"Rumour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... run down to the beach, where hundreds of willing hands were ready to launch her, for the people had poured out of the town on the first rumour of what was going on. The crew leaped into the boat and seized the oars. The launching-ropes were manned. A loud "Huzzah" was given, and the lifeboat shot forth on her voyage of mercy, cutting right through the first tremendous billow that ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... old Addingtonians felt it a cheerful duty to stand by Alston Choate. The Mill Enders voted late, all of them, so late that Weedon Moore, who kept track of their activities, wondered if they meant to vote at all. But they did vote, they also to the last man, and a rumour crept about that some irregularity was connected with the ballot. But whatever they did, it was by concerted action, after a definite design. Weedon Moore, an agitated figure, meeting Jeff, was so worried and excited by it that he had to ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... their hero Karmos and their beloved Naya. Karmos was crowned, and then began that government whose morality and justice and love and purity have passed into the proverbs of my race. There was, however, one blemish upon it. Poor Naya's evil genius had not yet exhausted his malevolence. A rumour was spread by evil tongues that she was plotting to possess the crown, and Karmos, sacrificing the husband's love, the father's joy, to his kingly duty, while standing on that spot we have visited to-day—then his summer palace surrounded by lovely ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... will the Wicked say, When they shall here of this Rumour; They'd laugh at us every Day, And Scoff us in every Corner: Let 'em do so still if that they will, We mean not to follow their Fashion, They're none of our Sect, nor of our Elect, Nor none of ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... own), as of your advice for collecting and restoring to a sound state the fragments that remain. For the present, though I believe everything finds its way to you in the letters of your friends, or even by messengers and rumour, yet I will write briefly what I think you would like to learn from niy letters above all others. On the 4th of August I started froui Dyrrarhium, the very day on which the law about me was carried. I arrived at Brundisium on the 5th of August. There my dear Tulhiola met me ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... rumour spread that old Hrolfur was crazy, and for a long time hardly anyone dared to go to ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... thought, by motives of jealousy, because Cyrus had allowed Clearchus to retain under his command their soldiers, who had seceded to Clearchus in the expectation of returning to Greece, and not of marching against the king. Upon their disappearance, a rumour pervaded the army that Cyrus would pursue them with ships of war; and some wished that they might be taken, as having acted perfidiously; while others pitied their fate, if they ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... usual skill. He represented the Marquis of Lansdowne ("Malagrida") as driving at full speed to St. James's Palace, heralded by the dove of peace, while Fox, Sheridan, etc., hang on behind and cry out, "Stop; stop; take us in." Pitt and Dundas are seen leaving the palace. The rumour gains in credibility from a Memorandum of the Marquis; but it is doubtful whether George ever thought seriously of giving up Pitt, still less of seeking support from the discredited and unpopular Lansdowne, whose views on the French Revolution were utterly opposed to those of the King. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... respecting the Lady of Adlerstein, that Sir Kasimir was in the act of inditing a cartel to be sent by Count Kaulwitz, to demand an explanation—not merely as the lady's suitor, but as the only Adlerstein of full age. Now, if Ebbo had heard of the rumour, he would certainly have given the lie direct, and taken the whole defence on himself; and it may be feared that, just as his cause might have been, Master Gottfried's faith did not stretch to ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entertained by Rusticus, then a Pagan peasant, afterwards converted, and promoted to sovereignty. They arrived at his residence when he was preparing to give an entertainment on the occasion of the birth of a son. A hog was killed for the feast, to which the wearied travellers were invited; and rumour has it, that they did ample justice to the good things, particularly to the hog's flesh, set before them. To show their gratitude, they resolved to work a miracle for the everlasting benefit of their host and his family. Half of the hog remained uneaten, and over it they ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... is said, in the rumour that a secret meeting was held during the Congress to discuss the proposed raising of the rate of commission payable by surgeons ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... view of this, Krebs?" I said. "Upon my word, I can't see why you should accept a rumour running around the lobbies that Mr. Watling drafted this bill for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to run through the streets and courtyards of Genoa a rumour that in prison there lay a certain Venetian captain, with tales so wonderful to beguile the passing hours that none could tire of hearing them; and anon the gallants and sages and the bold ladies of Genoa were flocking, just as the ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... ye say to your master. Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... men whom they tooke in the field, and signed them with the Kings seale, they dispatched them forth to all the quarters of Hungaria. that lay neere about the place. Wherevpon the Vngarians that were now flying away with their goods, wiues, and children, vpon the rumour of the kings ouerthrow, taking comfort of these counterfeit letters, staid at home. And so were made a pray, being surprised on the sudden by this huge number of these Tartars, that had compassed them ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... this good news was robbed of some of its gladness by a rumour that at least one of the K.O.S.B. battalions had been badly cut up—that they had gone too far and had been unable to return; what had become of them no one seemed to know. It was several days before we heard what had actually happened. The 4th K.O.S.B. had been ordered to take three lines of ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... to my knowledge, not only by rumour, but by the letters of trustworthy friends, expressly stating in what words, in what place, a calumny was directed against me in our midst, through the agency of a well-known person, who is ever true to himself; whose very character and former doings lead one to assume as ascertained fact what ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... "There's a rumour of Death's Head Moths about. Send a gang of youngsters to the Gate, and tell them to narrow it in with a couple of stout scrap-wax pillars. It'll make the Hive hot, but we can't have Death's Headers in the ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... How long hath it bene a voyce they were at sea! I have ventured to discharge the soldiers Which to keepe here in pay upon the rumour Of a great fleete a comming, would both pester The Towne and be unnecessary charge To ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Dickens is about to apply to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to prevent Sir Robert Peel continuing any longer to personate, in his character of Premier, the character of Mr. Pecksniff, as delineated in Martin Chuzzlewit, that character being copyright. We hope this rumour is unfounded, as the injunction would certainly be refused. Sir Robert Peel is in a condition to prove that the part in question has been enacted by him for a long series of years, and was so long before any of Mr. Dickens's works appeared; ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... a d—d scoundrel, a d—d liar, and a d—d thief, for which she was committed for trial. I may as well mention here, that the theatre was well attended by ladies. This fact must satisfy every unprejudiced mind how utterly devoid of foundation is the rumour of the ladies of America putting the legs of their pianofortes in petticoats, that their sensitive delicacy may not receive too rude a shock. Besides the theatres here, there is also an opera, the music of which, vocal and instrumental, is very second-rate. Nevertheless, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... what had been done at St. Florent, was also soon known in Coron, in Torfou, and in Clisson. The battle was fought on Thursday, and early on Saturday morning, M. de Lescure had heard some indistinct rumour of the occurrence; indistinct at least it seemed to him, for he could not believe that the success of the townspeople was so complete, as it was represented to him to be; he heard at the same time that the revolt had been headed by Cathelineau and Foret, and that as soon as the battle was ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... to permoveant. "An" is used as an equivalent to "vel;"—"metu invidiae, an (vel) ratus" (II. 22,) and as if synonymous with "sive," "sive fatali vecordia, an" (seu, or sive) "imminentium periculorum remedium" (XI. 26.) In the sentence where Tiberius is described as, according to rumour, being pained with grief at his own and the Roman people's contemptible position for no other "reason" more than that Tacfarinas, a robber and deserter, would treat with them like a regular enemy:— we have the only instance in a classical composition reputed ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... each other, hurrying on that terrible hour in which a revolting act of self-devotion was to render even this domestic horror of little injury to her parents. "I will buy 'daddy' a better chair, or he shall have enough to buy a better, when I am gone," she murmured to herself. For now the rumour grew rife, that Mr Fitzarthur had actually landed, was daily expected; and, in confirmation, she received through a neighbour present, a letter left for her by her father, stating that he had now actually received, under the Nabob's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... citizens who saw the blessed sight felt as if with these the gods themselves were again returned unto Rome. After Camillus had sacrificed to the gods, and purified the city according to the direction of those properly instructed, he restored the existing temples, and erected a new one to Rumour, or Voice, informing himself of the spot in which that voice from heaven came by night to Marcus Caedicius, foretelling the coming of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... amid which Peregrine Ibbotson had spent three quarters of a century, and he asked for nothing better than that he should end his days as a Yorkshire shepherd. But now a rumour arose that there was a project on foot to enclose the moors. The meadows and pastures in the valley below had been enclosed for more than half-a-century, and this had been brought about without having recourse to Act of Parliament. The fields had been enclosed by private ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... Chaplain moved on through the dust, and privates, sergeants, and subalterns called one another's attention to the boy. The Colonel, at the head of the column, stared at him curiously. 'It was probably some bazar rumour.' he said; 'but even then—' He referred to the paper in his hand. 'Hang it all, the thing was only decided within the last ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... be sure, also, that the report of these things lost nothing in the carriage. The plague was itself very terrible, and the distress of the people very great, as you may observe of what I have said. But the rumour was infinitely greater, and it must not be wondered that our friends abroad (as my brother's correspondents in particular were told there, namely, in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded) [said] that in London there died twenty thousand in a week; that the dead bodies lay unburied by heaps; ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... The rumour of this unparalleled barbarity occasioned a general consternation in the city, where there was nothing but crying and lamentation. Here a father in tears, and inconsolable for the loss of his daughter; and there tender mothers, dreading lest theirs should have the same fate, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... influence with him. The number of his singular exploits would fill a volume[169]; for, as his pretensions are high, and not always willingly yielded to, he is every now and then giving rise to some rumour. He is, on many of these occasions, as much sinned against as sinning; for men, knowing his temper, sometimes provoke him, conscious that Glengarry, from his character for violence, will always be put in the wrong by the public. I have seen him behave in a very manly manner when thus tempted. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... heids weel screwit on? I jalouse, my Lord Monteagle, ye're saying ae word for my Lord Northumberland and twa for yoursel'. Be it sae: a man hath but ane life. My Lord Chamberlain, can ye no raise a bit rumour that a wheen o' the hangings are missing that suld ha'e been in the Wardrobe in Wyniard's keeping? Then gang your ways, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... the rumour of a common fight, When host meets host, and many names are sunk; But of a single ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... fell to decay; and the property has now passed into the bands of a poet, who, rumour says, purposes transforming it to a villa, and whose occupancy will give to it a ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... At this time one Captaine Claybourne was come from parts where wee intended to plant, to Virginia, and from him wee vnderstood, that all the natiues of these parts were in preparation of defence, by reason of a rumour somebody had raised amongst them, of sixe ships that were come with a power of Spanyards, whose meaning was to driue all the inhabitants ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... I shouldn't have taken the least interest in the rumour, if I hadn't been once upon a time in love with Lucy Sorrel. Because if the old man is really dead and has done nothing in the way of providing for her, I wonder what ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... interval, before the enemy were actually at hand, but while rumour said they were advancing, Cyrus took on himself a three-fold task: to bring the physical strength of his men to the highest pitch, to teach them tactics, and to rouse their spirit for martial deeds. [21] He asked Cyaxares ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... threatened execution of his cousins, Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, was a flagrant mistake. The three had quarrelled about Lorenzo il Magnifico's pretty daughter, Luigia, but it was a baseless rumour that she had been poisoned. Bad blood was made always in Florence by such ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... army at Triploe Heath, where the proposals of pay and disbanding made by the Parliament were rejected with cries of "Justice." While the army was gathering, in fact, the Agitators had taken a step which put submission out of the question. A rumour that the king was to be removed to London, a new army raised by the Parliament in his name, and a new civil war begun, roused the soldiers to madness. Five hundred troopers appeared on the fourth of June before Holmby House, where the king was residing in ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... break with soft and silvery shower The silence of some marble solitude, Where Adrian, at the fire fly's glittering hour, Of rumour'd worlds to come the doubts review'd? Go mark his tomb!—in that sepulchral mole Scowls the fell bandit:—from its towering height Old Tiber's flood reflects the girandole, Midst bells, and shouts, and rockets' ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... was played a second time and, as the papers said next morning, with even more perfect art and amid more awed enthusiasm than on the first night. But as the piece went on, a rumour passed through the house that its young author was dead—suddenly and mysteriously dead while the dawn of his fame was yet breaking—struck down, some said, outside the theatre by a rival, while others whispered that he had taken poison, but none ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and Alice together. Their engagement came out in the usual way: it had been announced to a few of their nearest friends, and intelligence of it soon spread from their own set through society generally; it had been published in the Sunday papers while it was still in the tender condition of a rumour, and had been denied by some of their acquaintance and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the natives were killed in the fight was never known; the bodies were hastily carried away and buried by their friends as soon as the rumour spread of the arrival of the troops, and only some eight or ten of their dead were found lying in the streets. The rescue of the boys was due to the presence in the mob of a wealthy bey, who lived a short distance out of the town. This man was a brother of one of the leaders of the military ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... employed the Dogberrys of the time to find him, and the missing cash; the mother, whose support and comfort he was, sought him with all the perseverance of faithful love. But he never returned; and by-and-by the rumour spread that he must have gone abroad with the money; his mother heard the whispers all around her, and could not disprove it; and so her heart broke, and she died. Years after, I think as many as fifty, the well-to-do butcher and grazier ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... man of few words—to the chatter of his centurions. One of them, Balbus the Sicilian, had been to the main camp at Mainz, only four miles away, and had seen the Emperor Alexander arrive that very day from Rome. The rest were eager at the news, for it was a time of unrest, and the rumour of great changes was ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in an outburst of hooting from his former friends, who sympathetically surrounded the wounded Ramsey. But in a measure, at least, the chivalrous fugitive had won his point. He was routed and outdone, yet what survived the day was a rumour, which became a sort of tenuous legend among those interested. There had been a fight over Dora Yocum, it appeared, and Ramsey Milholland had attempted to maintain something derogatory to the lady, while Wesley defended ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... .ij. vilaines more associate with him the Lieutenaunt refusyng so horrible a fact. This was doen he takyng his waie & progresse to Glocester, whereof he was before tymes Duke: the murther perpetrated, he doubed the good squire knight. Yet to kepe close this horrible murther, he caused a fame and rumour to be spread abrode, in all par- tes of the realme, that these twoo childre[n] died sodainly, there- [Sidenote: The cause.] by thinkyng the hartes of all people, to bee quietlie setteled, no heire male lefte a liue of kyng Edwardes children. His mischief was soche, that God shortened his ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... fain to be my friends also, put on their armour, and took my lord out of the courteous prison wherein he was, and came to the Great Square whenas I stood naked in my smock bound amid the faggots; and I saw the sheriffs' men give back, and great noise and rumour rise up around me: and then all about me was a clear space for a moment and I heard the tramp of the many horse-hoofs, and the space was full of weaponed men shouting, and crying out, 'Life for our Lord's Lady!' Then a minute, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the single gentleman and his errand, travelling from mouth to mouth, and waxing stronger in the marvellous as it was bandied about—for your popular rumour, unlike the rolling stone of the proverb, is one which gathers a deal of moss in its wanderings up and down—occasioned his dismounting at the inn-door to be looked upon as an exciting and attractive spectacle, which could scarcely be enough admired; and drew ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... had always regarded the turnpike-keeper as rather an eccentric person; but henceforth they began to look upon him as downright crazy. The old widow who had hitherto done his housekeeping was the first to spread this rumour. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... bin follerin' up first one clue and then another without any result. Now the last is that he's been seen somewhere the other side of your place, an' two troopers have gone out to-day to see if there's any truth in the rumour." ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... of the most extraordinary was to the effect that news had come on board of great anxiety existing in Western Australia over a supposed disaster to the ship and its living freight. As no such news had come on board the source of the rumour could not be traced. Subsequently, in letters received from the homeland, it was ascertained that such a rumour was actually current there coincident with its first being mentioned on the transport. Possibly its origin may be remotely connected with the fact that, simultaneously with ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... was kindling the young man's imagination. But the English Navy of those days gave little encouragement to the Napoleonic point of view. It was bound up with the sternest discipline and much red tape. If rumour speaks true young French was irritated by the almost despotic powers then possessed by certain naval officers. So he boldly decided at the age of eighteen to end one career and ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... participated in her uneasy alarm. The name, indeed, was unknown to them, nor could they conjecture the bearer of so ordinary a patronymic; but there had been secrets enough in Lucretia's life to render her apprehensive of encountering those who had known her in earlier years; and Varney feared lest any rumour reported to St. John might create his mistrust, or lessen the hold obtained upon a victim heretofore so unsuspicious. They both agreed in the expediency of withdrawing themselves and St. John as soon as possible from London, and frustrating Percival's ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Dick had no objection to saying that he had induced Quisante to go in for politics, and had "squared" the influential persons who distributed (so far as a free electorate might prove docile) seats in Parliament. Rumour and Aunt Maria would have supplemented his statement by telling of substantial aid given by the Benyon brothers. May, interested against her wish and irritated at her interest, yet not content, like Dick's wife, to shrug away Dick's ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... sibilance of a stillness made of many interwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet below, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vast serenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant motor-cars. A night of potent witchery, a woman willingly bewitched. . ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... enjoyable conversation, for Georgie kept the grindstone of the misery of his lot without Atkinson, and the pleasure of companionship firmly to the Colonel's nose. It was no use for him to attempt to change the subject to the approaching tableaux, to a vague rumour that Piggy had fallen face downwards in the ducking-pond, that Mrs Quantock and her husband had turned a table this afternoon with remarkable results, for it had tapped out that his name was Robert and ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... conjectured that Mrs. Tripp, whose cow supplied "The Bower" with milk, learnt the facts from the buttoned youth when she paid her professional call at 7.30 a.m.; but none knew for certain. I might here paint Mrs. Tripp full of tongues, and dress her up as "Rumour," after the best epic models; but in saying that she had the usual number of lips and hands, that her parents were respectable, and that she never shrieked from a lofty tower in her life, I only ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... feeling and real kindness, but with a little want of tact, he wished to condole with Miss Matty, and impress upon her the true state of the case. I could only hope that he had heard an exaggerated rumour for he said that her shares were worse than nothing, and that the bank could not pay a shilling in the pound. I was glad that Miss Matty seemed still a little incredulous; but I could not tell how much of this was real or assumed, with that self-control which seemed habitual ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... suspense; not inclined, as his father had feared, to drown sorrow in labour, but regarding his grief as an additional call to devote himself to ministerial work. In fact, the blow had fallen when he first heard the rumour of danger, and could not recur with the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... presents an authentic detail of that memorable event; and it is evident from it that Robert de Avesbury, the contemporary writer upon whom the greatest reliance has hitherto been placed, has fallen into some errors in his narrative of the transaction. He informs us that on the day after the battle a rumour of it reached London, but that it was discredited until the ensuing Wednesday, namely the 28th of June, when the Prince of Wales received a letter from the king informing him of his success, of which letter that writer asserts that the annexed ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... current of feeling to resume his authority with the help of one thousand men. He was not able, however, to hold the position long, partly because he showed an unwise vindictiveness against his enemies, partly (and chiefly) because the rumour of the death of Antiochus turned out to be false. The king was already, in fact, close at hand on his return from Egypt, full of anger at an insurrection which he regarded as having been directed against himself. He inflicted severe ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Those virtuous ladies of high religious merit had been disowned by the Rishis. They lost no time in visiting that leader of the celestial forces and then addressed him thus, "We, O son, have been cast out by our god-like husbands, without any cause. Some people spread the rumour that we gave birth to thee. Believing in the truth of this story, they became greatly indignant, and banished us from our sacred places. It behooves thee now to save us from this infamy. We desire to adopt thee as our son, so that, O mighty ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... when he appears to be ungrateful, when ill-judging report has declared him to be so. Such a man can look to nothing but his own conscience, which can please him even when overwhelmed by calumny, which contradicts the mob and common rumour, relies only upon itself, and though it beholds a vast crowd of the other way of thinking opposed to it, does not count heads, but wins by its own vote alone. Should it see its own good faith meet with the punishment due to treachery, it will not descend ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... most part occurred in times that are dim and legendary. We hear of the havoc by an uncertain voice of tradition; we dream of a lost land of Lyonesse, of which only the Scillies remain; but the underlying truth of such romantic rumour must be carried back to Neolithic or earlier times. Though inaccurate in detail, such legends are rarely baseless. In places, such as Mount's Bay, there is still evidence of what the sea has taken; in other parts the evidence has ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... The ill-founded rumour that in Kosciuszko's youth he had intended to run off with Ludwika Sosnowska had got to the ears of Tekla's father. Certain enemies of Kosciuszko's did their best to slander him yet further. The result was a scene of the sort more ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... before the old woman had again stirred, or Alayn interfered, a rumour from the street formed by the bridge, caught the ear of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... subject—he would probably have agreed with his sister Harriet, whose views we shall quote in a later chapter. In Martineau's Memoirs, voluminous and dull, there is only one reference to Borrow;[41] but a correspondent once ventured to approach the eminent divine concerning the rumour as to Martineau's part in the birching of the author of The Bible in Spain, and received the ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... regarded as a black sheep by men around me who were not themselves, I think, very good public servants. From time to time rumours reached me that if I did not take care I should be dismissed; especially one rumour in my early days, through my dearly beloved friend Mrs. Clayton Freeling,—who, as I write this, is still living, and who, with tears in her eyes, besought me to think of my mother. That was during the life of Sir Francis Freeling, who died,—still in harness,—a ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... and regard? And yet such had been the representation of this day's debate, which this numerous audience would have conveyed to the populace, had not the mistake been immediately rectified, and the rumour crushed in the birth. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... scandal, in the Parliament House," said Glenalmond. "It runs riot below among the bar and the public, but it sifts up to us upon the bench, and rumour has some of her voices even ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Boston newspaper, and I've been sent up here to interview old Mr. Dome, who lives in that house," and he pointed to a roof above the trees. "There is a rumour, which I hope to verify, that he has just given a hundred thousand dollars ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... curiosity, it soon became so to the rest of the spectators, whose conjectures were as absurd and improbable, as the catastrophe itself was unprecedented. In the midst of their senseless guesses, a young peasant, whom rumour had drawn thither from a neighbouring village, observed that the miraculous helmet was exactly like that on the figure in black marble of Alfonso the Good, one of their former princes, in ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... seated round the throne divine, All-knowing goddesses! immortal nine! Since earth's wide regions, heaven's unmeasur'd height, And hell's abyss, hide nothing from your sight, (We, wretched mortals! lost in doubts below, But guess by rumour, and but boast we know,) Oh! say what heroes, fir'd by thirst of fame, Or urg'd by wrongs, to Troy's destruction came! To count them all demands a thousand tongues, A throat of brass ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... understanding. The French Revolution will have this effect. They sing, at present, with great glee, many Republican songs, and seem earnestly to wish that the republic may stand; yet they appear very much attached to their Prince Royal, and, as far as rumour can give an idea of a character, he appears to merit their attachment. When I am at Copenhagen, I shall be able to ascertain on what foundation their good opinion is built; at present I am only ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... when the Ephebi accompanied their friend, singing in chorus the Hymenaeus, which they had been unable to chant on his wedding day. The melody of lutes accompanied the voices, and this nocturnal music was the source of the rumour that the god Dionysus, to whom Mark Antony felt specially akin, and in whose form he had so often appeared to the people, had abandoned ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... met his death. Trent, it seems, had the reputation of being a reckless and daring man, and, according to some agreement which they had, he profited enormously by your father's death. There seems to have been no really definite ground for the rumour except that the body was not found where Trent said that he had died. Apart from that, life is held cheap out there, and although your father was in delicate health, his death under such conditions could ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in this country for the purpose of producing my crockery. A very large company will be formed, a great part of the money towards which is already subscribed. We have examined several sites with a view to building factories, but I have not cared at present to open up direct negotiations. A rumour of our enterprise is about, and the price of the land we require would advance considerably if the prospective purchaser were known. The land is situated, half an acre at Willesden, three-quarters of an acre ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! Again a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's—what had the two in common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... continued without much energy. The balloon reported that the Boers were occupied in putting up more guns on Bulwan. Rumour says there will be thirteen in all, a goodly number for a position which completely commands the town from end to end. All day the shells had a note of extra spite in them as they came plunging among ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... no longer say that nobody knew his name. His innocence was unaware of the secret processes by which names are made and unmade; but he had gathered from Nina that her friends had created for him a rumour and reputation which he persistently refused to incarnate by his presence among them. He said he wanted to preserve his innocence. Tanqueray's retirement was not more superb or more indignant; Tanqueray had been fortuitously and infrequently "met"; but nobody met Prothero anywhere. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... called me back, and reverting once more to my first allusion of the rumour about his not returning, laughingly said, "Remember, Nathan, you shall certainly see me again in body or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... weeks the lure seemed to attract Churchill, coupled though it was with the death of his romance. He dallied with the temptation as far as the stage of marriage-settlements; and rumour had it that the match was as good as made. Handsome Jack Churchill was to marry an elderly and gilded spinster, and to mount ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... Octave Mirbeau appositely points out that Philippe and her other friends abstained from giving purely literary advice to the authoress as her book grew and was read aloud. With the insight of artists they perceived that hers was a talent which must be strictly let alone. But Parisian rumour has alleged, not merely that she was advised, but that she was actually helped in the writing by her admirers. The rumour is worse than false—it is silly. Every paragraph of the work bears the unmistakable and inimitable work of one individuality. And ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... be no more good days for Antichrist after this earthquake has begun to shake her: No, nothing now is to be expected of her, but rumours, tumults, stirs, and uproars: 'One post shall run to meet another,—to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end': And again, 'A rumour shall both come one year; and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler,' &c. (Jer 51:31,46). So that this earthquake has driven away peace, shaken the foundations, and will cast the nine cities ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of Cleopatra has been preferred which attributes her end to poison. According to Plutarch its actual manner is very uncertain, though popular rumour ascribed it to the bite of an asp. She seems, however, to have carried out her design under the advice of that shadowy personage, her physician, Olympus, and it is more than doubtful if he would have resorted to such a fantastic and uncertain method ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... The rumour of the miracle circled the mountain's base, and a strange story without names had been told to the Wood-ranger of the Cairn-Forest, by a wayfaring man. Anxious to know what truth there was in it, he crossed the hill, and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... it, and with the opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses who appeared to give evidence. It should be said, however, that the Dominicans never accepted the official decision, and put about a rumour that the irregularity had been committed by a supporter of Luis de Leon's—a supporter who (so it was alleged) some twenty years later avowed his transgression and sought to make amends for it by paying ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... camouflage that the world tries to penetrate the disguise. Not until a woman dips her hair in henna and, metaphorically speaking, cries, "See how young I look now!" that other women begin to remark, "You know, dear, she is not so youthful as she was!" It's only when the rumour goes round that a man has had a financial misfortune that everybody to whom he owes anything fling in their bills. And thus it is with family skeletons. If, as it were, you ask them to live with you downstairs, everybody ignores ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... The rumour goes abroad that thy grandfather sent to Inverness for it. Others say it came to thee ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... revels. She had laughed at his prayers for a quiet half hour, tossing him instead, as she did to her parrot, now a few careless words, now a sugar plum. At present the season is waning, and a great dread has taken possession of him, lest she should slip away from him altogether, for Dame Rumour has given the widow of the American millionaire in marriage to more than one. The demon of unrest hath gat hold on him and every night ere going to one or other of the many distractions open to him, he paces the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... The rumour spread, Folks shook their head, But dropped in one by one. A bishop came (Forget his name), And then the thing ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... notice of his design. When he had advanced so far, as that it might be communicated without any danger, he told them, that he was leading them to certain victory: that, in war, all things depended upon reputation; that the bare rumour of their arrival would disconcert all the measures of the Carthaginians; and that the whole honour of this battle would fall ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even Mr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an industrious hunt on a false scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer, that a rumour shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that he had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug of mellow flip in the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he 'didn't stand to lose a farthing' through Mr Harmon's coming to life, but was quite as ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... curious, but she must have known how to deal with them, for whatever interest anybody may have felt died out long ago. They know the man had a daughter and that she's grown now, but this fellow told me that he'd heard she went barefoot most of the time, and there was a half rumour that she was feeble-minded, and that was why they kept so close. He thinks I'm boarding here, apparently. I suppose that any curious boys or tramps that might have been tempted over here were frightened off by the dogs—there used to be ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... I willed not to know them. Rumour of them reached me, of course. Had I then given them a Hearing, I might have been charged with complicity, the silence which gave consent. Many were anxious that I should know of them—at a time when opposition would have been very difficult—premature, outside ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... greatly respected, notwithstanding the rumour that he was a "stickit minister," that is, one who had failed in the attempt to preach; and when the presbytery dismissed him on the charge of heresy, there had been many tears on the part of his pupils, and much childish ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... spake thus came a lay-brother and bent the knee before King Peter and bade him and the Dame of Upmeads to supper in the name of the Prior, and the Captain and the Lady therewith; for indeed the rumour of the coming of an host for the helping of the countryside had gotten into that House, and the Prior and the brethern sorely desired to look upon the Captain, not knowing him for Ralph of Upmeads. So into the Hall they went together, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... to have deeds as well as words?" Parker moved that, when the meeting adjourned, it should be to meet the following morning in the square before the court-house. But he had raised too great a storm to control; a rumour that a mob of negroes was at that very moment trying to rescue Burns was all that was needed to empty the room; and the crowd rushed out to the court-house square. There they discovered a small party of men, led by Thomas ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... a rumour that John is off to India and my brother Kenrick a Major already. He is a lucky fellow! Glad you saw me off on Wednesday at Winchester. I looked up at your window, but could ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... by the rumour of these things, revolted, and set up Tyrants there; first Marcus, whom they slew presently; then Gratian, whom they slew within four months; and lastly Constantine, under whom they invaded Gallia A.C. 408, being favoured by Goar and Gundicar. And Constantine having possessed ...
— Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John • Isaac Newton
... of a local magnate, put their thoughts into words. "We caught sight of him going in there two hours ago, and now he cannot see us. I had heard a rumour that there was that especial failing, but I had hoped it wasn't true. Now, however——" She was a kindly-natured woman, and she broke off ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... against the Squire. The cook's mother, no doubt, lived in a cottage owned by the Squire, and enjoyed perquisites of various sorts which she had no disposition to throw away. Beside the kitchen fire there had, no doubt, been a lengthy conference over that rumour, and the mother had said, "Don't you do it, Mary Jane. If the ladies are across with the Squire, how'll he take it if he hears my daughter's in their service? And half a dozen people with their ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... absurd, that I only laughed at it: but, at last, he assured me, I had myself been imposed upon; for that very woman who attended Lady Belmont in her last illness, conveyed the child to him while he was in London, before she was a year old. 'Unwilling,' he added, 'at that time to confirm the rumour of my being married, I sent the woman with the child to France: as soon as she was old enough, I put her into a convent, where she has been properly educated, and now I have taken her home. I have acknowledged her for my lawful ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... was marvellous, and some years after his adoption by the tribe, he was the principle guide and interpreter for Fitzpatrick and Sublette, who conducted a trapping expedition sent across the continent by General Ashley. How he died is unknown; one rumour says from his licentious habits, another that he was killed by some of his adopted brethren. He was a heroic vagabond, but the redeeming feature of his life was that he taught the Crows to cultivate the friendship of the whites, a policy which ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... heard through common rumour, The Princess Turandot's ferocious humour Has many princes caused to lose their life In seeking to obtain her as a wife. Her beauty is so wonderful, that all As willing victims to her mandate fall; In vain do various painters daily vie To limn her rosy cheek, her flashing eye, Her perfect form, ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... with the pope; but quickly perceiving, by the way his intimation was received, that he would have done better to say nothing, he stopped the inquiries he had started, so that neither of the murderers was ever arrested. But the rumour was circulated that Caesar, in the short stay he had made at Rome, had had a rendezvous with Cerviglione's wife, who was a Borgia by birth, and that her husband when he heard of this infringement of conjugal duty had been angry enough to threaten ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
