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Townsfolk   Listen
noun
Townsfolk  n.  The people of a town; especially, the inhabitants of a city, in distinction from country people; townspeople.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Townsfolk" Quotes from Famous Books



... destroyed, her life made wretched by anything that is preventable, and I intend to put a stop to this last discovered hellish practice of yours. I will not allow it, and if you dare to attempt it again, I will call in the townsfolk to see you ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... only to see the rapt face of its owner as she sat in her weeds before the picture, which she tearfully pronounced "a strikin' likeness," to sympathize with the townsfolk who looked askance at the bereaved woman, even while they bore with her delusion, feeling sure that her sudden sorrow had set ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough

... look up with a smile. Her husband forced one in return; but his father's eyes, which she could not see, filled with tears. He knew it was in exultation at her mother's death, and they hurried into the boat lest she should catch the purport of the shouts that were beginning to arise as the townsfolk awoke to the knowledge that their enemy ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... continued, as they sauntered out of hearing, "and so nice every way. He's what I call a real gentleman, and knows all sorts of curious things. It's perfectly wonderful how much more country people know than townsfolk. Of course I mean about real things—nature, and all that—not silly stuff you find in history-books, which is of no consequence ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... protection. The appeal was fruitless. President Dickinson had a few state militia at his disposal, but did not dare to summon them, for fear they should side with the rioters. The city government was equally listless, and the townsfolk went their ways as if it were none of their business; and so Congress fled across the river and on to Princeton, where the college afforded it shelter. Thus in a city of thirty-two thousand inhabitants, the largest city in the country, the government of the United ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... "for we saw her oursel's a short year syne, and Hendry Munn there allows there's townsfolk that hae passed her in the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... years we ought to lay out the hundred francs in making a single-span bridge to carry the lower road over the main stream," said M. Cambon. "The townsfolk and the people down the valley have fallen into the way of taking a short cut across that patch of land of Jean Francois Pastoureau's; before they have done they will cut it up in a way that will do a lot of harm to ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac

... townsfolk are hereby requested and ordered to remove gates, stiles, cow-bars, and fences, which includes all obstructions to the public highway, in order that the cavalry may pass without difficulty. Any person found felling trees across this road, ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... from their dark hiding places) down to fluttering little wrens and tomtits. 'Twas of those that the great cloud was made, and it hung just over the town like a dark wave that would soon smother the townsfolk. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... riotous, that he disappeared as mysteriously as he had come. Friends who called at the house several days after the event found that the servants and the furniture had vanished, no one knew whither, and the house completely empty. Naturally, this gave rise to much speculation on the part of the townsfolk, who invented many stories; some said that he had repented of his evil ways and fled into retirement; others that the devil had carried him off ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell

... broad earldom. But my nephew, whose guardian I had been, made war upon me, affirming that I had withheld from him his dues; and being the stronger, he prevailed, and seized my lands and burnt my halls, even as ye see. For the townsfolk hold with him, because that, with his tournaments and feastings, he brings many strangers their way." "What then is all the stir in the town even now?" asked Geraint. "To-morrow," said the Earl, "they hold the tournament of the Sparrow-Hawk. In the midst of the meadow are set up two forks, and on ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay

... this life wore upon the soldiers. The townsfolk became adepts at subtle irritations, against which there was not even the solace of interesting occupation; for except for daily drill there was nothing to do. In time the more violent among the troops ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... had thrust up one of the broader streets to within a thousand yards of the Palace, and, supported by infantry, contragravity, and a couple of air-tanks, were pounding and hacking at a mass of Skilkans whose uniform lack of costume prevented distinguishing between soldiery and townsfolk. Very few of these, he observed, seemed to be using firearms; with his glasses, he could see them shooting with long Northern air-rifles and a few Takkad Sea crossbows. Either weapon would shoot clear through a Terran or half-way through ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... And other people passed. Townsfolk who gave me a kindly "Morning, Major!" and went on, and others who paused awhile and gave me the gossip of the day. And presently young Randall Holmes went by on a motor bicycle. He caught sight of me, disappeared, and then suddenly ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... itself as distinctly in a general discussion by the townsfolk of the affairs of the Pages. For a month after Albert had gone away and Alice had begun teaching, they were the subject of much after-church and ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... to his vow, On the green grass where oft his townsfolk met, Under the shadow of a leafy bough That leaned toward a singing rivulet, One pure white stone, whereon, like crown on brow, The image of the vanished star was set; And this was graven on the pure white stone In golden letters—"WHILE ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow

... Town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; 5 But when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin was ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... mountain cloven lengthwise. They fared on, solacing themselves with the sight of valleys and mountains, till they came to Jabarsa,[FN32] the city of Japhet son of Noah (on whom be peace!) where the townsfolk all, great and small, came forth to meet King Mura'ash and brought them into the city in great state. Then Mura'ash went up to the palace of Japhet son of Noah and sat down on the throne of his kingship, which was of alabaster, ten stages high and latticed with wands ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... have been born in 1460, in the days of Albrecht Duerer. Celestin Nanteuil "had the air of one of those tall angels carrying a censer or playing on the sambucque, who inhabit the gable ends of cathedrals; and he seemed to have come down into the city among the busy townsfolk, still wearing his nimbus plate behind his head in place of a hat, and without having the least suspicion that it is not perfectly natural to wear one's aureole in the street." He is described as resembling in figure "the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... beach the townsfolk thronged, and down the causeway, beneath the vast monolithic plinth of the fortified gate, jostled and pushed an ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... was already going, and at once he and Arngeir went out and down the street. There were many other ladies and their children who had taken refuge here with the townsfolk after the burning, and the coming of this one was but another count in the long tale of trouble that began on the Welsh shore with the ways of ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... stood watching the dancers on the floor below. It was indeed, as Mrs. Templeton had said, a "mixed multitude." Mill hands and their girls, townsfolk whose social standing was sufficiently assured to endure the venture. A mixed multitude, but thoroughly jolly, making up in vigour what was lacking in grace in their ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... of Hector McKay, millionaire lumber king, falls in love with "Nan of the Sawdust Pile," a charming girl who has been ostracized by her townsfolk. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... Gothic, is very stately and picturesque, and the trappistine, which is a distilled liquor of the Chartreuse family, is much prized by people who take a little glass after their coffee. By the time I had done with the Abbey, the townsfolk had slid en masse down the cliff again, the yellow afternoon had come, and the holiday takers, before the wine-shops, made long and lively shadows. I hired a sort of two-wheeled gig, without a board, and drove back to Etretal in the rosy stage of evening. The gig dandled me ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... Anita came to call them to luncheon. She had heard them talking at the rear of the hotel shortly after Sheriff Hardy had inquired for Lorry. Several townsfolk came in, ate, and departed ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... dog—I was loitering about the quays in the port, when I was attracted towards a little crowd that had gathered round an old capstan. The crowd consisted of several sailors and fishermen, with a sprinkling of townsfolk, who were evidently much interested in something that was going on in ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... of our fellow townsfolk, calling. Excuse me, gentlemen, I didn't get your names." He was enlightened and prattled on: "Oh, Reverend Hartigan and Dr. Carson. Good! Healing for the body and healing for the soul, and my healing is for the estate—happy trinity, isn't it? ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and grew rainier, as Redworth had foretold, bidding them look for gales and storm, and then the change of wind. It came, after wettings of a couple scorning the refuge of dainty townsfolk under umbrellas, and proud of their likeness to dripping wayside wildflowers. Arthur stayed at Copsley for a week of the crisp North-easter; and what was it, when he had taken his leave, that brought Tony home from her solitary walk ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... once in a city of Khorassan a family of affluence and distinction, and the townsfolk used to envy them for that which God had vouchsafed them. As time went on, their fortune ceased from them and they passed away, till there remained of them but one old woman. When she grew feeble and decrepit, the townsfolk succoured ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... Pilgrims under their Commissarius arrived. They were lodged in the villages about, but came copiously into the Town; came all in a body to Church on Good Friday; and at coming out, were one and all carried off to dinner, a very scramble arising among the Townsfolk to get hold of Pilgrims and dine them. Vast numbers were carried to the Schloss:" one figures Wilhelmina among them, figures the Hereditary Prince and old Margraf: their treatment there was "beyond belief," says Fassmann; "not only dinner of the amplest ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... whole province will be overrun stares him in the face. From the beginning he asked for protection. From the beginning he was promised complete protection; but scarcely a word of complaint is heard. The townsfolk are calm and orderly, the Press dignified and sober. The men capable of bearing arms have responded nobly. Boys of sixteen march with men of fifty to war—to no light easy war. All the volunteers are in the field ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... words of the statutes, which thus punish both militem and skartabell196 if he spread calumny against a citizen of the Commonwealth—and since general equality before the law has now been proclaimed, therefore Article 3 is likewise binding on townsfolk and serfs.197 This decree of the Marshal the Scribe will enter in the acts of the General Confederation, and the Apparitor ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... disgraceful fighting with no object in view. There was three fiddlers and two at the flute, most of them blind, but not the less dangerous on that account; and they kept the town in a ferment, even playing the countryfolk home to the farms, followed by bands of townsfolk. They were a quarrelsome set, the ploughmen and others; and it was generally admitted in the town that their overbearing behaviour was responsible for the fights. I mind them being driven out of the square, stones flying thick; also some stand-up ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... send him and his townsfolk round the province, if I could, crowned with laurel, and proclaim before them at every market-place, "These are men of God." With whom can those Ausurians be dealing? Peasants would have been all killed long ago, and soldiers ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... the English should, on their side, pack off their Indians. He represented that the townsfolk of Montreal stood in terror of being massacred. Again Amherst refused. "No Frenchman," said he, "surrendering under treaty has ever suffered outrage from the Indians of our army." This was on the 7th ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... carried, nailed up greens for her and all that, till you could see he was leaving himself two trails—either skip with the funds or marry the girl. He had one day left to choose. Having locoed the townsfolk into giving him the management of the festivities, he stood well, and he wasn't a bad looker neither. He had an easy, slippery tongue for a young girl: not like Ag's methods—in any gatherin' Ag could make George Washington or General Grant look like visitors—but ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips

... deep well, and a very rustical-looking pump, half hidden by water-plants and savin bushes and tall grasses. The kitchen is a modern addition, proving beyond doubt that La Grenadiere was originally nothing but a simple vendangeoir—a vintage-house belonging to townsfolk in Tours, from which Saint-Cyr is separated by the vast river-bed of the Loire. The owners only came over for the day for a picnic, or at the vintage-time, sending provisions across in the morning, and scarcely ever spent the night there except ...
— La Grenadiere • Honore de Balzac

... the funeral, to which went also a good part of the townsfolk; for curiosity was on tip-toe. Thomas was greatly mystified when Mr. Winthrop, leaving Mrs. Flaxman at Oaklands, bade him drive us back to Linden Lane. Dr. Hill was there, and Mrs. Le Grande's lawyer from New York, and Dr. Townshend, who had drawn her will, with the nurse and landlady, ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... lived the other side of the street only) during the day to inquire if he intended being there in the evening. But on the whole, Hoffmann was more generally feared than loved, or even respected, by the main body of the townsfolk. His vanity was openly displayed; he must lead the conversation, and everybody else must fall in with his humour and his whim, or they might expect some marked rudeness from his bitter tongue; and the fellow had a confoundedly sharp tongue, and no less ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... Classics" edition, p. 111) making a presepio at Greccio, to which a living ox and ass are brought, in order that a visible representation of the manger-scene might kindle the devotion of the Brethren and the assembled townsfolk. This act of St. Francis inaugurated the custom, still observed in the Roman Church, of representing by means of waxen images the whole of the Nativity manger-scene, Mother and Child together ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius

... shade of lofty linden-trees lying, Which for centuries past upon this spot had been rooted, Spread in front of the village a broad and grass-covered common, Favorite place of resort for the peasants and neighboring townsfolk. Here, at the foot of the trees, sunk deep in the ground was a well-spring; When you descended the steps, stone benches you found at the bottom, Stationed about the spring, whose pure, living waters were bubbling Ceaselessly forth, hemmed in by low walls for convenience of drawing. Hermann ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... impiety was committed there, by day and by night. In vain did the great St. Nicolas warn his flock by exhortations, threats, and fulminations. The evil increased unchecked, and it was sad to see the contagion spreading itself among the well-to-do townsfolk, the lords, and the clergy, as much as and more than among the poor artisans ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France

... the length and height of Red Mountain. Everybody knew her as an incorrigible girl. Her fierce, ungovernable disposition, her mad freaks and lawless character were in their way as proverbial as the story of her father's weaknesses, and as philosophically accepted by the townsfolk. She wrangled with and fought the schoolboys with keener invective and quite as powerful arm. She followed the trails with a woodman's craft, and the master had met her before, miles away, shoeless, stockingless, and bareheaded, on the mountain road. The miners' camps along the stream ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... leave him at that time, for now Olaf would take eight score of our men in haste to Sudbury, which is but five miles away, and call on the townsfolk to rise for Ethelred and drive out any Danes ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler

... passed a green spot they heard laughter and the sound of merry girlish voices. It being a holiday, townsfolk had come ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef

... The townsfolk vied with each other in praising the lamp, and one said one thing, and another said another. The innkeeper's old mother maintained that it shone just as calmly and brightly as the stars of heaven. The magistrate, who had sad eyes, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various

... the townsfolk preferred to call him, to distinguish him from Old Denny of the former generation. Somehow, although he had never mentioned it to anybody, it seemed to him that he had always been waiting for something—he hardly knew just what it was himself—just ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... "So—the townsfolk smoking the King's jest—two stout servitors led the merchant down to the landing by the upper ferry, and there, having hoisted him aboard a boat, thrust off into the stream. The current soon swept them ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... as a means of attaining his end: his wife joined him in his plans of ambition, and they by turns tyrannized and caressed the Nantais, amusing them with fetes, in which the Duchess condescended to dance with the townsfolk. For twenty years Mercoeur held the province; but a peace was eventually signed between him and Henry IV., through the mediation of Gabrielle d'Estrees, whose son Cesar de Vendome, then four years of age, was affianced to the Duke de Mercoeur's daughter, ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser

... it were a temper of indolent enjoyment rather than of creative force. But not even a beauty born of murmuring sound—and the air is full of murmurs—seemed to have passed into the faces of the simple townsfolk who make it their home. I could not gather thatthe exquisite loveliness of the place had any particular effect upon the dwellers there, except a mild pleasure in the fact that so many strangers should come to see the place. I do not exactly grudge strangers the sight of it, though I should ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... inhabitants were arrayed in their best clothes, and a Highland regiment lent us their pipers. One of the citizens presented the heroine with a large bouquet of flowers. General Alderson made a nice speech, which was translated to the townsfolk, and then he presented the medal. We were invited into the house, and the girl's health was proposed and drunk by the General in a glass of Romarin Champagne. We heard afterwards that the country people were much impressed by the way the British ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... good gentlemen,' said she, 'that ye will not object to this young nobleman drinking his wine in the same room with ye, since all the others are filled with the townsfolk ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... callers that afternoon, friends among the townsfolk, and more still after supper. It was late—late for South Harniss, that is—when Albert, standing in the doorway of the bedroom he nor they had ever expected he would occupy again, bade his grandparents ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... it was that Plymouth should keep holiday, for not only was it the governor's marriage morn, but Priscilla Molines, whom all her townsfolk loved, was to become John Alden's wife; and as the two friends could not be parted, Mary Chilton had promised upon the day of Priscilla's marriage to give her hand to John Winslow, one of the Fortune's pilgrims ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... personality, who so has mastered men, was born sixty generations ago in a small village in an outlying Roman province, and until he was thirty years of age he lived and worked as a carpenter among his fellow townsfolk, attracting no wide consideration. Then for three years or less he poured out his life in courageous teaching and sacrificial service, amid the growing hatred and hostility of his countrymen, until he was ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... the tradesman who has made so much trouble to be shot, but the latter still remains master of the situation; for, as he dryly observes, if any harm comes to him, the enraged citizens will hang the general's brother. Some parley ensues, in which the shrewd hosier promises for the townsfolk to set free their prisoner and pay a round sum of money if the besieging army will depart and leave them in peace. The offer is accepted, and so the matter is amicably settled. As the worthy citizen is about to take his leave, the general ventures a word of inquiry as to the cause ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... began to obey orders, for she had time to notice. Several days elapsed after enlistment before the company's ranks were complete, and the captain would not report at head-quarters, he said, until his own townsfolk had supplied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... unlading; the tack-tack of mallets in the dockyard, where Sir Anthony Deane's new ship the Harwich was rising on the billyways, and whence the blown odours of pitch and hemp and timber, mingling with the landward breeze, drifted all day long into the townsfolk's nostrils, and filled their very kitchens with the savour ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... march was likely to have such a notion of Lydgate's past as has here been faintly shadowed, and indeed the respectable townsfolk there were not more given than mortals generally to any eager attempt at exactness in the representation to themselves of what did not come under their own senses. Not only young virgins of that town, but gray-bearded ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... European-built villas, hotels, &c., and has all the advantages of modern civic appliances. There is a rich museum, and university with 2000 students. Extensive railway communication and the Nile waterway induce a large transport trade, but there is little industry. The population is mixed; the townsfolk are half Arab, half Egyptian, while Copts, Turks, Jews, Italians, and Greeks are numerous; it is a centre of Mohammedan learning, and since 1882 the centre ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... preaching in his own college chapel to a crowded congregation; and a neighbouring laird, with a number of his friends, having come to the city on that Sabbath to hear Melville, there was an unusual stir which drew most of the townsfolk to the chapel. When the last bell was ringing, and Adamson was about to enter the pulpit, a canard reached him to the effect that a body of local gentry and the citizens gathered within the college gates had formed a conspiracy to seize him and hang ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. Corwin," said Demorest, with a forced smile; "but what can ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... darkness grew more tense; neither fluttering of unseen wings nor quiver of stealthy footsteps had the power to startle her; they were all her friends, these tiny dwellers of the plain, these midnight marauders of whom townsfolk ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... threatening symptoms a fortnight ago, but they passed. I think I had been talking too much. Now I feel quite as free and well as usual about the chest, and 'buoyant' as to general spirits. Affairs in Italy seem going well, and Napoleon does not forget us, whatever his townsfolk of a certain class may do. The French newspapers remember us well, I am happy to see, also. But, my dear Fanny, who am I to give letters to Garibaldi? I don't know him, nor does he know me. Have you acquaintance with Madame Swartz? She could help Mr. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... of Terrors," filled with sacred alligators that he assured us were fed on goats provided by the superstitious townsfolk. He said that they were so tame that they would not attack a man, and offered to prove it by walking in. Since that entailed no risk to the committee they permitted him to do it, and he walked alone across the causeway that had given King ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy

... ten thousand Royal British Naval Marines had got across the pontoon bridge and were well along the road to Ghent. During all these hours squads of gendarmes with fixed bayonets held back such remaining townsfolk as attempted to get near the bridge. To these wretches it seemed that their last avenue of escape had been cut off. There were now at the Queen's, Arthur Ruhl, Hare, and myself, in addition to an English intelligence officer and the recruits from ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green

... gathered that Mr. Chambers desired to be left alone. The newer generation of townsfolk called it eccentricity. Certain uncouth persons had a different word for it. The oldsters remembered that this queer looking individual with his black silk muffler, rosewood cane and bowler hat once had been ...
— The Street That Wasn't There • Clifford Donald Simak

... to assist the Spaniards, and the townsfolk were reduced to every privation. The Spaniards also suffered and Don Frederic wished to raise the siege. He suggested this step to his father, but Alva was made of sterner stuff. He sent from Nymwegen a grim message: "'Tell Don Frederic,' said Alva, 'that if he be not decided ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... are so clamorous," he said, "that a flag of truce may be despatched to Massena, in half an hour's time. The Portuguese are right so far that, if the place must be surrendered, there is no reason for any longer exposing the troops and the townsfolk to the French bombardment. Therefore it is imperative that, if we are to make our way out, we must do so before the ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty

... then, issuing forth of the house where they were, they betook themselves, with all the nuptial train, to Messer Torello's house and there recomforted his disconsolate friends and kindred and all the townsfolk, who regarded his return as well nigh a miracle, with long and joyous festival. As for Messer Torello, after imparting of his precious jewels to him who had had the expense of the nuptials, as well as to the abbot and many others, and signifying his happy repatriation by ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... shop first by a short cut. They seemed to think I had taken a liberty whom I joined them. "We are here," they were careful to explain, "to get a lesson in the ideal of beauty and grace." There was quite a little crowd of townsfolk collected before the window. Some of them giggled; and some of them wondered whether it was taken from the life. For my own part, gratitude to Venus obliges me to own that she effected a great improvement in the state of my mind. She encouraged me. If ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... She must have seen our ship; and if, as seems, the townsfolk know who we are, how much more must she! Yes, doubt it not, she still longs to hear news of her own land, and some secret sympathy will draw her down towards the sea to-night. See! the light ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... Civil War, and sustained a fearful siege lasting seventy-six days, the townsfolk and Royalist forces being eventually forced to surrender to Fairfax. The Saxon doorway of Trinity Church, and St. ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home

... gives him a little notoriety, something to talk about. So it is with the liveryman at night; he is, as a rule, only too glad to have the novelty under his roof, and takes pride in showing it to the visiting townsfolk. They do not know what to charge, and therefore charge nothing. It is often with difficulty anything can be forced upon them; they are quite averse to accepting gratuities; meanwhile, the farmer, whose horse and cart ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy

... aims into ordinary life: it giving true refinement to the lower classes, true simplicity to the upper. He proposed that idle hands should reclaim waste lands; that healthy work and country homes should be offered to townsfolk who would "come out of the gutter." He asked land-owners and employers to furnish opportunities for such reforms;—which would involve no elaborate organization nor unelastic rules;—simply the one thing needful, ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... what man is this Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast, Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye Remember a face lovely in a wood? O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy His woful wares; the bird of grief doth brood There where his heart should be; and far away Dew lies on ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare

... Ursula went forth, and came within a stone's cast of the barrier, when Ralph lifted up his voice and said: "Is there a captain of the townsfolk within the timber there?" A cheery voice answered him: "Yea, yea, lad; spare thy breath; ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... flattering opinions earned by the newcomer to the town; and these opinions he retained until the time when a certain speciality of his, a certain scheme of his (the reader will learn presently what it was), plunged the majority of the townsfolk into a ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... resisting an invasion threatened by the English, but really for the purpose of terrorizing southern Spain. The arrival of the troops having been delayed by the outbreak of rebellion farther north, the townsfolk of that ancient city rose and seized the fleet. The corpses of French soldiers, wherever found throughout the country, were mutilated by the furious Spaniards, and the wounded ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... the mediciner, "that this smith doth not live within compass, but is an outlier and a galliard. I met him myself on St. Valentine's Day, shortly after the affray between the townsfolk and the followers of Douglas. Yes, I met him sneaking through the lanes and bye passages with a common minstrel wench, with her messan and her viol on his one arm and her buxom self hanging upon the other. What thinks your honour? Is not this a trim squire, ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... side of the street, a new military meteor appeared to me. He was a Krakus(2) on a white horse, in a white sukmana(3), in a red cap with a white feather, which cut like a swan through black waves of crowding townsfolk. He turned his horse beautifully; he welcomed pedestrians with a nod, with cavalrymen squeezed hands, and to beautiful ladies, standing in windows, sent grateful kisses. All eyes turned towards him; men clapped, ...
— My First Battle • Adam Mickiewicz

... at once to visit several of the principal merchants, and, representing that it was the clear duty of the townsfolk to do what they could for the men who had fought so bravely against the Spaniards, he succeeded in obtaining from them a considerable quantity of freight upon good terms; and so zealously did he push the business ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... an exhibition by the true-hearted men of Coventry, who were to represent the strife between the English and the Danes, agreeably to a custom long preserved in their ancient borough, and warranted for truth by old histories and chronicles. In this pageant one party of the townsfolk presented the Saxons and the other the Danes, and set forth, both in rude rhymes and with hard blows, the contentions of these two fierce nations, and the Amazonian courage of the English women, who, according to the story, were the principal agents in the general massacre of the ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... their feet in an instant. We scrambled down the narrow stairs, and out into the starlit night. Leiden was a city of the dead. Not even a dog played sentinel for the sleeping townsfolk; not a cat sprang out of the shadows as I led my band through a labyrinth of canal-streets, floored as if with jet nailed down with stars. But suddenly the spell of silence was broken by an explosion of sound which ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... him, not without servility, to preside. This proposal he had declined with his habitual shy, melancholy smile, and shrunk away to a back row of the audience. In his great house over Troy he lived a recluse: a scholar, a childless man, the last of his race, rarely seen by the townsfolk, of whom two-thirds at least were his tenants. He had heard of the Inspector's coming, and some ray of remembered affection had enticed him forth from his shell, to listen. Now, at the sound of ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... abide in the house of a wise physician, who has learned all the spells that ward off sore maladies from men, and thou shalt dwell in glad Miletus with the Ionian people, to this end,—that of all the townsfolk Theugenis may have the goodliest distaff and that thou mayst keep her ever mindful of her ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... father had done before them, and nature prompting to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever given,—to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present—without leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... point of view was that at least 10,000 tons of coal had been destroyed and the project of transporting coal to Krupp's effectually quashed. From the point of view of moral, the Germans were the laughing-stock of the town; they were deeply enraged and the townsfolk proportionately delighted. ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... the storekeepers and asked questions about the prices paid for garden truck. He walked about the town and saw the quality of the residences, and noted what proportion of the townsfolk cultivated ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd

... bailiff and aldermen had written to the duke's secretary; and the duke he sent far and wide to know what town was too full. "That are we," had the baillie of Toul writ back. "Then send four or five score of your townsfolk," was the order. "Was not this to decant the full town into the empty, and is not the good duke the father of his people, and will not let the duchy be weakened, nor its fair towns laid waste by sword nor pestilence; but meets the one with pike, and arbalest (touching his cap to the sergeant ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... with delirious joy as the deliverer of the Republic. By means of the proclamations which he showered upon the populace he endeavoured to make it clear that he would continue in that capacity. It was not long, however, before his actions aroused the suspicions of the townsfolk. In fact, after a while it became fairly evident that Urquiza, having once found himself in the full enjoyment of power, was by no means indisposed to follow the example so grimly set by Rosas—although this possibly in a minor degree. It is true that the new chief ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... evergreen trees mingling their waving leaves with the motionless flowers and foliage of carved stone; look out over the reef with its white fringes of foam in contrast to the sapphire sea; and then turn to the city, with its galleries and terraces whither the townsfolk come to take the air among their flowers of an evening, above the houses and the tops of the trees in their little gardens; add a few sails down in the harbour; and lastly, in the stillness of falling ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... fifteenth-century gallery formerly belonging to the northern wing. Nerac has, however, retained intact a couple of quaint mediaeval bridges, which Margaret must have ofttimes crossed in her many journeyings. Moreover, the townsfolk still point out the so-called Palace of Marianne, said to have been built by Margaret's husband for one of his mistresses, and also the old royal baths, which ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... the outskirts, interested in the curious medley, and observant of the many birds which perch upon the branches of the floating trees and sing blithely on their way. The current bears hard upon the Aurora beach, and townsfolk by scores are out in skiffs or are standing by the water's edge, engaged with boat-hooks in spearing choice morsels from the debris rushing by their door—heaping it upon the shore to dry, or gathering it in little ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... made a deep impression on her. Captain Upson, promoted from first lieutenant of Company E, was wounded at that battle, and dying later, was brought to Southton for burial. He was universally respected and almost the entire townsfolk gathered at the church to pay their tribute. Hundreds failed to gain admission, and it was said to have been the largest funeral ever known in the town. Liddy had never seen a military funeral and the ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... moaned and groaned, she told him all she had heard from the leech, and her husband was filled with hot wrath against his sons. So he rose up and went straightway to the audience-chamber, where the townsfolk had gathered together to petition him and to pray for justice and redress; and they, seeing his features working with rage, were all sore afraid. Presently the Sultan seated himself on the throne of his kingship and gave an order to his Grand Wazir, saying, "O Wazir Hasan, take with thee a thousand ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... horizontal rather than vertical. There were different estates rather than different states. The feudal class was homogeneous throughout Western Europe: the clerical class was a single corporation through all the extent of Latin Christianity; and the peasantry and the townsfolk of England were very little different from the peasantry and the townsfolk of France. We have to think of a general European system of estates rather than of any balance of ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... hostility. The discontent and disaffection which Mr. Chamberlain's previous schemes aroused were but as morning breezes compared with the storm and tempest his new proposals raised. His daring and dash almost dazed his fellow townsfolk, for, like Napoleon, he rushed on from one exploit to another with a rapidity that astounded his friends and confused and overwhelmed ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton

... An open place (near NOTTINGHAM). A crowd of rustics and townsfolk assembling to see ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... which lay beneath the bare spectacle. From one quarter of the city walls the din of an attack from the besiegers made itself clearly heard from over the house, and the temples and the palaces intervening, but no one heeded it. They had grown callous, these townsfolk, to the battering of rams, and the flight of fire-darts, and the other emotions of a bombardment. Their nerves, their hunger, their desperation, were strung to such a pitch that little short of an actual storm ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... Frogs of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting and instructive dispute. "Come," says Aeschylus, "tell me what are the points for which we praise a noble poet." Euripides replies, "For his ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be better citizens and worthier men."[268] Aeschylus then goes on to show that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... horses that flashed by, drawing carriages shining with silver and varnish, thus to end his misery at once! Fortunately, he saw Capitan Tiago, accompanied by Aunt Isabel. He had known them since the days in San Diego, and in his joy believed that in them he saw almost fellow-townsfolk. He followed the carriage until he lost sight of it, and then made inquiries for the house. As it was the very day that Maria Clara entered the nunnery and Capitan Tiago was accordingly depressed, he was admitted as a servant, without pay, but instead with leave to study, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... the early settlers of the town; and in a conspicuous place upon the brow of the acclivity stands a row of tombstones several rods in length. These mark the graves of an ancient and honorable family of townsfolk. At one end, a thick slab of red sandstone, of uncouth shape and rude appearance, leans aslant, partly buried in the mellow soil. The moss and lichens, with which its roughly cut back and edges are overgrown, have been removed from its face, and the quaint inscription is distinctly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... done, in the next place, Diabolus, that he might make Mansoul as sure as he could, frames and imposes a new oath and horrible covenant upon the townsfolk: to wit, 'That they should never desert him, nor his government, nor yet betray him, nor seek to alter his laws; but that they should own, confess, stand by, and acknowledge him for their rightful king, in defiance to any that do, or hereafter ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Syracusans. In Browning's poem, Balaustion tells her four girl-friends the story of her "adventure" at Syracuse, where, shortly before, she had saved her own life and the lives of a ship's-company of her friends by reciting the play of Alkestis to the Euripides-loving townsfolk. After a brief reminiscence of the adventure, which has gained her (besides life, and much fame, and the regard of Euripides) a lover whom she is shortly to marry, she repeats, for her friends, the whole play, adding, as she speaks the words of Euripides, such other words of her own ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons

... Francois—brothers they, And had a small, clean bakeshop, where they sold Bread, cakes and little pies. Well, so it went! These were not Italy's saints, nor yet the gods, Majestic, calm, unmoved, of ancient Greece. No, they were only townsfolk, common people, And graced a common church—that stood and stood Through war and fire and pestilence, through ravage Of time and kings and conquerors, till at last The century dawned which promised common men The things they long had hoped for! O the time Showed ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook

... the suburbs of the metropolis,—grateful to some the fresh pools of Islington; to others, the grass-bare fields of Finsbury; to all, the hedgeless plains of vast Mile-end. But the site to which we are now summoned was a new and maiden holiday-ground, lately bestowed upon the townsfolk of Westminster by ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... afresh. His idealism had made him ridiculous in the eyes of the townsfolk. He had spent money he could ill spare in a hopeless cause, which was not even a worthy one. And now everybody was laughing at him or sneering—he grew hot with shame. That his motives were honourable only heightened the ludicrousness of his action: it seemed as if he had made a fool of ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... eating and drinking place in the town. The national holiday had come upon these people quite unawares, so the early part of it had to be spent in thinking out a satisfactory programme for it. Sipping their beer or coffee, or munching their cherries a l'eau-de-vie, the townsfolk of Boulogne, so lately threatened with death, were quietly ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... else is worth study." Undoubtedly the history of a soul is central in the poem; but the drawings of Italian landscape, so sure in outline, so vivid in colour; the views of old Italian city life, rich in the tumult of townsfolk, military chieftains, men-at-arms; the pictures of sombre interiors, and southern gardens, the hillside castle amid its vines, the court of love with its contending minstrels, the midnight camp lit by its fires; and, added to these, the Titianesque portraits of portly magnifico and gold-haired ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... childish thoughts, all fitted with her own needs, for she was nothing but a child herself, though grown to be a lovely maid. And of all children those she loved best were not the children of the Jews, nor yet the children of the Moorish townsfolk, but the ragged, barefoot, black and olive-skinned mites who came into Tetuan with the country Arabs and Berbers on market mornings. They were simplest, their little tongues were liveliest, and they were most full of joy and wonder. So she would gather them up in twos and threes and fours, on Wednesdays ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... before they attacked the royal tax-gatherers with cries of "Long live Burgundy!" Thereupon d'Armagnac sent three commissioners with a troop of Bretons and Genoese cross-bowmen from Paris. But the townsfolk would not let the mercenaries enter, seizing the keys of the town from the officials and mounting their own guard at every gate. The three commissioners, powerless without their escort, took refuge in the Chateau. The King's bailli, ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook

... to back, slowly and with a certain grace that could have come only of confirmed habit. Now Lynde had no desire to return to Rivermouth, above all to back into it in that mortifying fashion and make himself a spectacle for the townsfolk; but if this thing went on forty or fifty minutes longer, ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... sensed that both the tongue and the turn of mind, as well as the soul of the people, were for him dark and incomprehensible ... And he, with an amazing tact, modestly went around the soul of the people, but refracted all his fund of splendid observation through the eyes of townsfolk. I have brought this up purposely. With us, you see, they write about detectives, about lawyers, about inspectors of the revenue, about pedagogues, about attorneys, about the police, about officers, about sensual ladies, about engineers, about baritones—and really, by God, altogether ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... spite of all this simplicity and personal retirement Mr. Stanlock was a good deal of a mystery to many citizens who knew really little about him. Or perhaps he was a mystery to these fellow townsfolk because of his modest qualities. Knowing little about him, they imagined more. Leading citizens who knew his good qualities were ever ready with a word of praise for him. But the trouble was, the needed ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis

... catechism; he sneers at this thought, for he is awake now. Has the world no richer gift in store for him? That Sophie Bowrigg is a great fortune, a superb dancer, a gorgeous armful of a woman. What if they were to join their fortunes and come back some day to dazzle these quiet townsfolk with the splendor of their life? His visits in Ashfield grow shorter and more rare. There is nothing particularly alluring. We shall not meet him there again until we meet him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. "Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out," he said, "and the forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I'm afraid of this fellow's crying off, in fact. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... earl, and Ghent was left without an ally. Then Peter De Bois, who was now the chief of the White Hoods, seeing that many of the townsmen were sorely discouraged by their want of success, went to Philip Van Artevelde (the son of Jacob Van Artevelde, who was murdered by the townsfolk for making an alliance with England) and persuaded him to come forward as the leader of the people. On his doing so Philip was at once accepted by the White Hoods. Two of the leaders of the party of peace were at once ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... cheerfully when he burst out crying. This I interpreted to mean that he would get into trouble if I did not return, so, of course, I turned back at once, for the tears of a Chinaman are sadly affecting. Back, then, we were taken to an excellent inn in the main street, where a respectful levee of the townsfolk had assembled to welcome me. A polite official called upon me, to whom I showed, with simulated indignation, my official card and my Chinese passport, and I hinted to him in English that this interference with my rights as a traveller from England, protected by the favour of the Emperor, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... it; but they waited anxiously all the same to see what the bailiff would do. On he came, taller than Andras by several inches, but heavier of build. He too sprang high and well, but as he came down his heel just grazed the edge of the boat. Dead silence reigned amidst the townsfolk, but Andras only laughed and ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various

... coachman to whip up his horses with the reins and to drive over these vagabonds. At a word from me the three footmen jumped down and did their duty by dealing out lusty thwacks to the sergeants. A crowd collected, and townsfolk and ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... nothing to compare for beauty, and for sweetness, and for quaintness, and for tenderness, and for rapture, with John Bunyan's account of the feast that Prince Emmanuel made for the town of Mansoul. With his very best pen John Bunyan tells us how upon a time Emmanuel made a feast in Mansoul, and how the townsfolk came to the castle to partake of His banquet, and how He feasted them on all manner of outlandish food—food that grew not in the fields of Mansoul; it was food that came down from heaven and from His Father's house. They drank also of the water ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... in the parish kirk where Rutherford was colleague with that servant of the Lord Mr. Blair, he listened to Rutherford upon the love of God and the loveliness of Christ. One day he was present, standing obscure among a mass of townsfolk, when Rutherford, after making a tedious argument on the controversies of the day which had almost driven Pollock from the Kirk, came across the name of Christ and then, carried away out of his course as by a magnet, began to rehearse the titles of the Lord Jesus till a Scots noble seated ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... the story of that old fellow—a Dutchman, I think—who took a fancy to be buried in the church porch of his native town, that he might hear the feet of the townsfolk, generation after generation, passing over ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... poor—drew largely upon the forest for free supplies of timber and venison, despite the severity of the laws. It also appears that the officers of the forest frequently abused their power to the damage and often at the expense of the personal security of the townsfolk and villagers., The importance of Pickering at this time is emphasised by many royal visits and to some extent by the sending of members to Parliament on one occasion. Much building at the church and ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... Obydos townsfolk are owners of cacao plantations, which are situated on the low lands in the vicinity. Some are large cattle proprietors, and possess estates of many square leagues' extent in the campo, or grass-land districts, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... rosy morn till dewy eve, it frowned upon Belsaye, a thing of doom whose grim sight should warn rebellious townsfolk to dutiful submission; by night it loomed, a dim-seen, brooding horror, whose loathsome reek should mind them how all rogues must end that dared lift hand or voice against my lord Duke, or those proud barons, lords, and knights who, by his pleasure, held their fiefs with rights of justice, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... for the British farmer is by no means the stupid personage which townsfolk are too apt to fancy him. This bed of phosphates was found everywhere in the Greensand, underlying the Chalk. It may be traced from Dorsetshire through England to Cambridge, and thence, I believe, into Yorkshire. It may be traced again, I believe, all ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley

... summer; time was moving onward. The townsfolk had already, at Whitsuntide, provided themselves with what they needed for the summer, and out in the country people had other things to think about than trapesing into town with work for the artisans; the coming ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... I still see them through his eyes rather than by any recollection of actual and personal vision. The book has also the delightfulness of absolute leisure. Mr. White seems never to have had any harder work to do than to study the habits of his feathered fellow-townsfolk, or to watch the ripening of his peaches on the wall. His volumes are the journal ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... for a moment, level with the rounded tops of clipped plane trees, he saw the esplanade far below lying in shadow. Here and there a yellow sunbeam crept in and lay upon the fallen yellow leaves, and from the height he looked down and saw that the townsfolk were walking to and fro in the cool of the evening. He could just hear the sound of their slow footfalls, and the murmur of their voices floated up to him through the gaps between the trees. The figures looked like shadows as ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... deliberate plan—riots and revolution—before Whitsunday. The poor, of course, only exchanged better for worse landlords, as they soon discovered. The "Zealous Brethren"—as a rule small lairds, probably, and burgesses—were the nucleus of the Revolution. When townsfolk and yeomen in sufficient number had joined them in arms, then nobles like Argyll, Lord James, Glencairn, Ruthven, and the rest, put themselves at the head of the movement, and won the prizes which had been offered to the "blind, crooked, widows, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... besieged by an enemy who would not retire until he had received six hundred dollars. Then the townsfolk caused it to be proclaimed by beat of drum that whosoever was able to procure the money should be burgomaster. Now there was a poor fisherman who fished on the lake with his son, and the enemy came and took the son prisoner, and gave the father six hundred dollars ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... season was, as always, at Folkington Green, close enough to Lewes to draw the townsfolk out ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... They took it out and looked at it; hefted its weight in their hands. It represented the first success after several failures, one brought to trial, others frustrated in the making or abandoned after warnings from the ranchers and obscure townsfolk who stood in with them. Knapp had been discouraged. Now he took a handful and spread it on his palm, golden eagles, heavy, shining, solid. Swaying his wrist, he let the sun play on them, strike glints from their edges, burnish ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... into an explosion of laughter, which only grew more vehement and uproarious the more earnestly and imploringly Toole tried to quiet him, pointing up with both hands, and all his fingers extended, to the windows of the sleeping townsfolk, and making horrible grimaces, shrugs, and ogles. But the young gentleman was not in the habit of denying himself innocent indulgences, and shaking himself loose of Toole, he walked down the dark ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... refrain from repeating a compliment paid to him on his good looks by Matilda of St. Valery, the wife of his neighbour at Brecon, William de Braose. He praises his own unparalleled generosity in entertaining the poor, the doctors, and the townsfolk of Oxford to banquets on three successive days when he read his "Topography of Ireland" before that university. As for his learning he records that when his tutors at Paris wished to point out a model scholar they mentioned Giraldus Cambrensis. He is confident that though his works, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... deserters from their own hearts, and from their appointed task of understanding and amending them, than the most garrulous female chronicler of the goings-on of yesterday in the families of her neighbours and townsfolk? ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... berth to a spot more convenient than the present one for the purpose of a bombardment; he had very little doubt that the significance of the movement would be fully understood not only by Don Silvio, but also by the townsfolk generally; and he held the belief that in dealing with an antagonist it is always well to make it clear to him at the outset that you are in deadly earnest and mean every word you say. He had known cases where quarrels had assumed a most serious and irreconcilable form simply because each ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... authority, originally built as a refuge for the people in case of sudden attack by the Welsh; but according to others they originated with the Romans, and were used as the vestibules of the houses; and this seems to be the more popular theory with the townsfolk. Under the "Rows" are shops of all sizes, and some of the buildings are grotesquely attractive, especially the curious one bearing the motto of safety from the plague, "God's providence is mine inheritance," standing on Watergate street, and known as "God's ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... with deference, it was noticeable that when he had ceased to speak his hearers looked to the priest on his left, to Father Pezelay, and waited to hear his opinion before they gave their own. The Father's energy, indeed, had dominated the Angerins, clerks and townsfolk alike, as it had dominated the Parisian devotes who knew him well. The vigour which hate inspires passes often for solid strength; and he who had seen with his own eyes the things done in Paris spoke with an authority to which the more ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman



Words linked to "Townsfolk" :   townspeople, town, municipality, borough



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