United States or Côte d'Ivoire ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Nay, nay," said Mr. Poyser, with rather a contemptuous emphasis, "thee dostna know the pints of a woman. The men 'ud niver run after Dinah as they would after Hetty." "What care I what the men 'ud run after? It's well seen what choice the most of 'em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o' wives you see, like bits o' gauze ribbin, good for nothing when the colour's gone."
I dares to swear the wench was as willing as he; for she was always a forward kind of body. And when wenches are so coming, young men are not so much to be blamed neither; for to be sure they do no more than what is natural. Indeed it is beneath them to meddle with such dirty draggle-tails; and whatever happens to them, it is good enough for them.
Bold ones have sprung up nowadays. 'And were there no bold ones in your time? 'There were in our time too ... to be sure there were! But who were they? A pack of strumpets, shameless hussies. Draggle-tails for ever gadding about after no good.... What do they care? It's little they take to heart. If some poor fool comes in their way, they pounce on him. But sensible folk looked down on them.
In a moment the mob, which numbered not less than a thousand people, reached the steps, hissing, hooting. and caterwauling, and from the din rose such cries as: "Tory, Tory!" "Turn-coats!" "Where are the bloody-backs?" "Ain't we draggle-tails now?"
Thank God, we've caught the rising wind; so, hey for draggle-tails! we'll take up all we can." The waiter was coming up the path, and by his side, a little back, bareheaded and flushed with running, came Nicholas Attwood. He had followed the big man through the fields from the gates of the Falcon Inn.
"We'll see him first," said the quiet man, stopping the other's shilling with his hand. "Oh, Willy-nilly!" the big man cried; "wilt be a kite to float all the draggle-tails that flutter down from Warwickshire?" "Why, Ben," replied the quiet man, "'tis not the kite that floats the tail, but the wind which floats both kite and tail.
The great Western road into London was especially bad, and about Knightsbridge, in winter, the traveller had to wade through deep mud. Wyatt's men entered the city by this approach in the rebellion of 1554, and were called the "draggle-tails" because of their wretched plight.
Word Of The Day