Which preposition to use with constables
"Eric, I have marked thee well; methinks thou art one long bred to arms and learned in war?" "My lord Beltane, in other days I was the Duke thy father's High Constable of all the coast-wise towns.
A constable in Salisbury Cathedral was telling me that eight people dined at the top of the spire of the cathedral; upon which I remarked that they must be very sharp-set.
Gifford was to follow half an hour later, when they would have a conference with the Morristons and afterwards, with their approval, go into the town and see the chief constable on the subject.
I regretted that I was compelled to reveal the dead man's name to the police, yet I saw that to make some statement was now inevitable, and therefore I accompanied the constable to the inspector's office some distance across the town.
The young man followed Barney, the constable at his heels.
They may, indeed, form a camp upon some of the neighbouring heaths, or pass in review with tolerable regularity; they may sometimes seize a smuggler, and sometimes assist a constable with vigour and success.
The constable for me?
He even dared the town constable by staying out long after the curfew had rung, looking and asking.
The nickname of short-tempered stuck to the constable from that day, and not without reason.
Pa was so frightened he couldn't get supper, and everybody talked about cats of nine tails, and how prisoners were cut to pieces, and every time pa saw a jay with a slouch hat he thought it was a constable after him.
I was so absorbed that I failed to notice the big constable near me until he laid his heavy paw upon my shoulder and told me to move on.
The prisoner, he said, had seemed completely taken by surprise, not understanding the cause or history of the accusation against him; however, when put in full possession of the facts, and realizing, no doubt, the absolute futility of any resistance, he had quietly enough followed the constable into the cab.
An interesting relic of old times is the blowing of the horn at nine in the evening by a constable outside the mayor's house and at the market-cross.
The wickedest boys in the town hoot at you, with most ignominious and satiric antics, as you pass; and if they do not shie stones in upon you, or dead cats, it is more from fear of the beadle or the constable than out of respect for your business or pleasure.
And so the party, trunk and all, under the constable as conductor, adjourned to the house of a magistrate in an adjacent street.
I had a brother was a constable under Squire Gaines.
Thus it not only acted as a great mutual insurance company of which every householder was a member, but it made him, as it were, a special constable against burglary.
There's as many Head Constables as clergy in the country, an' only for the sergeants an' an odd constable 'tis unknown what 'ud happen!
H. B. Adams, The Germanic Origin of New England Towns, Saxon Tithing-Men in America, Norman Constables in America, Village Communities of Cape Ann and Salem; II., x. Edward Channing, Town and County Government in the English Colonies of North America; IV., xi.-xii.
It is Ordered, sentenced and decreed, that the Gou'rnor shall, ether by himselfe or by the secretary, send out sumons to the Constables of eu'r Towne for the cauleing of these two standing Courts, on month at lest before their seu'rall tymes: And also if the Gou'rnor and the gretest p'rte of the Magestrats see cause vppon
For, immediately thereupon, the Justice giving command for the apprehending us; the Constables with the rabble fell on us, and drew some, and drove others in the Inn: giving thereby an opportunity to the rest, to walk away.