"Dirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... words, he girded on a short sword, placed a pistol in his belt, disclosing in this movement, which opened his doublet a little, the fine rings of a coat of mail, destined to protect him from the first dagger-thrust of an assassin. After which he took a Scotch dirk in his left hand, and then turning to Athos, "Are you ready, monsieur?" ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. 'Mong Dieu,' cried De Smythe, 'he ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... an' a dirk, An' a beard like besom bristles, He was an elder o' the kirk And he hated kists o' whistles! Hech mon! The pawky duke! An' doon on kists o' whistles! They're a' reid-heidit fowk up North Wi' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... a lilac bush. Robin learned that if you laid a leaf flat on the seat of a bench you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's greenness. Donal had—in his rolled down stocking—a little dirk. He did the decoration with the point of this while ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... at the army officer with new respect. He had always been inclined to think of the Frontier Guards as a gang of scientifically illiterate dirk-and-pistol bravos. He fiddled for a while with instruments on the panel; an automatic computer figured the distance to the planet, the boat's velocity, and the ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... alto-rilievos in his temple nimbly leading the cake-walk, leaning as far back as ever Dixey did when exploiting that dance. In the matter of carving, Ward McAllister couldn't hold a candle to him: he used no knife nor fork, but slashed his Christmas turkey in pieces with his dirk, ate it and called for the next course. His wife never got any of the white meat—the drum-sticks were good enough for her. He was more than a two-bottle man: this is made plain in the reliefs by the number of "empties" that are stacked upon his table, and also by the fact that he built and ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... was exhibiting to a number of gentlemen, who happened to be collected together in a druggist's store, some weapons which he claimed to have taken from Captain Pate in Kansas. Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight inches long, and he remarked that if he had a lot of those things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a capital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas.... When he came to make the contract, he wrote ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... Derby in the canteen of Prince Charlie. This relic had been presented to "the wandering Ascanius" by some very careful follower, for its bottom is of glass, that he who quaffed might keep his eye the while upon the dirk ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... said the middy, presenting his cocked hat to the captain, "I did draw my dirk to kill him, but you ran away so fast ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... when he was struck on the back of the head with a bludgeon and rendered insensible. He did not return to consciousness until the next morning, when he found himself by the side of the road, bleeding from a terrible wound in his side from a dirk-knife. He had strength to attract the attention of a man passing with a team, and was taken to his hotel. A surgeon was called, who pronounced the wound mortal. Mr. Ansart objected to that view of the case, and sent for another, and with ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say, there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... recognized him, he clapped his hands, and exclaimed, 'Alas! is this the case?' Finding that there was now a discovery, Malcolm asked, 'What's to be done?' 'Swear him to secrecy,' answered Prince Charles. Upon which Malcolm drew his dirk, and on the naked blade, made him take a solemn oath, that he would say nothing of his having seen the Wanderer, till his escape should be ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... a knife ur a pistol; 'n' ef a feller was ever killed, it was kinder accidental, by a Barlow. I reckon folks got use' to weepons 'n' killin' 'n' bushwhackin' in the war. Looks like it's been gittin' wuss ever sence, 'n' now hit's dirk 'n' Winchester, 'n' shootin' from the bushes all the time. Hit's wuss 'n stealin' money to take a feller-creetur' s life ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... came, snuffing and barking like a dog, making my very hair stand on end. I waited for him to pass, but I think his instinct must have told him I had paused, for he began to turn over the shells with his ugly nose, as if searching for something. My single weapon was a small dirk, as ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... and the Camorra and its sinister analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically remind us that thousands of these swarthy criminals have found refuge in the dark alleys of our cities. Even in America the Sicilian carries a dirk, and the "death sign" in a court room has silenced many a witness. The north Italians readily identify themselves with American life. Among them are found bakers, barbers, and marble cutters, as well as wholesale fruit and olive oil merchants, artists, and musicians. But the south Italian ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... and care was, however, unavailing to prevent assaults. The most serious instance of this kind was the act of an Irish ruffian, who so far forgot the traditions and sufferings of his own people as to cast himself upon Drayton with a huge dirk and cut off a piece of his ear.[6] For a few moments all the horrors incident to riot and bloodshed were in evidence. The air was filled with the screams of terrorized women and children and the curses and threats of vengeful men. The whole was a struggling, swaying mass, which for a season had ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... stranger. At a distance she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed in the bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun over his shoulder, the claymore was swinging by his side with its usual appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the SPORRAN MOLLACH. [The goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round their waist.] Ere yet her eye had scanned all these particulars, the light step of the traveller was hastened, his arm was waved in token of recognition—a moment more, and Elspat ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... one of the luckless torches that Dirk had lighted in a circle about the mound, and began to examine the ground. "What is there to eat? Stay! By Heaven, I have it! The bushes are filled with fluttering game. There, see that! and that, and that!" As he spoke he had thrust the burning torch into a thick clump ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... men's heads. A long knife flashed in Ristofalo's right hand. He stood holding the rope in his left, stooping slightly forward, and darting his eyes about as if selecting a victim for his weapon. A stranger touched Richling from behind, spoke a hurried word in Italian, and handed him a huge dirk. But in that same moment the affair was over. There stood Ristofalo, gentle, self-contained, with just a perceptible smile turned upon the crowd, no knife in his hand, and beside him the slender, sinewy, form, and keen gray ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... to be a man of middle age, short of stature, sturdy, and well set, seemingly a stranger, and but little acquainted with Baneelon and Colbee. The nearer the governor approached, the greater became the terror and agitation of the Indian. To remove his fear, governor Phillip threw down a dirk, which he wore at his side. The other, alarmed at the rattle of the dirk, and probably misconstruing the action, instantly fixed his ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... and for a couple of hundred francs bought at a second-hand dealer's enough furniture to make it habitable. I arranged with the concierge to make my coffee in the morning and to keep the place clean. Then I went to see my friend Dirk Stroeve. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... his hand into the inner breast-pocket, dragged out a roll of MSS., matted closely together and stained by the winter's rains. A further search eventuated in finding a roll of small gold coin, a set of derringer pistols, a rusted double-edged dirk, and a pair of silver-mounted spectacles. Hastily covering over the body with leaves and branches cut from the embowering shrubs, we shudderingly ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. My best compliments to our ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... wind had given Quinn a face of wrinkled leather. It was his custom to wear rings in his ears, to carry a murderous dirk, and to wrap around his bald head a red bandanna after the fashion of the ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... legally designate herself, "Mrs. Captain Oliver P. Hazard." She then discovered "a jealous disposition" and "an ungovernable temper." When he returned from his various voyages she "did not receive him kindly;" but, contrariwise, sometimes received him on the side of "a poker," on the end of "a dirk" or at the muzzle of "pistol." Moreover—and this is dolefully comic—"she repeatedly left this deponent imprisoned in the house for hours under lock and key!" What a situation for a foaming mariner, accustomed to roam the ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... dignified with the name of village, we saw a number of Greeks waiting the return of Otho: each wore a gaily coloured kerchief on the head; an embroidered jacket; a shawl encircling the waist; red greaves; a dirk; and a long gun, ornamented with gold, slung over the shoulder. Their wild fearless demeanour struck me as more characteristic of the freebooter, than the soldier of a regular government. Yet seldom ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the most part villains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves, they are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go among them with dirk and pistol—concealed, but ready ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the extreme north we find the Gulf of Carpentaria, and to the extreme south the island which used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not altogether to be wondered at that ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... Upon which brook there stood a flour-mill; And this is a known fact that now I tell. A Miller there had dwelt for many a day; As any peacock he was proud and gay. He could pipe well, and fish, mend nets, to boot, Turn cups with a lathe, and wrestle well, and shoot. A Norman dirk, as brown as is a spade, Hung by his belt, and eke a trenchant blade. A jolly dagger bare he in his pouch: There was no man, for peril, durst him touch. A Sheffield clasp-knife lay within his hose. Round was his face, and broad and ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... woman has taken up dirk from table. She puts it down again. MORAG sees the action and pushes dirk away so that it rolls off the table and drops to the floor. She hides her face in ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... son James's experience to supply a case" about thirlage. No, no, my good friend, I have lived by the law, and in the law, all my life; and when you seek the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer story or two of estates that have been lost and recovered. But, to tell you the truth, I think you might do with ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott |
