"Halter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... incarnate iniquity!" cried Douglas, as he grasped and grappled with the baffled plotter. "You have tried to murder me— and you have tried to murder her! I might have forgiven you the first crime—I will drag you to the halter for the second, and think myself poorly revenged when I hear the rabble ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... thou shalt not excel,'" he answered. "A man weak as any child, and as easily led astray. If he be your head, Avery, I would say it were scarce worth to turn out for the cause. You would have an halter round your neck ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... his room, which he still shared with his brothers, and never was he so overwhelmed by disgust and despair with his life as at the moment when in his attic, with its stifling smell, he was at last permitted to take off the halter of his misery. He had hardly the heart to undress himself. Happily, no sooner did his head touch the pillow than he would sink into a heavy sleep which deprived him of all ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... halter round my own neck for good and all," said Hal, his face reddening; but among other accomplishments of his position, he had learnt to keep his temper, however ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]— which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... tugging at the halter and striking the camel over the neck with his stick, and slowly it spread out its hind legs, rising on them first, and throwing its riders forward till it seemed as if they must slide down his sloping neck and fall to ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... lucky fellow: I have travelled the circuit these forty years, and never found a horse in my life: but I'll tell thee what, friend, thou wast more lucky than thou didst know of; for thou didst not only find a horse, but a halter too, I promise thee.' To be sure, I shall never forget the word. Upon which everybody fell a laughing, as how could they help it? Nay, and twenty other jests he made, which I can't remember now. There ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... that the grey was a screw. But he ran down to the stable, fetched the beast out, and didn't even wait to shift his halter for a bridle, but caught up the half of a broken mop-handle that lay by the stable door, and with no better riding whip ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Mississippi, and thus make their way to Canada, a prodigious undertaking in their forlorn condition; nor was there any probability that the assassins would permit them to go. These, on their part, were beset with difficulties. They could not return to civilization without manifest peril of a halter; and their only safety was to turn buccaneers or savages. Duhaut, however, still held to his plan of going back to Fort St. Louis; and Joutel and his companions, who, with good reason, stood in daily fear of him, devised among themselves a simple artifice ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... every point where he should be thin, and thin at every point where he should be thick, is not one of those noble objects that bewitch the world. The best horsemen outside of the cities are the unshod country-boys, who ride "bare-backed," with only a halter round the horse's neck, digging their brown heels into his ribs, and slanting over backwards, but sticking on like leeches, and taking the hardest trot as if they loved it. This was a different sight on which the Doctor was looking. The streaming mane and tail ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... of their horses is a halter and a saddle: the first is either a rope of six or seven strands of buffaloe hair platted or twisted together, about the size of a man's finger and of great strength; or merely a thong of raw hide, made pliant by pounding and rubbing; though ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... us to go home to prepare our several suppers and we went our different ways, shaking our heads over Tryphena's queerness. I stopped a moment before the cobbler's open door, watched him briskly sewing a broken halter and telling a folk-tale to some children by his knee. When he finished, I said with some acerbity, "Well, Jombatiste, I hope you're satisfied with what you've done to poor old Miss Tryphena ... spoiling the rest of her life ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... protection from the weather, and the impossibility of the rider's entanglement: but the sole has no grip whatever, and rising to give full effect to a sabre-cut would be out of the question. Besides a halter, a single rein, attached to rather a clumsy bit, is the usual trooper's equipment: to this is attached the inevitable ring-martingale, without which few Federal cavaliers, civil or military, would consider ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... were shouting different advice and it was a question whether he would be able to get control before a disaster happened. I said nothing and did nothing but kept fairly close to him. Narayan Singh found his proper place alongside me, with the halter of Ayisha's camel in his hand; and he ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... beggared, and many of them were certainly better off in slavery at Algiers, where they got a blow for a crime, than in Europe, where their ill-deeds would have brought them to the wheel, or at least the halter. ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... field below, a man was ploughing amid the glare of the sun. The reins hung about his neck like a halter, and he clung to the jerking handles of the plough while the furrows of red earth turned and fell behind him like welts on the flank of ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... is, here is a man enrag'd, Fastening a halter on a wither'd bough, And stares upon me with such frighted looks, As I am fearful of his ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... and clergymen! Well, sir, this gentleman of irreproachable manners and morals—this citizen of consideration in the community—this member in good standing with the church—has qualified himself for twenty years' residence in the penitentiary, even if not for the exaltation of a hangman's halter!" ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Turpin, "you've found me at fault, And the highflying highwayman's come to a halt; You have turned up a trump—for I weigh well my weight,— And the forty is yours, though the halter's my fate. Well, come on't what will, you shall own when all's past, That Dick Turpin, the Dauntless, was game to the last. But, before we go further, I'll hold you a bet, That one foot in my stirrup you ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... stood with drooping head, the stalk of a thistle hanging out of a corner of his mouth. "He's fat and strong, isn't he? What makes him look so sad? And aren't you afraid he'll run away? He hasn't even a halter on him." ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... But with much sense and kindness Kingsburgh reassured her, saying that if necessary he would take the Prince to his own house, adding, with a touch of his characteristic chivalry, that he was now an old man, and it made very little difference to him whether he should die with a halter round his neck or await a death which could not ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... roller. The cowman was standing by holding a Jersey bull. The story was soon told. The cowman, having to go into the yard, had asked E. to hold the bull a minute. Unfortunately, the animal had only a halter on him, the cowman having omitted to bring the stick, with hook and swivel, to attach to the bull's nose-ring. No sooner was the cowman out of sight than the bull began to fret, and, turning upon E., knocked him down between a mangoldbury ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... completely concealed amid the trees. Two horses, with their feet fettered, were fastened by a halter to the lower branches of ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... The names of Hemp. [b] Neckweed (ahalter) [c] is good for thievish apprentices, [d] for swashbucklers past grace, [e] and all scamps. [f] Also for young spendthrifts [g] who after their parents' death [h] waste their all with harlots [i] and in gambling [k] which makes men ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... made no reply. He undid the mare's halter, and took her into the stable. There he fed her, standing by her all the time she ate, and not once taking his eyes off her. His father, the late marquis, had bought her at the sale of the stud of a neighbouring laird, whose whole being had been devoted ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... "'tis winter with thee now. A poor old rogue! Did the new housewife talk of a halter because he showed his teeth when her ill-nurtured brat wanted to ride on him? Nay, old Spring, thou shalt share thy master's fortunes, changed though they be. Oh, father! father! didst thou guess how it would be with thy boys!" And throwing himself on the grass, he hid his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to bits, he carried me in his arms, and had to bear hard words because of the burden he brought on board ship. It's not in my nature to be sick, and so I got well. Every man has his own way, and Soren has his; but the horse must not be judged by the halter. Taking one thing with another, I have lived more agreeably with him than with the man whom they called the most noble and gallant of the King's subjects. I have had the Stadtholder Gyldenlowe, the King's half-brother, for my husband; and afterwards I took Palle Dyre. One is as good ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... us standing together, the blanket over our heads, and went away in the dark whistling as he had done before. We could hear Old Doctor answer as he came near, and presently Uncle Eb returned leading the horse by the halter. Then he put us both on Old Doctor's back, threw the blanket over our heads, and started slowly for the road. We clung to each other as the horse staggered in the soft snow, and kept our places with some aid from Uncle Eb. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... Sun-Shine, as it amost allers is in Spring, he says he's told. As he luckly didn't appen for to arsk for no arnser, of course I didn't give him not none; but I coudn't help a thinkin as how as if he had bin here in our late hurly Spring, he might ha bin inclined jest a leetel to halter his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 13, 1892 • Various
... been tied by his halter to the lee side of the wagon to prevent him from wandering under the trees and courting speedy destruction there. He stood with bent head and bunched hindquarters, as if in stolid resignation, although Ducky cried ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... bed. She groped her way past the stalls of the three Pleasants, whose dwelling she had invaded, to the upright ladder which led to the loft. The horses were all lying down after their hard day's work, and only one of them turned his great head with a rattle of his halter, to see who this small intruder could be. Lilac clambered up the ladder and was soon in the dark fragrant-smelling loft above, where the trusses of hay and straw were mysteriously grouped under the low thick beams. ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... play you false, what will you do?" Finot ended. "Suppose that some Minister fancies that he has you fast by the halter of your apostasy, and turns the cold shoulder on you? You will be glad to set on a few dogs to snap at his legs, will you not? Very well. But you have made a deadly enemy of Lousteau; he is thirsting ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Emperor of Rome until they are spent. For such a person to lose his money is to suffer the most shocking reverse, and fall from heaven to hell, from all to nothing, in a breath. And all the more if he has put his head in the halter for it; if he may be hanged to-morrow for that same purse, so dearly earned, so foolishly departed! Villon stood and cursed; he threw the two whites into the street; he shook his fist at heaven; he stamped, and was not horrified ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... strength into the shepherd of the people. As when some stalled horse, fed on barley[490] at the manger, having snapped his halter, runs over the plain, striking the earth with his feet (accustomed to bathe in the smooth-flowing river), exulting, he holds his head on high, and around his shoulders his mane is dishevelled; and, trusting to his beauty[491]—his ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... these Ugly Princesses are endowed with excellent sterling qualities. The old Border legend says there never was a happier match than that of "Muckle-mou'ed Meg," though her husband married her reluctantly with a halter tightening round his neck. But such advantages lie below the surface, and take some time in being appreciated. The first process of captivation is what I don't understand—unless, indeed, there are sparkles in the quartz, invisible to common eyes, that tell the experienced ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... exclusiveness by which ladies have so often contrived (as by a process of elimination) to prevent marriages that they did not want and even sometimes procure those they did. There is no need of the broad arrow and the fleur-de lis, the turnkey's chains or the hangman's halter. You need not strangle a man if you can silence him. The branded shoulder is less effective and final than the cold shoulder; and you need not trouble to lock a man in when you can ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... stopped, and the men got off. One of the men took a halter out of the wagon and tied the horse to a tree, while the others took ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... a theory, Mr. Addison," he replied, "and it is this: I believe he thought that the indiscretion of a certain mysterious lady would bring about his ruin. If I am not mistaken, she has already gone far to put his neck in a halter; and he was determined to nip this latest adventure in the bud by removing the object ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... the manuscript he had in hand, he would give up all further thought of writing. "The quill and I are divorced," he wrote to Greenough in June, 1833, "and you cannot conceive the degree of freedom, I could almost say of happiness, I feel at having got my neck out of the halter." Longings for his old sea-life often came over him. "You must not be surprised," he wrote, half-jestingly, to the same friend, "if you hear of my sailing a sloop between Cape Cod and New York." But he had no definite plans marked out. The only thing about which his mind was made ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... screaming in my ears, you won't make me change my mind. I'm ready to treat with people that are reasonable, but when they bite me I bite back. I agree with you it's a hateful thing to have two of our brothers hanged; noblemen are not to be insulted with the halter; their honour should be spared and their heads taken off decently. But what can we do? Can we hesitate a moment between two noblemen's deaths and the destruction of all the peasantry? One man is as good ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... worse. And this is Miguel Rapponi, a whole lot whiter than he sounds. What, for Lordy sake, you wasting time on this little old hasbeen burg for? Take it from me, there ain't anything left here but dents in the road and a brimstone smell. We're all plumb halter-broke and so tame we—" ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... passenger, well-soaked with plenty of thick wine, vie with one another in singing the praises of their absent mistresses: at length the passenger being fatigued, begins to sleep; and the lazy waterman ties the halter of the mule, turned out a-grazing, to a stone, and snores, lying flat on his back. And now the day approached, when we saw the boat made no way; until a choleric fellow, one of the passengers, leaps out of the boat, and drubs the head and sides of both mule and waterman with a willow cudgel. ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... as we were friends, he would let me have the halter for sixty sous. We needed a halter, so I parted with the sixty sous, calculating that we should now have but twenty sous left. I counted out the two hundred and thirteen francs, then again I stretched out ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... man could," he answered. "Were His Grace not the most foolishly clement prince in Christendom, a halter would be your reward for the fine things ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... the horse in the ditch moaned as if in pain, but Peter said it was only because he couldn't get on his feet. Harry, being light in weight, slipped a halter over the poor ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... might dip in, although there are few so Outrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe; And since the philanthropists just now are banging And gibbeting all who're in favor of hanging (Though Cheever has proved that the Bible and Altar Were let down from Heaven at the end of a halter. 490 And that vital religion would dull and grow callous, Unrefreshed, now and then, with a sniff of the gallows),— And folks are beginning to think it looks odd, To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God; And that He who esteems the Virginia ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... yours was half as good?" queried Norah, as she took the halter off Bobs and slipped the ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... you will be ruled by me, I'll tell you what you shall do. Mark what I say; for I'll teach you the way to come to heaven, if you stumble not—give all you have to the poor but one single penny, and with that penny buy you a good strong halter; and when you ha' done so, come to me, and I'll tell you what you shall do with ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... most affected who had been misled by dreams of assimilation. They suffered most, for they lost most. Their hopes were blighted, their hearts broken. The leading-strings proved to be a halter. They saw they had little to expect at the hands of those they had believed to have become fully civilized, and they were embittered toward civilization, which had showed them flowers, but had given them no fruit. In a work, Sinat 'Olam le-'Am ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... our Lord, the count up there in the castle, learns who thou art, and what trade thou followest, he will not take thee in his arms and cradle thee in them as he did when he held thee at the font, but will cause thee to swing from a halter." "Be easy, father, he will do me no harm, for I understand my trade. I will go to him myself this very day." When evening drew near, the master-thief seated himself in his carriage, and drove to the castle. The count received him civilly, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... I left the line of the railway. I might have ridden five miles with Kiramat Ali behind me on a sturdy tat, when I was surprised by the appearance of an unknown saice in plain white clothes, holding a pair of strong young ponies by the halter and salaaming low. ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... the home that strews in black decay The one green-glowing island of the bay? Some dark-browed pirate's, jealous of the fate That seized the strangled wretch of "Nix's Mate"? Some forger's, skulking in a borrowed name, Whom Tyburn's dangling halter yet may claim? Some wan-eyed exile's, wealth and sorrow's heir, Who sought a lone retreat for tears and prayer? Some brooding poet's, sure of deathless fame, Had not his epic perished in the flame? Or some gray wooer's, whom a girlish frown Chased from ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... then, I suppose, must be my doom?" said Lord Menteith. "Yet I wish they had spared me the halter, were it but for the dignity ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... was seated on his head. They then put a piece of hide in his mouth to serve for a bit, and a strong hide halter on his head, and allowed him to get on ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... 110 years old; and he eats 500 loaves of bread and a side of beef, and drinks 100 draughts of beer, unto this day. He knows how to restore the head that is smitten off; he knows how to cause the lion to follow him trailing his halter on the ground; he knows the designs of the dwelling of Tahuti. The majesty of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, the blessed, has long sought for the designs of the dwelling of Tahuti, that he may make the like of them in ...
— Egyptian Literature
... pouch an' stuck a dab av dirt on the holes in the plate, puttin' the fallin'-block back. 'That'll do your business, Vulmea,' sez I, lyin' easy on the cot. 'Come an' sit on my chest the whole room av you, an' I will take you to my bosom for the biggest divils that iver cheated halter.' I would have no mercy on Vulmea. His oi or his life—little ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... was Keyes. He had said on the trial that his fortunes being desperate, his fate was "as good now as another time, and for this cause rather than another." In this hardened, reckless spirit, he flung himself from the ladder, with such force as to break the halter. ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... that the time had come for us to produce the rope halter, which with our left hand we had all the while kept secreted behind our back. We put it over her neck, when the beast wheeled, and we seized her by the point where the copy-books say we ought to ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... was a hand of iron, which would fall inexorably alike on the New England Puritans and the followers of Bacon. With the courage of his convictions, he was ready to deal out banishment for the dissenters; shot and the halter for rebels. He lived on his estate of about a thousand acres at Greenspring, not far from Jamestown. "Here he had plate, servants, carriages, seventy horses, fifteen hundred apple trees, besides apricots, peaches, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... everywhere throughout the free States by rotten eggs, clubs, and missiles. The public journals, as a rule, were unfriendly and intolerant. Even Boston could contemplate, with unruffled composure, a mob of her most "reputable citizens" dragging Mr. Garrison through the streets with a halter about his neck. Public meetings were broken up by pro-slavery mobs; owners of public halls required a moneyed guarantee against the destruction of their property, when such halls were used for anti-slavery meetings. Colored schools were broken ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... vivandiere's paniers, have never disdained. For these sufficient reasons the merca is practiced still in the old way in the Roman Campagna, and the victory of the man over the brute has to be achieved by main force and dexterity. The buttero has not so much as a lasso, or even a halter or a stick, to assist him in the struggle. There is the beast with his horns, and there is the man with his hands. Probably it might have been better to seize the creature instantly on his entry into the arena, while he was under the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... ability to cope with him at the briefest notice. Moreover, considering his mode of life, I hoped by waiting a very short while to be able to tell you that Captain Salt's career was ended by the halter. You see, he was evidently not born to be drowned, and I drew the usual inference. But Mr. Finch's news puts a very different complexion on the business. Tristram being heir, as I understand, to some ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... asking. But to ask is his death-warrant. 'Oh yes!' would be the answer, 'here's your jewel, wrapt up safely in tissue paper. But here's another lot that goes along with it—no bidder can take them apart—viz. a halter, also wrapt up in tissue paper.' Francis, in relation to Junius, was in that exact predicament. 'You are Junius? You are that famous man who has been missing since 1772? And you can prove it? God bless me! sir; what a long time you've been sleeping: every body's gone to ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... loudly Colonel Pyncheon had joined in the general cry to purge the land from witchcraft, and had sought zealously the condemnation of Matthew Maule. At the moment of execution—with the halter about his neck, and while Colonel Pyncheon sat on horseback grimly gazing at the scene—Maule had addressed him from the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy. "God," said the dying man, pointing his finger at the countenance of his enemy, "God will ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... son. "We are now coming to a town where they are holding a fair. I will change myself into a horse, and you shall take me there and sell me for a thousand dollars,—no more, no less. But heed what I say. Do not sell the halter whatever you do, or evil will ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... of drab cloth, might have been a Quakeress, but for the feather (of the same sober color) in her beaver hat, and the rosette of dark red ribbon at her throat. The other, in bluish-gray, with a black beaver and no feather, rode a heavy old horse with a blind halter on his head, and held the stout leathern reins with a hand covered with a blue woollen mitten. She rode in advance, paying little heed to her seat, but rather twisting herself out of shape in the saddle in order to chatter to her companion ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... pack of dogs, of size proportioned to that of their masters, and which rushed forth on every side as if bent on devouring both myself and beast: being altogether unprovided with any means of defence but the rope-end of the same halter that supplied my stirrups, I was (I confess) not a little disconcerted by the assault of so unexpected an enemy.' From this he was soon delivered at the moment by some of the gentle giants, who 'pelted off the animals with the large loose stones that lay scattered ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... doin' his courtin' in de parlor, Joe was doin' his courtin' in de kitchen. Joe was as smart as de nex' one. Us made faster time than them in de parlor; us beat them to de marriage. Marse Riley call it de altar, but Joe always laugh and say it was de halter. Many is de time I have been home wid them sixteen chillun, when him was a gallavantin' 'round, and I wished I had a got a real halter on dat ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... dainty food, and sat down while he gave his orders to his servants. The Lapdog jumped into his master's lap, and lay there blinking while the Farmer stroked his ears. The Ass, seeing this, broke loose from his halter and commenced prancing about in imitation of the Lapdog. The Farmer could not hold his sides with laughter, so the Ass went up to him, and putting his feet upon the Farmer's shoulder attempted to climb into his lap. The ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... weather. I think it was more from a habit of speech than from any wish to be unreasonable. I remember one day passing a field when he was trying to catch a horse that, to all appearance had no idea of being captured. He tried various methods of coaxing him into the halter, and several times nearly succeeded, but just when he thought himself sure of him, the animal would gallop off in another direction. Out of all patience, he at length exclaimed. "What does possess that critter ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... Buck Barry, Yank and myself to accompany him. Don Gaspar was suffering from a slight attack of malarial fever; and Johnny, to his vast disgust, was left to hold him company. We took each a horse, which we had to ride bareback and with a twisted rope "war halter." ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... of making it draw—presumably by its tail—a fashion which endured long in Ireland, and had to be forbidden by law, I think as late as the sixteenth century. A great aristocrat must that man have become. A greater still he who first substituted the bit for the halter. A greater still he who first thought of wheels. A greater still he who conceived the yoke and pole for bearing up his chariot; for that same yoke, and pole, and chariot, became the peculiar instrument of conquerors like him who mightily oppressed the children of Israel, for he had nine ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... sire Ocab had been put out on pasture, he was being led by the daughter of Jahir along the side of a lake at noonday, and there he saw the mare Helweh, who was tethered close to the tent of her master. He immediately began to neigh, and slipped his halter. The young girl in her embarrassment let him go, and for modesty took refuge in the tent of a friend. The stallion remained on the spot until the girl returned. She seized the halter and ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... riding boots of brown leather, were crossed beneath the dark drapery of her cloak. A leather strap served as a belt for the slender hips that were more like those of a boy than a woman. The horses fidgeted and stamped, and a mule dragged at its halter with laid-back ears and vicious sidelong glances. Sometimes a stirrup or a bit clashed against another with a musical ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... to the letter than the gentleman intended. To his great astonishment, it was not long before he one day saw Johnny Darbyshire come riding on a little shaggy horse down the village where he lived, leading the foal in a halter. ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... road, and he had climbed the tree and had dropped them down to her, and she had hung them over her ears—He had milked a cow in a pasture as they passed, and they had drunk it with their sandwiches, and had tied up a bill in Anne's fine handkerchief and had knotted it to the halter ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck. Then the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency in carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs for the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... half squeal, half roar, the moose rose twelve feet tall on his hind legs, and rushed at the one hitched nearest. The horse broke its halter, ran headlong against its mate, recoiled, bumped into a tree trunk, and then—the trees standing thick in front of it—backed over the bank and went out of sight down the bluff, the moose bounding after it, still ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... to the fortunate breaking of my pony's halter, as, having been freshly clipped, he had become restive from the cold, thereby causing the mafoo to enter my room for a spare one, which I always carried with me. The following morning I felt very shaky and had a splitting headache, but was able to continue the journey, gradually ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... your memoirs. I hardly knew, at the time, whether to thank you or not for the sight of them, when I reflected that it was still dangerous, in Massachusetts, for honest men to tell their names! They say the fathers, in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence with the halter about their necks. You, too, publish your declaration of freedom with danger compassing you around. In all the broad lands which the Constitution of the United States overshadows, there is no single spot,—however narrow or desolate,—where a fugitive slave can plant himself and say, "I ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... hands Muskwa found himself transferred. He was laid on his side with the glare of the fire in his eyes, and while one of his captors held him by both ears, and so tightly that it hurt, another fastened a hobble-strap around his neck for a collar. A heavy halter rope was then tied to the ring on this strap, and the end of the rope was ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... He saw the corpse of the madwoman's husband with two others: that of his brother, slashed with bayonet-thrusts, and that of Lucas with the halter still around his neck. His look became somber and a sigh seemed ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... has a cutting manner. ...But don't look so cut up, your Royal Highness; keep your pecker up. Come now, love hasn't treated you so badly after all; it brings most men to the altar and then to the halter— you'll keep your head out of that noose anyhow. And your flame, your idolized, lovely Turandot, will perhaps do you the honour of appearing on the grated balcony. I tell you this in case you should by any chance desire to cast her one of your languishing glances, your Royal Highness, ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... catastrophe that was coming. He released his feet from the stirrups, unwound the halter from the saddle bow and threw himself on the back of the next mule just as the one he had been riding toppled over the embankment, down which it rolled ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... ride with a simple halter and a stick, yet sometimes travel, at least in the larger island, at a desperate gallop. As the horses usually have panniers, the rider sits sideways over the withers, and if the panniers are empty they go at full speed in this position ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... and nothing less. For one may stay the tongue of a scoundrel with money, or the expectation of it, until opportunity arrive to stop it with steel or prison masonry. But who shall curb or halter the ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... shall not die," said the old man, suddenly clearing his throat, in a manner that proved he felt the force of the appeal; "but his voice must be smothered. Bind his jaws with the halter, and then I think we may trust the rest ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... he bore in one hand an ordinary rope halter, with a noose at one end, just such a halter as was used by all the farmers for securing their horses to their stalls. In his other hand was a paddle, and with these harmless-looking implements he was about to start in ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... emphasised attention; she stopped when her husband stopped, but at the distance of a case or two, or of whatever other succession of objects; and the likeness of their connection would not have been wrongly figured if he had been thought of as holding in one of his pocketed hands the end of a long silken halter looped round her beautiful neck. He didn't twitch it, yet it was there; he didn't drag her, but she came; and those indications that I have described the Princess as finding extraordinary in him were two or three mute facial intimations which his wife's presence didn't prevent ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... but remained staring at me in the posture which he had assumed on first perceiving me, his body very much drawn back, his left foot far in advance of his right, and with his right hand still grasping the halter of the horse, which gave way more and more, till it was ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... so," he said quietly, "but it's kind of queer, Kate, that after most a hundred men on the best hosses in these parts had ridden in relays after Satan an' couldn't lay a rope on him, Dan could jest go out on foot with a halter an' come back in ten days leadin' the wildest devil of a mustang that ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... was about to hang himself, Finding a purse, then threw away his rope; The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf, The halter found; and used it. So is Hope Changed for Despair—one laid upon the shelf, 5 We take the other. Under Heaven's high cope Fortune is God—all you endure and do Depends on ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... and the farmer was nearly tired of waiting; he had to bite his little finger to keep himself awake, when suddenly the door of his house flew open, and in rushed maybe a thousand pixies, laughing and dancing and dragging at Beauty's halter till they had brought the cow into the middle of the room. The farmer really thought he should have died with fright, and so perhaps he would had not curiosity ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... he said; and it did not. But on the Saturday evening, just before the late dinner-hour at Woodlawn, Japheth Pettigrass, who had been trying to halter a shy filly running loose in the field across the pike, saw a stirring little drama enacted at the Woodlawn gates; saw it, and played ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... off the limb of a tree astride of a horse that was tied beneath, then lean over, and with one stroke of a knife sever the halter. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... reckon that'll do fur one spell," broke in Silas Ropes. "You've said more 'n enough to convict you, and to earn a halter 'stead of a mild coat of ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... perceiving them to be very sore with the stripes that he had given them the day before, he told them that, since they were never like to come out of that place, their only way would be forthwith to make an end of themselves, either with knife, halter, or poison: "for why," he said, "should you choose to live, seeing it is ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... croakers who were sighing for the flesh-pots of Egypt, never ordered a young Israelite boy whose father and mother had been bitten by the fiery serpents and died in the wilderness, to clear out of camp for not putting a halter ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... and contemptuous of ecclesiastical censures, the fear of the end of the world drove Fulk to the Holy Sepulchre. Barefoot and with the strokes of the scourge falling heavily on his shoulders, the Count had himself dragged by a halter through the streets of Jerusalem, and courted the doom of martyrdom by his wild outcries of penitence. He rewarded the fidelity of Herbert of Le Mans, whose aid saved him from utter ruin, by entrapping him into captivity and robbing ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... me first in the shape of a Ram, And over and over the Sow-Gelder came; I rise and I halter'd him fast by the horn, I pluckt out his Stones as you'd pick out a Corn. Baa, quoth the Devil, and forth he slunk, And left us a Carcase ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... donkey into the shed, which was without stalls, but had a long rack and manger. On one side he tied his donkey, after taking off her caparisons, and I followed his example, tying my horse at the other side with a rope halter which he gave me; he then asked me to come in and taste his mead, but I told him that I must attend to the comfort of my horse first, and forthwith, taking a whisp of straw, rubbed him carefully down. Then taking a pailful of clear water which stood in the shed, I allowed the horse ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... hearty cheer from the mob—God knows why—but a Dublin mob always cheer—I returned, accompanied by a ragged fellow, leading my new purchase after me with a bay halter. 'What is the meaning of those letters,' said I, pointing to a very conspicuous G.R. with sundry other enigmatical signs, burned upon the animal's ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... composed. There were two asses—small shaggy brown animals,—caparisoned in a covering of coarse black serge, that hung nearly to their feet. Each had a coarse hair halter held in the hand of a lepero driver, also fantastically dressed in the same black stuff. Behind each stood a lepero similarly attired, and carrying "cuartos" of buffalo-skin. By the side of each ass was one of the padres of the mission, and each ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... living fire, the delicate nostrils were a-quiver every moment, the faultlessly curved ears alert as a wild creature's. And he WAS half wild, for never had saddle rested upon his back, girth encircled him or bit fretted the sensitive mouth. A halter thus far in his career had been his only badge of bondage and the girl caressing him had been the one to put it upon him. It would have been a bad quarter of an hour for any other person attempting it. But she was his "familiar," though far from being his ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... the strong hand, and curse us the weak; Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak; Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again, With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain; Put reason, and justice, and truth under ban; For the sin unforgiven is ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... waited, an' this mornin', like a bolster outer a blue sky, come the word that at noon we could go. Believe me, I didn't wait for no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails you? You look sorter—sorter like a—strained relation or somethin'. What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? What kep' you ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... adjusted the halter with a turn of chain between the jaws. But Paula, still astride, leaned forward, imperiously took the lead-part from the cowboy, whirled Mountain Lad around to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... not break away, sir; her halter-strap was too strong, and I tied it with a cavalry hitch. She must have been unfastened by some one. Perhaps ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... I. I now spent my time in planning how I might get along through life after my contemplated change of circumstances should have taken place, and how I might procrastinate the evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more, than an Irishman does the halter. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... down this yere crick fer nawthin'. Law sakes, child, when I tuk a notion to take Watts, come a supper time I wusn't no more a mind to git married than yo' be, an', by cracky! come moonrise me an' Watts had forked one o' pa's mewels with nothin' on but a rope halter, an' wus headin' down the branch with pa an' my brother Lafe a-cuttin' through the lau'ls with their rifle-guns fer to head ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... lawgiver of early Greece vainly sought to secure permanence for his imperfect institutions by providing that the citizen who at any time attempted their repeal or alteration should appear in the public assembly with a halter about his neck, ready to be drawn, if his proposition failed. A tyrannical spirit among us, in unconscious imitation of this antique and discarded barbarism, seeks to surround an offensive institution with ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... to write to your sweet self, because I am now my own Man, and may match where I please; for my Father is taken away, and now I am come to my Living, which is Ten Yard Land, and a House; and there is never a Yard of Land in our Field but it is as well worth ten Pound a Year, as a Thief is worth a Halter; and all my Brothers and Sisters are provided for: Besides I have good Houshold-stuff, though I say it, both Brass and Pewter, Linnens and Woollens; and though my House be thatched, yet, if you and I match, it shall go hard ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... should take his worldly goods to which she intended helping herself: otherwise he might hang or drown for ought she cared. Dirty Davy, too, who had quaked about his costs, was greatly relieved by the turn which things had taken; and the plain truth was that, notwithstanding his escape from the halter, things looked very black and awful for Charles Nutter and his ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... thing in the world. The knaves even dictate from their stools and benches to men in armour, bruised and bleeding for them; and with school-dames' scourges in their fists do they give counsel to those who protect them from the cart and halter. In the name of the Lord, I must spit outright (or worse) upon these crackling bouncing firebrands, before I can ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... sending his disciples to buy food, He wandered forth intent on doing good, As was his wont. And in the market-place He saw a crowd, close gathered in one space, Gazing with eager eyes upon the ground, Jesus drew nearer, and thereon he found A noisome creature, a bedraggled wreck— A dead dog with a halter round his neck, And those who stood by mocked the object there, And one said, scoffing, "It pollutes the air!" Another, jeering, asked, "How long to-night Shall such a miscreant cur offend our sight?" ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... was that? The horses were either struggling or fighting in their snow shelters. Then one with a frightened neigh broke from its halter and dashed into the road, only to be plunged snorting and helpless into the drifts. Then the other followed. How silly! Something had frightened them. Perhaps only a rabbit or a mole; horses were such absurdly nervous creatures! However, it is just as well; somebody would see them ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... the process of hitching up, —a process at once spectacular and full of exciting incident, for the trip to the Crossing was to the bronchos, unbroken even to the halter, their first experience in the ways of civilized man. Wild, timid and fiercely vicious, they were brought in from their night pickets on a rope, holding back hard, plunging, snorting, in terror, and were tied up securely in an out shed. There was no time spent in gentle ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... to the left of the door, gained a momentary glimpse of a portion of the immense multitude, who, uncovered, and in breathless silence, gazed on the operations of the executioners. I retreated just as the third halter had been adjusted. The finisher of the law was in the act of descending, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... over the nostrils of the animal and then leading, he must move. We tried the experiment. The beast gave a snort, a groan, lurched, fell over, kicked convulsively, closed his eyes, and lay to all appearance dead. The town below, which had been watching progress, came running up. We removed the halter; the animal lay quiet. The pity of the by-standers was maddening; their remarks exasperating. "Poor little mule, he dies;" they pointed to his rubbed sides,—"Ah, poor creature! What a heavy load! How thin he is." It is certain that the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... by the temporal power. This protection was extended not only over actually ordained clergymen, but all who held any office in connection with ecclesiastical affairs—all students, nay, all who were clerks enough to read and write. Thus the wild borderers, when made prisoners, escaped the halter by pretending to read a verse of the Miserere, which they had learnt by heart in case of such an emergency, and called their neck-verse; and "without benefit of clergy" was added to new laws, to prevent education from ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... yellow. She must be eighteen years old, Claude reckoned, as he polished off her round, heavy haunches. He and Ralph used to ride her over to the Yoeders' when they were barefoot youngsters, guiding her with a rope halter, and kicking at the leggy colt that was ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... blessed spirits in paradise. What radiance surrounds the forge! To guide the plough, to bind the sheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... you an order for the horses. Tell Henry to take with him a bridle and halter. You must write for the cow if you want ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... now. Then wait awhile. Nothin' 's so dangerous as speakin' before the time, whomsoever and wheresoever. Folks talk o' bridlin' the tongue; let 'em git a blind halter, say I, and a curb-bit, and a martingale! Not that I set an example, Goodness knows, for mine runs like a mill-clapper, rickety-rick, rickety-rick; but never mind, it may be fast, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... convictions, as you call them, are deluding you. Do you think Benedict Arnold's convictions, if he had any, would have saved his neck from the halter?" ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... beside himself; he called Stephen cruel, deceitful, and anything else he could think of, and he tried to seize the halter of ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... up. From the time I could first distinctly remember, he was very gentle and good-natured, but he was different, always. After a while he got Black Bart, you know, and then he went out with a halter and captured Satan. Think of capturing a wild mustang with nothing but a halter! He played around with them so much that I was jealous of them. So I kept with them until Bart and Satan were rather used to me. Bart would even play with me now and then when Dan ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... therefore cannot send the Mare to any one else, is said "to keep her all winter." The mocking offer of the Mare to a laggard neighbour was sometimes responded to by a mocking acceptance of her help. Thus an old man told an inquirer, "While we wun at supper, a mon cumm'd wi' a autar [halter] to fatch her away." At one place a real mare used to be sent, but the man who rode her was subjected to some rough treatment at the farmhouse to which he ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... into conspiracy, assassination and dacoity: as had happened in similar revolts with Young Italy, in the days of Mazzini, and with Young Russia in the days of Stepniak and Kropotkin. The results of their despair, necessarily met by the halter and penal servitude, had to be faced by Lord Hardinge and Lord Carmichael during the present War. Other results, happy instead of disastrous in their nature, was the development of grit and endurance ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... in the cottonwood shack. Father and daughters were asleep. But, at the end of that time, Dallas was suddenly awakened by the sound of loud stamping and rending in the lean-to. Ben and Betty, roused by the fear of something, were plunging and pulling back on their halter-ropes. Startled, her heart beating wildly, the elder girl crept softly to the ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... I am your man, I am for you, Sir, for I had rather be hanged than abide so long a fast. What! five days! Come, I'll untruss. Is your halter, and the gallows, the ladder, and ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... a halter to do what he threatened, when the fox, whose tongue had helped him in hard pinches before, thought there could be no harm in trying whether it might not do ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey |
