"Dour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now an unhung and travelling basket, heavy, iron-ribbed, anciently mossy, oozy of slime, fell with neat exactitude upon the bald, bare cranium of Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith, head gardener, and dour, irascible ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... of Procyon's rising was just tinting the windows of Jeff's cottage when he aligned and activated his little communicator on his breakfast table. Its three-inch screen lighted to signal and a dour and disappointed Consul Satterfield looked at him. Behind Satterfield, foreshortened to gnomishness by the pickup, lurked Dr. Hermann, ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... vague as hope at first, in a jewel-tinted sea; the ship steamed toward it as through the mists of creation's third morning, and all good things seemed possible. Thus had Simpson, reared in an unfriendly land, imagined it, for beneath the dour Puritanism that had lapped him in its armour there still stirred the power of wonder and surprise that has so often through the ages changed Puritans to poets. That glimpse of Hayti would remain with him, he thought, yet within the hour he was striving desperately to ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... the rest of the world. They never go away anywheres, except to church—they never miss that—and nobody goes there. There's just old Thomas, and his sister Janet, and a niece of theirs, and this here Neil we've been talking about. They're a queer, dour, cranky lot, and I WILL say it, Mother. There, give your old man a cup of tea and never mind the way his tongue runs on. Speaking of tea, do you know Mrs. Adam Palmer and Mrs. Jim Martin took tea together at Foster ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Highland stories. Though it is a story of to-day, and about a life much like that made familiar by the writers of the Kailyard school, it is not to them, but to such kindred unsentimentalized work as Mr. Shan Bullock's, that you instinctively compare it. The people, indeed, are the same dour Presbyterians, though the one writes of Scotland and the other of the North of Ireland. And as you compare the material of "Silence Farm" with that of "The Squireen," for instance, you note, too, that the art of both is the art ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... after his marriage, Bianca Buonaventuri was introduced at Court as Bianca Cappello. The young Duchess of course was furious, and pointedly refused all intercourse with her rival. Bianca, on the other hand, laid herself out to propitiate the dour Austrian princess and to stifle slander. Still a mere girl, she was in full command of all the moves in woman's strategy. There was no school like that of Venice for the display of tact and fascination. To be sure, she was living in a crystal palace, but she ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... against Lamb as an author that he is fantastical and artistically artificial, it must be owned he is so. His humour, exquisite as it is, is modish. It may not be for all markets. How it affected the Scottish Thersites we know only too well—that dour spirit required more potent draughts to make him forget his misery and laugh. It took Swift or Smollett to move his mirth, which was always, three parts of it, derision. Lamb's elaborateness, what he himself calls ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... anybody about my mother. That isn't to say for a single instant, however, that I didn't esteem her. We simply were not designed to fit into the same scheme. We were of different generations. We were of cross-grained stuff, if I may say so, dour and tough and ill to match with common deal, and our roots were sunk in the restless, ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... vagabonds. For several successive days he had been noticed in their company, or laying a straight course for the little booth wherein the girl plied her mean trade; and then, all at once, to the stupefied astonishment of Chepstow,—where the captain was reckoned, with reason, a particularly hard, sour, dour sort of body, anything but friendly or hospitable,—the pair of them were discovered comfortably installed beneath the Pendarves' roof, as snug as if they had lived there all their lives and never meant to go away! ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... than in any deeper sense, and had perhaps misinterpreted Seth's keen desire to return forthwith to Virginia. Seth, in short, was seldom able to express himself adequately, emotion scarcely ever sounded in his voice, and the expression of his face was a fixed and unchangeable one, somewhat dour and ill-tempered in aspect and reflecting ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... which obstruct the funnel-shaped cavity between the upper and middle prongs. This I knew from the chart. My unaided eye saw nothing but the open sea, growing dark green as the depths increased; a dour, threatening sea, showing its white fangs. The waves grew longer and steeper, for the channels, though still tortuous, now begin to be ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... wide, bright places seemed suddenly to open and shine before me. Not places to shrink back from—oh no! no! One could be sure, then—SURE! Feargus had lifted his bonnet with that extraordinary triumph in his look—even Feargus, who had been rather dour. ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with the hot information That bees shed their coats in the Fall. No longer they clamor for stories As they cluster in fun 'round my knee But each little darling is bursting With a story that he must tell me, Giving reasons why daisies are sexless And what makes the turtle so dour; So it goes through the horrible gloaming Of the ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... her," said Teressa. "She was neither to bind nor to stay. An' the tongue of her. Callin' us a lock a' papishes an' fenians! Sure, she was sittin' on Father Ryan's dour-step till past twelve o'clock wavin' an or'nge scarf, an' singin' 'Clitter ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... we have said, Mr. Comyn spoke out his wish—nay, his commands—that Barbara should prepare to receive Mr. Bruce as a bridegroom in six months thereafter. And now Mr. Bruce himself, a shy and dour man at other times, found courage one day, after dinner, to express his—"love;" so he really called it, and so we suppose must we, in our extreme ignorance of the precise category of nomenclature to which the feelings that actuated him belonged. Honest ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... Saunders cam tae me a haflin, and hes been on Drumsheugh for twenty years, an' though he be a dour chiel, he's a faithfu' servant as ever lived. It's waesome tae see him lyin' there moanin' like some dumb animal frae mornin' tae nicht, an' no able tae answer his ain wife ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... it: Sir Joseph and Lady Webling were protesting too well and too much. Marie Louise hated herself for even the disloyalty of such a criticism of them, but she was repelled somehow by such rhetoric, and she liked far better the dour silence of old Mr. Verrinder. He looked a bishop who had got into a layman's evening dress by mistake. He was something very impressive and influential in the government, nobody knew ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... say? She's gone; gone where neither you nor that dour-faced deevil that befooled us all will find her soon, I promise you, Dickie Jennifer!" he snapped; and I gave them my back and stumbled blindly to the door, making sure his next word would tell my poor wronged lad all that he should have learned from never any other lips but mine ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... not kill The Master before nightfall. It was not quite practicable. Bell and Jamison started out well before dawn with a favorable wind and tide, in the small launch the wizened Welshman placed at their disposal. His air was one of dour piety, but he accepted Bell's offer of money with an obvious relief, and criticized his Paraguayan currency with an acid frankness until Jamison produced Argentine pesos sufficient to pay for the boat ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... had watched its approach for weeks. And he knew that sooner or later it must be faced. He was even inclined to force it now, for such was his way. Trouble was in her eyes, and he felt certain of its nature. Nita was not made of the stuff that could withstand the grind of the dour life of the Northland ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... the head of the marsh were full of purple vistas, threaded with gossamers. Past a dour plantation of gnarled spruces and a maple-fringed, sun-warm valley they found the ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... looked at the fire, as though they could read in its confused shapes the reason of this interruption; but the result could not have been very satisfactory, for neither spoke, while reluctantly Dumiger rose to open the dour, and Marguerite followed his movements ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... up to a dour-looking individual at a counter at the ramp's end. Clearing my throat, I said rather inanely, "Hello!"—but what does one say to ...
— Lost in the Future • John Victor Peterson
... exquisite tenderness with which he caressed her. No one would have thought that dour man capable ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... was quite empty except for my friend, Private McPhee, stalking majestically up and down as if on sentry go, wearing a "fit of the blues" several sizes too large for him and an expression which would, I believe, be described by kailyard novelists as "dour." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, June 7, 1916 • Various
... was never imported into the United States. Even the dour Puritans forbade its use. The very first modification of the English common law, in its application to American women, was made in 1650, when the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed that a husband beating ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... a day has since rollit ower me, and I am now but a dour carle, whose auld pow the roll o' time hath blanched; my bonnie Janet is gone to her last hame, lang syne, my bairns hae a' fa'en kemping for their king and country, and I ainly am left like a withered auld trunk, ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... swung suddenly round a corner and they were almost staggered with the sight of the cathedral towering above them. To an eye used exclusively to the sight of the dour British edifice, there is something very fascinating about a foreign cathedral such as this. There is something more daring about the style of architecture, something more flamboyant, and yet more solid. The cathedral seemed vaguely indicative of ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... a mother would her babe, warming and caressing our hearts. We did not know then that happiness was a thing to be sought. We only knew that peddling is a pleasure, that a bank account is a supreme joy, that a dish of mojadderah cooked by Im-Hanna is a royal delight, that our dour dark cellar is a palace of its kind, and that happiness, like a bride, issues from all these, and, touching the strings of Khalid's lute, mantles ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... strangers—did say, "She is divorced"? There she was, with her own son plainly beside her and her closest woman friend giving her complete countenance. If a separation, who to blame? The husband, doubtless. In fact, there was already springing up in her Eastern circle, I was to find, the tradition of a dour, stiff man, years too old, with whom it ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the dour landlady, who was quite capable of keeping him in order, there came in one of those dark, showy Italian girls with a man. She wore a blouse and skirt, and no hat. Her hair was perfectly dressed. It was really Italy. The man was ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... led them to and fro. Out there the line between mistress and servant had inevitably been supplanted by the bond of companionship; but when they returned to the more humdrum civilization of the western world, it was Janet whose dour Scotch rectitude had re-established the distinction. She took her meals with old Bates at a little table in the butlery, found her chief relaxation in the one motion-picture house that Hambleton boasted, and for the rest, "kept herself ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... out of the culinary realm; it is of record that they never looked into it from that hour forth. On the broad, vine-covered gallery they sat in dour silence and in silence took turns with Deppy's binoculars in the trying effort to make out what was going on in the offing. The company's tug seemed unusually active. It bustled about the big steamer with an industriousness that seemed almost frantic. The laziness that ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... him bair, Whill flatlies to the ground he fell: Than thought I weel we had lost him there, Into my stomach it struck a knell! Yet up he raise, the treuth to tell ye, And laid about him dints full dour; His horsemen they raid sturdilie, And stude about ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... their wagon. Jed was vastly proud over a bullet crease he had got in a shoulder. After his mother's alarm had taken the form of first aid he was all for showing his battle scars to a certain damsel in Caleb Price's wagon. Wingate remained dour and silent as was now his wont, and cursing his luck that he had had no horse to carry him up in the late pursuit of the Sioux. He also was bitter over the delay in making a ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... splashing on his little Prayer Book. The body was reverently lowered by means of a couple of ammunition belts from a machine gun, and the three rounds cracked strangely in the rain-laden air, the water dripping from the rifles. After the firing, one of the party, a dour-looking Scot, void of all sentiment I should have thought (God forgive me!) stooped, and picking some objects out of the mud, thrust them into a handy pocket. They were his three empty cartridge cases. Then the Fifes sorrowfully ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... of a country public house. The proprietor, William Driscoll, a man of about fifty with a very dour expression, sings as ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... the plaint of the wind on the moor, Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day, And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour, And the sound of the surge as it breaks on the beach of ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... not go on the long journey with grandmamma?" I said to him. And then I remembered that it is ridiculous to be morbid and dramatic, and so I rang for my maid—a dour Scotchwoman whom I like—and told her to bring my out-door things here to the boudoir-fire. And soon Roy and I were a mile ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... stretching the catch, served to keep them both occupied—Hazel as much as he, for she went out with him on all but the hardest trips. So that their isolation in the hushed, white world where the frost ruled with an iron hand had not so far become oppressive. They were too busy to develop that dour affliction of the spirit which loneliness and idleness breed through the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Dour-like he gaed, wi' doon-hingin heid, Quhill he cam, by the licht o' the mune, Quhaur michty stanes lay scattert like sheep, An' ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... but it was obvious that this time their attitude towards the man who welcomed them was one of declared and pronounced hostility. Graveling was there, with sullen, evil face. He made no attempt to shake hands with Maraton, and he sat at the table provided for them with folded arms and dour, uncompromising aspect. Dale came late and he, too, greeted Maraton with bluff unfriendliness. Borden's attitude was non-committal. Weavel shook hands, but his frown and manner were portentous. Culvain, the diplomat of the party, was ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him just no good at all," she reported. "So keep an eye on him. If he looks especially dour it's a good sign." ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... canna say! ye may be richt, Mirran," replied her spouse. "It's no sic a cheery subjec' 'at we sud hae muckle to say to ane anither anent it! He's a man noo, and weel luikit upo'; but it maks unco little differ to his parents! He's jist as dour as ever, and as far as man could weel be frae them he cam o'!—never a word to the ane or the ither o' 's! Gien we war twa dowgs, he couldna hae less to say til's, and micht weel hae mair! I s' warran' Frostie says mair in ae half-hoor to his tyke, nor Jeemie has said ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Abyssinian's approach with courage and steadfastness; but the blackamoor when he drew near deemed the Prince too slight and puny to fight and was minded to seize him alive. Khudadad, seeing how his foe had no intent to combat, struck him with his sword on the knee a stroke so dour that the negro foamed with rage and yelled a yell so loud that the whole prairie resounded with the plaint. Thereupon the brigand, fiery with fury, rose straight in his shovel-stirrups and struck fiercely at Khudadad with his huge ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... black, bullet-headed, and dour. He had held socialistic views in his fiery youth, but had changed his mind like the rest of us when he found himself rising in the world. In these days he received a percentage on the Works profits, and ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... King Edward's dour sister-successor Queen Mary and her sombre spouse Philip of Spain were scarcely the people to make the place bright on their occasional visits, and when they were here shortly after their marriage it was said "the hall door within the Court was continually shut, so that no man ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... of exceptional physical strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled out from behind his bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature and a hard ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wish him well, to reestablish old relations with him. Why, it would be almost like holding a reception. He would be to those of his own age as a friend of their youth, returning after a long absence to his people, with the dour stranger who had lived in his house while he was away now driven ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of the inflexible jaw. A man of deep character, a man with an alert mind, grim, ascetic, self-contained, formidable—so I read Dr. Leslie Armstrong. He held my friend's card in his hand, and he looked up with no very pleased expression upon his dour features. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of this sort, but I could hardly resent them from the Colonel as I could have done had they fallen from any one else's lips; but I fancy he saw at last that they were distasteful to me, for after a while he forebore to comment upon my dour looks. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... distressed to have harm happen to him, and he was very much concerned and alarmed to see him so candidly discouraged and sick at heart. Perhaps too quick to draw an inference, Robbins mistrusted his intentions; his dour habit boded ill in the servant's understanding: men in such moods were apt to act unwisely. But if only he might contrive to delay Duncan until Kellogg's return, he thought the former might yet be saved from the consequences of folly of ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... changes and conquests, the appellations with which they were originally baptised by the aboriginal possessors of the soil; as, for example, in three or four of the rivers which enter the Forth nearest to us here—viz., the Avon, the Amond, and the Esk on this side; and the Dour, at Aberdour, on the opposite side of the Firth. For these are all old Aryan names, to be found as river appellations in many other spots of the world, and in some of its oldest dialects. The Amond ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... at nine o'clock Holloway brought him word that William Roper had come. Mr. Manley bade him bring him to him at a quarter-past. He felt that suspense would make William Roper malleable, and he intended to hammer him. At thirteen minutes past nine he composed his face into a dour truculence, an expression to which the heavy conformation of the lower part ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... nae food had they, but twa ounce a day o' meal was the maist they'd get. And men fight but tame on an empty wame, so they sent a flag o' truce, And blithe were the Privy Council then, when the Whigs had heard that news. Twa Lords they sent wi' a strang intent to be dour on each Cavalier, But wi' French cakes fine, and his last drap o' wine, did Middleton make them cheer, On the muzzles o' guns he put coats and caps, and he set them aboot the wa's, And the Whigs thocht then he ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... their coming, Fingin cried to his young men, "Harness me my horses and yoke my chariot. There are few," he said, "in Erin for whom I would leave my own house, but that youth is one of them. His father Amargin was well known to me. He was a warrior grim and dour exceedingly, and he ever said concerning the boy, 'This hound's whelp that I have gotten is too fine and sleek to hold bloody gaps or hunt down a noble prey. He will be a women's playmate and not a peer amongst Heroes.' And that fear was ever upon him ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... you in need and necessity for war-pensions. If Demos can only get into the country in peace and taste the barley-cakes again, he will soon find out of what blessings you have rid him by your briberies; he will come back as a dour farmer and will hunt up a vote which will ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... powerful demonstration as if to retake Binche. This was supported by the artillery of both the First and Second Divisions, while the First Division took up a supporting position in the neighborhood of Peissant. Under cover of this demonstration the Second Corps retired on the line Dour-Quarouble-Frameries. The Third Division on the right of the corps suffered considerable loss in this operation from the enemy, who ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... belyve the morn rose unco mirk an' dreary, wi' bullers (rollers) frae the west like muckle sowthers (soldiers) wi' white plumes. I tauld the captain 'twas a' the faut o' Maxwell. I ne'er cad bide the blellum. Dour an' din he was, wi' ae girn like th' auld hornie. But the captain wadna hark to my rede when I tauld him naught but dool ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Factor, "we are auld freens; it is weel that we shud staun' thegither. If ye will trade a' yir furs wi' me this day, I'll get the meenister o' the Presybyterian Kirk tae mairry yir gran'dochter. He'll be gled eneuch tae gi'e Father Jois a dour by mairryin' twa o' his fowk. Sell me yir furs, an' I'll warrant ye ye'll hae the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... in his affairs. It was a wild, bold land he traversed, and thinly peopled; at pains to avoid the larger towns, he sought by choice the loneliest paths that looped its quiet hills; such as passed the time of day with him were few and for the most part peasants, a dull, dour lot, taciturn to a degree that pleased him well. So that he soon forgot to be forever alert for the crack of an ambushed pistol or the pattering footfalls of an ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... of beauty in him, we might have been more lenient; only we found it not, and, I admit, took little pains to search. I shall never forget the look of dour forgiveness with which he heard our excuses for missing Morning Prayers that Sunday morning of our single visit to The Towers. My sister learned that a change was made soon afterwards, prayers being "conducted" after breakfast ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... by Faile, and taste the ale, And tak a look o' Mysie; She's dour and din, a deil within, But aiblins she ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... march was to Dour, in Belgium, and for us a bad day's march it was. My job was to keep touch with the 14th Brigade, which was advancing along a parallel road to the west.[5] That meant riding four or five miles across rough country roads, endeavouring to time myself so as to reach the 14th column just when the ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... a peaky eager face, with a great spirit looking out of it, and possibilities of passion both for good and evil in the keen, alert features. Just beside her was the dour, grim outline of her husband. Their life-histories were ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... like him. He was devoted to her mother—and for his friends he'll do anything. But I don't want to make a saint of him. He can be a dour man when he likes—and he and I fight about a good many things. I don't think he has much faith in the new England we're all talking about—though he tries to go with it. Have you?" He turned ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... back and forth between the two, wondering wildly what they would say if he turned the whole thing down. His eyes lit on the dour, heavy Number One, and inwardly he shook his head. No. There was no question about that. You didn't turn down Zoran Jankez. He looked at Aleksander Kardelj, and in spite of the other's smiling face, he decided you didn't turn down ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... spoke his mother: "Davie, my son, you'll no listen to ony sich temptation. My brither is my brither, and there are few folk o' the Gordon line a'thegither wrang, but Alexander Gordon is a dour man, and I trow weel you'll serve hard for ony share in his money bags. You'll just gang your ways back to college and tak' up your Greek and Hebrew and serve in the Lord's temple instead of Alexander Gordon's Soho Bank; and, Davie, if you'll do right in this matter you'll ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... appear; Then Speirs of Condie (whom he convinced), then Murray and Lethington with whom he held one of those long arguments which were of frequent recurrence, and which are always highly dramatic—the dour preacher holding his own like a stone wall before all the assaults, light, brilliant, and varied, of the accomplished secretary, whose smile of contempt at the unconquerable personage before him and his "devout imaginations" is often mingled with ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... that wealthy and amiable eccentric, Madame Helene Omber, was a souvenir of those days when Passy had been suburban. A survival of the Revolution, a vast, dour pile that had known few changes since the days of its construction, it occupied a large, unkempt park, irregularly triangular in shape, bounded by two streets and an avenue, and rendered private by high walls crowned with broken glass. Carriage gates opened on the ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... unexpected illness brought no relief to the bishop, at all events to outward seeming, for he was paler and more haggard than ever in looks, and as dour as a bear in manner. With Mrs Pendle he strove to be his usual cheerful self, but with small success, as occasionally he would steal an anxious look at her, and heave deep sighs expressive of much inward trouble. ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... wide this wintry night, I 'm wand'ring wide and late, And ridgy wreaths afore me rise, As if to bar my gate; Around me swirls the sleety drift, The frost bites dour an' keen; But breathings warm, frae lovin' lips, Come ilka ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... father sitting by the living-room window and came to a stop. Mr. Darner was a dour, heavy-set man with a coarse, bristling gray beard. He glared at ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... ruddily flushed; till, finally, ever becoming more earthy, they upreared themselves, high-ribbed and red, bush-crowned and splashed with green—our familiar, friendly cliffs, for each and every part of whom we have a name. The sun slid out from a parting of clouds in the east, warming the dour waves ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... a goodly company that assembled for the grand ball, the first one in the second season of Mr. Polk's somewhat confused and discordant administration. Social matters had started off dour enough. Mrs. Polk was herself of strict religious practice, and I imagine it had taken somewhat of finesse to get her consent to these festivities. It was called sometimes the diplomats' ball. At least there was diplomacy ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... Lockhard," replied Caleb, "ye must consider there has been a change of hands, and the auld lord might expect twa turns frae them, when the new-comer canna get ane. A dour and fractious set they were, thae tenants of Ravenswood, and ill to live wi' when they dinna ken their master; and if your master put them mad ance, the whole country ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... recovered and unfolded the horrible tale. She had caught Carlotta kissing her hand to him. She had also seen him smuggle a three-cornered note between Carlotta's fingers, and Carlotta had definitely refused to surrender the billet-dour. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Whigs were conquered. But not the Scottish Whigs, the Auld Leaven of the Covenant,—they were still dour, and offered many criticisms. Thereon Scott, by way of disproving his authorship, offered to review the Tales in the "Quarterly." His true reason for this step was the wish to reply to Dr. Thomas McCrie, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... upright and longing to be merry in a dour world, he sank down among the spotted, the shiftless, the worthless. But ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... beautiful arches of triumph that were being put up in the town, we were warned not to expect too much from Newfoundland. St. John's had not its bump of enthusiasm largely developed, we were told; its people were resolutely dour and we must not be disappointed if the Prince's reception lacked warmth. In all probability the weather would conform to the general habit ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... I 'm a lad o' laigh degree, Her purse-proud daddy 's dour an' saucy; An' sair the carle wad scowl on me, For speakin' to his dawtit lassie: But were I laird o' Leven's glen, An' she a humble shepherd's daughter, I 'd kneel, an' court her for my ain, The bonny lass ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... redhot prelatist, he came down here, rampauging like a lion, with commissions of lieutenancy (and of lunacy, for what I ken) to put down a' the Whigs and Covenanters in the country. Wild wark they made of it; for the Whigs were as dour as the Cavaliers were fierce, and it was which should first tire the other. Redgauntlet was ay for the strong hand; and his name is kend as wide in the country as Claverhouse's or Tam Dalyell's. Glen, nor dargle, nor mountain, nor cave, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... interested in the probable location of the Mission—far too deeply interested for a shipmaster docking his ship—and Little, too, had his mind and eyes on the scene of his imminent adventures to the exclusion of all else. Rolfe, the dour chief mate, was where a good mate should be, on the forecastle head, looking out for lines and fenders. Vandersee alone appeared capable of handling his duties and giving attention to the shore at the same time. Never relaxing his vigilance for a moment in placing the brigantine advantageously ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... owld woman—pine knots an' the like o' that. I didn't git home much afore darruk, and me owld horse wasn't more nor in the shtable an' I 'atin' me supper, quiet like, afore Belcher druv up to me house wid his purty man on the seat wid 'im. An' says he: 'Mike Conlin! Mike Conlin! Come to the dour wid ye!' So I wint to the dour, an' he says, says he: 'Hev ye seen a crazy old feller wid a b'y?' An' says I: 'There's no crazy owld feller wid a b'y been by me house in the daytime. If they wint by at all at all, it was when me family was aslape.' Then ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... arrival, and whom we had, therefore, not replaced in town, sent missives instead, to "hope they didn't inconvenience, but they had changed their minds". The two town servants who had arrived were immediately plunged into woe, and, looking into their set, dour faces, one could hear the inward thought, "Don't believe anyone ever was engaged! Just one of their tricks to get us down here to do the work alone." We left them sitting like monuments of woe in the kitchen, and shut ourselves up in ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a circle upon the sward; They both were dour, as the rocks are hard; Forsooth, I tell you, their hearts were steel'd,— The one to the other no jot would yield. Look out, look out, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... The doctor—a dour and deliberate Scot—declined to be positive, but "doubted" it might be perityphlitis. "Appendicitis is a more fashionable term," he added. The child had rallied, but was very ill, and nothing more could be done at present except keep her warm and afford relief by means ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... belief in any personal God. British administrators watched and fostered the moral and intellectual progress of India with increasing confidence in the results of Western education, and none with more conviction than Lord Dalhousie, a high-minded and dour Scotsman, who was the last Governor-General to serve out his time under the East India Company. Other aspects of his policy may have been less wise. The extension of British rule to the Punjab became inevitable after a Sikh rising compelled ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... Everywhere I went, where there were wounded men, I sang for those who were strong enough to be allowed to listen, and told them stories, and did all I could to cheer them up. It was heartrending work, oftentimes. There were dour sights, dreadful sights in those hospitals. There were wounds the memory of which robbed me of sleep. There were men doomed to blindness for the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... was atrocious; so was the next morning; but about noon we were cheered by the sight of the glorious mountain-walls of well-remembered Midian, which stood out of the clear blue sky in passing grandeur of outline, in exceeding splendid dour of colouring, and in marvellous sharpness of detail. Once more the "power of the hills" ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... it, smiling to herself as she recalled also the dour figure of Mr. Hichens in the library at Sabines, seated stiffly, listening while she construed. If only tutors ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... but an uneasy feeling has prevailed for a year or more. It's this d—d Oliverian element among them. You see, ever since his Majesty's blessed restoration, gang after gang of rebels have been sent us—Independents, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy men, dour Scotch Whigamores—dangerous fanatics all! Many are Naseby or Worcester rogues, Ironsides who worship the memory of that devil's lieutenant, Oliver. All have the gift of the gab. We disperse them as much as possible, not allowing above five or six to any one plantation, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... tree, but "dreigh and dour" in the leafing; and yonder stands an Ash-grove like a forest of ships with bare poles in the docks of Liverpool. Yet like the town ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... it. She ought to go away. There is no one for her to marry here, where we haven't seen a white man for years, and she's a lady right enough, like her mother. But who is she to go to, being a Roman Catholic whom my own dour Presbyterian folk in Scotland, if any of them are left, would turn their backs on? Moreover, she loves me in her own fashion, as I love her, and she wouldn't leave me because she thinks it her duty to stay and knows ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... ago, about the lonely post a little settlement had gathered—a band of sturdy Scots. Those dour and doughty pioneers of peoples had planted on the Red River their homes upon their little "strip" farms—a rampart of civilization against the wide, wild prairie, the home of the buffalo, and camp ground of the hunters of ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... life look good even to the man who feels the pinch of poverty and whose outlook is dreary. You can't keep down the boy who makes Carlyle his daily companion; he will rise by very force of fighting spirit of this dour old Scotchman. ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... crag. Over the sapphire canal where the old men are fishing for sprats, above the rugged scarp where the blue-bloused ouvriers are quarrying the famous champagne cheese, you see the Gothic transept of the Palazzio Ginricci, dour against a nacre sky. An involuntary tremolo eddies down your spinal marrow. The Gin Palace, you murmur.... At last you ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... flowing hair beseen. 'What is thy name?' I asked her, and she replied, 'I'm she Who roasts the hearts of lovers on coals of love and teen. I am the pure white silver, ay, and the gold wherewith The bondsmen from strait prison and dour released been.' Quoth I, 'I'm all with rigours consumed;' but 'On a rock,' Said she, 'such as my heart is, thy plaints are wasted clean.' 'Even if thy heart,' I answered, 'be rock in very deed, Yet hath God caused fair water well from the rock, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Sara Lee's bedroom contained a small round dining table and chairs. Sara Lee, enveloped in a large pinafore apron, made the omelet in the kitchen. Marie brought a pail of fresh milk. Henri, with a towel over his left arm, and in absurd mimicry of a Parisian waiter, laid the table; and Jean, dour Jean, caught a bit of the infection, and finding four bottles set to work with his pocketknife to fit candles ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... account for. Salarino tells him that the mental attitude is everything; that mirth is as easy as gloom; that nature in her freakishness makes some men laugh at trifles until their eyes become mere slits, yet leaves others dour and unsmiling before jests that would convulse even the venerable Nestor. Gratiano maintains that Antonio is too absorbed in worldly affairs, and that he must not let his spirits grow ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... first watch, from eight o'clock to midnight. Christobal and Walker shared the next one; by four o'clock it would be daylight, so the doctor was retiring early to his cabin when he met Elsie, by chance as it seemed. She was self-possessed, even smiling, with a certain dour serenity. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... delighted to see each other, and he stopped with me nearly a week. He had, after leaving the College, gone into his father's business, but when the old man died he could not get on with his half brothers, who were dour men, and had little patience with Allan's restlessness and love of pleasure. So, after a final quarrel, they had given him so much money for his share of the business, and a letter of introduction to a trader in Poland, who had written to them saying that he wanted a partner with some ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... remove his dour look from their vicinity. "I'll be around at eight," he said. "See you later, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... the way it'll be. The McRaes don't cry back on a bargain," the dour old buffalo-hunter said. "But first we'll look at this young man's arm. Get water ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... inevitable with a rather dour face, and there was silence between them for quite ten minutes, as Katherine, forced by the narrowness of the way, ceased rowing, and, shipping her oars, picked up a paddle which formed part of the boat's equipment, and commenced to paddle her way ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... appeared as if she would smile. The Rector was conscious of her vivid face, framed in a fringe of black hair, of a mischievousness in her beauty, some careless abandon in the swing of her limbs. But something in the level dark brows of the Rector, something that was dour, forbade her smile. It died in a little flush of confusion. The peasants passed and the Rector gave them time to make some headway before he resumed ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... startling paradox? How is it, and why is it, that the artistic and exuberant, genial and sentimental German submits to the hard rule of the commonplace, uninteresting, and dour Prussian? ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... after you. But still, though I am parting with the world, and you have got a long time to stay in it, I am better off than you. The sight of these flowers makes me joyful, but it only seems to make you dour. Now, shall I tell you how it is that I am ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... been a slow dour race, Kit, who never gave our heart lightly, but having given it, never played the traitor. Fortune has not favoured us, for acre after acre has gone from our hands, but, thank God, we 've never ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... his big hands enthusiastically, "it will be the greatest football match that ever was played;" but an old burgher, with his left hand in a sling, bound up in dirty-looking bandages, interposed: "No; the only game we like to play now is the one with cannon-balls." No; these dour, stolid men take their fighting sadly and sternly; there is none of the "frolic welcome" with which our Irish Tommies, for instance, enjoy their fighting or endure the waiting for it. When I was a prisoner in Pretoria they used to ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... interest him. He was the only Irishman I have ever met who cared nothing for either the political or the religious issue. He had a prejudice against one Orange district, because the people in it were dour. He had a prejudice against one Roman Catholic district, because the people in it were rude. Otherwise his mind was untroubled. Life was what interested him. He would have watched a political or religious riot with gravity, with pleasure in the spectacle, and ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... as he's empty-headed—takes after Gwendoline in that—if he hadn't some excellent reason for wishing to take possession: and depend upon it, the reason is that he wants to get hold of something or other that's Harold's. But he sha'n't if I can help it; and, thank my stars, I'm a dour woman to reckon with. If he comes, he comes over my old bones, child. I've been overhauling everything of Marmy's, I can tell you, to checkmate the boy if I can; but I've found nothing yet, and till I've satisfied ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... us. "It's my opinion that Mercer has seen his wraith," he remarked sententiously. "There's a grave, dour look about his pale countenance which a man who is long for this world ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... dour, stern, old Calvinist, was of opinion that every picture was a breaking of the second commandment—"A makin' o' an image and likeness o' the warks o' God, and sae, neither mair nor less than idolatry. Forbye, pictur's are pairfectly ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... why I never shed a tear during all those terrible three days. I couldn't, in some way, though the nurse herself was crying, and poor old Whinnie and Struthers were sobbing together next to the window, and dour old Dinky-Dunk, on the other side of the bed, was racking his shoulders with smothered sobs as he held the little white hand in his and the warmth went forever out of the little fingers where his foolish big hand was trying to hold back the life that couldn't be kept there. The old ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Merrill and the others to the door, was silent and dour. He had been cavalierly affronted by a man who, but a few short years before, he would have considered a mere underling. Here was Cowperwood bearding the lion in his den, dictating terms to the principal financial ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Bruce, for example, Professor of Engineering, was a soldier in a few weeks and a fine one. In time of peace, a quiet, humorous, dour and religious-minded man, he was now a stern disciplinarian and a cunning foe who fought to kill, rejoicing in the carnage that taught a lesson and made for earlier peace. The mind that had dreamed of universal ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... the archer, writhing in his bonds to stare upon Beltane, "forsooth, Roger, he took a dour ding upon his yellow pate, look ye; but for his mail-coif he were a ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... said the dour good-wife, "But ye should let him be; He's maybe only a drover chap Frae the land o' ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... for the moon; and, as though in answer, the lantern of the night shone out and lit the dour face of the Chair above him. He shot a glance at his feet; and thanked heaven on finding the gray dog was not ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... he had been so confident! "'T is the grand golf I'll play the day, and the life tingling in my finger-tips!" And great golf he did play, with his ripping passionate shots, but a thirty-foot putt on the home green beat him. All through the match his face had been dour, but now came the outstretched hand and the smile at the corner ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... lit and revealed a heavy-set, dour of countenance man seated at a desk. He looked into Joe Prantera's face, scowled and ...
— Gun for Hire • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... reprieve was seemingly impossible, he faced his misfortunes with a dour courage. It had been a difficult and thankless task during the past month to stave off pressing creditors. With Iris in Bootle and Bulmer her devoted slave, Verity would have weathered the gale with jaunty self-confidence. But that element of strength was lacking; nay, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... with transport. Dropped bomb into transport parked 1/2 mile S. of village. Transport stretching along the road from Dour to ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... commonly used are larger than what are employed in Loch Leven. A teal wing and red body, a grouse hackle, and the prismatic Heckham Peckham are among the favourites; but it is said that flies no bigger than Tweed flies are occasionally successful. In my own brief experience I have found the trout "dour," occasionally they would rise freely for an hour at noon, or in the evening; but often one passed hours with scarcely a rising fish. This may have been due to the bitterness of the weather, or to my own lack of skill. Not that lochs generally require much artifice ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... he leaned. He had never been like this, a shy frightened dreaming child taken up with fancies and finding omens and stories in the piping of a fowl. Oh! no, he had been a bluff, hearty, hungry boy, hot-headed, red-legged, short-kilted, stirring, a bit of a bully, a loud talker, a dour lad with his head and his fists. This boy beside him made him think of neither man nor boy, but of his sister Jennet, who died in the plague year, a wide-eyed, shrinking, clever girl, with a nerve that ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... his life to his trade; and, despite his travels in France and Spain, he enjoyed few intervals of merriment. Even the humour, which proved his redemption, was as dour and grim as Scotland can furnish at her grimmes: and dourest. Here is a specimen will serve as well as another: three of Gilderoy's gang had been hanged according to the sentence of a certain Lord of Session, and the Chieftain, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... opened and shut maliciously, he nodded dour assent. After an instant, while he watched her, she added: "Thee has not heard my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and the Maharajah of Dour, both about 15 or 16, have been sent together to an English Boarding School. Glyn's father has been for many years a Colonel in the Maharajah's father's army, but now the old Maharajah is dead, and his son, known at school ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... bide their time," Armstrong said gravely. "They are dour men, and will take their turn, though they ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... ten years ago. The two friends, scorning delights, living laborious days, had seen but little of one another. Light-hearted Annie had borne to her dour partner two children who had died. Nathaniel George, with the luck supposed to wait on number three, had lived on, and, inheriting fortunately the temperament of his mother, had brought sunshine into the gloomy rooms above the shop in High Street, Kensington. Mrs. Grindley, grown weak and ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... the amazed Mr. Selwyn, "who dares lay hands on bold Robin Hood?—away, base rogue, hie thee hence or I am like to fetch thee a dour ding on ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... Somerby-Miles, Lieutenant Forshay, and Mr. Robert Murdock—respectively, a silly, flirtatious, little gadfly of a widow; a callow, love-struck, lap-dog, young naval officer, with a budding moustache and a full-blown idea of his own importance; a dour Scotchman of middle age, with a passion for chess, a glowering scorn of frivolities, a deep abiding conviction that Scotland was the only country in the world for a self-respecting human being to dwell in, and that ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... somewhat reproachfully at Janet Andrews, as if to ask her why Felix should have attained to this dubious knowledge of good and evil under her care; and Janet shot a dour look back which, being interpreted, meant that if Felix went to the district school she could not and would not be held responsible if he learned more there than arithmetic ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... meeting in the lady's drawing-room, to which clergymen, laymen, and members of all denominations are being invited, for this is a cause that rises above all differences of dogma, and I intend to try what can be done toward a union of Christendom on a social basis. Mrs. Callender is dour on that subject too, reminding me that where the carcass is there will the eagles be gathered together. The Archdeacon thinks we must have the meeting before the twelfth of August, or not until after the middle of September, and Mrs. Callender understands this to mean ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... I'm ganging awa', for ye'll be wearied o' my cracks, and I am wearied wi' cracking without an answer—and I'se bring ye a bit o' bride's-cake ane o' thae days, and maybe bring Grace to see you. Ye wad like to see Grace, man, for as dour as ye are—Eh, Lord I I wish he may be weel, that was a sair grane! or, maybe, he thought I was speaking of heavenly grace, and no of Grace Armstrong. Poor man, I am very doubtfu' o' his condition; but I am sure he is as kind to me as if I were his son, and a queer-looking father I wad hae had, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... are carefully described in the Durham Rites. At Durham "in the north syde of the cloister, from the corner over against the church dour to the corner over againste the Dortor dour, was all fynely glased, from the highs to the sole within a litle of the grownd into the cloister garth. And in every wyndowe iij pewes or carrells, where ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... however, whether the whole society was composed of "natural Quakers," who, like Holcroft and Godwin, preached non-resistance before Tolstoy. The dour commonsense of Hardy maintained the theory—he vowed that it was only theory—that every citizen should possess arms and know their use. As the Revolution went forward in France, the agitation in England became increasingly reckless. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... grey and dirty weather, And I heard a drum go rolling, Rub-a-dubbing in the distance, Awful dour-like and defiant. ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... describe the man, one might best answer that he is the Englishman to the nth. degree. It is usual to find that the man of extraordinary merit is in some degree a contrast with and a criticism of the mere average mortal of his set. The dour urbanity of Kitchener, for instance, is Oriental rather than English, and contrasts strangely with the choleric tradition of the army officer. So the infinite alertness and constant good humour of Roberts has a quality of Latin esprit very foreign to the English temperament. But there are no such ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... porch on summer evenings. Yes, this dress is like a piece of old lavender—it reminds me of the past, of the sunny, happy past. I have had such a happy life, Effie—never a cross word said, never a dour look given me. Love has surrounded me from the moment of my marriage until now. I feel young to-night, and I am going to be happy, very happy. The children must look their best too. Run up, darling, to the nursery and see that Susan is doing them justice—they are pretty children every ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... punch, Mrs. Gray?" This being declined, he proceeded. "I am jalousing that the messenger and his warrant were just brought in to prevent any opposition. Ye saw how quietly he behaved after I had laid down the law—I'll never believe the lady is in any risk from him. But the father is a dour chield; depend upon it, he has bred up the young filly on the curb-rein, and that has made the poor thing start off the course. I should not be surprised that he took her abroad, and shut her ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... against Black McTee?" queried the engineer, deeply moved. "Well, lad, McTee's a dour man, but dour or not he shall not run the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back. In the morning he rose early; ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... que Mons. Gualhard de Dureffourt ... ad recue ... quatorze guianois dour et dys sondz de la mon[oye] ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... gay and winsome though she was, it was not long before Mary was at issue with her dour Protestant subjects and their spokesman, John Knox. It was hoped by her brother, James Stuart (Murray), and Secretary Lethington that a modus vivendi might be found by persuading Elizabeth to secure to Mary the English succession in case she herself ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... When the Panther laid her ice-sheathed guard-rail against the Hot Springs wharf the sun was down. The lake spread gray and lifeless under a gray sky, and Stella Benton's spirits were steeped in that same dour color. ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... he saw a Catholic audience, its character emphasized by the appearance of priests clad in the distinctive garments of their orders. It was his duty to oppose a great mass of legislation intended to strengthen that Church and to add to its privileges. His spirit rose and he grew more dour and resolute as he realized the strength of the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... conditions of life, school themselves much more than they are schooled. Active, inquisitive, resolute, and possessing a fair share of the national perfervidum ingenium, not without some tincture of those elements of the Scottish character known as the "canny" and the "dour," our worker early developed that robust vigour of mind and body which has so long stood the wear and ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... was a considerable change. Not a change for the better, in the opinion of the new arrival there. The Montrose household, ruled by Captain Craigie's elderly sisters, was a dour and strict one, informed by an atmosphere of bleak and chill Calvinism. All enjoyment was frowned upon; pleasure was "worldly" and had to be severely suppressed. No more petting and spoiling for the little girl. Instead, a regime ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Thomson, of harsh and meagre upbringing, was the grumbler of his billet. He found fault with the camp fare, accommodation and hours in particular, with the discipline in general. Yet, oddly enough, after a fortnight or so, he seemed to accept the physical drill at 7 a.m. with a sort of dour satisfaction, though he never had a good word to ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... Fergus: "Dour the man when anger moves, Owing to his gore-red glaive; Ferdiad wears a skin of horn, 'Gainst which fight ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Commission besides that of the Times remains to be mentioned. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a dour Scot with a lot of gumption in his head, was chairman of one on Imperial versus local taxation. My easy task was to show the excess of the latter in Kerry, which is the highest taxed county ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... be the more mistaken," said he. "What makes the differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But for auld, cauld, dour, deidly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here's you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether you'll no' stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No' me! Firstly, because ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but Alec micht hae committed a waur sin than thrashin' the dominie. He's a dour crater, that Murdoch Malison, wi' his fair face and his picket words. I doot the bairns hae the warst o' 't in general. And for Alec I hae great houpes. He comes o' a guid stock. His father, honest man, was ane ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... was lying black and sullen under a dour November sky; the wet, dead leaves clung drenched and sodden to the window sills; but the little house was gay with firelight and spring-like with Anne's ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sure this was a deliberate untruth. He bit his lip. "Well, I looked to find myself in an enemy's country at this Tergou; but maybe if ye knew all ye would not be so dour." ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... on Tweed, The spot they ca'd it Linkumdoddie; Willie was a wabster guid, [weaver good] Cou'd stown a clue wi' ony body. [have stolen] He had a wife was dour and din, [stubborn, sallow] O, Tinkler Madgie was her mither; [Tinker] Sic a wife as Willie had, [Such] I wad na gie a button ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the town in a dour mood of unrest, spite of the promise of wealth he carried in his pocket. He mailed the package and the letter, and went to a saloon and had a highball. He was not a drinking man—at least, he never had been one, beyond a convivial glass or two with his fellows—but he felt that ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... the manse windows of the parish of Dour. The village of Dour straggled, a score of white-washed cottages, along four hundred yards of rocky shore. There was a little port, to attempt which in a south-west wind was to risk an abrupt change of condition. This was what made half of the men in the parish of Dour God-fearing ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... universe remained unshaken. But if I did so, and came presently to DOUN, which is the classical Scots spelling of the English DOWN, I should begin to feel uneasy; and if I went on a little farther, and came to a classical Scots word, like STOUR or DOUR or CLOUR, I should know precisely where I was - that is to say, that I was out of sight of land on those high seas of spelling reform in which so many strong swimmers have toiled vainly. To some the situation is exhilarating; as for me, I give one bubbling cry and sink. The compromise ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Arthur hesitated, 'I misdoubt greatly whether Burnside would give you a helping hand if you came fresh from colloguing with French Jacobites, though my father and all the rest of us at the Lynn aye told him that he might thank himself and his dour old dominie for your prank—you were but a schoolboy then—you are a man now; and though your poor mother would be blithe to set eyes on you, she would be sairly perplexed what gate you had best turn thereafter. Now, see here! There's talk of our being sent to dislodge the Spaniards from ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at another time, "twa or three even dared to question the minister, but I'm thinking they made nothing o't. The majority agrees that he was just inspired to change his text. But Lang Tammas is dour. Tammas telled the session a queer thing. He says that after the diet o' worship on that eventful afternoon Mr. Dishart carried the Bible out o' the pulpit instead o' leaving that duty as usual to the kirk-officer. Weel, Tammas, being precentor, has a richt, as you ken, to leave ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... the prosecution was Sir Herbert Templewood, K.C., M.P., a political barrister, with a Society wife, a polished manner, and a deadly gift of cross-examination. With him was Mr. Grover Braecroft, a dour Scotch lawyer of fifty-five, who was currently believed to know the law from A to Z, and really had an intimate acquaintance with those five letters which made up the magic word Costs. Apart from this valuable knowledge, he was a cunning and ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... with a twinkle in his grey eyes, and lit a cheroot. The relationships between Patricia Hamilton and Bones were a source of constant joy to him. Taciturn and a thought dour as he was, Pat would never have suspected the bubbling laughter which arose behind that lean brown face, unmovable and, in his moments ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... had noticed that reflection in the mirror, and it had not helped to soothe her spirits. She felt an unreasoning anger against Claire for appearing more attractive than herself, but it did not occur to her that she was heightening the contrast by her own dour, ungracious manner. Altogether that tea-party was a difficult occasion, and as it proceeded, Claire's spirits sank ever lower and lower. She had spent more than she had any right to afford on those two expensive tickets, hoping thereby ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... as soon as he had opened the dour, the king looked upon the table, and cried with a loud voice, Great art thou, O Bel, and with thee ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... right down to my knees; I was almost distracted. When it got dark I jogged along to the Town Hall—God knows how I got there—and sat on the edge of the balustrade. I tore a pocket out of my coat and took to chewing it; not with any defined object, but with dour mien and unseeing eyes, staring straight into space. I could hear a group of little children playing around near me, and perceive, in an instinctive sort of way, some pedestrians pass me ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... to him, you mean," said Shenac sharply. "I was sorry for that as soon as I said it. But, Hamish, if you think I'm going down on my knees to Angus Dhu to tell him so, you're mistaken. He may not be a thief and a robber, but he's a dour carle, though he is of our own kin, and as different from our father as the dark is different from the day. And I can say nothing else of him, even ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson |
