"Truncheon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you'll be locked up," said a severe voice, and, turning around, the children beheld a very stern-looking fish, wearing a helmet, and carrying a truncheon. ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... release his hold of the prisoned piece of timber for the moment, and when he splashed after the boat, after recovering from his surprise, and made another grab, the second free peg caught him on the arm like a blow from a constable's truncheon. The sailor uttered a yell for help, but it was cut short by a blow on each side of his neck as Tom's legs snapped together, and then he fell forward with a splash and was helped out by a couple of his mates, who stood, waist-deep, gazing into ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... th' enclosure drew, With open mouths the furious mastiffs flew: Down sat the sage and, cautious to withstand, Let fall th' offensive truncheon from his hand." Pope. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... however, herself, went to visit this encampment, and reviewed the troops in person. She rode to and fro on horseback along the lines, armed like a warrior. At least she had a corslet of polished steel over her magnificent dress, and bore a general's truncheon, a richly-ornamented staff used as a badge of command. She had a helmet, too, with a white plume. This, however she did not wear. A page bore it, following her, while she rode, attended by Leicester and the other generals, all mounted on horses ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... they reached the piazzetta, where Colleoni alighted between the two great pillars, and, conducted by the Doge in person, walked to the Church of S. Mark. Here, after Mass had been said, and a sermon had been preached, kneeling before the high altar he received the truncheon from the Doge's hands. The words of his commission ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... shattered musket as a truncheon, seconded him in his efforts to stay the torrent. It was impossible, however, to bring the troops to a stand. They continued on down the hill to the Neck and across it to Cambridge, exposed to a raking fire from the ships and batteries, and only protected by a single piece of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... of tropical climbers by resident observers, offers a fertile field to the naturalist. I have often remarked that if a climbing stem, in which the circulation is vigorous, be cut across, it bleeds freely from both ends, and most copiously from the lower, if it be turned downwards; but that if a truncheon be severed, there will be no flow from either of its extremities. This is the case with all the Indian watery-juiced climbers, at whatever season they may be cut. When, however, the circulation in the plant is feeble, neither end of a simple cut will bleed much, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... obedient as when he was Simon Glover's apprentice. See, here is the stick I had from you when we nutted together in the sunny braes of Lednoch, when autumn was young in the year that is gone. I would not exchange it, Catharine, for the truncheon ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... a town besieged on a note of hand; a prince dethroned for the balance of an account. Thus it was they exhibited a government, which united the mock majesty of a bloody sceptre, and the little traffic of a merchant's counting-house, wielding a truncheon with one hand, and picking ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... gate, still hid in night-black shadows, and then he heard the muffled footfall again and a moment later a man sneaked out of the gate with a gun in one hand and a pheasant in the other. Sam licked his hands and drew his truncheon, and then the moon shone on the face before him and the light of battle died out of his eyes. For there was Chawner Green, with a fur cap made of a weasel skin drawed down over his head and the moonshine leaving no doubt ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... later' said Isabel: 'Why, no: I that do speak a word may call it back again. Believe this, my lord, no ceremony that to great ones belongs, not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, becomes them with one half so good a grace as mercy does.' 'Pray you begone,' said Angelo. But still Isabel entreated, and she said: 'If my brother had been as you, and you as he, you might have slipped like him, but he, like ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... portentous size, Swift through the gloom a giant-hunter flies: A ponderous mace of brass with direful sway Aloft he whirls, to crush the savage prey! Stern beasts in trains that by his truncheon fell, Now grisly forms, shoot o'er the lawns ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... that to great ones 'longs, The monarch's crown, and the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, and the judge's robe! ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... secluded dwelling lay a hamlet where lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage. Almost the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable's truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable's wife he learnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... rode at a great gallop away-ward from all the knights, until he came under a wood's side. When he saw that he was from the field nigh a mile, so that he was sure he might not be seen, he besought Sir Lavaine as he loved him to draw the truncheon out of his side. This Sir Lavaine dreaded sore to do, lest Sir Launcelot should be in peril of death from loss of blood, if the truncheon were drawn out. Yet he did as his lord would have him do, and Sir Launcelot gave a great shriek, and so ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... same story. The caretaker, fancying he heard a noise, armed himself with a truncheon, and came downstairs to the first-floor, where he found the door of one of the rooms open, and a light burning inside. He stepped on tiptoe to the open door, and was peering in, when he was seized from behind, half suffocated by a pad held ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... Archers. This venerable knight is described by Monstrelet to have grown grey with age and honour; and when orders were given for the English army to march toward the enemy, by Henry crying aloud, "Advance banners," Sir Thomas threw his truncheon in the air as a signal to the whole field, exclaiming, "Now strike;" and loud and repeated shouts testified the readiness with ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... open the door. He was immediately surprised by a sudden blaze of light, and discovered a very fair vault. At the upper end of it was a statue of a man in armour, sitting by a table, and leaning on his left arm. He held a truncheon in his right hand, and had a lamp burning before him. The man had no sooner set one foot within the vault, than the statue, erecting itself from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright; and, upon the fellow's ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... fancy-deluded, Prophets of falsehood trusting, or false Babylonian idols, Defying the odious truth from the summit of empire! Lo! at his palace gates the fierce Apollyon's great army, With maces uplifted, stand to make way for great Cyrus of Elam. Watching for signal from him whose truncheon this way or that bids: 'Strike!' said Cyrus the King. 'Strike!' said the princes of Elam; And the brazen gates at the word, like flax that is broken asunder By fire from earth or from heaven, snapped as a bulrush, Snapped as a reed, as a wand, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... give such shall you have," answered the moss-trooper, first pointing with his lance towards the burned village, and then almost instantly levelling it against Lord Lacy. The squire drew his sword, and severed at one blow the steel head from the truncheon of the spear. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... come home, after many perils, victorious from the wars. His health was drunk with great applause, and thanks were voted to him by one of the Houses of Congress. It was said that a sword was to be given to him, but I do not think that the gift was consummated. Should it not have been a policeman's truncheon? Had he at the best done any thing beyond a policeman's work? Of Captain Wilkes no one would complain for doing policeman's duty. If his country were satisfied with the manner in which he did it, England, if she quarreled at all, would not quarrel with him. It may now and ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... mail, brigandine^, hauberk, lorication^, helmet, helm, bassinet, salade^, heaume^, morion^, murrion^, armet^, cabaset^, vizor^, casquetel^, siege cap, headpiece, casque, pickelhaube, vambrace^, shako &c (dress) 225. bearskin; panoply; truncheon &c (weapon) 727. garrison, picket, piquet; defender, protector; guardian &c (safety) 664; bodyguard, champion; knight-errant, Paladin; propugner^. bulletproof window. hardened site. V. defend, forfend, fend; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... The very first day, I was called on to arrest one of a gang of men in Whitechapel. His friends had knives, and they threatened to 'lay me out' if I touched him. I didn't know whether I was justified, but I drew my truncheon and swore I'd brain the first man who came near me. But I was in a cold sweat all the time. They didn't coddle us ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... damsel rode forward the next day and for many days, and ever the lady bore the truncheon of the spear with her by which Sir ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... two or three of the guard, attired in round hose, long stockings, a close doublet, a high-crowned hat, with a brooch, a long, thin beard, a truncheon, little ruffs, white shoes, his scarfs and garters tied cross, and his ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... also would spoyl the images of the gods? Why doe I not kill this lame theefe and weake wretch. And therewithall looking about for some cudgel, hee espied where lay a fagot of wood, and chusing out a crabbed truncheon of the biggest hee could finde, did never cease beating of mee poore wretch, until such time as by great noyse and rumbling, hee heard the doores of the house burst open, and the neighbours crying in most lamentable sort, which enforced him being stricken ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... Medici on the other, regarding them with a sneer, painfully contorted into a pathetic smile; Henry the King, robed in a sack of penitence, trembling and hesitating, leaning on the arm of Epergnon, but quailing even under the protection of that mighty swordsman; Mucio, careering, truncheon in hand, in full panoply, upon his war-horse, waving forward a mingled mass of German lanzknechts, Swiss musketeers, and Lorraine pikemen; the redoubtable Don Bernardino de Mendoza, in front, frowning and ferocious, with his drawn sword in his hand; Elizabeth of England, in the back ground, with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... native asphalt there are few situations capable of throwing the New York policeman off his balance. In that favored clime, savoir faire is represented by a shrewd left hook at the jaw, and a masterful stroke of the truncheon amounts to a satisfactory repartee. Thus shall you never take the policeman of Manhattan without his answer. In other surroundings, Mr. Patrick McEachern would have known how to deal with his young acquaintance, Mr. Jimmy Pitt. But another ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... those of the first piece, but had a glass for their bottom; which glass was thinly painted over white, so that the shade of the hour-lines drawn upon the cover, might be seen as well within as without the globe. On these bottom glasses were painted portraits, each holding a sceptre, or truncheon, the end of which pointed to the hour. Two also of the recliners towards the north, had only a glass cover, or window to look into the globe: the other 6 had double glass like the former; their dials being some upon the cover, others upon the bottom; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... Prestonby unlocked a door, and they went down a short hall, to where ten or fifteen boys and girls had just gotten off a helical escalator and were queued up at a door at the other end. There were two Literate guards in black leather, and a student-monitor, with his white belt and rubber truncheon, ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... men, is a semi-military force living in barracks, armed with rifles, bayonets, swords, and revolvers. Well may a French writer exclaim—"Combien differents du legendaire et corpulent 'bobby,' cette 'institution populaire' de la Grande Bretagne," who goes without even a truncheon as a weapon of offence. The numbers of the Royal Irish Constabulary, which were largely increased in the days of widespread agitation, are still maintained with scarcely any diminution. The force, when established just seventy years ago, ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... to the binder's. When they come home I shall have two—the "Camp" and "Patrick's Day"—to read for the first time. I may say three, for I never read the "School for Scandal." "Seen it I have, and in its happier days." With the books Harwood left a truncheon or mathematical instrument, of which we have not yet ascertained the use. It is like a telescope, but unglazed. Or a ruler, but not smooth enough. It opens like a fan, and discovers a frame such as they weave lace upon at Lyons and Chambery. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears. There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand: And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for His own holy name, and Henry ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... stick under two feet long, such as a watchman's staff or a policeman's truncheon, may be fairly called a cudgel, and it is not so long ago that cudgel-play formed one of the chief attractions at country fairs ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... boys walked on their flanks as officers, and habited in all the variety of dress, each of them having a boy of the inferior forms, smartly equipped, attending on him as a footman. The second boy in the school led the procession in a military dress, with a truncheon in his hand, and bore for the day the title of Marshal: then followed the Captain, supported by his Chaplain, the head scholar of the fifth form, dressed in a suit of black, with a large bushy wig, and a broad beaver decorated with a twisted silk hatband and rose, the fashionable ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... late? why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again. Well, believe this, No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, 60 The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. If he had been as you, and you as he, You would have slipt like him; but he, like you, 65 Would not have ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... on a short truncheon,* *staff His lorde's helmet bare, so richly dight,* *adorned That the worst of them was worthy the ranson* *ransom Of any king; the second a shielde bright Bare at his back; the thirde bare upright A mighty spear, full sharp y-ground and ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... scarlet mantle, azure vest; Each at his trump a banner wore, Which Scotland's royal scutcheon bore: Heralds and pursuivants, by name Bute, Islay, Marchmount, Rothsay, came, In painted tabards, proudly showing Gules argent, or, and azure glowing, Attendant on a king-at-arms, Whose hand the armorial truncheon held, That feudal strife had often quelled, When ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... delay, one of the keepers applied a chisel, while a policeman held his truncheon ready to defend the operator. The lock gave way. But the door could not ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... BATON. A staff, truncheon, or badge of military honour for field-marshals. A term in heraldry. Also, batoons of St. Paul, the fossil spines of echini, found ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... dalmatic of Charlemagne, (called that of Leo III.) Cola di Rienzi robed himself over his armour, and ascended to the Palace of the Popes after the manner of the Caesars, with sounding trumpets before him, and followed by his horsemen—his crown on his head and his truncheon ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... purple, his lips worked convulsively. He raised his stick, and flourished it in the air, as if about to make it descend like a truncheon on Baldassare's shoulders. Adonis drew back a step or two, following with his eyes the cavaliere's movements. He was quite unmoved by his threats. Not a day passed that Trenta did not threaten him with his eternal displeasure. Adonis was used to it, and bore it patiently. He bore it because he could ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... alone, and meaning ten or threescore and ten as the case may be. Misery is but a mockery of language after all; for have I not heard it rampant with lungs, and hoarse with disciplined harmony in Exeter Hall, as Hullah cut capers with his tiny truncheon, with Royalty itself, heroic field-marshals, and grave ministers of state, in seeming ecstasy at the sleight of hand? Just as I have heard and seen in the barracones of Bozal negroes for sale, when, at the crack of the black negro-driver's whip, and not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... cudgel, bludgeon, truncheon, bat, mace, staff, shillalah, waddy, bandy, knobkerry; society, coterie, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... olives select a truncheon of new grown wood about a foot in length and the same size at each end: some call these clavolae and others call ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... There was something of fatality in the affair. The instinct was terrible; a demoniacal possession. It was for women a veritable curse, a disease. M. Jouffroy had pronounced views on the subject. He regarded the maternal instinct as the scourge of genius. It was, for women, the devil's truncheon, his rod of empire. This "reproductive rage" held them—in spite of all their fine intuitions and astonishing ability—after all on the animal plane; cut them off from the little band of those who could break up new ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... symphonic prose of Milton, only to run, the next moment, to the Silenian ribaldry of Tom Brown the younger,—and so keeping up a Saturnalia, in which goat-footed sylvans mix with the maidens of Diana, and the party-colored jester shakes his truncheon in the face of Plato. Only in this wild and promiscuous license can we taste the genuine joys of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... came in their rent and battered war-gear: and the tall Hiarandi bore but the broken truncheon of his sword; and Valtyr a woodman's axe notched and dull with work; and Geirbald a Roman cast-spear, for his own weapons had been broken in the medley; and he came the last of the three, going as a belated reaper from the acres. There ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... is sitting: holding a truncheon in his right hand. A helmet and plume are before him. He wears a white sash. This is a dark, but may be called a finely painted, picture. Yet the Duke is not represented as ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... truncheon as an admonition to him not to interrupt, and ordered three black crosses to the ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Some common lad had got himself locked up in a house, and some one would have to go to the landlord and get a key from him. He had no intention of laying himself open to the law by breaking into a private house with his truncheon, as The Rat expected ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... silence followed. Six men, partially dressed, with disheveled hair, stood regarding me angrily. They all carried candles. One of them had a bootjack, which he held like a truncheon. Another, the foremost, had a pistol. The night porter was ...
— The Miraculous Revenge - Little Blue Book #215 • Bernard Shaw
... soldier in Europe, since Turenne and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each other under the walls of Maestricht, and that the energy of the young ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Knocker—slowly strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his eyes,—no! there could be no mistake about it,—it was the Knocker's face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... principal of a crew. The vilest, stoutest rogue in the pack is generally chosen to this post, and has the sole right to the first night's lodging with the dells, who afterwards are used in common among the whole fraternity. He carries a short truncheon in his hand, which he calls his filchman, and has a larger share than ordinary in whatsoever is gotten in the society. He often travels in company with thirty or forty males and females, abram men, and others, over whom he presides arbitrarily. Sometimes the women and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... a well-conceived plan,' said I. 'It is a pity, Saxon, that your ready wit and quick invention hath not had a fair field. You are, us I know well, as fit to command armies and to order campaigns as any man that ever bore a truncheon.' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... army of the League drawn out in long array; With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears. There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his hand; An as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood, And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for His own holy name, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... asserted, that this glorious city represented an inheritance derived from ancient Carthage; here, it was said, survived the arts and arms of that injured state; hither, across Bilidulgerid, had the children of Phoenicia fled from the wrath of Rome; and the mighty phantom of him whose uplifted truncheon had pointed its path to the carnage of Cannae, was still the tutelary genius watching over a vast posterity worthy of himself. Here was a wilderness of lies; yet, after all, the lies were but so many voluminous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various |
