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Roundabout way   /rˈaʊndəbˌaʊt weɪ/   Listen
Roundabout way

noun
1.
A roundabout road (especially one that is used temporarily while a main route is blocked).  Synonym: detour.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Roundabout way" Quotes from Famous Books



... your throat, and make mouths, and that shakes the air; and the air shakes a pair of little drums in my head—a very complicated arrangement, with lots of bones behind—and my brain seizes your meaning in the rough. What a roundabout way, and ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... a roundabout way of saying that nature, human beings and human society are part and parcel of a total relationship which includes the planet earth, the solar system and an immense range of celestia which includes minute particles of celestial dust, like our earth, and majestic assemblies of ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... his roundabout way to tell her that he had no idea of the ownership of the scenario. Her name was not on it, and he had not observed her face that day at the Red Mill. And in his mind all the time had been his own and ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson

... prescribed for them, as if they were tied and bound. But in brutes the gentleness of mood inspired by reason, the subtlety, the love of freedom, are not qualities found in excess, but they have unreasonable appetites and desires, and act in a roundabout way within certain limits, riding, as it were, at the anchor of nature, and only going straight under bit and bridle. But in man reason, which is absolute master, inventing different modes and fashions of life, has left no plain or ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... Petit Val, who is living in her other chateau in Brittany, sent a letter to me which I should send to Helen in Berlin, to be sent to Paul, who is in Versailles, to be sent to Mr. Washburn, in Paris, who is to give it to Henry at Petit Val. Rather roundabout way! I can't tell you how much of that sort of thing I am constantly doing for people who are afraid of doing anything for themselves; they think every one is ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... gold discovery filtered to us in a roundabout way through vessels to the Sandwich Islands, and then appeared again in the columns of some Baltimore paper. Everybody laughed at the rumour; but everybody remembered it. The land was infinitely remote; and then, as now, romance increases as the square ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... was the information she had taken such a roundabout way to communicate! It was to this end she had purposely led the conversation by adroit stages, studying him gaily, impatiently or maliciously, as she marked the effect of her words upon him. All alive, she stepped back laughing; elate, she put ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... the doctor came and examined the injury Agnes had sustained, he found that, independent of the fracture of the spine, she was much hurt internally. He had no hopes of her recovery, and he commenced, in a roundabout way to break the opinion to her; but she saw it already in his ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw

... shaking his head. "You see, Mrs. Hazleton is a nervous wreck, but it's about the baby, and caused, she says, by her fears for its safety. It came to us only in a roundabout way, through a servant in the house who keeps us in touch. The curious feature is that we can seem to get nothing definite from her about her fears. They may ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve

... am going to follow it. It is good. When Carnival is over I will go away, and perhaps get to Saracinesca by a roundabout way, so that no one will know where I am. Will you ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... it is not {17} surprising that Sir James Craig soon took umbrage at the language and policy of Le Canadien. At first he made his displeasure felt in a somewhat roundabout way. In the summer of 1808 he dismissed from the militia five officers who were reputed to have a connection with that newspaper, on the ground that they were helping a 'seditious and defamatory journal.' ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles

... in a roundabout way if he thought any of his guests could have had anything to say to it. Phew! How furious Sir Roland became with them! You should have seen him—I was with him at the time. Then suddenly he grew quite calm, realizing that they were, after all, only trying to do their duty and to help him ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... Batterbury, with a power of face I envied; "I am afraid, my dear Frank (let me call you Frank), that I don't quite apprehend your meaning: and we have unfortunately no time to enter into explanations. Five miles here by a roundabout way is only half my daily allowance of walking exercise; five miles back by a roundabout way remain to be now accomplished. So glad to see you at liberty again! Mind you let us know where you settle, and take care ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins

... the thought that in our enlightened Republic every American was himself a sovereign. But that, said the lady, after giving me another look, is so different from Boadicea! And to this I perfectly agreed. Later I had the pleasure to hear in a roundabout way that she had pronounced me one of the most agreeable young men in society, though sophisticated. I have not cherished this against her; my gift of humor puzzles many who can see only my refinement and ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... mechanical system—A, in fact, will have been living in B. The universally admitted maxim that he who does this or that by the hand of an agent does it himself, shews that the foregoing view is only a roundabout way of stating what common sense treats as a ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... the present day critics are really in earnest for a constitution, then I am unable to understand why they believe that this cannot be secured under the Republic but must be obtained in a roundabout way by means of a monarchy. In my view the real hindrances to the adoption of a constitution at the present day in China are the existing conditions, viz. the attitude of the officials and the traditions and intellectual standards of the people. But these hindrances ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... impossible. And the father knew it and did not resent it in the least, only pitied the boy for his needless struggle. He was curious about him, too. He wanted to understand him and the life he had come out of: his roundabout way of reaching the simplest conclusions; his courage in argument, and his personal shying away from the truth when found. More than all he longed for a little plain talk, the exile's hunger for news from home. It pleased him when Paul, rousing at this deliberate challenge, ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote

... hurried down street to the doctor's office, where the door was immediately closed on the rabble and all the mystery within—not an utter mystery, either, for three or four enterprising and sagacious boys slipped off from the crowd that thronged in front, and climbing by a roundabout way and over a high board fence into the back yard, secretly posted themselves at the blinded window in the rear of the little one-roomed office and breathlessly ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley

... I try to make up for it in lots of ways—by getting him an introduction to the man who wants to fly across the Atlantic. I really hoped he would say to Van Buren, 'Fly with me!' but he didn't, and in the most roundabout way and by the most fearful lot of trouble—chiefly through me—he was asked to dinner to meet that other man—I forget his name, the one who keeps on discovering the North Pole. And it seems he is a dear, and awfully good-looking. And then he—Van, ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson

... to the lawyer that he knew nothing of this, although he had heard in a roundabout way that such an intention had been talked of; and he also at length succeeded in making Sir Abraham understand that even this did not satisfy him. The attorney-general stood up, put his hands into his breeches' pockets, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... to do exactly as you like, but I heard in a roundabout way something that rather surprised me ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson

... funny to me," Edwin murmured, after reflection, "that they should bring clay all that roundabout way just to make crocks of it here. Why should they choose just this place to make ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... stole back to where he could hear any sound from the porch even if he could not see, and when he was certain that Baumberger had gone back to his bed, he got his horse, took him by a roundabout way to the stable, and himself slept in a haystack. At least, he made himself a soft place beside one, and lay there until the sun rose, and if he did not sleep it was not his fault, for he ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... people took to hide places where gold could be found, and if there had been rich mines among these mountains you speak of, no doubt they would have hidden them just as carefully. The question is, shall we go up this pass as we intended, and take our chance, or shall we go by this roundabout way?" ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty

... "In a roundabout way I met the fellow who had the papers. For a consideration he let me have them. If you want them you can have them—-provided ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill

... this zemindar, my first master, was not fated to be relieved of his treasure, as my story will tell, even though a skilful plot had been laid for his spoliation. Which is the very point of my tale, although I may seem to come to it by a roundabout way of telling." ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell

... harass the Dodge family. For the present all writing must cease, and the Dodge family move. This removal must be prompt, and nothing was to be said about it. She did as advised. Her surprise was great at being conveyed in a roundabout way for several hours, and unloaded with the children, after midnight, in a narrow street. This friend said not to be frightened, as all would soon be fixed, and conducted them through the winding lanes to the cabin. The ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... been said to make Mr Gordon fully comprehend the case. The men were dissatisfied. They had come in a roundabout way to the conclusion that some pecuniary concession, not mentioned in their bond, should come from the side of capital to that of labour. Whether wages, interest of capital, share of profits, reserve fund, they knew not nor cared. This was their stand. And being Englishmen they intended ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood

... be careful how you talk to me, Mr. Farnum. I might want to know what Big Tim was doing in your office yesterday. I might want to know what business took you up to The Brakes by a mighty roundabout way." ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... Heintzelman. Above, in full view, were the commands at Peach Orchard and Fairoaks, and to the south, a few furlongs distant, the Williamsburg and Richmond turnpike ran, parallel with the railway, toward the field of Seven Pines. The latter site, was simply the junction of the turnpike with a roundabout way to Richmond, called the "Nine Mile Road," and Fairoaks was the junction of the diverging road with the railroad. Toward the latter I proceeded, and soon came to the Irish brigade, located on both sides of the way, at ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... likewise wrote to Woodfall requesting he would send a letter of credit for twelve or fifteen pounds, directing to the care of the British Consul at Marseilles. I hope you received your letter and that he received his, as by the time I get to Marseilles I shall be in want of money by reason of the roundabout way I have been obliged to come. I am quite well, thank God, and hope to leave here in a day or two. It is close by the sea, and France is close by, but I am afraid I shall be obliged to wait some days at Marseilles before I shall get the letter, as the post goes direct from ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... discharge can only be effective from a very small field. Where the relief is not brought about by these tumbles of snow, another mode of gravitative action accomplishes the result, though in a more roundabout way, through the mechanism ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... catch. We can get round to the woods above Cricketty Hall from Foxleigh without being seen, when it begins to be dark, and can get down into the ruins without their noticing us, for they'll never think of any one coming by that road, such a roundabout way. And mind, Jim, not a word to any one, not even to your missus. All you need tell her is, that I've wanted you to meet me about some business at Foxleigh, and you won't be back ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... men laughed as they shrugged their shoulders at them; for as many jovial things as evil were told of Tarboe. When it became known that a dignitary of the Church had been given a case of splendid wine, which had come in a roundabout way to him, men waked in the night and laughed, to the annoyance of their wives; for the same dignitary had preached a powerful sermon against smugglers and the receivers of stolen goods. It was a sad thing for monsignor to be called a Ninety-Niner, as were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to and from school, for I had persuaded my family to discontinue a custom that made me ridiculous in the eyes of my companions. Often, before returning home, I would take a long and roundabout way and pass by the peaceful ramparts from where I had glimpses of other provinces, and a sight of ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... sanguine imagination that he could not forbear hinting to the man who had shown him the pianos and was now accompanying him to the door that this package under his arm represented potentially the price of the piano he was going to have. He did it in a roundabout way, with one of his droll, hesitating smiles. The man did not understand at all, and Theron had not the temerity to repeat the remark. He strode home with the precious bundle as fast as ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... deliberating how to begin. He felt that he could not show his bundle of clothes to so fair and fine a creature as this, whose manners were so soft and whose smile so pleasant. He would do anything first. He would try a roundabout way of making known his wishes, trusting to his own powers and the intelligence of the lady for a full and complete understanding. Just as he had come to this conclusion there was a ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... that not all resistance to specific diseases needs to be acquired in the roundabout way just described. The state of being free from disease is known as immunity, and the way of securing immunity just described is known as artificial immunity. This artificial immunity may also be obtained in the course of events by having the disease ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... his children alone could possess the divine weapons. He recollects that his wife was left in that part of the forest and instinctively comes to the conclusion that they are his children. He wishes to ask about their birth in a roundabout way, but before proceeding to the end, is asked to see ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta

... on the road we came," he said, "and on another road that leads in a roundabout way to the Grande Avenue again. So now we must look into the unknown and ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... greets Gayman and asks him to give her an assignation in the garden, but he excuses himself in order to keep his prior appointment, and she leaves him in dissembled anger. Bredwel then in his satanic masquerade meets Gayman, and bringing him a roundabout way, introduces him into Sir Cautious' house, where, after having been entertained with a masque of dances and songs as by spirits, he is conducted to Lady Fulbank's chamber by her maid disguised as an ancient crone, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... was obtained in a roundabout way, and only after repeated failures. The first attempt to obtain an assembly of representatives was made at Annapolis, Maryland. Only five States sent representatives, and the convention accordingly adjourned to Philadelphia, where in May, 1778, delegates from all the States, ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby

... suspected it, you know," put in Mrs. Harmon, viewing her benignly. "We heard in a roundabout way that Mr. Brown was paying attention to a ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart

... spirit make himself withal a body? What reality can there be in his efforts and approaches? Would she be sinning in the flesh, if she allowed the intrusions of one who was always roaming about her? Would that be sheer adultery?" Such was the sly roundabout way in which sometimes he stayed and weakened her resistance. "If I am only a breath, a smoke, a thin air, as so many doctors call me, why are you afraid, poor fearful soul, and how does it concern ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... possible that the young man had just arrived and was fatigued by the trials and perils of his trip, for he must have come by some roundabout way; and very likely he felt nervous and uneasy in the midst of people who were loyal to the government and the Union. Captain Passford decided to say nothing more to his nephew at present as to the occasion and the manner of ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Pool before Longlegs, who had taken a roundabout way, and they hid among the bulrushes where they could see and not ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess

... her recollection that the cloth manufacturer had also passed the night at Bazeilles, and if he had returned would be able to give her the intelligence she wanted. She ran swiftly down the stairs again. In place of taking the more roundabout way by the Rue des Voyards, she crossed the little courtyard of her house and entered the passage that conducted to the huge structure that fronted on the Rue Maqua. As she came out into the great central garden, paved ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... accidents. The trucks took a little longer returning to Lakeport than they had making the trip earlier in the day, for they had to go a roundabout way. But finally the outskirts of the town were reached, and the children began getting off as ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope

... large-eyed little boy who had found it was not yet six years old, there was a difficulty in perfecting the thread of the evidence. It was not held to be proper to administer an oath to an infant. But in a roundabout way it was proved that the identical bludgeon had been picked up in the garden. There was an elaborate surveyor's plan produced of the passage, the garden, and the wall,—with the steps on which it was supposed that ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... earlier hours of the same day, Miss Grierson took the roundabout way between the Raymer plant and Mereside, making the circuit which took her through the college grounds and brought her out at the head of upper Shawnee Street. The Widow Holcomb was sitting on her ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... reached its short-lived height, he had even been allowed the felicity of accompanying her to vespers at the quaint old Norman Church, which lay snuggled away in woods behind the Thames. They had returned to the inn by a roundabout way, through the meadows beneath the twilight, speaking all manner of intense things, and, very wonderfully, believing both themselves and their sayings to be sincere. When he had entered his skiff and pushed out from the bank, she had called ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... the steps for your return to Germany. Unfortunately my late efforts and endeavours have not as yet led to a favourable result, which proves by no means that such may not be the case in the future. Your hint about the roundabout way, viz., Prague, I believe to be an illusion which you ought not to cherish, because it might lead to ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... after sundown to where the trail branched in three directions. One was the direct road to San Bonito, another took a roundabout way through a Mexican settlement on the river and so came to the town from another angle, and the third branch wound over the granite ridge to Malpais. Studying the problem as a whole, picturing the havoc which an uprising would wreak upon those vast grazing grounds of ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower

... We must therefore attribute them to an extra-corporeal principle; and this we call soul. As an incorporeal thing the soul cannot be strictly defined, not being composed of genus and species; but we can describe it in a roundabout way in its relation to the body. He then gives the Aristotelian definition of the soul as "the [first] entelechy of a natural body having life potentially" (cf. above, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... of time, Tom was thoroughly tired of going such a roundabout way, and without telling his plans to any one, he resolved to pass through the giant's domain, or lose his life in the attempt. This was a bold undertaking, but good living had so increased Tom's strength and courage, that venturesome as he was ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... him at the station and escorted him in a roundabout way to Southlook, carefully avoiding the main village thoroughfare and High street, where the fashionable colony was intrenched. Mr. Smith, being an experienced detective, was not surprised to find (after the introduction), that Mr. Wrandall's attorney had been a fellow-passenger from ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... fixed outcome of natural law. If the total system of the universe be taken into account, the causes of these variations and the visible environment which preserves or destroys them, undoubtedly do, in some remote and roundabout way, hang together. What Darwin means is, that, since that environment is a perfectly known thing, and its relations to the organism in the way of destruction or preservation are tangible and distinct, it would utterly confuse our finite understandings and frustrate our hopes of science to ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... declined to say when he would send it on to you, Professor. When he closed the window, I afterwards went into the hotel and had a drink in order to ask casually when Mr. Bolton intended to leave. I gathered—not directly, of course, but in a roundabout way—that he had arranged to go next morning and to send on his luggage. Then I left and went to London. In the course of time I returned here and learned of the murder and the disappearance of the corpse of Inca Caxas. And now," ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... ha!" laughed he, as he lighted the cigar, "what a droll masquerade it has been! 'Pon my soul! I can scarce get the paint off; and my voice, after such yelling, won't recover for a week! Ha! ha! Never was maiden wooed and won in such a romantic, roundabout way. Shepherds attacked—sheep driven off and scattered to the winds—cattle carried away and killed in regular battue—old woman knocked over, and rancho given to the flames—besides three days of marching and countermarching, travestying Indian, and whooping till one is hoarse; ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... it was horrible to think that his chum was lost under the sea, not knowing his way back to the Searcher, for they had come a roundabout way. ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... is in herself unknowable. Aristotle teaches: there is nothing in the intellect which hath not first been in the senses, and the senses cannot penetrate beyond experience. But what the mind cannot grasp directly it may come to comprehend by a roundabout way. When we consider her works, as far as in our human weakness we can know, we say the Maid is of God. Albeit she hath adopted the profession of arms, she never counsels cruelty; she is merciful to her enemies when they throw themselves ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... existence I led there in that wretched house. I tried to do my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to think of. When I escaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and returned all my things. It was done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a Chinaman who keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began to be said openly that the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed before long. Pleasant, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... to be extraordinary, and then began exploring the Harz mountains. He sent me some of the ores he found; it appears that there is nearly everything in those ranges. I heard no more until the news came, in a roundabout way, that he was dead and his ashes cast to the four winds. His writings were supposed to have been burned at the same time, but not all of them were, for three manuscripts at least must have gone to make up the fragments we found among our bezants. I wish for your sake, Alan, my son, that ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... heard of his illness in a far-off way, but had received no distinct particulars, for the news came in a roundabout way by word of mouth, country-folk never write. The distance between the two houses was less than ten miles, and might as well have been five hundred for ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... mentioned to me yesterday, which illustrates the very roundabout way in which justice is arrived at among us all here. The coolies in a French coolie ship rose. The master and mate jumped overboard, and the coolies ran the ship on shore, where the crew had their clothes, &c., taken from them, but ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... will find it difficult to act in co-operation with the other part of his forces, Y and Z, because Y and Z (acting as they are on an outside circumference split by the fortified zone SSS) will be separated, or only able to connect in a long and roundabout way. The two lots, V and W, and Y and Z, could only join hands by stretching round an awkward angle—that is, by stretching round the bulge which SSS makes, SSS being the ring of forts round Namur. Part of their forces (that along the arrow ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc

... "Roundabout man, roundabout way," remarked Uncle Jake, by way of explaining his presence in Gullettsville. "My house is away an' beyan' frum Poteet's, but I says to myself, s' I, in obejunce to the naked demands of the law I'll go this day ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... articles, by the breath or effluvial emanations from the body or other sources. Small-pox, measles, influenza, etc., are examples of this group. By infectious diseases are meant those which are disseminated indirectly, that is, in a roundabout way by means of water or food or other substances taken into or introduced into the body in some way. Typhoid, malaria, and yellow fever, cholera and others are examples of this class. Thus it is evident ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... of this roundabout way of making interest, he failed not to thank the innkeeper, and to assure him that he was confident his master would ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... I took a roundabout way to the Corte, past one or two church doors, whence issued the faint flicker of midnight mass. For a moment I felt a temptation to enter one of then; but something seemed to restrain me. I caught snatches of the Christmas hymn. I felt myself ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... factor depended on the vexed question of means of communication. There was no cross-country railway linking the eastern German wing to the western German wing. As has been previously remarked, all supplies and munitions had to come in a roundabout way. Verdun was a desired goal, but Field Marshal von Heeringen was wise enough to know that if the crown prince's effort against General Sarrail had failed, if the Third French Army had secured heavy reenforcement, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... churchyard gates; he saw the excitement of all three, and he saw Catharine leave her friends at the Rectory, for they were evidently going to stay the night there. Mrs. Cardew went into the house first, but Catharine turned down Fosbrooke Street, a street which did not lead, save by a very roundabout way, to the Terrace. Presently Mr. Cardew came out and walked slowly down Rectory Lane. In those days it was hardly a thoroughfare. It ended at the river bank, and during daylight a boat was generally there, ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... some that the United States is favoring this new Chinese party of liberty, that the gold recently lost in the Pacific was our contribution to the cause—by the roundabout way we have heard so much about—and that the Washington government will be the first to ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson

... we afterward learned, with American rifles, and the usual kamma, or huge dagger, swinging from a belt of cartridges. These fellows, like the zaptiehs, were fond of ostentation. They frequently led us a roundabout way to show us off to their relatives or friends in a neighboring village. Nature at last came to our deliverance. As we stood on a prominent ridge taking a last look at Mount Ararat, now more than fifty miles away, a storm came upon us, showering hailstones ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... home with Judith, after the ceremony, Douglas, on sudden impulse, took a roundabout way to the post-office, thence toward the Browns' ranch. Dusk was settling in the valley. The quivering aspens along Lost Chief creek were etched gray rose on the deep blue snow. Far to the east a single scarlet mountain-top pierced ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... Simeon Khlopov, deceased? On one occasion she asked me to call Peter's attention to the matter of his title to the property. I entered the sick-room and began to discuss the matter cautiously, in a roundabout way, so as not to excite the patient by implying that his end might be near. But my precautions were unnecessary. He spoke very cooly of the possibility of his end coming at any moment, but at the same time he insisted that there was really no ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg

... the mischief, and his desertion of his country's flag seemed to merit censure. It was, however, finally decided that when he ran away he "acted rather from levity than malice;" and as he had entered the Spanish army in a roundabout way, and after considerable persuasion, that the loss of his leg in that service was sufficient punishment. The guilt of his wife, Bertrande de Rols, was thought even more apparent, and that a woman could ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... worried," explained Withers. "Joe thinks he saw a bunch of horsemen trailing us. My eyes are bad and I can't see far. The Indian will find out. I took a roundabout way to reach the village because I'm always ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... not ill pleased with the frank, off-hand manner of the stranger, "what a capital trader you would make with your roundabout way of coming to terms! Well, cavallero! what can ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... seated on their piazza, saw him alight at his quarters from the stage, and immediately went in and closed their door. Mrs. Stannard had been with them awhile the evening previous. Ray was entirely out of danger and was sitting up again, but very quiet and weak. Gleason, it seems, had taken a roundabout way on his return, and had stopped two days at Fort Laramie, from which post he did considerable telegraphing. The mail coming direct from Fetterman brought those letters (which were sent by the sergeant) three days ahead of him, and not a lady in the cavalry ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... is going to New Zealand. I had a letter from him this morning. Here it is. "I heard yesterday that H. W. is dead. She died a fortnight ago, and a letter from her mother has only just reached me in a roundabout way. She had been ailing for some time. They suspected drains, and had workmen in, with assurance that all had been put right. Since H.'s death the drains have again been examined, and it was found that the men ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... transport and the advances—many of which, owing to death, sickness and desertion, are never repaid—have become so heavy as to be almost prohibitive, and my energetic friend, Count GELOES, has set the example of procuring his coolies direct from China, instead of by the old fashioned, roundabout way of the extortionate labour-brokers of the Straits Settlements. North Borneo, it will be remembered, is situated midway between Hongkong and Singapore, and the Court of Directors of the Governing Company could do nothing better calculated to ensure the success of their public-spirited enterprise ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... was Pecksniff himself. He had gone into the church to rest, and lying down in one of the high-back pews, had gone to sleep, and now the voices of Tom and Mary had awakened him. He listened and waited till they had both gone; then he stole out and went home by a roundabout way. ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... linguist, being able to read Hebrew and Greek about as easily as Latin or English. He is at Oxford now—at least he was there when I last heard of him. Moreover, it was through the Hutchins' family, in a roundabout way, that your mother, Olly, came to learn to write such letters as you have got so carefully stowed ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne

... Emma, goes—although in Mr. Marsden's letter—such a roundabout way, that I cannot say all that my heart wishes. Imagine every thing which is kind and affectionate, and you ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... absorbed in political struggles at home—the Corn Law Repeal and the vexed question of Ireland—had still no anxiety over Franklin. No message could have come except {118} by the chance of a whaling ship or in some roundabout way through the territories of the Hudson's Bay Company, after all but a slender chance. The summer of 1846 came and went and then another winter, and now with the opening of the new year, 1847, the first ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... the tree in the orchard where Mitch was. Then we walked clear to the back of the orchard, clumb the rail fence, walked through the meadow a roundabout way and came to the road on the other side of the Tate farm. So here we struck out for Atterberry, so as to walk the railroad to Havaner. We thought we could make ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... subterfuge, to put a triad at the head of an Ennead was nothing more than a roundabout way of placing a single god there: the three persons only counted as one, and the eleven names only amounted to the nine canonical divinities. Thus, the Theban Ennead of Amon-Maut-Khonsu, Shu, Tafnuit, Sibu, Nuit, Osiris, Isis, Sit, and Nephthys, is, in spite of its apparent irregularity, as correct ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... a certain roundabout way it is slightly connected with him. That is really my excuse for inflicting the subject upon you. You are the only man I can speak to about it—if ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome

... columns had already started on their roundabout way to the rear of the Palace. Clay gathered up his reins, and telling his men to keep close to the walls, started forward, his soldiers following on the sidewalks and leaving the middle of the street clear. As they reached a point a hundred yards ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... a reception given by the Union League that the first real blow was struck at him personally, and that in a roundabout way. Addison, talking to him at the Lake National Bank one morning, had said quite confidentially, and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... day was spoiled for work, I chose a roundabout way, in fact the longest, and took the high-road to Dives, but neither the road nor the town itself (when I passed through it) rewarded my vague hope that I might meet Mrs. Harman, and I strode the long miles in considerable disgruntlement, for it was largely in that hope that ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... in a roundabout way," he replied slowly. "Penfield, who is known all over the Southwestern as Mr. North's private detective and spy, is with Mr. Colbrith acting as the president's secretary. Yesterday, while the Nadia was side-tracked here, Penfield ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... Montreal, with all the force that could be spared from Quebec; he detached a body of troops under Colonel Haviland from Crown Point, to cross Lake Champlain, take possession of the Isle Aux Noix, and push on to the St. Lawrence, while he took the roundabout way with his main army by the Mohawk and Oneida rivers to Lake Ontario; thence to descend the St. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... should have to go that roundabout way by the road, and get to Lanesport two or three hours late. There was nothing else to be done, however, so I went up the wharf once more, and started along the road. At the turn, just beyond the house, I found Mr. Snider, walking up and down with his hands behind his back. His face ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson

... junction, in a glade of the forest, are a large sawmill and Mont Bozat. About 1 m. E. from the junction the high road crosses the Clergue, where a path descends northwards by the stream passing the Cascade Plat-a-Barbe, about 4m. from Bourboule by this roundabout way, but only 2 m. by the direct path. The falls, 60 ft. high, tumble into a cavity bearing some resemblance to a barber's shaving basin. A little way farther down through the woods the Clergue makes the cascade of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... detailing. I will only mention a speech which could not but divert me, of Mr. Alberts, the queen's page. He said nobody dared represent to the king the danger of his present continual exertion in this hot weather,—"unless it is Mr. Fairly," he added, "who can say anything, in his genteel roundabout way." ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... wide entrance gate to the old family mansion of Midbranch, but it was never opened to admit the family or visitors; although occasionally a load of wood, drawn by two horses and two mules, came between its tall chestnut posts, and was taken by a roundabout way among the trees to a spot at the back of the house, where the chips of several generations of sturdy wood-choppers had formed a ligneous soil deeper than the arable surface of any portion of the nine hundred and fifty acres which formed the farm of Midbranch. ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... of all, the mountain sheep had vanished into the unknown, taking his little tracks with him, so we had to go back in a roundabout way, without sheep, without joy—and without ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson

... "It has been a roundabout way for us, little girl, but at last our paths have met, and from now on, God willing, they shall go together. Come, I ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... frankincense; and ghour nuts and koudah, which are masticated as tobacco. There is then, finally, the great cotton manufacture, which clothes half the people of The Desert. Whole caravans of these cottons arrive together, and they are even conveyed from Ghat to Timbuctoo, this extremely roundabout way from Soudan. The colour is mostly a blue-black, sometimes a lighter blue, and glazed and shining. But the indigo is ill-prepared, and the dyeing as badly done, and the consequence is, the cottons are very begriming in the wearing. The indigo plant is simply cut, and thrown into ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... for approaching the ideal of its kind is therefore only a roundabout way of specifying its intrinsic merit and expressing its direct effect on our sensibility. If in referring to the ideal we were not thus analyzing the real, the ideal would be an irrelevant and unmeaning thing. We know what the ideal is because ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana

... if Mark were, as he is, with apparent correctness, said to have been, Peter's mouthpiece in his Gospel, the reticence as to the prominence of that Apostle is natural, and explains the omission of all but the bare fact of the despatch of the two. The curiously roundabout way in which they are directed to the 'upper room' is only explicable on the supposition that it was intended to keep them in the dark till the last moment, so that no hint might leak from them to Judas. Whether the token of the man with the waterpot was a preconcerted signal or an instance ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... priori arguments afforded by the instinctive desire of men for an authoritative body, and to the satisfaction of their conscience by the dogmas revealed through its agency. Then the question occurs: Is this a logical argument, or an appeal from argument to feeling? Is it not, as Fitzjames thinks, a roundabout way of saying, 'I believe in this system because it suits my tastes and feelings, and because I consider truth unattainable'? If so, persuasion is substituted for reasoning: and the force of persuasion depends upon the constitution of the person to be persuaded. Now the arguments, if they be called ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... isolated in Paris as he had been in Munich; he did not seek stimulus from without so much as freedom to develop the ideas that were teeming in his mind. When he left Hamburg, however, he was destined never to return thither except as a visitor, and started on the long, roundabout way to an unforeseen new home in Vienna. He had been but little over a month in Paris when he learned of the death of the little son that Elise had borne him three years before. He was deeply grieved both for himself and for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... recourse at such times to a more particular and extraordinary intercession with God for such persons as had roused their envy, resentment, or discontent—this would be a certain way to prevent the growth of all uncharitable tempers." You may think that I am taking a roundabout way of accounting for my friend's so concerned attitude at twelve o'clock that business day; but the whole thing seemed to me so unusual at such a time and in such a place that I was led to such guesses as these ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... at that period of the panic had not the slightest feeling for the taxpayer. He was therefore unable to penetrate the mystery of our roundabout way of enlivening him. He pored over the journals in perplexity, and talked of his indignation nightly to his pretty partners at balls, who knew not they were lesser Andromedas of his dear Andromeda country, but danced and chatted and were gay, and said they were sure he would defend them. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... hailed the proposal. It seemed a roundabout way to St. Enimie, but it did seem a way; and, at any rate, if we were going back, we were not going back to the precise point ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... secretly entertain a hope that the very act of having made a peace with the Regicides will give a stability to the Regicide system. This will not clear the discourse from the absurdity, but it will account for the conduct, which such reasoning so ill defends. What a roundabout way is this to peace,—to make war for the destruction of regicides, and then to give them peace in order to insure a stability that will enable them to observe it! I say nothing of the honor displayed in such a system. It is plain it militates with itself almost in all ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Sharp encounters took place, and many fell wounded and slain on both sides, and there seemed but little likelihood of thus ending the war; when some of the men, who fed their cattle thereabouts, came to Titus with a discovery, that there was a roundabout way which the enemy neglected to guard; through which they undertook to conduct his army, and to bring it within three days at furthest, to the top of the hills. To gain the surer credit with him, they said that Charops, son ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... keeping the usufruct and of receiving for himself and his brethren the necessities of life. At this period many pious persons acted in this way when they gave their property to the Church. Church goods being unseizable, and exempt from taxation, this was a roundabout way of getting the better of fiscal extortion, whether in the shape of arbitrary confiscations, or eviction by force of arms. In any case, such souls as were tired of the world and longing for repose, found in these bequests an heroic method of saving themselves ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... company, supported by the State, compel travellers who go from Berlin to Bale to pass via Cologne and Frankfort, instead of taking the Leipzig route; or that such a company carries goods a hundred and thirty miles in a roundabout way (on a long distance) to favour its influential shareholders, and thus ruins the secondary lines. In the United States travellers and goods are sometimes compelled to travel impossibly circuitous routes so that dollars may flow into the pocket ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... lower races are reckoned defective in it. But the lower races do invent, and it is doubtful whether one invention is ever much more difficult than another. On the psychological side, an invention means that the mind sees a roundabout way of reaching an end when it cannot be reached directly. It brings into play the associative memory, and involves the recognition of analogies. There is a certain likeness between the flying back of a bough in one's face ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... don't believe they are all right," our hero answered. "I think that they belong to the outlaw gang, and that they came over here and talked that way just on purpose to get the people here to use the pass, instead of going by the roundabout way to ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout

... my knowledge of these matters. Why, then, depend upon it; mind what I say—depend upon it, they are certainly some of the rebel ladies, who, they say, travel with the young Chevalier; and have taken a roundabout way ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding



Words linked to "Roundabout way" :   road, route



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