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Laird   /lɛrd/   Listen
Laird

noun
1.
A landowner.






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"Laird" Quotes from Famous Books



... his nieces, in the expectation that the education he had given them would enable them to provide handsomely for themselves, the servants and workpeople about shook their heads, and said it was "aye weel kenned that the auld laird had a bee in his bonnet;" while the class with whom Mr. Hogarth associated on more equal terms declared; that this last eccentricity of affection (for it was all done out of pure love), surpassed all his other oddities with regard to the girls, which had long been the talk ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... The laird of Balnamoon had been at a dinner where they gave him cherry-brandy instead of port wine. In driving home over a wild tract of land called Munrimmon Moor his hat and wig blew off, and his servant got out of the gig and brought them to him. The hat he recognized, but not the wig. "It's no my wig, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... in Clydesdale, an act not less horrible was perpetrated in Eskdale. One of the proscribed Covenanters, overcome by sickness, had found shelter in the house of a respectable widow, and had died there. The corpse was discovered by the Laird of Westerhall, a petty tyrant who had, in the days of the Covenant, professed inordinate zeal for the Presbyterian Church, who had, since the Restoration, purchased the favour of the government by apostasy, and who felt towards the party which he had deserted the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... the greatest cantatrice in Europe. Hypnotism is a power but little understood; so we must permit Du Maurier to make such Jules Verne's excursions into that unknown realm as may please him. Had Svengali made a contortionist of the stiff old Devonshire vicar we could not cry "impossible." The Laird of Cockpen is a good-natured fellow to whom Trilby tells her troubles instead of pouring them into the capacious ear of a policeman. He is a kind of bewhiskered Sir Galahad who goes in quest of Trilby instead of the Holy Grail, and having found her, sits down on her ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... 10th October, 1649, after Mr. Hugh had "exercised"—"compeared the laird of Pollok and the parochineris of Govane, and desyred that Mr. Hew Binnen might preach to them the next Lordis daye, qlk was granted, and he ordained to go and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... but bordering upon the fenny districts of Lincolnshire, whose monotonous scenery reminds one of Holland, lies the village of Scrooby. Surely it is of more interest to us than all the Pictish forts and Roman walls that the "Laird of Monkbarns" ever dreamed of. I was dropt out of the railway-carriage, which hardly stopt upon a wide plain at a miniature station-house, with some suspicions of a church and small village across the flat rushy fields in the distance. This was indeed ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... tried, I say, And half succeeded, failing utterly. Fair was she, frank, and innocent as a child That looks in every eye; fearless of ill, Because she knew it not; and brave withal, Because she led a simple country life, And loved the animals. Her father's house— A Scottish laird was he, of ancient name— Was distant but two miles among the hills; Yet oft as she had passed his father's farm, The youth had never seen her face before, And should not twice. Yet was it not enough? The vision tarried. She, as the harvest moon That goeth on her ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... sword in the moonlight. They shouted to us as they passed that the North Berwick Law fire was blazing, and that it was thought that the alarm had come from Edinburgh Castle. There were a few who galloped the other way, couriers for Edinburgh, and the laird's son, and Master Clayton, the deputy sheriff, and such like. And among others there was one a fine built, heavy man on a roan horse, who pulled up at our gate and asked some question about the road. He took off his hat to ease himself, ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... made by Lander became known in England, several merchants formed themselves into a company for developing the resources of the new districts. In July, 1832, they equipped two steamers, the Quorra and Alburka, which, under the command of Messrs. Laird, Oldfield, and Richard Lander, appended the Niger as far as Bocqua. The results of this commercial expedition were deplorable. Not only was there absolutely no trade to be carried on with the natives, but the crews of the vessels were decimated ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... of Colinton was the third son of Mr Balfour, the Laird of Pilrig. The quaint old house of Pilrig stands a little back from Leith Walk, the date on it is 1638; and the text inscribed on its door-stone, 'For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... want of Shirts! How a Scotch Stomach and no Meat converts! They wanted Food and Raiment, so they took Religion for their Seamstress and their Cook. Unmask them well; their Honours and Estate, As well as Conscience, are Sophisticate. Shrive but their Titles, and their Money poise; A Laird and Twenty Pence,[27] pronounc'd with Noise, When constru'd, but for a plain Yeoman go, And a good sober Two-pence, and well so. Hence then,'you Proud Imposters, get you gone, You Picts in Gentry and Devotion, You Scandal to the Stock of Verse, a Race ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid

... the captain's brocht hame!" he cried, emphasizing the two words; "as braw a gentleman as eer taen frae pirates, an' nae doubt sin to ae bien Buckskin bonnet-laird." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... workmen are now employed night and day at both sides of the river in carrying out the tunnel to completion. On the Birkenhead side, the landward excavations have reached a point immediately under Hamilton Square, where Mr. John Laird's statue is placed, and here there will be an underground station, the last before crossing the river, the length of which will be about 400 feet, with up and down platforms. Riverward on the Cheshire side, the excavators have tunneled to a point ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various

... "Enjoy myself! Like you!" he cried. "Man, you're as doleful as a mute at a laird's funeral! What's come over you? I know what it is. You go and take a course ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... no 'laird' here, and even if you count an ordinary owner of property as a 'laird,' you don't know where ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil

... England, and joined forces with Cardinal Beaton, who, in November 1543, visited Dundee, and imprisoned the ringleaders in the riots. They are called "the honestest men in the town," by the treble traitor and rascal, Crichton, laird of Brunston in Lothian, at this time a secret agent of Sadleir, the envoy of Henry ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... with them, by depositing the stone with some of the family plate in a chest which I sent to the bank. Thus, when applied to for it (which I have been since then), I had the excuse of not having it in my possession; and when the Laird returns from India, it is hoped the superstition may be forgotten, and "the stone" preserved only as ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson

... bonnie bit o' land," he murmured, "and I hae done as my father Laird Archibald told me. If we should meet in another warld I'll be able to gie a good account o' Crawford and Traquare. It is thirty years to-night since he gave me the ring off his finger, and said, 'Alexander, I am going the way o' all flesh; be a good man, ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... was enormous, and he spent it entirely in doing good. His kindheartedness was even greater than his generosity, for the one knew no bounds, while the other, of necessity, had its limits. As Lord of Luss and "laird" of Malcolm, he represented his county in the House of Lords; but, with his Jacobite ideas, he did not care much for the favor of the House of Hanover, and he was looked upon coldly by the State ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne

... owners of Deerhounds at the present time are Mrs. H. Armstrong, Mrs. W. C. Grew, Mrs. Janvrin Dickson, Miss A. Doxford, Mr. Harry Rawson, and Mr. H. McLauchin. Mrs. Armstrong is the breeder of two beautiful dog hounds in Talisman and Laird of Abbotsford, and of two typically good bitches in Fair Maid of Perth and Bride of Lammermoor. Mrs. Grew owns many admirable specimens, among them being Blair Athol, Ayrshire, Kenilworth, and Ferraline. Her Ayrshire is considered by some judges to be the most perfect Deerhound ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... telling me the other day something about the settled estates. I sat in that office with him all one morning. I could not understand it all, but I observed that he said nothing about the Scotch property. You'll be a laird, and I wish you joy with all my heart. The governor will tell you all about it before long. He's going to have ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... remedy to be gotten, as he was neither acquainted with controller nor treasurer. And then he looked to the King, and said he was not king in Scotland, fore there was ane other king in Scotland that hanged Johne Armstrang, with his fellowes, Sym the Laird, and mony other mae; but he had lefte ane thing undone. Then he made a long narracione of the oppression of the poor, by the taking of the corse-presaunte beists, and of the herrying of poor men by the consistorye lawe, and of many other ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous

... for taenia. The Carey Street Report for Feb. 1810, informs us, that a mechanic in Durham, having been very successful in the treatment of taenia by means of this article, the circumstance was communicated by Dr. SOUTHEY, of that place, to Dr. LAIRD of London; and it was accordingly prescribed in doses of [Symbol: ounce]ss. to [Symbol: ounce]ij. at several of the London charities. It had been found, says the report, that ol. tereb. might be thus given, as ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... is the form of a giant, But his face wears an aspect of pain; Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth? Can this be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... effecting a treaty, with the plain Indians, Crees and Chippawas, who inhabit the country, of which, Fort Qu'Appelle, was a convenient centre, and entrusted the duty, to the Hon. Alexander Morris then Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, the Hon. David Laird, then Minister of the Interior, and now Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories, and the Hon. W. J. Christie, a retired factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and a gentleman of large experience, ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris

... or a sudden spirt of flame into the air tells of what is going on beneath our feet. Now and then the polite world is startled by a paragraph in a newspaper which tells how in Scotland an image has been found stuck full of pins for the purpose of killing an obnoxious laird or minister, how a woman has been slowly roasted to death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl has been murdered and chopped up in Russia to make those candles of human tallow by whose light thieves hope to pursue their midnight ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... of God ane thousand iii hundred lxxxx, in sicht of mony pepyll, besyde the castell of Petslego." On the occasion referred to, Boece tells us that a great tree was cast on shore, and was divided, by order of the "laird" of the ground, by means of a saw. Wonderful to relate, the tree was found not merely to be riddled with a "multitude of wormis," throwing themselves out of the holes of the tree, but some of the "wormis" had "baith heid, feit, and wyngis," but, adds the author, "they ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... afternoon, just as I came home from school, which in winter was always over at three o'clock, my father received a message that a certain laird, or squire as he would be called in England—whose house lay three or four miles off amongst the hills, was at the point of death, and very anxious to see him: a groom on horseback had brought the message. The old man had led a life of indifferent repute, ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... said I; "I was a fool then, and did not think I could incline to be Glentanner with L200 or L300 a year, instead of Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then a haughty, pettish, ignorant, dissipated, broken-down Scottish laird; and thinking my imaginary consequence altogether ruined, I cared not how soon, or how absolutely, I was rid of everything that recalled it to my own memory, or that ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... Sherwood started for Scotland to make sure of the wonderful legacy willed to Nan's mother by the Laird of Emberon's steward, Nan was sent up into the Peninsula of Michigan to stay with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Kate Sherwood at a lumber camp. Her adventures there during the spring and summer were quite exciting. But the most exciting thing that had happened to Nan Sherwood was the ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... secret there was, it might have got wind in the simplest fashion. In the "Vicomte de Bragelonne," Dumas describes the tryst of the Secret-hunters with the dying Chief of the Jesuits at the inn in Fontainebleau. They come from many quarters, there is a Baron of Germany and a laird from Scotland, but Aramis takes the prize. He knows the secret of the Mask, the most valuable of all to the intriguers of ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne

... reception, and could not escape his eye. The lady of the house was, he said, confined to her apartment, and on the point of making her husband a father for the first time, though they had been ten years married. At such an emergency, the laird said he feared his guest might meet with some apparent neglect. "Not so, sir," said the stranger; "my wants are few, and easily supplied; and I trust the present circumstances may even afford an opportunity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various

... amusing letters, such as most people love to get from their friends; but he said little or nothing about love. Once or twice he ventured to tell her of some pretty girl that he met, of some adventure with a laird's daughter; nay, insinuated laughingly that he had not escaped from it quite heart-whole. Caroline answered his letter in the same tone; told him, with excellent comedy, of the leading facts of life in Littlebath; recommended him by all ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... of rank, placed the little plebeian beside her at supper, and was heard to say, that the surgeon's daughter behaved very prettily indeed, and seemed to know perfectly well where and what she was. As for the young Laird himself, he capered so high, and laughed so uproariously, as to give rise to a rumour, that he was minded to "shoot madly from his sphere," and to convert the village Doctor's daughter into a lady of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... upon you. You were at college with Hepburn, Hume, and myself, and it will be a pleasure for us all to fight side by side; and if I know anything of your disposition I am sure you cannot be contented to be remaining here at the age of nine-and-twenty, rusting out your life as a Scotch laird, while Hepburn has already won a name ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... also to tell his children, when spurring them to diligence at school, that neither had he ever heard of a Livingstone who was a donkey. He has also recorded a tradition that the people of the island were converted from being Roman Catholics "by the laird coming round with a man having a yellow staff, which would seem to have attracted more attention than his teaching, for the new religion went long afterward—perhaps it does so still—by the name of the religion of the yellow stick." The same story is ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... of what the Laird would say when he came up, almost resulted in his not coming up at all. However, some one, rather bolder than the rest, retained sufficient presence of mind to effect a rescue, and the timid ones, thankful enough ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... shows his tender concern for an amiable young gentleman to whom he had been very much obliged in the Hebrides, I have inserted according to its date, though before receiving it I had informed him of the melancholy event that the young Laird of Col ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... which Captain Semmes was now appointed had been built expressly for the Confederate navy, by Messrs. Laird and Sons, of Birkenhead. She was a small fast screw steam-sloop, of 1040 tons register, not iron-clad, as was at one time erroneously supposed, but built entirely of wood, and of a scantling and general construction, in which strength had been less consulted than speed. Her length over all was ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... tales! But I wish I could tell where the treasure is that wily auld Logan quarrelled over with the wizard Laird of Merchistoun. Logan would not implement the contract—half profits. But my wits ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang

... construct an iron vessel at his works at Manchester, in 1831, which went to sea the same year. Its success was such as to induce him to begin iron shipbuilding on a large scale, at the same time as the Messrs. Laird did at Birkenhead; and in 1835, Mr. Fairbairn established extensive works at Millwall, on the Thames,—afterwards occupied by Mr. Scott Russell, in whose yard the "Great Eastern" steamship was erected,—where in the course ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... front of a Scottish castle was sometimes called so. It is difficult to trace the derivation; but at that distance from the castle the laird received guests of rank, and thither he conveyed them on ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... when our Jeannie heard, she stared, And said, "What do you mean, John Fitzadree? You talk of letters, but of them the laird Has never brought a single one to me; But when I've seen him I have never cared How soon he went, for he told me that ye Were either dead or faithless—so he said I'd better wed the live, than mourn ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various

... the laird of Gilnockie, on the occasion of an enforced surrender to James V. (1532), came before the king somewhat too richly accoutred, and was hanged for ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... beginning of the eighteenth century, John Adair, the laird of Little Genoch, was married to Mary Agnew, a near kinswoman of the celebrated Sir Andrew, colonel of the Scots Fusiliers at Dettingen. The exact relationship of Mary Agnew to "the bravest man in the British army" remains undecided, but letters still extant from the Lady Agnew of the day address ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood

... Darwinische Theorie in Besug auf die geographische Verbreitung der Organismen." Sitzenb. der Akad. Muenchen, 1868. Translated by J. L. Laird under the title, The Darwinian Theory and the Law of the Migration of Organisms. London, 1873. Also Ueber den Einfluss der geographischen Isolirung und Colonierbildung auf die morphologischen Veraenderungen der ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... Elibank, the home of the Murrays. A famous lady of that family was Muckle Mou'd Meg, whom young Harden, when caught while driving Elibank's kye, preferred to the gallows as a bride. In 1751 the owner of the tower on Tweed was Lord Elibank; to all appearance a douce, learned Scots laird, the friend of David Hume, and a customer for the wines of Montesquieu's vineyards at La Brede. He had a younger brother, Alexander Murray, and the politics of the pair, says Horace Walpole, were of the sort which at once kept the party alive, and made it incapable ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang

... so with them came a large number of Britishers, to open up and cultivate farms at Colwood, the latter near the now Naval Hospital at Esquimalt. Captain Grant and Captain Cooper were here, and soon came the noble, steadfast laird, Mr. Kenneth McKenzie, wife and family. These brought their customs with them, so of course Christmas observances. It will thus be seen that Christmas and other customs came with the immigrants, and from the planting of ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... page Abilena Mineral Water Albany Chemical Co Aleta Hair Tonic Alexander's Asthma Remedy Allen's Cough Balsam Ankle Supports Arch Cushions Astyptodyne Athlophoros Australian Eucalyptus Globulus Oil Bath Cabinets Blair's Pills Blood Berry Gum Page facing inside back cover "Bloom of Youth," Laird's Blue Ribbon Gum Blush of Roses Bonheim's Shaving Cream Borax, Pacific Coast Borden's Malted Milk Brown's Asthma Remedy Brown's Liquid Dressing Brown's Wonder Face Cream Brown's Wonder Salve Bryans' Asthma ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... in Edinburgh was not happy; he hated the rough society of Scotch lawyers, and quarrelled with his father, the Laird of Auchinleck, who seems to have been a tiresome, disagreeable old man. The Laird died in 1782, and seven years later Boswell lost his "valuable wife." His story becomes melancholy: money troubles and family perplexities beset him (he was ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... cress-flower round the spring; The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye, And the nut that hung frae the hazel-tree: For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. But lang may her minny look o'er the wa', And lang may she seek i' the greenwood shaw; Lang the Laird of Duneira blame, And lang, lang greet or ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... the old man, half-rising and making a courtly bow; "she hurt that the young Southron laird had come, and there's sorrow in her old heart, for the pipes are not ready to give him welcome to the home of ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... ill that was dune that day is weel compensate on this. Sooth, if only marriages be made in heaven, as they say, sure this is one. The laird will get his ain again, and the bonnyest leddy in a' ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... and elm-tree, The laird can hang for a' the three; But fir, saugh, and bitter-weed, The laird may flyte, but ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... from some one on the coach that the young laird was coming. But, strange to say, a feeling had got abroad amongst them to his prejudice. They had looked to hear great things of their favourite, but he had not made the success they expected, and from their disappointment they imagined his blame. It troubled them to think of the old ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... left, in 1865, the western coast of the Dark Continent, its transit and traffic were monopolised by the A(frican) S(team) S(hip) Company, a monthly line established in 1852, mainly by the late Macgregor Laird. In 1869 Messieurs Elder, Dempster, and Co., of Glasgow, started the B(ritish) and A(frican) to divide the spoils. The junior numbers nineteen keel, including two being built. It could easily 'eat up' ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... nearly half a century in the United States, he was as thoroughly Scotch in all his ways as if he had just arrived from his native land; and while enjoying his hospitalities, you might have fancied yourself in a Highland laird's old family mansion. In all his kind attentions, he was most ably assisted by his amiable lady. Everything I had seen hitherto was invested with an air of newness, looking as if of yesterday: here, the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... other like duty or labour—all but the happy Captain Doolittle. The minister had his parish to visit, and his preaching to prepare, though perhaps he made more fuss than he needed about both. The laird had his farming and improving operations to superintend; and, besides, he had to attend trustee meetings, and lieutenancy meetings, and head-courts, and meetings of justices, and what not—was as early up, (that I detested,) and ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... sit an' think we micht hae been aye herdin' sheep on the Dumfries hills, wi' scarce eneuch to eat, wi' this man 'my Laird' an' yon man 'yir Grace' an' oor ain bairns little mair nor slaves. The duke we knelt doon afore in Scotland aften paid mair for a racin' filly nor we paid for a' this bonnie land we ca' oor ain the day. Canada's nae sae guid ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... auld laird of the Warlock glen, Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery, And langed for a sight o' his winsome deary, Raised up the latch and cam' crousely ben. His coat it was new, and his o'erlay was white, His mittens and hose were cozie and bien; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... had a large warehouse, and John Laird was prosperous in this business, and as time went on, meant a great deal to Georgetown. Colonel Deakins, Jr., was prominent, for on his tomb was inscribed: "George Town, by the blow, has lost her most illustrious patron." He was only fifty-six when he died in 1798. In his youth, ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... answered. 'The heir to a laird is called Younger of so-and-so. My father has a small estate of that name in Dumfriesshire; a very small estate: I was born and ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... the first to make the present historical. His masterpieces are not his descriptions of mediaeval knights so much as the stories in which he illuminates the present by his vivid presentation of the present order as the outgrowth from the old, and makes the Scottish peasant or lawyer or laird interesting as a product and a type of social conditions. Nature therefore to him includes the natural processes by which society has been developed under the stress of circumstances. Nothing could ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... McLure, are all immortal, deathless as Shakspeare's men and women. Indeed here, even more than elsewhere, we admire the life which Scott breathes into his minor characters, Halliday and Inglis, the troopers, the child who leads Morton to Burley's retreat in the cave, that auld Laird Nippy, old Milnwood (a real "Laird Nippy" was a neighbour of Scott's at Ashiestiel), Ailie Wilson, the kind, crabbed old housekeeper, generous in great things, though habitually niggardly in things small. Most of these are persons whom we might still meet in Scotland, as we might meet Cuddie Headrigg—the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Austin "A Rose Will Fade" Dora Sigerson Shorter Affaire d'Amour Margaret Deland A Casual Song Roden Noel The Way of It John Vance Cheney "When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly" Oliver Goldsmith Folk-Song Louis Untermeyer A Very Old Song William Laird "She Was Young and Blithe and Fair" Harold Monro The Lass that Died of Love Richard Middleton The Passion-Flower Margaret Fuller Norah Zoe Akins Of Joan's Youth Louise Imogen Guiney There's Wisdom in Women Rupert Brooke Goethe and Frederika Henry Sidgwick The Song of the King's ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... left side—the Crathes bank of Dee. Across the river was the somewhat dilapidated fortalice of Tilquhillie, the seat of an ancient and decayed branch of the Douglases. The last laird who dwelt there lived in the traditions of Deeside as own brother to the Laird of Ellangowan in Scott's romance. Ramsay has put him well on canvas. Who does not remember his dying instructions to his son and his grieve?—"Be ye aye stickin' in a tree, Johnny; ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... a class far commoner in Galloway sixty years ago than now. He was a "bonnet laird" of the best type, and his farm, which included all kinds of soil—arable and pasture, meadow and moor, hill pasture and wood—was of the value of about L300 a year, a sum sufficient in those days to make him a man of substance ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... all thither at once. The effect of such a measure, gloss it over as you may, would be to increase the black labor of the British islands, by just so much as is deducted from the number of slaves, intended for the Spanish or Brazilian possessions. "The sure cure for the slave-trade" says Mr. Laird, "is in our own hands. It lies in producing cheaper commodities by free labor, in our own colonies." And, to accomplish this desirable end, England will seize upon the liberated Africans and land them in ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... Dublin Co. built four paddle-vessels, far exceeding any cross-Channel steamer then afloat in tonnage, speed and accommodation. They were over three hundred feet in length, of two thousand tons burden, and had a speed of fifteen knots. Of these the Munster, Connaught, and Ulster were built by Laird of Birkenhead, while the Leinster was built in London by Samuda. These boats were most elaborately and comfortably fitted up, and many people of my age, who were in the habit of travelling constantly to ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... fact (and specially since the old laird had died), thrived on fighting. At the present day they might, perhaps, have passed as freebooters and outlaws, but during the troubled times of the Commonwealth they were looked upon as a noble band of patriots, whose swords were ever ready in the king's cause, and ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... before the supper in Wine-Office Court, at which Mr. Percy was present. It is a thousand pities that Boswell had not by this time made his appearance in London. Johnson, Goldsmith, and all the rest of them are only ghosts until the pertinacious young laird of Auchinleck comes on the scene to give them colour, and life, and form. It is odd enough that the very first remarks of Goldsmith's which Boswell jotted down in his notebook, should refer to Johnson's systematic kindness towards the ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... I come to New York, will sell for twenty-four good pounds: with this I'll be right merry, and my wife right beau." They then murdered the Indians' faithful dog, because he howled, and buried him with his masters. It was shortly after this that they met the laird of the Kamouraska Isles, le Chevalier de la Durantaye, who said that the best Canadian blood ran in his veins, and that he was of kin with the mighty Duc de Mirapoix. Had the mighty Duke, however, at that moment ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... habitually believe in what I hear from "the oldest aunt telling the saddest tale,"—no, not even if she tells a ghost story, or an anecdote about the presentation by Queen Mary of her portrait to the ancestor of the Laird,—the portrait being dated 1768, and representing her Majesty in the bloom of girlhood. Nor do I care for what Rowe said (on Betterton's information), in 1709, about Shakespeare's schooling; nor for what Dr. Furnivall said that Plume wrote; nor for what ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... ye that, laird. It'll haud them awa' for the time bein', though it can profit but little i' ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... estate in the immediate neighbourhood of Montrose, of which his father was laird. He was born on 1st August 1545—a year memorable as that of Knox's emergence to public life—the youngest of nine sons, most of whom came to fill honourable positions ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... called him forty Marchmen bold, I trow they were of his ain name, Except Sir Gilbert Elliot, called The Laird of ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various

... observe the contentment and kindness of this quiet, benevolent man. Professor Macleod was brother to Macleod of Talisker, and brother-in-law to the Laird of Col. He gave me a letter to young Col. I was weary of this day, and began to think wishfully of being again in motion. I was uneasy to think myself too fastidious, whilst I fancied Dr Johnson quite satisfied. But he owned to me that he was fatigued and teased by Sir Alexander's doing too much ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... observed, and you will obviously have no poaching. There will be nothing to poach, and no fun in doing it. They said that they would pay keepers to hold the Southern bodies off, out of the rates, and the rates would be paid by the Laird—meaning me. I said I knew that several Lairds were standing on this platform, but that, personally, if my land and rents were to be taken away, I did not see how the rates were to be got out of my empty sporran. This was a new idea to them, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 30, 1892 • Various

... has carried us so rapidly and safely round the globe claims a brief description. She was designed by Mr. St. Clare Byrne, of Liverpool and may be technically defined as a screw composite three-masted topsail-yard schooner. The engines, by Messrs. Laird, are of 70 nominal or 350 indicated horse-power, and developed a speed of 10.13 knots at the measured mile. The bunkers contain 80 tons of coal. The average daily consumption is 4 tons, and the speed 8 knots in fine weather. The ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... is the power of Eros. For when I went to slip quietly into the house, I found Whinnie and Struthers seated together beside the kitchen range. And Struthers was reading Tam O'Shanter aloud to her laird. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... exercised, they had little reason for respecting. They bore the same bloody trophy, which they had so savagely exhibited to the lady of Ardvoirlich, into the old church of Balquidder, nearly in the centre of their country, where the Laird of MacGregor and all his clan being convened for the purpose, laid their hands successively on the dead man's head, and swore, in heathenish and barbarous manner, to defend the author of the deed. This fierce and vindictive combination gave the author's late and lamented friend, Sir Alexander Boswell, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... brave, and faithful, and though now between sixty and seventy, as active and courageous as any young man. John had received injunctions not to betray the Prince's presence in the neighbourhood to the laird, but to keep such a piece of news from his chief was quite beyond honest John's powers. Nothing would restrain the old man from going off at once with his wife to pay their homage to the Prince. Nor would he hear of anyone conducting Charles to ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... a great deal of building on the far side, and Gourlay simply coined the money. He could not have exhausted the quarry had he tried—he would have had to howk down a hill—but he took thousands of loads from it for the Skeighan folk; and the commission he paid the laird on each was ridiculously small. He built wooden stables out on Templandmuir's estate—the Templar had seven hundred acres of hill land—and it was there the quarry horses generally stood. It was only rarely—once in two years, perhaps—that they came into the House with the Green Shutters. Last ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... yet old, and had not forgotten—why should she not remember it?—that she was esteemed in youth a beauty, and that it was not for want of a richer and younger lover that she agreed at last to become the wife of the Laird of Logan Braes. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... well known that my Landlord was a pleasing and a facetious man, acceptable unto all the parish of Gandercleugh, excepting only the Laird, the Exciseman, and those for whom he refused to draw liquor upon trust. Their causes of dislike I will touch separately, adding my own ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... "Ye're the laird o' the manor, now, Captain Ireton, with none to gainsay ye," he went on. "So I've come to give ye an account o' my stewardship. I made no doubt, all along, ye'd come back to your own when ye'd had your fling wi' the Old Worldies, and so I've kept tab o' the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... other generation would either of these men be what they had been to their own. But Mr. Carlyle as literary critic has a tenacious grasp, and Boswell was a subject made for his hand. 'Your Scottish laird, says an English naturalist of those days, may be defined as the hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet known.' Carlyle knew the type well enough. His general description ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... of land have you got there, I asked him? Bad enough, said he; we have no such trees as I see here, no wheat, no kine, no apples. Then, I observed, that it must be hard for the poor to live. We have no poor, he answered, we are all alike, except our laird; but he cannot help everybody. Pray what is the name of your laird? Mr. Neiel, said Andrew; the like of him is not to be found in any of the isles; his forefathers have lived there thirty generations ago, as we are told. Now, gentlemen, you may judge what an ancient family estate ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... Dunstafnage in Lorn, and there sent ashore his son, Mr. Charles Campbell, to engage his tenants and other friends and dependants of his family to rise in his behalf; but even there he found less encouragement and assistance than he had expected, and the laird of Lochniel, who gave him the best assurances, treacherously betrayed him, sent his letter to the government, and joined the royal forces under the Marquis of Athol. He then proceeded southwards, and landed at Campbelltown in Kintyre, where his first ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... Burns, though pleased and glad, remained as simple as before. He moved among the grand people in their silks and velvets clad in homespun clothes "like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird"* as easily as he had moved among his humble friends. He held himself with that proud independence which ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall

... Montrose, the cardinal again conspired his death, causing a letter to be sent to him as if it had been from his familiar friend, the Laird of Kennier, in which he was desired with all possible speed to come to him, as he was taken with a sudden sickness. In the mean time the cardinal had provided sixty men armed to lie in wait within a mile and a half of Montrose, in ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... no means an ideal bridegroom for a fair princess; but neither she nor her father had any choice given them in a concern so important to the pacification of the nation. She, it was whispered at court, had previously given her heart to a brave young Scottish laird; and her father, it was known, had already taken an instinctive dislike to the man destined to usurp his throne. In October, 1677, the Prince of Orange came to England, ostensibly to consult with King Charles regarding the establishment of peace between France and the ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... sene lord, and I've sene laird, And knights of high degree, Bot a fairer face than Young Waters ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... the House of Lords. He was pale, his voice was feeble, he looked, as he was, a broken man; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had already become traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to the Laird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight of the Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in English oratory. The ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... Europe, during the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century. The Diary of the honest citizen Birrel, repeatedly records such incidents as the following: "The 24 of November [1567], at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol." These skirmishes also ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... the world and find me; Go, find me if you can, From the distant Faroes with their mists and snows, To the green-clad Isle of Man; From John O' Groats to Maidenkirk, From far Poolewe to Prague— Go, find me a better or wiser man Than the Laird of Altnacraig. ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... possible, the blow must be quick, and crushing, and altogether unexpected. But if Mac Ian should apprehend danger and should attempt to take refuge in the territories of his neighbours, he must find every road barred. The pass of Rannoch must be secured. The Laird of Weems, who was powerful in Strath Tay, must be told that, if he harbours the outlaws, he does so at his peril. Breadalbane promised to cut off the retreat of the fugitives on one side, Mac Callum ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... thus choosing university men is not difficult to discover. When Mr W.L. Hichens (Chairman of Cammell, Laird and Co.) addressed the Incorporated Association of Headmasters in January last he declared that in choosing university graduates for business he looked out for the man who might have got a First in Greats or history, ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... this early visitation was a symptom of grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... you guess? do you give it up? He is that handsome officer, the Laird of Epaigwit as the Scotch would say, the general as we should call him, for we are liberal of titles, and the man that lives at Cowcumber Falls, as they say here. Poor fellow, he has made the same discovery Sergeant Jackson ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... his excitement the gangway was thrown across, and the sailors stood aside to let the laird and his ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae

... the yeoman farmer in Norway is strongly attested by his heavy and growing indebtedness. He may now, in fact, be classed with the proverbially derided Fife laird, owning 'A wee bit of land, a great lump of debt, and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... now and then, a castle appeared, on a commanding height, visible for miles round, and seemingly in good repair,—now, in some low and sheltered spot, the gray walls of an abbey; now, on a little eminence, the ruin of a border fortress, and near it the modern residence of the laird, with its trim lawn and shrubbery. We were not ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... second title, borne to this day by the eldest son of the house, is that of Lord Dunglass. But it was bought about the middle of the seventeenth century by the Halls, who own it still, and in whose family there has been a baronetcy since 1687. The laird at the time with which we are now dealing was Sir James Hall, whose epitaph in the old church at Dunglass bears that he was "a philosopher eminent among the distinguished men of an enquiring age." He was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for many years, and was an acknowledged expert ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... upon him. 'O, this is you McSweem, to whom I have sold many a box of soap and tea when you wore an apron and kept a grocer's shop. Set you up and push you forward, indeed. You have got a bit of an estate with your wife's money and call yourself a laird! The grand folk having taken you under their wing, you forget that you once sat, cheek-by-jowl, with Joseph Gerrald, and now you sit in judgment on a better man ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar

... to tell us how men and cities are conceived in the counting house and the volunteer corps. He is, I understand, a Spanish hidalgo: hence the superbity of his portrait by Lavery (Velasquez being no longer available). He is, I know, a Scotch laird. How he contrives to be authentically the two things at the same time is no more intelligible to me than the fact that everything that has ever happened to him seems to have happened in Paraguay or Texas instead of in Spain or Scotland. He is, I regret to ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw

... desire to record their appreciation of material contributed and help given by:—Lieut.-Col. Morton, Lieut.-Col. Paul, Lieut.-Col. Inglis, Major Paterson, the Rev. A. Herbert Gray, C.F., Capt. G.H.R. Laird, Capt. M. MacRobert, Capt. T.P. Locking, Mr. Cameron of the Chamber of Commerce, Lieut. and Quarter-Master Kelly, Mr. Meadows of Saltcoats (for allowing illustrations and excerpts to be taken from the diary of his son, the late Lieut. B. Meadows), ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various

... hold manorial courts; and if cities should grow up on his domain he was to have power to appoint the magistrates and other officers of such municipalities, and have a deputy to confer with the Governor. Settlers under these lords, who were known as patroons—a term synonymous with the Scottish "laird" and the Swedish "patroon"—were to be exempt for ten years from the payment of taxes and tribute for the support of the colonial government, and for the same period every man, woman and child was bound not to leave the service of the patroon without his written consent. In order to prevent ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... nae help but Heaven's in sic a case as this," dolefully responded Murdock, as he came forward and solemnly stooped to obey. "The puir auld laddie! The Laird giveth and the Laird taketh awa', and the weel o' mon ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... from Ghent to Aix.' 'The ballad of Lochinvar,' says Scott, 'is in a very slight degree founded on a ballad called " Katharine Janfarie," which may be found in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," vol. ii. Mr. Charles Gibbon's 'Laird o' Lamington' is ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... hard-edged, unyielding faces of thy inhabitants have no sympathy to impart. What is it to me that I look along the level line of thy tenantless streets, and meet perhaps a lawyer like a grasshopper chirping and skipping, or the daughter of a Highland laird, haughty, fair, and freckled? Or why should I look down your boasted Prince's Street, with the beetle-browed Castle on one side, and the Calton Hill with its proud monument at the further end, and the ridgy steep of Salisbury Crag, cut off abruptly by Nature's boldest hand, and Arthur's ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt

... woman, and then learned from her that the island was a very large one, with a name unpronounceable by English lips, that it was very thinly inhabited, that it consisted almost entirely of pasture land, and that "the laird" owned a large portion of it, including the little fishing village ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... fair forms of the daughters of O'Fegus, a highland Chieftain, from whom descended Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; and thence originated the name subsequently given by the highland laird's successors, to the dormitory of the dead, the Sark o' Fegus, or in the corruption of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan



Words linked to "Laird" :   Scotland, landowner, landholder, property owner



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