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Tussle   /tˈəsəl/   Listen
Tussle

verb
1.
Fight or struggle in a confused way at close quarters.  Synonym: scuffle.
2.
Make messy or untidy.  Synonym: muss.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tussle" Quotes from Famous Books



... gives tongue like a hound on the scent. "Baila!" and, a stick being handed him, he performs the gymnastics of his country, a sort of war-dance without accompaniment. "El can!" and, giving him a broom, they loose the dog upon him. A curious tussle then ensues,—the dog attacking furiously, and the blind man, guided by his barking, defending himself lustily. The Chino laughs, the master laughs, but the visitor feels more inclined to cry, having been bred in those Northern habits which respect infirmity. A real dismisses the poor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... well what a funny picture she must make, with the wrapper that was so much too large for her, only kept in place by the big puff sleeves: and with the puppies pulling away for dear life, it the train. When she reached the screen door, she had a tussle with them, one by one, taking a sort of reef in the trailing skirt as each puppy was successfully disposed of, until all of it was clear of the sharp little teeth, and she could bang the door ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden

... than the Rands," said the woodsman. "I've never known one to let go, once he had man or beast by the throat! Silent and holdfast and deadly to anger—that's the Rands. If Gideon wants tobacco and you want learning, there'll be a tussle!" ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... he made (both words and music) in the hour of our victory, is something less than just to me, who stood beside him in the tussle. Mr. Shuan and five more were either killed outright or thoroughly disabled; but of these, two fell by my hand, the two that came by the skylight. Four more were hurt, and of that number, one (and he not the least important) got his hurt from me. So that, altogether, I did my fair ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... willing to trust your judgment, Dick. Besides, I've got other fish to fry. I'm going east to-night to have one more tussle with the steel mills. We must have quicker deliveries and more of them. When I get back, we'll organize the track-layers and begin to make us ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... answer, I will tell you the circumstance I alluded to, which was this: Last night, as I was crossing about town drumming up friends to attend the meeting tomorrow, seeing we are expecting a hard tussle, I met a man that I could have sworn was John Peters, if I had not known the fellow was close in Northampton jail; and as it was, I could swear it was his exact shape and appearance. Well, knowing it could not be him bodily, it soon struck ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... Fork, a few days later, the caravan had a genuine tussle with the Comanches. It was a bright moonlight night, and about two hundred of the mounted savages attacked them. It was a rare thing for Indians to begin a raid after dark, but they swept down on the unsuspecting teamsters, yelling like a host of demons. ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... the shore. Then Alves proposed that they should go back to the temple for a cup of tea. The wind was up, beating around the long, black pier behind them, and when they turned, they caught it full in the face. Alves, excited by the tussle, bent to the task with a powerful swing; Dresser skated fast behind her. As they neared the long pier, instead of turning in toward the esplanade, Alves struck out into the lake to round the obstruction and enter the yacht pool beyond. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... and Glover, the former at the bow and the latter at the stern of the Buchanan, were engaged in a similar tussle, just barely holding on and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... said the man, as he put the bond in his pocket. "I shall stay on board; we have a moonlight night, and if we had not, I could find my way out in a yellow fog. Please to get your boats all ready, manned and armed, for there may be a sharp tussle." ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... are the sons of Nu'uman, * Braves whose blades shred heads of the foeman-clan![FN97] A tribe who, when tried in the tussle of war, * Taketh prowess stand in the battle-van: In their tents safe close gaberlunzie's eyne, * Nor his poverty's ugly features scan: And I for their aidance sue of Him * Who is King of Kings and made ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... before, the whaler BLENNERDALE, running into the lagoon for repair, had been cut off with all hands. In similar fashion had the crew of the GASKET, a sandalwood trader, perished. There was a big French bark, the TOULON, becalmed off the atoll, which the islanders boarded after a sharp tussle and wrecked in the Lipau Passage, the captain and a handful of sailors escaping in the longboat. Then there were the Spanish pieces, which told of the loss of one of the early explorers. All this, of the vessels named, is a matter of history, and is to be found ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... you bet your life he does his best to queer you once in a while, too!" said the clothing man. "I know I had a tough tussle with one not a great while ago down in Pittsburgh. Last season I placed a small bunch of stuff in a big store there. I had been late in getting around but the merchant liked my samples and told me that if the goods delivered turned out ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... distance of time can describe the conflict between the two leaders, who fired forth balls at each other at close distance, every one going to its mark, and one leaving an indelible impress upon Speug's ingenuous forehead. They then came to close grip, and there was a tussle, for which both had been waiting for many a day. From fists, which were not quite ineffectual, they fell upon wrestling, and here it seemed that Redhead must have the advantage, for he was taller in stature and more sinuous in body. During the wrestle there was something like a lull ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... him. He had to get at close quarters, for he could not tell when Miller would change his mind and elect to fight with a gun. The man had chosen a hand-to-hand tussle, Dave knew, because he was sure he could beat so stringy an opponent as himself. Once he got the grip on him that he wanted the big gambler would crush him by sheer strength. So, though the youngster had to get close, he dared not clinch. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... like an ordinary phalanx four deep, the barbarians presenting a narrow front of twelve or thereabouts, and a very disproportionate depth. There was a moment's pause, and then the barbarians, taking the initiative, charged. There was a hand-to-hand tussle, in which any Hellene who succeeded in striking his man shivered his lance with the blow, while the Persian troopers, armed with cornel-wood javelins, speedily despatched a dozen men and a couple of horses. (11) At this point the Hellenic cavalry turned and fled. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... owing to reinforcements being late in arriving to render assistance. They were so badly mauled and cut up that it was necessary to withdraw them from the line to refit, and infantry from an "Old Contemptible" Division took their place. Bourlon Wood became so saturated with gas that, after a great tussle, neither side was able to tenant it any longer, and so withdrew, leaving a screen of outposts to prevent ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... & Blake, and we met in what they called "our parlour" opening out of the store. He had that moment come in from boarding a ship, and confronted me head down, ready for a tussle. "What have you got to say for yourself?" I began as soon as we had shaken hands. "What I wrote you—nothing more," he said stubbornly. "Did the fellow blab—or what?" I asked. He looked up at me with a troubled smile. "Oh, no! He didn't. He made it a kind of confidential ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... with this unruly self of mine, and getting ready for another tussle with the Adversary, in whatever ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott

... these excursions the settlers took care to be well armed, for they met with savage wild boars, with which they often had a tussle. They also, during this season, made fierce war against the jaguars. Gideon Spilett had vowed a special hatred against them, and his pupil Herbert seconded him well. Armed as they were, they no longer feared to meet one of those beasts. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... apart for the practice of athletic sports, chief of which is the favourite khoosthee or wrestling. There is generally some wary old veteran, who has won his spurs, or laurels, or belt, or whatever you choose to call it, in many a hard fought and well contested tussle for the championship of his little world; he is 'up to every dodge,' and knows every feint and guard, every wile and tactic of the wrestling ground. It is generally in some shady grove, secluded and ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... traveling carriage was drawn half across the road, its forewheels perilously near the ditch. Near by was a lady, standing with arms stiff and hands clenched, stamping her foot as she addressed, in no measured terms, two men who were rolling over one another in a desperate tussle a few yards away on the heath. As Desmond drew nearer he perceived that a second and younger lady stood at the horses' heads, grasping the bridles firmly ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... he had a very poor opinion of their fighting qualities. He was a tall, spare man with a hollow-cheeked, ugly face, and a disagreeable manner. He had a great opinion of himself, and boasted to such purpose that the Americans believed him to be a military genius. And in this first tussle with the British in the south he did so well that their belief in him seemed justified. He seemed to the people a hero and a genius rolled in one. In all the war after he did nothing to uphold the fame he gained ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... Never have I experienced such rapid and complete changes of prospect. Cheetham in the last dog watch was running the ship through sludgy new ice, making with all sail set four or five knots. Bruce, in the first, took over as we got into heavy ice again; but after a severe tussle got through into better conditions. The ice of yesterday loose with sludgy thin floes between. The middle watch found us making for an open lead, the ice around hard and heavy. We got through, and by sticking to the ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... the nest on their first foraging that the parents, full of a crass and simple pride, make their indescribable chucklings of gobbling, gluttonous delight. The little ones would be amusing as they tug and tussle, if one could forget what it is ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... was a tussle. The bottle struck the floor and broke, and I desisted and rose. We stood panting and threatening each other. In the end I planted myself between him and the food, and told him of my determination to begin a discipline. ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... beat all," exclaimed Frank, "we always seem to be getting snarled up with those chaps. You remember what a tussle they ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... but never could have made it. Then I saw some one jump for the horse's head, and have a little tussle with the animal. It was Nick Lang. He hadn't stopped to think of any danger to himself. I drew up and watched him. He conquered the beast, fastened him to a hitching post, and then started to scold the white-faced little boy for having touched the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson

... bravely. "But we would not have been unprepared, and you would have had a tussle to get on board, instead of things being ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... go. Abner was just about to throw open the stable door, preparatory to giving his hobbies an airing, when a latch-key was heard operating in the front door of the house itself. Then came a man's quick step, a tussle with a heavy winter overcoat, and Whyland himself appeared ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... shimmer of white and silver, and a strenuous tussle in the pews and aisles as the stereotyped march from "Lohengrin" crashed ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... Diamond Mines outside Kimberley. Regular gentleman's life and no mistake. Nothing to do but sit under a monstrous big umbrella, with a paper in your fist, like a chairman, while twenty Kaffirs do the work. Just a bit of a tussle now and then to keep you from dropping off. When a Kaffir turns up a diamond, you grab it, and mark it on the time-sheet against his name. They've got their own outlandish ones, but we always christen them ourselves—Sixpence, Seven Waistcoats, Shoulder-of-Mutton, ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... stand just about anythin' in the way of cold," he said, "an' my leaders 'Tussle' and 'Bully' were a couple of wonders. Only one of the dogs gave out. Well, we made the camp finally, pretty well done up all round. The worst of it was, that when we come to unpack the sled—we did it with an ax because everythin' was frozen solid—the census pouch was missin'. Luckily there was ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... pewees, which never seemed to get enough, I am reminded of something I witnessed one day in a deep, wooded hollow. A red-eyed vireo suddenly appeared in the branches above me, holding an immense green worm in his beak. Then followed a tussle for the "upper hand" that was worth seeing. The bird, holding its squirming victim by one end, proceeded to beat it against the limb, though it was almost too big and recalcitrant for him to handle. Presently the vireo, after a good deal of effort, succeeded in passing ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... table, and Vetch lifted his sword as though to defend himself. But his courage failed him, and indeed his was a hopeless case if it came to a tussle, as he very well knew. Incontinently he dropped his sword point, and with a shrug of ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... knowing than formerly, and seeing what all this meant, sprang to his feet, attacked his mistress and drove her back, and begged of her to allow him to write—but she who asked for nothing better than a tussle, was not ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various

... wants a baby to dry nurse." Two more women came to her assistance, catching hold of my other arm, and they would have dragged me out of the grasp of the quarter-master, had he not called out for more help on his side, upon which two of the seamen laid hold of my other leg, and there was such a tussle (all at my expense), such pulling and hauling; sometimes the women gained an inch or two of me, then the sailors got it back again. At one moment I thought it was all over with me, and in the next I was with my own men. "Pull devil; pull baker!" cried the women, and then they laughed, although ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... say-so in the matter, their name would be Legion, but she must not think over-hardly of the few she has, for they are invaluable developers of her genius for putting "infinite riches in a little room"; while the constant tussle in their depths with moth and dust induces a daily enlargement of her moral biceps—and her patience. May their shadow never grow ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... run, and the run soon grew into a series of leaps. Still Dorry kept her seat. Young as she was, she was a fearless rider, and at first, as we have seen, rather enjoyed the prospect of a tussle with Lady. But as the speed increased, Dorry found herself growing deaf, dumb and blind in the breathless race. Still, if she could only hold on, all would be well; she certainly could not consent to ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... before I knew it, I just did the same thing, and we slid to the flower pot we use as a base together, each on his own stomach. And what did Billy do but begin right there on the grass the kind of a tussle we always have in the big rocking-chair on the porch! Over and over we rolled, Billy chuckling and squealing while I laughed myself all out of breath. I'm glad I always would wear delicious petticoats, for there, looking right over my front ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... The secret of Macarger's Gulch One summer night The moonlit road A diagnosis of death Moxon's master A tough tussle One of twins The haunted valley A jug of sirup Staley Fleming's hallucination A resumed identity Hazen's brigade A baby tramp The night-doings at "Deadman's" A story that is untrue Beyond the wall ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce

... railroads across the Rocky Mountains. "Will Harriman sell? No, he'll buy, of course he'll buy; he'd be an idiot if he didn't. Of course he'll buy, and Gould and Stillman will buy, too. Well, there'll be a fine tussle in Wall Street to-day." Thus he soliloquized, puffing thoughtfully at his short pipe. Then he picked up the heap of narrow tape on his desk containing the latest news from the West, and read the reports once more as the paper slipped through ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... but my knife; I hed let go o' my rifle when I slid from the mar's back, an' it hed gone to the bottom long since. I wan't in any condition to stand a tussle with the painter nohow; so I 'wur determined to let him alone as ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... scenery in man and his destiny, and would have seen something ludicrous, it may be suspected, in the spectacle of a grown man running to hide his head in the apron of the Mighty Mother whenever he had an ache in his finger or got a bruise in the tussle for existence. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... not, he attacked again, and, though I managed to give him several telling blows, he closed with me before I could avoid him, and in the tussle which followed I went down heavily, my head coming in violent ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... we were sitting at table. I had a tussle with my melancholy madman—because I couldn't help thinking of the little Jorgen. God knows, I told myself, no little Jorgen has come to carry on your name, and the boy's a weakling, and you've no one ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... moments of joy were where Neewa stood up man-fashion. Then was a real tussle. And his greatest hours of disgust were when Neewa stretched himself out in a tree ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... The banker awaited the issue of the interview between mother and daughter in the next room. Through the door he heard the irritated tones of Madame Desvarennes, to which Micheline answered softly and slowly. The mother threatened and stormed. Coldly and quietly the daughter received the attack. The tussle lasted about an hour, when the door reopened and Madame Desvarennes appeared, pale and still trembling, but calmed. Micheline, wiping her beautiful eyes, still wet with tears, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... fathers one or two generations ago felt that they must fly to the defense of religion against the attacks of science, no man wastes his strength doing that to-day. That period has passed. The trouble is that some good people do not know it, and are just fond enough of a bit of a tussle to keep up the fighting in the mountain-passes while out in the plain the main armies have laid down their arms and ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... of course not known to the new-comers, who found something so honest and worthy about the Pucklechurches that they could not help liking them, though Mrs Carbonel had another tussle with Betty about fresh butter. "It war no good to make it more than once a week. Folk liked it tasty and meller;" and that the Carbonels had by no means the same likings, made her hold up her hands ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... well, swarming aboard the Broke and fighting hand to hand, as in the days of boarding. But Midshipman Giles stood up to the first of them, who was soon killed by a bluejacket's cutlass; and then, after a tremendous tussle with swords and pistols and anything else that was handy, every German was either driven overboard or killed on the spot, except two ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... are out there somewhere, as he finds every time a scout goes forth, but they appear to be engrossed in some big council over at the Greasy Grass. One thing is certain, he can get no word through to Terry on the Yellowstone, and he cannot afford another tussle with such force as they show when he does come out. The —th is still down near the Black Hills. Busy? Oh, yes. Busy is no word for it! They are scampering all over the south Cheyenne country after small ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... which she was knitting for Tom in her hand, the yarn all tangled and broken. Ready was by her knees, winking sleepily. The old dog was growing surly with his years, as we said: Jem remembered when he used to romp and tussle with him, but that was long ago: he lay in the chimney-corner always now, growling at Martha herself even, if her singing or laugh disturbed his nap. But when these strange moods came on her, Jem noticed that the yellow old beast seemed conscious of it sooner than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... to Jean-Christophe, and standing as near to him as she could, and on the click of the door they had darted apart as quickly as possible, covered with confusion. Frau von Kerich had pretended to see nothing. Minna was almost sorry. She would have liked a tussle with her mother; it ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... certain that no opportunity would be given them for being a moment together; and divining something of Sarle's resolute temper, she could not help miserably wondering what would happen when it came to a tussle of will ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... six feet in height and of massive proportions. He would have been an ugly customer in a tussle where the conditions were equal, and Ashman could not forbear the thought that he was one of the contestants in the frightful sport he had witnessed near the village. If so, there was little doubt that he was hailed the champion. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... quietly watching the fun while one after another of the boys fell victim to the pony's powers. Finally, when the little animal's triumph seemed complete, Grant stepped into the ring and sprang upon his back. A tremendous tussle for the mastery immediately ensued, but though he reared and shied and kicked, the tricky little beast was utterly unable to throw its fearless young rider, and amid the shouts of the audience the clown at last stopped the contest and ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... Bud went out and roped Hatrack, and after a tussle that lasted several strenuous minutes, brought him into camp. Hatrack ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... Enterprise of Archie Armstrong Evolves Senor Fakerino, the Greatest Magician In Captivity. In Which, also, the Foolish are Importuned Not to be Fooled, Candy is Promised to Kids, Bill o' Burnt Bay is Persuaded to Tussle With "The Lost Pirate," and the "Spot ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan

... gentle old priest, who looked from his peaceful haven with dreamy eyes upon the sweat and tussle of the world's battle. Had he instead been in the thick of the fight, it might have been harder for him to believe that his enemies ever had ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... water from her hold, the lookout yelled that another sail was making for them. Without hesitation Talbot somehow got this absurdly impudent one-masted craft of his under way and told those of his sixty men who survived to prepare for a second tussle. Fortunately another Yankee privateer joined the chase and together they subdued the armed brig Hannah. When the Argo safely convoyed the two prizes into New Bedford, "all who beheld her were astonished that a vessel of her diminutive size could suffer so much ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... Charles was thus prudently gathering strength for the final tussle, the people of Liege also indulged in repose, counting on Sunday being a day of rest, that is, the major part of the burgher folk did within city limits. But another plan was on foot among some of the inhabitants of ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... getting astride of his chest, he applied the turnkeys and pulled away for dear life. Unfortunately, he had got hold of the wrong tooth, and the poor man screamed as loud as he could; but it was to no purpose, for Sam had him fast, and after a pretty severe tussle out came the sound grinder. The young doctor now saw his mistake, but consoled himself with the thought that as the wrong tooth was out of the way, there was more room to get at ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... on the deck astonished, By that wild squall admonished, And wondering cried, "Potztausend, Wie ist der Stuerm jetzt brausend?" And looked at Captain Lewis, Who calmly stood and blew his Cigar in all the hustle, And scorned the tempest's tussle, And oft we've thought thereafter How he beat the storm to laughter; For well he knew his vessel With that vain wind could wrestle; And when a wreck we thought her, And doomed ourselves to slaughter, How gayly he fought her, And through ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... pulled and pulled till he looked in danger of severing himself in two. Meanwhile Ophio, slowly but surely advancing, caused its head and neck to disappear, grasping tightly with his venomous jaws, as if he would say, "We'll see who is master." It was a close tussle, so firmly did the little coluber retain his hold on the "tree"; but as the upper part of him was gradually drawn into those unrelaxing jaws, he by degrees gave way, and ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... fighting; quarterstaff, single stick; gladiatorship^, gymnastics; jiujitsu, jujutsu, kooshti^, sumo; athletics, athletic sports; games of skill &c 840. shindy^; fracas &c (discord) 713; clash of arms; tussle, scuffle, broil, fray; affray, affrayment^; velitation^; colluctation^, luctation^; brabble^, brigue^, scramble, melee, scrimmage, stramash^, bushfighting^. free fight, stand up fight, hand to hand, running fight. conflict, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... is another thing we must bear in mind," said Clif, who had been doing some quick thinking. "I'd like nothing better than to give them a lively tussle. But here are these important dispatches. They must not fall into Spanish hands. The New York will soon be due. If we delay we ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... danger of giving the Nipe enough time to complete his work on his communicator." He looked at Stanton and chuckled, but there was no humor in his short laugh. "We would not wish our friend, the Nipe, to bring his relatives into this little tussle, would we, Bart?" ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... reloading shotgun outfit spread out upon it. There was a desk made of boxes, and on the desk lay a shot-loaded quirt that more than one rebellious cow-horse knew to its sorrow. There was a rawhide lariat that had parted its strands in a tussle with a stubborn cow. Jean meant to fix the broken end of the longest piece and use it for a tie-rope, some day when she had ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower

... that. Unquestionably they would have shot me down without hesitation if we two had not grappled in such a lively tussle that they could not hit one ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... it was restored by Pugin after being in a state of ruin for many years. Certain portions may be seen at uncertain times. In the ancient dining-room are preserved the hammer, tongs and anvil of St. Dunstan. The Saint's well is in the garden. It was hereabouts that St. Dunstan had his great tussle with the Devil, holding the fiend by the nose with his tongs; eventually the Evil One wrenched himself free; making an eight mile leap he cooled his nose in a pool of water, giving it for ever "a flavour of warm flat irons" ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... snorted again, even as a war-horse that snuffs the fray. This time Franklin Marmion seemed to recognise the implied challenge, for he looked round the crowded theatre with a curious smile, which seemed to say: "Yes, gentlemen, I see that some of you are getting ready for a tussle. I am in hopes of being able ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... foolish, very very foolish, in what she said! She, Anna Bauer, had often noticed it. Still, averse as she was from the thought, the old German woman was ruefully aware that she would have to accept Mr. Hegner's invitation. When it came to a tussle of will between the two, herself and her mistress, Mrs. Otway generally won, partly because she was, after all, Anna's employer, and also because she always knew exactly what it was she wanted Anna to do. Anna was emotional, easily touched, highly excitable; she also generally ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... be presumed that the reader knows the usual result of such a tussle with the conscience as that upon which I now entered. At various turning points in a chequered career I have met my conscience thus face to face, and am honest enough to confess that the victory has not always fallen to that ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... ugliness, in my shirt and drawers, my hair on end and my teeth chattering. But I responded, I suppose, to some little pulse of manly obstinacy that beat somewhere in me. I would not be beaten by the Creature. Even in the middle of it I realised that this was the hardest tussle of my life and worth fighting. I know too that some thought of Nikitin came to me as though, in some way, my failure would damage him. I remembered that night of the Retreat when he had helped me ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... imagination. She seized her note-book and drew a fancy portrait of the delicious scene: old Councillor Thomson, very wheezy and fat, running furiously; bald-headed Mr. Crabbe performing wonderful acrobatic feats; a worthy J.P. engaged in a tussle with the Town Clerk; and various other of the City Fathers in interesting and exciting attitudes. The masterpiece was passed round for general ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... territory, and for the first time in the game a cry began to arise for a touchdown, that only students hungry for a touchdown can emit. Louder and more insistent it grew in volume as the players began to settle back again for a renewal of the desperate tussle. Even many Marshall fellows took part in the demand, for, as they loudly proclaimed, it would make the game much more interesting if their team had a handicap in the start to fight against, since they always did their best work when forced to exert themselves, and ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... going to rise. If they'd got up, there'd have been hundreds of settlers massacreed. He risked his life to do that—went right into the camp in face of levelled rifles, and sat down and begun to talk. A minute afterwards all the chiefs was squatting, too. Then the tussle begun between a man with a soul and a heathen gang that eat dog, kill their old folks, their cripples and their deformed children, and run sticks of wood through their bleeding chests, just to show that they're heathens. But he won out, this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... true, for in the tussle his overcoat had rolled up under his arms, the pistol pocket was clear, and a blue black automatic flashed dully in the ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... as well as of hospitality, and the name for every descendant has always held honor, and often, more than fair ability. The preponderance of ministers in every generation may, also, still gladden the heart of the argumentative ancestor whose dearest pleasure was a protracted tussle with the five points, and their infinitely ramifying branches, aided and encouraged by the good wine and generous cheer he set, with special relish, before all who could meet ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... face she always wore a veil. The world saw Salome no more. She sat in the nursery, watching year by year the dark-eyed little maiden playing with the fair-haired boy. Broad-shouldered Thor would come in, with his grand, kindly face and royal beard; would kiss the little girl and tussle with the boy, mightily laughing the while at the former's solicitude for her playmate; would throw himself on the groaning sofa, and exclaim ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... and then began a tussle. He tried to wrench her hands apart, and she exerted all her strength to keep them closed. Suddenly, with a triumphant cry from Teddy, as Nancy's fingers were beginning to yield, the button was liberated with such force that it flew violently ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... great tussle with the world leaving him unworsted but utterly spent.] H'm! [He gratefully sips ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell

... well-planned papers to be written. But I was keenly alive to the danger which overtook us at last. We are daily reminded that 'art is long and life is short.' I had already saved the Works from being strangled at their birth in a legal tussle with MR. JOHN TAYLOR.[2] My Father was at my elbow anxiously inquiring about the progress of the 'copy' for each succeeding volume. There were eager friends also, on both sides of the Atlantic, pressing resolutely for it. So—prudence prevailed, and we held ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... out of modern democratic uniformity and decorum and you may as well try to get out of your skin. Mr. Stevenson was driven to playing at Robinson Crusoe in the Pacific, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling once seemed bent on dying in a tussle with Fuzzy-Wuzzy in the Soudan. But it is no good. A dirty savage is no longer a romantic being. And as to the romance of the wigwam, it reminds me of the Jews who keep the Feast of Tabernacles by putting up some boughs in ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison

... wire and replied in person. His crew was good for another tussle, he said, and his train was still in readiness. He would start west at once, or the moment the despatcher could clear for him, and would be at Silver Switch as soon as the intervening miles ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... property," answered David, seizing hold of the sailors, and of Murphy, with unyielding determination, and after a vigorous tussle he won ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... touching the earth with its feet, but keeping about a foot above it—the shroud fluttering after it. When it had come up with the sportsman, it made a rush at him; but the dog seized hold of it by its bare calves, and began a tussle with it. When the moujik saw his dog and the corpse grappling with each other, he was delighted that things had turned out so well for himself, and he set off running home with all his might. The dog ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... one deserving patient study. True, I foresaw, from the Spider's organization, a single sting in the centre of the thorax; but that did not explain the victory of the Wasp, emerging safe and sound from her tussle with such a quarry. I had to see what occurred. The chief difficulty was the scarcity of the Calicurgus. It is easy for me to obtain the Tarantula at the desired moment: the part of the plateau in my neighbourhood left untilled by the vine-growers provides me with as many as are necessary. To ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... line he takes up, and though what he has learnt here may not be of much use to him at the start, his having had a good education is sure to be of advantage to him afterwards. A fellow who could hold his own in a tussle such as we had with the Greenites last term can be trusted to make a good fight in anything. At any rate it is of no use your worrying yourself about him. You see, you will be going up in a year's time for your examination for the line, and you will have to ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... pinnace and launch took her to leeward. There's not much climbing in getting on board of a gun-boat; indeed, we were at it before we were out of the boat, for the Frenchmen had pikes as long as the spanker-boom; but we soon got inside of their points, and came to close work. They stood a good tussle, I will say that, and so they always do. We may laugh at 'em, and call 'em Johnny Crapows, but they are a right brave nation, if they aren't good seamen; but that I reckon's the fault of their lingo, for it's too noisy to carry on duty well with, and so they never will ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... think me a fool, if you will, and it's likely I am; but I don't leave this station except by train. I've only two days to work in, and every minute lessens our chances to beat McCune, and I have to begin by wasting time on a tussle with a traitor. There's another train at eleven fifty-five; I don't take any chances on ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... harder and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which he had got was not the oyster which he wanted. So he told himself now, and here had come to him the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... minutes, he reckoned, would put him high enough in the water to scramble on to the ledge, and then it would have to be a tussle of physical strength, if necessary, for he meant to save Mary somehow, whether she would let him ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... they both did fairly well; but Bertram did much the best. He got the prizes, whereas his cousin did but nearly get them. He went up from class to class above the other, and when the last tussle for pride of place came on at the close of their boyish career, Bertram was the victor. He stood forth to spout out Latin hexameters, and to receive the golden medal, while Wilkinson had no other privilege but to sit still and listen ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... star player of the school. She had formerly loved the game and played it with all her might. Now the old delightful fascination for it thrilled her anew. She forgot everything save the fact that she was once more to tussle for the ball. Robin Page had been called to the opposing five. From the moment Professor Leonard put the ball in play at center she and Marjorie amply demonstrated their right to be classed as stars. Applause was not ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... cane spree. They have it at the time of the first full moon. The players are three men from each class—one light-weight, one middle, and one heavy-weight. The students of all classes gather in a circle around them to watch the sport. First the light-weights try a tussle for the cane; then the middles, and lastly the heavys. It is not so much strength as skill that wins, and the victors keep their canes as trophies, and are proud to show them for the ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley

... you? Got to keep us all straight, and develop all our characters. Poor girl, you'll have a hard tussle!" ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... as secured. The meal, which consisted of some strong and nourishing soup, and a dish of well-cooked meat, shortly arrived, and Dick, after partaking of it, and drinking his prescribed allowance of Burgundy, announced that he felt a man again, and ready for a tussle with the commandant. After his meal he dozed quietly, for some hours, until aroused by the arrival of supper which consisted again of soup with some poached ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... played the Fool while the Wise Man died. The nurses and doctors had listened with open-eyed wonder and secret enjoyment; she had allowed them to peep into a new world too full of charm and lure to be denied; and then of a sudden she had settled down to a silent, grim tussle with the ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... by looks, captain," replied the youth quickly,—"especially the looks of a man who has just had a hand-to-hand tussle with a savage. But, to tell the plain truth, Captain Gascoyne, I would indeed rather have had to thank your worthy man John Bumpus than yourself for coming to my aid; for although I owe you no grudge, and do not count you an ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... comes boisterously from the northwest, and, taking hold of the aged framework of the Seven Gables, gives it a shake, like a wrestler that would try strength with his antagonist. Another and another sturdy tussle with the blast! The old house creaks again, and makes a vociferous but somewhat unintelligible bellowing in its sooty throat (the big flue, we mean, of its wide chimney), partly in complaint at the rude wind, but rather, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various

... with great physical difficulty that Mr. Smith managed to give his nephew a chance to escape into the house, for Georgie was hard and quick, and, in such matters, remarkably intense; but the minister, after a grotesque tussle, got him separated from his opponent, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... down which they had plunged, however, I paused a moment, considering not so much its black-ness, which was intense, the eaves nearly meeting overhead, as the small chance I had of distinguishing between attackers and attacked. But Simon and the men overtaking me, and the sounds of a sharp tussle still continuing, I decided to venture, and plunged into the alley, my left arm well advanced, with the skirt of my cloak thrown over it, and my sword drawn back. I shouted as I ran, thinking that the ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... availed yourself rarely of them. If you go on like this you will become a distinguished knight of our Order. With a few more years to strengthen your arms I warrant me you will bear your part well in your first tussle with the Moslem corsairs." ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... was always ready for a tussle, with words or any other weapons. "Pooh!" she answered, "whom d'you think you're talking to? I know what it is, you're angry because I knocked over more of your soldiers than ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery

... has a card up his sleeve intended to win this game. It would be rash to predict stubborn resistance on the part of a body that has so often proved itself open to conviction as has the House of Commons. But I should say that to secure this end it would need a tussle quite as prolonged and as violent as has raged round Home Rule. Lowering and widening the suffrage has done much to alter the personal standard of the House of Commons. Nothing achieved through these sixty years would in its modifying effect equal ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... come out then, and did so, both much disheveled by the late tussle, for Sancho's cap was all over one eye, and Betty's hood was anywhere but on her head. She made her courtesy prettily, however; her fellow-actor bowed with as much dignity as a short night-gown permitted, and they retired to their ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... short to the right; and the chase now lay over Sheeplow Water meadows, and so on to Bolsover brick-fields, when the pack again changed from hunting to racing, and the pace for a time was severe. His lordship having got his second horse at the turn, was ready for the tussle, and plied away vigorously, riding, as usual, with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with all his strength; while Jack, still on the grey, came plodding diligently along in the rear, saving his horse as much as he could. His lordship charged ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... speed as much as his rider. Jim was a length or so behind on Monarch, whose one ambition at that moment was, in Murty's words, "to get away on him." It was plain that the boy was exulting in the tussle. The sunlight gleamed on the black horse's splendid side as they ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... the enemy," said Thurstane. "We may have another little tussle with them. Now lie down and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... they got to Hareira Tepe Redoubt, a high mound 500 yards across the top, which had been criss-crossed with trenches with wire hanging about some broken ground at the bottom. Here there was a hot tussle, but the Irishmen valiantly pushed through and not only gave XXth Corps the whole of its objectives and completed the turn of the enemy's left flank, but joined up with the XXIst Corps. The working ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... already as if I had seen it—one big, heroic imagination at work at last like a sea upon our world, poetry grappling with the great cities, with their labour, with their creative might, full of their vast joys and sorrows, full of their tussle with the sea and with the powers of the air and with the iron in the earth!—the big, speechless cities that no one has spoken for yet, so splendid, and so eager, and so silent about ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... just now. Whatever my whole heart is set upon, I do, and overcome all obstacles. Remember that, and hold fast, darling. However, I had now to overcome the sea, which is worse than any tide in the affairs of men. A long and hard tussle it was, I assure you, to fight against the indraught, and to drag my frame through the long hillocky gorge. At last, however, I managed it; and to see the open waves again put strength into my limbs, and vigor into my knocked-about brain. I suppose that you can not understand it, Mary, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... a man never gits anything wuth havin' without a tussle for it; and as to secrets, I don't ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... in Mafeking were disposed to grumble at the small part they seemed to be playing in the great tussle in which England was engaged, the authorities were satisfied that for so small a town to have kept occupied during the first critical month of the war 10,000—and at later stages never less than 2,000—Boers, was ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... of us our "quarters" showed an array of rather slender, lean-checked chaps. But then I made no doubt, that, in a sea-tussle, these lantern-jawed varlets would have approved themselves as slender Damascus blades, nimble and flexible; whereas these Britons would have been, perhaps, as sturdy broadswords. Yet every one remembers that story of Saladin and Richard trying their respective ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... object to discussion, but they are invariably those on the midway rounds of the conversational ladder; people to whom the joy of the amicable intellectual tussle is unknown, and to whom the highest standards of the art of talking do not appeal. Where there is much intellectual activity discussion is sure to arise, for the simple reason that people will not think alike. Polite discussion is the most difficult and the most happy ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... Of course we had plenty of good water, and food, such as it was. Field did not walk two miles during those five days, but seemed to be fattening fast. I sometimes thought he might be just a little lazy, but I never told him so, for I realized that he had recently had a severe tussle with death. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... day before the battle was hopeless, and he fought his fight with a smiling face and a gay courage that was as fine a thing in its way as an act which has won a Victoria Cross; nay, finer, perhaps, for the struggle was not of minutes, or of hours, but of a lifetime, a stern prolonged tussle with death, in which he was never selfish, never peevish, always thoughtful of others, invariably merry and bright, with a wonderful sparkling whimsical mirth that had in it no touch of bitterness or of cynicism. Even the last years of life, when the need to work hard for an income ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... forehead with his handkerchief. "A hard tussle," thought he, "and with my own unnatural, ungrateful flesh and blood, but I have won it: he hasn't told the Dodds; he never will; and, if he did, who ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... pocket and the packet of bank-notes under his arm, he was seized by an impulse to do some extravagant thing to celebrate his success. It had proved to be such a simple matter, after all: one bold stroke; a tussle, happily bloodless, with the plutocratic dragon whose hold upon his treasure was so easily broken; and presto! the hungry proletary had become himself a power in the world, strong to do good or evil, ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... violence that policemen were detailed to guard every car leaving the barns. In Chicago the freight handlers struck, and some 60,000 workmen stopped work in sympathy. On the 3d of May, at the McCormick Harvester Works, several strikers were wounded in a tussle with the police. On the following day a mass meeting held in Haymarket Square, Chicago, was harangued by a number of anarchists. When the police attempted to disperse the mob, guns were fired at the officers of the law and a bomb was hurled into their throng, killing seven and wounding sixty. ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... wiser course, was the plan which Halvor Reitan adopted. To have a tussle with the high-nosed Viggo in the middle of the basin, to dislodge him from his raft—that seemed to Halvor a delightful project. He knew that Viggo was a good swimmer, so he feared no dangerous consequences; and even ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... peaceable person may dislike it. There is no reason whatever why two quarrelsome people, if they enjoy it, should not have a good set-to. What is mischievous is if a man is brutal and tyrannical, and prefers a tussle with an inoffensive person who is no match for him. That is a piece of cowardice, and protest is more than justifiable. There is a fine true story of a famous head-master, who disliked a weakling, putting on a stupid, shy, and ungainly boy to ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... and there was a tussle to pull Nora down from the stone upon which she had clambered to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... hog big as an alarm clock. The fight was over, I feel with bruin I wakened five days later in a lath and plastered room with my son and both partners working over me. I was much surprised when they told me I had enjoyed the tussle five days before. I could not talk my tongue was fastened up so it might heal, I was all bandages and plaster paris I layed here seven weeks, then the boys carried me back to camp where I gave orders and gradually recuperated. I never recovered ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis

... thundering good chance it is just as well to leave the b'ars alone, for what with the chances of getting badly mauled, and what with the weight of the skin, it don't pay even when you come right side up out of a tussle." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... to give in quite so soon,' muttered his brother. 'I've got a tussle with that doctor fellow before me, I ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... that Pepper?" said the St. Andrew's boy. While "Pepper—Pepper. Hi! Hi! Tippety Rippety! Hi! Hi!" rolled out, till there wasn't any other sound to be heard. And a regular tussle of boys were getting in the wildest excitement when it was announced that Pepper and Ricketson had won the second set, the referees trying to quiet them so that ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney

... for she possessed courage, and was not afraid for herself. Most girls, keenly though they might desire to save their friend, would have destroyed the note and left the rest to Providence; but Nell's spirit had been trained in the bracing air of Shorne Mills, and her views tempered by many a tussle with tide and wind in the Annie Laurie; and the pluck which lay dormant in the slight figure rose now to the struggle for her friend's safety. She had grown to love the woman who had confided her heart's sorrow to her that night, and she meant to save her. But how? Sir Archie ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... a confidential tone; "he is not much good with the bow, and his lady mother does not like it if he goes home with a crack across the face, and I don't think he likes it himself; he is but a poor creature when it comes to a tussle." ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece, in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How many Armenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed the annexation of the South African Republics? At each extension of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear it, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes of society; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlands ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... come out then, and did so, both much dishevelled by the late tussle, for Sancho's cap was all over one eye, and Betty's hood was anywhere but on her head. She made her courtesy prettily, however; her fellow-actor bowed with as much dignity as a short night-gown permitted, and they retired to ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... great white monsters tore along, dashing in fury and breaking in impotence against the immovable rocks. The wild, weird scene, too, frightened me; for I was but a boy, remember, who up to this had never met with a more stirring adventure, perhaps, than a tussle with a high-spirited pony. I was worn out, too, by hard toil, faint from loss of blood, saddened by the loss of my faithful Jose, and by the awful calamity that had overtaken the crew of the schooner. Yet, in spite of all, so strong ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens

... of those serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a storm. The birds sung loud and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself in the broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the tempest, which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half the night through. The vine-leaves clustering round Robert's window fluttered with a joyous rustling, shaking the rain-drops in diamond showers from every spray ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... with whom I may wrangle and agree on equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for without that, eager talk becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... bargained to race you against no patrol-wagons," said Gallegher to his animal; "but if they want a race, we'll give them a tough tussle for it, won't we?" ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... public school of Salem he was sent to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he attended Whipple Academy. From the Academy he entered Illinois College, also in Jacksonville. Mr. Bryan says that the thing that most impressed him in college was his tussle with Latin and Greek. From the first these dead languages did not appeal to him. Again and again he pleaded with his parents to be permitted to drop these studies but they insisted on ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... be seen swinging on belaying-pins, thrown over the heads of winches, suspended on people's very door-handles for that matter. Was he not the owner? But his favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning stanchion on the bridge, almost against the binnacle. He had even in the early days more than one tussle on that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the bridge to be kept tidy. He had been overawed then. Of late, though, he had been able to defy his partner with impunity. Captain Whalley never seemed to notice anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe of ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... tussle, as you shall live to see; My shoes are not quite ready yet,—don't think you're rid of me! Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far, And where will you be if I live ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... moment on the porch, looking in through the lighted window. A romping game was in full progress. This time it was "Drop the Handkerchief" and a plump and pretty girl was having a tussle with her captor. Everybody was shouting, clapping. Everybody? On an old settle by the fire sat a slim girl in a white gown. Peggy lay in the curve of her arm, and she was ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... testimony of all who remember him, a "powerful twister," "square built and strong as an ox," "the best-made man that ever lived;" and everybody knew the contest would be close. Lincoln did not like to "tussle and scuffle," he objected to "woolling and pulling;" but Offutt had gone so far that it became necessary to yield. The match was held on the ground near the grocery. Clary's Grove and New Salem turned ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... glad to record that Dante carried himself valiantly; not, indeed, that I saw him at all till the tussle was over and such of our enemies as were left taking to their heels as nimbly as might be. But I had it on the word of Messer Guido, who could see as well as do, and who told me the tale, that our friend bore ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... been felt by him, for there was a sharp, short tussle of wills. She would have had him contented, but he was not so to be contented. There was a little struggle, much silent entreaty from him, much consideration from her above him—her doubting, judging, discriminating eyes, her smile, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... So long as the tussle lasted, Thomas Bodza stood upon the table with the pose of a capitoline statue, whence he exclaimed ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai

... zest in his effort. This ravenous appetite for technic leads many an artist to go outside his own art in search of unforeseen but fascinating difficulties. The painter is tempted to stretch his muscles by a tussle with the unknown obstacles of the sculptor; and the sculptor in his turn contends with the limitations of the painter. Michelangelo called himself a sculptor and pretended to be no more; but in time he took up the craft of the architect, of ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... back and began to worry a root that stuck up, grumbling to himself as he chewed it, or slapped it with his paw for not staying where he wanted it. Presently Mooney, the mischief, began tugging at Frizzle's ears, and got his own well boxed. They clenched for a tussle; then, locked in a tight, little grizzly yellow ball, they sprawled over and over on the grass, and, before they knew it, down a bank, and away out of ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton

... it! I saw the bundle of bank-notes in his hands, the sweep! I would have let him kill me sooner.... Oh, we had a sharp tussle, I give ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... the military precision with which their work is done. Possibly you dream of the wriggling open field running of Snake Izard, or the bulwark defense of Nichols; or in your West Point experiences you are reminded of the tussle you had in suppressing the brilliant Kromer, that clever little quarterback and field general, or the task of stopping the forging King, the Army's old captain ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... over the deadening sensation following that frightful blow on his head—apparently the other was weakening in the same proportion that Perk was gaining strength, showing that he must have been in anything but prime condition when the tussle started. ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... does the Fighting Line belong to the old Shibboleth legends of Canaanite and Jebusite and Perizzite and God knows what other "ite"? I hear these ancient gentry preached about and the heroes who smote them hip and thigh extolled. Personally, I am a great deal more interested in the modern tussle for a promised land than in those old time frays for a fertile patch in a sterile wilderness; and I see the same call for the hero's fighting edge; and I like the MacDonalds, who jump out from behind the Safety Line to fight for right, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... while his wounds were still bandaged, and he was yet unable to mount a horse, that the bold Captain Church had a fierce hand-to-hand tussle with a stout Netop, which gave ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... luck or something else—all the morning. He blotted his copy book; he had the wrong answer to the example he was sent to work out at the board; at recess he was so cross to Palmer Davis that that devoted friend slapped him and they had a tussle that ended in both being forced to spend the remainder of the play time sitting quietly at two front desks under Miss Mason's eye. Altogether Bobby seemed to be in for a ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley

... crew. The rest were saved by the valour of the Messenian soldiers, who had followed the movements of Phormio's vessels along the shore, and now did good service by boarding the stranded triremes, and hauling them to land, after a sharp tussle ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell

... and was far-famed in the tourneys round about. He had done some pretty tricks at archery, but was strongest at wrestling and the quarter-staff. For three years he had cast all comers to the earth in wrestling until the famous Eric o' Lincoln broke a rib for him in a mighty tussle. Howsoever, at quarter-staff he had never yet met his match; so that there was never a squire in Nottinghamshire ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... resent it; she could resent nothing Hallam ever did save that morbid talk of his. She had been fighting with this spirit ever since she could remember, and their brief "tussle" over, she crept closer to him along the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... subjectivity proves to be their match, and that you find a more wonderful joy than any passive pleasure can bring in trusting ever in the larger whole. Have you not now made life worth living on these terms? What sort of a thing would life really be, with your qualities ready for a tussle with it, if it only brought fair weather and gave these higher faculties of yours no scope? Please remember that optimism and pessimism are definitions of the world, and that our own reactions on the world, small as they are in bulk, are integral ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... that a knight, attended by two dogs, should watch for the author of this mischief. He had not long to wait, for, in the quiet of the night, the Prince of Darkness made his appearance, bent on his mischievous errand. A tussle ensued, in the course of which, snatching up a beam from the building, he hurled it to the site of the present ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... to have anything to do with "rough-and-tumble" fighting—as also known as "scuffle and tussle," and "wooling and pulling"—in short, these agreeable features promise to include all brutalities save gouging, which was unfashionable so far to the North. But a man could not live quietly on the frontier without showing to such ruffians that his hands could ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams



Words linked to "Tussle" :   muss, disarrange, scrap, fighting, rough-and-tumble, combat, struggle, fight, contend, hassle



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