Soft living makes a sluggard of the hardiest knight, and steals away his strength.

Strange, unwonted sounds saluted the ears of the early risers and awakened the sluggards in Lexington that Monday morning.

On the opposite bank of the arroyo was a line of heads, like those of infantry above a parapet, and she comprehended that, in the same way that news of a cock-fight travels, the gallery gods of Little Rivers had received a tip of a sporting event so phenomenal that it changed the sluggards among them into early risers.