"Turn tail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with horror. If so, I should be discovered. I was tempted to turn tail: but that would be even worse. The only thing was to stay ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... the long trail, hundreds had dropped out of the march and been left behind for the wolves. But not all. Range-bred cattle are blessed with rugged constitutions and can bear much of cold and hunger. The cow that can turn tail to a biting wind the while she ploughs to the eyes in snow and roots out a very satisfactory living for herself breeds calves that will in time do likewise and grow fat and strong in the doing. He is a sturdy, self-reliant little rascal, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... with more alacrity than valour, the whites of his eyes betraying something more than a readiness to obey this conservative order. It was a foregone conclusion that Zachariah would turn tail and flee the instant there was a sign of danger. "Slave hunters, Marse Kenneth, dat's what dey is," he announced with conviction. "Ah c'n smell 'em five miles away. Yas, suh,—dey's gwine a' make trouble fo' you, Marse Kenneth, sho' as you is—" But by this ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... been for the fearful fascinations of your sister—that divine Countess—I should have been engaged to somebody by this time, and profited by the opportunity held out to me, and which is now gone. I 'm disgraced. I 'm known. And the worst of it is, I must face people. I daren't turn tail. Did you ever hear of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with; he has heard of it—everybody has in this neighbourhood; and then St. Anthony himself was never in a more favourable condition for spiritual visitations. Look at him; he is blue with asceticism. But he won't turn tail to the ghost; he'll hold his own. There's ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... not seem inclined to retreat, but the shriek which Edith uttered on suddenly beholding the scene before her induced him to turn tail and fly. In another moment the terrified child sank exhausted on the snow beside the ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... as it was, though I knew he wasn't thinking of us. Crowley told me all about it after dinner, you see, and then I'd seen one of the men for myself this afternoon. You thought it was a detective who made me turn tail at that inn. I really don't know why I didn't tell you at the time, but it was just the opposite. That loud, red-faced brute is one of the cleverest thieves in London, and I once had a drink with him and our mutual fence. I was an Eastender ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... to be in a whirl of doubt, for he looked vainly from side to side to find some adequate means of escape. His sense did not carry him sufficiently far to prompt him to turn tail and bolt for safety. He just stood there and continued his helpless baby squealing. This was all the old hen needed to drive her to extremities. Realizing his weakness she gave one fluttering spring, scattering ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... rugged one objected to this party. "He is no use, he has turned soft. I have heard him refuse a dozen good plants the last month. Besides, I don't want a canting son of a gun for my pal—ten to one if he don't turn tail ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... declared. "'Toe the mark' is Aunt Lavinia's great motto. 'Face the music' is mine. I won't turn tail and play the sneak. I've destroyed some property. Well, the first honest thing to do is to try ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... the captain grimly. "We haven't come as far as this to turn tail and run just when we're on the point of getting what we ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... this shapeless beast, only fifty paces from us, Lucien rushed to me in terror. Sumichrast had just cocked his gun, and the noise made the ant-eater turn tail and prepare to run off, when it found itself face to face with l'Encuerado. It stood up on its hind legs, with its snout in the air, and then stretched out its arms ready to strike any one who was imprudent enough to come within reach of them. Nothing could be more strange than ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... fall and gazed at the fire, thinking. After all, he was a poor creature. He had none of that perseverance and belief in his own ultimate success, and it was better, perhaps, to get right out of it, to throw up the sponge, to turn tail, and again there floated before him that wonderful dream of liberty and the road—of a relationship with the world at large, and no constraint of family dignity and absurd grades of respectability. Off with the harness; he had worn it for a fortnight ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... expected to startle and perhaps make his enemy turn tail, but to his utter astonishment the last man's pony stopped short, sending the rider over its head, and Chris tore on, with the intention ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... and consider themselves first- class sailors, think that it will be more prudent to go by train through Ireland home, instead of waiting for the return boat of the same line which calls here on Sunday and is to take them to Liverpool. We almost wish we could turn tail; the prospect of ten days more of the briny ocean is not what at this moment we most fancy. However, in the short time we have been in harbour we have been recruiting to start afresh, and ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... together, in spite of intolerable weather and storms of sleet and snow, which bear a far greater resemblance to the climate of Lochaber than to that of Syria, "land of roses." Reinforced with the count and his companions, Colonel Napier pushes on—gets into the vicinity of Ibrahim—his rabble rout turn tail, in case of being swallowed alive by the ferocious pasha, whose reputation for cruelty and all manner of iniquities seems well deserved, and having ascertained the movements of that formidable ruffian, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... to speak truth, I find the Rogue does not love me: Heavens! What a bad world is this, An Old Woman, though never so willing, Can scarce get a friend for ready money: When such as Eugenia can make the Gold fly about; But time will come she must be fain to turn tail, And pay for one as I do, or go without. But it pleases me, my Lady says, he shall be my husband, Then I shall need give money no longer: for faith if he Be negligent, I'le ring him a Peal to quicken him to his duty. Thus marry'd once, I'le doe like other wives ...
— The Fatal Jealousie (1673) • Henry Nevil Payne
... shrank from nothing, shrank from the winks that would be sure to pass when they saw him, the haughty, the aloof, forced to creep among them cheek for jowl. Then his angry pride rushed towering to his aid. Was John Gourlay to turn tail for a wheen o' the Barbie dirt? Damn the fear o't! It was a public conveyance; he had the same right to use it as the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... imprint of his moccasin being clearly outlined in the dust. This presented a new difficulty, and we now understood why they had not picked us off in the morning. They were entrenched and were waiting to be attacked, but seeing the main force turn tail, the hunted had ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... a lovely night, Sir, with just enough of moonlight to know friends from foes," went on the keeper, rubbing his hands, and unconsciously moistening them in his excitement. "I knew you'd come. I said to myself: 'Mr. Yorke'll never turn tail;' and we shall be really glad of your help, for the fact is we are short-handed. Napes is down with the rheumatics, and two of our men are away from home, and there ain't time to send to the out-beaters. So we shall be only nine—including yourself—in all. Let's see," continued the old ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... the Empress of India, make way, O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam. The woods are astir at the close of the day— We exiles are waiting for letters from Home. Let the robber retreat—let the tiger turn tail— In the Name of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... always saying you'd do this and do that, but when the time comes you turn tail and sneak away. Look here: you were the one who proposed going into the Black Swan this morning, and when young Mouler said Allingford was coming, you slipped out of the back door and left us to ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... the grave, indeed!" continued the whipper-in, for such he was, —"I'd let nobody pull your honour out of any place, saving 'twas purgatory; and out of that I'd pull you myself, if I saw you going there." "I am of opinion, Larry," said Doctor Dickenson, "you would turn tail if you saw Sir Theodore on that road. You might go further, and fare worse, you know." "Turn tail!" replied Larry, "it is I that wouldn't—I appale to St. Patrick himself over beyond"—pointing to a picture of the Prime Saint of Ireland, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... beginning makes a good ending. The Hunt family, which now included several children, embarked, in November of all months in the year, on a small ship bound for Italy. They were something like a month getting down the Channel in tremendous weather, and at last when their ship had to turn tail from near Scilly and run into Dartmouth, Hunt, whose wife was extremely ill of lung-disease, made up his mind to stay for the winter in Devonshire. He passed the time pleasantly enough at Plymouth, which they left once more in May 1822, reaching Leghorn ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... agility of the fox tell at once, and he easily leaves the dog far in his rear. For a cur less than his own size he manifests little fear, especially if the two meet alone, remote from the house. In such cases, I have seen first one turn tail, then the other. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various |
