"Clout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on naval discipline being carried on in his own house ashore. At any rate, it is quite certain that his wife frequently appeared at church with red eyes after her lord and master had held his usual Sunday forenoon inspection of the house, and had discovered a cockroach in the kitchen or a dish-clout in the scullery, while it was true that he permitted his three children to wear good conduct badges, each carrying with them the sum of 1d. per week, after three months' exemplary behaviour. But only one of them, Tony, aged 18 months, had ever ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... crowded audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting, because the actors had hid away the breeches of Rosalind, and have known Hamlet stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a dish-clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful consequences of a manager's getting a character for ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... others describe them as fine linen each piece worth 7s. 6d. to 8s. The bank-note was the "Indian piece or Mulech, a young black about twenty years of age, worth 20 Mil Keys (dollars) each." (Carli.) In the Barbots' day each "coin-clout") was equivalent to 2d.; some were unmarked, whilst others bore the Portuguese arms single or double. The wilder Kru-men still keep up their "buyapart" ( 25 cents), a cloth 4 inches square and thickly sewn over ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... grip of him, anyhow, for if he gave you the slip in there he'd vanish like a weasel in a bush. Them old fellows do be slippery customers. Look here, mister," said he to the Philosopher, "if you try to run away from us I'll give you a clout on the head with my baton; ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... Oneida Indians sat gravely smoking and blinking at the scene—no doubt belonging to our corps of runners, scouts, and guides, for all were shaved, oiled, and painted for war, and, under their loosened blankets, I could see their lean and supple bodies, stark naked, except for clout and ankle moccasin. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... in herds of hundreds along the pampas of the great Thames valley, and furnished forth abundant food for man as well as the wild beasts, when they could capture him. His skin, though, was not counted of much worth. Its short hair afforded little warmth in cloak or breech-clout, and the tanned pelt became hard and uncomfortable when it dried after a wetting. Still, there were various uses for this horse's hide. It made fine strings and thongs, and the beast's flesh, as has been said, was a staple of the larder. The first great resolve of Ab and Oak, these two gallant ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... sending the guide ahead with the horses, I walked over to the shore with the lady and children who were my companions. There we saw a sight characteristic of these islands. Three women decently clothed in a garment which covered them from head to foot, and a man with only a breech-clout on, were dashing into the surf, picking up sea-moss, and a little univalve shell, a limpet, which they flung into small baskets which hung from their shoulders. They were, in fact, getting their suppers, and they were quite as much surprised at our ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... friendly laugh; the innocent conceits That like a needless eyeglass or black patch Give those who wear them harmless happiness; The twists and cracks in our poor earthenware, That touch me to more conscious fellowship (I am not myself the finest Parian) With my coevals. So poor Colin Clout, To whom raw onions give prospective zest, Consoling hours of dampest wintry work, Could hardly fancy any regal joys Quite unimpregnate with the onion's scent: Perhaps his highest hopes are not all clear Of waftings from that ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... that he was presently left alone. Now he looks aside, and sees something bright-hued lying under a big stone where the last rays of the sun just caught some corner of it. So he goes thither, deeming that mayhappen one of the company had dropped something, pouch or clout, or what not, in his haste and hurry. He got off his horse to pick it up, and when he had laid hand on it found it to be a hands-breadth of fine green cloth embroidered with flowers. He held it in his hand a while wondering where he could have seen such like stuff before, ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... bamboo grass. You see the Smell was right when it talked of meeting old friends. Half-a-dozen blue-black pines are standing akimbo against a real sky—not a fog-blur nor a cloud-bank, nor a gray dish-clout wrapped round the sun—but a blue sky. A cherry tree on a slope below them throws up a wave of blossom that breaks all creamy white against their feet, and a clump of willows trail their palest green shoots in front of all. The ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... upon him and stripped him of all his clothes, so that he was compelled to enter the capital in foulest condition, naked even as his mother bare him. And after some charitable wight had thrown an old robe about him and bound his head with a clout (and his unshorn hair fell over his eyes)[FN360] he fell to asking for the mansion of the Wazir Ja'afar and the folk guided him thereto. But when he would have entered the attendants suffered him not; so he stood at the gate till an old man joined him. Attaf enquired of him saying, "Hast ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... beheld a country fellow approaching down a side lane. He wore a wide-eaved hat and his smock was new-washed and speckless; but that which drew and held my eyes, that which brought me to a sudden stand, was the bundle he bore wrapped in a fair, white clout. So, with my gaze on this I stood leaning on my knotted, untrimmed staff, waiting him. Suddenly, chancing to turn his head, he espied me, halted in his stride, then eyeing me askance, advanced again. A small man he was, with rosy face, ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... thing that hath been much cried up, and coveted in all ages, especially in this last century of years, by people of all sorts, though never so mean and mechanical; every man strains his fortune to keep his children at school; the cobbler will clout it till midnight, the porter will carry burdens till his bones crack again, the ploughman will pinch both back and belly to give his son learning, and I find that this ambition reigns no where so much as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... whistle is heard in the outer darkness, and a dozen forms, lithe and lean, dressed only with the narrow white breech-clout and mocassins, and daubed with white earth until they seem a group of living marbles, come bounding through the entrance, yelping like wolves, and slowly moving round the fire. As they advance, in single file, they ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... beautiful and touching allusions. Amid references to the tints of the Jungfrau, the blue rifts of the glaciers, and the noble Niesen towering over the Lake of Thun, we come upon the charming little scrap which I have elsewhere quoted: 'Clout-nail making goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop and anything relating to smithery. My father was a smith.' This is from his journal; but he is unconsciously speaking to ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... two candidates had hurried off to prepare for the long journey. Cumbersome garments were discarded, and Piang was clothed in the easy costume of the jungle traveler; breech-clout, head-cloth, a sarong, flung carelessly over one shoulder, and a panuelo (handkerchief) with a few necessary articles tied securely in it. His weapons were a bolo, a creese, and a bow and arrow. Piang's ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... mess of sweet-meats and potsherds; but a thought took me, dame, to be 'conomical for once: and I was half sorry too that I'd flung away the jars, for I began to fancy your little uns might ha' liked the stuff; so I dipped the clout like any washerwoman, rinshed, and squeezed, and washed the mess away, and have worn it round my waist ever since; here, dame, I haven't been this way for a while afore to-night; but I meant to ask you if you'd like to have it; may ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... lonely Sir Calidore, seeking Pastorella, catches a glimpse of the Graces dancing in the forest to the piping of Colin Clout (a personification of Spenser). Shortly after, Calidore has the good fortune to rescue Pastorella from a tiger, just after Coridon has deserted her ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... will that they should know. The figures in this pas de deux appear frequently to have terminated in what children, with their customary coarseness of speech, are pleased to call "wringing the dish-clout"—clasping the hands, throwing the arms above the head and turning rapidly, each as on a pivot, without loosing the hands of the other, and resting again ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... inspiration came to him like a ray of sunlight piercing the blackness of a dungeon. He felt among the inner folds of his ragged blanket, withdrew a small object and thrust it into his mouth. A second later the blanket was snatched from his body leaving him clad only in a breech clout, and he was given a push into the lane as a hint that his time for running ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... gentleman," said I, standing up and taking off MacMuir's coat, "and call me a lubberly clout like yourself, and we will see which is the better clout." I put off the longsleeved jacket, and faced him with my fists doubled, crying: "I'll teach you, you spawn of a dunghill, to speak ill ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bricklayer should survive and succeed. It sought to rebuild the ruins of any bricklayer, and to give any faded whitewasher a new white coat. It was the whole aim of the Guilds to cobble their cobblers like their shoes and clout their clothiers with their clothes; to strengthen the weakest link, or go after the hundredth sheep; in short, to keep the row of little shops unbroken like a line of battle. It resisted the growth of a big shop like the growth ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... Colin Clout's Come Home Again, is Lady Carey, wife of Sir George Carey (afterwards Lord Hunsdon, 1596). Lady Carey was Elizabeth, the second of the six daughters of Sir John Spenser, of Althorpe, ancestor of the noble houses of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... man was almost of heroic proportions; he was clad in but a breech-clout, and was so broad as to appear squat in stature. He carried a short club, and appeared almost as dumbfounded as the two Americans. A moment he regarded them, then, with a ferocious snarl of rage, he hurled himself upon the startled Ward and half clubbed, ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... cam west, wi' a braw burn trout, An' speer'd how acquaintance were greeing; He brought it frae Peebles, tied up in a clout, An' said it wad just be a preeing, a preeing, An' said it wad just be ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... saf that thei worschipen an ox for here god. And also everyche of hem berethe an ox of gold or of sylver in his forhed, in tokene that thei loven wel here god. And thei gon alle naked, saf a litylle clout, that thei coveren with here knees and hire membres. Thei ben grete folk and wel fyghtynge; and thei han a gret targe, that coverethe alle the body, and a spere in here hond to fighte with. And zif thei taken ony man in bataylle, anon thei eten him. The kyng of that ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny, for he contrived to get out. In time they reached the North Sea, and came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy of an Indian wizard. Here they found Dampier's sloop, and rejoined their comrades, to the great delight of all hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part of an Hour, before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our Doctor." There was a great feast that night at La Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of small ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... ground, while our hearts went up in thankfulness for deliverance from so imminent danger to life and limb. After resting awhile, we washed the blood—our blood—from our bodies, and decorating them with "what was left," somewhat after the fashion of the Indian who wears only a "breech clout," we took the scalps of the four panthers, and started on our homeward march. Our success was speedily known in the clearing, and in the evening a barbecue was had in oar honor, to furnish which a relation of the unfortunate heifer met with ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... naked, usually with nothing but the smallest possible breech clout around their loins, which the police require them to wear; they plaster their bodies with mud, ashes and filth; they rub clay, gum and other substances into their hair to give it an uncouth appearance. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... watching you all the time," she gasped. "I thought you must be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked. Pretty washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout in your life, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... care a damn to gie the daashed scoon'rel a fair clout wi' it," he said. "The daashed thing micht come sindry in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... breech-clout and spectacles, the lamplight shining on his bald head, sat in the midst of them, familiar by a score of years with their chants. Pae filled the pipe and the bowls and joined in the chorus, while the Paumotan boys, in a shadowy ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... clout thee blind, Jack, as she clouted the Chaplain," cried one of the company. "No man that lives can tame her. She is the fiercest shrew in England, as ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... true that Raleigh himself, five months later, being once more restored to favour, speaks of 'that nearness to her Majesty which I still enjoy,' and directly contradicts the rumour of his disgrace. This, however, is not in accordance with the statement made by Spenser in his poem of Colin Clout's come home again, in which he says that all Raleigh's speech ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... pot is an enamelled urn, The clout hung out to dry a noble banner, The hay-rick by thy favour boasts a golden cape, And the rick's little sister, the thatched hive, Wears, by thy ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... the matter of clothes." He grinned again. "We'll want a breech clout, at least. I propose that we get the sheerest silk gauze we can find, and cut an eighth-inch square apiece to tie about our middles ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... only one, of a party of eight, who returned to their towns; that on being asked by some one, "what news,"—he replied, "bad news for poor Indian, me lose a son, me lose a brother,—the squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight worse than the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... him to the camp, wishing him to act as interpreter with the natives. At the same time Mucozo was sending Ortiz with an escort of fifty Indians to offer peace to the Spaniards. These Indians were all stark naked, except that each wore a small clout, but their heads were ornamented with great plumes of feathers. They all carried bows in their hands, and all had quivers well filled ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... funny way to go to Bursley Station, that is," said Amy, observing that Constance was descending King Street instead of crossing it into Wedgwood Street. And she caught Spot 'a fair clout on the head,' to indicate to him that she had him alone in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... borrow a clout from the Boer—to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar's bandage, ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... Kahiki, who was keeper of the sun, undertook to deprive the people of it, because of some slight, Kana waded across the sea and forced that king to behave himself instanter; then, having seen the light properly placed in the sky, he spread his breech-clout over a few acres of volcano to dry, and took a nap on a mile or so of lava bed. This deity had the power of compressing himself into a small space, and likewise of pulling himself out to any desired length, like an accordion, so that there was not water in the eight seas deep ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... doited sumph, but to Grizel pleading for him she admitted that despite his warts and quarrelsome legs he was a great big muckle sonsy, stout, buirdly well set up, wise-like, havering man. When first Corp had proposed to her, she gave him a clout on the head; and so little did he know of the sex that this discouraged him. He continued, however, to propose and she to clout him until he heard, accidentally (he woke up in church), of a man in the Bible who had wooed a woman for seven years, and this ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... became the pilot of our voyage up Lake Moosetocmaguntic. We shoved off in a bateau, while Joseph Bourgogne, sad at losing us, stood among the stumps, waving adieux with a dish-clout. We had solaced his soul with meed of praise. And now, alas! we left him to the rude jokes and half-sympathies of the lumbermen. The artist-cook saw his appreciators vanish away, and his proud dish-clout drooped like ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... hopeless for a holiday. One must be near one's tailor in May to see about one's summer clothes. Choosing a flannel suit in May is one of the moments of one's life—only equalled by certain other great moments at the hosier's and hatter's. "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" says a particularly idiotic saw, but as you have already disregarded it by casting your fur coat, you may as well go through with the business now. Socks; I ask you to think of summer socks. Have you ordered your half-hose yet? No. Then how can you go ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... also arranged for the desegregation of some off-base social facilities in a effort to improve black morale.[21-46] If the changes at Pensacola appear more closely related to the committee's political clout in Washington than to the commander's interest in reform, they also demonstrate the power for reform that the commander could exercise. This was the committee's main point, that equal opportunity was a command responsibility.[21-47] But it would be hard to sell in the Department of ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... was very simple and scant, before being initiated into the use of a more ample and complete style of covering while living at the reservations. The ordinary full complement of dress for a man (Nung'-ah) was simply a breech-clout, or short hip-skirt made of skins; that for a woman (O'-hoh) was a skirt reaching from the waist to the knees, made of dressed deerskin finished at the bottom with a slit fringe, and sometimes decorated with various fancy ornaments. Both ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... repeat it; which he did in so lively a manner, setting forth the cruel murder of the feeble old king, with the destruction of his people and city by fire, and the mad grief of the old queen, running barefoot up and down the palace, with a poor clout upon that head where a crown had been, and with nothing but a blanket upon her loins, snatched up in haste, where she had worn a royal robe: that not only it drew tears from all that stood by, who thought they saw the real scene, so livelily was it represented, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... a brown figure in clout and drab turban watched the young man. When he saw the elephant with the hunting howdah he knew that he had the information for which his master had detailed him to follow, night and day, the young banker Ramabai. The white hunter was coming ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... minutes the air was thick with buns, It was almost as bad, so he told me, as the shelling of the Huns, But our gallant Tennysonian held on until a clout In the eye from a metal teapot knocked him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... trouble occurred. This particular policeman was passing through the train shed and he saw the blow delivered. He ran up and, to be on the safe side, put both men under technical arrest. The sweeper, who had been bowled over by the clout he had got, made a charge of unprovoked assault against the stranger; the latter expressed a blasphemous regret that he had not succeeded in cracking the sweeper's skull. He appeared to be in a highly nervous, highly irritable state. At any rate such was the interpretation ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... ye daurna give a look! He came in my road when I was sweeping out the close, and some o' the dirty jaups splashed about his shins. But was I to blame for that?—ye maun walk wide o' a whalebone besom if ye dinna want to be splashed. Afore I kenned where I was, he up wi' a dirty washing-clout and slashed me in the face wi't! I hit him a thud in the ear—as wha wadna? Out come his mither like a fury, skirling about her hoose, and her servants, and her weans. 'Your servant!' says I—'your servant! You're a nice-looking trollop to talk aboot servants,' ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... moment at me on my sack of grain, and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haired desert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copper body, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in the thorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our wide continent holds in fee under the single title United States, until breakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding the driver and the breakfast man were both ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... or two appeared to have any article of dress, and that was a ragged breech-clout. The others were naked as the wild beasts around them, naked from ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... as their Greek prototypes, first invoked the favor of the gods, and offered sacrifices when victorious. The palestra was on a lawn by the sea, and in formal contests district champions met those of other districts, and islands competed for supremacy with other islands. The maona wore a breech-clout and a coat of cocoanut oil freshly laid on, but not sand, as in the Olympiads. When one was thrown, the victor's friends shouted in triumph and sang and danced about him to the music of tom-toms, while the backers of the ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Queen. Raleigh, to whom the first three books were read, was so impressed by the beauty of the work that he hurried the poet off to London, and gained for him the royal favor. In the poem "Colin Clout's Come Home Again" we may read Spenser's account of how the court impressed him after his sojourn ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... as onny clout, An' they said niver a word, T'hey couldn't tell what the ghost was like, Whether 'twas a beast ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... in the clout! you have hit the very white," said the damsel, suppressing a great ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... high on a craning neck, was daubed with vermilion, the high crest of hair bristling across the shaven crowns. Grimly impassive they came nearer, not speaking nor moving their eyes from the three whites. One of them, a young man, naked save for a breech clout and moccasins, was in the lead. As he approached David saw that his eyelids were painted scarlet and that a spot of silver on his breast was a medal ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... receives much attention. The poorest of the men wear clouts of banana leaf, and the women, when in danger of capture, don skirts of bark; but on most occasions we find the man wearing a colored cotton clout, above which is a bright belt of the same material, while for ceremonies he may add a short coat or jacket. A headband, sometimes of gold, keeps his long hair in place, and for very special events he may adorn each hair with a golden bead (pp. ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the Rocket ran out By jumping the railings and kicking a clout Of rotten white woodwork to startle the trout. When Charles cleared the water, the grass stretcht before And the glory of going burned ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... never do it: Let no man lift a blade or finger a clout— Is not this Gunnar, Gunnar, whom we have slain? Home, home, before the dawn ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... yer 'ere," said the miner, showing the shoulders of his singlet. "It's a bit dry now, but it's wet as a clout with sweat even yet. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... repose. Do you, hein? sink it will come out,"—Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle smile askew,—"I have sot so;—it will come out when she is one day in a terrible scene . . . Mon Dieu! it was a terrible scene for me when I looked on ze clout zat washed ze blood of ze terrible assassination. So goes out a voice, possibly! Divine, you say? We are a machine. Now, you behold, she has faints. It may happen at my concert where she sings to-morrow night. You saw me in my carriage speaking to a man. He is my spy—my dog wiz a nose. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Rough clout upon his patient head, The stately camel round doth go, With gentle hesitating tread; And yoked, and blind with frontlets, made Of black Nile mud, the buffalo Plies with him ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... Cathleen." Every artistic form has its own ancestry, and the more elaborate it is, the more is the writer constrained to symbolise rather than to represent life, until perhaps his ladies of fashion are shepherds and shepherdesses, as when Colin Clout came home again. I could not get away, no matter how closely I watched the country life, from images and dreams which had all too royal blood, for they were descended like the thought of every poet from all the conquering dreams of Europe, and I ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... greatly increased their durability, and were often ornamented over the instep or toes with a three-pronged figure, worked in porcupine quills or beads, the three prongs representing, it is said, the three divisions or tribes of the nation. The men wore a shirt, breech-clout, leggings which reached to the thighs, and moccasins. In winter both men and women wore a robe of tanned buffalo skin, and sometimes of beaver. In summer a lighter robe was worn, made of cowskin or buckskin, from which ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... Merlin, 'See ye nought That young man, that hath shoon bought, And strong leather to do hem clout [patch], And grease to smear hem all about? He weeneth to live hem to wear: But, by my soul, I dare well swear, His wretched life he shall for-let [lose], Ere he come to his own gate.'" ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... My heart turns to water at the nude recollection of such an unparalleled predicament, for the now unrestrained bicycle vires acquirit eundo, and in seven-league boots! While I, wet as a clout with anxiety and perspiration, did grasp the handles like the horns of a dilemma, calling out in agonised accents to the bystanders,—"Help! I am running away with myself! Half a rupee for ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... whirlwind of stones and glaur. Then the drums were heard beating to arms, and the soldiers were seen flying to their rendezvous. I stood composedly at the dining-room window, and was very thankful that I wasna provost in such a hurricane, when I saw poor Mr Keg, as pale as a dish clout, running to and fro bareheaded, with the town-officers and their halberts at his heels, exhorting and crying till he was as hoarse as a crow, to the angry multitude, that was raging and tossing like a sea in the market-place. Then ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill-husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. His feet never stink so unbecomingly as when he trots after a lawyer in Westminster-hall, and even cleaves the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... in the clout," yawned the boy. "I'll bring you an emerald hollowed out for a reliquary—if ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... you that he had times of peace, when the agony forsook him, and left him limp like a wet clout. Then he would sweat and quake with terror of the pains that would return; and so pitiful was his condition that he could not even listen with a proper patience to the reading of Scripture or the singing of David's psalms. You will see from ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... * 'O my Friends, we are (in Yorick Sterne's words) but as "turkeys driven with a stick and red clout, to the market": or if some drivers, as they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder and put peas in it, the rattle ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... gleam of a quarter, went out. In five minutes he returned with old Lizzie,—she smelling strong of spirits and wearing several jackets which she had put on one over the other, and a number of skirts, long and short, which made her resemble an animated dish-clout. She had, of course, to borrow her equipment from Mrs. Foley, and toiled up the long flights, dragging mop and pail and broom. She told Hedger to be of good cheer, for he had got the right woman for the ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... this caitiff's meaning? He would destroy us all, and all our kin, Yet had I liever see him hanged by the chin, Rather than that should be brought about; And with this dagger thou shalt have a clout, Without thou ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... Johnson promptly, "and a clout 'long-side your head if you was coming any of your nonsense ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... stays at home, spends, sooner or later, 40,000 pounds on Virginia, writes charming court-poetry with Oxford, Buckhurst, and Paget, brings over Spenser from Ireland and introduces Colin Clout to Gloriana, who loves—as who would not have loved?—that most beautiful of faces and of souls; helps poor puritan Udall out of his scrape as far as he can; begs for Captain Spring, begs for many more, whose names are only known by being connected with some good deed of ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... the wrought handkerchief looked from him to the rascal crew massed at the foot of the grave, and, seeing his own sentiments mirrored in the countenances of not a few, snatched the bloody clout from his head, waved it, and cried out, "Paradise!" Whereupon arose a great confusion. Some bawled for Paradise, some for Red Gil, a few for the Spaniard. The two gravediggers locked horns, and a brawny devil with a woman's mantle swathed about his naked shoulders drew a knife, and made for a partisan ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the miseries of his poetical life, are alluded to by Spenser. He is old Palemon in "Colin Clout's come Home again." Spenser is supposed to describe this laborious writer for half a century, whose melancholy pipe, in his old age, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... father laid on thee, When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper, And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes; And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland;— His curses, then from bitterness of soul Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee; And God, not we, hath plagu'd ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... to howls of anguish, which were repeated ad libitum throughout the hymn; but as this was a customary proceeding it attracted no attention, unless a dog expressed his sufferings more loudly than was wont, when he received a clout from his master's staff that silenced him, and sent him under the pew-seat, as to a species of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... obleeged to ye for giein' that vratch, Jamie Ogg, a guid doonsettin'. He's a coorse crater; but the warst maun hae meat, an' sae I didna like to refeese him when he cam for wark. But its a greater kin'ness to clout him nor to cleed him. They say ye made an awfu' munsie o' him. But it's to be houpit he'll live to thank ye. There's some fowk 'at can respeck no airgument but frae steekit neives; an' it's fell cruel to haud it frae them, gin ye hae't to gie them. I hae had eneuch ado to haud ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... about eleven o'clock at the time, I thought I had better hurry in case there was another Flushing-bound train. So I scuttled towards the door only to receive another heavy clout from the sentry's rifle. What the interpreter really said was "Ah! No, you can't go!" As I rubbed my bruised head I treated that interpreter to a candid opinion of his English speaking qualifications, but he did not ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... there was communicated to his own restless nature something of the placid serenity of the white-haired stranger. He regarded the man more closely, saw there was an alien look about him that marked him as different and apart from the men of Earth. His sole garment was a wide breech clout of silvery stuff that glinted with changing colors—hues foreign to nature on Earth. His was a superhuman perfection of muscular development, and there was an indescribable mingling of gentleness and sternness in his demeanor. With a start, Bert noted that ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... a leap towards her. "You jist say that again, Lizzie Gordon, and I'll give you a clout over the head that'll make ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... was cast out I was a child.... If I did weave some clout Of raiment, would he keep the vesture now He wore in childhood? Should my weaving grow As his limbs grew?... 'Tis lost long since. No more! O, either 'twas some stranger passed, and shore His locks for very ruth before that tomb: Or, if he found ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... Of fear and too much eloquence! Rail on her husband, his misusing her, And make that serve thee as an argument, That she may sooner yield to do him wrong. Were it my case, my love and I to plead, I have't at fingers' ends: who could miss the clout, Having so fair a white, such steady aim. This is the upshot: now bid ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... were now gathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and miry, and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallen upon my head, which is of uncommon substance); nevertheless John Fry was laughing, so that I longed to clout his ears for him; "Not at all bad work, my boy; we may teach you to ride by-and-by, I see; I thought not to see you stick ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... knowing who it was she had named the apple for, Wes. Rinehart, or 'Lonzo Curl, or whoever. And you'd be standing there by the stove, kind of grinning and not thinking of anything in particular when somebody would hit you a clout on your back that just about broke you in two, and would tell you "to pass it on," and you'd pass it on, and the next thing was you'd think the house was coming down. Such a chasing around and over benches, and upsetting the water-bucket, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... laughing at me. A man who knows the Swiss intimately, and who has written a book upon 'The Drink Traffic: The Example of Switzerland', tells me they certainly were not laughing at me; at any rate, I thought they were, and moved by a sudden anger I let go the reins, gave the horse a great clout, and set him off careering and galloping like a whirlwind down the road from which he had come, with the bit in his teeth and all the storms of heaven in his four feet. Instantly, as you may imagine, all the scoffers came tumbling out of the inn, hullabooling, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... the Assizes, about some case, I think. Oh, I remember—the 'Stowmarket Mystery'—and he stayed at the hotel where Flossie was engaged. How she ever came to take notice of him, I can't imagine. She was a queer sort of girl—used to wear bloomers, and get off her bike to clout the small boys who ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... all the people wondred greatly, and laughed me to scorne: but I beeing strucken in a cold sweat, crept between their legs for shame and escaped away. So I disfigured returned home againe, and covered the losse of myne ears with my long hair, and glewed this clout to my face to hide my shame. As soon as Bellephoron had told his tale, they which sate at the table replenished with wine, laughed heartily. And while they drank one to another, Byrrhena spake to me and said, from the first foundation ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... the Chauffeur gloated, while she performed that dreadful, menial task. 'A trifle balky at times, Professor, a trifle balky; but a clout alongside the jaw makes her as meek and gentle ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... Belphoebe; the story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... I went by the way Weeping for sorrow, I saw a simple man me by, Upon the plow hanging. His coat was of a clout That cary[8] was called; His hood was full of holes, And his hair out; With his knopped[9] shoon Clouted full thick; His toes totedun[10] out As he the land treaded; His hosen overhung his hockshins On every side, All beslomered in fen[11] ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... 1050. 2d line from the bottom. Change breech-clout. It's a word that you love and I abominate. I would take that and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... just finished partaking of the food (and great good it did us) when Agnes Anne heard a sound that sent her suddenly back to her corner with a face as white as a linen clout. She was always quicker of hearing than I, but certain it is that after a while I did hear something like the trampling of horses, and especially, repeated more than once, the sharp jingle which the head of a caparisoned horse makes ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... altogether unoccupied, and about fifty houses built of boughs of trees, besides a few other huts scattered over the island. The inhabitants were barefooted and quite naked, of a small size, and having no head-dresses but their hair, and merely conceal their parts of shame by means of a clout. They are all mariners, having a few barks and small craft, the planks of which are sewed together by rope, and are entirely destitute of iron work, with sails curiously made of mats, constructed of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... but his face was pale. He could cheat with his words, but I saw his face bleacht like a linen clout behind his laugh, and I swear at that time he loved me, though he loved advancement better. "You are bright and early, young woman! Are you for the garden, to get you a stomach for breakfast? Well, so-so! and pray for poor Presto ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... a dark form cautiously came along, careful not to break a twig beneath his moccasined feet. He was naked except for a breech-clout. The tuft of feathers fastened to his "top-knot" and the paint on his face indicated that ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... you Patrick has got a bird, a linnet, to carry over to Dingley? It was very tame at first, and 'tis now the wildest I ever saw. He keeps it in a closet, where it makes a terrible litter; but I say nothing: I am as tame as a clout. When must we answer our MD's letter? One of these odd-come-shortlies. This is a week old, you see, and no farther yet. Mr. Harley desired I would dine with him again to-day; but I refused him, for I fell out with him yesterday,(9) and will not see him again till he makes me amends: ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... about forty feet long by four feet beam and about two feet deep; and was manned by thirty as ferocious- looking savages as one need ever wish to see. They were stark naked, save for a kind of breech-clout round the loins, and squatted in pairs along the bottom of the canoe, plying short broad-bladed paddles with which they seemed to be urging their craft at a pretty good pace through the water. A big, brawny, and most repulsive-looking ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... night, or noon, or morn. Help me, ye gipsies, bring him home again, And to a constant lass give back her swain. Have I not sat with thee full many a night, When dying embers were our only light, When every creature did in slumber lie, Besides our cat, my Colin Clout, and I? No troublous thoughts the cat or Colin move, While I alone am kept awake by love. Remember, Colin, when at last year's wake I bought the costly present for thy sake: Could thou spell o'er the posy on thy knife, And with another change thy state of life? ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... honour: His nephew there installed, Rollanz the count, And Oliver; the dozen peers around; A thousand score of Franks in armour found. Marsile the king fought with them there, so proud; He and Rollanz upon that field did joust. With Durendal he dealt him such a clout From his body he cut the right hand down. His son is dead, in whom his heart was bound, And the barons that service to him vowed; Fleeing he came, he could no more hold out. That Emperour has chased him well enow. The king implores, you'll hasten with succour, Yields ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... like ants; tho the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... that great fetish-man hangs from the elephant's trunk and is crying "Aka!" to arouse the pity of the white master. Where is his power? Where are his charms? Why does not any wicked Mzimu roar in his defense? Ah! What is this, their Mzimu? A clout of monkey skin and piece of wood hollowed through decay which the elephant will tread to pieces. Among the Wahimas, neither the women nor the children would be afraid of such a Mzimu, and M'Rua and his ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... which every class or grade in civilization treats its own social conventions, whatever they may be, as final, and as having some subtle but necessary connection with morals. When the Indian squats round the tribal pot in his breech-clout, and eats his dinner with his dirty paw, he is fully satisfied that he is as well equipped, both as regards dress and manners, not only as a man need be, but as a man ought to be. The toilet, the chamber, and the dinner-table of a plain New England farmer he treats as wasteful and ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... bang—meat-dish broken, and meat on the dusty floor; while the cats and fowls, ever on the alert for such occurrences, made the most of their opportunities. Mrs M'Swat returned carrying the tea, which was spilling by the way. She gave those boys each a clout on the head which dispersed them roaring like the proverbial town bull, and alarmed me for the safety of their ear-drums. I wondered if their mother was aware of their having ear-drums. She grabbed the meat, and wiping it on her greasy apron, carried it around in her hand until she found ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... on, go on! We've seen the like of you before! There's a lot like you tramping the high road! As to being a donkey, you wait till I've given you a clout on the ear and you'll howl worse than the wind. Donkey yourself! Fool! ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... uncles and nephews are not so likely to be seen together as uncles and nieces," said his lordship, smiling toward the rector. "But just come with me one instant, Gascoigne, will you? I want to speak a word about the clout-shooting." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and Abiram. Not the most despised of the habits or the feeblest of the three-year-olds had been left behind to give a hint of their course; but the hoof-marks showed black on a marshy down-grade of grass, and with an angry clout of her crop on Pilot's unaccustomed ribs, she set off again. A narrow road cut across the hills at the end of the field. The latter was divided from it by a low, thin wall of sharp slaty stones, and on the further side there was a wide and boggy drain. It was not a nice place, and Pilot ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... to the island where, having landed Flora, he proceeded, with some difficulty, to rouse the savages, and supply them with food and drink. They proved to be, as Leslie had said, a pair of fine, well-made men, naked, save for a kind of breech-clout round their loins, of sturdy physique, and apparently but little the worse for their adventure. Nor were they especially unprepossessing in appearance, although there was a certain character of ruthlessness in the expression of their eyes and about their mouths and chins ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... yours, or neighbour Liar's—and it is as likely as not neither's—that talk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour grapes—sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a groat to ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... Indians, whose chief dress was a breach clout and deerskin leggings, formidable in their war-paint and war plumes, with scalping-knives and tomahawks, were only partially held in hand by Chief Brant, conspicuous by his height, his wampum fillet and eagle plumes, and his King George's ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... before the invention of the starch, they were liable. 'If AEolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his storms, chance to hit upon the crazy barque of their bruised ruffs, then they goeth flip-flap in the wind, like rags that flew abroad, lying upon their shoulders like the dish-clout of a slut.' Having thus, with great exultation, described these reproofs to human pride, he mentions how 'the devil, as he, in the fulness of his malice, first invented these great ruffs, so hath he now found out also two great pillars to bear up and maintain ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... his hands, and is put in a way to stand upon his own legs; and then it comes out, with a great many grieving aggravations to a parent to find himself tricked and defeated in the expectations of his son's marrying handsomely, and to his advantage; instead of which, he is obliged to receive a dish-clout for a daughter-in-law, and see his family propagated by a race of beggars, and yet perhaps as haughty, as insolent, and as expensive, as if she had blessed the family with a lady of fortune, and brought a fund with her to have supported ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... advantages upon my bowed head until I am drenched with his superiority. It was in my education to concede some license of the kind in this case, but the holy father of a porter and the saintly cabman occupied the middle distance imperturbably, and did not come down from their hills to clout me with knowledge. From this fact I experienced a criminal elation. I lost view of the idea that if I had been brow-beaten by porters and cabmen from one end of the United States to the other end I should warmly like it, because in numbers ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... braided behind, and banged and plastered with clay in front so that it stood upright, and he dressed in blanket, breech clout, leggings and moccasins, and the lower joints of several of his fingers were cut off in accordance with the Indian custom of mutilating themselves at the burial of a friend. His first appearance to a new teacher who ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... a clout like an infant's, and with a pepper and salt head, and a kind of attorney air, now approached Captain Delano. In tolerable Spanish, and with a good-natured, knowing wink, he informed him that the old knotter was simple-witted, but harmless; often playing his odd tricks. The negro concluded ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... friendly atmosphere of the Jaipur Residency. But was there really such a thing as choice? The fact was, he had simply obeyed an irresistible impulse,—and to-morrow he would be glad of it. To-night, after that interminable journey, his head ached atrociously. He felt limp as a wet dish-clout; his nerves all out of gear ... Perhaps those confounded doctors were not such fools as they seemed. He cursed himself for a spineless ineffectual—messing about with nerves when he had been lucky enough to come through four years of war with his full complement of limbs and faculties unimpaired. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... he was devilish cold. His wretched body was beginning to cry out with discomfort. A loop of his hat was broken and the loose flap was a conduit for the rain down his back. His old ridingcoat was like a dish-clout, and he felt icy about the middle. Separate streams of water entered the tops of his ridingboots—they were a borrowed pair and too big for him—and his feet were in puddles. It was only by degrees that he realised this misery. Then in the boggy track his ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... save for his turban, a breech-clout, his boot-moccasins, and the usual belt of cartridges. Even for an Apache he was unusually ugly; and now as he saw the eyes of the white man meeting his, he grinned. It was such a grin as an ugly dog gives before biting. At that instant Bronco Mitchel was laying flat ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... go for the oranges, and he commanded his wife to bring him rice straw. After he had burned it he put the ashes in the water with which he washed his hair. [33] Then she brought cocoanut oil and rubbed his hair, and fetched a dark clout, a fancy belt, and a head-band, and she baked cakes for him to take on the journey. Aponitolau cut a vine [34] which he planted by the stove, [35] and told his wife that if the leaves wilted she would know that he was dead. Then ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... Scythians[271] who made Tomi a prison, and the descendants of the earlier English settlers had degenerated as much as the Mix-Hellenes who disgusted the Latin poet. Spenser himself looked on his life in Ireland as a banishment. In his "Colm Clout's come Home again" he tells us that Sir Walter Raleigh, who visited him in 1589, and heard what was then ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry and ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... throttles with the pieces? Far be it from us! Let us waste no time in looking foolish; but pick up the gray-goose shaft that lies so innocently at our feet among the daisies; and it's odds but the second plants it i' the clout.' The lover, the hero of the piece, upon whose requited passion and splendid settlements the curtain goes down, is a role not always safely to be confided to the genius and discretion of a single performer. Take it that the captivating Frederick Belville, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... repent a snout that's bent, And if again I tap it, Oh, with a clout I'll bend that snout With force enough to ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... his arm to assist such a nightmare as sister Ursula, in the commission of so great an enormity? Certainly he can neither plead temptation nor seduction, but must have gone, as the worldly phrase is,—to the devil with a dish-clout." ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... Hercules with sinews strung; You might as well an anvil "lick," Or stand against a horse's kick And fear not shattered rib or jaw As risk a smash from Martin's paw. I've seen him in the days of yore His fist crash through a panel door. Martin soon ran his wild race out, For "Doctor" Whitney with a "clout" Of a great bludgeon laid him out Heady for post mortem and bier, Thus ended Martin's rough career. Ah! those were happy halcyon days, Well worthy of immortal lays. Here I must summon from the band Of the departed shadowy land George Parsons, and his name entwine In this poetic wreath of ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... about his form. 'Tonio sought not, as does his red brother of the plains, the theatrical aid of impressive costume. Tall, spare and erect, his sinewy legs and arms bare almost their entire length, his moccasins worn and faded, but his fillet, camisa and trailing breech-clout almost snowy white; destitute of plume, feather, necklace, armlet, ornament of any kind, unarmed, yet unafraid, with slow and measured stop the chief approached the council tent, three of his warriors in his train, and, escorted ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... passing lusty clout That chopped me off with Pansy - don't you fret! There's quite a blaze inside my garret yet, And all the Dipper Corps can't put it out. Gilly the Grip's a pretty ricky tout - Under the old rag-rug for him, you bet, When I put on my Navajo and get One license to ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... your firmament, your adrop, Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heutarit, And then your red man, and your white woman, With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials, Of lye and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood, Hair o' the head, burnt clout, chalk, merds, and clay, Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass, And moulds of other strange ingredients, Would burst a ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... went beyond them in all which bespoke possession of the skill and courage necessary to make a patient and expert hunter, or a brave and successful warrior. In the game of archery, his arrow was ever nearest the clout, and in hurling the spear, his oftenest clove asunder the reed which was fixed as the mark. Ere he had seen fifteen harvestings of the maize, he could throw the stoutest man of the tribe in the wrestle, and his feet in the race were swifter than the deer in its flight from the steps of the red ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... "to the first heyre" of Shakespeare's "invention," his first published poem. In 1594 Shakespeare also dedicated to Southampton his Lucrece, in terms of greater intimacy, though no less respect. On December 27, 1595, Edmund Spenser's Colin Clout's Come Home Againe contained a reference which is now generally believed ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... would see things as they were—or as, in his sullen disgust, they seemed to be—and call them all by their right names with a resentful emphasis. He achieved the naked sincerity of a Hottentot—nay, he even went beyond it in rejecting the feeble compromise of the breech-clout. Not only would he be naked and not ashamed, but everybody else should be so with a blush of conscious exposure, and human nature should be stripped of the hypocritical fig-leaves that betrayed by attempting ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... by them. A certain bareback rider, a sort of jockey, used especially to please me on account of his handsome legs, which were clothed in fleshlings up to his waist, leaving his beautiful loins uncovered by a breech-clout. There was nothing consciously sensual about these reveries, because at the time I had no sensual feelings or knowledge. Curiously enough, the women-actors repelled me then (as they do to this day) quite as strongly as I was attracted ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... you go alone; some of these smugglers might meet you and give you a clout on the head for having shown us their hiding-place. Wait a bit until I can send one of the men with you. We must first get these casks up. We can't spare a hand at present, as one of the men must go on to the station to give information of our find, and to procure some carts for carrying ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... my first step was to withdraw the knife and wipe it clean. Then, having shouted to Baptiste, I approached the crevice just as the Indian crawled out. Too weak to rise, he propped himself against a rock. He was bleeding profusely from a dozen wounds. His shirt of buffalo skin, his breech-clout, his fringed leggings of antelope, all had been ripped to tatters by the grizzly's claws; his feathered scalp-lock was half torn from his head, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... ignorant of Indian treachery and in spite of the warnings of Antoine, offering no obstruction to their approach, has allowed them to enter the camp. What madness! They have divested themselves of their buffalo-robes, and appear naked to the breech-clout and armed with bows and arrows, tomahawks, and scalping knives. Six or seven only come in at first, but others quickly follow, dropping in by twos and threes until a score or more are ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... with: 'Give us some bread, you old so-and-so.' And where am I to get bread for him? What claim has he? Am I a millionaire to feed every drunkard that passes? They are half-blind with spite. . . . They have no cross on them, the devils . . . . They'll give you a clout on the ear and not think twice about it: 'Give us bread!' Well, one gives it. . . . One is not going to fight with them, the idols! Some of them are two yards across the shoulders, and a great fist as big as your boot, and you see the sort of figure I am. One of them could smash me with his ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a damn to gie the daashed scoon'rel a fair clout wi' it,' he said. 'The daashed thing micht ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sometimes getting in a solid blow on hard black flesh. I was soundly beaten myself, pricked with spears, and made to caper for savage sport. Suddenly I saw Laputa before me, and hurled myself madly at his chest. Some one gave me a clout on the head, ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Cotgrave has escouillon (ecouvillon), "a wispe, or dish-clowt; a maukin, or drag, to cleanse, or sweepe an oven." Ecouvillon is a derivative of Lat. scopa, broom. Now another French word, which means both "kitchen servant" and "dish-clout," is souillon, from souiller, to soil. What share each of these words has in Eng. scullion is hard to say. The only thing certain is that scullion is not originally related to scullery, Old Fr. escuelerie, a collective ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... clout from a heavy hand hurled him against a side wall like a battering-ram. The breath was driven out of his lungs. Dizzily he plunged forward to his hands and knees among the debris on ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... saw, midway between this sparkling water and the knife that lay on the sand, an object that went far to explain the maniac's sudden burst of fury. The rum cask lay upon its side by the remnants of last night's fire, and close to it was a clout, with which the head of the wounded man had been bound. It was evident that the poor creature, wandering in his delirium, had come across the rum cask, drunk a quantity of its contents, and been maddened by ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... a clout of mine Wrought with blue coventry, Which she keeps for a sign Of my fidelity: But i' faith, if she flinch She shall not wear it; To Tib, my t'other wench, I mean to bear it. And yet it grieves my heart So soon from her to part: Death strike me with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... somewhat difficult, as the surf is rather high, but after getting in it is as smooth as the Thames.[231] Upon this river, near the sea, the inhabitants are tall large men, going entirely naked, except a clout about a quarter of a yard long before their middle, made of the bark of trees, yet resembling cloth, as the bark used for this purpose can be spun like flax. Some also wear a similar cloth on their heads, painted with sundry colours, but most of them go bareheaded, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr |
