"Groat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cast down a silver groat, A silver groat o' Scots money, "If I come wi' a poor man's dole," he said, "True Thomas, will ye harp ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... shore, unafeared of man, would be solitary hinds, widows and rovers from their clans, sniffing eagerly over to the Cowal hills. Poor beasts! poor beasts! I've seen them in their madness take to the ice for it when it was little thicker than a groat, thinking to reach the oak-woods of Ardchyline. For a time the bay at the river mouth was full of long-tailed ducks, that at a whistle almost came to your hand, and there too came flocks of wild-swan, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... learning, which undevoutly sang mass and oftentimes twice on one day. So it happened on a time, after his second mass was done in short space, not a mile from Stratford there met him divers merchantmen, which would have heard mass, and desired him to sing mass and he should have a groat, which answered them and said: 'Sirs, I will say mass no more this day; but I will say you two gospels for one groat, and that is dog-cheap for a mass in any place in England.'" The story-teller does not inform us whether the pious merchants ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... knows this is a scandalous place, for they say your Honour was but a broken Excise-Man, who spent the King's Money to buy your Wife fine Petticoats; and at last not worth a Groat, you came over a poor Servant, though now a Justice of the Peace, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... after a pause, "thee shall take my son home, and I'll give thee a groat. Let me see; art thee a lad to be trusted?" And holding him at arm's length, regarding him meanwhile with eyes that were the terror of all the rogues in Norton Bury, Abel Fletcher jingled temptingly the silver money in the pockets of his long-flapped brown waistcoat. ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... but he was too quick for me, and set (sat) up and lost it and more to Lord Stavordale. I know that he could have pleaded his debt to Lord Cholmondly, and to Brooks himself, &c., neither of whom probably would have received a groat; but that matter is over for the present. However, Brooks has promised me that (sic), if any event of this kind happens again, to avail himself of it, ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... plying, no cakes she is dressing, No babe of her bosom in fondness caressing; Be up she, or down she, she 's ever distressing The core of my heart with her bother. For a groat, for a groat with goodwill I would sell her, As the bark of the oak is the tan of her leather, And a bushel of coals would avail but to chill her, For a hag can ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... small & popular Musickes song by thesse Cantabanqui vpon benches and barrels heads where they haue none other audience then boys or countrey fellowes that passse by them in the streete, or else by blind harpers or such like tauerne minstrels that giue a fit of mirth for a groat, & their matters being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Beuis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough & such ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... name I have forgotten, was performed. The same evening I learned, however, that although the Italian public was passionately fond of song, it was the ballet which they regarded as the main item; for, obviously, the dreary opera, at the beginning was only intended to prepare the way for a groat choreographic performance on a subject no less pretentious than that of Antony and Cleopatra. In this ballet I saw even the cold politician Octavianus, who until now had not so far lost his dignity as to appear as a character in any Italian opera, acting ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Chipnam stood in Pewsham's wood, Before it was destroy'd, A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare- ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... was certainly not appreciated by her who used it. Nothing could much more have astonished or shocked Barbara Polwhele [a fictitious person]—than whom no more uncompromising Protestant breathed between John o' Groat's and the Land's End—than to discover that since she came into the room, she had twice invoked the assistance of Saint ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... these we must add frugality if we would make our industry more certainly successful. "A man may," if he knows not how to save as he goes "keep his nose all his life to the grindstone and die not worth a groat at last." "A fat kitchen makes a lean will," as Poor ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... visited London, in 1603, after King James ascended the English throne. Logan appears to have gone merely for pleasure; he had seen London before, in the winter of 1586. On his return he said that he would 'never bestow a groat on such vanities' as the celebration of the King's holiday, August 5, the anniversary of the Gowrie tragedy; adding 'when the King has cut off all the noblemen of the country he will live at ease.' But many citizens disliked the 5th of August holiday as ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... from sea-sickness during the night, my stomach was quite empty. My erotic inconvenience made me very uncomfortable, my mind felt deeply the consciousness of my degradation, and I did not possess a groat! I was in such a miserable state that I had no strength to accept or to refuse anything. I was thoroughly torpid, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... soon become reconciled to it. But on the contrary, the attorney, on being told the news, turned his daughter out of doors and would have nothing more to do with either of them. The bridegroom, finding his heiress worth not a groat, did what other sailors have done before and since, and slipped away to sea without so much as saying good-bye to his bride. But a more gallant lover soon hove in sight, the handsome, rich, dare-devil pirate, Captain John Rackam, known up and down the coast as "Calico Jack." ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the bellows, "this fellow is too lazy to stand, so we have to hang him up; and he is too lazy to breathe for himself, so he pays me a groat a day to do it for him ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... of that which in itself would be worthless, or even loathsome, shall make your fortune. Morland's pigs and pig-styes, on paper or canvas, were always worth half a hundred of the originals. One of Tenier's inside-out pictures of a village feast, with drunken boors—not worth a groat apiece when alive—would now fetch its weight in gold three ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... Boswell's described by saying, that a man could there be always "close to his burrow." The "burrow" which received the luckless wight, was indeed no pleasant refuge. Since poor Green, in the earliest generation of dramatists, bought his "groat'sworth of wit with a million of repentance," too many of his brethren had trodden the path which led to hopeless misery or death in a tavern brawl. The history of men who had to support themselves by their pens, is a record of almost universal ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... chose the guava-berry; but without any immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas crowned the feast. These were eaten with sugar and wine, and before ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... often have we seen men, by the mere strength of their credit, trade for ten thousand pounds a-year, and have not one groat of real stock of their own left in the world! Nay, I can say it of my own knowledge, that I have known a tradesman trade for ten thousand pounds a-year, and carry it on with full credit to the last gasp, then die, and break both at once; ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... Violent and ignorant as these classes were, the effects upon them of so cheap and maddening a drink were incalculably debasing. "The drunkenness of the common people," says an eye-witness, "was so universal by the retailing of a liquor called gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London, and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people of both sexes from morning to night, and were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society."[138] The sign which hangs over the inn-door in Hogarth's picture of Gin Lane, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... invisible green. The lamp and glasses were bright as silver; and the whole equipage had an air of privacy and reserve that seemed to repel inquiry and disarm suspicion. With a servant like Rowley, and a chaise like this, I felt that I could go from the Land's End to John o' Groat's House amid a population of bowing ostlers. And I suppose I betrayed in my manner the degree in ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Braes, and of Sholto inasmuch as he hoped to win the prize for the best accoutrement and the most point-device attiring among all the archers of the Earl's guard. The young men had asked crusty Simon Conchie, the boatman at the Ferry Croft, to set them over, offering him a groat for his pains. But he was far too busy to pay any attention to mere silver coin on such an occasion, only pausing long enough to cry to them that they must e'en cross at the fords, as many of their ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... Mary. "'Tis no matter. Barbara," to her companion, "hast thou the purse? Give the lad a groat. Marry! thou art all alike. Ye wish bounty whether ye deserve it or not. Go, and trouble ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... which I have submitted. As for the people, you will believe, from the specimen I have given you, that they could not be very engaging company: though poor and dirty, they still pretend to be proud; and a fellow who is not worth a groat, is above working for his livelihood. They come abroad barefooted, and without any cover to the head, wrapt up in the coverlets under which you would imagine they had slept. They throw all off, and appear ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... nor mine. Which of the parties got the better I really forget. I think it was (as it ought to be) the king. The material point is, that the suit cost about fifteen thousand pounds. But as the Duke of Lancaster is but a sort of Duke Humphrey, and not worth a groat, our sovereign was obliged to pay the costs of both. Indeed, this art of converting a great monarch into a little prince, this royal masquerading, is a very dangerous and expensive amusement, and one ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the first half year of service, and provided only that there is to be a continuance of the engagement: surely a beneficent provision for the poor teacher. (3) One cannot travel very far in Britain: for ten dollars one can go from London to John O'Groat's. (4) Vacancies are announced by bulletin in the office as they occur, and a notification is sent by post to distant registered candidates: secrecy in regard to the whereabouts and emoluments of a position is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... that rules my luckless lot, Has fated me the russet coat, And damned my fortune to the groat; But, in requit, Has blest me with a random shot O' ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... all my heart!" said Temperance. "But, Madam, and saving your Ladyship's presence, crowns bloom not on our raspberry bushes, nor may horses be bought for a groat ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... entrances, so that really one long room was the result. They were all three fairly full; that into which they entered, the first in the row, was occupied by some gentlemen-pensioners and ladies talking and laughing; some playing shove-groat, and some of them still applauding the song that had just ended. The middle room was much the same; and the third, which was a step higher than the others, was that in which was the Queen, with Lady Leicester ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... sweethearts as many as you any day; And I've eyes of my own, as you've noticed, maybe, If you've glanced from the author of Bonnie Dundee! And Duncan of Monteith my suitor has been, And Stewart of MacBride's, who has served to the Queen. And if any one bows, it will sure not be me, For I don't give a groat who wrote ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... Upon demand, with fairer justice 1515 Than all your covenanting Trustees; Unless to punish them the worse, You put them in the secular pow'rs, And pass their souls, as some demise The same estate in mortgage twice; 1520 When to a legal Utlegation You turn your excommunication, And for a groat unpaid, that's due, Distrain on soul and ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... again; we were again laying our heads together, with intent to struggle against our mother. I cared not a groat for William Adolphus, but it would be pleasant to me to help my sister to bring him back to his bearings; and the more pleasant in view of Princess Heinrich's belief that the things ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... this use? Should a Man unacquainted with our Customs be told the Sums which are allowed in Great Britain, under the Title of Pin-money, what a prodigious Consumption of Pins would he think there was in this Island? A Pin a Day, says our frugal Proverb, is a Groat a Year, so that according to this Calculation, my Friend Fribbles Wife must every Year make use of Eight Millions six hundred and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... carat is generally a twenty-fourth part of a diner, i.e. about 5d.; but here it appears to be a sixtieth part or about 2d. Burton, "A copper carat, a bright polished groat."] ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... another triviality which has hitherto been to the taste only of the south of England is fated to "catch on," by means of the same missionaries, from Land's End to John o' Groat's, and even in the colonies. Rhyming slang is extraordinarily common in the army, so common that it is used with complete unconsciousness as being correct conversational English. My friend of the king-like toe spoke of his feet as "plates of meat"—and this ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the career of Sir John Sinclair; characterized by the Abbe Gregoire as "the most indefatigable man in Europe." He was originally a country laird, born to a considerable estate situated near John o' Groat's House, almost beyond the beat of civilization, in a bare wild country fronting the stormy North Sea. His father dying while he was a youth of sixteen, the management of the family property thus early devolved upon him; and at eighteen ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... past twenty-four hours. They told me at the Customs that the Brazilian war-vessel built by Signor Vezzia weighed at three a.m.; but more I could not learn, for these men had evidently been well bribed, and were as dumb as unfee'd lawyers. I knew that their information was not worth a groat, and hurried back to the Albergo to assure myself that my neighbour with the necklace had sailed also. To my surprise, he was at breakfast when I arrived at the hotel; and so one great link in my theoretic chain snapped at the first test. As he had not ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... terrible agent at work in that same basement. If you only saw the electric batteries there that generate the electricity which enables us up-stairs to send our messages flying from London to the Land's End or John o' Groat's, or the heart of Ireland! You must know that a far stronger battery is required to send messages a long way than a short. Our Battery Inspector told me the other day that he could not tell exactly the power of all the ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... and I will come by and by. Now for a pair of spurs I would give a good groat, To try whether this jade do amble or trot. Farewell, my masters, till I come again, For now I must ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... stalwart lord: Men clepen that water Tyrrel's ford. By Rhinefield and by Osmondsleigh, Through glade and furze brake fast drove he, Until he heard the roaring sea; Quod he, 'Those gay waves they call me.' By Mary's grace a seely boat On Christchurch bar did lie afloat; He gave the shipmen mark and groat, To ferry him over to Normandie, And there he fell to sanctuarie; God send his soul all bliss ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... and 'gad, my limbs yearn for bed, Joe. This fellow can still carry the bag; 'tis worth a groat." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang |
