"Dirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the officer had spoken the truth, when distrust again assailed him on finding in the barracks a second document almost identical with the first, except that it contained the words, "Second warning," and the dirk had been driven half its length into the lid of the desk. At first he thought it was the same parchment and dagger, but the different wording showed him that at least the former was not the same. He called Gottlieb, and demanded to know who had been allowed to pass ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... eloquent in his silence, and Mr. Bartoline Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the wind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastly mother.—Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing on her rock, stretched on her bier with "her head to the east," and Dirk Hatterick (equal to Shakespear's Master Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and the fiery Colonel Mannering, and the modish old counsellor Pleydell, and Dominie Sampson,[D] ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... ane his sword and dirk has, Ilka ane as proud's a Turk is; There's the Grants o' Tullochgorum, Wi' their pipers gaun before 'em; Proud the mithers are that bore ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... face, and the sting of a deep cut somewhere upon it. He saw that Cain was straightening over a mangled form; that Kriijorl had overcome odds of two to one. The breeder at his own feet had died swiftly of a deftly broken neck, a reddened dirk still clutched ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... leave me the dirk, but take the sheath. Everything's there that we put there long ago, beloved, and also a cypher report of what I heard last night in the garden—never mind what!—take it, you will save Mobile! Now both of you slip through this hole and down ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... courtmen yelled, and one or two who tried to get to Arnkel's side were seized and hurled to the ground by the men who cheered for Gerda, and I knew that the day was won. But I watched Arnkel, for there was somewhat of madness in his look. His hand stole down to the long dirk in his belt, ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... to put out a shaking hand in protest. Already a fool of a servant had presented his dirk to her. In a twinkling—before we could stop her—Fiammetta had pried back ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to nuss him Who now like a tiger wuz takin' my life. 'Hol' on, my dear Josh! Hol' on, my dear boy!' No further I got, fer his hands clutched my throat— I squirmed myself loose, but grapplin' my coat He throwed me ag'in, now a madman, indeed. His dirk-knife wuz raised. I said, 'Do yer best. I've give you now all that I ever possessed But life. Take it now if you like!' An' ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... on their arrival at Portsmouth, went to the "Blue Posts,"—not an aristocratic hotel, certainly, but one resorted to in those days by the junior officers of the service. Willy felt very proud of his new uniform, and could not help handling his dirk as he sat by Harry Shafto's side in the coffee-room. Several midshipmen and masters' assistants came in. Two or three who took their seats at the same table asked Willy to what ship he belonged. "To the 'Ranger'," he answered proudly; "and a very fine ship ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... mirror somewhat dim, certain scenes of actual human life. Now and again the mist breaks, and real passionate faces, gestures of living men and women, are beheld in the clear- obscure. We see Lochgarry throw his dirk after his son, and pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... interpreter commenced his office, the language which he made use of being pedantic and affected, Soto interrupted him thus, while a scowl sat upon his brow that terrified the man of words: "I don't understand you, man; speak Spanish like others, and I'll listen to you." When the dirk that belonged to Mr. Robertson, the trunk and clothes taken from Mr. Gibson, and the pocket book containing the ill-fated captain's handwriting were placed before him, and proved to have been found in his room, and when the maid servant of the tavern proved that she found the dirk under his ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the water ...
— Options • O. Henry
... Johansen. Louis, the boat-steerer, had already begged me for condensed milk and sugar. The lazarette, where such delicacies were stored, was situated beneath the cabin floor. Watching my chance, I stole five cans of the milk, and that night, when it was Louis's watch on deck, I traded them with him for a dirk as lean and cruel-looking as Thomas Mugridge's vegetable knife. It was rusty and dull, but I turned the grindstone while Louis gave it an edge. I slept more soundly than usual ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... the high-instep circle. I read the other day of his daughter's marriage to some English nob, and of the discovery of the ancient Reinhart family tree and crest with the mailed hand and two-edged dirk and the vulture rampant, and the motto, 'Who strikes in the ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone's throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... assisting the indolent reader to understand the English; and complained of his using more than once the phrase of a lady having "voided her saddle," which would certainly sound extraordinary at Apothecaries' Hall. Well, well, Rose carries a dirk too.[370] The morning was too dark for Westminster Abbey, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. My best compliments ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... measured our wit for his portrait, Even he has grown shyer of using his tongue than he once was. Have you not heard the tale? Tintoretto was told Aretino Meant to make him the subject of one of his merry effusions; And with his naked dirk he went carefully over his person, Promising, if the poet made free with him in his verses, He would immortalize my satirical friend with that pencil. Doubtless the tale is not true. Aretino says nothing ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... dinner, and ridden over to the Eildon Hills. He had seen a rainbow touch one of them, and there he hoped he would find the treasure that always lies at the tail of the rainbow. But he got very soon tired of digging for it with his little dirk, or dagger. It blunted the dagger, and he found nothing. Perhaps he had not marked quite the right place, he thought. But he looked at the teeth of the sheep, and they were yellow; so he had no doubt that there was a gold-mine ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang
... cried, as he saw Mayrant's boarding party. Seizing a cutlass and dirk, he stood beside the cluster of men, eager and keen to have a chance at the enemy. A soul of fire was that of the little savage—and now he had a splendid opportunity to indulge in the natural blood-thirst of his race, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... unfortunate foreign people, it has always been accompanied with a particular and positive interest in their most foreign customs and their most foreign externals. The man who made a romance of the Scotch High-lander made a romance of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red Indians was interested in picture writing and had some tendency to be interested in scalping. To take a more serious example, such nations as Serbia had been largely commended to international consideration by the ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Captain Drummond, ordered him to be put to death; and a boy of five or six, who had clung to Glenlyon's knees entreating for mercy and offering to become his servant for life if he would spare him, and who had moved Glenlyon to pity, was stabbed by Drummond with a dirk while he was in the agony of supplication. Barber, a sergeant, with some soldiers, fired on a group of nine MacDonalds who were round their morning fire, and killed four of them, and one of them, who escaped into a house, expressed a wish to ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... paltry collection of wine-shops, here dignified with the name of village, we saw a number of Greeks waiting the return of Otho: each wore a gaily coloured kerchief on the head; an embroidered jacket; a shawl encircling the waist; red greaves; a dirk; and a long gun, ornamented with gold, slung over the shoulder. Their wild fearless demeanour struck me as more characteristic of the freebooter, than the soldier of a regular government. Yet seldom have I seen more elegant graceful figures than were possessed by these mountain robbers, whose ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... completed with the aid of Miss Lucy Larcom. We got down from the shelf Longfellow's "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and looked it over together. "Annie of Tharaw" was a great favorite of his, and the poem by Dirk Smit, on "The Death of an Infant," found his ready appreciation. Whittier easily fell from these into talk of Burns, who was his master and ideal. "He lives, next to Shakespeare," he said, "in ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... critical period of female existence, when the heart within a damsel's bosom, like its emblem, the miniature which hangs without, is apt to be engrossed by a single image, a new visitor began to make his appearance under the roof of Wolfert Webber. This was Dirk Waldron, the only son of a poor widow, but who could boast of more fathers than any lad in the province; for his mother had had four husbands, and this only child, so that though born in her last wedlock, he ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... horsemen on their road to the little borough-town were preceded by Niel Blane, the town-piper, mounted on his white galloway, armed with his dirk and broadsword, and bearing a chanter streaming with as many ribbons as would deck out six country belles for a fair or preaching. Niel, a clean, tight, well-timbered, long-winded fellow, had gained the official situation ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sailed across the Atlantic and lay in wait for vessels between Cape Breton and Prince Edward Isle, and took several prizes. In one of these he placed all the crew in sacks and threw them into the sea. Maria, too, took her part in these affairs, and once stabbed to the heart, with her own little dirk, the captain of a Liverpool brig, the Lion, and on another occasion, to indulge her whim, a captain and his two mates were tied up to the windlass while Maria shot them with her pistol. Maria always wore naval uniform, ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... southward, she could not have got far. This seemed to settle the question. We had now collected enough men to form a crew. We required arms and authority for boarding the lugger. Edward Grahame was with us, but though a midshipman, dressed in his uniform, with a dirk by his side, he could scarcely in his own person answer all our requirements. He was of course to go, and, to my great satisfaction, Uncle Boz gave me leave to be of the party, in consideration that it was my brother who ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... whispers excitedly, "you will be killed if you stay here a moment. Are you armed? No. Take this." She tried to slip a dirk into his hands, but he ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... youth's appearance at this period is thus described by one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed, had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol and dirk ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... gives no further particulars; but from thence, and from a manuscript chart by Eessel Gerrits, 1627,* there seems to be sufficient authority for attributing the first authenticated discovery of any part of the Western Coasts to DIRK HARTOG, commander of the ship Endragt, outward-bound from Holland to India. He appears to have first seen the West Coast in latitude about 261/2 deg. south; and to have sailed northward along it, to about 23 deg.; giving the name LANDT DE ENDRAGT, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... await the first who happened to descend: but scarcely had he assumed his post of death, before the large oaken door was thrust rudely open and two strapping young fellows, armed with a revolver and a dirk each, rushed into the apartment, and alarmed all the party up stairs by calling aloud for a light, the gleam from the hearth ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... doctor could bow his usual assent there entered a pretty little page, very daintily attired in a fancy dress of green and silver. Twirling his richly chased dirk with one tiny white hand, and at the same time playing with a pet curl which was picturesquely flowing over his forehead, he advanced with ambling gait to Miss Gusset, and, in a mincing voice and courtly phrase, summoned ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... stinkand schule that standis dirk Halds the light from your Parroche Kirk, Your forestairs makis your houses mirk Like na country but here at hame Think ye not shame, Sa little policie to work In hurt and sklander of ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... the Indians were skilled in cutting out bullets, arrow heads, and other missiles with which warriors were wounded. I myself have done much of this, using a common dirk or butcher knife.[7] ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... these men could have endured many long years of labor in this vast refrigerator, and retain any degree of health, is a problem. Faith and zeal doubtless kept the blood moving through their veins. It is said that a knife, or dirk, and a pair of scissors of very ancient origin, which we were shown, were found by Mr. Marble in a fissure of this solid rock. That they were left there by pirates, years on years ago, no sane man can for a moment believe. The probabilities are that ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... work and carving; golden dishes, cups and vases, and silver pitchers thickly encrusted with precious stones; horse trappings and velvet hangings worked stiff with pearls, gold and silver thread, bits of coral, and jewels; three emeralds as large as small hen's eggs, forming the handle of a dirk; and in a large glass case magnificent ornaments for the turban. There must have been thousands of diamonds in these head-pieces, besides some of the largest pearls I have ever seen; a ruby three-quarters of an inch square; four ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... which such guests had gathered, presented a gay, magnificent spectacle. The yellow leather of the doublets worn by Junker von Warmond, Colonel Mulder, and Captain Allertssohn, the colored silk scarfs that adorned them, and the scarlet coat of brave Dirk Smaling contrasted admirably with the deep black robes of Pastor Verstroot, the burgomaster, the city clerk, and their associates! The violet of the commissioner's dress and the dark hues of the fur-bordered surcoats ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... an' the black boys raisin' a song as they lay to their work. I turns to Pinky, takes her in my arms an' kisses her for the first time in three weeks, an' she knows that th' jig is up. She might 'a' slipped a dirk in me, but she wasn't that kind. Women is women, McGuffey, the world over. Pinky just kissed me half a hundred times an' cries a little, holdin' on to me all th' time, for naturally she don't like to see me go. Finally I have ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... these weapons didn't work, With a kris or bowie-knife, Poniard, assegai, or dirk, I would make them beg for life;— Spare them, though, if they'd be good And guard me from what haunts the wood— From those creepy, shuddery sights That come round a fellow nights— Imps that ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... If you don't like the terms, you can have whatever satisfaction you want. But I remember"—he produced a large spring-back dirk-knife, sprung it open and began curling off long parings from the pine stick—"that in college, when any one of us vexed you, you took your spite out on us, and generally on me, in words. That's all right. We were boys and couldn't hold malice." A shaving fell upon Mr. Pettigrew's ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... the same spirit too. They were Bavarians—all new troops, and nearly all young fellows. Their accouterments were bright and their uniforms almost unsoiled, and I saw that each man carried in his right boot top the long, ugly-looking dirk-knife that the Bavarian foot-soldier fancies. The Germans always showed heat when they found a big service clasp-knife hung about a captured Englishman's neck on a lanyard, calling it a barbarous weapon because of the length of the blade and long sharp brad-awl which folded into a ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... British officer. His coat was red, with facings of another color, underneath which was partially displayed a handsome vest and ruffled shirt. About his waist passed a broad wampum belt, in which were confined a brace of silver mounted pistols, another pair of less finish and value, a silver handled dirk, a scalping knife and tomahawk, on whose blades could be seen traces of blood. Around his neck was a neatly tied cravat, and dangling in front of his vest a gold chain, which connected with a watch hid in a pocket of his breeches, whence depended a larger chain of steel, supporting ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... full length upon the ground. Nothing but the leaves saved him from a most terrible fall. Jones sprang to his feet more angry than ever at being whipped by one whom he regarded as a boy, and drew a long dirk-knife. But he was blind with rage, and Bud dodged the knife, and this time gave Pete a blow on the nose which marred the homeliness of that feature and doubled the fellow up against ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... and the equipment was complete. It was only when he saw the finished costume, with the vivid hues of the tartan seemingly modified into comparative sobriety by the multitude of silver fittings, the cairngorm brooches, the philibeg, dirk and sporran that he was fully and absolutely satisfied with his choice. At first he had thought of the Royal Stuart dress tartan, but abandoned it on the MacCallum pointing out that if he should happen to be in the neighbourhood of ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... From somewhere on his person, he produced a dirk and slashed vigorously. Okada evaded ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... wriggles and twists; and that is all. They have no weapons capable of contending with the assassin's dagger. I should like to see the huntress grappling with an imposing adversary, one as crafty as herself, an expert layer of ambushes and, like her, bearing a poisoned dirk. I should like to see the bandit armed with her stiletto confronted by another bandit equally familiar with the use of that weapon. Is such a duel possible? Yes, it is quite possible and even quite common. On the one hand we have the Pompili, the protagonists who are ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... under, and land upon Rottnest Island. Break an anchor. Examine the coast to the northward. Cape Leschenault. Lancelin Island. Jurien Bay. Houtman's Abrolhos. Moresby's Flat-topped Range. Red Point. Anchor in Dirk Hartog's Road, at the entrance of Shark's Bay. Occurrences there. Examination of the coast to the North-west Cape. Barrow Island. Heavy gale off the Montebello Isles. Rowley's Shoals. Cape Leveque. Dangerous situation of the brig among the islands of Buccaneer's ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged himself out, more majorum, in the full Highland costume. I never saw Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered from head to foot, with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu, and at least a hundred-weight of cairngorums cast a prismatic glory around his person. I felt ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... from the armorer and ground it down to a razor edge, for his dirk was an altogether useless weapon if it came to fighting. He was the more convinced that something more than usual was intended when he saw the assistant surgeon place a ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... like a dog, making my very hair stand on end. I waited for him to pass, but I think his instinct must have told him I had paused, for he began to turn over the shells with his ugly nose, as if searching for something. My single weapon was a small dirk, as we kill ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... of New Amsterdam were cleared of the shanties and pig-pens which obstructed them. In 1648, every Monday was declared a market-day. In 1650, Dirk Van Schellyne, the first lawyer, "put up his shingle" in New Amsterdam. In 1652, a wall or palisade was erected along the upper boundary of the city, in apprehension of an invasion by the English. This defence ran from river to river, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... give me shelter, I have shed a man's blood in a fray; Oh swear that you will not betray me, By your dirk, by the dear light of day!" And the prayer in his kindness he answered, But aghast heard the voices that cried; "Your cousin lies slain! Can a stranger Have passed by the steep ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... chance with him. He might thus be beguiled into withdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle's promise to come to the rescue, which she could use at the last moment; and that failing, there was a dirk in her bosom, for which a certain hard breast was not too hard. Another element of safety, of which she knew nothing, was a letter from the Cannes Brulee. The word had reached there that love had conquered—that, despite all hard words, and rancor, and positive injury, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... employment, for the knives are never whetted. Table knives are not of long subsistence in the highlands: every man, while arms were a regular part of dress, had his knife and fork appendant to his dirk. Knives they now lay upon the table, but the handles are apt to show that they have been in other hands, and the blades have ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day. The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman, Vlaming, substituted ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... of terror or the fluttering agitation that seemed likely to make outcry. In her hand she held a kitchen knife which had been sharpened and re-sharpened on the grindstone until its point was as taperingly keen as that of a dirk. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... date there was living in Leyden a young man of four or five and twenty, named Dirk van Goorl, a distant cousin of her own. Dirk was a native of the little town of Alkmaar, and the second son of one of its leading citizens, a brass founder by trade. As in the natural course of events the Alkmaar business would ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take the dirk, and, striking the head of your enemy ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... flour-mill; And this is a known fact that now I tell. A Miller there had dwelt for many a day; As any peacock he was proud and gay. He could pipe well, and fish, mend nets, to boot, Turn cups with a lathe, and wrestle well, and shoot. A Norman dirk, as brown as is a spade, Hung by his belt, and eke a trenchant blade. A jolly dagger bare he in his pouch: There was no man, for peril, durst him touch. A Sheffield clasp-knife lay within his hose. Round was his face, and broad and flat his nose. High and retreating was his bald ape's skull: He ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... not look suspicious for one who planned much walking on the caked Lowland ooze. But those fat soles were cleverly fashioned to hide a long, keen knife-blade, like a dirk. I could lift a foot and get the knife out of its hidden compartment with fair speed. This I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... army officer with new respect. He had always been inclined to think of the Frontier Guards as a gang of scientifically illiterate dirk-and-pistol bravos. He fiddled for a while with instruments on the panel; an automatic computer figured the distance to the planet, the boat's velocity, and the time ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... very much as Rob Roy's wild son did with the girl of whom he was enamoured, married her against her will by force, with the aid of a suborned priest, actually, so the story goes, cutting the clothes off her body with his dirk, while his pipers, in obedience to his orders, drowned the poor creature's cries with their music. Now, in the eightieth year of his age, he had come to his grim end. He had broken most of the laws of earth ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... dreaming story-teller a surveyor in the custom-house, thus opening to him a new range of experience. From the society of phantoms he stepped upon Long Wharf and plumply confronted Captain Cuttle and Dirk Hatteraick. It was no less romance to our author. There is no greater error of those who are called "practical men" than the supposition that life is, or can be, other than a dream to a dreamer. Shut him up in a counting-room, barricade him with bales of merchandise, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Wotton, disguised as Octavio Baldi, deposits his long rapier at the door of his majesty's chamber. Wotton, in Florence, was warned of a plot to murder James VI. The duke gave him 'such Italian antidotes against poison as the Scots till then had been strangers to': indeed, there is no antidote for a dirk, and the Scots were not poisoners. Introduced by Lindsay as 'Octavio Baldi,' Wotton found his nervous majesty accompanied by four Scottish nobles. He spoke in Italian; then, drawing near, hastily whispered that he was an Englishman, ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... night the old man told him the green round hill, where the fairies kept the boy, would be open, and on that date the smith, having provided himself with a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, was to proceed to the hill. He would hear singing and dancing, and much merriment going on, he had been told, but he was to advance boldly; the Bible he carried would be a certain safeguard to him against any danger from the fairies. On ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... the 25th of October arrived here the ship 'Endraght', of Amsterdam; first supercargo Gilles Miebas Van Luck; Captain Dirk Hartog, of Amsterdam. She set sail again on the 27th of the same month. Bantum was second ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... to the mouth of a cave, and furnished him with an abundant store of provisions. The fugitive crept in at a low aperture, dragging his stores along. When he reached a wider and loftier expanse he found some obstacle before him. He drew his dirk, but unwilling to strike, lest he might take the life of a companion in seclusion, he stooped down, and discovered a goat with her kid stretched on the ground. He soon perceived that the animal was ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... what is this?" exclaimed the cutler, as Arvina unbuckling his toga and suffering it to drop on the ground, stood clad in his succinct and snow-white tunic only, girded about him with a zone of purple leather, in which was stuck the sheathless dirk of Cataline. "What is this, noble Paullus? that you carry at your belt, with no scabbard? If you go armed, you should at least go safely. See, if you were to bend your body somewhat quickly, it might well be that the keen point would rend your groin. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... he boasted in school when he was thirteen, "I will go to Dalecarlia, rouse the people, and give the Jutes (Danes) a black eye." Master Ivar, his Danish teacher, gave him a whaling for that. White with anger, the boy drove his dirk through the book, nailing it to the desk, and stalked out of the room. Master Ivar's eyes followed the slim figure in the scarlet cloak, and he sighed wearily "nobilium nati nolunt aliquid pati,—the children of the great will ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... said; "I'd love to be a Turk with an Oriental smirk and an ornamental dirk, and a tendency to shirk when the others go to work; for the workers I can't bear 'em and I'd rather run ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... the heart of the Highlands of Scotland. In one important particular, however, did Donald's outfit on this occasion, differ from that adopted on ordinary occasions. On the present, he equipped himself in the full costume of his country—kilt, plaid, bonnet and feather, sword, dirk, and pistols; and thus arrayed, his appearance was altogether very striking, as he was both a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... jury, who were called to examine the body, found on it thirteen deep stabs, made as if by a sharp dirk or poniard, and the appearance of a heavy blow on the left temple, which had fractured the skull, but not broken the skin. The body was cold, and appeared to have ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... always evil-faced. By the way, did you ever know how the expression 'armed to the teeth' originated? Well, you see, after a pirate has stuck his belt full of pistols and cutlasses, and has both hands full of guns, he just chucks a dirk in his mouth and then, of course, he is armed to the teeth. Singular how you fellows are always drawing on my fund of general information. One ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... knowingly. "Tony Dirk put the triple-whammy on him. Gimmicked up the random-choice selector in the Regent's office. Herr von James is discoursing on the subjects of Medicine, Astronomy, and Psychology—that is if Dirk knows ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Dirk Hartog, in command of the Endragt, while on his way from Holland to the East Indies, put into what Dampier afterward called Shark's Bay, and on an island, which now bears his name, deposited a tin ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... youth, who had just fired his piece into the bosom of a tory, seeing his father's danger, flew to his aid, and with the butt of his gun knocked out the brains of the officer, at the very instant he was lifting his dirk for ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... illumination upon the domestic foreground and the gaily set stage. He only cast one furtive glance upon the man he was to slay, and thrusting one hand in his bosom, another in his skirt pocket, drew forth simultaneously his deadly weapons. His right palm grasped a Derringer pistol, his left a dirk. ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... contest was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. 'Mong Dieu,' cried De Smythe, 'he ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... he had not taken it. He would have no more scruple in assassinating his opponent than in brushing a fly off the table. Instead of gathering an army and fighting him through the Highlands and Lowlands, just one stroke of a dirk or a pistol bullet and William is secure on his throne. "Jock may be right for once," said Claverhouse to himself, "and, by heaven! if I am to fall, I had rather be shot in front than behind." He wrote an order ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... not been long acquainted with the general use. They were not regularly laid on the table, before the prohibition of arms, and the change of dress. Thirty years ago the Highlander wore his knife as a companion to his dirk or dagger, and when the company sat down to meat, the men who had knives, cut the flesh into small pieces for the women, who with their fingers conveyed ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... propensities. Much noise and confusion prevailed; and two gentlemen, who, as I afterwards learned, were officers belonging to a Spanish vessel then in port, fell into a dispute and got into a fight, during which one of them stabbed the other with a dirk-knife, inflicting ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... Genevese; studied and practised medicine, came to Paris as horse-leech to Count d'Artois; became infected with the revolutionary fever, and had one fixed idea: "Give me," he said, "two hundred Naples bravoes, armed each with a good dirk, and a muff on his left arm by way of shield, and with them I will traverse France and accomplish the Revolution," that is, by wholesale massacre of the aristocrats; he had more than once to flee for ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of Marmion: "Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could neither read ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... so swiftly, that Tom Chist had hardly time to realize what it all meant before it was over. As the negro passed him the white man arose suddenly and silently erect, and Tom Chist saw the white moonlight glint upon the blade of a great dirk-knife which he now held in his hand. He took one, two silent, catlike steps behind the unsuspecting negro. Then there was a sweeping flash of the blade in the pallid light, and a blow, the thump of which Tom could distinctly hear even from where he lay ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... Dirk, Kenny? He said that the fullness of life came through—sacrifice. That all things, good and permanent and true, come only out of suffering; that men pay for their dreams with pain." He let the full import of that drive home. "The verdict was, that if you'd forget your public and look ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Holland, and there he encountered Dirk Hammerhand, from whom to take a buffet was never to need another, and bought from him his famous mare Swallow, the price agreed on being the half of what Hereward had offered and a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... noted in the story of the Massacre of Glencoe, beside the brawling river: and a woman, stolen by the fairies, returned for an hour to her husband, who became very unpopular, as he neglected the means for her rescue; I think he failed to throw a dirk over her shoulder. Every now and then mysterious lights may be seen, even by the Sassenach, speeding down the road to Callart on the opposite side of the narrow sea-loch, ascending the hill, and running down into the salt water. The causes of these lights, and ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... from my chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say, there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if the mistrust went ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... know—or even ask myself—why they did not frighten me, but they did not. Suddenly I seemed to know that they were brave men and had been doing some brave, hard thing. Here and there among them I caught sight of a broken and stained sword, or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all pale, but their wild faces were joyous and triumphant. I saw it ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dress, and a velvet bonnet with a long rich feather across it. There were two children with her, a girl of Meg's age, and a boy about as big as Robin, dressed like a little Highlander, with a kilt of many colours, and a silver-mounted pouch, and a dirk, which he was brandishing about before his mother, who looked on, laughing fondly and proudly at her boy. Meg gazed, too, until she heard Robin sob, and turning quickly to him, she saw the tears rolling quickly ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... "Essex" was represented, but that I found them to be the best swordsmen on board. They had been so thoroughly trained as boarders, that every man was prepared for such an emergency, with his cutlass as sharp as a razor, a dirk made by the ship's armorer out of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... in the reek of that evil cloud, The Hun swept over the plain; And the murderer's dirk did its monster work, 'Mid the scythe-like ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... looks at the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the extreme north we find the Gulf of Carpentaria, and to the extreme south the island which used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not altogether to be wondered at that almost to the middle of this century the land we now call Australia was tolerably ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... if she said a single word," said Gerty, undauntedly. "I showed her Pa De Marsan's old dirk-knife and told her I'd stick it into her if she didn't hush. She was just such a 'fraid-cat she believed me. She might have known I didn't mean nothin'. Now she can have 'em and be a lady. She was always tallkin' about bein' a lady, and that put ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... seems to agree with the position.) However, every one who compares this Journal with that of Tasman's will be as good a judge as I am; but it is necessary to observe that I do not take the Situation of Vandiemen's from the Printed Charts, but from the extract of Tasman's Journal, published by Dirk Rembrantse. At Noon we were in the Latitude of 37 degrees 50 minutes and Longitude of 210 degrees 29 minutes West. The extreams of the Land extending from North-West to East-North-East, a remarkable ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... that might impede their movements, they advanced to the assault, on a double-quick, and when within a few yards of the enemy, would pour in a volley of musketry and then rush forward with claymore in hand, reserving the pistol and dirk for close action. When in close quarters the bayonets of the enemy were received on their targets; thrusting them aside, they resorted to the pistol and dirk to complete the confusion made by the musket and claymore. In a close engagement they could not be withstood ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... I strolled about with Field. We came to a barricade. A very pretty girl guarded it with a sword. She sternly demanded the parole or countersign. I caught hold of her and kissed her, and showed my pistols. She laughed. As I was armed with dirk and pistols, wore a sash, and was unmistakably a Latin Quarter etudiant, as shown by long hair, rakish cap on one side, red neck-tie, and single eyeglass, I was everywhere treated as a man and brother, friend and equal, warrior, and—by the girls—almost like a first-cousin. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... along familiar lines. No: none of these hypotheses explains the unfinished state of that narrative. My explanation is that the story has a foundation in fact, and that Poe himself never learned more than a foundation for the portion which he wrote. Its leading character next to Pym is one Dirk Peters, a sailor, mutineer, etc. It is my theory that Pym and Peters existed in fact, but that Poe never met either of them, though he did meet sailors who had known Dirk Peters, and that he heard from them the first part of the story, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... laid one hand upon his dirk, and strutted up to Ram, looking "as big as a small ossifer," as Dirty Dick said afterwards; and gave him a smart slap on the shoulder as he was going ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... county fer drawin' a knife ur a pistol; 'n' ef a feller was ever killed, it was kinder accidental, by a Barlow. I reckon folks got use' to weepons 'n' killin' 'n' bushwhackin' in the war. Looks like it's been gittin' wuss ever sence, 'n' now hit's dirk 'n' Winchester, 'n' shootin' from the bushes all the time. Hit's wuss 'n stealin' money to take a feller-creetur' s life ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... do not know what half-French, half-African natures are. She would die for him just now very likely; but if he ever forsake her, she will be quite as likely to run her dirk through him." ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... her glee repressed: 'Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest! For who, through all this western wild, Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled? In Holy-Rood a knight he slew; I saw, when back the dirk he drew, Courtiers give place before the stride Of the undaunted homicide; And since, though outlawed, hath his hand Full sternly kept ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... many charms and legends were considered to be connected with the tree, and the duration of the family of Hay was said to be united with its existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a sure charm against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard in the day of battle. A spray gathered in the same manner was placed in the cradle of infants, and thought to defend them from ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board. If any ask her of her drift, Forsooth, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of men came rushing down Eighth Avenue, opposite Lamartine Hall, cheering and shouting, led by a man waving a sword cane. As he swung it above his head it parted, disclosing a long dirk. The police immediately advanced and swept the street. Eighth Avenue was cleared from Thirtieth Street to Twenty-eighth Street, and the police formed several deep, leaving only room enough for the cars ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... roused the wrath of the latter that a speedy and terrible revenge followed. The stalwart sons of the MacNab, urged by their wrathful sire, whose hint in the words—"The night is the night if lads were but lads," almost amounted to a command, equipped themselves with dirk, pistol, and claymore, raised a boat on their shoulders, and carrying it by night all the way from Loch Tay across the hills by Glentarken, launched it stealthily on Loch Earn, and taking the Neishes by surprise are said ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... a lass, she shall wear a golden ring; And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king: With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie used ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... breast-pocket, dragged out a roll of MSS., matted closely together and stained by the winter's rains. A further search eventuated in finding a roll of small gold coin, a set of derringer pistols, a rusted double-edged dirk, and a pair of silver-mounted spectacles. Hastily covering over the body with leaves and branches cut from the embowering shrubs, we shudderingly left ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... up one of the luckless torches that Dirk had lighted in a circle about the mound, and began to examine the ground. "What is there to eat? Stay! By Heaven, I have it! The bushes are filled with fluttering game. There, see that! and that, and that!" As he spoke he had thrust the burning torch into a thick clump of bushes, dense and ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... soon as he could disengage himself from the armed chair in which he sat, he rose, drew a small sword which he had by his side, and stood on the defensive. Captain G.R. Floyd, of the army, who stood near him, drew a dirk, and the chief Winnemac cocked his pistol. The citizens present, were more numerous than the Indians, but were unarmed; some of them procured clubs and brick-bats, and also stood on the defensive. The ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... with Jimmy and Jimmy had been laughing as raucously as a jackal—and so they had passed him by. The event which had spelled tragedy for him; robbed him of sleep and withered his robust appetite had not even lingered overnight in her memory. The dirk was in Stuart Farquaharson's breast, but it was yet to be twisted. Pride forbade his shaking Johnny Reb into a wild pace until he was out of sight. The funereal grandeur of his measured tread must not be broken, and so he heard with painful distinctness ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Dirk Vanderpool had been sitting alone on the broad terrace of his apartment that occupied the upper stories of the great Gotham Gardens Building when he saw that streak of fire slip down against the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... around with the care of a detective looking for clues. He did find evidences of some one having been in the cave; he found the handle of a dirk, a small bit of a deerskin hunting jacket, and finally a little bit of pure gold. He examined the latter under his lamp, satisfied himself that it was a nugget of real gold in its natural state, and his heart ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... in the culprit's pocket and dragged him into the boat, while the rest of the crew, by this time spoiling for a fight, seized their stretchers, jumped ashore, and began laying on right and left. Farragut, so far from restraining, went with them, waving his dirk and cheering them on. The victorious seamen fought their way up to Market Square, where the police interfered, arresting all parties, and the little officer was formally bound ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... the braggart!" the Laconians were clamouring. The Athenians answered in kind. Already a dark sailor was drawing a dirk. Everything promised broken heads, and perhaps blood, when Leonidas and his friend,—by laying about them with their staves,—won their way to the front. The king dashed his staff upon the shoulder of a strapping Laconian who was ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs. Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, "if I ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sporran an' a dirk, An' a beard like besom bristles, He was an elder o' the kirk And he hated kists o' whistles! Hech mon! The pawky duke! An' doon on kists o' whistles! They're a' reid-heidit fowk up North Wi' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... morning things went ill with the adventure. The savour had gone out of our play. Two were but a paltry company after all. Where was the cabin-boy with his trusty dirk, eager to bleed for the cause? Though we kept our backs rigorously turned to the window, and spoke only in whispers, neither of us could quite forget the presence of that dejected little figure ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... away and was seen no more. Of all the seven, only one, that of Sebald de Weerdt, ever returned to the shores of Holland. Another reached Japan, and although the crew fell into hostile hands, the great trade with that Oriental empire was begun. In a third—the Blyde Boodachaft, or Good News—Dirk Gerrits sailed nearer the South Pole than man had ever been before, and discovered, as he believed, a portion of the southern continent, which he called, with reason good, Gerrit's Land. The name in course of time faded from maps and charts, the existence of the country was disputed, until more ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... after supper was over, "you're getting a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the rest of us. You're old enough to strap a dirk ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Caesar and struck him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow straight from the shoulder with his left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed up against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the middy, presenting his cocked hat to the captain, "I did draw my dirk to kill him, but you ran away so fast that I ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... and the ground game was pouring out of the undergrowth and dispersing in all directions. Once a boar ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute's face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best, and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together like a string of geese as they turned the ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... even more effective weapons by what is called a spring dagger, which consists of a short, strong knife or dirk let into the handle, and is readily brought into play by a sudden jerk, or by touching a spring. This may be all very well for travellers in the out-of-the-way regions of Spain, Sicily, or Italy, but I don't like these dangerous accessories for English use, as they may be unfortunately ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... he describes the preparations for the execution of Porteous, from an author rarely quoted—the Kelpie. "The hour's come," so runs the extract, "but not the man;"—nearly the same words which the same author employs in his "Guy Mannering," in the cave scene between Meg Merrilies and Dirk Hatteraick. "There is a tradition," he adds in the accompanying note, "that while a little stream was swollen into a torrent by recent showers, the discontented voice of the water-spirit was heard to pronounce these words. At the same moment, a man urged ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... answered James, "I mind it weel, and good reason why—it was when you unclasped the fause traitor Ruthven's fangs from about our royal throat, and drove your dirk into him like a true subject. We did then, as you remind us, (whilk was unnecessary,) being partly beside ourselves with joy at our liberation, promise we would grant you a free boon every year; whilk promise, on our coming to menseful possession of our ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... with her other timbers in proportion; and in her caulking was a species of moss peculiar to the country in which she was built. In the cabin and other parts of the vessel were found a human skull; a pair of goat's horns attached to a part of the cranium; a dirk or poniard, about half an inch of the blade of which had wholly resisted corrosion; several glazed and ornamental tiles of a square form; some bricks which had formed the fire hearth; several parts of shoes, or rather ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... on a hundred curtained execution grounds, with the dirk of the suicide firmly grasped and about to shed their own life-blood, have sung the martyrs who died willingly for their faith in their idea of Yamato Damashii.[19] In untold instances in the national history, men have died willingly and cheerfully, and women ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... leaves from a lilac bush. Robin learned that if you laid a leaf flat on the seat of a bench you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's greenness. Donal had—in his rolled down stocking—a little dirk. He did the decoration with the point of this ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to travel a good many hundred miles, and there 's no knowing what rough fellows we may fall in with. But give me a good revolver and dirk, and I bet I will take care of ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... the humiliating attitude popularly indicative of prayerful supplication. Smith walked slowly up behind him, relieved him of two automatics and a dirk. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... moulded, as it more probably was, in the proportions of the Glyptolepis, only six feet five inches. All the Coelacanths, however, were exceedingly massive in proportion to their length; they were fish built in the square, muscular, thick-set, Dirk-Hatterick and Balfour-of-Burley style; and of the Russian specimens, some of the larger bones must have belonged to individuals of from twice to thrice the length of the ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... risen again. A dirk gleamed in his extended hand. His eyes blazed like coals. Fury distorted his features which were craned forward in hideous ugliness parallel with ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... was, however, unavailing to prevent assaults. The most serious instance of this kind was the act of an Irish ruffian, who so far forgot the traditions and sufferings of his own people as to cast himself upon Drayton with a huge dirk and cut off a piece of his ear.[6] For a few moments all the horrors incident to riot and bloodshed were in evidence. The air was filled with the screams of terrorized women and children and the curses and threats of vengeful men. The whole was a struggling, swaying mass, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... her best wines, and made her servants attend upon them with unusual deference and ceremony. Their appearance was altogether horrible, they wore leather aprons, which were sprinkled all over with blood, they had large horse pistols in their belts, and a dirk and sabre by their sides. Their looks were full of ferocity, and they spoke a harsh dissonant patois language. Over their cups, they talked about the bloody business of that day's occupation, in the course of which they drew out their dirks, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... one afternoon—the old stable, we have pulled it down—when suddenly the horses began to kick and rear. He looked round to the open door, and there stood a huge Highlander in our tartans, with musket, pistols, claymore, dirk, skian, and all, and soft brogues of untanned leather on his feet. The coachman, in a panic, made a blind rush at the figure, but behold, there was nobody, and a boy outside had seen no man. The horses were trembling and foaming. Now it was ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... been much interest manifested in the installation of the modern motor, and Quin, with his natural love of machinery, had rejoiced that his duties as shipping clerk required him to be present at the unpacking. He and Dirk, the foreman, never tired of discussing the perfection of each particular feature. But a few days after the departure of the installation foreman, the new motor burnt out, necessitating the shutting down of the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... you do as I do. I mean to get hold of a cutlass and pistols. I'm not going to risk my valuable life with nothing to preserve it but a ridiculous dirk. Don't you be downhearted and think that the ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... which had answered the call of Jane's horn eight months before: twenty-nine in all, ranging from children of eight to a woman of thirty-five. Nor were their characteristics less diverse. The tobacco-chewing, profane boy was there, with a stolen dirk thrust into his trousers' band, suggesting a turbulent future; and the girl, with the narrow forehead and close, deep-set eyes, was there, pathologically indicating tendencies to kleptomania. But far outweighing these were the straight, courageous bearing and the ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... a short white muslin frock with hanging sleeves and a leather girdle over it, a red-peaked cap with a dark-blue pagri wound round it, with one end hanging over his back, earrings, a necklace, bracelets, and a profusion of rings, were his ordinary costume; and in his girdle he wore a dirk and a revolver, and suspended from it a long tobacco pouch made of the furry skin of some animal, a large leather purse, and etceteras. As the days went on he blossomed into blue and white muslin with a scarlet ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... so wait. Maybe there are two-score people, led by a man and woman, who walk side by side without word or look passing between them. The man is tall and handsome, armed in the close-knit ring-mail shirt of the Dane, with gemmed sword hilt and golden mountings to scabbard and dirk, and his steel helm and iron-gray hair seem the same colour in the shadowless light of the dull sky overhead. One would set his age at about ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... his father was alive, and as yet no cares had visited his home. He was surrounded by the comforts which wealth can give. He was preparing, as he had long hoped to do, for sea, with the expectation of being placed as a midshipman on the quarter-deck. His uniform with brass buttons, his dirk and gold-laced hat, lay on a table before him, with a bright quadrant and spy-glass; and there was his sea-chest ready to be filled with his new wardrobe, and all sorts of little comforts which a fond mother and sisters were likely to have ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Wessels, recorder, Jan Wendal, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Claes Ripse, David Schuyler, Albert Ryckman, aldermen, Killian Van Rensselaer, justice, Captain Marte Gerritse, justice, Captain Gerrit Teunisse, Dirk Teunisse, justices, Lieutenant Robert Saunders, John Cuyler, Gerrit Ryerse, Evert ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... she had just heard at the door, Cecily did not the less tranquilly continue her undressing; she drew from her corsage, where it was placed like a busk, a dirk, five or six inches long, in a case of black shagreen, with a handle of black ebony fastened with silver, a very simple handle, but perfectly handy, not a weapon ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... for eyes, a position rectified by Walckenaer as above and by Kirby in his Bridgewater Treatise where he gives a copy of the French figure of this singular spider—Two Crustacea, one (Ocypode convexus) from Dirk Hatterick's and the other (Pagurus clibanarius) from Shark Bay, are all the Annulose animals described or figured as coming from New Holland, from the pitiable circumstance above ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... tenth minute, he felt a desire to throw the napkin in his face: at the twelfth he hoped some great calamity would befall him: at the fifteenth, he would not be able to restrain himself from stabbing him several times with a dirk. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... he girded on a short sword, placed a pistol in his belt, disclosing in this movement, which opened his doublet a little, the fine rings of a coat of mail, destined to protect him from the first dagger-thrust of an assassin. After which he took a Scotch dirk in his left hand, and then turning to Athos, "Are you ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Not only did it rule for an unusually long period, 922 to 1299, but in this long period without exception all the Counts of Holland were strong and capable rulers. The fiefs of the first two Dirks lay in what is now known as North Holland, in the district called Kennemerland. It was Dirk III who seized from the bishops of Utrecht some swampy land amidst the channels forming the mouth of the Meuse, which, from the bush which covered it, was named Holt-land (Holland or Wood-land). ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... crews manning vessels like these are for the most part villains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves, they are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go among them with dirk and pistol—concealed, but ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... boldly down. There in the Underworld he found the child, and thus the robbers were forced to take their own again instead. In a more detailed narrative from Islay, the father arms himself with a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, and having found the hill where the "Good People" had their abode open, and filled with the lights and sounds of festival, he approached and stuck the dirk into the threshold. The object of this was to prevent the entrance from closing upon him. Then he steadily advanced, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... said Jehu, looking very uncomfortable, as he saw Peter flourishing a short dirk, and the doctor holding him back and remonstrating with him. "That man of Satan I never saw before yesterday, when I entered his house, where there was fiddling and dancing, and serving the devil. Truly my head became dizzy at the sight, my heart sunk within me ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton |
