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Scullion   /skˈəljən/   Listen
Scullion

noun
1.
A kitchen servant employed to do menial tasks (especially washing).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scullion" Quotes from Famous Books



... or after that he had trained John L. Sullivan, the world's champion prize fighter of his day, for one of his most successful fights, and that at a time when Sullivan was unfitted to fight any one. Before that, in succession, from youth up, he had been a peasant farmer's son in Ireland, a scullion in a ship's kitchen earning his way to America, a "beef slinger" for a packing company, a cooks' assistant and waiter in a Bowery restaurant, a bouncer in a saloon, a rubber down at prize fights, a policeman, a private in ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... CINDERELLA, the only scullion maid who had a small foot and two sisters in society. Historians have questioned her claims to fame, but they may easily be ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous

... sneered Francesco. "Shall I tell you in what Fortemani was wrong when he enlisted you? He was wrong in not hiring you for scullion duty in the ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini

... concerning her foible. Comely servant-maids might come for hire, but none were taken at Castlewood. The housekeeper was old; my lady's own waiting-woman squinted, and was marked with the small-pox; the housemaids and scullion were ordinary country wenches, to whom Lady Castlewood was kind, as her nature made her to everybody almost; but as soon as ever she had to do with a pretty woman, she was cold, retiring, and haughty. The country ladies found this fault in her; ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... top, Dunkirk and Silliman, mere lackeys, I saw my own future plainly enough. I saw myself crawling on year after year,—crawling one of two roads. Either I should become a political scullion, a wretched party hack, despising myself and despised by those who used me, or I should develop into a lackey's lackey or a plain lackey, lieutenant of a boss or a boss, so-called—a derisive name, ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... I never married her! Do you hear, Grant? I take you to witness; mark my words: we, that fellow's mother and I, were never married—by no law, Scotch, or French, or Dutch, or what you will! He's a damned bastard, and may go about his business when he pleases. Oh, yes! pray do! Marry your scullion when you please! You are your own master—entirely your own master!—free as the wind that blows to go where you will and do what you please! I wash my hands of you. You'll do as you please—will you? Then do, and please ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

... did not like to lose her time. Her plan of battle once formed, she recruited on her way all the little pastry cooks of the country, as well as all the tiny six-year-olds who had a sincere love for the noble callings of scullion and apprentice. There were plenty of these, as you may suppose, in the country of the Greedy; Mother Mitchel ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... foundation; and though the pedigrees of Radcliffe exhibit no failure of the family by the premature death of an heiress; though the last Richard de Radcliffe, who had daughters only, certainly did not make 'a scullion-boy the heir of all his land,' when he settled it on Radcliffe Baron Fitzwalter; though the blood actually pointed out on the kitchen floor, where this Thyestsean banquet is said to have been prepared, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... forward verge of which, lifted, like the oakum-pickers, some eight feet above the general throng, sat along in a row, separated by regular spaces, the cross-legged figures of six other blacks; each with a rusty hatchet in his hand, which, with a bit of brick and a rag, he was engaged like a scullion in scouring; while between each two was a small stack of hatchets, their rusted edges turned forward awaiting a like operation. Though occasionally the four oakum-pickers would briefly address some person or persons ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... son of a brother of Colbert. This mention of La Varenne brings to my recollection a very pleasant anecdote of his ancestor, the La Varenne so known in all the memoirs of the time as having risen from the position of scullion to that of cook, and then to that of cloak-bearer to Henry IV., whom he served in his pleasures, and afterwards in his state-affairs. At the death of the King, La Varenne retired, very old and very rich, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... unsavoury scullion," laughed Jocelyn; "thine ears, forsooth? Hark ye, of thy so great, so fair, so fine ears I'll incontinent make a song. List ye, one and all, so shall all here now hear my song of ears!" Forthwith Duke Jocelyn struck ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... come to this, that I, Athol Meldrum, of gentle birth and Highland breeding, must sue in vain to understudy a scullion in a third-rate hash joint. I am, indeed, fallen. What mad folly is this that sets me lower than a menial? Here I might be snug in the Northwest raising my own fat sheep. A letter home would bring me instant help. Yet what would it mean? To own defeat; to ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... immediate charge, had gone off to the galley, where we could see a light. There he found a belated cook scouring pans by the radiance of two lanterns, and one of these he sought to borrow. The scullion was backward. 'Was it one of the crew?' he asked. And when Jones, smitten with my theory, had assured him that it was a fireman, he reluctantly left his scouring and came towards us at an easy pace, with one of the lanterns swinging from his finger. The light, as it reached the spot, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the correct guttural note of wonder. He had learned what he wanted, and when the scullion turned he was gone. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... life. As for Simnel, when he was questioned, he revealed his real parentage; and being deemed too contemptible to be an object either of apprehension or resentment, Henry pardoned him, and made him first a scullion in the royal kitchen, and afterwards promoted him to the lofty position of ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... a very curt way with waiters; and the more obsequious they were, the haughtier he became; and a head-waiter was no more to him than a scullion. He gave loud-voiced orders in French of which both he and Sophia were proud, and a table was laid for them in a corner near one of the large windows. Sophia settled herself on the bench of green velvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which Gerald had given her. It was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... the Wisp." This personage is a strolling demon or esprit follet, who, once upon a time, got admittance into a monastery as a scullion, and played the monks many pranks. He was also a sort of Robin Goodfellow, and Jack o' Lanthern. It is in allusion to this mischievous demon that Milton's ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... one scullion bowed again, and kept on bowing, and then he said, "Please, your greatness, please, great lord, there is usually none in the kitchen but ourselves; but to-day there was a young Russian merchant, who sat on a stool in the corner and said ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome

... the palace, all the courtiers shook and trembled with fear down to the very scullion, and the King and Queen were in such a state of nervous collapse that they hid themselves in a far-away turret. Grannonia alone kept her presence of mind, and although both her father and mother implored her to fly for her life, she wouldn't ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... killed, and he himself made prisoner. Then he confessed that he was really a baker's son named Lambert Simnel; and, as he turned out to be a poor weak lad, whom designing people had made to do just what they pleased, the king took him into his kitchen as a scullion; and, as he behaved well there, afterwards set him to look after the falcons, that people used to keep to go out with to ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the reason. During his illness, I found means for one of my friends, the son of captain Juan Rubio, governor of the principality of Melfi, and formerly Perez's major-domo (which son, after having been page to Dona Juana Coello, was a scullion in the king's kitchens), to form an acquaintance with secretary Escovedo's cook, whom he saw every morning. Now, as they prepared for the sick man a separate broth, this scullion, taking advantage of a moment when nobody saw him, cast into it a thimble-full of a powder that Diego Martinez had given ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... this motive might be degraded by exaggeration and amplification. There are too many Moors in it (as also in Roland), and the sequel is reckless and extravagant, where William of Orange rides to the king's court for help and discovers an ally in the enormous scullion of the king's kitchen, Rainouart, the Morgante of French epic. Rainouart, along with William of Orange, was seen by Dante in Paradise. In his gigantic and discourteous way he was one of the champions of Christendom, and his manners ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... he was employed as a sort of scullion to be worked wherever he could make himself useful. Mr. Nawood engaged him on the recommendation of Mr. Lillyworth," added Flint, with something like a frown on his brow, as though he had ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic

... brought so close to each other. The heroic but dull-witted soldier acceded to his master’s request, and the incoherent, muddle-headed way in which he gave his autobiography was full of a dramatic and subtle humour—was almost worthy of him who in three or four words created the foolish fat scullion in ‘Tristram Shandy.’ This he refused to print, in deference, I suspect, to a theory of ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... may say to me what you will, but I shall not quit you whatever you may do, for I have vowed to King Arthur to relieve the lady in the castle, and I shall set her free or die fighting for her.' 'Fie on you, Scullion,' answered she. 'You will meet with one who will make you such a welcome that you would give all the broth you ever cooked never to have seen his face.' 'I shall do my best to fight him,' said ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... Seneschal and the Apparitor walked silently, each armed with an immense pole, as with a pike; after them the housekeeper stole through the hemp, with the scullion, a small but very strong lad. Arriving at the spot, they rested their poles against the rotted top of the pillar, and, clinging to the ends, pushed with all their might, as when boatmen with ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... word was proceeding either from the butler or the housekeeper, but that, on the contrary, the courtyard seemed to smack of a certain bustle and excitement. This was because through the entrance gates (which the kitchen maid and the scullion had run to open) there were appearing the noses of three horses—one to the right, one in the middle, and one to the left, after the fashion of triumphal groups of statuary. Above them, on the box seat, were seated a coachman and a valet, while behind, again, there could be ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... maid, abigail, soubrette; amah[obs3], biddy, nurse, bonne[Fr], ayah[obs3]; nursemaid, nursery maid, house maid, parlor maid, waiting maid, chamber maid, kitchen maid, scullery maid; femme de chambre[Fr], femme fille[Fr]; camarista[obs3]; chef de cuisine,cordon bleu[Fr], cook, scullion, Cinderella; potwalloper[obs3]; maid of all work, servant of all work; laundress, bedmaker[obs3]; journeyman, charwoman &c. (worker) 690; bearer, chokra[obs3], gyp [Cambridge], hamal[obs3], scout [Oxford]. serf, vassal, slave, negro, helot; bondsman, bondswoman[obs3]; bondslave[obs3]; ame damnee[Fr], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... while Steptoe listened quietly. There being no elements in it of the kind he called "shydy," he found it romantic. No one had ever suspected the longings for romance which had filled his heart and imagination when he was a poor little scullion boy; but the memory of them, with some of the reality, was still fresh in his hidden inner self. Now it seemed as if remotely and vicariously romance might be coming to him after all, through the boy ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... cruising down some river in the States on a certain winter, with a single companion, he was playing Scullion to the Cook of his more experienced comrade; and consequently what the other ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... Warner, Ord, and I, camped on the bank of the American River, abreast of the fort, at what was known as the "Old Tan-Yard." I was cook, Ord cleaned up the dishes, and Warner looked after the horses; but Ord was deposed as scullion because he would only wipe the tin plates with a tuft of grass, according to the custom of the country, whereas Warner insisted on having them washed after each meal with hot water. Warner was in consequence promoted ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Gottlieb," he commanded, and two of those waiting ran in haste towards the scullery of the place, from which they presently emerged dragging after them an old man partly in the habit of a monk and partly in that of a scullion, who wiped his hands on the coarse apron, that was tied around his waist, as ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... they fled, and then the door of the room opened, and a damsel appeared, and in her hands was a manchet of sour bread, and a beaker of water from the ditch of the moat. The damsel was evilly clad in rags, and seemed like a scullion-maid. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert

... on my Lord with a great Dish of Trouts, who meeting with company, commanded me to turne Scullion and dresse a Dinner of the Trouts wee had taken: whereupon I gave my Lord this Bill of fare, which I did furnish his Table with, according as it was furnished with flesh. Trouts in broth, which is restorative: Trouts broyled, cut and filled with ...
— The Art of Angling • Thomas Barker

... was from all eternity to sound an alarum call to arouse women from their lethargy, spending her days behind a counter attending to their trifling temporal wants! A Roland might as well have been asked to become cook, a Sir Galahad to turn scullion. Honest work is never disgraceful in itself. Indeed, "Better do to no end, than nothing!" But one regrets the pain and the waste when circumstances force men and women capable of great work to spend their energies in ordinary channels. A greater misery ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... are brought up on such a diet can no more attain to wisdom than a kitchen scullion can attain to a keen sense of smell or avoid stinking of the grease. With your indulgence, I will speak out: you—teachers —are chiefly responsible for the decay of oratory. With your well modulated and empty tones you have so labored for rhetorical effect that ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... me. The ladies declared that they never saw so old-fashioned a gawkey, and civilly recommended me to their abigails; the abigails turned me round with a stare, and then pushed me down to the kitchen and the fat scullion-maids, who assured me that, 'in the respectable families they had the honour to live in, they had never even heard of my name.' One young housemaid, just from the country, did indeed receive me with some sort of civility; but she very soon lost me in the servants' hall. I ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... living is wretched: only the first, and richest houses, can afford to entertain company, and those but seldom. It requires a large fortune to maintain a regular cook; in half the houses they have only a dirty scullion, who, among her other work, cooks the dinner. In the other half, a traiteur sends in the dinner; or if a bachelor, the master of the house dines at a table ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... that he withdrew from this gloomy little alley, intent on discovering who the inmate of the tiny room might be. He was told that it was a scullion called Donkey-skin because of the skin which she always wore, and that she was so dirty and unpleasant that no one took any notice of her, or even spoke to her; she had just been taken out of pity to look after ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault

... at the Museum,—the Sleeping Beauty, I think they called it. The old man's sudden breaking out in this way turned every face towards him, and each kept his posture as if changed to stone. Our Celtic Bridget, or Biddy, is not a foolish fat scullion to burst out crying for a sentiment. She is of the serviceable, red-handed, broad-and-high- shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... excellent shooting in the marshes. All the way to Florence we continued to meet them and their dogs; and our inn at Grossetto overflowed with abundance of game. On the kitchen floor and in the court were heaps of larks, pheasants, quails, and beccafichi, at which a troop of scullion-boys constantly plucked, and from which the great, noble, beautiful, white-aproned cook forever fried, stewed, broiled, and roasted. We lived chiefly upon these generous birds during our sojourn, and found, when we attempted to vary our bill ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... with wet fingers; for a child instantly touches whatever he sees. Moreover, the laity, who look at a book turned upside down just as if it were open in the right way, are utterly unworthy of any communion with books. Let the clerk take care also that the smutty scullion reeking from his stewpots does not touch the lily leaves of books, all unwashed, but he who walketh without blemish shall minister to the precious volumes. And, again, the cleanliness of decent hands would be of great benefit to books as well as scholars, if it ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... had never thought of. The mainstay of the establishment, she was not aware of her usefulness. Accepting every complaint and outbreak as if she deserved it, the poor girl lived at the capital a beautiful scullion, an unsalaried domestic, and daily forwarded the food to the table, led in the chamber work, rose from bed unrested and retired with all her bones aching. But she was of a natural grace that hard work could not make awkward; work only gave her bodily power, brawn, and form. Though no more ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... had charge of the camp, when he heard that Philip was dead, called up a couple of soldiers who were in the guard-house for getting drunk, and said to them, "You were drunk yesterday, and for a punishment I sentence you to bury the camp-scullion who ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin

... shoulders in front of her—a splendid pedestal for a beautiful head with luxuriant hair. Dolores turned around with a smirk of biting ridicule on her face. Beg pardon! Had all that been for her? When would that dirty scullion stop annoying a lady? Couldn't a person look at a parade without being insulted? And a glitter of gold sparkled with a wicked gleam in the pupils of ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... his Life, save at Chalfont, by Reason of the Parlour being so small. And the Words, both as to Sense and Choice, which Betty put into his Mouth, betrayed the Counterfeit, by favouring over-much of the Scullion. "God have Mercy, Betty! I see thou wilt perform according to thy Promise, in providing me such Dishes as I think fit whilst I live; and when I die, thou knowest I have left thee all!" Phansy Father talking like that! Were I not so provoked, I could laugh. And he to sell his ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning

... deeming it probable that the old duenna at present graced with that title in our house, had inspired her son with such enthusiasm of filial piety, as to induce him to fit up apartments expressly for her use, I concluded, in common with the cook, the two housemaids, and the kitchen-scullion, that a new and more juvenile Madame was destined to be the tenant ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... women of good family whose marriage prospects had been ruined by the war and who would wish to fit themselves scientifically for the business of hotel keeping. Each should be educated in every department from directrice to scullion. ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... calculations; the most singular disguises are quite familiar to him. In the course of the twenty-four hours, he is an officer of distinction and a journeyman hair-dresser, a shorn apostle and a scullion. He visits the dress-ball and the lowest sink of vice. At one time with a diamond ring on his finger, at another with the most filthy wig on his head, he almost changes his countenance as he does his apparel; and more than one of these mouchards would ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... poison, and suspicions that they had "curdled his bronze"; his visitations by spirits and angels, mark him as a man who trod the borderland of sanity. If he did not like a woman or she did not like him—the same thing—she was a troll, wench, scullion, punk, trollop or hussy. He had such a beautiful vocabulary of names for folks he did not admire, that the translator is constantly put to straits to produce a product that will not be excluded ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... court. As to the Duchess, she never sees him; and were it not for Trescorre, who has had the wit to stand well with both sides, I doubt if she would know more of what goes on about her husband than any scullion in ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... some sort of groaning reply, when Caradoc snarled, "Let 'em sting, you scullion! What if they do kill you! Is there any ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... ready to take as many more for the keeping them closed. I know our good Charles, and, by my blessed name-saint the Confessor, he shall learn that I know him. He sets his kingdom up to the best bidder, like some scullion farrier selling a glandered ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Each servant was at his post; and the occupations, interrupted during the past six weeks, resumed without confusion. As the count was known to have passed the day on the road, the dinner was served in advance of the usual hour. All the establishment, even to the lowest scullion, represented the spirit of the first article of the rules of the house, "Servants are not to ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... sympathise with my feelings at seeing an amateur scullion, who had distinguished himself greatly in the Balaklava charge, but who appeared to have no idea that boiling water would scald his fingers,—drop the top plate of a pile which he had placed in a tub before him. In spite of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... from Clare, and pocketed it, and the whole party went into the hall for breakfast. Here the entire family assembled, down to the meanest scullion-lad. Jennet took Clare's hand, and led her up to the high table, at which Mistress Rachel had already taken her seat, while Sir Thomas and Lady Enville were just entering ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt

... laughing till the tears ran. 'You have no business to be digging round like a slave when we are able to have what we like. Arthur said we were to keep up the place us he had done, and that does not mean that you should be a scullion. No, Dolly; have all the girls you want, and hold up your head with the best of them. Get a new silk gown, and return Mrs. Atherton's call at once, and take a card and turn down one corner or the other, I don't know which, but this girl of hers can tell you. Pump her dry as a powder horn; ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... observer in the landlord's daughter who left her pans, plates and platters to watch these preparations with round-eyed admiration. To her that temporary stage was surrounded by glamour and romance; a world remote from cook, scullion and maid of all work, and peopled with well-born dames, courtly ladies ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the arms of France: the French King and he were at that very minute supping together in Paris. They would be making treaties that were meant to be broken, and their statesmen were hatching plots that any scullion would reveal. Francis and his men were too mean, too silly, too despicable, and too easily bribed to hold to any union or to carry out ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... there. My sister Justina is scullion-maid at the Castle, and I am sure, from what she tells me, you wouldn't like to change ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt

... ballets. Lulli, born in 1633, was bought of his parents by Chevalier de Guise, and sent to Paris as a present to Mlle, de Montpensier, the king's niece. His capricious mistress, after a year or two, deposed the boy of fifteen from the position of page to that of scullion; but Count Nogent, accidentally hearing him sing and struck by his musical talent, influenced the princess to place him under the care of good masters. Lulli made such rapid progress that he soon commenced to compose music of a style superior to that before ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris

... to the head scullion, soldier," said the queen, "and tell her to make her useful. If she should find out she has been pretending to be lost, she must let ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald

... it not be a dishonour to thee to see the very boys and girls in the country to have more wit than thyself? It may be the servants of some men, as the horsekeeper, ploughman, scullion, &c., are more looking after heaven than their masters. I am apt to think sometimes, that more servants than masters, that more tenants than landlords, will inherit the kingdom of heaven. But is not this a shame for them that are such? I am persuaded you scorn, that your servants should ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... fiend in the infernal abyss to escape from his prison-house and reinforce our enemies—still, fairest, having received in thee a pearl of matchless price, my spurs shall be hacked from my heels by the basest scullion, if I turn my horse's head to the rear before the utmost force these ruffians can assemble, either upon earth or from underneath it. In thy name I defy them ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... well, that lacquer suit, Base flunkey as thou art! Though bright, it never covered brain; Though gilded, ne'er a heart! Rather than wear upon my back Such livery as thine, I'd earn an honest crust, and make The scullion's calling mine." ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... that of a lake; so we sheered close alongside, and hailed, to ask the distance we still were from our port. None of the officers of the Volage could speak a word of Hindustanee; and I well remember our feeling of humiliation when a poor scullion, one of the cook's assistants, belonging to the governor's suite, was dragged on deck, with all his grease and other imperfections on his head, to act as interpreter. Sad work he made of it; for, though the fellow had been in the East on some ten or twelve former ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... old plaid shawl, crossed over her bosom, and tied behind her back. This hag seemed possessed with a demon. She had tucked up her half-torn sleeves; in one hand she brandished a stick, in the other she grasped a huge stone; her companions called her Ciboule (scullion). ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... believe, among many other institutions of that kind, the Building before us is one. It contains many handsome rooms and commodious offices; but, as for offices, every street and every alley abounds with them, and, now-a-days, if you want to hire a Cook or a Scullion, you have nothing to do but to send a letter to a Register-office, and you are suited in a twinkling. It was an excellent idea, and I remember the old Buck who used to call himself the founder of establishments of that nature, or rather the first introducer of them ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... but the' driver could give them no information whatever. They sent him over the hotel to question all the people, but this search was as vain as the others had been. There was no one in the hotel, from the big landlord down to the scullion, who could tell anything at ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... foolish as to wish their favourite artist to play before kings and queens? Seldom, if ever, do these Royal people understand music,—still less do they understand the musician! Believe me, I have been treated as the veriest scullion by these jacks-in-office; and that I still permit myself to play before them is a duty I owe to this Brotherhood,—because it deepens and sustains my bond with you all. There is no king on the face of the earth who has dignity and nobleness of character enough to command my respect,—much less ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... have said of it, as of Cyrano de Bergerac's best—'This is mine.' Richelieu himself was not more complete when he wrote to the princess waiting for him in the Palais Royal—'Stay there, my queen, to charm the scullion lads.' At the same time, Charles Edward's humor is less biting. I am not sure that this kind of wit was known among the Greeks and Romans. Plato, possibly, upon a closer inspection approaches it, but from the austere and ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac

... distinguished guests there. When the palace was very full of visitors, old Pisano was sometimes hired to help the servants with their tasks, and the boy Canova, when he was twelve years old, sometimes did scullion's work there, also, for a day, when ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston

... had an hypocrisy of their own, too; but it was of a coarse order, such as could deceive few. Whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions, they brought it out with a careless ease and breadth altogether untroubled by the rebuke of conscience. Not a soul in Madame Beck's house, from the scullion to the directress herself, but was above being ashamed of a lie; they thought nothing of it: to invent might not be precisely a virtue, but it was the most venial of faults. "J'ai menti plusieurs fois," formed an item of every girl's and woman's monthly confession: ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... muddy coffee, greasy fish and soggy biscuit, I made some Johnny cake, boiled a little rice and raisins and baked a fish for a change instead of frying it. His turn to cook never came again. He suggested himself that he would be woodchopper and scullion and let me do the cooking. I readily agreed and found that it was only half as much work ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... did.' 'Then let Cat-skin come up,' said the king: and when she came he said to her, 'Who are you?' 'I am a poor child,' said she, 'that has lost both father and mother.' 'How came you in my palace?' asked he. 'I am good for nothing,' said she, 'but to be scullion-girl, and to have boots and shoes thrown at my head.' 'But how did you get the ring that was in the soup?' asked the king. Then she would not own that she knew anything about the ring; so the king sent her away again ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm

... ridiculous as hope ebbed away, and the appalling idea began to grow on him of being cast loose on London without a friend or protector. Ambrose felt almost despairing as he heard in vain the last name. He would almost have been willing to own Hal the scullion, and his hopes rose when he heard of Hodge Randolph, the falconer, but alas, that same ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... service, of whom Dr. Caius wrote that "when any meat is to be roasted they go into a wheel, where they, turning about with the weight of their bodies, so diligently look to their business that no drudge nor scullion can do the feat more cunningly, whom the popular sort hereupon term Turnspits." Certainly the dog commonly used in this occupation was long of body and short of leg, very much resembling ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... shall find them paved Like to the Perfect City, with pure gold. Ye know the world! what was a London waif To Hugh Fitzwarren's daughter? He was fed And harboured; and the cook declared she lacked A scullion. So, in Hugh Fitzwarren's house, He turned the jack, and scoured the dripping-pan. How could he hope for more? This marchaunt's house Was builded like a great high-gabled inn, Square, with a galleried courtyard, such ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... house-maids. Meeson and Welsby then made life a painful thing for the five under-footmen and the grooms, while the nine house-maids boxed the ears of Whelpdale the Buttons, and Whelpdale the Buttons punched the scullion's eye. As for the scullion, he was bottom of the list; but he could always relieve his feelings by secretly pulling the tails of Sir Godfrey's two tame ravens, whose names were Croak James and Croak Elizabeth. I never knew what these birds did at that; but something, you may ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister

... for me to talk big o' myself. But I've been over thirty year 'board a British man-o'-war—more'n one o' 'em—an' if I wan't able to go mate in a merchanter, I ought to be condemned to be cook's scullion for the rest o' my days. If your honour thinks me worthy o' bein' made first officer o' the Condor, I'll answer for it she won't stray far out o' her course while my ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... Baptist Lulli, a Florentine, died in 1687, aged 53. In his youth he was an under-scullion in the kitchen of Madame de Montpensier, niece to Louis XIV. The discovery of his musical genius led to his becoming the King's Superintendent of Music, and one of the most influential composers that has ever lived. He composed the occasional music for Moliere's comedies, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... spiritual Fenelon never suspected where this friendship was to lead. Even when Madame Guyon slipped into his simple, little household as a servant under an assumed name, he was inwardly guileless. This proud woman with the domineering personality now wore wooden shoes and the garb of a scullion. She scrubbed the floors, did laundry-work, cooked, even worked in the garden looking after the vegetables and the flowers, that she might ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... prophesying, interpreting, talking unknown tongues, working miraculous cures, coming down with messages from God to the House of Commons. We have seen an old woman, with no talents beyond the cunning of a fortune-teller, and with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophetess, and surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted followers, many of whom were, in station and knowledge, immeasurably her superiors; and all this in the nineteenth century; and all this in London. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Soyer who combined the functions of intendant, maitre d'hotel and valet-de-chambre at Tournebut. Soyer was born at Combray, one of the Marquise's estates in Lower Normandy, and entered her service in 1791, at the age of sixteen, in the capacity of scullion. He had gone with his mistress to Rouen during the Terror, and since the return to Tournebut she had given the administration of the estate into his hands. In this way he had authority over the domestics ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... Club was formed in New York it consisted of a group of men (I was its scullion for seven years, its entire life, and, being thus an honored servant, was familiar with its many affairs) who represented at the time the leading spirits of the different schools: William M. Chase, Arthur Quartley, Swain Gifford, A. B. Frost, George Maynard, Frank D. Millet, Alden Weir, Edwin ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith

... were a pair of shoes, would stick in straws to keep his place, or stuff it with violets and rose-leaves, and would very likely eat fruit or cheese over one page and set a cup of ale on the other. An impudent boy would scribble across the text, the copyist would try his pen on a blank space, a scullion would turn the pages with unwashed hands, or a thief might cut out the fly-leaves and margins to use in writing his letters; 'and all these various negligences,' he adds, ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... the one who had the greatest experience in culinary affairs, I was charged with the arrangement of the dinner, supported by a young student, and by the intense interest of the whole colony. I am sure that neither I nor my dear scullion have ever in our lives before or after worked as hard for two days in the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... disturbed in the former difficult circumstances; and in this, for a little and to a certain extent, poor Cat had the happiness to share. He did not alter the style of his establishment, which consisted, as before, of herself and a small person who acted as scourer, kitchen-wench, and scullion; Mrs. Catherine always putting her hand to the principal pieces of the dinner; but he treated his mistress with tolerable good-humour; or, to speak more correctly, with such bearable brutality as might be expected ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me—poor girl! I'd like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... doing things upon principle—upon a grand scale. But a pimp is a thing that defiles itself for another—a pipkin that is put on the fire for another man's pottage! a napkin, that every guest wipes his hands upon! and the scullion says, "by your leave" too. A pimp! I would rather he had called me parricide! But the man was drunk, and did not know what he said; and, besides, I disguised myself. Had he seen it had been Sosia who addressed him, it would have been "honest Sosia!" ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... Mr. Blake put up all these plates and dishes?' observed Audrey, feeling as much surprised as an Athenian damsel would have been if she had heard of Apollo turning scullion. ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... see myself with it. Explain it as you will, I see myself with an order. I see it all, exactly as if I were there—the Swiss guard with his white stockings and the halbard, and the little milliner's assistants and the scullion lined up staring." ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... not so fast with your praises of the senora scullion, unless you wish that, besides thinking you a fool, I take you for a heretic into ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Wilson has been President, America has been afflicted with what might be called the Professors' Age. The professors in the Y certainly had the pull. If a kitchen was opened in Flanders, a professor of chemistry was the director in charge; a chef was no better than a kitchen scullion. If a tooth was to be pulled, a professor of anatomy performed the operation because he knew the root from the crown, while a dentist handled freight in a warehouse. A professor of mathematics was put in charge of motor vehicles, while a machinist arranged the programme for a vocal concert. A professor ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... 'Religio Medici,' and his 'Urn-burial,' or to Jeremy Taylor's inaugural sections of his 'Holy Living and Dying,' do you know what would have happened? Are you aware what sort of ridiculous figure your poor bald Jonathan would have cut? About the same that would be cut by a forlorn scullion or waiter from a greasy eating-house at Rotterdam, if suddenly called away in vision to act as seneschal to the festival of Belshazzar the king, before a thousand ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey

... and followed them. Quincy sat and thought. The picture that his mind drew placed the woman who had just left his room in a large house, with servants at her command. She was the head of the household, but no menial nor scullion. She did not work, because he was able and willing to support her. She did not vote, because she felt with him that at home was her sphere of usefulness; and then Quincy thought that what would make this possible was money, money that not he but others had earned, and he knew ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... her master. A few days afterwards (on the 31st of March, 1578) the deed was accomplished at nightfall in the streets of Madrid, by six conspirators. They consisted of the majordomo of Perez, a page in his household, the page's brother from the country, an ex-scullion from the royal kitchens, Juan Rubio by name, who had been the unsuccessful agent in the poisoning scheme, together with two professional bravos, hired for the occasion. It was Insausti, one of this last-mentioned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... befell that Earl Godrich's cook, Bertram, wanted a scullion, and took Havelok into his service. There was plenty to eat and plenty to do. Havelok drew water and chopped wood, and brought twigs to make fires, and carried heavy tubs and dishes, but was always merry and blythe. Little children loved to play with him; and grown knights and nobles would stop ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... assumed the Queen's shape, went up to the child's room, tucked him up comfortably in his cradle, and then swam back down the gutter again, in the likeness of a Duck. This was repeated for two nights, and on the third the Duck said to the Scullion: ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... before he felt a tap on his back from the handle of a whip. He turned hastily and saw behind him a short, thick-set man, who had noiselessly entered from a side room,—an apparition which seemed to terrify the hostess, the cook, and the scullion. The landlord turned pale when he saw the intruder, who shook back the hair which concealed his forehead and eyes, raised himself on the points of his toes to reach the other's ears, and said to him in a whisper: "You know the cost ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac

... within his quarters Mrs. Truscott's soldier servant, an old cavalryman whose infirmities had made him glad, long since, to exchange the functions of a trooper for those of general messenger, bootblack, and scullion on better pay and rations. He had come in from the rear. He held ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... of them, shaking off their oppression, 'If there come not soon a famine to wipe out this hideous tribe, we shall be eaten by beggars within four days! To the merry bridal pair, what hast thou to say, old scullion?' And they continue to taunt him cruelly. The outraged peasant holds his peace. 'With his blear eyes, his white pate, his limping leg, whither comes he trudging? Pelican, bird of ill omen, go to thy hole and hide thy sorry face.' The stranger swallows their insults, and casts ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... Captain snarled back, for the benefit of the watch as it struggled to capture the flying sail before it tore to ribbons. "You couldn't make your grandmother fast, you useless hell's scullion. If you made that sheet fast with an extra turn, why in hell didn't it stay fast? That's what I want to know. Why in ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... our help well and they seldom leave us. I'm sure no woman employed in this hotel, down to the lowest kitchen scullion, has resigned or been discharged during the last ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... the simplest thing, without giving it a turn, a twist, a lift, a lightness, a grace, that would redeem the very grease-spots on a scullion's apron! ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... published in 1586. As Dr. Ward points out, it is a variant of the old romance of Havelok. Edel, with a view to disinheriting his niece Argentile, heir to Diria (?Deira), of which he is regent, seeks to marry her to a base scullion. This menial, however, is really Curan, prince of Danske, who has sought the court in disguise, in the hope of obtaining the love of the princess, who is mewed up from intercourse with the world. Of this Argentile is ignorant, and when ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... twenty years! By the Gospel, it was black ingratitude that the son of Costantin should be set apart for their priesthood, be made an Englishman, a grand khawajah, whilst Iskender was offered employment—mark the kindness!—as a scullion and a sweeper in their house—Iskender, who had been their favourite till a ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall

... was mostly confined to the fireside and table. But in our age—the age of joint-stock companies and free-and-easies—it is with this precious quality as with precious gold in old Peru, which Pizarro found making up the scullion's sauce-pot as the Inca's crown. Yes, we golden boys, the moderns, have geniality everywhere—a bounty broadcast ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville

... the accident at the shoemaker's, he was placed with a designer and painter of ikons. But "here he could not get on"; his master treated him too harshly, and his pluck failed him. This time he found himself a place, and succeeded in getting on board one of the Volga steamboats as a scullion. ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald

... blood, had granted his desire, and given him into the charge of Sir Key, the steward. But Sir Key scorned and mocked the youth, calling him Beaumains, because his hands were large and fair, and putting him into the kitchen, where he had served for twelve months as a scullion, and, in spite of all his churlish treatment, had faithfully obeyed Sir Key. But Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain were angered when they saw Sir Key so churlish to a youth that had so worshipful a bearing, and ofttimes had they ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... light. Below, among the lesser buildings, the day was still gray and misty. Only an occasional noise broke the silence of the early morning: a cough from one of the rooms; the rattle of a pot or a pan, stirred by some sleepy scullion; the clapping of a door or a shutter, and now and then the crowing of a cock back of the long row of stables—all sounding loud and startling in ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... the rooms and along the corridors towards the refectory. He sat looking at the two prints of butter on his plate but could not eat the damp bread. The tablecloth was damp and limp. But he drank off the hot weak tea which the clumsy scullion, girt with a white apron, poured into his cup. He wondered whether the scullion's apron was damp too or whether all white things were cold and damp. Nasty Roche and Saurin drank cocoa that their people sent them in tins. They said they could not drink the tea; that it ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce

... had fallen—king and courtier, queen and lady and page and scullion, hawk and hound, slept a sleep past waking—"while I, roamed and roam yet in a solitary watch beyond all sleeping. Wherefore, sir, I only of the most hospitable house in these lands am awake to bid you welcome. But as for that, a few dwindling and harsh ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare

... touch-stone of beauty, for he would take the most beautiful to wife and endow her with a kingdom. Now, when this news was spread abroad, there was not a woman in the universe who did not come to try her luck—not a witch, however ugly, who stayed behind; for when it is a question of beauty, no scullion-wench will acknowledge herself surpassed; every one piques herself on being the handsomest; and if the looking-glass tells her the truth she blames the glass for being untrue, and the quicksilver for being ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... perhaps, he thought little enough at the time.' This remark applies with peculiar force to Philip II. of Spain, to his secretary, Antonio Perez, to the steward of Perez, to his page, and to a number of professional ruffians. All of these, from the King to his own scullion, were concerned in the slaying of Juan de Escovedo, secretary of Philip's famous natural brother, Don John of Austria. All of them, in different degrees, had bitter reason to regret a deed which, at the moment, seemed a ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... was set at work doing scullion's duty at the hulks—a situation which I filled to the satisfaction not only of myself, but to the officers who had charge of me. I got plenty to eat, for I looked out for that, and I think that I should have served out my time with ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... lady, don't flash up so! I was only talking with Nania about how Phryne the scullion maid was making eyes ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... memory, twenty years back, anything of a terrific Spectre walking in the Berlin Palace, for certain nights, during that "Stralsund Expedition" or famed Swedish-War time, to the terror of mankind? Terrific Spectre, thought to be in Swedish pay,—properly a spy Scullion, in a small concern of Grumkow VERSUS Creutz? [Antea, vol. v. pp. 356-358; Wilhelmina.] This is the same Creutz; of whom we have never spoken more, nor shall again, now that his rich Daughter is well married to Hacke, a favorite of his Majesty's ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... more distinctly in Blackwood, bidding the young apothecary "back to his gallipots!" It is not pleasant to be talked down upon by your inferiors who happen to have the advantage of position, nor to be drenched with ditchwater, though you know it to be thrown by a scullion in ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... butter, cheese and fish And many another wholesome dish. He kept a Butcher all the yeere, A Brewer eke for Ale and Beere; A Baker for to bake his Bread, Which stood his hushold in good stead. Five Cookes within his kitchin great Were all the yeare to dress his meat. Six Scullion boyes vnto their hands, To make clean dishes, pots and pans, Beside poore children that did stay To turne the broaches every day. The old man that did see this sight Was much amaz'd, as well he might: This was a gallant Cloathier sure, Whose fame forever ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... women. In one picture you may see the careful housewife mournfully inspecting a moth-eaten garment which she has just taken from a chest that Wardour Street might envy; in another she is energetically cuffing the 'foolish fat scullion,' who has let the spotted Dalmatian coach-dog overturn the cauldron at the fire. Here an old crone, with her spectacles on, is cautiously probing the contents of the said cauldron with a fork; here the mistress of the house is peeling pears; here the plump and soft-hearted cheese-wife ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... likewise the six candles held by the inhabitants of the hostelry des Medici; that is to say, two for Cropole, two for Pittrino, and one for each scullion. Cropole never ceased repeating, "How good-looking the king is! How strongly he ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... talked with his wife and she answered him, with every word a toad leaped out, whereas formerly a piece of gold had fallen out. Then he asked what that could be, but the old woman said that she had got that from the violent perspiration, and would soon lose it again. During the night, however, the scullion saw a duck come swimming up ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... has been brought up like a scullion boy; he has strange whimsies, of which he is quite aware himself, but which he cannot control. His wife is a charming woman, and is much to be pitied for being in fear of her life from this madman, who often threatens her with loaded pistols. Fortunately, ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... scullion, who had grown familiar with him, having offered him some insults, he warned the head cook of it, who made light of it, or thought nothing about it; but the spirit avenged himself cruelly. This youth having ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... Stedman informs me that your Ladyship does not keep either a cook, or a housekeeper, and that you only require a girl who can cook a mutton chop. If so, I apprehend that Mary Stedman, or any other scullion, will be found fully equal to cook for, or manage the establishment ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton



Words linked to "Scullion" :   retainer, servant



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