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Gallows   /gˈæloʊz/   Listen
Gallows

noun
(pl. gallowses or gallows)
1.
An instrument of execution consisting of a wooden frame from which a condemned person is executed by hanging.



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"Gallows" Quotes from Famous Books



... look, Camillo! it was my perpetual fool that caused all this; and now he stands yonder, laughing at his mischief, as the devil is pictured, grinning behind the witch upon the gallows. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden

... said the master, and he settled himself to read. "Lord above us, what a gallows-bird!" He ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... his ferocity. It belonged to the trade, a trade of wanton depravity. He became the terror of those who assumed to look upon a negro's sufferings with sympathy, scoffing at the finer feelings of mankind. Twice had his rapacity been let loose-twice had it nearly brought him to the gallows, or to the tribunal of Judge Lynch. And now, when completely inured in the traffic of human flesh,—that traffic which transposes man into a demon, his progress is checked for a while ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... dived into the passage, where it sounded as though all the dogs were eating him alive; but that was no more than their regular grace before meals. When he crawled out at the far end, half a dozen furry heads followed him with their eyes as he went to a sort of gallows of whale-jawbones, from which the dog's meat was hung; split off the frozen stuff in big lumps with a broad-headed spear; and stood, his whip in one hand and the meat in the other. Each beast was called by name, the weakest first, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... he went he was still tethered to the house by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with a new significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits, and choosing a street at random, stepped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith, To hold opinion, with Pythagoras, That souls of animals infuse themselves Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, And, whilst thou lay'st in thine unhallow'd dam, Infused itself in thee; for thy desires Are wolfish, bloody, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... left, master," said Count Schwarzenberg—"this one care, that I may some day denounce you as a shameful deceiver, who has sold me a bad copy of his own manufacture for an original, and be assured that this deception may bring you to the gallows at any time ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... he was a soldier—a soldier of the LORD; John Brown he was a martyr—a martyr to the WORD; And he made the gallows holy when he perished by the cord, For his soul ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... but brought back to Bruneck at the beginning of January, 1810, when in his cell in the castle he quietly heard his sentence—that he should be shot before the door of his father's inn at Mitter Olang, and that his body should then be hung on a gallows as a solemn warning to refractory peasants. His young wife, maddened with grief, penetrated to the presence of the French general, clasped his knees and plead in vain for mercy. He remained perfectly impassive to her entreaties, but granted a favor to a young priest, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... more pleasant. The beat of hoofs on the rocky roadway, the crash of the door falling in when the Turkish Gendarmes had battered a way to his rescue. He remembered with a savage joy the spectacle of his would-be assassins twitching and struggling on the gallows at Pezara and—he heard the faint tinkle of ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... fate, the end of that journey lay, and in their hearts they knew it with a sickness of certainty, at the steps of the gallows. The formalities that intervened were little more than the mummeries of an empty formula with which certain men cloaked the spirit of a mob violence they were ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... our sentence to state prison, which was popularly called "cheating the gallows," resulted in the change of ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... convulsively, in my seat, drew one long breath, but whether he thought I was going to kill him,—I dare say I looked it,—or whether he saw a sheriff behind, or a phantom gallows before, I know not; but without waiting for the thunderbolt to strike, he rushed from the car as precipitately as he had rushed in. I WAS angry,—not because I was to have been cheated, for I been repeatedly and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... that time, like all steamboat towns in the era of water navigation, the harbor of as great a lot of ruffians as ever escaped the gallows. There was especially a noted gang of land pirates, the members of which had long indulged in speculations regarding the probable wealth of the Mexican Don, and how much coin he generally carried with him. They ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... London or the neighboring counties, of such offenders worthy to be speedily executed by martial law, to attach and take the same persons, and in the presence of the said justices, according to justice of martial law, to execute them upon the gallows or gibbet openly, or near to such place where the said rebellious and incorrigible offenders shall be found to have committed the said great offences."[*] I suppose it would be difficult to produce an instance of such an act of authority in any place nearer than Muscovy. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... though he had not spoken. "I have played, both yesterday and to-day, a part for which I can only offer the excuse of youth. I was so unwise as to go to an execution; it seems I made a scene at the gallows; not content with which, I spoke the same night in a college society against capital punishment. This is the extent of what I have done, and in case you hear more alleged against me, I protest my innocence. I have expressed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... our number had been proceeding methodically with the construction of a gallows. This was made by thrusting five small pine butts, about forty feet long, over a cross beam in the gable of the cabin and against the roof inside. Large drygoods boxes were placed beneath for ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... of here, this moment; and let me have no more of your prating. Now then, be gone out of my house, you sworn pickpocket, you veritable gallows' bird. ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere

... He was told that Cicero had said that "the young man was to be praised, and rewarded, and elevated!"[230] The last word, "tollendum," has a double meaning; might be elevated to the skies—or to the "gallows." In English, if meaning the latter, we should say that such a man must be "put out of the way." Decimus Brutus told this to Cicero as having been repeated by Sigulius, and Cicero answers him, heaping all maledictions upon Sigulius. But he does not deny the words, or their ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... groan of protest rose from One, Two, and Three, in return for the little compliment which Sir Patrick had paid to them. "How about rowing and running ending in the Old Bailey and the gallows? You said ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... speed on that Wesel occasion, and help of Chesterfield's Secretary, got across to England; got into the Portuguese service; and has there been soldiering, very silently, these ten years past,—skin and body safe, though his effigy was cut in four quarters and nailed to the gallows at Wesel;—waiting a time that would come. Time being come, Lieutenant Keith hastened home; appealed to his effigy on the gallows;—and was made a Lieutenant-Colonel merely, with some slight appendages, as that of STALLMEISTER ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... know how swearing can bring 'em to any probability of covering their legs anew, unless it be by the means of a pair of stocks: That the hemp-snared men apprehend, that such an encouragement for oaths can tend to no other advancement, promotion, and exaltation of their persons, than that of the gallows: The late old ordinary, Paul,[25] having grown grey in the habit of making this accurate observation in every month's Session-Paper, "That swearing had as great a hand in the suspension of every living soul ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift

... with eyes which were not lifted for a moment from the floor on which they trod, they disappeared by the same private door by which they had entered. I have seen gangs of galley slaves,—I have seen the husbands and sons of Rome led away manacled into banishment,—I have seen men standing beneath the gallows; but never did I see so woe-struck a group as this. Than have gone back with these nuns to their "paradise," as it is cruelly termed, I felt that I would rather have lain, where the lost nun ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... thinking, hour after hour, where he would hang it, and in the early morning an inspiration came to him—he would try the pump! So he rose softly and fixed the handle of the pump high in the air, so that it stuck out like a gallows, and tied a rope with a noose to the end of it. Then he got Tricky to perch on the top of the pump, tied the rope round his neck, and all was ready. The shepherd had heard that the object of hanging was to break the ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond

... twice sought my life in the effort to wrest from me a packet of information I did not have. This was the man whose face had gleamed fierce and hateful in the lantern's flash in the alley. This was the man I had sworn to bring to the gallows for a brutal crime. And now I was his trusted agent, with control, however ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... from her ankles, which gave the effect of buoyancy to her form, she seemed about to walk though standing still. There was a defiant light in her deep brown eyes, that sort of "I don't care" disposition which our grandmothers used to say would take us to the gallows. Defiance, wilfulness, rebellion, was expressed in the very way she stood on the bank, a little higher than they were, and able to look over ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies

... common even to vulgarism, to hear the remark that the same gallows-tree ought to bear as its fruit the arch-traitor and the leading champion of aggressive liberty. The mob of Jerusalem was not satisfied with its two crucified thieves; it must have a cross also for the reforming Galilean, who interfered so rudely with its conservative ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... bloody weapon against herself, but failed in the attempt on her own life. She was taken to Cincinnati and tried, not for murder, but for escaping from slavery, together with the other fugitives, who said they would "go singing to the gallows," if only they need not go back to the South. They were all found guilty of seeking to be free, and were returned to their owners. On her way down the river it is said that Margaret jumped from the boat with one of her remaining little ones in her arms. The child was drowned, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... till she was 'dead, dead, dead.' There is Mr. Wadleigh's equal administration of justice between man and woman! There is "the sympathy of judges and juries." There is the "extent which would warrant loud complaint on the part of their adversaries of the sterner sex." And this woman escaped the gallows not because of "the sympathy of the judge" or "jury," but because her own sex took the matter up, and from every part of the country sent petitions by the hundreds to Governor Colquitt of Georgia, asking her pardon. That pardon came in the shape of ten years' ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... he had branded the soldier who deserted to the foe or rebelled against the orders of his commander as a base scoundrel and villain, and by his orders many a renegade from his standard had died a shameful death on the gallows under his own eyes. Was he now to commit the deed for which he had despised and killed others? His prompt decision was known throughout the army, how quickly in the most difficult situations he could resolve upon the right course and carry it into action; but during this dark ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... He goes on to say that Lilly relates that "those adepts whose characters he has drawn were the lowest miscreants of the town. Most of them had taken the air in the pillory, and others had conjured themselves up to the gallows. This seems ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... the elevation, which constituted the entrance to the castle, flapping their wings and crowing. On coming nearer, Jurand understood the cause of their gathering. Beside the road leading to the gate of the castle, stood wide gallows, on which were hanging the bodies of four Mazovian peasants. There was not the least breath of wind, therefore the corpses, which seemed to be looking at their own feet, did not sway at all, except when the black buds perched upon their shoulders and heads, jostling one another, striking the ropes ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... or thieve in an alehouse, Rob a purse with only a penny in it. Or break into a gentleman's house, To the magistrate we go; Then to gaol to be shackled, Whence to be hanged on the gallows in the morning, The pox and the devil take the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... are the same, whether in party caucuses or in church councils; but Paul, in this case, saw the direct intervention of the Almighty, and his disposition to magnify his office was vastly increased thereby. He was especially strenuous, and one of his earliest public acts was to send to the gallows a poor author, who, in an unpublished work, had spoken severely regarding one of ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... the prison-wall, looking over the bank where the railway now goes, and a dismal piece of water called Jail-pool, where the townsfolk drowned most of the dogs and cats they'd no further use for. All the bank under the gallows was that thick with people you could almost walk upon their heads; and my ribs were squeezed by the crowd so that I couldn't breathe freely for a month after. Back across the pool, the fields along the side of the valley were lined with booths ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him; For he has stolen a pix,[9] and hang'd must 'a be.(B) A damned death! Let gallows gape for dog; let ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... death for his treason and villany. God of Paradise! I rode all night to save him; and his father delivered him to me, to do with him as I pleased. How true is the saying that we have no greater enemy than the man whom we have preserved from the gallows! Another time he drew his sword on me, in the chamber of the Queen, on whom God have mercy! He was also the accomplice of the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel; he consented to my murder, to that of his father, and of all my ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... age. He, with part of his crew, once terrorized the officials of Charleston, S.C., exacting tribute of medicines and provisions. Finally he was killed in action, and sixteen of his desperate gang expiated their crimes on the gallows. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... hearing the tread of a horse, but it was only the old grey munching round. Her father finished skinning, and drew the carcase up to a make-shift "gallows". "Now you can go to bed," he said, in a ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... words were justified by Read's monument to Admiral Tyrrell: possibly the most execrable work in stone in existence; which is saying a good deal. As Nollekens would often remark of it: 'Read's admiral going to heaven looks for all the world as though he were hanging from a gallows with a rope ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... man,) lies dead on the ground, and the other comes back to predominate in the court, where, had the matter been enquired into by the rules of common sense and reason, the victor, as he is termed, would have been sent to the gallows. And yet this is the law of arms, as your fancy pleases to call ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... heroically without revealing anything connected with the plot. Forty-three years later I met the son of Denmark Vesey, who rejoiced in the efforts of his noble father, and regarded his death on the gallows as a holy sacrifice to the cause of freedom. Turner describes his fight as follows: "The white men, eighteen in number, approached us to about one hundred yards, when one of them fired, and I discovered about half of them retreating. I then ordered my men to fire and rush on them. The few ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... by my story, and carry out the deception to the end of the chapter. But my mortification, my confusion, my chagrin, at being subjected to this unforeseen cross-examination, can hardly be conceived. I envied the condition of the wretch standing by the gallows with a noose around his neck. After a brief pause, my tormentor ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... then Deputy-Sheriff, was present at the execution. It was a damp, drizzly March morning when the cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside Northgate, where the gallows stood. The other victims were apathetic or broken down with misery; but Mrs Mothersole was, as in life so in death, of a very different temper. Her 'poysonous Rage', as a reporter of the time puts it, 'did so work upon the Bystanders—yea, even upon the Hangman—that it was constantly affirmed ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James

... example of this. To a grown person reading it for the first time, the loafing propensities of the immaculate Mrs Fairchild, who never does a hand's turn of good work for anyone from cover to cover, the hard piety, the snobbishness, the brutality of taking the children to the old gallows and seating them before the dangling remains of a murderer, while the lesson of brotherly love is impressed are shocking when they are not amusing; but to the child the doings of the naughty and repentant little Fairchilds are engrossing; and experience proves to us that the twentieth-century ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... folding up his wool, "that's neither here nor there. This experiment of Knowles's is like nothing known since the Creation. Plan of his own. He spends his days now hunting out the gallows-birds out of the dens in town here, and they're all to be transported into the country to start a new Arcadia. A few men and women like himself, but the bulk is from the dens, I tell you. All start fair, level ground, perpetual celibacy, mutual trust, honor, rise according to the stuff ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various

... of scorching. Neither Chapter nor Countess or Protector can serve them. Here is Easter come round; the year is ending; we must turn our company out of doors, and that at once. Do you think you can teach an old constable how to know a gallows-bird? Our two lodgers were on terms with la Porette, that heretic jade from Denmark or Norway, whose last cries you heard from here. She was a brave witch; she never blenched at the stake, which was proof enough of her ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac

... the people. They averred that by means of a doll stuck over with needles they could weave their spells around whomever they pleased, making him waste away until he died. They averred that mandragora, torn from beneath the gallows by the teeth of a dog, who invariably died therefrom, enabled them to pervert the understanding; to turn men into beasts, to give women over to idiotcy and madness. Still more dreadful was the furious ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... with chains and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had risen ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... suspense. To know the worst, whatever that may be, is far preferable to the long agony of doubt; hoping for the best, yet fearing the worst. Even a hardened criminal has been known to admit that the two or three hours of waiting for the verdict was far worse than the march to the gallows. If this be so, what must it be to the tender, loving hearts of good and true women whose husbands, sweethearts, brothers and sons are facing the dangers of war, and who (God pity them) have to endure this dread suspense for weeks and months when no ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... senses. Perhaps in his later days, this philosopher may have referred to Schiller's tragedy, as the source from which he drew his theory of life: but if so, we believe he was mistaken. For characters like him, the great attraction was the charms of revelry, and the great restraint, the gallows,—before the period of Karl von Moor, just as they have been since, and will be to the end of time. Among motives like these, the influence of even the most malignant book could scarcely be discernible, and would be little detrimental, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... that were not destined to be realized. There was heard a familiar cough, a familiar footfall. And our hearts were frozen. All our limbs were paralysed, deadened. We sat down at the table and started our lessons with as much enthusiasm as if we were starting for the gallows. We were reading aloud, but still our lips muttered: "Father in Heaven, will there never come an end to this tyrant, this Pharaoh, this Haman, this Gog-Magog? Or will there ever come a time when we shall be rid of this hard, hopeless, ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich

... of the constitution was that the King was the sole judge of the cases in which it might be proper to pardon offenders. Yet he was so much in dread of the House of Commons that, at that moment, he could not venture to rescue from the gallows men whom he well knew to be the innocent ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... lent his influence to secure the Act, fearing violence, fled to the fort, and garrisoned it with marines from a ship of war. "The mob broke into his stable, drew out his chariot, put his effigy into it, paraded it through the streets to the Common (now the Park), where they hung it on a gallows. In the evening it was taken down, put again into the chariot, with the devil for a companion, and escorted back by torchlight to the bowling green, where the whole pageant, chariot and all, was burnt under the very guns of ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... twenty-fourth chapter Borrow makes Thurtell, the friend of bruisers, hint, with unconscious tragic irony, at his famous end—by dying upon the gallows for the murder of Mr. William Weare. He tells the magistrate whom he has asked to lend him a piece of land for a prize-fight that his ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... the Indian Queen carried a jolly-boat, a dinghy, and four very fine, roomy gigs, two of which hung in davits in the wake of the mizzen rigging while the other two were supported on a gallows that stood abaft the mainmast. It will be seen, therefore, that, even apart from the longboat and gig of the Dolores, this ship was very well supplied with boats, only two of which—the two longboats—were thus far loaded. ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... engaged with a party of their regiment that lies in the next village; and mounting their horses like lusty fellows, rode up into the country as fast as their beasts could carry them. Ah, master! These are hard times, when an industrious body cannot earn his bread without fear of the gallows. Your worship's father (God rest his soul!) was a good gentleman, and as well respected in this parish as e'er a he that walks upon neat's leather; and if your honour should want a small parcel of fine tea, or a few ankers ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... high toby-spice flash the muzzle, In spite of each gallows old scout; If you at the spellken can't hustle, You'll be hobbled in making a clout. Then your blowing will wax gallows haughty, When she hears of your scaly mistake, She'll surely turn snitch for the forty— That her ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... [taking up the loy.] — Then I'll make you face the gallows or quit off from this. [Shawn flies ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge

... English gallows well for a Rooskie," said one of the men, brusquely, but not without sympathy. "What do you want? Water? Are you ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... of prisons dismantled, Manacles riven and ramparts defaced... (Hearts death-anointed yet hearing life calling...) Ankle chains bursting and gallows unbraced... ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... besiegers, and that when the time came they would be able to escape unharmed. This, while it in no way detracted from their determination to defend the castle to the last, yet rendered their task a far lighter and more agreeable one than it would have been had they seen the gallows standing before them as the end ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... might intervene and save me from the marriage. I had not thought he would be in such a hurry, that he would give me no loophole of escape. I could have cried out for a long day like any poor wretch condemned to the gallows. ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan

... man do murder, two men shall judge him; if he appeal against the two, let the appeal be tried; if their sentence be confirmed, ye shall cover his head and scourge him within the walls or without the walls, and hang him by a rope upon the gallows." Then there were appointed two men according to the law, who affirmed that they could not let the man go free, whether his guilt was small or great, seeing that he had manifestly done the deed. Therefore said one of them, "Publius Horatius, we adjudge ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church

... go out of the ways of men unnoticed and unmourned; as a rebel, under the obscure name of another and bearing another's sins upon my shoulders, I was to pass almost unheeded to the gallows. Bardelys the Magnificent—the Marquis Marcel Saint-Pol de Bardelys, whose splendour had been a byword in France—was to go out like a ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... mounted the steps and noticing Prince Andrew scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..." continued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, "the man who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum or the gallows!" ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... young and old, women and children, without mercy; that their possessions were to be confiscated to raise the money which Haman promised to put into the royal treasury, and that Haman had already built a gallows thirty feet high on which Mordecai ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... barons was called, and Henry found them willing enough to advise him as he wished. "The only way to deal with such a fellow," said one, "is to plait a few withe in a rope, and have him up to a gallows." In the midst of the council, however, it was observed that four of the King's knights were missing—Reginald Fitzurse, William Tracy, Hugh Morville, and William Brito. It was remembered that they had heard the King's words about the insolent priest, and, becoming alarmed ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... pleased many times, in very decided terms, to express your ever-to-be-respected conviction that I should eventually come to something; haply to the woolsack—possibly to the gallows; from which prophetic sentiment, I have naturally inferred that my genius was rare, and that your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... indignation rising high Such further deed in manhood's name forbade; The peasant, wild in passion, made reply 480 With bitter insult and revilings sad; Asked him in scorn what business there he had; What kind of plunder he was hunting now; The gallows would one day of him be glad;— Though inward anguish damped the Sailor's brow, 485 Yet calm he seemed as thoughts so ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... the occasion were made in large numbers. The outside of the lid bore a portrait of the Royal Martyr; within the lid was a picture of the restored king, His Majesty King Charles II; while on the inside of the bottom of the box was a representation of Oliver Cromwell leaning against a post, a gallows-tree over his head, and about his neck a halter tied to the tree, while beside him was pictured the devil, wide-mouthed. Another form of memorial tobacco-box is described in an advertisement in the ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson

... hard to affect and harder to attain. On the east side sat Daniel D. Barnard, upon whom 'Anti-Rent' has piled Ossa, while Pelion only has been rolled upon Wright. In the middle of the church was Croswell, who seemed to say to Wright, 'You are welcome to the gallows you erected for me.' On the opposite side sat John Young, the saved among the lost politicians. He ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... thoroughly depraved character; like him had entered the army, and had been promoted to the rank of a major in the royal forces. Having made an abortive attempt to raise a rebellion in his native county of Kent,[90] he and eleven others were made prisoners, tried by martial law, and condemned to the gallows. On the night previous to the day appointed for his execution, his sister found access to the prison. The guards were asleep, and his companions drowned in intoxication. She embraced the favourable moment, and set him at liberty. He lay concealed in a ditch for three days, till ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... not have been the devil's lackey?" said John Bulmer. "Eh, mademoiselle, I have been inspecting the world for more years than I care to confess; I have observed the king upon his throne, and the caught thief upon his coffin in passage for the gallows: and I suspect they both came thither through taking such employment as chance offered. Meanwhile, we ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... consideration. I've gone into the subject with people who know. I shouldn't wonder," he added, "if the traditional notions about loss of temperature and rigor after death had occasionally brought an innocent man to the gallows, or near it. Dr. Stock has them all, I feel sure: most general practitioners of the older generation have. That Dr. Stock will make an ass of himself at the inquest is almost as certain as that to-morrow's sun will rise. I've seen him. He will say the body must have been ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley

... at her entreaties and agonizing prayers. He became fond of drink. He left my humble roof, that he might be unrestrained in his evil ways. And at last one night, when heated by wine, he took the life of a fellow creature. He ended his days upon the gallows. God had filled my cup of sorrow before; now it ran over. That was trouble, my friends, such as I hope the Lord of mercy will spare you ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... way keeping bad company, and staying out late at night. He associates with gamblers and drunkards, and soon becomes both. He goes to jail, to the chain gang, to the penitentiary, and finally to the gallows. Much of the dishonesty is due to the negligence ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... of the gallows, Pacheco complained bitterly of the disgraceful death designed for him. He protested loudly that he came of a house as noble as that of Egmont or Horn, and was entitled to as honorable an execution as theirs had been. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... was it the blind Goddess of Justice that led Jackson to meet Miss Pearl and sacrifice her life that the demon Jackson might be exposed to the world, his deeds of evil and misdoings brought to light, and he expatiate the many crimes which he had committed on the gallows or by serving a life ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown

... hanged, nearly two hundred were left depending from a large square gallows in front of the cell of Sophia at the convent in which she was confined, and with a horrible refinement of cruelty three of these bodies were so placed as to hang all winter under her very window, one of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... she shall have her members torne and gnawn with wild beasts, when as she is bitten and rent with wormes, shee shall endure the paine of the fire, when as the broyling heat of the Sunne shall scortch and parch the belly of the Asse, shee shall abide the gallows when the Dogs and Vultures shall have the guts of her body hanging in their ravenous mouthes. I pray you number all the torments which she shall suffer: First shee shall dwell within the paunch of an Asse: secondly her nosethrilles shall receive a carraine stinke of the beast: thirdly shee shall ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... to speak for him," said the farmer; "it's better he should go to Bridewell now, than to the gallows by-and-by." ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... committed. As to the Highland costume, he may urge that, like many Southrons, he had bought it to wear on a Highland tour, and was trying it on. How can you keep him? You have no longer the right of Pit and Gallows. Before what magistrate can you take him, and where? The sheriff-substitute may be at Golspie, or Tongue, or Dingwall, or I don't know where. What can we do? What have we against the man? "Loitering with intent"? And here Logan and I have knocked ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... real fear of death—nor even fear of the gallows. If the worst came, he could face death bravely. He was quite sure of that. Then, as he told himself thousands of times, it was absurd to be so shaken by terror. Terror of what? And he thought, "It is because of the uncertainty. But there too, how absurdly fullish I am; for there ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... attend to their duties? The extensive kingdom of China is more densely populated than any other that is known, and there is the greatest poverty among the common people, who are given to theft, murder, and innumerable other sins. Yet it is the most peaceful kingdom known and has no gallows or execution, but [they are restrained] by means only of their fear of the bamboo with which they are beaten. Now if the Indian lack this fear, who can bring him to reason? The Indians are daily growing worse, for they are losing fear. Daily utterances are ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various

... anyone who discovered the secret, or attempted to carry it out of the Sardinian dominions, was death, with the forfeiture of all the goods the delinquent possessed; and the culprit was "to be afterwards painted on the outside of the prison walls, hanging to the gallows by one foot, with an inscription denoting the name and crime of the person, there to be continued for a perpetual mark ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... slipped in pin and record and let the djinn rave. So the sheik, with his rifle, shot his son as he had promised, and the English judge before whom he eventually came had all the trouble in the world to save that earnest gray head from the gallows. Thus: ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... himself was captured in Wales and brought to London. At his trial he publicly declared his belief that Richard II was still alive; he was even fanatic enough to believe that he himself would soon rise again from the dead.(761) He was sentenced to be hanged and burnt on the gallows, a sentence which was carried out in St. Giles's Fields.(762) Lollardry continued to exist, especially in London and the towns, for some years, but it ceased to have any ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... that the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, of Leith, told him that Knox bade him carry a message to Kirkcaldy in the Castle. After compliments, it ran: "He shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to punishment, and hung on a gallows before the face of the sun, unless he speedily amend his life, and flee to the mercy of God." Knox added: "That man's soul is dear to me, and I would not have it perish, if I could save it." Kirkcaldy consulted Maitland, and returned with a reply which contained ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... a priest," he cried unsteadily, "and a priest should be no shedder of blood. I—I mean that he should bring no one to the gallows. And I thank God that I see the criminal clearly now—because he is a criminal who cannot be ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... an' lords an' ladies, Once wor nowt noa moor to see; An' th' warst wretch 'at hung o'th' gallows, Once wor born as ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley

... characteristic of Smith's vivid imagination, in regard to his own exploits, that he should speak of an expedition in which he had no command, and was even a prisoner, in this style: "I remained," and "my men." He goes on: "Such factions here we had as commonly attend such voyages, and a pair of gallows was made, but Captaine Smith, for whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them; but not any one of the inventors but their lives by justice fell into his power, to determine of at his pleasure, whom with much mercy he favored, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... here Farrington, terrified though he was, hesitated. Like the man who, about to die on the gallows, cherishes hope of deliverance almost to the last, so did he. Perhaps his friends would interfere to save him from the ignominy. But alas! his former boon companions, Tom Fletcher and his gang, were nowhere to be seen. They had quietly slunk away, fearful ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... pint of good strong ale soon found its way down the throat of the dame. After this the chair again moved on, till at last it came to the market-place, opposite the Town Hall, where an enormous bonfire was in preparation, over which stood a gallows. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... soldiers of the Great Queen come—and, take my word for it, they are in number more than the fishes in the Great Lake—you will be shot like a coyote on the prairie, or hanged by the neck, like a bad Indian, on the gallows-tree. That is our answer, Leopold St Croix; you know me of old, and you also know how I have ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... miles. Air-motors and sun-motors in use or under construction, 41; mines being worked, 13; schools, 27, including the technical school at Intervale, under my personal instruction. Military force, zero—praise be! Likewise jails, saloons, penitentiaries, gallows, hospitals, vagrants, prostitutes, politicians, diseases, beggars, charities—all zero, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... questions to put to me! I do not admit that I am charged with anything contrary to the Code, or that any such charge can be formulated against me. The indictment charges me with having killed my son because I believed him to be guilty of the murder of Mme. de Langrune and would not hand him over to the gallows. I have never confessed to that murder, sir, and nothing will ever make me do so. And that is why I would not reply to the examining magistrate, because I would not admit that there was anything before the court concerning myself: because, since the dreadful tragedy in my ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... Dick's confession, it would go very hard with him; they could see no chance of escape for him. Joey, however, urged David to contribute something toward engaging the services of a clever lawyer who at least might save him from the gallows. He stated that Ernie, after stubbornly maintaining his own innocence, refused to pay out money for an attorney, preferring to let the state provide counsel for him, under the law. There was no mention of Braddock in either letter, for ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon

... now come to the last great lesson of our motley teacher—the gallows; that accursed tree which has its root in injuries. How clearly PUNCH exposes the fallacy of that dreadful law which authorises the destruction of life! PUNCH sometimes destroys the hangman, and why not? Where is the divine injunction against the shedder of man's blood ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... Cavalier heard the brief sermon and the sentence, which seemed to him of all punishments the most futile. He had hoped to see his son-in-law sent to the Plantations for life; had been angry at the thought that he would escape the gallows; and for sole penalty the seducer was sentenced to forfeit less than a year's income. How corrupt and venal was a bench that made the law of the land a nullity when a ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... had, he told them that he should stand their nonsense no longer; he should force the idle to work, and punish them if they railed; if any attempted to escape to Newfoundland in the pinnace they would arrive at the gallows; the sick should not starve; every man able must work, and every man who did not gather as much in a day as he did should be put out of the fort as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the peasants who had killed Peter Nikolaevich Sventizky, had been sentenced to the gallows, and Mahorkin was ordered to go to Pensa to hang them. On all previous occasions he used to write a petition to the governor of the province—he knew well how to read and to write—stating that he had been ordered to fulfil his duty, and asking for money for ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... dungeons dark and strong, The wretch's destinie! Macpherson's time will not be long On yonder gallows tree. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... her sake after all, and what mattered it if they did send him to the gallows? He had not sacrificed his honor—he had done his best to assert it. He was innocent. They could kill him but they couldn't make him guilty. A thousand juries pronouncing him so could not make it true that he had ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... "Your daughter, gallows bird! Your daughter is in Trymalcion's hands, and it is upon her he will wreak his revenge on you. He rejoices over the circumstance in advance. He sometimes is taken with savage caprices, and is rich ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... Thalatta! There's many a lad who has never before had a glimpse of the wave; For these are of those who, from London's dark wastes 'tis the aim of their leaders to rescue and save. "Nobody's Boys," the lost waifs of the city, foredoomed, but for aid, to debasement and crime, Possible gallows-birds,—they with wan faces late cleansed from the rookery's hideous grime, Snatched from the gutter whilst boyhood bears hope with it, gathered and tended with vigilant care. Servants of soul-thrift their volunteer champions! Weeds of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various

... night, to demolish the furniture, beat the children, and destroy their wives' peace and lives—that these women are to find their rights by influence, by argument, by tenderness. These brutes who deserve the gallows if any human being can deserve anything so atrocious in these days—are these women, their wives, to find their safety, their security for themselves and their children, by influence, through argument and tenderness, or love, when nothing can influence ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... circumvented in this manner, was a wise but unsuspicious man; and before that had much influence in the legislature. He was sent to Camden gaol, and confined in heavy irons; he was often carted to the gallows and saw others executed; he expected death, and was prepared for it; but he had many friends in Marion's brigade, and it was well known to the enemy that his execution would have been severely retaliated. He was not released from gaol until the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James

... chiefly in this, that men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness. The Pasquinade upon all this was, "Si parliamo, in galere; si scrivemmo, impiccati; si stiamo in quiete, all' Sant Uffizio. Eh! che bisogna fare?" "If we speak, the galleys; if we write, the gallows; if we stay quiet, the Inquisition. Eh! what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... downe on the side of the bed with my legges acrosse, and wringing my hands, I weeped in most miserable sort. For I imagined with my selfe, that I was brought before the Judge in the Judgement place, and that he awarded sentence against me, and that the hangman was ready to lead me to the gallows. And further I imagined and sayd, Alasse what Judge is he that is so gentle or benigne, that will thinke that I am unguilty of the slaughter and murther of these three men. Howbeit the Assyrian Diophanes did firmely assure unto me, ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius

... be the result. But the better feelings of the Canadian people prevailed, and by appeals for clemency, in the cause of humanity, our country was relieved from the gruesome spectacle of witnessing over a score of these unfortunate dupes dangling from the gallows in expiation of their crimes. That they deserved such a fate is undoubted. They entered our peaceful country with murder in their hearts, and carried out a portion of their programme of butchery, but their leaders escaped, and it would have been poor satisfaction to exact the extreme penalty ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... great Pope, was a still greater executioner. That man of God delivered over to the gallows a Pepoli of Bologna, who had bestowed upon him a kick instead of a piece of bread when he was a ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... the wall-top. Here the wretched were shot and hung in sight of their trembling comrades. The brick wall at the foot of the yard is scarred and crushed by balls and bullets which first passed through some human heart and wrote here their damning testimony. The gallows had been suspended from a wing in the ledge, and in mid-air the impotent captive swung, none daring or willing to say a good word for him; and not for any offence against God's law, not for wronging his neighbor, or shedding ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... tous passes sous le joug: Sub jugum missi; a kind of gallows (made by two forked sticks, standing upright) was erected, and a spear laid across, under which vanquished enemies ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... bygones are bygones, and when you fellows are in court for piracy, I'll save you all I can. It is for you to choose. Kill another and do yourselves no good, or spare me and keep a witness to save you from the gallows." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... passed after hour. The danger became more and more terrible. Idris finally understood that the only salvation was to remount the camels and fly with the whirlwind. But this would be returning in the direction of Fayum, where Egyptian Courts and the gallows were waiting for them. ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... almost as thick as these bolts: and, if it stood open, what could he do but break his neck, and cheat the gallows? He is all right, sir; never you fear. We sarched him from head to foot, and found no eend o' tools in his pockets. He is a deep 'un. But we are Yorkshire too, as the saying is. He goes to Hillsbro' town-hall to-morrow; and glad ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... position and noticed the condition of the apron, she regaled me with a homily upon the evils of bad temper, and gave as practical illustrations the lives of some of our most noted criminals, all of whom had expiated their crimes upon the gallows. ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur



Words linked to "Gallows" :   hangman's halter, halter, gallous, instrument of execution, plural form, hemp, hempen necktie, hangman's rope, gallows-tree, gibbet, plural, gallows tree, gallows bird



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