If he had married her, he'd have been asking for trouble.

They had been seen as soon as they left the ranch, picked out of the darkness by the weary though watchful eyes of two men posted a few hundred yards away in the windless shelter of the trees.

They greeted the news angrily, as though they had been cheated of purpose.

With every leaping stride of the horse beneath him he crossed one more patch of earth that had been his, that he would never see again.

He had been carrying an Enfield rifle and a holstered navy cap-and-ball pistol.

But the luck that had been running their way left him.

His shout had been taken up and repeated.

A sizable supply of powder had been touched off.

The worst part had been the waiting ; ;

The war captain had been badly wounded and was fighting to hold his seat.

And one had been too many.

That afternoon when they had pulled up in front of the broken-down ranch house, his hopes had been high.

The place had been cheap -- just the little he had left after Amelia's burial -- and it would serve its purpose.

I had for some time been hoping, in vain, for one of the dim figures to pass between the fan vents and myself.

Although I had been inside it I had not yet seen it functioning.

No one was behind it, but in the rear wall of the office I noticed, for the first time, a door which had been left partially open.

He had been worried that with Miller and Rankin added to the escape party they would be short.

He had been one of the original Night Riders, one who had escaped the trial.

He had been the auditor for the mining syndicate, and he had stolen fifty thousand dollars of the syndicate's money.

Then the vein had petered out and the whole project had been abandoned.

In the late 1750s he began composing symphonies, and by 1761 he had composed a triptych ( Morning, Noon, and Evening ) solidly in the " contemporary " mode.

Haydn, having worked for over a decade as the music director for a prince, had far more resources and scope for composing than most and also the ability to shape the forces that would play his music.

When Haydn and Mozart began composing, symphonies were played as single movements — before, between, or as interludes within other works — and many of them lasted only ten or twelve minutes ; instrumental groups had varying standards of playing, and the continuo was a central part of music-making.

Rossini had been a well-known gourmand and an excellent amateur chef his entire life, but he indulged these two passions fully once he retired from composing, and today there are a number of dishes with the appendage " alla Rossini " to their names that were either created by or specifically for him.

In the meantime, after years of various physical and mental illnesses, he had slowly returned to music, composing obscure little works intended for private performance.

In the Netherlands, Locke had time to return to his writing, spending a great deal of time re-working the Essay and composing the Letter on Toleration.

But he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps the greatest French Grand Opera, Don Carlos, and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff, which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century.

By age five, she had begun composing instrumental pieces on piano and, while living in Rockville, Maryland, she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

After many vicissitudes, resulting from political and dynastic changes, he was invited to Paris ( 1802 ) by Napoleon, whose favor he had won five years previously by composing a march for the funeral of General Hoche.

Any person who immediately prior to the commencement of the act had been a South African citizen via naturalization, had been deemed to be a South African citizen by registration, or had been a citizen via naturalization of any of the former states now composing South Africa is now considered to be a naturalized citizen of South Africa.

When he was composing the duo, he had two friends play the four-hands version to aid in the transcription.

A second generation of Bluegrass musicians began performing, composing and recording in the mid-to late-1960s, although many had played in first generation bands from a young age.

The situation saw a return to the physical violence and psychological manipulation that had taken place during the band's previous communal residence while composing and rehearsing Trout Mask Replica.

They were, he says, his nidus senectutis, the ' nest of his old age ', and there he spent the rest of his days, composing poetry and writing to many eminent contemporaries, several of whom had been his pupils.

Droste disagreed: she had no problem composing poetry in her head but had difficulty writing it down and the failure of her first book had not encouraged her to make the effort.

Remarkably, Elgar later related on several occasions how Jaeger had encouraged him as an artist and had stimulated him to continue composing despite setbacks.

Once, when Elgar had been very depressed and was about to give it all up and write no more music, Jaeger had visited him and encouraged him to continue composing.

His grades had gone steadily downhill, and he had stopped bringing friends and classmates home from school.

The velocity of the craft steadily decreased, as Apollo 16 had not yet reached the lunar sphere of gravitational influence.

It is probable that the power of Aegina had steadily declined during the twenty years after Salamis, and that it had declined absolutely, as well as relatively, to that of Athens.

With a steadily enlarging Somali population, the likelihood of a third referendum appearing successful had grown even more dim.

Because of economic recessions, the number of movie theaters in Japan had been steadily decreasing since the 1960s.

Thousands of people were present at the periodic rallies and the membership in anticommunist organizations had grown steadily.

Initially a kingdom, the Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC, and would grow steadily over the next several centuries until it had supplanted Greek culture as the dominant Mediterranean civilization.

He had never petitioned for an amnesty, steadily rejected all the overtures both of the Austrian government and of the Magyar Conservatives ( who would have accepted something short of full autonomy ), and clung enthusiastically to Ferenc Deák's party.

Until the political insecurity in September 1998, Lesotho's economy had grown steadily since 1992.

Benaud had contributed 246 runs at 41 and taken wickets steadily to total 18 at 26. 94, averages which were in line with those of specialist batsmen and bowlers.

The Antonine Plague had severely thinned the senatorial ranks and with capable men now in short supply, Severus ' career advanced more steadily than it otherwise might have.

Sales steadily declined from the mid-1990s to around 200, 000 in 2001, by which time Chris Donald had resigned as editor and passed control to an " editorial cabinet " comprising his brother, Simon, Dury, Thorp and new recruits Davey Jones and Alex Collier.

He steadily created a renowned botanical masterpiece on the estate, achieved primarily with many of the great variety of foreign plants he had collected on his extensive travels around the world, particularly to Australia and the South Seas.

Residual military conflict resulting from the Napoleonic Wars in Europe had been steadily worsening throughout James Madison's first term, with the British and the French both ignoring the neutrality rights of the United States at sea and seizing American ships.

Through the remainder of the 13th century, French control over Flanders steadily increased until 1302 when an attempt at total annexation by Philip IV met a stunning defeat when Count Guy ( who had the support of the guilds and craftsmen ) rallied the townspeople and humiliated the French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

Russian court had steadily increased in importance throughout the 18th century and came to hold more cultural significance than many of its Western counterparts due its inclusive nature: any “ well to do inhabitants ” were welcome at Court.

They would appear on the eastern edge of the disk, steadily move to the western edge, disappear, then reappear at the east again after the passage of the same amount of time that it had taken for it to cross the disk in the first place.

Robert the Bruce had been steadily reconquering Scotland.

Meanwhile, the messages brought back by Edward's agent Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter and others grew steadily worse: Isabella had publicly snubbed Stapledon ; Edward's political enemies were gathering at the French court, and threatening his emissaries ; Isabella was dressed as a widow, claiming that Hugh Despenser had destroyed her marriage with Edward ; Isabella was assembling a court-in-exile, including Edmund of Kent and John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond.