myself before the Rector as he sat at breakfast, saying, "Mr. Carpenter is coming, and we can't endure it. We really can't endure it. And ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... week a number of names had been suggested for the tiny bit of a stranger, but none could suit the taste of Jim. He waited still for a truant inspiration, and meanwhile "Skeezucks" came daily more and more into use ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... now forwarded to Turin, to become inmate of a sort of charity school for the instruction of catechumens. The very day after he started on foot, his father, with a friend of his, reached Annecy on horseback, in pursuit of the truant boy. They might easily have overtaken him, but they let him go his way. Rousseau explains the case on behalf of his ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... D. Pedro. Hang him, truant; there's no true drop of blood in him, to be truly touch'd with love: if he be sad, ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... sullen head would slip from off my knee, And his damp hair to earth would wander down, Till I grew frighten'd thus to challenge Death, And with the king of terrors idly play.— Yet those pale lips deserted not the smile Of froward, gay defiance, lingering there, Like a tir'd truant's sleeping on the grass, Mid the stray sun-beams of unsadden'd hope, Dreaming ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... that hardly an hour remains before the closing of the mail. I found such pretty, solitary paths, quite narrow, between the greening hazel and thorn-bushes, where only the thrush and the glede-kite were heard, and quite far off the bell of the church to which I was playing truant, that I could not find my way home again. Johanna is somewhat exhausted, in connection with her condition, or I should have had her in the woods, too, and perhaps we should still be there. * * * She ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... with you when I am needed, truant?" said the other with a reproachful look. "Did you fly? You are so light, so thin, you could breathe yourself here," rejoined the girl, with a gentle, quizzical smile. "But, no," she added, "I remember, you were to be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... who paid for their places on the coach, they journeyed toward town, the man related his history. Born at Padua, the son of a poor barber, and one of fourteen children, Giovanni Battista Belzoni felt from his earliest youth a longing desire to visit foreign lands. This "truant disposition" was fostered, if not caused, by the stories of maritime adventures told him by an old sailor; who was strongly suspected of having, during many years, practiced the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... repaired to one of these kinsfolk,—a person in a large way of business,—and returned home with two great books in white sheepskin. And when Losely looked in to dine, she said, in the suavest tones a tender mother can address to an amiable truant, "Jasper, you have great abilities; at the gaming-table abilities are evidently useless: your forte is calculation; you were always very quick at that. I have been fortunate enough to procure you an easy piece of task-work, for which you will be liberally remunerated. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... house, the girl pushed him bodily through the doorway and entered herself, turning quickly to slip into place the oaken bar that secured the door from the inside. Constans swelled with indignation at this singular treatment. He was a man grown, not a truant child to be led away by the ear for punishment. Yet she would not abate one jot of her first advantage, and his anger melted under the quiet serenity of her gaze; in spite of himself he let ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Three hours afterwards, on our return by the same path, a voice greeted using a colloquial tone as we passed— "Maracana!" We looked about for some time, but could not see anything, until the word was repeated with emphasis— "Maracana- a!" When we espied the little truant half concealed in the foliage of a tree, he came down and delivered himself up, evidently as much rejoiced at the meeting ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... turned again and the truant waters came back, lapping once more the sides of our boat. The Commodore had to see that anchors were run ahead and astern, and all made snug for the night. Then, in the enjoyment of one of the most charming features of houseboating, an evening meal served ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... doesn't pay in the current coin. Not only is the angler, like the poet, born and not made, as Walton says, but there is a deal of the poet in him, and he is to be judged no more harshly; he is the victim of his genius: those wild streams, how they haunt him! he will play truant to dull care, and flee to them; their waters impart somewhat of their own perpetual youth to him. My grandfather when he was eighty years old would take down his pole as eagerly as any boy, and step off with wonderful elasticity toward the beloved streams; ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... is one which belongs to parents as clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he plays truant at church-time a task is set him. If he should display the precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting short the controversy with a horse- whip. All the reasons which lead us to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he raised his dewy, azure eyes, And from his lips words of soft music broke; But still the truant tears would crowding rise, And snowy bosom heave before he spoke. "Oh, come and weep with me," he cried, "fair maid Weep that the gentle reign of Love is o'er; Come, venture nearer—cease to be afraid, For I have ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... did not agree with her. He played truant whenever he could, for he was a kindhearted boy, and could not bear to think of a master's time and labor being thrown away on a boy like himself—who did not wish to learn, only to find out—when there were so many worthy lads thirsting for instruction in geography and history and reading ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... and disturbed. She could scarcely keep her attention on her classes that morning. "Where has Chrissie gone, and why?" she kept asking herself. At dinner-time there was still no news of the truant. It was rumoured that Mrs. Morrison had telegraphed to Mrs. Lang, and had received no reply. The Principal looked anxious and worried. She felt responsible for the safety of ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil |
