But, on looking behind to see who had given them admittance, he was astounded when, instead of an armed and mailed soldier, as he had thought the drumly-voiced sentinel there placed was, he saw a large, elderly monk, sitting on a bench with a broken pasty smoking on a platter beside him, and a Rotterdam greybeard jug standing by, no doubt plenished with cordial drink.
— from Ringan Gilhaize, or, The Covenanters by John Galt

eyn e botschaffe sich der dinge zu erko n ne n thon vnd mich gefraugk ab ich solchsz auch lied en moge sonst wolle s. may estä t niemancz nicht meld en dar auff ich s. may estä t geantwort dasz moge ich wole lied en szo verne niemancz genent von wem s. may estä t disze dinge vorstand en vnd mich gefraugk ab ich keine befelich habe die buntnisz myt s. may estä t zu schlyssen habe ich geantwort nein sonder n s. may estä t zu raid en dasz sich ir may estä t irsz gemucz entlichen vorne m me n
— from Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell, Vol. 1 of 2 Life, Letters to 1535 by Roger Bigelow Merriman

Mr. Kitely shut shop a little earlier; Mr. Spelt descended from his perch: and Mr. Dolman crept out of his hole—all to bear a hand in the moving of it.
— from Guild Court: A London Story by George MacDonald

Under the bleak sky of November, in biting frost and sleet rain, some twenty or more grown men, graduates of our common schools, and liable, every mother's son of them, to be made deacons, squires, and general court members, and such other drill officers as may be requisite in the march of mind, might be seen delving in grim earnest, breaking the frozen earth, uprooting swamp-maples and hemlocks, and waking, with sledge and crowbar, unwonted echoes in a solitude which had heretofore only answered to the woodman's axe or the scream of the wild fowl.
— from Margaret Smith's Journal, and Tales and Sketches, Complete Volume V of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier by John Greenleaf Whittier

The skate, a large example, made several vain attempts to seize the food, owing to its mouth being on the underside of its head and the food being close to the glass.
— from Animal Intelligence The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV. by George John Romanes