"Groat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... silverlings. [18] Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count this trash! Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay The things they traffic for with wedge of gold, Whereof a man may easily in a day Tell [19] that which may maintain him all his life. The needy groom, that never finger'd groat, Would make a miracle of thus much coin; But he whose steel-barr'd coffers are cramm'd full, And all his life-time hath been tired, Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it, Would in his age be loath to labour so, And for a pound to sweat himself to death. Give me the merchants of the Indian ...
— The Jew of Malta • Christopher Marlowe
... "A groat for your tidings," replied Rose, "we poor women hear none in this remote corner. But is it a secret? Women may keep one," she added, looking at the panel that had closed on Le Gallais, "but walls have ears: and so have you, as yet such as they are, which I would not have you sacrifice in our cause. ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... pulling up in the moon-silvered mist and clapping his hand to his pocket, "not a groat! Stay, here is a crooked sixpence of King James that none but a fool would take. The merry robbers left me ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... a silver groat, what was not your value in Mackarel Lane? Were you not one of its most considered inhabitants, scarcely less a child of Aunt Ermine and Aunt ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... grain grown in the northeastern United States and Canada. Adapted to poor, droughty soils, the crop is often grown as a green manure. The seeds are enclosed in a thin-walled, brown to black fibrous hulls that are removed at a groat mill. Buckwheat hulls are light, springy, and airy. They'll help fluff up a compost heap. Buckwheat hulls are popular as a mulch because they adsorb moisture easily, look attractive, and stay in place. Their C/N is high. Oat and rice hulls are ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... exhibition of Shakespearean books, including all the early editions of the quartos; the various editions of the folios; the works of contemporaneous authors whom Shakespeare had consulted; and also the early works that mention Shakespeare, or cite from his plays or poems, including Greene's "Groat's Worth of Wit", published in 1592 by Henry Chettle and containing the earliest printed allusion to Shakespeare ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... afraid that another triviality which has hitherto been to the taste only of the south of England is fated to "catch on," by means of the same missionaries, from Land's End to John o' Groat's, and even in the colonies. Rhyming slang is extraordinarily common in the army, so common that it is used with complete unconsciousness as being correct conversational English. My friend of the king-like toe spoke of his feet as "plates of meat"—and ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... wandered, and, being lost, fell among the Irish touns.' The Irish houses were the poorest cabins he had seen, erected in the middle of fields and grounds which they farmed and rented. 'This,' he added, 'is a wild country, not inhabited, planted, nor enclosed.' He gave an Irishman 'a groat' to bring him into the way, yet he led him, like a villein, directly out of the way, and so ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Cavalier, but he is a steady, honest young fellow, and I fancy his pen keeps his father, who is a roystering blade, and spends most of his time at the taverns. The boy comes to me for an hour, twice a week; he writes as good a hand as any clerk and can reckon as quickly, and I pay him but a groat a week, which was all ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... a silver groat, A silver groat o' Scots money, "If I come with a poor man's dole," he said, "True Thomas, ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... pounds: what was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley employed Killigrew and another to procure a remission from the king; but (mark the friendship of the dissolute!) they begged the fine for themselves, and exacted it to the last groat. In 1665, lord Buckhurst attended the duke of York, as a volunteer in the Dutch war; and was in the battle of June 3, when eighteen great Dutch ships were taken, fourteen others were destroyed, and Opdam, the admiral, who engaged ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... suite of carriages, like a nobleman, then did the old fellow fairly curse and swear, and call him all the unnatural and petticoat-pinioned fools in his vocabulary, and prophesy his bringing his ninepence to a groat. Tom and Lady Barbara, however, upheld the honor of England all over the Continent. In Paris, at the baths of Germany, at Vienna, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples—every where, they were distinguished by their fine persons, their fine equipage, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... credit: his name is Umbra. If you observe, he follows Alethes and Verisimilis at a distance; and indeed has no foundation for the figure he makes in the world, but that he is thought to keep their cash; though at the same time, none who trust him would trust the others for a groat." As the company rolled about, the three spectres were jumbled into one place: when they were so, and all thought there was an alliance between them, they immediately drew upon them the business of the whole 'Change. But their affairs soon increased ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... to farmers the word of God was the seed falling on rocky soil or the fertile furrow. When the merchants with caravans and silken tunics surrounded Him it becomes the pearl of great price. When amongst simple villagers it is the lost groat in search of which the housewife sweeps the floor and searches each ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... last. 80 A man of wealth is dubb'd a man of worth, Venus shall give him form, and Anstis[140] birth. (Believe me, many a German prince is worse, Who, proud of pedigree, is poor of purse). His wealth brave Timon gloriously confounds; Ask'd for a groat, he gives a hundred pounds; Or if three ladies like a luckless play,[141] Takes the whole house upon the poet's day. Now, in such exigencies not to need, Upon my word, you must be rich indeed; 90 A ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... vessels were wrecked, and many lives were lost that night, while many more were saved by the gallant lifeboat crews, the details of which, if written, would thrill many a sympathetic breast from John o' Groat's to the Land's End; but passing by these we turn to one particular vessel which staggered in the gale of that night, but which, fortunately for those on board, was still at some distance from ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... with these hospitable people for four days. There was nothing that they would not do for us—no trouble was too groat, no labour was aught but a pleasure to them. They brought the Lucia round to a small sandy beach near the village, discharged her, carried everything up to the houses, and cleaned her thoroughly inside and out, and then ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... improvements; for remember a letter, wherein he invited him, with a very impoetical warmth that, so long as he himself had a shilling, Mr. Gay should be welcome to sixpence of it, nay, to eightpence, if he could but contrive to live on a groat."[1] ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... [2] The grossus, English groat, German Groschen, was a coin which varied considerably in value. It may here be taken as intrinsically worth about 8 cents or four pence, at a time when money had many times the purchasing power that it ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Gentleman gets thus into his Study, one may very nearly guess what is his first thought, when he comes there—viz., that the last kilderkin of drink is nearly departed! that he has but one poor single groat in the house, and there is Judgement and Execution ready to come out against it, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... sovereigns, or shillings, or other metallic substances inside the envelope; and if the devil entered into me causing me to write a libel against the Queen, I would send it by the post fearlessly from John o' Groat's to Land's End inclusive. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Pewsham's wood, Before it was destroy'd, A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare- but now ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... struck many a savage blow; the might of each broke full upon the shields. Thirty of Liudegast's men stood there on guard, but ere they could come to his aid, Siegfried had won the fight, with three groat wounds which he dealt the king through his gleaming breastplate, the which was passing good. The blood from the wounds gushed forth along the edges of the sword, whereat King Liudegast stood in sorry mood. He begged for life and made ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... answered, with a judicial frown; "but foul play never should hurt fair play; and we haul them through the water when we catch them. Your father is terribly particular, I know, and that is the worst thing there can be; but I do not care a groat for all objections, Mary, unless the objection begins with you. I am sure by your eyes, and your pretty lips and forehead, that you are not the one to change. If once any lucky fellow wins your heart, he will have ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... what is it you mutter, Sirrah, ha? (Holds up his Cane.) I say, you sha'n't have a Groat out of my Hands till I Please—and may be I'll never Please, and what's that ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... in the middle of a crowd he saw some English soldiers, who were boasting that they were superior to the Scots in strength and feats of arms. One of them, a strong fellow, was declaring that he could lift a greater weight than any two Scots. He carried a pole, with which he offered, for a groat, to let any Scotchman strike him on the back as hard as he pleased, saying that no Scotchman could strike hard enough to ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... chase all night, believing she had been a Spaniard; but when they came up to her, and gave her a broadside, she cried out for Quarters, which made them cease firing, and ordered the Captain to come aboard, which proved to be Captain Hawkins, whom they had dismissed three days before, not worth a groat. Two Days after, they anchored at Ratran, not far from Honduras, and put ashore Captain Hawkins, and several others, giving them powder and ball, and a musquet, and then left them to shift as well as they ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... breed any urdam, durdam, brabblement, or squabblement, he shall have his lugs tacked to the muckle trone, with a nail of twal-a-penny, until he down of his hobshanks and up with his mucle doubs, and pray to heaven neen times, Gold bles the king, and thrice the muckle Lord of Relton, pay a groat to me Jammey Ferguson, bailiff of the aforesaid manor. So ye heard my proclamation, and I'll haam ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... powder & shot, when the English want it, nor cannot gett it; and y^t in a time of warr or danger, as experience hath manifested, that when lead hath been scarce, and men for their owne defence would gladly have given a groat a l which is dear enoughe, yet hath it bene bought up & sent to other places, and sould to shuch as trade it with y^e Indeans, at 12. pence y^e li.; and it is like they give 3. or 4.^s y^e pound, for they will have it at any rate. And these things have been done in y^e same ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... not appreciated by her who used it. Nothing could much more have astonished or shocked Barbara Polwhele [a fictitious person]—than whom no more uncompromising Protestant breathed between John o' Groat's and the Land's End—than to discover that since she came into the room, she had twice invoked the assistance of ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... made. Ridley gave his gown and tippet to his brother-in-law, and distributed remembrances among those who were nearest to him. To Sir Henry Lee he gave a new groat, to others he gave handkerchiefs, nutmegs, slices of ginger, his watch, and miscellaneous trinkets; "some plucked off the points of his hose;" "happy," it was said, "was he that might get any ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... cloake it was a very good cloake Itt hath been alwayes true to the weare, But now it is not worth a groat; I have had it four and forty yeere; Sometime itt was of cloth in graine, 'Tis now but a sigh clout as you may see. It will neither hold out winde nor raine; And Ile have ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... but useful upon occasion. I walked into the doctor's yard this morning and shot my syringe full of aniseed over the hind wheel. A draghound will follow aniseed from here to John o' Groat's, and our friend Armstrong would have to drive through the Cam before he would shake Pompey off his trail. Oh, the cunning rascal! This is how he gave me the slip the ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... competition with longer purses than my own, and if I had bought the fastest car in the market somebody else would have bought one faster. But to-night—— By Jove! How I envy that Motor Pirate. Imagine what the possession of that car means on a night like this, with the roads clear from John-o'-Groat's to Land's End. Fancy flying onwards at a speed none have ever attempted. Can you not see the road unwinding before you like a reel of white ribbon, hear the sweet musical drone of the wheels in ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... chose the guava-berry; but without any immediately visible effect one officer took one and another the other. After soup came an elegant kingfish, and by and by the famous callalou and other delicate and curious viands. For dessert appeared "red groat"; sago jelly, that is, flavored with guavas, crimsoned with the juice of the prickly-pear and floating in milk; also other floating islands of guava jelly beaten with eggs. Pale-green granadillas crowned the feast. ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... fields; so that the care of above thirty thousand souls, hath been sometimes committed to one minister, whose church would hardly contain the twentieth part of his flock: neither, I think, was any family in those parishes obliged to pay above a groat a year to their spiritual pastor. Some few of those parishes have been since divided; in others were erected chapels of ease, where a preacher is maintained by general contribution. Such poor shifts and expedients, to the infinite shame and scandal, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... for I loved any that had a sense of good. When we had drunk a glass apiece, they began to drink healths and called for more drink, agreeing together that he that would not drink should pay for all. I was grieved that they should do so, and putting my hand into my pocket took out a groat and laid it on the table before them, saying, "If it be so, I will leave you." So I went away, and when I had done my business I returned home, but did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... John Wesley went riding the circuit from Land's End to John O'Groat's, from Cork to Londonderry, eight thousand miles, and eight hundred sermons every year. In London he spoke to the limit of his voice—ten thousand people. Yet when chance sent him but fifty auditors he spoke with just as much feeling. His sermons were full of wit, often homely ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... was a yellow man, Out of his bundle picks a groat, "La, by the Angel of St. Ann, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... it better to be civil to the fellow, as he guessed I had no business there in a college gown. So I gave him a groat, and bad him ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... marks, shillings, and pence. Of the current coins those in gold were called the angel, half-angel, the noble, half-noble, and quarter-noble; in silver there were the groat, half-groat, the penny, and half-penny. The local branch of the royal Mint was housed within the Castle. The building containing it was rebuilt in accordance with an order of 1423. The coins from this mint, which was at work during a large part of the fifteenth century, bore distinctive ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... Musickes song by thesse Cantabanqui vpon benches and barrels heads where they haue none other audience then boys or countrey fellowes that passse by them in the streete, or else by blind harpers or such like tauerne minstrels that giue a fit of mirth for a groat, & their matters being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Beuis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough & such other old Romances or historicall rimes, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... performed. The same evening I learned, however, that although the Italian public was passionately fond of song, it was the ballet which they regarded as the main item; for, obviously, the dreary opera, at the beginning was only intended to prepare the way for a groat choreographic performance on a subject no less pretentious than that of Antony and Cleopatra. In this ballet I saw even the cold politician Octavianus, who until now had not so far lost his dignity as to appear ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... is one circumstance I had passed over. I told you that I have thriven very well in business, and so I have upon the whole: at any rate, I find myself comfortably off now. I have horses, money, and owe nobody a groat; at any rate, nothing but what I could pay to-morrow. Yet I have had my dreary day, ay, after I had obtained what I call a station in the world. All of a sudden, about five years ago, everything seemed to go ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... John-o'-Groat's?" said Daisy, laughing. And then, "Why, father, ain't you going out to ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... we shall make our fortune, but I am worn to a ravelling. Take this groat (which is our last fourpence) and Simpkin, take a china pipkin; buy a penn'orth of bread, a penn'orth of milk and a penn'orth of sausages. And oh, Simpkin, with the last penny of our fourpence buy ...
— The Tailor of Gloucester • Beatrix Potter
... was not content, as I could daily get a better man for half his wages; but he will not go hence, nor will he perform, and has persuaded others to join with him, his very worthlessness having made him their leader, and they threaten, unless they may receive additional 4 shillings per week, and a groat each night for sack, they will have no plays performed, nor will they allow others to be hired in their stead. They do further demand that you shall write shorter plays; that you shall write no tragedies requiring them to labor more than three hours in the rendition; that you shall ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a groat at last. A fat kitchen makes a lean ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... put therein a groat or sixpence, as to the quantity of the aforesaid water, then set both to dissolve before the fire, then dip a small spunge in the said water, and wet your beard or hair therewith; ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous
... (as others have done) the different values of money for about four hundred years past. Henry Duke of Lancaster, who lived about that period, founded an hospital in Leicester, for a certain number of old men; charging his lands with a groat a week to each for their maintenance, which is to this day duly paid them. In those times, a penny was equal to ten-pence half-penny, and somewhat more than half a farthing in ours; which makes about eight ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... justice 1515 Than all your covenanting Trustees; Unless to punish them the worse, You put them in the secular pow'rs, And pass their souls, as some demise The same estate in mortgage twice; 1520 When to a legal Utlegation You turn your excommunication, And for a groat unpaid, that's due, Distrain ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Sir Marhaus, 'I will gladly go and do battle for you on this saucy king or his knight. I ween ye shall have your truage to the last groat, for I fear not the best knight of the Round Table, unless it be Sir Lancelot, and I doubt not King Mark hath no knight of such worth ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... Woh, Ball, woh! and I will come by and by. Now for a pair of spurs I would give a good groat, To try whether this jade do amble or trot. Farewell, my masters, till I come again, For now I must make a journey ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... sent to their aid; and thus strengthened they ventured to approach Heraclius once more, to hang on his rear, and impede his movements. He, after his victory, had resumed his march southward, had occupied Nineveh, recrossed the Groat Zab, advanced rapidly through Adiabene to the Lesser Zab, seized its bridges by a forced march of forty-eight (Roman) miles, and conveyed his army safely to its left bank, where he pitched his camp at a place called Yesdem, and once more allowed his soldiers a brief repose for the purpose ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE, on the Caithness coast, 13/4 m. W. of Duncansby Head, marks the northern limit of the Scottish mainland; the house was said to be erected, eight-sided, with a door at each side and an octagonal table within, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... "no honest man was enriched the value of a groat," apparently dishonest men must have sacked the gold and silver plate of the monasteries; nothing is said by Knox on this head, except as ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... youths said," said the Spae-Woman. "Now I'll tell you what my gossip the Churl of the Townland of Mischance does: he makes a bargain with the youth that goes into his service, telling him he will give him a guinea, a groat and a tester for his three months' service. And he tells the youth that if he says he is sorry for the bargain he must lose his wages and part with a strip of his skin, an inch wide. He rode on a bob-tailed, big-headed, spavined and spotted horse, from his ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... devils!" exclaimed Mowbray, "to fail this time is impossible—Jack Wolverine was too strong for Etherington at any thing he could name; and I can beat Wolverine from the Land's-End to Johnnie Groat's—but there must be something to go upon—the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... was provided, but there was still dinner to be thought of, since, if a man works, he must also eat. 'I went to the house [John o' Groat's] where I had always dined,' writes Haydon, 'intending to dine without paying for that day. I thought the servants did not offer me the same attention. I thought I perceived the company examine me—I thought the meat ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... being tender boil'd take it up, and put it into a hoop to fashion it upright and round, then keep it dry, and take it out of the clout, and serve it whole with mustard and sugar, or some gallendines. If lean, lard it with groat Lard. ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... the latter half is reflected in his diary. The letters show Borrow's experiences in the earlier part of his journey, and from his diaries we learn that he was in Oban on 22nd October, Aberdeen on 5th November, Inverness on the 9th, and thence he went to Tain, Dornoch, Wick, John o'Groat's, and to the island towns, Stromness, Kirkwall, and Lerwick. He was in Shetland on the 1st of December—altogether a bleak, cheerless journey, we may believe, even for so hardy a tramp as Borrow, and the tone of the following ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... dollar[obs3]. precious metals, gold, silver, copper, bullion, ingot, nugget. petty cash, pocket money, change, small change, small coin, doit[obs3], stiver[obs3], rap, mite, farthing, sou, penny, shilling, tester, groat, guinea; rouleau[obs3]; wampum; good sum, round sum, lump sum; power of money, plum, lac of rupees. major coin, crown; minor coin. monetarist, monetary theory. [Science of coins] numismatics, chrysology[obs3]. [coin scholar or collector] numismatist. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... commonwealth. Consider, how have we been tossed with every wind of doctrine, lost by the glib tongues of your demagogues and grandees in our own havens? A company of fiddlers that have disturbed your rest for your groat; L2,000 to one, L3,000 a year to another, has been nothing. And for what? Is there one of them that yet knows what a commonwealth is? And are you yet afraid of such a government in which these shall not dare ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... the northern coast and John o' Groat's House; and you shall give me an account of the canal, though I don't envy you," shouted Jack, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... Quick, Suett, and Mrs. Mattocks were the reigning favourites; and, about 1800, Elliston and Fawcett became occasional stars. But Quick and Suett were the king's especial delight. When Lovegold, in the "Miser," drawled out "a pin a day's a groat a year," the laugh of the royal circle was somewhat loud; but when Dicky Gossip exhibited in his vocation, and accompanied the burden of his song, "Dicky Gossip, Dicky Gossip is the man," with the blasts of his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... than people say it is; its great characteristic is imitation, and it will imitate the good as well as the bad, if we will set the example. I thank Heaven, sir, that my boy now might go from Dan to Beersheba and not filch a groat by ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Antonio, who insisted, from his knowledge of the English, that all I had said might very possibly be true. "The English," said he, "have more money than they know what to do with, and on that account they wander all over the world, paying dearly for what no other people care a groat for." He then proceeded, notwithstanding the frowns of the alcalde, to examine me in the English language. His own entire knowledge of this tongue was confined to two words—knife and fork, which words I rendered into ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the horrible temptations of the devil. For this is a help at hand, a help that is ready to fall in with us, if there be yet remaining with us, but the least grain of right reasoning according to the nature of things. For if it be objected against a man that he is poor, because he has but a groat in his pocket; yet if he has an unknown deal of money in his trunks, how easy is it for him to recover himself from that slander, by returning the knowledge of what he has, upon the objector. This is the case, and thus it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a groat. I had wished to be successful in the sermon contest, and felt sore whenever I thought of my failure. But I had no burning desire to eat sour apples without grimacing, and I did not sympathize over and above ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... scribled your eyes out, your works have never been printed but for the company of Chandlers and Tobacco-Men, who are your Stationers, and the onely men that vend your Labors' (pp. 4-5). 'He [a member of the Rota] said that he himself reprieved the Whole Defence of the People of England for a groat, that was sentenced to vile Mundungus, and had suffer'd inevitably (but for him), though it cost you much oyle and the Rump 300l. a year,' &c. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... John; "must be quite an undertaking getting Smith's tri-plane on the sky-way. It's useful for a family party, though. I hear he packed twenty or thirty on to it for the picnic they had at John-o'-Groat's last week. By the way," added John, as he moved upstairs, "aren't the Robinsons coming ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 30, 1919 • Various
... winter the moat was frozen over, and the lads, making themselves skates of marrow-bones, which they bought from the hall cook at a groat a pair, went skimming over the smooth surface, red-checked and shouting, while the crows and the jackdaws looked down at them from the top of the bleak ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Clarendon. They agreed; and, upon the payment of two hundred thousand pounds in hand, and security for as much more upon days agreed upon, the Scots delivered the King up.—Swift. Cursed Scot! sold his King for a groat. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... of "chronicle histories," before Marlowe. The truth is, that all the supporters of Malone's theory have taken Malone's unsupported statement as indisputable fact; they have not sufficiently examined the works of Greene and Peele, but have assumed, as Malone assumed, that Greene's charge in his "Groat's Worth of Wit" was conclusive proof that Shakspere did not write the two parts of the "Contention," and that Greene, or one of the friends he addresses, was ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... green. The lamp and glasses were bright as silver; and the whole equipage had an air of privacy and reserve that seemed to repel inquiry and disarm suspicion. With a servant like Rowley, and a chaise like this, I felt that I could go from the Land's End to John o' Groat's House amid a population of bowing ostlers. And I suppose I betrayed in my manner the degree in which the bargain ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... such tax upon authors, only the payment must be lessened in proportion as the animal, upon which it is raised, is less necessary; for many a man that would pay for his dog, will dismiss his dedicator. Perhaps, if every one who employed or harboured an author, was assessed a groat a year, it would sufficiently lessen the nuisance without destroying ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... will be before my countrymen find out that it is worth while to spend a penny in order to get a groat? ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... steam is not the only terrible agent at work in that same basement. If you only saw the electric batteries there that generate the electricity which enables us up-stairs to send our messages flying from London to the Land's End or John o' Groat's, or the heart of Ireland! You must know that a far stronger battery is required to send messages a long way than a short. Our Battery Inspector told me the other day that he could not tell exactly the power of all the ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... that,' he answered, his face flushing at my tone. 'Have you ever heard of an elephant? Yes. Well, it has a trunk, you know, with which it can either drag an oak from the earth or lift a groat from the ground. It is so with me. But again you ask,' he continued with an airy grimace, 'why I wanted a few crowns. Enough that I did. There are going to be two things in the world, and two only, M. de Marsac: brains and ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... fining me,' said Andrew, doughtily, 'that hasna a grey groat to pay a fine wi'—it's ill taking the breeks aff a Hielandman.' 'If ye hae nae purse to fine, ye hae flesh to pine,' replied the bailie, 'and I will look weel to ye getting your deserts the tae way ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... been used as a medical amulet, for the arrestment of haemorrhage, fever, etc. It is a small dark-red stone, of a somewhat triangular or heart shape, as represented in the adjoining woodcut (Fig. 19). It is set in the reverse of a groat of Edward IV., of ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... undevoutly sang mass and oftentimes twice on one day. So it happened on a time, after his second mass was done in short space, not a mile from Stratford there met him divers merchantmen, which would have heard mass, and desired him to sing mass and he should have a groat, which answered them and said: 'Sirs, I will say mass no more this day; but I will say you two gospels for one groat, and that is dog-cheap for a mass in any place in England.'" The story-teller does not inform us whether the pious ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... business; but to these we must add frugality, if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone all his life, and die not worth a groat at last. 'If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... if wishes warm Could fill it, 'twould be brimming o'er With handfuls of the golden charm. The only wealth I have to give Are words which may be worth a thought. Be sure, as you would prosperous live, While earning sixpence spend a groat: Your purse will then grow slowly full, A friend in need you'll always find, And comforts, which can only flow From plenty and a ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... between the railway station at Passage and the many little towns around the port. Glenbrook and Monkstown are particularly picturesque. Above the latter, nestling in the trees, may be seen Monkstown Castle, the legend attached to which says it was built for one groat. The owner of the site, one of the Archdeckens, an Anglo-Irish family, having gone away to the wars in the Lowlands, his better-half promised him a pleasant surprise on his return. She employed a number of workmen to build the castle, a condition of the contract being that they should ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... nasty-paty, lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in several scartoccios (covers), [33] are able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet these meagre, starved spirits, who have stopt the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... of them, I know not which, was cur'd with the Sick Man's Salve; and the other with Green's Groat's-worth of Wit. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... to cheer her in her melancholy. Because he had heard her accounted a witch he questioned her closely and received a nonchalant admission of relations with the Devil. That astounded him. When he sought to inquire more closely, he was put off. "Butter is eight pence a pound and Cheese a groat a pound," murmured the woman, and the clergyman left in bewilderment. But he came back in the afternoon, and she raved so wildly that he concluded her confession was but "a distraction in her head." Two women, however, worried from her further and more startling confessions. ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... trundling stall Where ragged authors wait the buyer's call, Where, for the tariff of a modest supper, You'll buy a twelvemonth's moral feast in Tupper; Where Virgil's tome is labelled at a groat, And twopence buys what tittering Flaccus wrote; Where lie the quips of Addison and Steele, And the thrice-blessed songs of Rob Mossgiel; And some that resurrection seek in vain From the swart dust that chokes the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... surpriz'd, but no Treasure found; vaft Sums lost by Enemies, and yet never found by Friends, Ships loaded with Volatile Silver, that came away full, and gat home empty; whole Voyages made to beat No body, and plunder Every body; two Millions robb'd from the honest Merchants, and not a Groat sav'd for the honest Subjects: There we saw Captains Lifting Men with the Governments Money, and letting them go again for their own; Ships fitted out at the Rates of Two Millions a Year, to fight but once in Three Years, and then run away for ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... hardly be said that the country possessed, for practical purposes, any measure of the value of commodities. It was a mere chance whether what was called a shilling was really tenpence, sixpence or a groat. The results of some experiments which were tried at that time deserve to be mentioned. The officers of the Exchequer weighed fifty-seven thousand two hundred pounds of hammered money which had recently been paid in. The weight ought to have been above two hundred and twenty ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "I'll warrant thou didst ne'er set the foul clothes a-soaking as I bade thee ere thou wentest forth to take thy pleasure, and left me a-slaving hither! Get thee to thy work, baggage! Thou art worth but one half as many pence as there be shillings in a groat! [A fourpenny-piece.] I'll learn thee to ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... laymen, being present. Sprot incidentally remarked that Logan visited London, in 1603, after King James ascended the English throne. Logan appears to have gone merely for pleasure; he had seen London before, in the winter of 1586. On his return he said that he would 'never bestow a groat on such vanities' as the celebration of the King's holiday, August 5, the anniversary of the Gowrie tragedy; adding 'when the King has cut off all the noblemen of the country he will live at ease.' But many ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... As for the people, you will believe, from the specimen I have given you, that they could not be very engaging company: though poor and dirty, they still pretend to be proud; and a fellow who is not worth a groat, is above working for his livelihood. They come abroad barefooted, and without any cover to the head, wrapt up in the coverlets under which you would imagine they had slept. They throw all off, and appear like so many naked cannibals, when they go to violent sports and exercises; at which ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... tongue, thou silly wench! The morn's but glancing in your e'e."— I'll[130] wad my hail fee against a groat, He's bigger than e'er our foal ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... ambitious of going the entire D'Orsay. There is great nicety required in cutting this article of dress, so that it may at one and the same moment display the figure and waistcoat of the wearer to the utmost advantage. None but a John o'Groat's goth would allow it to be imagined that the buttons and button-holes of this robe were ever intended to be anything but opposite neighbours, for a contrary conviction would imply the absence of a cloak ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... to the Queen than to Essex. What these obligations were it is not easy to discover. The situation of Queen's Counsel, and a remote reversion, were surely favours very far below Bacon's personal and hereditary claims. They were favours which had not cost the Queen a groat, nor had they put a groat into Bacon's purse. It was necessary to rest Elizabeth's claims to gratitude on some other ground; and this Mr. Montagu felt. "What perhaps was her greatest kindness," says he, "instead of having hastily advanced Bacon, she had, with a continuance of her friendship, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... war-tax was levied per capita at the rate of three groats on male and female above the age of fifteen, and those who know the value of a groat will admit that it was too much. A damsel named Tyler, daughter of Wat the Tyler, was so badly treated by the assessor that her father struck the officer dead with his hammer, in 1381, and placed himself at the head of a revolt, numbering one hundred thousand people, who collected on ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... man indeed. By this art he could tell how to make men send their goods to his shop, and then be glad to take a penny for that for which he had promised before it came thither, to give them a Groat: I say, he could make them glad to take a Crown for a pounds worth, and a thousand for that for which he had promised before to give ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... received the raven's addled egg, and gave Ram Jennings a groat for his trouble, and for telling him all about how it was obtained, and what followed, keeping the man, and questioning him a good deal, as he smiled and frowned over the task he began at once, that of chipping a good-sized hole in one side of the egg, and extracting its contents in ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... said Temperance. "But, Madam, and saving your Ladyship's presence, crowns bloom not on our raspberry bushes, nor may horses be bought for a groat apiece ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... I can gie a guess," said the robber. "Weel, sirs, I am laith to enter into deadly feud with you by spilling ony of your bluid, though Earnscliff hasna stopped to shed mine—and he can hit a mark to a groat's breadth—so, to prevent mair skaith, I am willing to deliver up the prisoner, since nae less ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... of his Majesty, he was met by the earl of Danby, who asked him, whether he had closed with the King's proposals; to which lord Orrery answered, no. Then replied the other statesman, "Your lordship may be the honester man, but you will never be worth a groat." This passage is the more remarkable, because Danby was of the same opinion with Orrery, and temporized purely for the sake of power, which cost him afterwards a long imprisonment, and had very near lost him his life: So dear do such men often pay for sacrificing ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... replied the woman, who had pocketed the groat and resumed her dusting; 'I don't know where they keep no such things as penses ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Highland clans wi' sword in hand, Frae John o' Groat's to Airly, Hae to a man declar'd to stand Or fa' wi' Royal Charlie. Come through the heather, around him gather, Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' thegither, And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king, For ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... some sing another note; My mother will say no, I hold a groat. But I thought 'twas somewhat, he would be a carter; He hath been whipping lately some blind bear, And now he would ferk the blind boy here ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... is a scandalous place, for they say your Honour was but a broken Excise-Man, who spent the King's Money to buy your Wife fine Petticoats; and at last not worth a Groat, you came over a poor Servant, though now a Justice of the Peace, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... at least of Shakspeare the man, as distinguished from the author, there remains little more to record. Already in 1592, Greene, in his posthumous Groat's-worth of Wit, had expressed the earliest vocation of Shakspeare in the following sentence: "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers; in his own conceit the only Shakscene in a country!" This alludes to Shakspeare's office of recasting, and even ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... clear that the injury you have received is resented by you, since you complain of it. We do not usually complain of what pleases us, quite the reverse, we are glad and rejoice and expect to be congratulated, not pitied. Witness the great parables of the finding of the lost sheep and the lost groat.' ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... science and art have done for us. We now do more in one day than could be done in a month some very few years ago; and, as far as travelling about the world is concerned, I can say that I have been from John-o'-Groat's House to Brighton, thence into Hertfordshire, thence back to London, from there to Edinburgh, thence to John-o'-Groat's, and here I am before you, without fatigue, or a thought that I should not be present in time. What has enabled us to do this but the determination ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... grooves, Called couplets, all creation moves, And the whole world runs mad in lines. Add to all this—what's even still worse, As rhyme itself, tho' still a curse, Sounds better to a chinking purse— Scarce sixpence hath my charmer got, While I can muster just a groat; So that, computing self and Venus, Tenpence would clear the amount between us. However, things may yet prove better:— Meantime, what awful length of letter! And how, while heaping thus with gibes The Pegasus of modern scribes, My own small hobby of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... felicity that may be to rest from all labours. Now who doth so much vacare a rebus, who rests so much, who hath so little to do as the beggar? who can sing so merry a note, as he that cannot change a groat?[33] Cui nil est, nil deest: he that hath nothing wants nothing. On the other side, it is said of the carl, Omnia habeo, nec quicquam habeo: I have all things, yet want everything. Multi mihi vitio vertunt quia egeo, saith Marcus Cato in Aulus Gellius; at ego illis ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... notation of the price of issue, namely, one penny. The Book of Common Prayer, 1549, was to be sold at 2s. 2d. unbound, and 4s. in paste or boards. The ordinary amount charged for a tract extending to thirty or forty pages, and for a quarto play, was 4d. or a groat. The first folio Shakespeare, 1623, cost the original purchaser 20s.; Percival's Spanish Dictionary, 1599, appears to have come out at 12s. There are lists of advertisements attached to publications of the later Stuart era showing that a ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... Mary. "'Tis no matter. Barbara," to her companion, "hast thou the purse? Give the lad a groat. Marry! thou art all alike. Ye wish bounty whether ye deserve it or not. Go, ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... Pence for our Thoughts. Anne would not tell hers; Mary owned she had beene trying to account for the Deficiencie of a Groat in her housekeeping Purse; and I contest to such a Medley, that Father sayd I deserved Anne's Penny in addition to mine own, for my Strength of Mind in submitting such a Farrago of Nonsense to ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... age. For the relief of the poor it was provided that in the cities and towns the aggregate amount should be divided among the inhabitants according to their abilities, so that no individual should pay less than one groat, or more than sixty groats for himself and his wife. Parliament thereupon was dismissed; but the collection of the tax gave rise to an insurrection which threatened the life of the King and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... is poor he cannot think to wed Quiteria. A pleasant fancy, forsooth, for a fellow who has not a groat in his pocket to look for a yoke-mate above the clouds. Faith, sir, in my opinion a poor man should be contented with what he finds, and not be seeking for truffles at the bottom ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a system. There are, however, it cannot be denied, cases of individual oppression, which, if they occurred in any part of Great Britain, and were publicly known, would raise a storm, from the Land's End to John o' Groat's House, that would take something more than revolvers to settle. As one of the great objects of studying the history of our own country, is to enable us to understand and to enact such regulations as shall be best suited to the genius ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... jingled in his bag, "I was ever held in good repute as a guide, and can make my way blindfold over the bogs and mosses hereabout; and I would pilot thee to the place yonder, if my fealty to the prior—that is—if—I mean—though I was never a groat the richer for his bounty; yet he may not like strangers to pry into his garners and store-houses, especially in these evil times, when every cur begins to yelp at the heels of our bountiful mother; and every beast to bray out its reproaches at her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... war with France made fresh taxation unavoidable. In 1379 a poll-tax was imposed by Parliament on a graduated scale, reaching from the 6l. 13s. 4d. required of a duke, to the groat or 4d., representing in those days at least the value of 4s. at the present day, required of the poorest peasant. A second poll-tax in 1380 exacted no less than three groats from every peasant, and from every one of his unmarried children above the age of fifteen. In 1381 a tiler of Dartford ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... star that rules my luckless lot, Has fated me the russet coat, And damned my fortune to the groat; But, in requit, Has blest me with a random ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... same? At length from all her honours cast; Through various turns of life she pass'd; 10 Now glittered on a tailor's arm; Now kept a beggar's infant warm; Now, ranged within a miser's coat, Contributes to his yearly groat; Now, raised again from low approach, She visits in the doctor's coach; Here, there, by various fortune toss'd, At last in Gresham Hall[3] was lost. Charmed with the wonders of the show, On every side, above, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... chill. For whatever advantages, real or illusory, some women enjoy under this regime of partial "emancipation" all women pay. Of the coin in which payment is made the shouldering shouters of the sex have not a groat and can bear the situation with impunity. They have either passed the age of masculine attention or were born without the means to its accroachment. Dwelling in the open bog, they can afford ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the effects upon them of so cheap and maddening a drink were incalculably debasing. "The drunkenness of the common people," says an eye-witness, "was so universal by the retailing of a liquor called gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London, and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people of both sexes from morning to night, and were more like a scene from a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society."[138] ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... want a good pudding, mind what you are taught: Take eggs, six in number, when bought for a groat; The fruit with which Eve her husband did cozen, Well pared and well chopped, take at least half a dozen; Six ounces of bread—let the cook eat the crust— And crumble the soft as fine as the dust; Six ounces of currants ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... "I'll earn my groat, now I've begun. And right glad I am to see you, Joe; I had thought never to look ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... be young again; we were again laying our heads together, with intent to struggle against our mother. I cared not a groat for William Adolphus, but it would be pleasant to me to help my sister to bring him back to his bearings; and the more pleasant in view of Princess Heinrich's belief that the things ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... to you I have walked nearly 160 miles. I was terribly taken in with respect to distances—however, I managed to make my way. I have been to Johnny Groat's House, which is about twenty-two miles from this place. I had tolerably fine weather all the way, but within two or three miles of that place a terrible storm arose; the next day the country was covered with ice and snow. There ...
— Letters to his wife Mary Borrow • George Borrow
... eager to possess those of others, shame and remorse, modesty and moderation, every principle gave way.'—WORKS OF SALLUST, WITH ORIGINAL ESSAYS, vol. ii. p.17.]—There is a slap in the face now, for an honest fellow that has been buccaneering! Never could keep a groat of what he got, or hold his fingers from what belonged to another, said you? Fie, fie, friend Crispus, thy morals are as crabbed and austere as thy style—the one has as little mercy as the other has grace. By my soul, it is unhandsome to make personal reflections on an old acquaintance, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... have been his caution for a gray groat against salt water or fresh," said Roland's adversary, the falconer; "marry, if he crack not a rope for stabbing or for snatching, I will be content never ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... are you?" answered Much, reining in his steed sharply. "Why! 'tis the gipsy lad, as I live; with his face nicely washed...!" He had recognized Robin by his clothes. "Money, forsooth! Do you know that I have not so much as a groat ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... is straight-forward and hearty, and in the good old English manner!" exclaimed the admiral, when he had returned the salutes, and cordially thanked the baronet. "One might land in Scotland, now, anywhere between the Tweed and John a'Groat's house, and not be asked so much as to eat an oaten cake; hey! ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... catch ye here," said Dick, with a vacant grin, "he'll gi'e every one o' ye a taste o' the gyves, and so pray ye gang awa', and let me gang too. As for that calf beastie, that baas so at the bottom, gi'e me a groat, and I'll gather him ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Isles were intensely agitated; a cry for parliamentary reform resounded from the gates of Buckingham Palace to the Land's-end, to John O'Groat's house, and to the cliffs of Connemara. Roman Catholic emancipation was another demand, which was ceaselessly heard, and the Protestant dissenters of England were active and importunate in demanding redress for the grievances of which they complained. The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... as far as it goes," remarked undismayed Samuel Ferret when she concluded; "only it can scarcely be said to go very far. Moral presumption, which, in our courts unfortunately, isn't worth a groat. Never mind. Magna est veritas, and so on. When, madam, did you say Sir Harry—Mr. Grainger—first ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... to have me dead and buried. Not one of them cares a groat for me. I have made my will, tell them; and they will see that in time. I will ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... apprentice unto one Master Kempton, of the Blade Boy in Watling Street: and in this time he (being young and unwary) did fall into evil company, which caused him to game with them, and he all unskilfully lost unto them not only his own money, but (every groat) thirty pounds which his master had entrusted unto him to receive for him of them that ought it [owed it]. Moreover, at this time was he a stubborn Papist, in which way he had been bred. So he, coming unto his master's house all despairing, thought to make up his bundle, and ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... dated 18th June, 1689, under severe penalties. The metal of which this money was made was the worst kind of brass; old guns, and the refuse of metals were melted down to make it; workmen rated it at threepence or a groat a pound, which being coined into sixpences, shillings, or half-crowns, one pound weight made about L5. And by another proclamation, dated 1690, the half-crowns were called in, and being stamped ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... the assistance of Edward and Killancureit. The latter led off Balmawhapple, cursing, swearing, and vowing revenge against every Whig, Presbyterian, and fanatic in England and Scotland, from John-o'-Groat's to the Land's End, and with difficulty got him to horse. Our hero, with the assistance of Saunders Saunderson, escorted the Baron of Bradwardine to his own dwelling, but could not prevail upon him to retire to bed until he had made a long and learned ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... spun at his own fireside, woven by the village weaver, and, when not of natural hodden-gray, dyed a half-blue in the village vat. They were shaped and sewed by the district tailor, who usually wrought at the rate of a groat a day and his food; and as the wool was coarse, so also was the workmanship. The linen which he wore was home-grown, home-hackled, home-spun, home-woven, and home-bleached, and, unless designed for Sunday use, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... by whiles with a creature that is unlucky, inimical, and gamesome,—so it was. And thenceforward the nimble gentleman danced upon bell-ropes, vaulted from steeple to steeple, and cut capers out of one dignity to another. Having thus dexterously stuck his groat in Lambeth wainscot, it may easily be conceived he would be unwilling to lose it; and therefore he concern'd himself highly, and even to jealousie, in upholding now that palace, which, if falling, he would out of instinct be the first should leave it. His ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... replies the old Man; take the Money, I'll consent, we'll snack it—Quit of another. My Lord shan't have a Groat with her. What a Charge are Children! This Lord is the best Friend I have, to take her off my Hands. To be sure bring the Money, carry her to my Lord, and bring the Money; go take Time by the Fore-lock, he may recant, then so much Money's lost. Go, run to ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... Roving and Tipling all Night, For his Groat in the Morning may set his Head right. And the Beau, who ne'er fouls his White fingers with Brass, May have his Sixpen' worth ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... tin tea-pots were ranged along the dresser. As for the shelves, they literally lined the walls, well filled with plates, dishes, and tea-ware. The landlady came forward to meet us, a tall, genteel woman, with the manners of one apparently used to better society. After putting down our groat, and giving into her hand a certain garment wrapped in a handkerchief, in case of accidents, we were told that the men's kitchen was in the next house, the first door on the right hand side, in the entry. By this, we found that the threshold on which we then stood, ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... its function. The earth has dwindled strangely since the advent of steam and electricity, and in a generation used to Mr. Edison's devices, Puck's girdle presents no difficulties to the imagination. In Charles Lamb's time the expression "from Land's End to John O'Groat's" meant something; to-day it means a few comfortable hours by rail, a few minutes by telegraph. Wordsworth in the North of England was to Lamb, so far as the chance of personal contact was concerned, nearly as remote as Manning in China. Under such conditions ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... this world's affairs. He assured England that it was the most artistic country on the globe. He wrote melodies that everybody could whistle. Airs from "Rinaldo" were thrummed on the harpsichord from Land's End to John O'Groat's. The grand march was adopted by the Life Guards, and at least one air from that far-off opera has come down to us—the "Tascie Ch'io Pianga," which is still listened to with emotion unfeigned. The opera being uncopyrighted, was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... on this account, you need not give me even one groat of silver [1] for him. Receive him of me without cost that he ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... carat is generally a twenty-fourth part of a diner, i.e. about 5d.; but here it appears to be a sixtieth part or about 2d. Burton, "A copper carat, a bright polished groat."] ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... of ill in his good, let his life declare! He played fast and loose with truth, I know, till all the world played fast and loose with him. He juggled with empires as with puppets, but he died not a groat the richer, which is better record than greater ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... leave it to the black friars, whose vocation 'tis, and not cumber us with his sermons for ever, and set every lazy lad thinking he must needs run after them? No, no, my good boy, take my advice. Thou shalt have two good bellyfuls a day, all my cast gowns, and a pair of shoes by the year, with a groat a month if thou wilt keep mine house, bring in my meals, and the like, and by and by, so thou art a good lad, and runst not after these new-fangled preachments which lead but to heresy, and set folk racking their brains about sin and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... visit Nelly, and 'gad, my limbs yearn for bed, Joe. This fellow can still carry the bag; 'tis worth a groat." ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... beauty and grandeur. And then consider the great historical fact that, for three centuries, this Book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to noble and simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... had taen a note, That sic a hen had got a shot; I was suspected for the plot; I scorn'd to lie; So gat the whissle o' my groat, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... ample For pleasure or for dress, Yet note this bright example Of single-heartedness: Though ranking as a Colonel, His pay was but a groat, While their reward ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... I mind me, I have not the accoutrements that beseem me. Those hildings have stolen my mantle (which, I perceive, by the way, is but a rustic garment, now laid aside for the super-tunic), and my hat and dague, nor have they left even a half groat to supply their place. Verily, therefore, since ye permit me to burden your hospitality longer, I will not say ye nay, provided you, worshipful sir, will suffer one of your people to step to the house of one Master ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... told the Sums which are allowed in Great Britain, under the Title of Pin-money, what a prodigious Consumption of Pins would he think there was in this Island? A Pin a Day, says our frugal Proverb, is a Groat a Year, so that according to this Calculation, my Friend Fribbles Wife must every Year make use of Eight Millions six hundred and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the padre, doubtfully. "I do not understand. I know something of Esteban Silvela. A lean man of plots and devices. My friend, do you know that Esteban has not a groat? The Silvela fortunes and estate came from the mother and went to the daughter. Esteban is the Senora Christina's steward, and her marriage would alter his position at the least. Did he not spoil the magic ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... but at the end of the first half year of service, and provided only that there is to be a continuance of the engagement: surely a beneficent provision for the poor teacher. (3) One cannot travel very far in Britain: for ten dollars one can go from London to John O'Groat's. (4) Vacancies are announced by bulletin in the office as they occur, and a notification is sent by post to distant registered candidates: secrecy in regard to the whereabouts and emoluments of a position is quite unnecessary, because the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... for thirty-six hours, and having suffered much from sea-sickness during the night, my stomach was quite empty. My erotic inconvenience made me very uncomfortable, my mind felt deeply the consciousness of my degradation, and I did not possess a groat! I was in such a miserable state that I had no strength to accept or to refuse anything. I was thoroughly torpid, and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... plenty be his lot, Peace and plenty, peace and plenty, Peace and plenty be his lot, And dainties a great store o' them: May peace and plenty be his lot, Unstain'd by any vicious spot, And may he never want a groat, That 's ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... more than thou ever wilt be, thou 'long-shore stay-at-home. Why wast making sheep's eyes at Mistress Salterne here, while my pretty little chuck of Burrough there was playing at shove-groat with Spanish doubloons?" ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley |
