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In the square grassy area, surrounded by barracks and the quarters of the officers, the men were passing and repassing, or lounging among the trees; although not many weeks afterward it presented a different scene; for here the very off-scourings of the frontier were congregated, to be marshaled for the expedition against Santa Fe.
Baruch watched with interest how the tide of returning intelligence mounted in the thin mask of his face. He was an Armenian by every evidence, an effect of weather-beaten pallor appearing through dense masses of coal-black beard and hair one of those timid and servile off-scourings of civilization whose wandering lives are daily epics of horrid peril and adventure.
Many of them were little more than rogues and vagabonds. The mere off-scourings of the towns, they were idle and extravagant, and the colony did not prosper. Instead of putting gold into Louis' pockets, as he had hoped, he had constantly to pour it out to maintain the colony. Of that Louis soon grew tired.
The sailors, being collected how and where we can get hold of them, are too frequently the off-scourings and scum of society. With such a heterogeneous crew, the first year is employed in teaching them habits of cleanliness and common decency; and it is only in the third year of their service that the ship becomes really efficient.
Every offence on the calendar had been charged against it, and one would have thought, instead of being composed as it was of young, well educated and well-behaved men, it was the off-scourings of the Canadian prisons and jails. If we were well drilled we owed it all to ourselves.
But there it may not stay; on and yet on it rushes, as helpless as heedless, till one day it finds itself plunged into some foul current carrying the off-scourings of half a continent. So on and down plunged Doc; from stealing Indian ponies to lifting ranch horses was no long leap in his new code. Then our stock Association got busy and Billy Lykins took his trail.
This hostility of a clannish, religious, and conservative populace against the bloodthirsty and atheistical innovators who then lorded it over France was not diminished by the action of some six thousand French volunteers, the off-scourings of the southern ports, who were landed at Ajaccio for an expedition against Sardinia.
Poor in spirit, but most rich in faith, off-scourings of the world and salt of the earth, despisers of the world and fishers of men, how happy are ye, if suffering penury for Christ ye know how to possess your souls in patience!
Thus, like the brook, Doc had drifted down the turbid current of crime till he found himself impounded in the Lincoln penitentiary with the off-scourings of the state.
I inquired, remembering that this word, or something like it, had been constantly used by the natives in my hearing. "Well, Capt'n, it means, first and foremost, just the off-scourings of creation, the very dust and sweepings of the shop," answered Bludger, who had somehow regained his confidence.
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