"Firelock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes; And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness, And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles: He stayed with me a week before he was recuperated and pass'd North; (I had him sit next me at table—my firelock ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... succeeded in holding them to their places, and the double column of carriages, three in each rank, preserved its formation. In every vehicle there was a muleteer, with hands free for fighting, bearing something or other in the shape of a firelock, and inspired with what courage there is in desperation. The four flankers, necessarily the most exposed to assault, had each a United States regular, with musket, bayonet, and forty rounds of buck and ball. In front of the phalanx, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... childhood, toddled away from the gate after the fife and drum of a recruiting party; and often did he march and countermarch me, till I could not stand for fatigue, with a grenadier's cap, alias a muff, on my head, and my father's large cane shouldered by way of a firelock. The menaced invasion had added fuel to his martial fire, and when any other line of life was pointed out to him, his high spirits would droop, and the desire of his heart show itself with increasing decision. Our parents were very anxious to settle him at home for my sake, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... ended, he would have found that precisely one half of it was still untouched, to a thimblefull. The commodore now had his turn; and before he got through, the bottom of the vessel was as much uppermost as the butt of a club bed firelock. When the honest fisherman took breath after this exploit, and lowered his cup from the vault of heaven to the surface of the earth, he caught a view of a boat crossing the lake, coming from the Silent Pine, to that Point ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... behind him. One of the firelock-men broke into hasty speech, glancing, the Colonel noticed, at him and Bale, as if they were the subjects of his words. O'Sullivan Og answered the man curtly and harshly; but before the reply was ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... out of the darkness into the sudden glare of the lanterns, rushed, bewildered, across the deck. Miles, true to his promise, did not fire, but the next instant Vickers had snatched the firelock from him, and leaping into the stream, turned about and fired down towards the prison. The attack was more sudden then he had expected, but he did not lose his presence of mind. The shot would serve a double purpose. It would warn the men in the barrack, and perhaps check the rush by stopping ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... firelock differs from the article used during the Seven Years' War only in its more careful construction and some modifications of detail. The most important of these relates to the more rapid explosion of the charge. In 1840 the old flint-locks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... out of the way the conventionalities that spring up like poisonous mushrooms to make the world a vast labyrinth of petty "proprieties" until everything is nasty. I love the oxygen he pours on the world. I love his genius for brotherliness, his picture of the Negro with rolling eyes and the firelock in the corner. These excerpts are some of his ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... quite dark, when I heard a native call from the hill on which the women had been, and I desired Hopkinson to take his firelock and ascertain what the man wanted. He soon after returned, and brought a blanket, which he said the man had returned to him. The native was alone, and when he offered the blanket, kept his spear poised in his right hand; but, seeing that no violence was intended him, he ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... each man grasped his firelock and awaited the signal with impatience. A cheer broke from them as the four cannon roared out at the same moment, and at so short a distance that every shot told on the gate. Another salvo and both halves of the gate ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... of them a musket with a firelock on it, and about eight charges of powder and ball, charging them to be very good husbands of both, and not to use either of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... at least despairing to find him, and rightly apprehending that the report of the firelock would alarm the whole house, our heroe now blew out his candle, and gently stole back again to his chamber, and to his bed; whither he would not have been able to have gotten undiscovered, had any other person been on the same staircase, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... before us flying! Now he spies us! see him start! wave his kerchief like a banner! Lay his left hand on his heart in a proud, insulting manner. Well he knows that distant spot's past our ball, his low scorn flinging. If you cannot feel the shot, you shall hear the firelock's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... we never asked. Under these instructions, the Spaniard and the old savage, the father of Friday, went away in one of the canoes which they might be said to come in, or rather were brought in, when they came as prisoners to be devoured by the savages. I gave each of them a musket, with a firelock on it, and about eight charges of powder and ball, charging them to be very good husbands of both, and not to use either of them but upon ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... reached the Oswaya mill some men in their shirt-sleeves shot at us, then ran down through an orchard, calling on us to halt. One carried a shovel, one a rifle, and the older man, whom I knew as a former tenant of my father, bore an ancient firelock. When I called out to him by name he seemed confused, demanding to know whether we were Whigs or Tories; and when at length he recognized me he appeared to be vastly relieved. It seemed that he, Wemple, and his two sons had been burying apples, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... went down, for he longed to be doing something. He soon found his company, and, taking up a firelock of one of the men who had fallen, was soon hard at work loading and firing into the assailants. For an hour the strife continued. Fortunately General Murray had found some boats three miles higher up the stream, and had crossed, thus menacing the enemy's line of retreat. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... citizens mounting guard. Men standing still feel the cold severely, and accordingly huge fires had been built in some of the sheltered corners, round which the armed burghers stood chatting, each with his firelock ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... years peace had reigned in fair Virginia. The Indians were looked upon as only "a naked, timid people, who durst not stand the presenting of a staff in the manner of a firelock, in the hands of a woman"! "Firelocks" and modern arms they did lack, themselves, but Opechancanough, the old hater, had laid his plans ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... England, and true doxology, and leave foreign doxies and their wine alone!... Mate, can ye squeeze another shardful from the cask there, for I feel my time is come!... O that I had but the barrel of that firelock I throwed away, and that wasted powder to prime and load! This bullet I chaw to squench my hunger would do the rest!... Yes, I ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... songs and cheers from the pirates, till they came to some opening in the woods, half way across the isthmus, where the banks were free enough from brush to allow them to camp. Here they mustered in order, as though for a review, each man in his place with his sword and firelock. Here Captain Morgan caused each man to raise his right hand, and to swear solemnly that he had concealed nothing privately, "even not so much as the value of sixpence." Captain Morgan, a Welshman by birth, "having had some experience that those lewd fellows would not much stickle to ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... nevertheless, continued talking, as if he had been addressing the most attentive listener in Scotland, whether it were the favourite nephew of a cross, old, rich bachelor, or the aid-de-camp of some old rusty firelock of a general, who tells ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... ten napoleons, the soldiers provide themselves. All the shopkeepers are enrolled, and I cannot sufficiently admire their patriotism. My landlord, Meurice, a man who, I suppose, has realised a million francs or more, is up one night in four with his firelock doing the duty of ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... was not the dirt of sloth and sluggard. The essentials were bright and clean. There was not a man of the 150 attempting to represent two service squadrons who had not at some period balanced his life against his proficiency with the rifle, and who had not realised that on service his firelock was the soldier's best and staunchest friend. Nor were the officers easy to distinguish from the men. A shade cleaner, perhaps; but they, too, were rough-bearded, hard bitten by long exposure and responsibility. How different from the exquisites of popular fancy! ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... rivers in the night is at all times an unpleasant task, I determined before we entered the water, to disburthen the men as much as possible; that in case of stepping wrong every one might be as ready, as circumstances would admit, to recover himself. The firelock and cartouche-box were all that we carried, the latter tied fast on the top of the head, to prevent it from being wetted. The knapsacks, etc. I left in charge of a sergeant and six men, who from their low stature and other causes, were most likely to impede our march, the ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress in a few minutes. And inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, which none but the bravest men dare undertake, I do not urge it on any contrary to his will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelock!" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... as Julian was concerned, in the hands of a sergeant, who kept him hard at work all day acquiring the elements of drill. On the third morning the regiment marched off at daybreak, Julian taking his place in the ranks, with his knapsack and firelock. After the long confinement in the prison he found his life thoroughly enjoyable. Sometimes they stopped in towns, where they were either quartered in barracks or billeted on the inhabitants; sometimes they slept under canvas or in the open air, and ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... executed with agility and precision some of the ordinary military movements. They then practised individually at a mark, and showed extraordinary dexterity in the management of the pistol and firelock. They took aim, standing, sitting, leaning, or lying prostrate, as they were commanded, and always with effect upon the target. Next, they paired off for the broadsword exercise; and, having manifested their individual skill and dexterity, united in two bodies, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... that came in was a soldier, With his firelock over his shoulder, Sure no one could be bolder, And a long broad-sword he drew: He swore he would fight for England's ground, Before the nation should be run down; He boldly drank their healths all round, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... the authority of Parliament, all North America are convinced of their independence, and determined to defend it at all hazards." The British answer to utterances like these was to seize a farmer from the country, who had come to town to buy a firelock, tar and feather him, stick a placard on his back, "American liberty, or a specimen of democracy," and conduct him through the streets amid a mob of soldiers and officers, to the strains ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... impertinent remarks on royal amateurs, took the affair into their own hands. They began by dressing him in a uniform, covering his face with a huge pair of whiskers, and loading him with the heaviest firelock which they could find, they then made him perform the manual exercise for two hours—accompanying the lesson with all the usual discipline of the cane—then ordered him to dance and sing, finishing their discipline by making ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various |
