"Hindmost" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little Stadtholder drilled his soldiers in small bodies of various shapes, teaching them to turn, advance; retreat; wheel in a variety of ways, sometimes in considerable masses, sometimes man by man, sending the foremost suddenly to the rear, or bringing the hindmost ranks to the front, and began to attempt all this in narrow fields as well as in wide ones, and when the enemy was in sight, men stood aghast at his want of reverence, or laughed at him as a pedant. But there came a day when they did not laugh, neither friends nor enemies. Meantime the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his cloak about him with an impatient gesture. "That's true," he answered, "the Spaniards hold by Spain, and all the Hanse merchants by one another, but our English go every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. I speak freely to you, friend, because you have cast in your lot with us West Country folk and are content to be ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... hindmost burier. "We entered yon large house, the door of which stood open, and in one of the rooms found, an old woman in a fainting state, and the body of this young girl, wrapped in a sheet, and ready for the cart. So we clapped it on the board, and ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... distinguish himself, galloped out with the keenest of the troopers and charged the Vitellians, inflicting only slight loss; for, on the arrival of reinforcements, the tables were turned and those who had been hottest in pursuit were now hindmost in the rout. Their haste had no sanction from Antonius, who had foreseen what would happen. Encouraging his men to engage with brave hearts, he drew off the cavalry on to each flank and left a free ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... Author, compositor, and proof-reader were evidently engaged in a "stampede,"—the (Printer's) Devil having strict orders to make seizure of the hindmost. Part of a Spanish poem, borrowed, without acknowledgment, from Prescott, seems to have gone to "pie" on the imposing-stone, and been suffered to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... that the front of his army, and such as were in sight of the enemy, should form as if ready to engage, and those in the rear should cast up the trenches and fortify the camp; so that the hindmost in succession wheeling off by degrees and withdrawing, their whole order was insensibly broken up, and the army ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... rhyme-composing billie! Your native soil was right ill-willie; [unkind] But may ye flourish like a lily, Now bonnilie! I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, [last gill] ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... leaped into Will's eyes. "There's others," he cried. "Come on, and bad luck to the hindmost! Joe's safe. He can get clear by the south trail. They can't follow that way. I'm for the ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... and missed the animal, which rushed forward; the courier's pistol, however, brought it down, just as he was springing on the hindmost horses. ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... used surely in the former age to lie back on a couch handsomely spread, am now thrust among the hindmost and driven from ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... times, and lyeth behind as many, and twice in every other place; the two Bells in the 3d. and 4th. places continue dodging, when the Treble moves out of the 4th. place, until it comes down there again, and then the two hindmost dodge, till the Treble displaceth them; who maketh every double Change, except when it lieth behind, and then the double is on the four first, and on the four last when it leads. Every single (except when the Treble lies there) is in the 5th. and 6th. places; or if possessed by ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... and in many an evening hour, when no one dreamed of it, my soul was steeped in deep humility, as I sate between these great spirits. The different periods of my life passed before me; the time when I sate on the hindmost bench in the box of the female figurantes, as well as that in which, full of childish superstition, I knelt down there upon the stage and repeated the Lord's Prayer, just before the very place where I now sate among the first and the most distinguished men. At the time, perhaps, when a ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... drawback to worry us like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost'; that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done for before you know it. I've seen a good deal of this sort of thing, and hope you'll get on better than some do, when it's known that you are the rich ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... to the order of words, Folly for its advantage is put in the last place. Thus Ecclesiastes wrote, and thus indeed did an ecclesiastical method require; namely, that what has the precedence in dignity should come hindmost in rank and order, according to the tenor of that evangelical precept, The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was author of the holy book which bears that name) in the ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour. Now-a-days they give up gentleness and are all for being bold; economy, and are all for being liberal; the hindmost place, and seek only to be foremost;—(of all which the end ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... drove the Greeks, while Hector in the van Advanced, death menacing in every look. As some fleet hound close-threatening flank or haunch 390 Of boar or lion, oft as he his head Turns flying, marks him with a steadfast eye, So Hector chased the Grecians, slaying still The hindmost of the scatter'd multitude. But when, at length, both piles and hollow foss 395 They had surmounted, and no few had fallen By Trojan hands, within their fleet they stood Imprison'd, calling each to each, and prayer With lifted hands, loud offering to the Gods. With Gorgon looks, meantime, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... triumph, dark-brow'd Nina? Is my secret known to thee? On the sands of yon arena I shall yet my vengeance see. Now through portals fast careering Picadors are disappearing; Now the barriers nimbly clearing Has the hindmost chulo flown. Clots of dusky crimson streaking, Brindled flanks and haunches reeking, Wheels the wild bull, vengeance seeking, On the matador alone. Features by sombrero shaded, Pale and passionless and cold; Doublet richly laced ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... escorted, in the language of the time, the Fortune of Scotland. He now led the van, now checked his bounding steed till the rear had come up, exhorted the leaders to keep a steady, though rapid pace, and commanded those who were hindmost of the party to use their spurs, and allow no interval to take place in their line of march; and anon he was beside the Queen, or her ladies, inquiring how they brooked the hasty journey, and whether they had any commands for him. But while Seyton thus busied himself in the general cause ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... must be taken from the hindmost Part of the Right Heel to the Left Heel near the Ancle. The Point of the Right Foot must be opposite to the Adversary's, turning out the Point of the Left Foot, and bending the Left Knee over the Point of the same Foot, keeping the Right Knee a ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... retreating army fell into his hands. Gonzalo hanged such of his prisoners as were most obnoxious to him, and continued the pursuit of the flying royalists with the utmost diligence, through difficult and almost impracticable roads, where no provisions could be procured, always coming up with some of the hindmost of the enemy. Gonzalo likewise sent on several Indians with letters to the principal officers who served under the viceroy, urging them to put him to death, and offering them their pardons for the past and to give them high rewards. He ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... Robespierre proving unsuccessful he committed suicide; his body was afterwards found on the Landes of Bordeaux half devoured by wolves; was surnamed the "Virtuous," as Robespierre the "Incorruptible"; was of the Girondist party; had "unalterable beliefs, not hindmost of them," says Carlyle, "belief ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... caused us a five miles' gallop, and our horses a white sweat, to come up with the hindmost, a young cow, which fell, bored by a bullet from ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... often with fatal results. The best of butchers deserve to be rated with the Amalekites, they are accustomed to blood and cruelty; as it is written of the Amalekites, 'How he met thee by the way and smote the hindmost of thee, and that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... heel, as lustily as I could. My father, anxious to keep sight of me yet not lose the hounds, pulled in a little, and the hunted animal, in hopes of finding cover, made toward a wood. Being prevented from entering it, he skirted along its sides, and turning the corner, the hindmost sportsmen followed by a ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... quit the stage; And to an age less polished, more unskilled, Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield. As with the greater dead he dares not strive, He would not match his verse with those who live: Let him retire, betwixt two ages cast, The first of this, and hindmost of the last. A losing gamester, let him sneak away; He bears no ready money from the play. The fate, which governs poets, thought it fit He should not raise his fortunes by his wit. The clergy thrive, and the litigious bar; Dull heroes fatten ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... or we should not have seen it, the weather was so thick. But all went well till we had come thirteen and a half miles. Then Hanssen had to cross a crevasse a yard wide, and in doing it he was unlucky enough to catch the point of his ski in the traces of the hindmost dogs, and fall right across the crevasse. This looked unpleasant. The dogs were across, and a foot or two on the other side, but the sledge was right over the crevasse, and had twisted as Hanssen fell, so that a little more would bring ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... third time in a wrecked ship, stranded on a wild, sandy shore. The overloaded boats were making away from him for the land, and he alone was left to sink with the ship. I cried to him to hail the hindmost boat, and to make a last effort for his life. The quiet face looked at me in return, and the unmoved voice gave me back the changeless reply. "Another step on the journey. Wait and look. The Sea which drowns the rest will ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... of contention gets among them, it is no fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good strong sharp axe, and break open my strong box. Let them scramble for what it contains, and the devil seize the hindmost." The people of Auvergne still recount with admiration the daring feats of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... on, meeting now and then a string of asses, their panniers filled with stones or with wood for Carmona; the drivers sat on the rump of the hindmost animal, for that is the only comfortable way to ride a donkey. A peasant trotted briskly by on his mule, his wife behind him with her arms about his waist. I saw a row of ploughs in a field; to each were attached two oxen, and they went along heavily, one behind ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... blameless spouse A suppliant under holy boughs, The gentle darling of his heart, He thus to Lakshman spake apart: "Brother, by thee our way be led; Let Sita close behind thee tread: I, best of men, will grasp my bow, And hindmost of the three will go. What fruits soe'er her fancy take, Or flowers half hidden in the brake, For Janak's child forget not thou To gather from ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... went galloping, galloping; Legs and arms a' walloping, walloping; De'il take the hindmost, quo' Duncan M'Calapin, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... trip, my friend, and you won't talk of penitentiary so—easily." The quietness with which he spoke did not rob his words of their significance. Then he went on, just a shade more sharply. "Now, see here. When that freight gets in I hold you responsible that the hindmost car—next the caboose—is dropped here, and the seals are intact. It's billed loaded with barrels of cube sugar, for Calford. Get me? That's your duty just now. See ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... there waited glad bustle and strife; love itself, an emulous game; religion, a cause and a controversy, well smitten and well defended; men governed by reasons and suasion of speech; wheels going, steam buzzing—a mortal race, and a slashing pace, and the devil taking the hindmost—taking me, by Jove (for that was my inner care), if I lingered too long upon the difficult pass that leads from thought ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... To the hindmost wall of the scene an upper story could be added; whenever, for instance, it was wished to represent a tower with a wide prospect, or the like. Behind the great middle entrance there was a space for the Exostra, a machine of a semicircular form, and covered above, which represented the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... quivered, the water leapt at the bow as if it would engulf us; our three men were obviously too few. The boat danced in the rapid. My men on board shrieked excitedly that the towrope was fouling—it had caught in a rock—but their voices could not be heard; our trackers were brought to with a jerk; the hindmost saw the foul and ran back to free it, but he was too late, for the boat had come beam on to the current. Our captain frantically waved to let go, and the next moment we were tossed bodily into the cataract. The boat heeled gunwale under, ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... hundred others, to be sorted and boxed for the journey. A white-haired official, with a stick under one arm and a list in the other hand, stood apart in front of us, and called name after name in the tone of a command. At each name you would see a family gather up its brats and bundles and run for the hindmost of the three cars that stood awaiting us, and I soon concluded that this was to be set apart for the women and children. The second, or central car, it turned out, was devoted to men travelling alone, and the third to the Chinese. The official was easily moved to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... machines, scarcely known as yet to the Italians, weighed nearly six thousand pounds. After the cannons came culverins sixteen feet long, and then falconets, the smallest of which shot balls the size of a grenade. This formidable artillery brought up the rear of the procession, and formed the hindmost guard ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... coming close. Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in the transparent tissue as in an aviary. Angel's eye at last fell upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed laughter at their dilemma, could not help meeting his ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... out in single file, but kept bunched together. Indeed, this came through no accident, but there was a method in their madness; because, you see, no fellow would want to be the hindmost in the file. ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... protect it from avalanches at the crossing of a raving cataract down the mountain side. And still the staving pace at which we started was kept up by those on the lead, and imitated by the boy driving our carriage, which was hindmost of all. I was just thinking that, though every one should know his own business best, yet if I were to drive down a steep mountain in that way I should expect to break my neck, and suspect I deserved it, when, as ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... thus conversed, in a tone so full of contraband anxiety and so free from lover's jealousy, the men who followed him had been descending one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened that when the hindmost took his leap, the cord slipped which sustained his tubs: the result was that both the kegs fell into the road, one of them being ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... heads appeared bobbing along, and finally disappeared. Dale caught a glimpse of skulking coyotes that evidently had been stalking the turkeys, and as they saw him and darted into the timber he took a quick shot at the hindmost. His bullet struck low, as he had meant it to, but too low, and the coyote got only a dusting of earth and pine-needles thrown up into his face. This frightened him so that he leaped aside blindly to butt into a tree, rolled over, gained his feet, and then ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... understanding between it and himself. They now had races of all sorts and daily. Hurdles had given place to great hedges and ditches, which most of the animals distinguished themselves in leaping. Monty was still the hindmost in everything, yet showed his pluck in sticking to his saddle at all risks, and sometimes with ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... Eeduck!" roared the boy, aiming a shot at the leader's left ear, and bringing the thick end of the whip down on the flanks of the six hindmost dogs. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... little angels—in this chapel are believed to be by Gaudenzio, and if they are, they are probably among his first essays, but they are lighted from above, and the spectator looks down on them, so that the dust shows, and they can hardly be fairly judged. The hindmost shepherd— the one with his hand to his heart and looking up, is the finest figure; the Virgin herself is also very good, but she ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... "Yes, the devil usually takes the hindmost,—so I've been told. Miss Larpent anyway is quite safe, for she will always ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... defense, and the positions we hold will be insecure. Suddenly happening upon a powerful foe, we shall be brought to battle in a flurried condition, and no mutual support will be possible between wings, vanguard or rear, especially if there is any great distance between the foremost and hindmost divisions ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... first selected the highest hill the neighbourhood affords, well covered with slippery frozen snow, two individuals who purpose forming the freight of the toboggin pose themselves, the foremost holding the reins, which, however, are more for effect than use, sitting between the feet of the hindmost traveller, who ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... poop, afterpart[obs3], heelpiece[obs3], crupper. wake; train &c. (sequence) 281. reverse; other side of the shield. V. be behind &c. adv.; fall astern; bend backwards; bring up the rear. Adj. back, rear; hind, hinder, hindmost, hindermost[obs3]; postern, posterior; dorsal, after; caudal, lumbar; mizzen, tergal[obs3]. Adv. behind; in the rear, in the background; behind one's back; at the heels of, at the tail of, at the back ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... my wighty men, Sa fast as ze can drie; For he that is hindmost of the thrang Sall neir get guid ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... through an open spot; now flat on the stomach, until Crittenden saw a wire fence stretching ahead. Followed another wait. And then a squad of negro troopers crossed the road, going to the right, and diagonally. The bullets rained about them, and they scuttled swiftly into the brush. The hindmost one dropped; the rest kept on, unseeing; but Crittenden saw a Lieutenant—it was Sharpe, whom he had met at home and at Chickamauga—look back at the soldier, who was trying to raise himself on his elbow—while the bullets seemed literally to ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... front, when we met a number of children returning from school, who, on getting near us, turned, ran away, and even jumped into the ditches, screaming as they ran. The mago ran after them, caught the hindmost boy, and dragged him back—the boy scared and struggling, the man laughing. The boy said that they thought that Ito was a monkey-player, i.e. the keeper of a monkey theatre, I a big ape, and the poles of my bed the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... but griefe stopt vp her breath, For me (quoth she) my Loue is done to death, And shall I liue, sighes stopt her hindmost word, When speechlesse vp she tooke the bloudy sword, And then she cast a looke vpon her Loue, Then to the blade her eye she did remoue. And sobbing cride, since loue hath murthred thee, He shall not chuse but likewise murther me: ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... that evil panic which is at the heart of it. The charge of the Crusades was a charge; it was charging towards God, the wild consolation of the braver. The charge of the modern armaments is not a charge at all. It is a rout, a retreat, a flight from the devil, who will catch the hindmost. It is impossible to imagine a mediaeval knight talking of longer and longer French lances, with precisely the quivering employed about larger and larger German ships The man who called the Blue Water School the "Blue Funk School" uttered a psychological ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... more than half. In color, the wings and thorax, or waist, of the hornet were a rich bronze; the abdomen was black, with three irregular yellow bands; the legs were large and powerful, especially the third or hindmost pair, which were much larger than the others, and armed with many spurs and hooks. In digging its hole the hornet has been seen at work very early in the morning. It backed out with the loosened material, like any other animal under the same circumstances, holding and ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... in the court, And either pelt us with rude calumnies, Or stab at us, ye laggards! with base guile. Howbeit, these ways will never help to build The wholesome order of established law, If men shall hustle victors from their right, And mix the hindmost rabble with the van. That craves repression. Not by bulky size, Or shoulders' breadth, the perfect man is known; But wisdom gives chief power in all the world. The ox hath a huge broadside, yet is held Right in the furrow by a slender goad; Which remedy, I perceive, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... approaching friends to be on the alert to prevent their sailing out, at dawn they sighted the fleet of Mindarus, which immediately gave chase. All had not time to get away; the greater number however escaped to Imbros and Lemnos, while four of the hindmost were overtaken off Elaeus. One of these was stranded opposite to the temple of Protesilaus and taken with its crew, two others without their crews; the fourth was abandoned on the shore of Imbros ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... acting as commander, kept going through the ranks of heroes, and he came to the Cretans, going through the throng of men. But they were armed around warlike Idomeneus. Idomeneus, on his part, [commanded] in the van, like a boar in strength; but Meriones urged on the hindmost phalanxes for him. Seeing these, Agamemnon, the king of men, rejoiced, and instantly ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... men, in the meantime, had stopped and loaded their box cars with old cross-ties and discarded rails These they began to throw out of the rear end of their hindmost car as a measure of safety. They did not suspect pursuit at this time, but they took the precaution to obstruct the track in this manner. Six miles north of Kingston the raiders stopped and tore up several rails. Captain Fuller rode on the ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... and he'd sing out, in a way that made them fellows scatter, 'What the —— are all you men doing here at this time of night? Go forrard, every man jack of you! Go forrard, I tell you!' and it was 'Devil take the hindmost!' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... head swim. He stops, and looks all around; climbs the nearest sand-mound, and gazes into the distance; shakes his head reflectively, and then, without a word, he turns and jogs along back to his train, and takes up a humble position under the hindmost wagon, and feels unspeakably mean, and looks ashamed, and hangs his tail at half-mast for a week. And for as much as a year after that, whenever there is a great hue and cry after a cayote, that dog ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with a new respect. The Indians, having scurried back out of range of Lite's uncomfortably close shooting, yelled a bedlam of yips and howls and came on again in a closer group than before, shooting as they rode—at the four men first, and then at the hindmost pack-horse that gave a hop over the wire left across the gap, and came galloping heavily after the others. They succeeded in burying a bullet in the packed bedding, ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... reconciled himself 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' But life is not always, nor for most persons at any time, a thing of ease and soft enchantments, and the Cyrenaic philosophy must remain for the general work-a-day world a stale exotic. 'Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,' is a maxim which comes as a rule {128} only to the lips of the worldly successful, while they think themselves strong enough to stand alone. But this solitude of selfishness neither works nor lasts; every man at some time becomes 'the hindmost,' if not before, at least in the hour of death ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... plainly to you, but I do it for your good. If we were all angels, things would be different. If this were the Millennium, every thing would doubtless be agreeable to every body. But it is not—how very sad! True, how very sad! Where was I? Oh! it's all devil take the hindmost. And because your neighbors are dishonest, why should you ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... ere day, Heedless whether this or that hole— If we only found a way; Up among the iron furrows Of the rocks, where hid in burrows Safe the rats in shelter lay. No misgiving, not a fear— Nor was I the last astraddle Nor the hindmost in the rear When the bugle sounded clear— "Boot ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... as well as I did, looked full of horror. He caught one of the hindmost of the rabble by the sleeve and asked him harshly, 'What has this man done, and whither are you taking him?' At which the man, turning towards us his red, ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... courser To the best of all the stables, To the best of resting-places, To the hindmost of the stables. Tether there the bridegroom's courser, To the ring of gold constructed, 100 To the smaller ring of iron, To the post of curving birchwood, Place before the bridegroom's courser, Next a tray with oats ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... hindmost year but ane Was five and twenty days began; 'Twas then a blast o' Januar' win' Blew hansel in on ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... exaggerated by the narrator, who had written it while fresh and warm from the scene of altercation. Some sailors being aloft in the main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered them to race down, threatening the hindmost with the cat-of-nine-tails. He who was the farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility of passing his companions, and yet passionately dreading the disgrace of the flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope considerably lower, failed, and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... saw the steady line of his fleet drawn fair across the gap in the Spanish line, he flung his leading ships up to windward on the mass of the Spanish fleet, by this time beating up to windward. The Culloden led, thrust itself betwixt the hindmost Spanish three-deckers, and broke into flame and thunder on either side. Six minutes after her came the Blenheim; then, in quick succession, the Prince George, the Orion, the Colossus. It was a crash of swaying masts and bellying sails, while below rose the shouting of ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... happen, the stubborn retreat broke into a rout. It was every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The pirates fled for the after cabin-house, there to take cover behind the timbered walls and use the small port-holes for musketry fire. Thus they could find respite and it would be immensely difficult to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... view: but another is magnificent enough to make me forgive the scamp his autobiography from now to the day of judgment (when we shall all begin forgiving each other in great haste, I suppose, for fear of the devil taking the hindmost!), and I registered a vow on the spot to that effect:—so no more of him here, ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... base idea conquers, and selfishness, not self- sacrifice, is the ruling spirit of a State, men move on, one step forward, towards realising that kingdom of the devil upon earth, "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." Only, alas! in that evil equality of envy and hate, there is no hindmost, and the devil ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... at the way people deceive themselves. The name of religion cloaks hidden selfishness to an extent you could hardly credit; the majority are too much engrossed in trying to save their own souls to care what becomes of other people. One would think it was "Save yourself, and the devil take the hindmost!" when one sees so-called Christians scurrying along the narrow way, as they call it, without a thought to the brother or sister who ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Kiugr call'd down his merry men all, By one, and by two, and three; Earl Marshal was wont to be the foremost man, But the hindmost man was he. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... bonfires on the hills is perhaps not yet extinct in Wales, and men still living can remember how the people who assisted at the bonfires would wait till the last spark was out and then would suddenly take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices, "The cropped black sow seize the hindmost!" The saying, as Sir John Rhys justly remarks, implies that originally one of the company became a victim in dead earnest. Down to the present time the saying is current in Carnarvonshire, where allusions to the cutty black sow are still occasionally made to frighten children.[616] ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... with thrilling joy through the interlude in the dance. Every detail of that scene stood clearly limned before his mind. The bare skeleton of the new harp, the crowding, eager, tense faces of the listeners, his mother's and Margaret's in the hindmost row, his brother standing in the centre foreground, the upturned face of the singer with its pale romantic loveliness, all in the mystery of the moonlight, and, soaring over all, that clear, vibrant, yet softly passionate, glorious ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... man with the black beard were probably ashamed, for they laughed loudly, and not answering, slouched lazily back to their waggons. When the hindmost waggon was level with the spot where the dead snake lay, the man with his face tied up standing over it turned to Panteley and asked in ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hell which means—'failing to make money,' I do not think there is any heaven possible that would suit one well. In brief, all this Mammon gospel of supply-and-demand, competition laissez faire, and devil take the hindmost (foremost, is it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?), 'begins to be one of the shabbiest ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... the wall, where it lay in a deer's-horn rest, a large horse pistol. With this in hand she ran to meet her children. Some hunter had broken the bear's fore leg with a bullet a few days before, which accounted for its strange, waddling gait; but it was almost within reach of the hindmost child when the mother arrived. The bear at once turned its attention to the newcomer, and with a terrific snarl rushed 5 at her. On sped the children, screaming and crazy with fright. It was a moment of imminent peril ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... them" cried Meliboeus, in an intense whisper, "luff up! — hard-a-lee!" The helm was jammed down, and the sheet hauled in; the boat luffed into the wind, and became stationary, only bobbing upon the waves, whilst her sails shivered and rattled in the breeze. Meliboeus fired — and the hindmost bird declined gradually towards the water; its long wings became fixed and motionless at their widest stretch, and slowly it sank down upon its heaving death-bed. Loud shouted the sportsman; and momentary envy filled the heart of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the herd see them, they stop, and the head is made to play its part by copying their movements. By these means the hunters get into the very centre of the herd without exciting suspicion; the hindmost man then pushes forward his comrade's gun, and both fire nearly at the same instant. The deer scamper off, the hunters trot after them; the poor animals soon halt to see what alarmed them; their ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... the Court-house steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were fill'd with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise in that street obscur'd ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... out at the outer gate, and proceeding along a beautiful path leading above the cliffs. The mules kept in one long string, Bekir with the foremost, which was thus at some distance from the hindmost, which carried Ulysse and was attended by Arthur, while the master rode his own animals and gave directions. The fiction of illness was kept up, and when the bright eyes looked up in too lively a manner, Yusuf produced some of the sweets, which were always part ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... many of them from easily preventable causes. The whole spirit of the American continent in such matters is more "casual" than that of Europe; the American is more willing to "chance it;" the patriarchal regime is replaced by the every-man-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost system. When I hired a horse to ride up a somewhat giddy path to the top of a mountain, I was supplied (without warning) with a young animal that had just arrived from the breeding farm and had never even seen a mountain. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... generally too narrow to admit of horses turning round. It happened more than once, that the squadron in front, having ascertained that it had taken a wrong direction, was nevertheless compelled to advance until it reached some open spot, where the men were enabled to assemble, and wait for the hindmost of their comrades, and then retrace their steps. After having pursued this plan, the troops have met another squadron following the same track; and, under such circumstances, it has required hours for either to effect a countermarch. In this complicated operation many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... into the barn-yard, there is a consciousness of having done something very important in the air of the little fellow who brings up the rear of the procession, and who shuts the gate as closely as possible on the heels of the hindmost cow. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... Under the spreading favour of these Pines, Stept as they se'd to the next Thicket side To bring me Berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable Woods provide. They left me then, when the gray-hooded Eev'n Like a sad Votarist in Palmers weed Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus wain. 190 But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts, 'tis likeliest They had ingag'd their wandring steps too far, And envious darknes, e're they could return, Had stole them from me, els O theevish Night Why shouldst ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... can be distinguished from the broad dagger by the shape of the handle, which is curved or indented in the case of the dagger, but straight across in the case of the halberd. There is, however, another point. The hindmost rivets, both in the case of the blades with four rivets and those with three only, are shorter than those in front of them. The shortness of the end-rivets and slope of the heads imply that the handle ...
— The Bronze Age in Ireland • George Coffey
... horseback began to grumble; for by police regulation they were not allowed to pass the hindmost of the cyclists; and they were kept back by my presence from following up their special champions. 'Give it up, Fraeulein, give it up!' they cried. 'You're beaten. Let us pass and get forward.' But at the self-same moment, I heard the shrill voice of ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... In the Exchequer's hindmost row I sat, and some one touched my head, He tendered ten-and-six, but oh! That only client now ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... "faith, unfaithful, makes them falsely true"—that I can fully enter into what his feelings must have been when he contemplated the picture of his discourse, in which the lights on "raw midshipmen," "pessimist out and out," "devil take the hindmost," and "Heine's dragoon," were so high, while the "good things" he was kind enough to say about me lay in the deep shadow of the invisible. And I can assure Dr. Abbott that I should not have dreamed of noticing the report of his ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... for horn they stretch an' strive, Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive, 'Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve Are bent like drums; Then auld Guidman, maist like to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... berries of the wintergreen, frozen, but plump and sweet-fleshed. Half a handful of these served for the moment to cajole his hunger, and he pressed briskly but warily along the ridge, availing himself of the shelter of every rampike in his path. At last, catching sight of the hindmost stragglers of the herd, still far out of range, he crouched like a cat, and crossed over the crest of the ridge ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... when we had succeeded in dispersing and driving before us a rather numerous band, I came up with one of the hindmost Cossacks, and I was about to strike him with my Turkish sabre when he took off ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... ill, evil, badly worse worst far farther, further farthest, furthest forth further furthest fore former foremost, first good, well better best hind hinder hindmost late later, latter latest, last little less least much, many more most ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood
... Shaw came scouring along behind them, arrayed in his red shirt, which looked very well in the distance; he gained fast on the fugitives, and as the foremost bull was disappearing behind the summit of the swell, we saw him in the act of assailing the hindmost; a smoke sprang from the muzzle of his gun, and floated away like a little white cloud; the bull turned upon him, and just then the rising ground concealed them ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... grows older, disobedience passes into disrespect and want of respect into want of affection. Such a thing as perfect confidence, in the French sense of the word, between a parent and his or her grown-up child is most rare. 'Everyone for himself, and devil take the hindmost, is the motto of the young Australian. He cares for nobody, and nobody need care for him, so far as his thoughts on the subject are concerned. Maternal affection cannot, however, be easily quenched, and consequently the child gets all the best of ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... i.e. between such and the canine tooth. The true molars are those placed behind the molars having deciduous vertical predecessors. Now, as a dentition becomes more distinctly carnivorous, so the hindmost molars and the foremost premolars disappear. In the existing cats this process is carried so far that in the upper jaw only one true molar is left on each side. In the machairodus there is no upper true molar at all, while the premolars are reduced to two, there being ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... lodge Under the spreading favour of these pines, Stepped, as they said, to the next thicket-side To bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind hospitable woods provide. They left me then when the grey-hooded Even, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. But where they are, and why they came not back, Is now the labour of my thoughts. 'Tis likeliest They had engaged their wandering steps too far; And envious darkness, ere they could ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... after Hunt, and they tried to convince me that I was very wrong. A Mr. Norton of Adrian, Mich., promised Mrs. Erkson a horse to ride if she would go, and so I left Hunt and turned in on the other road, the hindmost wagon. This is going back a little with the history and bringing it up to Mt. Misery. On my way back from Mt. Misery I climbed up on a big rock and inscribed the date—Nov. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... dashed forward, spear in hand, to occupy the deserted earth-works. They were met by a sharp fire from the barracks, which staggered them for the moment, but they rushed on, and sheltered themselves in the ditch, throwing a few spears at the hindmost of the retreating party; but without effect, for the little garrison was soon shut in and able for the time ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... "swish," and away went the steed, galloping over the sea without wetting hair or hoof. But fast as he galloped the nine little pipers were always ahead of him, although they seemed to be going only at a walking pace. When at last he came up rather close to the hindmost of them the nine little pipers disappeared, but the children heard the music playing beneath the waters. The white steed pulled up suddenly, and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... positive. If on account of the immaturity or over-maturity of a people, there be no sturdy middle class among them, unlimited competition may become what Bazard calls a general sauve-qui-peut (let the devil take the hindmost); what Fourier designates as a morcellement industriel, and a fraude commerciale; what M. Chevalier denominated "a battle-field on which the little are devoured by the big;" and in such case, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... hope of ultimately over-reaching him. Idle dream, where a pliant and sanguine southerner is pitted against the unswerving Saxon or Teuton! This accounts for the success of foreign trading houses in the south. Business is business, and the devil take the hindmost! By all means; but they who are not rooted to the spot by commercial exigencies nor ready to adopt debased standards of conduct will find that a prolonged residence in a centre like Naples—the daily attrition of its ape-and-tiger elements—sullies ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... it said: Each for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. But I say to you: Each for all, and the hindmost is your charge. I say to you: If a man will not work, let him be the one that hungers; if he will not serve, let him be your criminal. For if one man be ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... and bran dance were deserted. The cumbrous wagons, all too slow, were wending with such speed as their drivers could coerce the ox-teams to make along the woodland road homeward, while happier wights on horseback galloped past, leaving clouds of dust in the rear and a grewsome premonition of being hindmost in a flight that to the simple minds of the mountaineers had a pursuer ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Marvin, "a rich corporation justifies its methods on the grounds that it has a right to transact business on a scale corresponding to its pecuniary ability—there is no question of morality involved. Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. Yet there are people who believe that there is no future punishment ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... tactics were embraced in two commands: "Huddle and fight," and "Scatter." When the first was heard his men "huddled and fit"; and when retreat was the only possible salvation, the command to "scatter" was obeyed with equal alacrity. Each man was now for himself, and "devil take the hindmost" for a time, but the sound of Woolford's bugle never failed to secure prompt falling into line at the auspicious moment. "Woolford's cavalry" was the synonym for daring, even at the time when the recital of the deeds of brave men filled the ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... only shot-to the bolt of the door of the cage; and his behaviour had so irritated the beast that, after so dealing with him that he lay in a most dangerous state, he had dashed out at the door in rage and terror, and, after seizing the hindmost of the flying crowd, had lain down between the shafts of the waggon, ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... town, on account of that of the same name in Asia. As the lieutenant-general was returning to the consul with a great quantity of spoil, Athenagoras, one of the king's generals, falling on his extreme rear, in its passage over a river, threw the hindmost into disorder. On hearing the shouting and tumult, Apustius rode back in full speed, ordered the troops to face about, and drew them up in order, arranging the baggage in the centre. The king's troops could not support the onset ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... only a convention of our own to count the limbs from before backwards. To inspect a lobster's limbs, we lay it on its back (as Aristotle did), and see the legs overlapping, each hinder one above the one before; the hindmost is the first we see, and the one we must first lift up to inspect ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... in justice and moderation. Follow the example of the cranes, who change the order of their flight, making foremost hindmost, and hindmost foremost, without difficulty, each willingly obeying its ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... or body. These two forces have therefore been disruptive to the last degree; they mark the culmination of the Self-conscious Age—a culmination in War, Greed, Materialism, and the general principle of Devil-take-the-hindmost—and the clearing of the ground for the new order which is to come. So there is hope for the human race. Its evolution is not all a mere formless craze and jumble. There is an inner necessity by which Humanity unfolds from one degree or plane of consciousness to another. And ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... took, these two, of the hindmost seat in the canoe, for the back of each was unspeakable from the spear-prods. Without a word McElroy took his punishment as the lagging became more pronounced from arms overtaxed at the paddles, but the long-haired adventurer from ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... is our motto at old Hawk and Buckle, We cling to it close and we sing all together, "Every man for himself at our old Hawk and Buckle, And devil take the hindmost this hot summer weather." ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... leap Through the red furnace of the fight. Thus Daunia's ancient river fares, Proud Aufidus, with bull-like horn, When swoln with choler he prepares A deluge for the fields of corn. So Claudius charged and overthrew The grim barbarian's mail-clad host, The foremost and the hindmost slew, And conquer'd all, and nothing lost. The force, the forethought, were thine own, Thine own the gods. The selfsame day When, port and palace open thrown, Low at thy footstool Egypt lay, That selfsame day, three lustres gone, Another victory to thine hand Was given; another ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... required for his brother's service. These answers were not enough for them, and "still they urged him with words and supposals." "If you will needs," said he;—"Adventure. It shall never be said that I will be hindmost, neither shall you report to my brother that you lost your voyage by any cowardice you found in me." The men armed themselves as they could with stretchers from the boat, or anything that came to hand. They hove the planks overboard to make a clear fighting space, and "took them such poor ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... examinations had come into vogue, there was no knowing who might be introduced; and it was understood generally through the establishment,—and I may almost say by the civil service at large, so wide was his fame,—that Mr Eames was very averse to the whole theory of competition. The "Devil take the hindmost" scheme he called it; and would then go on to explain that hindmost candidates were often the best gentlemen, and that, in this way, the Devil got the pick of the flock. And he was respected the more for this because it was known ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... worship. But he loved every line inside the tattered orange covers, and their bright melodies had helped him over many a hard place after Grandma had left him. His favourite hymn was the last in the book, "The Hindmost Hymn," Grandpa called it, and every night of his life, unless he were too ill, he sang at least one ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... to the door and looked out. All the road was dotted with men from the nearer villages who came to the gathering, and as they marched, each after the reeve of the place, they sang. And past the hindmost of them came a single horseman hurrying. Another messenger with ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... those who took the River Road leading to the Indian Encampment. Bachelor Lot was the hindmost in this receding column. Bachelor Lot, though too withered and brown of visage to afford immediate enlightenment as to his species, was held to be of unquestionable white descent. Yet he kept house, alone, at the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... The hindmost of the Hounds surged against those in front, and the whole mob fell forward upon Redfield; he staggered over the threshold to save himself, and struck Enraghty backward in his ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... partic'lar fool!" exclaimed the waterman. "Ay, hold on a-stern, and the devil take the hindmost, say I!" ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... narrow path. Blue-spot then, backed by mighty Oscar and fearless Tige—but the Wolf is next the rock and the flash of combat clears to show him there alone, the big Dogs gone; the rest close in, the hindmost force the foremost on—down-to their death. Slash, chop and heave, from the swiftest to the biggest, to the last, down—down—he sent them whirling from the ledge to the gaping gulch below, where rocks and snags of trunks were sharp ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... shouting a word of encouragement to the combatants, as they wheeled by him in the mazes of their half angry sport. It was not long, however, before their strife was brought to a conclusion; for, almost as the friends entered, the hindmost horseman of the two made a thrust at the other, which taking effect merely on the lower rim of his antagonist's parma, glanced off under his outstretched arm, and made the striker, in a great measure, lose his balance. As quick as light, the other wheeled upon him, feinted a pass at his ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert |
