"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for a space of seconds, while I wondered what I'd do if he didn't. Then, slowly, he unbuckled the straps and handed it to me, butt first. ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... him beside a good fire, and turned into the southwest to burn Langlois and his cabin. The red flag still floated where he had seen it weeks before. The windows were thicker with frost. He shouted, beat upon the door with the butt of his rifle and broke in the windows. The silence of death quickened the beating of his heart when he stopped to listen. There was no doubt that Langlois lay ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... well-grown ones too—leaped up upon one of our negroes, who stood sentinel, before he saw him, at which he was heartily frighted, cried out, and ran into the tent. Our other man, who had a gun, had not presence of mind at first to shoot him, but struck him with the butt-end of his piece, which made him whine a little, and then growl at him fearfully; but the fellow retired, and, we being all alarmed, three of our men snatched up their guns, ran to the tent door, where they saw the great old lion by ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... especially after the money had been restored, continued to believe that he had, for a short while, been the butt of Richard's sense of humor, whereas Richard, on his side, was convinced that Moncharmin had amused himself by inventing the whole of the affair of the Opera ghost, in order to revenge himself ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... that every man of the desert riders was resting a careless hand on the butt of his revolver. At the same time Hi observed something else in the opposite direction. Grace Harlowe and Elfreda Briggs had stepped up close to the water hole and each was standing with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... preliminary flourishes; and in the excitement of talking for victory, he would use any device that came to hand. "There is no arguing with Johnson," said Goldsmith, quoting a phrase from Cibber, "for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... ... I told you, didn't I? ... was at Cambridge with us. He came down a year before we did. As a matter of fact, he was sent down and told to stay down. He ducked a proctor in a water-butt and the dons were very cross about it. He's not a bad fellow. I think we'll ask him round here one evening. Lady Cecily's very fond of him ... she used to come up to Cambridge to see him ... before the affair with the proctor, of course ... and Gilbert and I ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... of the camp was Tom Cain, a raw Irishman, who officiated as cook, whose various blunders and expedients in his novel situation, and in the wild scenes and wild kind of life into which he had suddenly been thrown, had made him a kind of butt or droll of the camp. Tom, however, began to discover an ambition superior to his station; and the conversation of the hunters, and their stories of their exploits, inspired him with a desire to elevate himself to the dignity of their order. The buffalo in such ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... well," Mr. Cupples replied sadly. "In fact, far from well. I can tell you almost exactly what he said—it wasn't much. He said, 'See here, Cupples, you don't want to butt in. My wife can look after herself. I've found that out, along with other things.' He was perfectly quiet—you know he was said never to lose control of himself—though there was a light in his eyes that would have frightened ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... the name "Butts" refers to the fact of the land, under the common-field system, abutting on meadows or roads, e.g. "Butt-close," in the ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... have restrained him, but it was too late; he was gone before either could speak. Then a latch creaked and snapped behind them and, slowly and cautiously, the wooden shutter began to open outward. In an instant Harvey had raised his rifle and struck the resounding board a fierce blow with the butt. The door flew back, crashing in violent contact against the grizzled pate of Moreno himself, who, with a howl of mingled rage and anguish, fell ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... feeling prevailed, that she had been overtasked by her father, who wished to train her like a boy, and that she was paying the penalty for undue application, in nearsightedness, awkward manners, extravagant tendencies of thought, and a pedantic style of talk, that made her a butt for the ridicule of frivolous companions. Some seasons later, I call to mind seeing, at the "Commencements" and "Exhibitions" of Harvard University, a girl, plain in appearance, but of dashing air, who was invariably the centre of a listening group, and kept their merry interest alive ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... peculiar features. Two minor chiefs came to where I was sitting and sat down. About twenty men then approached and drove their spears into the ground in a circle with the butts all leaning inwards. Many of the spears had a small piece broken off at the butt end. From these spears were then hung clubs, spears and shields, and native masks and fighting ornaments. An old chief then said they had given me their arms. Next they placed cloth, fishing nets and spears and other native ornaments inside the circle, and the same old chief ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... sheep, not mine; <"Pastor est tui Dominus."> You find In this the pleasant pasture of our life Much you may eat without the least offence, Much you don't eat because your maw objects, 880 Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock Open great eyes at you and even butt, And thereupon you like your mates so well You cannot please yourself, offending them; Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep, You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears Restrain you, ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... in hand, making a tomb for his body of his enemies on the field of battle, than to be hated of his own and poniarded by the hands of his nearest and dearest, or to die of poison or of drowning in a wine-butt." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... through the gravel, which shot up all round, and then the end of the bank seemed to fall away. There was a shower of stones; the butt of the log went down and its after end tilted up. Then it lurched out of sight and there was a heavy crash below. After this Festing heard a confused din, and imagined, though he could not see, the mass of timber plunging down the precipitous slope, smashing rocks and scattering gravel ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... treading the path that leads to it. 'Voluntariness in treading the path that leads to it, and if so, there could have been no divine ordination of the end.' Not so! When human thought comes, if I may so say, full butt against a stark, staring contradiction like that, it is no proof that either of the propositions is false. It is only like the sign-boards that the iceman puts upon the thin ice, 'dangerous!' a warning that that is not a place for us to tread. We have to keep ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... their sharp teeth, at work on the small trees,—then soon the falling of the trees,—then the rustling and tugging of the creatures, in getting the fallen trees out of the water,—and, finally, the surging and splashing with which they came swimming towards the ground-work of the dam, with the butt end of those trees in their mouths. The line of the dam they had begun, passed with a curve up stream in the middle, so as to give it more strength to resist the current; across the low-water bed of the river some five rods; and extended up over ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the things he carried in a closet partly filled with rubbish. Then he flashed his light around carefully. Adam Adams got down out of sight and placed his hand on the butt of his pistol. He was resolved to take no more risks ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... 4.5 hows.; and special instruction in musketry and Lewis-gun manipulation was given by infantry instructors. There was memorable jubilation one morning at our Brigade Headquarters, when one of the orderlies, a Manchester man who fired with his left hand, and held the rifle-butt to his left shoulder, beat the infantry crack shot who came to instruct the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... would not let him do it. Mr. Black then attempted to strike Champion with the breech of his gun, but Champion kicked him down, and as he drew his knife to stab Mr. Black, Mr. Turner, the overseer, struck him on the back of his head with the butt of a loaded whip. This stunned him for a few moments, and by the time he had regained his senses ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... these ejaculations the inmate of the chamber was heard drawing back a table, then the butt of a gun sounded upon the floor, and ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... not returned and the time hung heavily on his hands, he crept out and up the hill towards the Red Hand. He prowled about amongst the old tips for a time, then seated himself at the foot of a dead butt and gave himself up to thought. He began to fear that Peterson would prove unfaithful, or, worse still, that he had fallen into the hands of the enemy; and the idea made him very uneasy. He hesitated about returning ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... the battle of Welcome and of Tagliacozzo, (which you might almost English in the real meaning of it as the battle of Hart's Death: 'cozzo' is a butt or thrust with the horn, and you may well think of the young Conradin as a wild hart or stag of the hills)—between those two battles, in 1266, comes the second and central revolt of the trades in Florence, of which I have to speak in ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... patently strong—strong enough to excuse any disheartenment. Scarcely a window pierced its narrow butt-end, four stories high, under which the steps wound. It ended just where they met the towpath, and from its angle sprang a brick wall dead-blank, at least twelve feet high, which ran for eighty or ninety yards along the straight line of the path. Across ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... quite near to the disabled vessel, and anchored. This act of neighbourly kindness was too unequivocal to require explanation. It was the intention of the Vineyard men to lie by their consort until she was relieved from all apprehensions of danger. The 'butt-end' of the 'nor'-wester' was too large to admit of intercourse until next morning, when that which had been a small gale had dwindled to a good steady breeze, and the seas had gone down, leaving comparatively ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... pistol in his hand. He went noisily, muttering oaths, feeling that something was wrong but not being able to divine exactly what. Marteau heard him coming. He put the candle down, concealed himself and, as the man came, struck him heavily over the head with the butt of his remaining pistol. He fell like a log. Leaving the candle where it was, the young officer, dispossessing his victim of his pistols, entered the hall and, instead of entering the great room by the door by which he had left it, ran along the hall to the main entrance ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... red wine he really looked as though murdered. Both the flunkeys wanted to throw themselves on the murderer, and one of them, a burly fellow, tried to grasp him, when M. Coignard gave the fellow such a butt that he rolled in the ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... sitting; PARNELL predominant; issues getting a little mixed; understood that Session summoned to decide whether, in view of certain proceedings before Mr. Justice BUTT, PARNELL should be permitted to retain Leadership. Everything been discussed but that. Things got so muddled up, that O'KEEFE, walking about, bowed with anxious thought, not quite certain whether it is TIM HEALY, SEXTON, or JUSTIN McCARTHY, who was involved in recent Divorce ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... detective proved no mean adversary, and he might have conquered had not a third party appeared upon the scene, who at once went to the assistance of Barkswell, and by beating Keene over the head with the butt of a revolver he succeeded in quieting him so that he could ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... Your Imperial Majesty," General Dorflay said, bowing the couple of inches consistent with military dignity. The Thoran captain saluted by touching his forehead, his heart, which was on the right side, and the butt of his pistol. Paul complimented him on the smart appearance of his detail, and the captain asked how it could be otherwise, with the example and inspiration of his imperial majesty. Compliment and response could have been a playback from every morning of the ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... ran half a mile from their heads. The country is rent with deep chasms, made still deeper by vast torrents that pour down them during times of heavy rains." There were found petrified trees. One of them was 210 feet long and another was over five feet across the butt, this in a land where not a tree or bush was found growing. Holmes fervently observed, "However, I do not know whether it makes any difference whether the country is barren or fruitful, if the Lord has a ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... wore a Sweater, and whose people butt into the Society Column with Sickening Regularity, started to Tackle Low; he had Bushy Hair and a Thick Neck, and his strong Specialty was to swing ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... rifle by the barrel with the muzzle against his shoulder, having aimed the butt at the crouching lion. Chunky had had a severe ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and moves on. That roused the mule properly. He closed his eyes and laid into the tank for dear life; you could hear it clanging a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... I had to run hard to get level with it. Here was work indeed, and at that joyous moment I would not have changed places with Jack Dobson. Without ado, I jumped into the river, waded out, recovered the butt of my rod, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... the upper hand when the thug whom he had thrown over his head recovered. The brute took the situation in at a glance, saw his pal in trouble, and, sneaking treacherously behind Locke, dealt him a terrific blow with the butt of a revolver. Locke dropped to the floor as ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... hailstorm, but the light foreign pistol which, shot as true as a musket. Weir had learned his trade in Italy, and was a neat craftsman, so I employed him to make me a pistol after my own pattern. The butt was of light, tough wood, and brass-bound, for I did not care to waste money on ornament. The barrel was shorter than the usual, and of the best Spanish metal, and the pan and the lock were set after my own device. Nor was that all, for I became an epicure in the matter of bullets, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... interest. To the left a large space was devoted to three or four bulky casks, and here an aproned drawer sat astride of a rush-bottomed chair, grinning delightedly and exchanging nods and winks from time to time with an impish, undersized lad who lay on his stomach on a wine-butt with his head ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... worthy alderman during forty years. Staines also built Barbican Chapel, and rebuilt the "Jacob's Well" public-house, noted for dramatic representations. The alderman was an illiterate man, and was a sort of butt amongst his brethren. At one of the Old Bailey dinners, after a sumptuous repast of turtle and venison, Sir William was eating a great quantity of butter with his cheese. "Why, brother," said Wilkes, "you lay it on with a trowel!" A son of Sir William Staines, who worked ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sake. I almost think that I would do it entirely for her sake, if there were no other reason. But to shame myself by taking that which belongs to another, as though it were my own property! To live a coward in mine own esteem! Though I may be the laughing-stock and the butt of all those around me, I would still be a man to myself. I ought to have felt that it was sufficient when she told me that some of her thoughts must still be given to you. She is yours, Mr Gordon; but I doubt much whether you ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, the water being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... most diligent searche for your family as you required butt I have not discovered muche that will be to your satisfaction. I send you, Sir, a coppie of certain things sette down in the Parish Register of St. Clement Danes, wch I thoughte most like to be of interest to you. Bye these you will discover that Walter Sanford Browne was born the ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... was not nice to look upon, and more than once had he leapt for Leclere's throat, to be stretched quivering and senseless in the snow, by the butt of the ever ready dogwhip. And so Batard learned to bide his time. When he reached his full strength and prime of youth, he thought the time had come. He was broad-chested, powerfully muscled, of far more than ordinary size, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... 'em. Yer should 'ave been there to see it. They were all round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop 'oles. Then they began to bomb me from the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... angry. Others tried in vain. A Southerner named Benham, while deploring passionately the condition of the city which had been seized by a mob, robbed of its sacred rights, etc., happened inadvertently to throw back his coat, thus revealing the butt of a Colt's revolver. The bystanders caught the point ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... exclaimed Ikey. He was a Jew, and not ashamed of it, often making himself the butt of the many expressions used against his race. On this account he was more than tolerated—he had many friends out of his own faith. "Such a business!" he went on, using his hands, without which he used to say he could ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... mother stand looking down at the wheelers, that backed and twisted their necks under their yokes. Her lips were set firmly together, and her eyes were bright with purple hollows beneath. She held the rifle for a moment, then set the butt of it on the "jockey box" just in front of the dashboard. The wheelers, helpless between the weight of the wagon behind and the dead oxen in front, might twist their necks off but they could do ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... wagged his ears knowingly. Tom Jonah came up to him and they companionably "snuffed noses," as Sammy said. But Billy Bumps had to be kept at a distance, for he showed a marked desire to butt the new member of the Corner House ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... Naisi and his brothers. LAVARCHAM. We are lonely women. What is it you're wanting in the blackness of the night? NAISI. We met a young girl in the woods who told us we might shelter this place if the rivers rose on the pathways and the floods gathered from the butt of the hills. [Old Woman clasps ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... scrambled out on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... have just as many animals, with the power of locomotion and appearance of snakes, as there were hairs in the bundle. I have raised them one-eighth of an inch in diameter, with perceptible eyes and mouth on the butt end or root part of the hair. Take such a snake and dip it in an alkaline solution, and the flesh or mucus that formed about the hair will dissolve, and the veritable horse hair is left. They will not generate in limestone water, only in freestone ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... was a very spirited and strong animal—it reared upwards, and very nearly brought me and my horse to the ground—at that instant, Thornton struck the unfortunate man a violent blow across the head with the butt end of his heavy whip—Sir John's hat had fallen before in the struggle, and the blow was so stunning that it felled him upon the spot. Thornton dismounted, and made me do the same—'There is no time to lose,' said he; 'let us drag him from the ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... received, as upon a mount, to shew the knowledges adjacent and confining. If therefore the true end of knowledge not propounded hath bred large error, the best and perfectest condition of the same end not perceived will cause some declination. For when the butt is set up men need not rove, but except the white be placed men cannot level. This perfection we mean not in the worth of the effect, but in the nature of the direction; for our purpose is not to stir up men's hopes, but to guide their travels. The fullness ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... on slowly, the young man who had waded ashore, whom his comrades addressed as Kirkwood or Kirk, walking behind the wagon with the dog in his arms, responding to his whimpering claims for attention with teasing caresses. The dog, it seemed, was the butt as well as the pet of the party. As they approached the house he scrambled out of Kirkwood's arms and lingered to take a roll in the sandy path, coming up a moment afterward to be received with blighting sarcasms upon his appearance. After his ignominious ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... Arvanian Embassy. For, in this big sunny kitchen five men lounged about in addition to the white-coated chef and his beardless stripling of an assistant. And each of the five had a holster strapped openly over his coat with the butt of an automatic protruding in ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... wrath checked her. Stretching one huge, bony hand, as if to close her lips, trembling with rage and pain, livid and convulsed in every feature of his face, Prince Alexis reversed the whip in his right hand, and weighed its thick, heavy butt for one crashing, fatal blow. Life and death were evenly balanced. For an instant the Princess became deadly pale, and a sickening fear shot through her heart. She could not understand the effect of her words: her ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... are spoilt by either insufficient curing, or curing by wrong methods, I have asked Mr. Geo. F. Butt, F.Z.S., who was for many years manager to Edwin Ward, whom he has now succeeded, to give me a page or two of useful hints on the preservation of skins. The following notes are what he has kindly placed at my disposal. I know of no one I can more strongly recommend for ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... not been near enough to hear Wamba's directions. At length Brian remarked, what had at first escaped him in the twilight; "Here is some one either asleep, or lying dead at the foot of this cross—Hugo, stir him with the butt-end ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... cut off the foot which had prest down the Armatost, and lopt off the hands which had held the bow and fitted the quarrel, and plucked out the eyes which had taken the mark; and the living trunk was then set up as a butt for the archers. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... in a red cloak was passing a field in which a goat was feeding. What strange transformation suddenly took place?—Answer: The goat turned to butter (butt her), and the woman into ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... drenched in pouring rains, she had been frozen with the cold and prostrated with the heat, she had been blown about by Chicago wind until it was strange there was any of her left in one piece, she had had front doors—yes, and back doors too, slammed in her face, she had been the butt of the alleged wit of menials and hirelings, she had been patronised by vapid women as the poor girl who must make her living some way, she had been roasted by—but never mind—she had had a beat ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... throat. They swayed and gulped for breath, rutting the earth with sharp heels; they rolled to the floor and floundered with legs tight tangled, the boy blindly striking at Mr. Adams with the pistol-butt, and the audience drawing closer to lose nothing, when the bright knife flashed suddenly. It poised, and flew across the room, harmless, for a foot had driven into Mr. Adams's arm, and he felt a cold ring grooving his temple. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... around and it isn't often that even a Hun will surrender, fair and square, to one man. I've seen too much of this 'kamarad' business. I can't afford to take chances, Tommy. But I don't put nicks in my rifle butt like some of them do. I don't want to know how many I beaned after it's all over. We kill to save—that's the idea you want to get into your ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... drawing back and putting one hand to her breast—while the other, I noticed, fell mechanically to the butt of a revolver swung to her waist. Her eyes were wide with surprise, as her lips were parted in fear and utter wonderment. Truly, she was the incarnation ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... of the 26th Currt was soe short and soe abrupt that I fear you can peck butt little satisfaction out ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... look where, how, or at whom he struck. All he knew was that his rifle blazed, and as he clubbed at soft flesh with the butt, blood spurted, and new screams filled the night. He felt and half saw big, stinking bodies going down, and clawed his way forward, around them, over them. Then he felt no more bodies, and knew that he was through. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... ahoy!" yelled the mate; but the butt of the pirate's pistol crashed down on his head, and he dropped like a pithed ox. Scarrow rushed for the door, but the sentinel clapped his hand over his mouth, and threw his other arm ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... than to put your shoulder between the butt of a gun like that and a half ton of ice?" asked La Salle. "Why, you've broken two brass hooks, and knocked down all the ice-blocks on that side. Can't I do anything to stop that bleeding? Lay down, face upward, on the ice. Hold ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... Californian replaced the targets with new ones—old tin dinner plates this time—and voiced a philosophical regret over his recent defeat. The Texas man, ready at last, took his place beside Pete and raised his gun till the butt of it was level with his ear, the barrel pointing up and back. Johnson swung up his heavy ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... wife and children, and had shown himself to be an excellent soldier. He had evidently exactly calculated the danger zone, and found that by getting close to the traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his supper without being cramped. I watched him solemnly pounding the coffee with the butt end of his revolver, and then boiling the water and frying his bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the roundup wagon somewhere ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush, "butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... appearance. He went up to Corentin and spoke to him in a low voice: "I know these premises well," he said; "I have searched everywhere; unless those young fellows are buried, they are not here. We have sounded all the floors and walls with the butt ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... thrust the butt of my gun ahead of me, and moved it up and down and right and left, trying the inequalities of the ground. To make no sound required the very greatest care; a slip of an inch might ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... people could not make enough of him, while Richard Tresidder had but scant courtesy paid him. When it became known that my father was disinherited, no matter how unjustly, these same folks discovered that Richard Tresidder was a very mine of wit and goodness, while my father was made a butt ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... flag rolled up in oil-skin in the cabin, and that Father Burrows had declared: 'By the hoary-headed Nebblekenizer, I'll put them stars and stripes on new land, and mighty near to the Pole, or start a butt a-trying.' ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... lad: one at a time: no ramming; hit the butt on the saddle; blaze away; one down, another ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... vote in the county, where he proposed to offer himself a candidate at the next general election. He now remembered nothing of Eastgate, but the freedoms he had used to take with him, while Tom had quietly stood his butt, with an eye to the benefice; and those freedoms he began to repeat in common-place sarcasms on his person and his cloth, which he uttered in the public coffeehouse, for the entertainment of the company. But he was egregiously mistaken in giving his own wit credit for that tameness of Eastgate, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... receive the action of the powder in the most effective way. An ellipsoid cone would leave the air behind it most smoothly, but it would not receive the pressure of the gas in a line with its direction of motion; and so of the hollow butt; the gas, acting and reacting in every way perpendicularly to the surface it acts on, wastes its force in straining outwardly. The perfectly flat butt would take as much forward impetus at the edge of the cone base, where the soft lead would yield slightly. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Soc.' vol. xxvi. 1868, p. 296.) says: "it is very amusing to see these little creatures (Smynthurus luteus) coquetting together. The male, which is much smaller than the female, runs round her, and they butt one another, standing face to face and moving backward and forward like two playful lambs. Then the female pretends to run away and the male runs after her with a queer appearance of anger, gets in front and stands facing her again; then she turns coyly round, but he, quicker ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the intention was ambitious and honorable. It was not until several days later that he became interested in Bertie, when that young adventurer insisted on showing him an automatic 44-caliber pistol. Bertie explained the mechanism and demonstrated by slipping a loaded magazine up the hollow butt. ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... meantime an unhappy goat was pounced on and the three young-tigers took to her teats as if 'to the manner born.' The poor Nanny screamed tremendously at first sight of them, but she soon got accustomed to them, and when they grew a little bigger, she would often playfully butt at them with ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... his eyes screwed up into a perplexed frown and he dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground. Holding the barrels with both hands, he stared down at the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... passage of arms at Ashby, or on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was afforded a more thrilling spectacle than when these two paladins rushed to the onset and met in mid-career. Each gave a yell and dug his heels into his charger, and whacked her with the butt end of his lance, and forced her into a ponderous gallop for the meeting. It matters not now what was the precise intent of either jouster, which of them aimed at gorget or head-piece, or at shield, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... to deflect a sword blade, when he saw a terrific blow aimed at him with the butt of a rifle. He dodged just in time, and, as the stock went whizzing by his ear, he knocked the dealer of the blow flat on his back. In the meantime, Walt and Ralph had been giving good accounts of themselves, and Bob Harding had succeeded in ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... a carriage of some kind to bring in my grain, and draw away my ashes. So I blocked off the wheels with my axe, from the butt of a black oak tree, and backed home boards for a box, three miles, from the nearest saw-mill. It did me good service, and I sold it for a price when I bought my first wagon. But we all took a world of comfort; and what was pleasanter work than ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... and, balancing it there, to walk away merrily under their burthen. And it is surprising how heavy a load they will thus carry. But they could not manage to take our tusks in that fashion. They carried them on their shoulders, four men to a tusk, three near to the thick or butt end, and one near the point. In this way we brought all our ivory to Behar, and the tusks were so perfect and exceptional in size that we could obtain almost any equivalent we pleased for them. And in fact of such marvellous size and beauty were most of the gems that we got in ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... your society for half an hour" murmured Bob, and smiled. "I'm not going to hurt you if I can avoid it, but if you make a row I'll tap you back of the ear with the butt of this gun. The individual on the floor has been poking his nose into my business and I had to put him in storage for a while. Unfortunately you discovered him, so, much to our mutual displeasure, I must ask ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... right and found Mr. Grant's trial-shaft. It had been sunk amongst a number of round holes dug by the native miner, and it appeared to us that they had been working the southern butt-end of the eastern reef. He had preferred it to another pit sunk a little distance from the centre by a man named Jones, whose venture yielded the poorest results. Cameron drew my attention to the necessity of 'hydraulicking' this hill-side; and from three pounds of its yellow clay, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... difficult to match "God save the King," the mediocrity of which, especially as regards the words, has been the butt of countless satirists. Beethoven wrote in his diary that he "must show the English what a blessing they have" in that "national disgrace." If Haydn regarded it as a "blessing," he certainly did not take it as a model. He produced an air which, looking at it from a purely artistic ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... his brother as they examined the water-butt. It was new, and very solidly constructed for its office. If anything had been wanting to decide them, this eminently practical barrel would have turned the scale. A bargain was promptly struck, the month's rent was paid ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it lasted; two of the blacks and one of my mates had been hit by thar musket-balls, and the rest of us war either gashed by thar knives or had got ugly cracks. However, six of them war lying in the boat when we hauled it alongside; two war stone-dead, the other four had been stunned with the butt ends of the muskets, or cut down by the darkies' sabres. We took 'em down to the next place and handed 'em over to the sheriff; and as thar happened to be a lot of boats waiting thar for the wind, you may guess it warn't many hours afore they tried ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... when near enough as I thought to him, I fired; but it did him no mischief and only made him take himself off at once. I nearly got into a scrape through it, however, for I was fired at myself in return, the bullet fortunately only taking the butt end off my musket. I turned to run off, and another shot hit the knapsack on my back, but I soon got out of reach of their shot again, luckily, as it happened, without any injury; but it must have been a near thing, for when I next opened my knapsack, I found the ball had gone through the leather ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... brawny negro made a strong effort to seize the bucket, regardless of the cowhide, when Long Tom felled him at a blow with his pistol butt, then cocking the weapon, glanced sternly around at the circle of angry faces by which they ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... were to be defrayed by the Mayor of Tiverton and kindly Mr. Oliver Peard. After a year under Hudson, young Cosway entered Shipley's Academy, already mentioned. Probably he was a somewhat puny, insignificant-looking lad, and was therefore made the butt and fag of the robuster students, compelled to attend upon them and obey their behests, even to performing menial offices, just as younger boys do in other academies—for might is right in the world of school—and thus Mr. Smith's errand-boy ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... smoking room, is criticism, playful and otherwise, of others. There are people in whom the adversely critical spirit is so highly developed that they find it hard to praise any one or to hear any one praised—their criticism leaps to the surface in one way or another, in the sneer, in the "butt," in the joke, in the gibe, in the openly expressed attack. This way of being superior may be direct and open, more often it is disguised. Many a woman (and man) who denounces the sinner receives from her contemplation of that sinner the most of her feeling of virtue ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... twilight of two steep streets in Camden Town, the shop at the corner, a confectioner's, glowed like the butt of a cigar. One should rather say, perhaps, like the butt of a firework, for the light was of many colours and some complexity, broken up by many mirrors and dancing on many gilt and gaily-coloured cakes and sweetmeats. Against this ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... what you'll want. Well, good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning—if he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the students, so far as they dare take a liberty with him. Perhaps it would be best for you if you never heard from the fellow ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... their stolen boat, and reach quarters without being seen. This theory appeared far more reasonable than the other, and, if it proved true, to arouse the sleepers on deck, would only result in making me a butt for ridicule. It appeared safe enough for me to adventure alone, and I was at least determined to assure myself as to the identity of these strangers. If they had actually landed it would require only a ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... the butt of his fellow students' ridicule, yet he was never aroused to anger. Instead, these annoyances only served to increase his acts of devotion. Still greater trials, however, were in store for him. Before being admitted into the great seminary of Lyons ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... other side. I lost no time in placing the muzzle of my Mannlicher close to his face, and the perplexed Shoka, dropping his kukri, went down on his knees to implore my pardon. After giving him a good pounding with the butt of my rifle, I sent him about his business. The man lacked the qualities of a murderer, but I felt I had better see that no other disturbance took place during the night. It is true that two men attempted to crawl out ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Caney, a man with a lanyard gave a quick jerk. There was a cap explosion at the butt of the gun and a bulging white cloud from the muzzle; the trail bounced from its shallow trench, the wheels whirled back twice on the rebound, and the shell was hissing through the air as iron hisses when a blacksmith thrusts it red-hot into cold water. ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... be quiet, not for nobody," Polly objected, with a bold disregard of double negatives. "I got to get a move. If you ain't goin' to help me, you needn't butt in." ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... that she could not be freed by four pumps assisted by bailing. On the 9th the wind became calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship, in rolling, opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt ends of her planks, and the greatest part of her top-timbers, the bolts being drawn by the violence of the roll. In this condition, with additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating westward to the 12th, when they were in lat. 60 deg. S. and in great want of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphege sat at the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting his wooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front and rear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of late autumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolid Indian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed only one remark, and that a mercantile one: "Seven ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... a German soldier was seen to fire three times at a little girl 5 years old. Having failed to hit her, he subsequently bayoneted her. He was killed with the butt end of a rifle by a Belgian soldier who had seen him commit this murder ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... statement was a wilful untruth on James's part. He had distinctly caught a glimpse of Mrs. Butt's ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... she is discovered at grey dawn far below the region of snow, assailed and insulted by the meanest carrion; till a bullet whizzing through her heart, down she topples, and soon is despatched by blows from the rifle-butt, the shepherd stretching out his foe's carcass on the sward, eight feet from wing-tip to wing-tip, with leg thick as his own wrist, and foot broad ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... belts, black waist belt, and black military hat, with plume. By the side of the soldier, near the front of the stage, stands an officer, who is leading on the British. He holds a sword on his right shoulder, while the left grasps the butt of the musket of the soldier previously described. His body is bent forward, feet separated thirty inches, eyes fixed on Warren, countenance expressing energy and decision. Costume consists of a crimson coat, decorated with gold epaulets ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... the attacking line thinned out, stretched itself out and, continually seeking cover, tried to advance. A few minutes only and the first Russian trench line was reached. In storm, with bayonet and rifle butt, they came on and broke into the trenches. They were fighting now man for man. Then the artillery fire set in again. Again in the afternoon the infantry advanced in storm formation against the head of the village and the trenches flanking it. From them roared rifle ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... scarcely subsided, when the ancient Lysander opened one of the doors, and, after ringing the tiled floor with the butt of his javelin, and bowing statelywise, announced Sergius. Taking a nod from the Princess, he withdrew to ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... vex me, but I bind them down like slaving Calibans, by the magic of a pen; and glad shall I be to victimize my monsters, eager to dissipate my musquito-like tormentors; yea, I would "take up arms against a sea"—["Arms against a sea?" dearest Shakspeare, would that Theobald, or Johnson's stock-butt, "the Oxford Editor," had indeed interpolated that unconscionable image! It has been sapiently remarked by some hornet of criticism, that "Shakspeare was a clever man;" but cleverer far must that champion stand forth who wars with any prospect ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... bluffed. My grandfather reaches out of bed an' he rings that bell I tells you-all of, an' proceeds to convene his niggers. He commands 'em to cut down a big whitewood tree that lives down in the bottoms, hollow out the butt log for a trough, an' haul her up alongside ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... had served to complete her discomfiture; and presently, the storm slackening a little, hearing footsteps behind her, she wheeled round, her chin bravely in the air, but her heart galloping with nervous fright, while her fingers closed down on the butt of the small silver-plated revolver which rested in the right- hand waist pocket ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... often to miss opportunities of effective intervention. The sensitiveness of his nature appeared in his falling in love at first sight with a Highland girl whom Burke and he casually met during a tour. His loss of her made a painful impression on him.[406] The butt of an unkind fate, he seemed destined also to be the leader of lost causes; and the proud and penniless emigres found in him their ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... think that they could not get across the Alps till summer-time, and then had to hack and hew, and thrust and dig, and slash and climb, and charge and puff, and blow and swear, and parry and receive, and aim and dodge, and butt and run for their lives at the end, under an unaccustomed sun. No wonder they saw visions, the dear people! They are dead now, and we do not even know their ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc |
