"Ramrod" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sight more tantalising: my gun was empty, and I had no means of reloading it. Was it certain the piece was empty? Why should the Indian have believed it to be loaded? Up to this moment, I had not thought of examining it. I drew the ramrod, and inverted it into the barrel. The head struck upon a soft substance. The screw stood four fingers above the muzzle: the gun was charged! There was no cap upon the nipple. There had been none! This accounted for the piece ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... differed widely from the typical first lieutenant of fiction, a being as stiff as a ramrod, and as dangerous to approach as a polar bear. He was, indeed, a bright, cheery fellow, and although he was obliged to surround himself with a certain amount of official stiffness, he was a great favorite among ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... at twenty yards, walked to the regulation four paces, and saluted together, each as well-set-up as a ramrod and little taller. ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... from there ef 't only looked like rainin'. An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners, An' send the insines skootin' to the bar-room with their banners, (Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted), an' a feller could cry quarter Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum an' water. Recollect wut fun we hed, you 'n I an' Ezry Hollis, Up there to Waltham plain last fall, ahavin' the Cornwallis? [Footnote: i halt the Site of a feller with a muskit as I do plze But their is fun to a Cornwallis I ain't agoin to ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Dick Sand could employ to pierce a hole through the wall was a ramrod furnished with a screw, intended to draw the wadding from a gun. By making it turn rapidly, this screw scooped out the clay like an auger, and the hole was made little by little. Then it would not have a larger diameter than that of the ramrod, but that would be ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... uncurl &c. 248, unravel &c. 219, unwrap. Adj. straight; rectilinear, rectilineal[obs3]; direct, even, right, true, in a line; unbent, virgate &c. v[obs3].; undeviating, unturned, undistorted, unswerving; straight as an arrow &c. (direct) 278; inflexible &c. 323. laser-straight; ramrod-straight. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... at him, a woeful figure, clad in immaculate clothes, with gray gloves, a cane in his hand. "You ought to be wearing red mittens," said I, "and carrying that old shot-gun, with the ramrod bent." ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... already got two forked twigs as a support for his spit, and, taking the ramrod from the gun, thrust it through the meat. He had ceased putting on fresh wood the moment he saw the others come from the forest. The fire soon sank down to a mass of glowing embers, over which he put the ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... necessary to exceed De Wardes in rapidity of execution. He advanced, therefore, so as to reach him before he should have had time to reload his pistol. De Wardes saw him approaching like a tempest. The ball was rather tight, and offered some resistance to the ramrod. To load carelessly would be simply to lose his last chance; to take the proper care in loading meant fatal loss of time, or rather, throwing away his life. He made his horse bound on one side. De Guiche ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... round and stared—kind of combine between a ramrod and an icicle. 'Who the perdition are you?' he said—or he looked it, anyway. So, seeing him above a friendly warning, I lit out, feeling sheep-faced; and I've bluffed some hard men in my time. Since then I've been rooting round, and I'm concluding there is good ore in that mountain, if he could ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... like it, but this one was in simply appalling condition. The metal was rough with rust, and apparently no attempt had been made to clean it in a couple of centuries. There was a piece cracked out of the fore-end, the ramrod was missing, as was the front ramrod-thimble, both the trigger-guard and the butt-cap were loose, and when Rand touched the wheel, it revolved freely if sluggishly, betraying a broken spring ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... Hamilton; he had got his copper-caps from Bell and Lancaster. The youthful idea,—he had rammed it tight! he had rammed it loose! he had rammed it with pictorial illustrations! he had rammed it with the monitorial system! he had rammed it in every conceivable way, and with every imaginable ramrod! but I have mournful doubts whether he shot the youthful idea an inch farther than it did under the old mechanism of flint and steel! Nevertheless, as Dr. Herman really did teach a great many things too much neglected at schools; as, besides Latin and Greek, he taught a vast ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was not much sleep that night in our camp. I dropped off now and then, but never for long, and whenever I woke I could see that there was a light in more than one of the officers' tents, and talking was going on in a low tone amongst the men, the snapping of a lock or springing of a ramrod sounding far in the still air, telling of preparation for the coming strife. A little after midnight we fell in as quietly as possible, and by the light of a lantern the orders for the assault were then read to the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Dirkson, with something that looked like a copper kettle, turned upside down on his head, and a couple of old horse pistols in his belt; and Dirk Volkertson, with a long duck fowling-piece without any ramrod, and a host more, armed higgledy-piggledy with swords, hatchets, snickersnees, crowbars, broomsticks, and what not; the officers distinguished from the rest by having their slouched hats cocked up with pins and surmounted ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... but it was in '74 that they filed down the gangway of a Missouri River boat, walking as straight and stiff as if every mother's son of them had a ramrod under his tunic, and out on a rickety wharf that was groaning under the weight of a king's ransom in ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the wrist, on which the punctures of the fangs were plainly visible. A handkerchief was at once tied round the wounded limb, with a small pebble so placed as to compress the brachial artery inside the forearm, and with the iron ramrod from a carbine as a lever, we screwed this rough tourniquet up until the circulation was in great measure cut off. Luckily Dunmore had a pocket-knife with him, for the sheath-knives we carried were but rude instruments for surgery, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... for more? Plenty of good home-brewed, too, to wash it down. If worthy Master Timewell can arrange that the army be victualled after the same fashion, I for one shell be beholden to him. A cup of dirty water and a charred morsel cooked on a ramrod over the camp fire are like to take the place of these ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nothing. ballena whale. ballenero whaler. bambolear vr. to totter. banco bank. banda band. bandera banner. bandido highwayman. bando faction, party, proclamation. bandolero bandit, highwayman. baqueta ramrod. baratura cheapness. barba chin, beard. barbaro barbarous. barco boat. barra crowbar. barranco ravine; barranquillo (dim.). barreno hole made with a borer or pick. barriga abdomen, belly; barrigon (aug.) barrilla alkali. barro clay, mud. barrunto conjecture. base ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... the death of two rabbits and the serious disability of a third. One halted within twenty steps of me and received the contents of my gun-barrel. I reloaded while he lay kicking, and just as I returned the ramrod to its place the beast rose and ran into the thick bushes. I hope he recovered and will live many years. He seemed gifted with a strong constitution, and I heard several stories of the tenacity of ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... but it returned as by a magic touch when a non-commissioned officer was bidden to take charge of a batch and march them to an inclosure. Then, in answer to the command shoulders squared, heels rapped together, and the instinct of long training put a ramrod to their backbones which stiffened mere tired human beings into soldiers. Distinct gratitude was evident when their papers were taken for examination over the return of their identification books, which ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... little stick was fastened a string. One of these strings was attached to the trigger; the other, after being carried through the thimbles of the ramrod, traversed across the entrance of the kraal, and was knotted upon the opposite side to the sapling that stood there. This string followed the horizontal direction of the barrel, and was just "taut;" so that any farther strain upon it would act upon the little lever, and by that means pull the trigger; ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... the snow and took the ramrod in his right hand. He thrust his left hand into the hole, and when the rabbit leaped for life from his warm nest a smart blow of the ramrod stretched him dead at the feet of the hunter. Henry picked up the rabbit. It was large ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... things! Immediately before me I saw the excitement of little Fyne—mere food for wonder. Further off, in a sort of gloom and beyond the light of day and the movement of the street, I saw the figure of a man, stiff like a ramrod, moving with small steps, a slight girlish figure by his side. And the gloom was like the gloom of villainous slums, of misery, of wretchedness, of a starved and degraded existence. It was a relief that I could see ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... mouth of the rifle, cut off the redundant patching just above the bullet, looked at it, and shook his head in token that he had cut off too much or too little, no one knew which, sent down the ball, measured the contents of his gun with his first and second fingers on the protruding part of the ramrod, shook his head again, to signify there was too much or too little powder, primed carefully, placed an arched piece of tin over the hind sight to shade it, took his place, got a friend to hold his hat over ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... a ramrod than ever to-day," said Egon to his friend as they went on. "Whenever that cold, calculating countenance comes near me I feel frost-bitten and long to fly to the ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... baked codfish, a good brown loaf, and pies made of blueberries gathered and dried the summer before. Oh, if only Daniel's mother could have been there to see his table manners on that occasion! He sat up as straight as a ramrod, said "please" and "thank you," ate in the most genteel manner possible, even managing blueberry pie without disaster, and was altogether such an example of behavior that Mistress Bradford said before the meal was half over, "Thou 'lt leave the lad with us, Cousin Pepperell, ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... chairs and crazy table bore the marks of many a conflict. The characters of the youthful occupants of the room might be detected in every article it contained. Darell's peculiar bent of mind was exemplified in a rusty broadsword, a tall grenadier's cap, a musket without lock or ramrod, a belt and cartouch-box, with other matters evincing a decided military taste. Among his books, Plutarch's Lives, and the Histories of Great Commanders, appeared to have been frequently consulted; ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... saw him, I was standin' with the butt of my rifle on the log, my hand graspin' the barrel, and as I caught it up suddenly to load, the string of my powder-horn caught between the muzzle and the ramrod, broke, and the horn fell to the ground. Here was a fix for a hunter to be in. My rifle was empty, and every grain of powder I had in the world was in the horn, fifteen feet below me, on the ground. To go down after it was a thing I was principled agin ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... Fact and Nature, at all. Consummate Black-art Diplomacies overnetting the Universe, went entirely to water, running down the gutters to the last drop; and a prosperous Drilled Prussia, compact, organic in every part, from diligent plough-sock to shining bayonet and iron ramrod, remained standing. "A full Treasury and 200,000 well-drilled men would be the one guarantee to your Pragmatic Sanction," Prince Eugene had said. But that bit of insight was not accepted at Vienna; Black-art, and Diplomatic ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... I had the great satisfaction of meeting its author, Sir John Bowring, at a public dinner in London during the summer of 1872. A fresh, handsome veteran he was, too—tall and straight as a ramrod, and exceedingly winsome in his manners. He had been famous as the editor of the Westminster Review and quite famous in civil life, for he was a member of the British Parliament and once had been the Governor of Hong Kong. He produced several volumes, but will owe his immortality ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... children in such an hour; but I must ever gratefully recollect the kind offers of asylum made to me by my Belgian acquaintance, and for months, they said, had the battle been lost. It is truly pitiable to see the wounded arriving on foot; a musket reversed, or the ramrod, serving for a staff of support to the mutilated frame, the unhappy soldier trailing along his wearied limbs, and perhaps leading a more severely-wounded comrade, whose discoloured visages declare their extreme suffering;—their uniforms either hanging in shreds, or totally despoiled of them by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... be, and expressed himself in raptures with the European soldiery. I was back again to breakfast at mess by eight o'clock. Several of our men were wounded by arrows. One soldier swore "that a fellow had shot his ramrod into him." Stisted had an arrow through the calf of his leg, but his wound is not ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth
... attack. De Cheyennes got Winchesters and rifles and repeaters from de government. Yahsur, de government give 'em de guns dey used to shoot us. We got de ole fashion muzzle loaders. You puts one ball in de muzzle and shove de powder down wid de ramrod. Den we went in and fit 'em, and 'twas like fightin' a wasp's nest. Dey kills a lot of our boys and we nearly wipes 'em out. Den we disarms de Cheyennes we captures, and turns dere guns in to ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... remember," he said to Bob, "and that is to walk pretty stiffly like you had a bone in your leg an' swallowed a ramrod. That's the way Von Arnheim always steps out, An' both of you keep your ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... to his mouth, puffing at the crooked fingers. "Ain't as bad as ridin' out a norther, though. I 'mind me how jus' 'fore th' war—I was ridin' for wages for Old Man Shaw then—we had a norther hit. I'm tellin' you, it was so cold th' ramrod came out to give th' mornin' orders an' his words, they jus' naturally froze up solid. Us boys, we hadda go git th' wood ax an' chop 'em apart 'fore we knew what we was all to do. Now that's what I ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... me how long the war would continue. We have had quite a lot of talk with the Admiral and dear old General Ramrod about it; but James says, with the utmost respect for their characters, that these naval and military men are so hide-bound. In his opinion hostilities will be over in two months from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... lose a moment. Jump down, and fire one of your pistols at the first robber. Keep the other for a sure aim. One shot is to intimidate, the second to slay. You comprehend? My pistols are in excellent order, I suppose. Lend me the ramrod. So, so! No trick ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I hear, Dick, old ramrod?" Greg demanded as soon as the chums were back in quarters from breakfast. "The news is flying around fast that Mr. Spurlock is going to ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... plucky engine-driver calling out to them to stop, with the addition of a terrible oath, two or three of these poor men would have been wounded. I too had seized my revolver, but before I could have drawn out the ramrod which serves as a cog to prevent it from going off, any one would have had time to seize me, bind me, and kill me a hundred ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... I was bent to get at the very bottom of this mystery (if there were any), having less fear of witch or wizard, with a man of Uncle Reuben's wealth to take my part, and see me through. So I rattled the ramrod down my gun, just to know if the charge were right, after so much walking; and finding it full six inches deep, as I like to have it, went boldly down the steep gorge of rock, with a firm resolve to shoot any witch unless it were good Mother Melldrum. Nevertheless ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... flint-lock muskets of small bore and with long-barreled rifles which they loaded from the muzzle by the use of the ramrod; equipped with powder horn, charges made of cane for loading, bullet molds and wadding, but bravely arrayed in home-spun of blue, and belted with cutlass and broadsword by the side, cockade on the ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... Firozpur, and dipped the fragments in water, to efface the ink from them. Ania asked him what he had done with the blunderbuss, and was told that it had been thrown into a well. Ania now concealed three flints that he kept about him in some sand in the upper story they occupied, and threw an iron ramrod and two spare bullets into a well near ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... became furious, and in his rage he expended forty-two caps trying to make the gun go off. When the forty-second cap missed also, Mr. Fogg thought, perhaps, there might be something the matter with the inside of the gun, and so he sounded the barrels with his ramrod. To his utter dismay, he discovered that both barrels were empty. Mrs. Fogg, who is nervous about firearms, had drawn the loads without telling Fogg. The language used by Mr. Fogg when he made this discovery was extremely disgraceful, and he felt sorry for it a moment afterward. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... signal on the wall where it could be seen from D'Aulnay's camp brought an officer and his men to receive Madame La Tour's dispatches. Glaud Burge handed them, down at the end of a ramrod. ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... will see how well I will behave." Teddy seemed to be satisfied that some such recognition and submission had been tendered him; so presently he wagged his tail, that had up till then been rigid as a ramrod, and not only the little terrier, but all of us, breathed again. Yet it was some time before Teddy would admit him into anything like what one might call intimacy, and premature attempts at gamesome familiarity were checked by the gathering thunder of a lazy growl that unmistakably bade the youngster ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... however, describe my difficulties after having penetrated about two feet into the hewn stone. My tools were the irons I had dug out, which fastened may bedstead and night-table. A compassionate soldier also gave me an old iron ramrod and a soldier's sheath knife, which did me excellent service, more especially the latter, as I shall presently more fully show. With these two I cut splinters from my bedstead, which aided me to pick ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... scrupulously polite and even cordial to the fair one, I contrived to keep Robbie beside me all the time, and to leave along with him when the ordeal was over. We were just walking away arm in arm, when I spied my friend the Major approaching, stiff as a ramrod ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man hitherto unknown except in his own country; and yet of very considerable significance to all European countries whatsoever; the fruit of his activities, without his name attached, being now manifest in all of them. He invented the iron ramrod; he invented the equal step; in fact, he is the inventor of modern military tactics. Even so, if we knew it: the Soldiery of every civilized country still receives from this man, on parade-fields and battle-fields, its word of command; out of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... howl of utter dismay and deadly fear, he manages to get away from the pack, leaving my little doggies to come proudly round my horse with their mouths full of fur, and each of their little tails as stiff as an iron ramrod. ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... door behind us and waved him over to the crying chair. He folded at the knees and hips, as if he were hinged only there, as if there were no hinges at all in the ramrod of his back. He sat up straight, on the edge of his chair, ready to spring into instant charge of battle. I went around back to my desk ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... RAMROD. In muzzle-loading, is the implement used in charging a piece, to drive home the powder ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... not account Mumps's Ha' a safe place to quarter in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore, from Meg's good fare and kind words, and mounted his nag, having first examined his pistols, and tried by the ramrod whether the charge ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the accused has gone up to the table on which the objects are lying. He wraps his handkerchief around the ramrod, slips it into one of the barrels, draws it out again, and shows that ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... curiosity, I descended, and each man ascended in his turn; for I would only allow one at a time to mount the unstable and precarious slab, which it seemed a breath would hurl into the abyss below. We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit, and fixing a ramrod in a crevice, unfurled the national flag to wave in the breeze, where never flag waved before. During our morning's ascent, we had met no sign of animal life, except the small sparrow-like bird already mentioned. A stillness the most profound, and a terrible solitude forced ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... resentment." He stared hard at me in astonishment, as though he had failed to understand me. Then, fixing his eyes gloomily upon the floor, he threw his arms behind his back, and again began to stride up and down the room. He took down a rifle and put the ramrod down the barrel to see whether it were loaded or not. My blood boiled in my veins; grasping my knife, I stepped close up to him, so as to make it impossible for him to take aim at me. "That's a handsome weapon," he said, replacing the rifle in the corner. I retired a few paces, the Baron following ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... up the board-walk, her back as stiff as a ramrod. Any one with half an eye could see that she was resolved not to drop the parasol again. No savage warrior on battle bent ever gripped his ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... military review, an encampment. She was tempted out to see it. Of a sudden by some mistake, a ramrod was fired from a careless soldier's gun, and it pierced her through her heart. I tell you, Felix, it pinned my baby frock into the wound, so that they could not part me from her till it was ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... which will obviously insure a fortune to the successful competitor. The advantages of a breech-loading gun consist in the greater rapidity with which it can be loaded and fired, and the avoidance of the exposure incident to the motions of drawing the ramrod and ramming the cartridge. We are well aware that rapid firing is in itself an evil, and that a common complaint with officers is that the men will not take time enough in aiming to insure efficiency; but granting this, it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... barrels suggested a return to the old rotatory cylinder, for which he took out a patent in 1835; and in 1836 he took out another patent for obtaining the rotatory motion by drawing back the trigger, and he subsequently introduced the addition of a lever ramrod fixed on to the barrel. Col. Colt came to the conclusion that the hammer-revolving cylinder was the more useful article, inasmuch as it enabled the person using it to take a more steady aim than with the other, which, revolving and firing by the action of the trigger, the moment ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... "Old ramrod," began Lieutenant Holmes, turning to his chum and addressing him by the old West Point nickname, "I came to see you about your pet. He seems to be in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... life, has been sent to me by Mr. Curtis, and is before me as I write. It was made in the year 1835 by J. Purdey, of 314 1/2, Oxford Street, London, and is a beautiful piece of workmanship of its kind. Without the ramrod, which is now missing, it weighs only 5 lbs. 3 3/4 oz. The barrel is octagonal, and the rifled bore, designed to take a spherical bullet, is 1/2 in. in diameter. The hammer can be set to safety on the half-cock by means of ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... a long day to accustom himself to the Military Academy. The hazing encountered by every Freshman he didn't seem to mind, so the older men soon let him alone. But the drill and the dress! To this farm lad it was deadly. These were the days of the "ramrod" tactics of Winfield Scott—the starch and stock and buckram days of the army. "Old Fuss and Feathers" his critics called him, but with all his love of pomp and circumstance Scott was a splendid soldier, whether on the ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... and everybody and everything in it look as if they had swallowed a ramrod," snarled he. "Mr. Schwartz, can't you teach the young men to throw a little ease and grace into the arrangement of the articles ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Crimean War our village was illuminated. Rows of tallow candles in every window, fireworks in a vacant field, and a torchlight procession! Old John marched at its head in full regimentals, straight as a ramrod, the hero of the night. His son had been promoted for bravery on the field. After John came a dozen gray militiamen of Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa; next some forty volunteers of '37. And we boys of the U. E. Loyalist ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... veteran hunter already mentioned, displayed his experience and skill in entrapping one of these beautiful animals. Taking advantage of its well known curiosity, he laid down flat among the grass, and putting his handkerchief on the end of his ramrod, waved it gently in the air. This had the effect of the fabled fascination of the rattlesnake. The antelope approached timidly, pausing and reconnoitering with increased curiosity; moving round the point of attraction in a circle, but still drawing nearer and nearer, until being within range of the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... him came a companion figure, his equerry the Baron von Habelschwert, a stout, pig-eyed, snub-nosed man of forty-five who walked with the stiffness of a ramrod of the best Bessemer steel. His legs were, unfortunately, rather short, and since the lower part of his body was of a fine protuberant rotundity which the breadth of his shoulders and the thickness of his chest failed dismally to equal, he displayed an uncommonly exact resemblance ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... proceeded to make himself as agreeable to all parties as he knew how to do. He found Aunt Ruth the very duplicate of what young Bridewell had prepared him to find, namely, a veritable Dorcas: the very embodiment of thrift, energy, punctiliousness, with the graceful figure of a ramrod and the martial step of a grenadier; and he decided forthwith that, be she a monument of all the virtues, she was still just the kind of woman he would fly to the ends of the earth rather than have to live with for one short week. In brief, he did not like Miss Ruth Sutcliff, and ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... affairs. It would be necessary to exceed De Wardes in rapidity of execution. He advanced, therefore, so as to reach him before he should have had time to reload his pistol. De Wardes saw him approaching like a tempest. The ball was rather tight, and offered some resistance to the ramrod. To load it carelessly would be to expose himself to lose his last chance; to take the proper care in loading it would be to lose his time, or rather it would be throwing away his life. He made his horse bound on one side. De Guiche turned round also, and, at the moment the horse ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... had always seen him, in black corduroy breeches, high black boots, broad black hat—a man standing upward of six feet, carrying himself as straight as a ramrod, his chest as powerful as a blacksmith's bellows, the calf of his leg as thick as many a man's thigh; big, hard hands, the fingers twisted by toil; the face weatherbeaten like an old sea captain's, with eyes like the frozen blue of a ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... two windows on the lower floor and two on the upper. Each of these was too narrow to permit any man to force his body through. It was from one of the lower ones that Simon Girty had displayed the flag of truce, only to have it whipped off the ramrod and appropriated by the watchful Jethro, who, after wearing the garment for a time, laid it aside in order to escape the merriment his appearance ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... for common guns, of walnut for superior, of which much is imported from France and Italy, arrive in Birmingham in a rough state. The stocker cuts away enough of the stock to receive the barrel, the lock, the ramrod, and shapes it ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... duties of regent when he was absent on campaign. Often, too, she accompanied him into the field. Leopold's career as a soldier in important commands begins with the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession. He had made many improvements in the Prussian army, notably the introduction of the iron ramrod about 1700, and he now took the field at the head of a Prussian corps on the Rhine, serving at the sieges of Kaiserswerth and Venlo. In the following year (1703), having obtained the rank of lieutenant-general, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... moment, Job, who was Fernando's cook, came running forward with some broiled beefsteak on the end of a ramrod. He gave it to Sukey ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... opinionated ramrod of a Scotchman who'd drive any girl to break her engagement a dozen times if she had ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... an' filed A' old arn ramrod; an' one o' the ends He screwed fast into the vise; an' smiled, Thinkin', he said, o' when he wuz a child, 'Fore him ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... his hunting shirt, leggings, and moccasins were bright with different colored beads and fringes. In the red sash which passed around his waist were thrust a hunting knife and tomahawk, while one hand clasped a cumbersome rifle, which, like all firearms of those times, was used with ramrod ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... grass bristled. It seemed impossible that any living creature bigger than an ant could conceal itself on that bare, arid sand stretch, but the ticked dog was standing rigid, nose pointing almost between his forefeet, and the red dog was backing him, tail like a ramrod, right ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... paving. In one end there was a wide fireplace grimy with soot, in the other a mere peep-hole for a window: a wooden bench, a bed of skins and two or three stools were barely visible in the gloom. In the doorway Oncle Jazon sat whittling a slender billet of hickory into a ramrod for ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... out from under his canvas shell and started to clean it out. It was what was called a bulldog pistol, because it had a blunt, short muzzle. Abe's forefinger was long enough to use as a ramrod for it. But before he began operations he snapped the trigger and, to his ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... principles. It was not he who caught the ball on the point of the sharp stick that won, but he who failed to catch it, for failure was more difficult to achieve than success! The explanation is simple. The handle was a piece of pointed wood, about the thickness of a ramrod, and a yard or so in length. To this, by a piece of string made from fibres of the palm, was attached the ball, which was formed of the skull of a turtle, carefully scraped. There was no "cup" in the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... filled him full of chinquapin nuts, which grow profusely in this land, and are, perhaps, of some relation to the chestnut. An oaken stick, sufficiently long to reach from one side of the fireplace to the other, and trimmed with knives until it was no larger around than the ramrod of a matchlock, forms our spit, and this we thrust through the body of the bird from end to end. A pile of rocks on either side of the fireplace, at a proper distance from the burning wood, serves as rests for the ends of the wooden ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... straight as a ramrod in his natty khaki uniform. And he was holding up his right hand just like the big policeman on the corner downtown. As he dropped it to shake hands with Bob, there was a sudden ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... But a young native girl has been seen strutting about wearing as a neck ornament the rusty iron shaving-dish which she had stolen from the ship's barber, whilst a man was equally proud of sporting the ramrod of Captain Marchand's gun, which he had placed in the orifice of his ear, letting part of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the part, suck the wound, and caustic it as soon as you can. Or, for want of caustic, explode gunpowder in the wound; of else do what Mr. Mansfield Parkyns well suggests, i.e., cut away with a knife, and afterwards burn out with the end of your iron ramrod, heated as near a white heat as you can readily get it. The arteries lie deep, and as much flesh may, without much danger, be cut or burnt into, as the fingers can pinch up. The next step is to use the utmost energy, ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... weakness—a love of display. He was a much smaller man than Mason expected to see, but there was that in his rugged, tanned face and firm chin that at once commanded respect and attention. He bore his seventy odd years lightly and his slight form was as straight as a ramrod. His uniform, unlike those of his faithful followers, was immaculately spotless. His carbine, on which he rested, was gold mounted; the sabre at his side was elegantly chased and decorated, and the silver on his pistol handles glittered in the waning light. As he turned his eyes on the ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... and Tom took it off the fire and handed the pieces on the ramrod, that had served as a spit, to the others, together with some bread, poured out the tea from the kettle, and placed a bag of sugar before them. There was little talk until after the meal was over. Then the Indian and Jerry smoked steadily, while Tom took a single ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... trying to be thoughtful. Foolishness! She turned and climbed back into the saddle, and sat up straight, her backbone as stiff as a ramrod, and looked over his head and far away. For the moment she was so hopping mad she forgot the danger they were in. They made their way down into the heavy growth of Engelmann spruce that filled the notch, crossed the floor of the notch, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... on grand tactics and certain papers on military history had won much favor among the studious men in the army, and it was with pride and pleasure that he entered on the allotted task. He wrote, as did Zachary Taylor, a hand that looked much as though a ramrod rather than a pen had been used, and naturally his first thought was to find his transcriber of the previous winter. There she was at her desk in the library, and looking far younger, happier, and better than when he saw her last, and the frank pleasure in her face was good ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... the number. The great event of this expedition, so full of thrilling adventure, was the first ascent of that highest peak of the Wind River Mountains, now called Fremont's Peak, 13,570 feet in height. "We mounted the barometer in the snow of the summit," Fremont wrote, "and fixing a ramrod in the crevice, unfurled the national flag where never flag waved before.... While we were sitting on the rock a solitary bumble-bee came winging its flight from the eastern valley, and lit on the knee of one of the men." They run a canon in the Platte, singing a Canadian ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... angry notes of the bullets jarred on his senses. Then pride and the animal instinct of fighting for life flamed upward. So swiftly that he was scarcely conscious of what he was doing he snatched a cartridge from the box, tore its end between his teeth, and rammed it home. He replaced the ramrod in its thimbles with one quick thrust, and as he raised his eyes from the nipple upon which he had placed the cap, he saw that the Rebel squad had gained the foot of the knoll and started up its side. He raised ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... ramrod so long it's going to be hard to learn to be a clinging vine. I've been my own support for so many years, I don't use a trellis very gracefully—yet. But I think I'll get the ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... do me out of the credit and out of my chance of a title. I took good care that if they wouldn't let me do it they shouldn't do it themselves either. I may not know anything about my own machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod into the other fellow's. And now they all look ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... knocker, and the perfect level and whiteness of the marble steps first caught his eye; then the door swung open and Jemima in white apron and bandanna stood bowing to the floor, Todd straight as a ramrod in a new livery and a grin on his face that cut it in two, with Kate and Harry hidden behind them, suffocating ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The Ramrod Broken; or the Bible History and Common Sense in Favor of the Moderate Use of Good Spirituous Liquors; showing the Advantage of a License System in Preference to Prohibition, and "Moral," in Preference to "Legal, Suasion." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various |
