"Musket" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to assist him, but his young bride wound her arms so fast around him, shrieking till the whole wood re-echoed, that he was forced to remain inside. Up came the robber-band now, and attacked the coach furiously; musket after musket was fired at it and the horses, but luckily the rain had spoiled the powder, so they threw away their muskets, while Sidonia screamed, "Seize the false-hearted liar, who broke his marriage ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... of French domination and to resent the supercilious conduct of French officials. In the spring of 1845 their former Sultan reappeared. He swept down into the valley of the Tafna and routed and cut to pieces a French detachment. In this action the lower part of his right ear was carried away by a musket-ball, the only wound which he ever received. Another detachment of six hundred men laid down their arms without firing a shot. Some stir was made among the Arabs by these successes, and the French commanders took alarm. Lamoriciere, Cavaignac, and Bedeau wrote pressing letters for reinforcements, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Every imaginable instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans, apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for Jan. 1766 (p. 45) records, that 'a person was observed discharging musket-balls from a steel crossbow at the two remaining heads upon Temple Bar.' They were the heads of Scotch rebels executed in 1746. Samuel Rogers, who died at the end of 1855, said, 'I well remember one of the heads of the rebels upon a pole at ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... from four six-pounders and musquetry, upon the British troops as they advanced upon a ploughed field, which was very muddy from rain that fell the day before. Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, they marched coolly to the Americans without firing a musket until within a few yards, when they halted to fire a well-directed volley and charged. Upon this, they had to encounter the enemy's second and third lines, which were attacked in the same manner and totally dispersed, leaving their four six-pounders, the only guns they had, in the field, which ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... probable requirements, and refrained from too much generosity. A nice little boy called Albert agreed to come with us, but the old man would not allow him—I suppose on account of the poor reward he got for his salt. A young black fellow here said he had found a white man's musket a long way up the creek, and that he had got it in his wurley, and would give it to me for flour, tea, sugar, tobacco, matches, and clothes. I only promised flour, and away he went to get the weapon. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... of Puppets, we do know, And give your greatness warning, that you talk No more such Bugs-words, or that soldred Crown Shall be scratch'd with a Musket: Dear Prince Pippen, Down with your noble bloud; or as I live, I'le have you codled: let him lose my spirits, Make us a round Ring with your Bills my Hectors, And let us see what this trim man dares do. Now Sir, have at you; here I [lie], And with this swashing ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... lack courage?' inquired Mr. Archer of himself. 'Courage, the footstool of the virtues, upon which they stand? Courage, that a poor private carrying a musket has to spare of; that does not fail a weasel or a rat; that is a brutish faculty? I to fail there, I wonder? But what is courage? The constancy to endure oneself or to see others suffer? The itch of ill-advised activity: mere shuttle-wittedness, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... individual claims often noted by foreigners and natives in the Eternal City as honorable to his country. It was remembered there, when he died, that the hand now cold had warmly grasped in welcome his compatriots, shouldered a musket as one of the republican guard, and been extended with sympathy and aid to his less prosperous brothers. At the meeting of fellow-artists, convened to pay a tribute to his memory, every nation of Europe ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... boy, 'I had a pair o' drumsticks. Our lads were buried yonder without so much as a drum tapped or a musket fired; and that's not ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... sensation of his feet, he knew that he was going up hill; and if he but went upward, he cared not whither he went. The rain gushed through, where the lightning pierced the cloud, in drops like musket balls. He was drenched to the skin in a moment; dazzled and giddy from the flashes; stunned by the everlasting roar, peal over-rushing peal, echo out-shooting echo, till rocks and air quivered alike beneath the continuous battle-cannonade.—"What matter? What fitter ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... personages who benefited humbler people that had the luck of being in their favor. Before Mr. Esmond left England in the month of August, and being then at Portsmouth, where he had joined his regiment, and was busy at drill, learning the practice and mysteries of the musket and pike, he heard that a pension on the Stamp Office had been got for his late beloved mistress, and that the young Mistress Beatrix was also to be taken into court. So much good, at least, had come of the poor widow's visit to London, not revenge upon her husband's enemies, but reconcilement ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... faster and faster, for I did not know how to check it. At the last advanced post the sentinels call out to me to stop; but I cannot obey the order, and the horse carrying me away faster than ever, I hear the whizzing of a few musket balls, the natural consequence of my involuntary disobedience. At last, when I reach the first advanced picket of the Austrians, the horse is stopped, and I get off ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... that none were then available, or that they were not trusted. It is evident from the statement of Bradford that every one of the sixteen men who went out (under command of Standish) on the "first exploration" at Cape Cod had his "musket, sword, and corslet;" that they relied much on their armor, and hence, doubtless, took all possible with them on the ship. They probably did not long retain its use. In the letter written to the Adventurers from Southampton, the ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... Kellar when the latter made his famous trip around the world in 1877. Look combined fire-eating and sword-swallowing in a rather startling manner. His best effect was the swallowing of a red-hot sword.[1] Another thriller consisted in fastening a long sword to the stock of a musket; when he had swallowed about half the length of the blade, he discharged the gun and the recoil drove the sword suddenly down his throat to the very hilt. Although Look always appeared in a Chinese make-up, Dean Kellar told me that he thought his right name was Dave Gueter, ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... as soon as he left his room, did obtain several little articles—especially balls of twine—for one of the amusements of the prisoners was flying kites. This, however, was put a stop to, in consequence of one of the strings, whether purposely or not, I cannot say, catching the lock of the musket carried by one of the sentries who looked down upon us, and twitching it out of his hand; after which an order was given by the commandant for no kites to be permitted. This was fortunate for us, as O'Brien, by degrees, purchased all the twine belonging to the other prisoners; ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... approach of the adverse party, one came forward and was in the act of deliberately poising his spear when Bentley shot him dead and was himself immediately after pierced with three spears. This unfortunate man was last seen desperately fighting with the butt-end of his musket. The combat now became general—spears flew in all directions and several shots were fired without effect, owing to the caution exercised by the blacks of interposing the trees between themselves and the defensive party, but still gradually ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... horse's trappings, she sprung forward to seize them as her prize, and found the aga not dead, though in a good measure disabled by his misfortune, which was entirely owing to the weight of his horse, that, having been killed by a musket-ball, lay upon his leg, so that he could not disengage himself. Nevertheless, perceiving the virago approach with fell intent, he brandished his symitar, and tried to intimidate his assailant with a most horrible exclamation; but it was not the dismal yell of a dismounted cavalier, though enforced ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... I'm going to tell you has something sacred in it. Well, eighteen years ago, on the eve of the great battle of Leipsic, I carried your father to this very tree. He had two sabre-cuts on the head, a musket ball in his shoulder; and it was here that he and I—who had got two thrust of a lance for my share—were taken prisoners; and by whom, worse luck?—why, a renegado! By a Frenchman—an emigrant marquis, then colonel in the service of Russia—and who afterwards—but ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... resumed the guide; "most of the Sergeant's gifts are martial, and he looks at most things in this world over the barrel of his musket. One of his notions, now, is to prefer a king's piece to a regular, double-sighted, long-barrelled rifle. Such conceits will come over men from long habit; and prejudice is, perhaps, the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... look on the Saxon army without some concern for them when I considered who they had to deal with. Tilly's men were rugged surly fellows, their faces had an air of hardy courage, mangled with wounds and scars, their armour showed the bruises of musket bullets, and the rust of the winter storms. I observed of them their clothes were always dirty, but their arms were clean and bright; they were used to camp in the open fields, and sleep in the frosts and rain; their horses were strong and hardy like themselves, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... remained—Von Steyr—drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head. They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when they shot into his twisting body. And at last they ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... point of firing at him with his musket, when Tobasco dealt him a stinging blow from behind, that sent him sprawling on top ...
— The Boy Nihilist - or, Young America in Russia • Allan Arnold
... Napoleon paused; then after a minute's silence—"See," said he, "what our life is! In the action at Arcis-sur-Aube I fought with desperation, and asked nothing but to die for my country. My clothes were torn to pieces by musket balls—but alas! not one could touch my person! A death which I should owe to an act of despair would be cowardly; suicide does not suit my principles nor the rank I have holden in the world. I am a man condemned to live." He sighed almost to sobbing;—then, after ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... for the multitudes drafted and driven into this civil war, let not a trace of animosity remain. The moment their willing hand drops the musket, and they return to their allegiance, then stretch out your own honest right hand to greet them. Recall to them the old days of kindness. Our hearts wait for their redemption. All the resources of a renovated nation shall be applied to rebuild ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... of Richmond, late beheld Through rifts in musket-haze, Were closed from view in clouds of dust On leaf-walled ways, Where streamed our wagons in caravan; And the Seven Nights and Days Of march and fast, retreat and fight, Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly plight— Does the elm wood Recall ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... give the reader to understand that old Gottlieb had been a sergeant of cavalry in one of the king's regiments, until he was made a cripple for life by a musket-ball, as he was the first mounting the walls of a hostile fort in a battle for his fatherland. The officer who commanded the attack received the cross of honor on the battlefield for his heroism, and was advanced ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... paces in advance of the rest, until I was within about thirty paces of the enemy, who at once noticed me, and, halting, gazed at me, as I did also at them. When I saw them making a move to fire at us, I rested my musket against my cheek, and aimed directly at one of the three chiefs. With the same shot, two fell to the ground; and one of their men was so wounded that he died some time after. I had loaded my musket with four balls. When our side saw this shot so favorable for ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various
... boarders! shouted Grenville in reply. And they did repel them, time and again, till the English pikes dripped red with Spanish blood. A few Spaniards gained the deck, only to be shot, stabbed, or slashed to death. Towards midnight Grenville was hit in the body by a musket-shot fired from the tops—the same sort of shot that killed Nelson. The surgeon was killed while dressing the wound, and Grenville was hit in the head. But still the fight went on. The Revenge had already sunk two Spaniards, a third sank afterwards, and a ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... the height of the river, deemed it practicable to shoot the rapid and determined upon trying it. He accordingly placed himself in the bow of his canoe, having previously agreed that, if the passage was found easy, he should, on reaching the bottom of the rapid, fire a musket as a signal for the other canoe to follow. The rapid proved dangerous and called forth all the skill of the guide and the utmost exertion of his crew and they narrowly escaped destruction. Just as they were landing ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... anchor in the port; immediately I directed the Themistocles and Aris to anchor off a battery at the point, and cannonade it whilst I entered the harbour with boats and schooners. At 4.30 P.M. they anchored with much gallantry, and soon silenced the musket-shot from the battery. At the same moment I entered the harbour with the boats and schooners, and we shortly took possession of seven brigs: they were all on shore, and most without sails bent. However, by 9 P.M. we succeeded in ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... Zek watched the unequal struggle and urged on his minions. In his hands was a jeweled musket. Slowly he raised it to his shoulder, waiting until another move should place Mugambi at his mercy without endangering the lives of the woman or any of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the coast as close as possible. On 9th July they found a creek very far north to which they gave the name of Bear Creek, because here they suddenly discovered their first Polar bear. It tried to get into their boat, so they shot it with a musket, "but the bear showed most wonderful strength, for, notwithstanding that she was shot into the body, yet she leapt up and swam in the water; the men that were in the boat, rowing after her, cast a rope about her ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... person can fall asleep on a sofa or at a sermon, but it requires a practitioner with an inborn faculty for the art to achieve the triumphs of somnolence which stand to my credit. I have taken a nap on horseback; I have marched for miles, a musket on my shoulder, in complete slumberous unconsciousness; I have nodded while Phelps was acting, snoozed while Mario was singing, and played the marmot while Remenyi was fiddling; awful confession, I have dozed through an important debate in the House of Commons! ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the watch on deck observed a large boat approaching with caution to within reach of musket-shot. This slinking about in the dark had a suspicious appearance, especially as the colony having revolted against the mother-country, was in a state of war. Want of light prevented our learning the strength of the boat's ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... generosity you cannot understand, for open fight or open resentment you have neither heart nor courage—but give you the hour of midnight, and your unsuspecting victim asleep—or place you behind the shelter of a hedge, where your cowardly person is safe and invisible, with a musket or blunderbuss in your hands, and a man before whom you have crawled in the morning like reptiles, you will not scruple to assassinate that night. Curse upon you! you are a disgrace to any Christian country, ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... brought a note from a friend's hand. Swords, too, were now and then raised to strike, but were always arrested in mid-air. Even in the last stand of the Samurai, where one might reasonably have hoped for some hand-to-hand play, nothing happened except one fatal shot from an unseen musket, and even then the stricken body fell into the wings. If it hadn't been for the throttling of a spy and a touch or two of hara-kiri in the dark of the Bamboo Forest we should have had practically ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... agree to pay him well and do as he said. We were now humble. We promised, and the Kurd came riding to the gates of the convent the next morning at the hour fixed for our departure. He was immensely long and lean. He looked hungry all over. Even his musket, longer by some inches than himself, had the appearance of existing on a very low diet of powder and ball. An awful doubt of its efficacy crept into my heart, but we gave him the matutinal greetings of the country, and our cavalcade followed at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... with 24 passengers and all, they met off Cabo Pasado, about halfway in their voyage, a ship, the Trinidad, and supposed it to be Spanish, but when they perceived that it was a ship of pirates, they tried to obtain the weather-gauge, but the pirates obtained it, and then they began to fire musket-shots, and with the first three shots they killed the captain of the Rosario, who was called Juan Lopez, and fired other shots, and captured the ship, and took out with the hooks [?] all that they deemed ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... kept a pack of bassets (a kind of bow-legged beagle), and went shooting with them every day in the forest, wet or dry; sometimes we three boys with him. He lent us guns—an old single-barrelled flint-lock cavalry musket or carbine fell to my share; and I knew happiness such as I ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... regiments of cavalry, the vanquished brigades, forming anew, faced the enemy, and pressed vigorously into the broken ranks of the Swedes. A murderous conflict ensued. The nearness of the enemy left no room for fire-arms, the fury of the attack no time for loading; man was matched to man, the useless musket exchanged for the sword and pike, and science gave way to desperation. Overpowered by numbers, the wearied Swedes at last retire beyond the trenches; and the captured battery is again lost by the retreat. A thousand mangled ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... "do you not know me? Dare you deny me?—me, your mother's brother, Carbon Barreau, the old soldier! Me, who dandled you on my knee in your infancy; me, who taught you later to carry a musket; me, who met you during the war at an inn in Picardy, when you fled secretly. Since then I have sought you everywhere; I have spoken of you, and described your face and person, until a worthy inhabitant of this country offered to bring ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... commodities, instead of selling them. For instance, if a man wanted to buy a coat, he, perhaps, exchanged a bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of molasses, he might purchase it with a pile of pine-boards. Musket-bullets were used instead ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... though steep and slippery: Hobhouse also fell, but nobody hurt. The whole of the mountains superb. A shepherd on a very steep and high cliff playing upon his pipe; very different from Arcadia, where I saw the pastors with a long musket instead of a crook, and pistols in their girdles. Our Swiss shepherd's pipe was sweet, and his tune agreeable. I saw a cow strayed; am told that they often break their necks on and over the crags. Descended to Montbovon; pretty scraggy village, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... sometimes trembled in the presence of imminent death and sank within us, we stood fearless in their presence, and left all results in the hands of Jesus. Often have I had to run into the arms of some savage, when his club was swung or his musket leveled at my head, and, praying to Jesus, so clung round him that he could neither strike nor shoot me till his wrath cooled down, and I managed to slip away. Often have I seized the pointed barrel and directed it upwards, or, pleading with my assailant, uncapped ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... curious sort of somewhat scanty mat Now served for inexpressibles and hat; His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face, Perchance might suit alike with either race. His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth, Which two worlds bless for civilising both; The musket swung behind his shoulders broad, And somewhat stooped by his marine abode, But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath, 490 His cutlass drooped, unconscious of a sheath, Or lost or worn away; his pistols were Linked to his belt, a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the frigate, and two additional boats were despatched, which took our small vessel in tow, and in less than an hour we found ourselves at anchor, in thirty fathoms of water, within half musket shot of an English man-of-war. The launch was soon alongside, the hatchways were taken off, tackles were rove, and a gang of the frigate's crew went to work breaking out the cargo and hoisting it into the launch. After the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... on a little red coat, and shoulder a musket and stand to be shot at?" says Graham, laughing at her. "I hope to see more of the world than you would quite like, I fancy, Madelon, that is, if we have any luck and get ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... a flame of fire. In this country there is a certain species of small vermin, which attaches itself to the trunks of the elephants, to suck their blood, by which many elephants die. The skull of this insect[24] is so hard as to be impenetrable to a musket shot. They have on their livers the figures of men and women, which the natives call Toketa, resembling a mandrake; and it is affirmed, that whoever has one of these about him cannot be killed by an iron weapon. They have also wild kine ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... may be done by the bow, from the rapidity of its discharges, and the confusion a flight of arrows is likely to occasion, especially among cavalry, has inclined some to contend that it is a weapon in excellence superior to the musket. But the difficulty of procuring, in any great quantity, the proper wood for the formation of bows, the expense of arrows, and, above all, the long practice and training, even from infancy, necessary to form ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... the sound of the lone sentry's tread As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed, Far away in the cot on the mountain. His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the same volume is a copperplate representing the tomb. On one side appears a soldier leaning on his musket. On his cap is inscribed "3rd Regt.;" his right hand points to the tomb; and a label proceeding from his mouth represents him saying, "I have obtained a pension of a shilling a day only for putting an end to thy days." At the foot of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... likely there may have been that number. The lugger was full-manned; for they were like bees swarming on her forecastle when we were dropping foul. I saw Raoul Yvard by the light of the fire as plainly as I now see you, and might have picked him off with a musket; but that would hardly ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Mayor," answered another member of the Corporation. "But to confess the truth, we have not a grain of powder to fire a musket; we must wait patiently till the ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... periodical of Calcutta edited by Babu Dwijendra Nath Tagore) in a paper on Hindu weapons of warfare from certain quotations from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, argued that the nalika must have been some kind of musket vomiting bullets of iron in consequence of some kind of explosive force. The Rishis discouraged use of nalika, declaring them to be barbarous and fit only for kings that would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he stood i' th' doorhoil, puffin' an' blowin', wi' his crutch ovver his shoulder, like a musket, "Aw'll let yo see whose child that is! It wor fun i' my field, an' it belangs to me. What my land produces belangs to me, noa matter whether it's childer or chicken weed!" Things wor i' this state when one o' th' dowters showed her heead aght o' th' winder an' ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... friends are going to be very, very proud of you. I shall hear of you through the people at home, I know, and I shall be anxious to hear. I don't know what I shall do to help the cause, but I hope to do something. A musket is prohibitive to females but the knitting needle is ours and I CAN handle that, if I do say it. And I MAY go in for Red Cross work altogether. But I don't count much, and you men do, and this is your day. Please, for ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... quality that, perhaps, is peculiar to the English, and is seconded by a strength of arm that few other people can exert? This gives their soldiers an infinite superiority in all battles that are to be decided by the bayonet screwed upon the musket."[112] Why should children be told, that the Italians are naturally revengeful; the French naturally vain and perfidious, excessively credulous and litigious; that the Spaniards are naturally ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... the frantic desperation, the confusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang! went the guns; whack! went the broad-swords; thump! went the cudgels; crash! went the musket-stocks; blows, kicks, cuffs, scratches, black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick thwack, cut and hack, helter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy, hurly-burly, head-over-heels, ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... to break down the feudal system and bring more power to the common people were, first, the invention of gunpowder, and, second, the rise of towns. A man with a musket could bring down a knight in armor as easily as he could the most poorly armored peasant. Kings, in fighting to control their great lords, gave more freedom to citizens of towns in return for their help. The king's armies came to be recruited largely from townspeople, ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... she moved ahead. Two American ships, the Amy and the Good News, were anchored under the guns of two of the insurgent fleet. As the Detroit passed close by the Trajano, a marine on that ship raised a musket and fired a bullet over the heads of the sailors on the Amy, which was following ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... prises: they were both Spaniardes, the one was a small Barke, and came from Cape de Blanco in 21. degrees, loaden for Woluis in the Condate where they dwelled. In the same ships was a marchant of Cyuill with 47. men, each of their ships hauing two cast peeces, and euery man his musket, but they made no shewe of defence, or offending. There was also found laden in the same ships, sixty thousand drie hides or skins, esteemed to bee worth 6000. duckets as they reported, there were also found two bags with mony, in the one was 11. hundred single ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... spell; knew that I had gone to him before I had recovered sufficiently from the mingled disappointment and mortification of my interview with Miss Oldcastle; that while I spoke to him I was not speaking with a whole heart; that I had been discharging a duty as if I had been discharging a musket; that, although I had spoken the truth, I had ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... be conceived. In lieu of whip, he carried in his hand a great gold-headed cane, as large as any footman carries in these days, and his various modes of holding this unwieldy weapon—now upright before his face like the sabre of a horse-soldier, now over his shoulder like a musket, now between his finger and thumb, but always in some uncouth and awkward fashion—contributed in no small degree to the absurdity of his appearance. Stiff, lank, and solemn, dressed in an unusual manner, and ostentatiously exhibiting—whether by design or accident—all ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... aboard, when a canoe appeared off a point about a mile from us, and soon after, returned behind the point out of sight, probably owing to a shower of rain which then fell; for it was no sooner over, than the canoe again appeared, and came within musket-shot of the ship. There were in it seven or eight people. They remained looking at us for some time, and then returned; all the signs of friendship we could make did not prevail on them to come nearer. After dinner I took two boats and went in search of them, in the cove where they were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... anchor would not hold. We found that the spritsail had caught in the anchor-stock in consequence of the hurry in lowering the sail and throwing anchor, but it was some time before we could discover what was the matter and get the anchor loose; it then held fast in three fathoms of water at a musket shot's distance from the reef and about as far from the shore. We lay there until daylight on a lee shore, but fortunately ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... fascination that Mister's glasses seemed to have poured around him. Uncas again, he crawled on all fours from chair to divan to stool to the fallen log which the adults thought was an easy chair. He stuck his head from behind it and sighted along the broomstick-musket at his father. He'd shoot that white man dead and then take his scalp. He giggled at that, because his father really didn't have ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... kindred. My destiny had bound me down to it by the chains both of duty and pleasure, so that I could see no possibility to set myself free. I was upwards of twenty-five years of age, and I saw it was now too late to begin to carry a musket; but that which tortured me most of all was this fatal reflection, that I had spent so much of my time in too eager a pursuit of pleasure, and thereby riveted my own chains; so that it looked as if fate was resolved to fasten me to the Church, whether I would or no. You ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... killed by a musket ball, when besieging a "petty fortress" in Norway in the winter of ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... his nose violently, snapped his gold snuff-box, and waddled to the window, where, below, in the early dusk, torches and rush-lights burned, illuminating the cavalry horses tethered along their picket-rope, and the trooper on guard, pacing his beat, musket shining ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... captured to take their places as teamsters, blacksmiths, cooks, etc. By this means the Third Division of the Army of the Cumberland, then under General James B. Steadman, was increased eight hundred men—men acclimated—men who could shoulder a musket. This was all done in less than three weeks. The negroes were all ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... northern provinces, in search of some of the loyal defenders of the rights of Charles V. and of the return to the old times. He was then forty years of age, strong and active, and though his temperament was pacific and he had never touched a musket, he felt himself fired by the example of certain timid and pious students, who had fled from the seminary, and were now, so it was said, fighting in Catalonia behind the red ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... which contained his Sunday clothes, on his back, and with his musket and his game-bag over his shoulder, Rudy started to take the shortest way across the mountain. Still it was a great distance. The shooting matches were to commence on that day, and to continue for a whole week. He had been told also that the miller ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... German gate, I saw the soldier on guard, in his great gray mantle, standing back in his box like a saint in his niche; he had his sleeve wrapped about his musket where he held it, to keep his fingers from the iron, and two long icicles hung from his mustaches. No one was on the bridge, not even the toll-gatherer, but a little farther on, I saw three carts in the middle of the road with their canvas-tops all covered and glistening ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... bombarding our camp in this way? What have we done to your crowd, I'd like to know, to be treated like dogs? First there was that Bluff Masters a-walkin' in here an' accusing us of stealing his blamed old gun, when the only one we've got is a musket Pet owns. Now ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... and Usurpation be attempted, its champions will not shrink from the encounter nor dread the issue. For well they know that the mind and heart of the People are on their side—that the French who earn their bread and are not ashamed to be seen shouldering a musket, so far as they have any opinion at all, are all for the Republic—that France comprises a Bonapartist clique, an Orleanist class, a Royalist party, and a Republican Nation. The clique is composed of the personal intimates of Louis Napoleon and certain Military officers, mainly ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... army of vagabonds. And though he complimented them on the great perfection of their drill, and bid them esteem themselves the heroes of no end of victories, they were in truth as awkward a set of fellows as ever shouldered musket, in short, not one of them knew how to take the first move in forming a section, though they could rob hen roosts and banana fields with a facility truly remarkable. And now, as the noon-day sun was oppressive enough to dissolve all their brains, the general ordered his second in command, one ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the rain, or were profiting by such rare occasions to dry them; and some other sights remained baffling to the last. Once a man with his hands pinioned before him, and a gendarme marching stolidly after him with his musket on his shoulder, passed under their windows; but who he was, or what he, had done, or was to suffer, they never knew. Another time a pair went by on the way to the railway station: a young man carrying an umbrella under his arm, and a very decent-looking ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a young man, who had lost both arms, and was walking pensively between the trees. After some expressions of heart-felt commisseration, I enquired by what mischance he had met with so untoward a wound? He told me that he was in the act of loading his musket, when a cannon-ball, passing before him, carried off one arm above the elbow, and so shattered the other, that it was necessary to amputate it. He then named some paltry battle where this accident befel him; the issue of which to either of the contending parties was, as I recollected, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... arms, and although his comrades would not join him, they refused to make any movement to arrest him. General Hearsey now arrived on the parade ground with his son and a Major Ross, and at once rode at the man, who, finding that his comrades would not assist him, discharged the contents of the musket into ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... floor—reaching absolutely, to the cieling ... and for ten long years not a creature ventured to introduce a key into the library door. The windows also were rigidly kept shut. At length the Revolutionists wanted lead for musket balls, and they unroofed the chapter-house with their usual dexterity. Down came the rain upon the poor books, in consequence; and when M. Moysant received the orders of government to examine this library, and to take away as many books as ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... induce me to massacre my collection—rather theft!" And dashing upstairs to the drawing-room, he helped himself to a few of his uncle's curiosities: a pair of Turkish babooshes, a Smyrna fan, a water-cooler, a musket guaranteed to have been seized from an Ephesian bandit, and a pocketful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and sizes of persons, Blending civilian and soldier in strangest costume, coming in, and Gulping in hottest haste, still standing, their coffee,—withdrawing Eagerly, jangling a sword on the steps, or jogging a musket Slung to the shoulder behind. They are fewer, moreover, than usual, Much and silenter far; and so I begin to imagine Something is really afloat. Ere I leave, the Caffe is empty, Empty too the streets, in all its length the Corso Empty, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... young Pole entered he was surrounded by his friends and drawn into a corner. After some hasty questions, he seized a musket, called off a few soldiers by name, and left the room, without troubling himself any further about ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... ceremony, to the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. He got many presents, and, before reaching New Zealand again, he exchanged them to a purpose which the givers could hardly have foreseen. Hongi had been quick to discern the road to conquest, which musket, gun-powder, and bullet would give him in New Zealand against the native weapons. He chortled to himself as did Lamech: 'I have slain a man to my wounding, and a ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... Mary sleep along pickaninny house. One fella Adamu he stop along outside pickaninny house. You fella boy finish 'm dog, finish 'm Adamu, finish 'm big fella marster, finish 'm White Mary, finish 'em altogether. Plenty musket he stop, plenty powder, plenty tomahawk, plenty knife-fee, plenty porpoise teeth, plenty tobacco, plenty calico—my word, too much plenty everything we take 'm along whale-boat, washee {5} like hell, sun he come up we ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... silk stockings, buckle shoes, and flat broad-brimmed beaver hat; walking erect with a bunch of flowers in his left hand, and his cane, held by the middle, borne on his right shoulder, as Smellie tells us was Smith's usual habit, "as a soldier carries his musket." When he walked his head always moved gently from side to side, and his body swayed, Smellie says, "vermicularly," as if at each alternate step "he meant to alter his direction, or even to turn back." Often, moreover, his lips would be moving all the while, and smiling in rapt ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... wood the bugler dashes, Far beyond the fray— While the deadly musket flashes Point him ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... his account of the skirmish he says: 'As his advice was of great authority with all the commanders ... so he exposed his person to all action, travel, and hazard; and by too forward engaging himself in this last received a mortal shot by a musket, a little above the knee, of which he died in the instant.' Sidney Godolphin, it will be remembered, was one of the celebrated 'four wheels of Charles's Wain, all Devonshire and Cornish men, and all slain at or near the ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... said the gay Leontine, "when I give the signal, as I shall be in a soldier's uniform and you may mistake me for Francois. The signal will be 'A friend;' the instant that I give the word, seize and disarm him before he can fire his musket. You will then have two muskets, mine and that of Francois, with which you must take your chance in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... a number of newly-captured slave women and girls fetching water under the guard of a scoundrel with a loaded musket. I know that the station is full of slaves; but there is much diplomacy necessary, and at present I do not ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... breakers on the ledge of rocks, which lie to the westward of the barr, as often happens; if there is any wind, that may serve for a mark to ships, which steer along that ledge, at the distance of a good musket-shot, as they enter upon the barr; then keep the course above mentioned. Sometimes the currents set very strong out of the road, which you should take care of, less they should carry ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... until they were in a few feet of our works, and a lively fusillade was opened by the Seventeenth Regiment on the north side of the "Crater." I saw Starling Hutto, of Company H, a boy of sixteen, on the top of the breastworks, firing his musket at the enemy a few yards off with the coolness of a veteran. As soon as I reached him I dragged him down by his coat tail and ordered him to shoot from the banquette. On the south of the "Crater" a few men under Major Shield, of the Twenty-second, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... dark eyes are penetrating and rather wistful. The left sleeve of his old uniform is empty. SILAS MORTON is a strong man who has borne the burden of the land, and not for himself alone—the pioneer. Seeing the stranger, he sets his musket against the wall and holds out his hand to him, as MR FEJEVARY ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... to forget a promise of a story. Frank and Harry did not fail to call upon their mother for the history of the old musket. ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... rain, hail, and snow, which fell heavily. Now they employed themselves by drying a part of the meat they had secured; and when cutting up the carcass of the animal, they discovered it had been shot at by hunters not more than a week previously, as an arrow-head and a musket-ball were still in the wounds. Under other circumstances such a matter would have been regarded as trivial, but as they knew the Snake Indians had no guns, the presence of the bullet indicated that the elk could not have been wounded by one of them. They were ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... full progress, and among the younger men all was mirth, hilarity, and good-natured emulation, while even the older chiefs, catching the spirit of the occasion, had relaxed from their habitual gravity and were cheering on the contestants, when suddenly a musket-shot echoed over the grounds, and one of the young Indians—a near kinsman of a chief—fell in his tracks lifeless. The smoke came from the woods near the race-ground, and pursuit failed to discover the assassin, but he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... success. It was the old and still active Hikozaemon, the oyaji (old chap), the hardened warrior of Iyeyasu, who scented out the threatening move. He sprang off into the dark wood, almost as the crack of the musket was heard. They would seek the life of the himegimi with deadly missiles! How contemptible; for great as yet was the scorn of such use. Vigorous was the old man's pursuit of a foe, seeking to ascertain his success and reluctant to flee. "Ah! Ah! Rascal! Just ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... had been occasioned by the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D—— came from the window, whither I had followed him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... never saw any place that swarmed so with that kind of game. They were running in all directions, and often even right into our lines, for they are stupid animals when frightened, as they then were by the noise our men made; and I managed to kill one with the muzzle of my musket, and sold it to the captain of my company for ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... officer lies in wait with a third person whom he takes with him. The Jew comes with the goods, is hailed by the officer and takes to flight. The officer pursues the fugitive, but cannot reach him, and fires his musket after him. Hereupon the Jew drops the package which the officer takes and carries to the office, where he gets his reward. The witness whom he has with him—by accident of course—testifies to the zeal of his exertions, fruitless ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... again and walked to a corner of the room where I had noticed a bright musket with a sword-bayonet attached. He took it up and criticised the sword as inferior to the knife. Our men would require long drilling to become expert with the former, like the French Zouaves; but they instinctively knew how to wield the bowie-knife. The conversation turning upon ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... themselves appointed to save the country. They also consider themselves qualified to judge for themselves on all points and entitled to carry out their judgments with their own hands. The shopkeeper, workman or peasant, at once elector and National Guard, furnished with his vote and a musket, suddenly becomes the equal and master of his superiors; instead of obeying, he commands, while all who see him again after some years' absence, find that "in his demeanor and manner all is changed." "There was great agitation everywhere,"[3137] says ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quarters nearly; but it was by no means remarkable for the largeness of its dimensions. The peculiar barking noise made by the walrus when irritated, may be heard, on a calm day, with great distinctness at the distance of two miles at least. We found musket-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of their skin being such that whale-lances generally bend without penetrating it. One of these creatures being accidentally ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... The creation of such a Toryism is a conceivable political programme. In France it was created by the division of property consequent on the Revolution. Thiers said truly enough that in the cottage of every French peasant owning an acre of land would be found a musket ready to be used in the defence of property. In fact, the five million peasant proprietors now existing in France represent an eminently conservative class. But, so far as I know, there is not a trace to be found in any of Disraeli's utterances that he wished to widen the basis of agricultural ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... the war, fourteen heavily armored gunboats, four heavy mortar boats, and converted seven transports into musket-proof gunboats, or "tin-clads," as they were called on the river. He had a share in other enterprises of a similar nature during the war, and besides rendering good service to the Union, was enabled to retire at the close of the struggle with a handsome fortune, won by his own ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... and then, before he was entirely awake, he found himself running down a wood road in the midst of men who were panting from the first effects of speed. His can teen banged rhythmically upon his thigh, and his haversack bobbed softly. His musket bounced a trifle from his shoulder at each stride and made his cap feel uncertain ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... could see one of his fantastically uniformed soldiery pacing back and forth before a sentry-box, his musket jauntily shouldered, and a bayonet glinting at his belt. Karyl stood looking, and his lips curled skeptically as he wondered whether the man would ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... beginning of the seventeenth century a great change had taken place in the arms of the infantry. The pike had been gradually giving place to the musket; and, at the close of the reign of Charles the Second, most of his foot were musketeers. Still, however, there was a large intermixture of pikemen. Each class of troops was occasionally instructed in the use of the weapon which peculiarly belonged ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Be sure of it then! Be sure that God's blessing is as much upon you; be sure that you are doing God's work, as much when you are handling a musket or laying a gun in your country's battles, as when you are bearing frost and hunger in the trenches, and pain and weakness on a ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... excitedly; "do but let me get a blow at this fellow with the butt end of my musket, and we ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... wife," earnestly. "Every man should step to the front and shoulder a musket and fight for liberty. Yes, I must go to the war, mother. I must join ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... bravery, sprang up from behind the sand-hills, rushed to the water's edge, and poured in upon the boat a volley of arrows. Fortunately, the boat was so far from the land that not much injury was done, though two were seriously wounded. As the water was shoal, the colonists, musket in hand, sprang from the boat and waded toward the shore, piercing their foes with a well-directed volley of bullets. Had the Indians possessed any measure of the courage of the English, the sixty savages might have closed upon ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... "a musket ball from our friends, the Americans, may in less than two months make you ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... over any faults in my work, if you reflect that I have employed the greater part of my life in seeing the finest parts of Europe, and that I have passed more days in the camp than in the library. I have used more matches to light my musket than to light my candles; I know better to arrange columns in the field than those on paper; and to square battalions better than to round periods." In his first publication, he began his literary career perfectly in character, by a ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... restoration of order, and sustained Napoleon, because, though Emperor, he acknowledged the right of the people to select its rulers, and was at the head of a nation refusing to receive back its old kings. He pleaded, with sabre, musket, and cannon, the great cause of the People against Royalty, the right of the French people even to make a Corsican General their ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... stronger, he would dance the sailors' hornpipe for them, or sing wild, rollicksome songs, or make beautiful rustic seats and bowers for the squaws. He was a capital marksman, too, and soon won respect by showing that he could handle a musket with the best of them. The few Indians who owned guns had become very expert in their use; and Tom, whenever they had trials of their skill, took care to shoot just well enough to prove himself a good marksman, without provoking their anger ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... the sight of masts, and, when approaching, occasionally hesitated, and seemed half inclined to turn round and be off. So agreeable a smell as burning walrus fat dispelled all distrust, and brought him within musket-shot. On receiving the first ball, he sprang round, growled terrifically, and half raised himself on his hind-legs, as if expecting to seize the object which had caused so much pain; woe to any one who had at that moment been ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... muskets stood in the room, another was just outside the door. Calhoun watched his chance, and when the guards inside the room were not looking, he dashed through the door, closing it after him. The guard outside raised his musket and fired. So close was he that the fire from the muzzle of the gun burned Calhoun's face, yet he was not touched. Another guard but a few feet away saw him running, and fired. The ball tore its way through the side of his coat. But he was not yet out of danger. He had to pass close to ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... very cautiously reached out his hand for a musket which lay on the thwart beside him, and had almost grasped it, when—in the millionth part of a second, as it seemed to me, so rapid was it—there was a flashing swirl of water directly in front of the deer, and before the startled ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... me, and why I went into the French army. Don't let them think that I turned traitor. I would shoot myself rather than run the risk of having to fight Englishmen. But when it is a choice between fighting Russians and going out of my mind, I prefer shouldering a French musket. I will write the letter to-day. There is no saying when they may next call for volunteers; for, as you know, those who step forward are taken away at once, so as to prevent their being persuaded by the others ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... clothes," said Robert. He helped the Count pull on the coat, placed the hat on his head, buckled on his knapsack, and gave him a musket. The Count's face had not been shaved during his imprisonment, so that this gave him the wild appearance which all soldiers had at ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... account of some Arabs at Zanzibar. On crossing Usui, he once had a fight with one of the chiefs of the country and killed him; but he got through all right, because the natives, after two or three of their number had been killed, dispersed, and feared to come near his musket again. He visited Uganda when the late king Sunna was living, and even traded Usoga; but as he was coming down from these northern countries he lost all his property by a fire breaking out in a village he stopped in, which drove him down ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... conspicuously in the dusk near the stairway, and when a dark form should pass before it, momentarily obscuring the object sighted at—bang! It was sure game! He had heard grave men tell of having spent whole months crouching behind a hillock or a tree trunk, the butt-end of a musket close to the cheek and the eyes fixed on the end of the barrel, from sunset till daybreak, lying in wait for some ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... in the factious strife, The rustic's musket aim'd against my life; High poised in air the massy weapon hung, A cry of horror burst from every tongue: Whilst I, in combat with another foe, Fought on, unconscious of the impending blow. Your arm, brave boy, arrested his career— Forward you sprung, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... he was an Indian; and he ran in front of us, and held his musket horizontally before us. Of course we stopped. And then, as there was nothing else that seemed proper to do, we held out our hands and said "How?" The sentinel took his gun in his left hand, and shook hands with us. Then Maiden's Heart, who probably remembered that he had omitted ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... to take up arms. They would have pointed out that their own nephew Jeremiah, who was by trade a sailor, the master of a ship—which by an ill-chance for that young man had come to anchor at this season in Bridgewater Bay—had quitted the helm to snatch up a musket in defence of Right. But Mr. Blood was not of those who argue. As I have said, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the former a model hill-man, a sturdy, thick-legged, huge-calved, gruff-voiced, full-bearded fellow, hot-tempered, good-humoured, and renowned as an ibex-hunter. His gun, marked "Lazari Coitinaz," was a long-barrelled Spanish musket, degraded to a matchlock: it had often changed hands, probably by theft, and the present owner declared that he had bought it for seventy dollars—nearly 15! Yet its only luxury was the bottom of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... was nothing in sight but a two-quart bottle of spring water, which she picked up. Gladys went into the kitchen and picked up a frying pan, Sahwah climbed up on the mantel and pulled down the Revolutionary musket that hung there and brought down a three-foot sword for Migwan. It dropped with a clatter upon the hearthstone when Migwan tried to take it from her hand, and the four stood petrified with alarm. Another furious ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... A musket-ball, death-wing'd, hath pierc'd my groin, And widely op'd the swift curr'nt of my veins. Bear me then, Soldiers, to that hollow space, A little hence, just in the hill's decline. A surgeon there may stop the gushing wound, And gain a short respite to life, that yet I may return, and ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... gravy and the buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, and how we ate of them! Two big pack baskets stood by the window filled with provisions and blankets, and the black bottom of Uncle Peabody's spider was on the top of one of them, with its handle reaching down into the depths of the basket. The musket and the powder horn had been taken down from the wall and the ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... lowered. Thus completely incased in metal, provided with shield, lance, straight sword or battle-ax, and mounted on a powerful horse, the knight could ride down almost any number of poorly armed peasants. Not till the development of missile weapons—the longbow, and later the musket—did the foot soldier resume his importance in warfare. The feudal age by this time was drawing ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... and cavities that might be supposed to admit the sand; and indicating as its cause, either the accumulated vibration of the air when struck by the driven sand, or the accumulated sounds occasioned by the mutual impact of the particles of sand against each other. If a musket-ball passing through the air emits a whistling note, each individual particle of sand must do the same, however faint be the note which it yields; and the accumulation of these infinitesimal vibrations ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the poor fellow had been wounded in trying to reach shelter behind that wall, was spotted in the act by our men, and killed right there, and became thereafter a target for every new man that saw him. Another man lay, still clasping his musket, which he was evidently in the act of loading when a bullet pierced his heart, literally flooding his gun with his life's blood, a ghastly testimonial ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... Coligny and William the Third. We might, perhaps, add Marshal Soult to the list. The bravery of the Duke of Cumberland was such as distinguished him even among the princes of his brave house. The indifference with which he rode about amidst musket balls and cannon balls was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless maladies, horrible surgical operations, far from unmanning him, did not even discompose him. With courage he had the virtues which are akin to courage. He spoke the truth, was open in enmity and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Revolutionary War was most worthy and honorable. He shouldered a musket with the men at Valley Forge, carried messages by night through the enemy's country, acted as rear-guard for Washington's retreating army, and helped at break of day to capture Trenton, and proved his courage in various ways. As clerk, secretary, accountant and financier ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... to do with security. Like the pioneers who settled this great continent of ours, we have had to carry a musket while we went about our peaceful business. We realized that if we and our allies did not have military strength to meet the growing Soviet military threat, we would never have the opportunity to carry forward our efforts to build ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... first-rate riders, with lances ten feet long, and a musket slung over their right shoulder, were swarming around everywhere, and annoying the French outposts, cutting off the foraging parties, and hindering them in their attempt to penetrate into the south of Russia, where they would have found plenty of ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... trees, leading on to the Residency. A strange thrill runs through one's frame as there opens up before one that reddish-gray crumbling archway spanning the roadway into the Residency grounds. Its face is dented and splintered with cannon-shot and pitted all over by musket-bullets. This is none other than that historic Baileyguard gate which burly Jock Aitken and his faithful Sepoys kept so stanchly. You may see the marks still of the earth banked up against it on the interior during the siege. To the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... bounds of mere reason, so that it be loving, a man is raised by it. Which had, in reality, most of the serf nature in him,—the Irish peasant who was lying in wait yesterday for his landlord, with his musket muzzle thrust through the ragged hedge; or that old mountain servant, who 200 years ago, at Inverkeithing, gave up his own life and the lives of his seven sons for his chief?—as each fell, calling forth his brother ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and Indians, to his knees. He had a musket. Jeannette rose, also, as the Highlanders came sweeping on in pursuit. She had scarcely been a woman to the bushfighters. They were too eager in their aim to glance aside at a rawboned camp follower in a wet shawl. Neither did the Highlanders ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... a convict more or less matter to me?" he went on, after a short pause. "A convict is no more in my eyes than an emmet is in yours. I am like the Italian brigands—fine men they are! If a traveler is worth ever so little more than the charge of their musket, they shoot him dead. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... several hundreds, and the Governor, with his body-guard, was determined to prevent, if possible, the property being shipped before the Residency. The first boat which approached the shore was fired upon, and one Persian had his musket presented at Captain Maitland. He was just on the eve of firing, when fortunately the Admiral and two Indian naval officers in a moment wrenched it from his hands, and kept possession of the piece, which they found loaded with a heavy charge. ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... Some of the men attempted thefts at the risk of their lives; and, in one instance, a cask of bottled beer having been landed too late to be got into store, was placed, by a serjeant's tent, in care of a sentry, whose musket was known to be loaded with ball. During the night two fellows attempted to get at it, and being discovered were fired at, which so alarmed them, that one of them, in his hurry to escape, fell into a mangrove swamp, which caused him so much pain that he was easily captured. ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... him, and he changed his tactics. After a little powwow with some of his followers, he said that if I would give him fifty muskets, twenty pounds of powder, the colonel's sword, and some red cloth for his wives, I might land them. I replied that I had not a musket to spare nor an ounce of powder, that the colonel was a high officer of his government, and that he of course would not give up his uniform. Fortunately the colonel had retired to the cabin and did not hear this modest demand, or he would have been as ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... so as to produce a gentle pressure during the decomposition, then a rapid evolution of gases will result; the results of decomposition in a vacuum differ from those under atmospheric pressure or when they are burnt in a pistol, musket, a cannon, or in a mine; where we have little or no pressure it is difficult to get these substances to burn rapidly; nitro-glycerin is more difficult to explode than powder; in many respects it resembles ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... himself, and with his riding-whip knocking off the small grass-blades he met on the road. He had now reached the first infantry post of his army. The sentinel was an old soldier, who was unconcernedly filling his pipe while holding his musket between his legs. ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... soldier armed with a musket, but specially applied to a company of gentlemen who were a mounted guard in the service of the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... the North the stories of the wolf's courage are endless; here, for example, is one: "During our residence at Cumberland House in 1820," says Richardson, "a wolf, which had been prowling and was wounded by a musket ball and driven off, returned after it became dark, whilst the blood was still flowing from its wound, and carried off a dog, from amongst fifty others, that howled piteously, but had no courage to unite in an attack on ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the amorous audacity of the full-grown sheep he never soared—then suddenly, without the slightest provocation, he would discharge at her a compliment, elaborate, long-winded, Grandisonian, as a raw recruit fires his musket, shutting his eyes, and incontinently take to flight, without waiting to see the effect of his shot. If he had spent half the time and pains on his sermons that he did on his small-talk (I believe he used to write out three or four foul copies of ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... Balaklava, and drove back the sortie at Inkerman. When he arrived, the siege of Sebastopol had commenced in earnest, and for some time it was an engineer's campaign, in which the spade did more than the rifle, or, to speak more correctly, the musket; for very few of our men had rifles then. Disease and exhaustion from hardship slew far more than the bullet. Altogether, it was rather a trying time for a young officer full of fire and spirit, anxious to see service of that more dashing kind that appeals to the imagination. The ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... pounds of turkey or venison, or a pound and a half of bear meat or buffalo beef. Yet this game was supplied by hired hunters, not by the soldiers themselves. One of the officers wrote that he had to keep his troops practising steadily at a target, for they were incompetent to meet an enemy with the musket; they could not kill in a week enough game to last them a day. [Footnote: State Dept. MSS., No. 150; Doughty's Letter, March 15, 1786; also, November 30, 1785.] It was almost impossible to train such troops, in a limited number of months or years, so as to enable them to meet their forest foes ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... remain, to be acted on by the gastric juice. In the case of St. Martin, [Footnote: The individual here referred to—Alexis St. Martin—was a young Canadian, eighteen years of age, of a good constitution and robust health, who, in 1822, was accidentally wounded by the discharge of a musket which: carried away a part of the ribs, lacerated one of two lobes of the lungs, and perforated the stomach, making a large aperture, which never closed; and which enabled Dr. Beaumont (a surgeon of the American army, stationed at Michilimackanac, under whose care the patient was placed) ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... you the light artillery and smallest mortars, with their stores and the musket cartridges. But let these follow, under a proper escort, rather than impede the march of the detachment, which ought to move as expeditiously as possible without injury to them. The heavy artillery and stores you will leave at some proper and safe place, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... this order. They are three brothers lately landed from Holland: as yet, indeed, they have not made their public entry, but lodge and converse at Wapping. They have merited already on the waterside particular titles: the first is called Hogshead; the second Culverin; and the third Musket. This fraternity is preparing for our end of the town by their ability in the exercises of Bacchus, and measure their time and merit by liquid weight, and power of drinking. Hogshead is a prettier fellow than Culverin by two quarts, and Culverin than Musket by a full pint. It is to ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... had been on the outposts that night, and, returning to the camp, I surprised two men robbing, beating, and, as I thought, murdering a third. One of the vagabonds escaped undetected, but with a blow from the butt of my musket which he will carry to his grave. The other I thrashed on the spot. He was the bailiff Scroope, whom you put up to witness against me. Their victim was the messenger from the castle, and he was James Wilson, otherwise Wilson Garth. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... quickly. Hardly had he stepped upon the taffrail of the 'Chesapeake' when he was shot through the foot by a musket ball; but, rising in spite of it, he ordered one of the 'Shannon's' 9-pounders to be directed at the 'Chesapeake's' mizzen top, whence the shot had come. The second division of the Marines now rushed forward, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... sight must have given me a man's strength, for my struggles became so troublesome that one of them—I have always been grateful for it—clubbed his musket and dealt me a blow that left me senseless. It was dark when I came to, but I lay there until morning, unable to do more than crawl. When the light came I found the poor little sister there near where ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair; And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them and ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... calm-looking, but strong, and quick as lightning. Look, there he is with a musket in his ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... July!" (the phrase is pretty and grammatical) why did you with sharp bullets break those Louvre windows? Why did you bayonet red-coated Swiss behind that fair white facade, and, braving cannon, musket, sabre, perspective guillotine, burst yonder bronze gates, rush through that peaceful picture-gallery, and hurl royalty, loyalty, and a thousand years of Kings, head-over-heels out of yonder ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little hard sometimes, and this made us waver. But just then Lewis-yr-Helwyr, shouting out in Welsh, 'We ask for more wages and they give us soldiers,' leaped at the throat of the Scotchman nearest to him, and snatching the musket out of his hand, stuck the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... turned to their tenants for more, forgetting in the glamour of London the poverty of the Irish bogs.... It was contemptible to squeeze the peasants as a money-lender squeezes his victims, but the peasants' redress, the furtive musket and horrible dynamite, that was terrible. God, what a mess!... And had Granya been caught into that evil problem, a kingfisher ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... three feet deep into the ground; a star fort, with one gun at each corner of the square enclosure; on top of the stockade sentinel boxes placed twenty feet apart, reached by steps from the outside; in each of these a vigilant guard with loaded musket, constantly on the watch for the slightest pretext for shooting down some one or more of the prisoners, of whom there are from twenty-five thousand ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... so," replied the First Consul, smiling. "But big and strong as you are, you should handle something else than a plow. A good musket, for instance, or the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant |
