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More "Skirmish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was at the window of the sheik's house, indignant at this insolence, turned to one of his aides de camp, who happened to be on duty, and said, "Croisier, take a few guides and drive those fellows away!" In an instant Croisier was in the plain with fifteen guides. A little skirmish ensued, and we looked on from the window. In the movement and in the attack of Croisier and his party there was a sort of hesitation which the General-in-Chief could not comprehend. "Forward, I say! Charge!" he exclaimed from the window, as if he could have ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... young men to offer their lives now for their country, but I thought I saw in you at least, Robert Lennox, the germ of a great scholar, and it would be a pity for you to lose your life in some forest skirmish." ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... be said to have begun on the 1st of June, when the Sirdar started for the front from Halfa, whither he had returned after the cavalry skirmish. Construction work on the railway came to a full stop. The railway battalions, dropping their picks and shovels, shouldered their Remington rifles and became the garrisons of the posts on the line of communications. On the 2nd of June ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... commencing anew our advance, we came upon a force of the enemy, entering into a heavy skirmish and ...
— Kinston, Whitehall and Goldsboro (North Carolina) expedition, December, 1862 • W. W. Howe
... meetings without exercising its undoubted prerogative of "blotting out" the scene of outrage "from the map of Ireland." On the second occasion, the wreckers of Conciliation Hall were met as they deserved, and after a short skirmish ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... both Jim Clark and Perry Maupin called out, "For God's sake, boys, don't shoot!" We halted among them without firing a shot. They then related to us their story. They were camped at the place hunting when the Snakes came upon them about 1 o'clock the previous evening. A skirmish had taken place, but without serious consequences on either side, when the Snakes made overtures for peace, saying they did not want to fight them, that they were only enemies of the white man. They proposed, in order to settle the terms of peace, that the two chiefs, Polina, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... b. The skirmish at Hubbardton was successful, but the Americans were not captured, and the delay to Burgoyne enabled St. Clair ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... more breath in useless entreaty, Brown seized the light form of Hester in his arms and ran with her to the ramparts. In the confusion of the general skirmish he was not observed—or, if observed, unheeded—by any one but Sally, who followed him in anxious haste, thinking that the man was mad, for there could be no possible way of escape, she thought, in that direction. She was wrong. There was method in Brown's madness. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... than the line to which it did belong. From Victoria to Charing Cross is a journey that occupies no considerable time, and Babington found himself at his destination with five minutes to wait. At twenty past his cousin arrived, and they made their way to the theatre. A brief skirmish with a liveried menial in the lobby, and they ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... the damsel overturned the frying-pan and went out by the way she had come, and the wall closed up again as before. Presently the cookmaid came to herself and seeing the four fish burnt black as coal, said, 'My arms are broken in my first skirmish!' And fell down again in a swoon. Whilst she was in this state, in came the Vizier, to seek the fish, and found her insensible, not knowing Saturday from Thursday. So he stirred her with his foot and she came to herself and wept and told him what had passed. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... Sheridan there was a never-ending "skirmish of wit," both verbal and practical; and the latter kind, in particular, was carried on between them with all the waggery, and, not unfrequently, the malice of school-boys. [Footnote: On one occasion, Sheridan having ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... layers of sandbags or deepening their dugouts. They become beavers rather than warriors, day laborers with spade and shovel rather than knights. There is no marching and countermarching; they have no use for the skirmish drill or the maneuver ground. Sharpshooters with clamped rifles watch for a target patiently as fishermen ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Earl, whose wife was at supper with the Queen, her half-sister, when Rizzio was murdered, fell on the field of Langside, smitten not by the hand of the enemy, but by the finger of God; how Colin, Earl and boy-General at fifteen, was dragged away by force, with tears in his eyes, from the unhappy skirmish at Glenlivit, where his brave Highlanders were being swept down by the artillery of Huntley and Errol,—destined to regild his spurs in future years ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... hardships of campaigning, into which they had been plunged without any gradual steps of breaking in, and much more terrible experiences were close at hand. Of these there came a slight foretaste in a skirmish with the enemy on the 24th near Jericho Ford on the North Anna River, resulting in the death of one man and the wounding of three others, the first of what was soon to be a portentous ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... is a beautiful lakelet, about five miles south of Loch Katrine. On its eastern side is the scene of Helen Macgregor's skirmish with the King's troops in Rob Roy; and near its head, on the northern side, is a waterfall, which is the original of Flora MacIvor's favorite retreat in Waverley. Aberfoyle is a village about a mile and a half to the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... You must not (sir) mistake my Neece, there is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick, & her: they neuer meet, but there's a skirmish of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Labienus meanwhile was preparing the same fate for the Treveri. Their first attack had been paralyzed, partly by the refusal of the adjoining German tribes to furnish them with mercenaries, partly by the fact that Indutiomarus, the soul of the whole movement had fallen in a skirmish with the cavalry of Labienus. But they did not on this account abandon their projects. With their whole levy they appeared in front of Labienus and waited for the German bands that were to follow, for ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... night's fighting had taken place. Half-way back near the poppy-patch, one glorious riot of red summer flowers, they met their regiment returning. They had done their work, the Turks had ceased attacking and the weary regiment which had been kept busy the long, hot days in this outpost skirmish had been relieved. The tired troopers trailed homewards, carelessly tramping the dewy wild poppy heads on their way. A bathe and a drink, and then ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... to his home, afar— Of the short and gallant fight, Of the noble deeds of the young La Var Whose life went out as a falling star In the skirmish of that night. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... ever having been used, a curious contrast to the always blazing hearths of English colleges. The latter, however, are more necessary, as in England there is usually no other source of warmth. A bitter skirmish of winds, carrying powdered snow dust, nipped round the gateways of the dormitories and Tait McKenzie's fine statue of Whitefield stood sharply outlined against a cold blue sky. I lunched at a varsity hash counter on Spruce Street and bought tobacco ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... still speaking with the Gaelic accent and now living in Vancouver, who when I saw him first wore the scarlet and gold in Steele's command. We were in action and McRae was shot rather severely in the advanced skirmish line. The ambulance men were on hand in a few minutes, but McRae refused to leave his position. He said he had half his cartridges left and would not budge till he used them. He stayed there till he used them, and years afterwards our gallant old Commander, General Strange, grizzled soldier ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... for libel. If he had used every term of reproach in every dictionary, I would not be tempted to a prosecution. I am highly flattered. It proves that I have succeeded in making the old man uncomfortable, and satisfies me. Just write a humorous sketch on the little skirmish, but don't give any names. The town will understand who is the principal character if you manage your article dexterously and with humour. Bring it to me to touch up when the ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... It reads, 'We promise to abstain from all liquors—as a beverage.' We had found in many instances in reform work that pledging to abstain from liquor 'as a beverage,' and leaving the victim to the unlimited use of it in physicians' prescriptions, was simply a skirmish with the devil's outposts, that the conflict, based upon these grounds, was short, and defeat almost sure; and the great fact remained that the innermost recesses of evil force and power were by this pledge still left unassailed. We found that this power of evil had largely entered the ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... 2d of June, when within three miles of Ridgeway, Col. Owen Starr in command of the advanced guard, came up with the advance of the enemy, mounted, and drove them some distance, till he got within sight of their skirmish line, which extended on both sides of the road about half a mile. By this time, O'Neill could hear the whistle of the railroad cars which brought the enemy from Port Colborne. He immediately advanced his skirmishers, and formed line of battle behind ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... smile looking upon Autobulus, he continued: But, sir, I perceive you design to have an airy skirmish with these images, and try the excellence of this old opinion, as you would a picture, by your nail. And Autobulus replied: Pray, sir, do not endeavor to cheat us any longer; for we know very well that you, designing to make Aristotle's opinion ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... first arrived at this pleasant spot, and his train stretched themselves on the lawn, rejoicing in being thus sheltered from the burning heat of the summer sun; and when the French came up, laughed at them, left beyond the shade, to be broiled in the sunbeams. This gave offence, a sharp skirmish took place, the English drew off to Vernon, and Philippe, mindful of the indignation he had felt in his boyhood under that tree, swore that no more parleys should be held under it, and his knights hewed ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... weekly fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin—which object he effected after a considerable skirmish with the priests. "The favourite object" (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) "of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was THE UTTER EXTERMINATION of all the ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... awfully fond of me before—I married. He bought it in the bazaar at Peshawur, and sent it home to me just as he was starting on one of those little frontier wars the accounts of which they keep out of the English papers. And he was killed, poor dear old boy, in some footy little skirmish. And this is all I've ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... and a packed jury. In two hours she would be hopelessly entangled, routed, defeated, convicted. Nothing could be more certain that this—so they thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours had strung out into days; what promised to be a skirmish had expanded into a siege; the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be surprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed away like a feather remained planted like a rock; and on top of all this, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... friendly darkness. His regiment was ordered to be ready with the earliest dawn to march up to the breach. That day, for the first time, there had been blood on his sword—there the sword lay, a spot on the chased hilt still. He had cut down one of the enemy in a skirmish with a sally party of the besieged and the look of the man as he fell, haunted him. He felt, for the time, that he dared not pray to the Father, for the blood of a brother had rushed forth at the stroke of his arm, and there was one ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... to come up with the main army. He went on September 1—the king promised to start next day. D'Alencon returned to the Maid, the king still loitered. At last d'Alencon brought him to St. Denis on September 7, and there was a skirmish ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of the estate, as he had likewise done for our other kindred the Thistlewoods, by getting appointed their guardian when their father was killed Chalgrove. But soldiers had been quartered on both families; there had been a skirmish at Walwyn with Sir Ralph Hopton, much damage had been done to the house and grounds, and there was no means of repairing it; all the plate had been melted up, there was nothing to show for it but a little oval token, with the King's head on one side, and the Queen's on the other; ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... THE MIST, one of the branches of the MacGregors, a wild race of Scotch Highlanders, who had a skirmish with the soldiers in pursuit of Dalgetty and M'Eagh among the rocks (ch. 14).—Sir W. Scott, Legend of Montrose (time, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Sevastopol Roads, and many weeks elapsed before a particle of cargo was taken out and landed for the benefit of the much neglected soldiers—such was the disorganized condition of the service. Macvie and his crew saw many a skirmish and several pitched battles during their five months' stay in the vicinity of wild wreck and ruin. In April, 1855, the cargo had been all landed and instructions were given to sail at once for Constantinople. In due course they arrived there, and received orders to go on to Smyrna, to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... leader of this array, I would give Prince Otto battle this day. Dost thou call thy followers men of war? Oh, Dagobert! thou whose ancestor On the neck of the Caesar's offspring trod, Who was justly surnamed "The Scourge of God". Yet in flight lies safety. Skirmish and run To forest and fastness, Teuton and Hun, From the banks of the Rhine to the Danube's shore, And back to the banks of the Rhine once more; Retreat from the face of an armed foe, Robbing garden and hen-roost where'er you go. Let the short alliance ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... matter of fact, their sex does few of them any good. The reverse. You see, an attractive woman—one who's attractive as a woman—can skirmish round and find some one to support her. But most of the working women—those who keep on at it—don't find the man. They're not attractive, not even at the start. After they've been at it a few years and lose ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew 55 So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, 60 And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such a harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... should have done under ordinary circumstances in a couple of years. I was moved from laager to laager along their fighting line, saw them at work with their rifles, saw them come in from more than one tough skirmish, bringing their dead and wounded with them, saw them when they had triumphed, and saw them when they had been whipped; saw them going to their farms, to be welcomed by wife and children; saw them leaving home with a wife's sobs in their ears, ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... said the Countess, "you are always unreasonable. But Gwen may see some sense in what I say. It's no use your looking amused, because that doesn't do any good." After which little preliminary skirmish she came to the point, speaking to Gwen in a half-aside, as to a fellow-citizen in contradistinction to an outcast, her father. "Why should not your old woman be put up at Mrs. Marrable's? They do ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... glorious life, Wingfield! When we chatted over the future at school we never dreamed of such a life as this, though some of us did talk of entering the army; but even then an occasional skirmish with Indians was ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... my state.— Parent to her, whose eyes my soul enthral, [To ABEN. Whom I, in hope, already father call, Abenamar, thy youth these sports has known, Of which thy age is now spectator grown; Judge-like thou sit'st, to praise, or to arraign The flying skirmish of the darted cane: But, when fierce bulls run loose upon the place, And our bold Moors their loves with danger grace, Then heat new-bends thy slacken'd nerves again, And a short youth runs warm ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... lay wrapt in sleeping and waking dreams, forgetful of the world about her, till her brother played the Wedding March upon her door on his way to lunch. The desire to avenge the sudden downfall of a lovely castle in the air roused Sylvia, and sent her down to skirmish with Mark. Before she could say a word, however, Prue began to talk in a steady stream, for the good soul had a habit of jumbling news, gossip, private opinions and public affairs into a colloquial ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... it came about that we were added to this gay party of breakfasters. We found ourselves, however, after a high skirmish of preliminary presentations, among the number to take our ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... of such great battles as the King of Prussia's, or the famous victories won by Marlborough over the French, this affair of Plassy may seem to be but a trifling skirmish, yet the country whose fate was decided upon that field, namely the Subahdarship of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, is equal in magnitude to the whole of King Frederic's dominions. In fact the blow struck that day resounded throughout the entire East Indies, procuring for the English an authority ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... With his usual hauteur he prepared to teach the ex-Marquis his place from the outset. He placed for him a stiff small chair; but the envoy quickly repelled the slight and vindicated the honour of the Republic by occupying the largest arm-chair available. After this preliminary skirmish things went more smoothly; but only the briefest summary of their conversation can be given here. Chauvelin assured Grenville of the desire of France to respect the neutrality of the Dutch, though they had fired on two French vessels entering the Scheldt. The opening of that ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... you can walk about and breathe God's air as you will. I wouldn't mind it so much if I had got that bullet in a big battle, say like Gettysburg, but to be knocked off one's horse as nice as you please in a beggarly little skirmish. It's too ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... take a coronet of our horse, As many lancers, and light armed knights As may suffice for such an enterprise, And place them in the grove of Caledon. With these, when as the skirmish doth increase, Retire thou from the shelters of the wood, And set upon the weakened Troyans' backs, For policy joined with chivalry Can never be put ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... 1300 students; also Garrison County High School, also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the Daily Banner and the Index; fifty miles of paved streets; largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, famous as writer of war-songs, best known of ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... halting process was resumed, and was kept up for many hours. We reached the railroad. Our company was sent forward to relieve the pickets. We were in the woods, and within a hundred yards of a feeble rivulet which, ran from west to east almost parallel with our skirmish-line; nothing could be seen in front but trees. Beyond the stream vedettes were posted on a ridge. The men of the company were in position, but at ease. The division was half a ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Seventh Regiment, Fitz James O'Brien, an Irishman by birth, who died at Baltimore in 1862 from the effects of a wound received in a cavalry skirmish, had contributed to the magazines a number of poems and of brilliant though fantastic tales, among which the Diamond Lens and What Was It? had something of Edgar A. Poe's quality. Another Irish-American, Charles G. Halpine, under the pen-name ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Booth at last perceived her to be so uneasy, that, as he saw no hopes of contriving any fiction to satisfy her, he thought himself obliged to tell her the truth, or at least part of the truth, and confessed that he had had a little skirmish with Colonel Bath, in which, he said, the colonel had received a slight wound, not at all dangerous; "and this," says he, "is all the whole matter." "If it be so," cries Amelia, "I thank Heaven no worse hath happened; but why, my dear, will you ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... his back buckle a blanket and a knapsack stuffed with a moderate supply of bread and raw salt pork; to these furnishings add a good-sized hunting-knife, a trusty musket and a small flask of spirits, and you have an average New Hampshire Ranger of the Seven Year's war, ready for skirmish or pitched battle; or, for the more common duty of reconnoitering the enemy's force and movements, of capturing his scouts and provision trains, and getting now and then a prisoner, from whom all information possible would be extorted; and, in short, for annoying ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... that the audience in the gallery and the delegates on the floor were with me, but unfortunately for my cause, the boss, who was always the dominating influence of the Convention, was against me, and so we lost in the spirited fight we made. In this first skirmish of my political career I made up my mind to meet defeat with good grace and, if possible, smilingly, and no sore spot or resentment over our defeat ever showed itself in my attitude toward the men who saw fit to oppose us. Evidently, the ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... composing the Duke's guard, a disguise probably assumed to execute the fatal commission of the Secret Tribunal. It is supposed that a party of the traitor Campo-Basso's men had been engaged in the skirmish in which the Duke fell, for six or seven of them, and about the same number of the Duke's guards, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... that the first real battle of the war was fought. For Lexington had after all been a mere skirmish, only of importance because it was the first in this long and deadly war. The forts on Lake Champlain had been taken without the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... answered the coxswain. "Mr. Nelson's in command," he added, turning to his companions. "Douse my to'-gallant top-lights but we'll have a skirmish now sure." ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... I was in Mordecai's villa, where I had been brought by some fishermen on the morning of the skirmish; and who, asking no questions, and being asked none, had deposited me, bandaged and bruised as I was, at the door of the villa. If I was not sensible of this service, it was, at least, a vast relief ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... repetitions than in arguments dropped and left at loose ends—the whole bewraying a man called unexpectedly to a post where in the act of adapting himself, of learning that he might teach, he had often to adjourn his main purpose and skirmish with difficulties—they will be the truer to life; and so may experimentally enforce their preaching, that the Art of Writing is ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... was due to the Maid. She had done everything, for without her nothing would have been done. She it was, who, in ignorance wiser than the knowledge of captains and free-lances, had converted an idle skirmish into a serious attack and had won ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... rosebud, and the young lady appealing for help to the other young ladies, a charming struggle ensued, terminating in the victory of the young gentleman, and the capture of the rosebud. This little skirmish over, the married lady, who was the mother of the rosebud, smiled sweetly upon the young gentleman, and accused him of being a flirt; the young gentleman pleading not guilty, a most interesting discussion took place upon the important ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... in his tone, and, tea-cup in hand, she laughed. A curious recklessness possessed her that night. She felt as if she had the strength to fling off the bands of tyranny. But her heart had begun to beat very fast. She realized that this was no mere skirmish. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of the second day, the negotiations having failed, Joseph notified Rawn that he should go into the valley the next morning in spite of all opposition. Accordingly at daylight, firing was heard on the skirmish line, and it was supposed that the Indians would at once assault the main line. Stray shots continued for some time, and, as all the attention of officers and men was concentrated on the front, a man called ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... met about twelve o'clock at night a captain in the Foot-Guards. Dalton commanded the gentleman to surrender, but persons of his cloth seldom parting with their money so peaceably, there happened a skirmish, in which Fulsom knocked him down, and afterwards they rifled him, taking some silver and a leaden shilling out of his pocket, together with a pocket book, which had some bank notes in it, and therefore was burnt by them for fear it should ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... at one indulging a childish skirmish of wits; but controlled as his face was, I could see the relief that overspread it at my admission. "My name is Starling. I have a packet for you, monsieur," and he handed ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... trust, for the players, unlike the local sheet, confine themselves to German and though at the beginning of winter they come with their wig-boxes to each hotel in turn, long before Christmas they will have given up the English for a bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; the German element seeking, in the interest of their actors, to raise a mysterious item, the Kur-taxe, which figures heavily enough already in the weekly bills, the English element stoutly ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to go with them—Mr. Tradition, Mr. Human Wisdom, and Mr. Man's Invention.' They were allowed to join, and were placed in positions of trust, the captains of the covenant being apparently wanting in discernment. They were taken prisoners in the first skirmish, and immediately changed sides and went over to Diabolus. More battles follow. The roof of the Lord Mayor's house is beaten in. The law is not wholly ineffectual. Six of the Aldermen, the grosser moral sins—Swearing, Stand to Lies, Drunkenness, Cheating, and others—are overcome and killed. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... manhood. The refutation of such talk comes not so well from men of the church or closet as from those who have drunk deepest of war's reality. A man of exuberant vitality, whose personal delight in physical strife colors his statesmanship, and who is exhilarated by the memory of a skirmish or two in Cuba, may talk exultantly of "glory enough to go round," and preach soldiering as a splendid manifestation of the strenuous life. But the grim old warrior whose genius and resolution split the Confederacy ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... this interval are a surprise for the enemy. That is something to be considered, as is the fact that so long as there is fighting at a halt, intervals in the skirmish lines are fit places for enemy bullets. Furthermore, these companies remain in the hands of their leaders. With the present method of reenforcing skirmishers—I am speaking of the practical method of the battlefield, not of theory—a company, starting ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... during the latter part of June; and almost immediately became aware that preparations were being made for an event of some importance. There was much scouting going on, although he and Dick took no part in it, much to their regret, and now and then there was a skirmish reported. The junction of Price's forces with those of Jackson and Rains, which Siegel hoped to prevent by a rapid march upon Neosho, took place at Carthage, as we have said; but in spite of this ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... quarter of the federal territory." Wilkinson's detachment had reached the village near daybreak. The advance columns of the Kentuckians charged impetuously into the town just as the Indians were crossing the Wabash, and a brief skirmish ensued from the opposite shores, during which several Indian warriors were killed and two Americans wounded. Many of the inhabitants of Kethtipecanunck were French traders and lived in a state of semi-civilization. "By the books, letters, and ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... shores the Russian army, their weapons flashing to the sinking sun. The hum of multitudes of men, the neighing of horses, the discordant clamours of a camp, filled the air. Advancing, Kosciuszko with his little troop had a skirmish with the Cossacks. The general and Niemcewicz were twice surrounded, and narrowly escaped with their lives. Then with the evening the Polish army came up, ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... that the boy might enter the service of the Sirkar as a wielder of the pen in an office in Kot Ghazi, and strive to become a leading munshi[9] and then a Deputy-Saheb, a babu in very fact, my father was wroth, and said the boy would be a warrior—yea, though he had to die in his first skirmish and ere his beard were grown. Then the woman wept and wearied my father until it seemed better to him that she should die and, being at peace, bring peace. No quiet would he have at Mekran Kot from my mother and his father, the Jam Saheb, while the woman lived, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... week after his mishap, in the evening, when Dickenson, just returned from a skirmish in which the Boers had been driven back, was seated beside his ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... ridge at right angles to and barring the line of advance, they were fired on by a party of 40 Boers, who had posted themselves in this position. The scouts, reinforced by the advanced guard, under Inspector Straker, drove off their assailants after a short skirmish, during which one trooper of ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... perverse, not to be driven at will, choosing their own times and seasons for travel. And hers, just now, proved obstinately home-staying—had no wings wherewith to fly, but must needs crawl a-fourfoot, around all manner of inglorious personal matters. For that skirmish with her ex-governess, though she successfully bridled her tongue and conquered by kindness rather than by smiting, had clouded her inward serenity, not only by its inherent uselessness, but by reminding her indirectly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the fact that we are made interested in the fate of Harry Sumner, a very young midshipman, alone in the world, who is wounded in a minor skirmish, and by Chapter 8 is met with in a sick-berth, fully expecting to die. But does he die, or was that but a childish fancy? We ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... men were hurrying up, in the chance of seeing a skirmish. The wife of one of them—old Mrs. Rivers—followed after them, calling to her man to come back. "I'll give it to 'ee, if 'ee don't come back. Come back, I tell 'ee." They passed on rapidly, pursued by the angry woman, while more shots banged and cracked ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... subdivision, indeed, the word maieutic is a metaphor of another kind, fully explained in Plato's Theaetetus: the maieutic dialogues, however, were supposed to resemble giving the rudiments of the art; as the peirastic were, to represent a skirmish, or trial of proficiency; the endeietic were, it seems, likened to the exhibiting a specimen of skill; and the anatreptic, to presenting the spectacle of a thorough defeat, or sound drubbing. The principal reason why we contented not ourselves with this account of the difference ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... minutiae of history, a story of the war as seen by a private in the ranks, not by one who, as a favored spectator, could survey the movements of a whole army at a glance, and hence could, must, individualize brigades, divisions, army corps. It is the war in field, woods, underbrush, picket-post, skirmish-line, camp, march, bivouac. During 1864 no memorandum was kept, and a diary kept during the spring of 1865 was lost, within a year after the close of the war. Hence I have depended on memory alone, aided in fixing dates, ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... any considerable number of men there, and it seems to me that, with the help of the fleet shelling the heights, they could have been reached very easily along the Juragua Railroad. If General Duffield had pressed on when he was there, it is probable that he would have met with only a thin skirmish-line, or, if the fleet had done its work, with ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... told me that, until taken by our men in a skirmish, her own comrades had not suspected her sex; that she was a slim, boyish, pretty thing; that His Excellency had caused inquiry to be made; and that it had been discovered that her lover was serving in Sir John's regiment ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... said he of Hereford. "Now I have a proposition: not a week passes but my retainers are in skirmish with those wildcats, the Welsh. Let the boy go and serve under my son, Lord Walter. He will put him in the way of ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... into execution, the merchants have not the courage to resist. Shortly after our arrival at Sincapore, the burial of one of the chiefs of the society took place; and such was the concourse assembled to witness the funeral, that it was thought advisable to call out the troops, as a skirmish was expected to take place. However, every thing passed ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... sentinel with loaded musket in the top of a tree; he was found nodding on his post, and having shot him they rushed in a body to the mouth of the cavern. The poor wretches within started from their beds, for they slept in the day time, and flew to arms; a skirmish ensued, in which another of them was killed and two soldiers wounded; but at length, finding their retreat cut off, the sentinel, who happened to be their captain and chief instigator, killed, and the force opposed to them too great to be overcome, they yielded themselves prisoners ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... son, and connives at the escape of the Hungarian. Conrad, who is banished from Prague, rejoins his former associates, the "black bands," which were the scandal and terror of the neighbouring provinces, and is killed in a skirmish with the regular troops. Siegendorf dies of a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... radiance like that of a full moon, only more beautiful. The captives could see that they were in the hands of quite a large band of Indians. More of the Alaskans had evidently arrived since the first skirmish. Among them was Zank, on whose evil face was an ugly grin at his success in betraying those who ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... financial embarrassment and exhaustion, and the shadow of a coming debt,—not the maiming of strong men and their violent removal from the future labors of peace, nor the emotional suffering of thousands of families whose hearts are in the field with their dear ones, tossed to and fro in every skirmish, where the balls slay more than the bodies which are pierced: not these evils alone,—nor the feverish excitement of eighteen millions of people, whose gifts and intelligence are all distraught, and at the mercy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... landing-place, yielding up in one hour what they had so hardly won. That night many of the soldiers strove to force their way into the boats, and order was with great difficulty restored; the next day they were harassed by a continual skirmish. Had it not been for the gallant conduct of "Captain March, who had a good company, and made the enemy give back," the confusion would probably have been irretrievable. When darkness put an end to the ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Horsley and Webster lived at Sissinghurst and Cranbrook for many years, and found there frequent subjects of rustic study. The Sissinghurst ruins are fragmentary, excepting the grand entrance, which is well preserved. Baker's Cross survives to mark the spot where the Anabaptists had a skirmish with their great enemy; and the legend is that he was killed there, though history asserts that this theological warrior died in his bed peaceably some time ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... skirmish—a bush-whacking fight for the possession of a swamp. A few companies were deployed as skirmishers, to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... between the woods. I did not see or hear of anybody being killed to-day, although there were a few wounded and some horses killed. Colonel Richmond and Colonel Webb were much disappointed that the inactivity of the enemy prevented my seeing the skirmish assume larger proportions, and General Cheetham said to me, "We should be very happy to see you, Colonel, when we are in our ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... so far; vestiges, traces of Cromwell's doings in the eastern counties; a successful skirmish at Grantham, a "notable victory" at Gainsborough. In August, Manchester takes command of the Association, with Cromwell for one of his colonels; in September, first battle of Newbury, and signing of the Solemn League ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... world trampled under a growing herd of such monsters and monstrous growths as your Food has made. We cannot and we cannot! I ask you, Sir, what can it be but war? And remember—this that has happened is only a beginning I This was a skirmish. A mere affair of police. Believe me, a mere affair of police. Do not be cheated by perspective, by the immediate bigness of these newer things. Behind us is the nation—is humanity. Behind the thousands who have died there are millions. Were it not for the fear of bloodshed, Sir, behind our first ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... fifteen rowing barges, were seen coming up with a fair wind. The flotilla then retreated two miles up the creek, formed there across it in line abreast, and awaited attack. The enemy's vessels could not follow; but their boats did, and a skirmish ensued which ended in the British retiring. Later in the day the attempt was renewed with no better success; and Barney claimed that, having followed the boats in their retreat, he had seriously disabled one of the large ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Portsmouth was besieged by land and sea by the Parliamentary forces, and soon came word that it was lost to the king through the neglect of Colonel Goring. The king removed to Derby and then to Shrewsbury. Prince Rupert was successful in a skirmish at Worcester. The two universities presented their money and plate to King Charles, but one cause of his misfortunes was the backwardness of some of his friends ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... the French and so proficient in irregular warfare that Phips found it difficult to land any considerable detachment in good order. Thirteen hundred of the English did succeed {129} in forming on the Beauport Flats, after wading through a long stretch of mud. There followed a preliminary skirmish in which three hundred French were driven back with no great loss, after inflicting considerable damage on the invaders. But though the English reached the east bank of the St Charles they could do no more. Phips wasted his ammunition ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... the Royalist troops were sturdily resisted, and Godolphin was slain, it is said, in the porch of the Three Crowns Inn. Clarendon writes of him: 'There was never so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room;' and in his account of the skirmish he says: 'As his advice was of great authority with all the commanders ... so he exposed his person to all action, travel, and hazard; and by too forward engaging himself in this last received a mortal shot by a ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Moravian towns, and was still advancing: The prisoners taken at the Cowpens were saved by a hair's-breadth accident, and Greene was retreating. His force, two thousand regulars, and no militia; Cornwallis, three thousand. General Davidson was killed in a skirmish. Arnold lies still at Portsmouth with fifteen hundred men. A French sixty-four gun ship and two frigates, of thirty-six each, arrived in our bay three days ago. They would suffice to destroy the British shipping here (a forty, four frigates, and a twenty), could ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... face of Woodville disappear from the bush, and then he crept away, rejoining Colonel Winchester and his comrades. Five minutes later the skirmish ceased by mutual consent, and each band fell back on its own army, convinced that both were ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... internecine campaign in Japanese history, but this is hardly borne out by the facts. Indeed, from what has been said above, it will be seen that Sekigahara was merely a prelude to Osaka, and that the former stood to the latter almost in the relation of a preliminary skirmish. It is from August, 1615, that we must date the commencement of the long period of peace with which Japan was blessed under Tokugawa rule. The year-name was ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... wildly into the air, and then pitching headlong to the earth, to rise no more. The next instant, every dark form had vanished, and their places of refuge were only distinguishable by the occasional reports of their guns, as the protracted skirmish gradually receded within the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... the ground to-day, boys, Tread each remembered spot. It will be a gleesome journey, On the swift-shod feet of thought; You can fight a bloodless battle, You can skirmish along the route, But it's not worth while to forage, There are ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Little of Carew's past month had been spent in the base camp at Springfontein. With hundreds of other men, he had gone galloping up and down the Free State on the slippery heels of De Wet, now being shot at by prowling Boers, now engaged in a lively skirmish from which he never made his exit totally unscathed, now riding for weary, dusty miles upon a scent which ultimately proved to be a false one. And, meanwhile, not a postbag came into camp without a letter for Carew, bearing ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... least, they should have a skirmish before they reached Kerreri, where they were to encamp; but, as they advanced, it was found that the Dervishes had fallen back from that line, and had joined the Khalifa's main force ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... disasters oftener than benefits." Few more words passed, and with another kiss the soldier scaled the wall and galloped away, the triple beat of his charger's hoofs sounding back into the maiden's ears like drum-taps. In a skirmish next day Colonel Howell was shot. He was carried to farmer Jarrett's house and left there, in spite of the old man's protest, for he was willing to give no shelter to his country's enemies. When Ruth saw her lover in this strait she was like to have fallen, but ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Parliament was provoked at the President's unguarded expression, baited him very fiercely, and then I made some pretence to go out, leaving Quatresous, a young man of the warmest temper, in the House to skirmish with him in my stead, as having experienced more than once that the only way to get anything of moment passed in Parliamentary or other assemblies is to exasperate the young ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... appropriate anecdotes. He might be quoted as a case in point by those who would explain all poetical imagination by the power of associating ideas. He is the poet of association. A proper name acts upon him like a charm. It calls up the past days, the heroes of the '41, or the skirmish of Drumclog, or the old Covenanting times, by a spontaneous and inexplicable magic. When the barest natural object is taken into his imagination, all manner of past fancies and legends ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... as well accept, as the principal issue of "the great game" that centers about Constantinople, the fact that the war begun twelve hundred years ago by the dusky Arabian camel-driver is still on. This Turco-Italian scrape is only one little skirmish in it. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... it seems, however, that he could never be content in any of the deserts; where, still clothed in armour, cap-a-pie, he endeavoured in vain to forget his belligerent propensities, for, every now and then, when he heard of a siege toward, he would suddenly sally forth, and having assisted in the skirmish, again seized with a fit of repentant devotion, would hurry back to some desolate retreat, and endeavour, by penitence and fasts, to obliterate the sin he ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... 13th US Infantry, Late Commanding Gatling Guns at Santiago. (Frontispiece) Map—Santiago and Surrounding Area. Skirmish Drill at Tampa. Skirmish Drill at Tampa. Field Bakery. Awaiting Turn to Embark. Baiquiri. The "Hornet." Waiting. Wrecked Locomotives and Machine Shops at Baiquiri. The Landing. Pack Train. Calvary Picket Line. San Juan Hill. Cuban Soldiers as ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... Year's,—one from friends in New York, and the other from a lady in Connecticut. I see that "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly" of December 20th has a highly imaginative picture of the muster-in of our first company, and also of a skirmish on the ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the plaintiff; and the defendant's ingenious plea struck off the record; and Hardie v. Hardie became the leading case. But in law one party often wins the skirmish and the other the battle. The grand fight, as I have already said, was ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... lingered outside the town on the road to Jaro, and General Miller marched his troops, in battle array, against them. A couple of miles out of the town, in the neighbourhood of La Paz, the entrenched enemy was routed after a slight skirmish. The booming of cannon was heard in Yloilo for some hours as the American troops continued their march to Jaro, only molested by a few occasional shots from the enemy in ambush. The rebel chief Fulion and another, Quintin Salas, held ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... same order, but the guides proving ignorant, the columns came in contact, and were thrown into confusion. A detachment of the enemy which had also become bewildered in the woods, fell in with the right column, at the head of which was lord Howe, and during the skirmish which ensued, Howe was killed. Abercromby ordered the army to march ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... rich fiefs and fat bourgs, whom losing doubtless benefits, as bleeding relieves a sick man. What suits the soldier does not befit the merchant. We live wholly amid risks and wagers. Every battle, every skirmish is a game whose stake is life. Whoever reflects long is sure to lose. If I could only describe, Herr Eysvogel, what it is to dash ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first a murmur, and then a din, betokened warlike preparations. Several parties of horse, under gallant and experienced leaders, formed themselves in different quarters, and departed in different ways, on expeditions of forage, or in the hope of skirmish with the straggling detachments of the enemy. Of these, the best equipped, was conducted by the Marquess de Villena, and his gallant brother Don Alonzo de Pacheco. In this troop, too, rode many of the best blood of Spain; for in that chivalric army, the officers vied ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were augmented and their cavalry had returned, he concluded, would be the greatest madness; and knowing the fickleness of the Gauls, he felt how much influence the enemy had already acquired among them by this one skirmish. He [therefore] deemed that no time for converting measures ought to be afforded them. After having resolved on these things and communicated his plans to his lieutenants and quaestor in order that he might not suffer any opportunity ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... to resent the order, feeling that it was nice to be accused of delaying their progress; but the mirthful look on Vince's face disarmed him, and after a skirmish and spar to get rid of a little of their effervescing vitality, consequent upon the stimulating effects of the glorious air, they broke into a trot and went past a large patch where a man was busy hoeing away at a grand crop of ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... retreated whilst we reloaded. They entered the thicket again and as soon as they came near enough we fired. Again they retreated and again they rushed into the thicket and fired. We returned their fire and a skirmish ensued between two of their men and one of ours, who was killed by having his throat cut. This was the only man we lost, the enemy having had three ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... eighteenth of the month our cavalry relieved the infantry on the line of the Rapidan, and on the nineteenth, in a sharp skirmish between Stuart's and Bayard's forces, Captain Charles Walters, of the Harris Light Cavalry, was killed. This officer was very popular in the regiment, and his death cast a gloom over all. Wrapped in a soldier's ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... pursues her from branch to branch, quite to the top of the cedar. Struck on the shoulder with a blow of the claw, she also recoils, but descending, and declaring herself vanquished in the first skirmish, immediately gives over the combat, or rather the sport, for she has seen ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... very sharp tongue was sent to talk to the minister's wife. The war-cloud thickened, the pickets were driven in, and then a skirmish, and after a while all the batteries were opened, and each side said that the other side lied, and the minister dropped his pocket-handkerchief and showed his claws as long as those of Nebuchadnezzar after he had been ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... contented himself with looking on and chaffing the men, diversifying the amusement by an occasional skirmish with Stanley, who had armed himself with a ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... rushed forth with his servants and guests; a skirmish soon disturbed the legal process which had been instituted, and one or two of both parties were wounded and slain before the wife of Thorarin and the female attendants could separate the fray by flinging their mantles over the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... approach of the French advanced guards an incessant skirmish was maintained during the whole morning with the Prussians, who, after losing many men, were compelled to yield to superior numbers. General Zieten, finding it impossible, from the extent of frontier he had to cover, to cheek the advance of the French, fell back towards Fleurus by the road to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... human nature is very strange. Thousands of people started to leave Manhattan, but there were other thousands during that first skirmish who did their best to try and get to the neighborhood of Patton Place to see what was going on. They added greatly to the confusion. Traffic soon was stalled everywhere. Traffic officers, confused, frightened by the news which was bubbled at them from every ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... possession of the country with five hundred men, it is wonderful that they met with no difficulties on their route; but the reputation of the Colonnas had struck terror into the hostile camp. They entered Rome without having had a single skirmish with the enemy. Stefano Colonna, in his quality of senator, occupied the Capitol, where he assigned apartments to Petrarch; and the poet was lodged on that famous hill which Scipio, Metellus, and Pompey, had ascended in triumph. ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... followed by them, went slowly and deliberately on, till clear of the murmuring and sullen foe; then putting spurs to their steeds, these faithful warriors rode fast to rejoin their king; overtook Hilyard on the way, and after a fierce skirmish, a blow from Hastings unhorsed and unhelmed the stalwart Robin, and left him so stunned as to check further pursuit. They at last reached the king, and gaining, with him and his party, the town of Lynn, happily found one English and two Dutch vessels ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of approving yells, and all save Sadau jumped up to look for sticks and stones. Parr laid his hand on the club he had borne in the skirmish that day. ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... the hands of the royalist Yanez, whose bloodthirsty followers beheaded eighty soldiers who had been left behind, killed men, women and children, and destroyed the whole city by fire. A few days later this man was killed in a skirmish, and thus ended the life of a fiend whose name may be placed at the side of those of Boves and Morales, because of his delight in committing crimes. In the rest of the country the royalists were conducting guerrilla warfare, ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... that was burnt nearly to death, as if his fingers were fairy's, and afterwards I heard that he'd been the bravest of the brave in some awful battles in Burmah, or somewhere like that. Indeed, he got so wounded with cutting in to carry out the men as they dropped—it was what they call a skirmish, I think, not a proper battle where they have ambulances and carrying people and everything ready, I suppose—that he's had to leave off ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... October 31.—Skirmish at the Hotel de Ville. Blanqui, Flourens and Delescluze want to overthrow the provisional power, Trochu and Jules Favre. I refuse to ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... to be driven at will, choosing their own times and seasons for travel. And hers, just now, proved obstinately home-staying—had no wings wherewith to fly, but must needs crawl a-fourfoot, around all manner of inglorious personal matters. For that skirmish with her ex-governess, though she successfully bridled her tongue and conquered by kindness rather than by smiting, had clouded her inward serenity, not only by its inherent uselessness, but by reminding her indirectly of an ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... that the rulers of Venice were enlisting soldiers, he entered their service; and before he had had much experience of that calling he was made Captain of two hundred men. The army of the Venetians had advanced by that time to Zara in Sclavonia; and one day, when a brisk skirmish took place, Morto, desiring to win a greater name in that profession than he had gained in the art of painting, went bravely forward, and, after fighting in the melee, was left dead on the field, even as he had always been in name,[13] at the age of forty-five. ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... our house on Saturdays, my father allers throws a skirmish line of niggers across the road, with orders to capture my grandfather as he comes romancin' along. An' them faithful servitors never fails. They swarms down on my grandfather, searches him out of the saddle an' packs him exultin'ly ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... boatswain to steer alongside. She was obeyed; but as she was stepping from one boat to the other, several of those in the cutter jumped up as if to detain her, while her friends in the launch held out their hands to assist her on board. For a moment it seemed as if there was to be a regular skirmish. ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... while the army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon avow his identity were dead. In the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... strain which we are accustomed to associate with him. On the contrary, his attacks at times were pitched in another key, and he would frequently exchange sarcastic jests in a way that we should regard as incompatible with decency, and almost with self-respect. On one occasion, for instance, he had a skirmish of wit, which was vociferously applauded by an admiring senate: "You have bought a house," says Clodius. (We quote from Forsyth.) "One would think," rejoins Cicero, "that you said I had bought a jury." "They did not believe you on your ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... soldiers willing as mine, And I sole leader of this array, I would give Prince Otto battle this day. Dost thou call thy followers men of war? Oh, Dagobert! thou whose ancestor On the neck of the Caesar's offspring trod, Who was justly surnamed "The Scourge of God". Yet in flight lies safety. Skirmish and run To forest and fastness, Teuton and Hun, From the banks of the Rhine to the Danube's shore, And back to the banks of the Rhine once more; Retreat from the face of an armed foe, Robbing garden and hen-roost where'er you go. Let the short alliance betwixt us cease, I ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... free burgess of Campedene should come into the lord's amerciament he should be quit for 12d. unless he should shed blood or do felony. Probably Earl Ralph also granted the town a portman-mote, for the account of a skirmish in 1273 between the men of the town and the county mentions a bailiff and implies the existence of some sort of municipal government. In 1605 Campedene was incorporated, but it never returned representatives to parliament. Camden speaks of the town as a market famous for stockings, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... what's the row?' said Maulevrier marching into his grandmother's room with a free and easy air. He was prepared for a skirmish, and he meant to take ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Grasse had not had his mind so centred on the idea of avoiding a battle, there is little doubt that he might have brought an overwhelming force to bear on them. Luckily for Rodney, he contented himself with sending his second in command, Vaudreuil, to skirmish with them, passing and repassing Hood's division at long range and firing at masts and rigging in the hope of disabling them for further pursuit. Hood returned the fire, doing as much damage as he suffered, and towards midday the rest of the English had worked ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... (if in close order) or, To the rear, march (if in skirmish line). Extend the arm vertically above the head; carry it laterally downward to the side and swing it several times between the ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... followed at Westminster. Harry had managed to secure part of the estate, as he had likewise done for our other kindred the Thistlewoods, by getting appointed their guardian when their father was killed Chalgrove. But soldiers had been quartered on both families; there had been a skirmish at Walwyn with Sir Ralph Hopton, much damage had been done to the house and grounds, and there was no means of repairing it; all the plate had been melted up, there was nothing to show for it but a little oval token, with the King's ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one of the famous Thessalian witches, as to the prospects of his father's success against Caesar, during the campaign that ended in the disastrous defeat at Pharsalia. It is decided that a dead man must be called back to life, and Erichtho goes out to where a recent skirmish has taken place, and chooses the body of a man whose throat had been cut, which was lying there unburied. She drags it back to her cave, and fills its breast with warm blood. She has chosen a man recently dead, because his words are more likely to be clear and distinct, which ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... and other English captains with between eight and ten thousand English lying half a league from Senlis between our people and the said city on a little stream, in a village called Notre Dame de la Victoire. That evening our people skirmished with the English near to their camp and in this skirmish were people taken on each side, and of the English Captain d'Orbec and ten or twelve others, and people wounded on both sides: when night fell each retired to their ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... Vavel returned from his skirmish with De Fervlans's demons, he sent his betrothed at once to Raab, with instructions not to separate herself ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... guard. The main body passed the night in the wood of Serrelemi. A fog fortunately rising, enabled them to advance to a hamlet called La Majere, where a shower of rain gave them a much-needed supply of water. On the 17th of May, 1690 they had a sharp skirmish in the village and churchyard of Pramol. They killed fifty-seven, and captured the commandant, from whom Arnaud learnt that in three days Victor Amadeus would have to decide as to the question of continuing his alliance with France, or of uniting with England ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... thousand men to make an advance into Eastern Kentucky by way of Knoxville, East Tennessee, through Cumberland Gap to Cumberland Ford, threatening Camp Dick Robinson. On the 19th of that month the advance of Zollicoffer's command had a spirited skirmish with the "Home Guards" at Barboursville Bridge. These troops were compelled to retire, which they did, to Rock Castle Hills, where they were re-enforced by two Kentucky regiments under Colonel T. T. Garrard, of the Seventh Kentucky Infantry, ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... capsize him; while the Hawk kept carelessly eluding the assaults, now inclining on one side, now on the other, with a stately grace, never retaliating, but seeming rather to enjoy the novel amusement, as if it were a skirmish in balloons. During all this, indeed, he scarcely seemed once to wave his wings; yet he soared steadily aloft, till the Crows refused to follow, though already higher than I ever saw Crows before, dim against the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... me that I must be elbowed into my skirmish by the most unexpected of chances, but Nais was firmly minded that there should be no fight, if courage on her part could turn it. "Come out with me," she whispered, "and keep distant from the light ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... ahead of it, and the French and English never fought any such campaign as that when Grant came down through the Wilderness. What's that about the French riding into the sunken road? I'm willin' to bet it was nothing but a skirmish beside Pickett's ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from Belogorsk. My only pastime consisted in military sorties. Thanks to Pougatcheff I had an excellent horse, and I shared my meager pittance with it. I went out every day beyond the ramparts to skirmish with Pougatcheff's advance guards. The rebels had the best of it; they had plenty of food and were well mounted. Our poor cavalry were in no condition to oppose them. Sometimes our half-starved infantry went into the field; but the depth of the snow hindered them from acting successfully ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... read many books on the hillside. In his fourteenth year, he became a shepherd and tended his first flock at Boghead, parish of Auchinleck, Ayrshire, in the immediate vicinity of Airsmoss, the scene of the skirmish, in 1680, between a body of the soldiers of Charles II. and a small party of Covenanters, when their minister, the famous Richard Cameron, was slain. The traditions which still floated among the peasantry around the tombstone of this indomitable pastor of the persecuted ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... after such a skirmish had swept it from end to end, a dark figure glided from door to door. He had not fought; he seemed unwilling to do so, for at the sound of approaching conflict he was in readiness to retreat and hide himself. More than one wounded man in the roadway ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... the clear vision to know that in this skirmish she was defeated. She had thought her father would follow her; she knew that she would not go without him. At least not yet. In a moment her anger would get the best of her; she went quickly to the door and outside. Howard came ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... wuz kilt in de battle fought at Poison Springs, near Camden. We got separated in de skirmish an' I nevah did see him again. Libin' at that time wuz hard because dere wuz no way to communicate, only to sen' messages by horseback riders. It wuz months befo' I really knew dat mah mahster ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... windows of the palazzos, and all those other architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... of the time, it was no unfrequent custom for the younger or more dissolute of the nobles, in small and armed companies, to parade the streets at night, seeking occasion for a licentious gallantry among the cowering citizens, or a skirmish at arms with some rival stragglers of their own order. Such a band had Irene and her companion now chanced ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... him to accept defeat, in this very first skirmish with his old enemy, Bill Broome, and harder still to lose his treasure that was to be the sinews of war in the campaign that had already opened. But Jim soon pulled ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... a skirmish. The date of the beginning of the real contest was Sept. 12, 1786, when, it was voted "to build a new meeting-house in the centre of the town, or in the nearest convenient place to the centre." It ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... hastened away, uttering frightful screams, believing that they should thus frighten the strangers and render them powerless. The Makololo, however, laughed at their threats, but the doctor, fully believing that a skirmish would take place, ordered an ox to be killed to feast his men, following the plan Sebituane employed ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... armed friends approaching from the rear, determined to go on occupying. This, in a spirit of great courage, with slowly increasing forces, against rapidly increasing forces, they did, until the brisk and pliant skirmish which opened the business of the day had grown so in weight and ferocity that it was evident to the least astute that the decisive battle of the New ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... made good use of the weapons thus furnished them by the "neutral" British. A party of Delawares and Shawnees, after a successful skirmish with the Americans, brought to McKee six of the scalps they had taken; and part of the speech of presentation at the solemn council where they were received by McKee, ran: "We had two actions with [some of Wayne's troops who were ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... by a forced march attempted to seize Bruges. His effort, however, was foiled, as was a later attempt to capture Hulst, when Frederick Henry and the States sustained a great loss in the death of the gallant Henry Casimir of Nassau, who was killed in a chance skirmish at the age of 29 years. This regrettable event caused a vacancy in the stadholderates of Friesland and Groningen with Drente. A number of zealous adherents of the House of Orange were now anxious that Frederick Henry should fill ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... flight had put him considerably ahead of his pursuers. But he was not yet to escape. The cavalry of Horry, and the riflemen of M'Cottry, galled him at every step in flank and rear. When he reached Sampit bridge a last skirmish took place, which might have terminated in the complete defeat of the enemy, but for the cowardice of a Lieut. Scott, of Horry's detachment. Watson was attacked fiercely in the flank and rear by the whole force ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... from this scene in which Ascalon presented its better side, to skirmish along the street running behind Peden's establishment. It might be well, for future exigencies, to fix as much of the geography of the place in his mind as possible. He wondered if there had been a back-door traffic in any of the saloons last night as he passed long ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... A skirmish took place within the church during the Civil War and marks are pointed out in the Jacobean woodwork of the pulpit as those of bullets fired during the fight. Doubts have been thrown upon this, and the damage placed to the account of amateur decorators ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... the affray. He therefore increased the speed of his horse, so that not above five or six of his followers could keep up with him. At length he reached a little hill, at the descent of which, surrounded by a semi-circular sweep of a small stream, lay the plain which had been the scene of the skirmish. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... for many years, and found there frequent subjects of rustic study. The Sissinghurst ruins are fragmentary, excepting the grand entrance, which is well preserved. Baker's Cross survives to mark the spot where the Anabaptists had a skirmish with their great enemy; and the legend is that he was killed there, though history asserts that this theological warrior died in his bed peaceably some time afterwards ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... stands out in the history of the English-speaking people, admired and unquestioned. He was neither a great statesman, nor a great soldier; he was not a brilliant orator, nor a famous writer. He fell bravely in an unimportant skirmish at Chalgrove Field, fighting for freedom and what he believed to be right. Yet he fills a great place in the past, both for what he did and what he was, and the reason for this is of high importance. John Hampden was a gentleman, with all the advantages that the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... to church and took Edith, who was glad neither to walk nor to have to skirmish for a seat. Isa walked with Emily and me, and so we made up our five for our seat, which, to our dismay, is in the gallery, but, happily for my mother, the stairs are easy. The pews there are not quite so close ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reign were supported by the weekly fines levied upon the Catholics for non-attendance upon established worship. The Archbishop of Dublin went himself at the head of a file of musketeers, to disperse a Catholic congregation in Dublin—which object he effected after a considerable skirmish with the priests. "The favourite object" (says Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, and dignitary of the Irish Church) "of the Irish Government and the English Parliament, was THE UTTER EXTERMINATION of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland." The great rebellion took place in this ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... would resume that canticle, or legendary fragment. I always suspected there was a skirmish of cavalry before the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... rode forward, and one hundred and fifty followed them, bursting from their tepees like an explosion, and rushing along quickly in skirmish-line. Two Whistles rode beside his speeding prophet, and saw the red sword waving near his face, and the sun in the great still sky, and the swimming, fleeting earth. His superstition and the fierce ride put him in a ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... the lecturer at first thought it necessary to be introduced, and at each place McCarthy had to skirmish around and find the proper person. At Red Dog, on the Stanislaus, the man selected failed to appear, and Denis had to provide another on short notice. He went down into the audience and captured an old fellow, who ducked and dodged but could not escape. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... me was rather an astounding thing to say, and if he intended to disable me in the first skirmish he succeeded admirably, for my only answer was a laugh; and the more I laughed the more foolish and slow-witted I felt. I wanted to run to Mary's aid, but I did not know how, and while I was rummaging my brain for some way to meet him, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many Nightingales: and far and near In wood and thicket over the wide grove They answer and provoke each other's songs— With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... march. They were commanded by the Lord Justice Butler, the Baron of Offally, the Lord Arnold Poer, and other magnates; but so divided were these proud Peers, in authority and in feeling, that, after a severe skirmish with Bruce's vanguard, in which some knights were killed on both sides, they retreated before the Hiberno-Scottish army, which continued its march unmolested, and took possession ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... would explain all poetical imagination by the power of associating ideas. He is the poet of association. A proper name acts upon him like a charm. It calls up the past days, the heroes of the '41, or the skirmish of Drumclog, or the old Covenanting times, by a spontaneous and inexplicable magic. When the barest natural object is taken into his imagination, all manner of past fancies and legends crystallise around ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... science ever shows her face, Few sparks of genius, and no spark of grace; There sceptics rest, a still-increasing throng, And stretch their widening wings ten thousand strong; Some in close fight their dubious claims maintain; Some skirmish lightly, fly, and fight again; Coldly profane, and impiously gay, Their end the same, though various in their way. When first Religion came to bless the land, Her friends were then a firm believing band; To doubt was then to plunge in guilt extreme, ...
— The Library • George Crabbe
... personage. Hundreds of Moors come to Tangier every year and embark for Mecca. They go part of the way in English steamers, and the ten or twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They take with them a quantity of food, and when the commissary department fails they "skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From the time they leave till they get home again, they never wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone from five to seven months, and as they do not change their clothes during all that time, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... each a glaive had pendant by his side, Their bows and quivers at their shoulders hung, Their horses well inured to chase and ride, In diet spare, untired with labor long; Ready to charge, and to retire at will, Though broken, scattered, fled, they skirmish still; ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... day, December 31, he added, in a postscript, that flying companies of the French were at that moment before Guisnes; part of the garrison had been out to skirmish, but had been driven in by numbers; the whole country was ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... sea he discovered two uninhabited islands, whose situations are not well known. He afterwards crossed the Line; discovered the Ladrone Islands; and then proceeded to the Phillipines, in one of which he was killed in a skirmish with ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... Ohio followed Johnston, as he gave way before Buell, and many times did they skirmish and fight with ubiquitous Morgan's Men. Several times Harry and Dan sent each other messages to say that each was still unhurt, and both were in constant horror of some day coming face to face. Once, indeed, Harry, chasing a rebel and firing at him, saw him ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... for it had been premeditated for some months. There was a woman in the case. Hamilton had done more than conquer General Gates on that Northern trip; at Albany, he had met Elizabeth, daughter of General Schuyler, and won her after what has been spoken of as "a short and sharp skirmish." Both Alexander and Elizabeth regarded "a clerkship" as quite too limited a career for one so gifted; they felt that nothing less than commander of a division would answer. How to break loose—that ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Amid this skirmish Jonathan greatly distinguished himself. Drawing his hanger he rode amongst the crowd, trampled upon those most in advance, and made an attempt to seize their leader, in whom he ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... then, we masters of packets have occasion to turn our hands to a good many odd jobs. As soon as the ship is snug, I shall certainly take a look at the honest fellow. Pray, sir, what became of Mr. Dodge in the skirmish?" ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... out. We agreed to this, of course. Then the Castalian general said that we must have some kind of a battle or he would be afraid to go home, and we cooked up a nice little battle. When the men got into it, however, it turned out to be quite a skirmish, and a number were killed on both sides. Then they surrendered and we went in and put a guard at the gates, and wouldn't let the niggers in. You wouldn't believe it, but they actually kicked at it. They're an unreasonable, sulky lot ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... Cross is a journey that occupies no considerable time, and Babington found himself at his destination with five minutes to wait. At twenty past his cousin arrived, and they made their way to the theatre. A brief skirmish with a liveried menial in the lobby, and they were ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... man, about thirty years of age, with a wide pink baldness running so far back from his prominent temples and forehead that when he tipped his face toward the blue joists overhead, enjoying the fatigue of a well-filled day, his polished skull sent back the firelight brilliantly. There was a light skirmish of conversation going on, in which he took no part. No one seemed really acquainted with another. Presently a man sitting next on the left of him put away a quill toothpick in his watch-pocket, looked up into the face of the standing man, and said, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... to attack them in force," he said, "it would be imprudent upon every hand. In the first place they would have the advantage of us, of course, in a mountain skirmish." ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... islands. But the excitement on the side of the Expedition was quite as keen. The sudden shots and the wild shouts made the men in the boats in rear imagine that the fun was really about to begin, and that a skirmish through the wooded isles would be the evening's work. The mistake was quickly discovered. They were glad of course to meet their Red River friends; but somehow, I fancy, the feeling, of joy would certainly not ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... purple being an ornate and indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan Gluck's Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and with a beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its repository, the pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... unconstitutional methods. The assertion which the House of Lords made at the end of last year is an intolerable assertion. I believe the country is altogether unprepared for it; and I wonder it was thought worth while to risk an institution which has lasted so many centuries, in the very skirmish line of Party warfare. ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the French advanced guards an incessant skirmish was maintained during the whole morning with the Prussians, who, after losing many men, were compelled to yield to superior numbers. General Zieten, finding it impossible, from the extent of frontier he had to cover, to cheek the advance ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... privateers, with powder, meat, bread, fruit, anything that they could bring, were pouring out from the Dorsetshire harbours. Sir George Carey had come from the Needles in time to share the honours of the last battle, 'round shot,' as he said, 'flying thick as musket balls in a skirmish on land.' ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... upon him the attention of all Europe. In the night between the seventh and eighth of August, colonel Malachowsti, one of mareschal Lehwald's officers, marched to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, when a skirmish happened, which lasted near two hours, between his advanced ranks and a Russian detachment three times stronger than the Prussians. The Russians were repulsed, and fled into the woods, after having fifty men killed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... were better than a perpetual skirmish; but, notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a profound distrust and even terror ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... H. Parker, 13th US Infantry, Late Commanding Gatling Guns at Santiago. (Frontispiece) Map—Santiago and Surrounding Area. Skirmish Drill at Tampa. Skirmish Drill at Tampa. Field Bakery. Awaiting Turn to Embark. Baiquiri. The "Hornet." Waiting. Wrecked Locomotives and Machine Shops at Baiquiri. The Landing. Pack Train. Calvary Picket Line. San Juan Hill. Cuban Soldiers as ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... toward the coast for it, since only on tidewater shores may it be found; and with a pleasant feeling of excitement I wondered if he would also bring back news of—her; some sign, a thin line of smoke above the trees! It was not the excitement of battle, or a skirmish; no, it was the approaching reality of a dream that had gripped me with soft fingers since the moment I entered this forest. Since my eyes had rested on that pool, my heart had called afresh for her. The arms of the place were ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... help was not wanted so much at de 'lection boxes, so I got to roamin' 'round to fust one place and then another. But wheresomever I go, I kept a thinkin' 'bout Rosa and de ripe may-pops in de field in cotton pickin' time. I landed back to de Barber place and after a skirmish or two wid de old folks, marry de gal de Lord always 'tended for me to marry. Her name was Rosa Ford. You ask me if she was pretty? Dat's a strange thing. Do you ever hear a white person say a colored woman is pretty? I never have but befo' God when I was trampin' ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... agreed Tom, much relieved, for he wanted to be pulling in the fish rather than doing the drudgery. "I'll look after these two holes, Jack, and you skirmish around the others. And by jinks! if I ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... New Orleans they wanted in the line of guard and special duty. Four hours of hard drilling five mornings in each week, special duty in the afternoon, then half of every night fighting mosquitoes. May was very hot. I believe that the battalion and skirmish drills, without stopping to rest or to get water, were very injurious to ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... very strange. Thousands of people started to leave Manhattan, but there were other thousands during that first skirmish who did their best to try and get to the neighborhood of Patton Place to see what was going on. They added greatly to the confusion. Traffic soon was stalled everywhere. Traffic officers, confused, frightened by the news which was bubbled at them from every side, ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... 12. As soon as our Squadron fitted out against the Famous Baffaw Gianur, Cogia, appear'd off Dasna and Bengan, with two thousand five hundred Moorish Horse, and a thousand Foot, and skirmish'd a little with his Squadron, he abandon'd both those Places, and fled to the Island of Serby in the Territories of Tunis; But the Bey of that Place having deny'd him Shelter, he sail'd farther away, in a French Barque, we know not whether; and his own Galleys ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... "you are always unreasonable. But Gwen may see some sense in what I say. It's no use your looking amused, because that doesn't do any good." After which little preliminary skirmish she came to the point, speaking to Gwen in a half-aside, as to a fellow-citizen in contradistinction to an outcast, her father. "Why should not your old woman be put up at Mrs. Marrable's? They do this sort of thing there. However, perhaps Mrs. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... about. They may be able to stir up the new crop of rebels into doing something desperate. Raw guerillas, with a leaven of hard-bitten cases, are always a source of danger. But I think that we worked our own salvation in the skirmish this morning. They would hardly believe that we should have such a small force with so many guns. No; our luck was in to-day, when they discovered us instead of Twine's squadron. We shall make something out of the 20th. They are the right stuff: that squadron went for that rise to-day ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... lameness would not permit him to reach his root fortress again on foot, he determined to ride the animal in spite of the fact that on horseback he would be in much greater danger of discovery by the Indians than on foot. The horse had a bridle on, and had evidently escaped, probably during a skirmish, from its white ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... the skirmish of Edge Hill were, indeed, respectable, though most of them seem to have been incurred after the true fighting ceased, but with that exception, and especially upon the line of the Thames itself, the losses were ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... at the crumbled bread, He had provided slyly, bent on fun: The swans meanwhile, majestic, puffed, and slow, Came proudly into action; but alas, To small result; for by mischance the spoil Through dexterous skirmish fell to meaner bills. "Our bread is all cast on the waters now, And well I'd like to know how many days It must bide there before 'tis found again!"— Some fool's dull joke repeated: good man, he, Unversed in deep text comment, never dreamed What time ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... themselves masters without difficulty of the suburbs of Lisbon, in which they found great riches; but the entreaties of don Antonio, and his anxiety to preserve the good will of the people, caused the general, to restrain his men from plunder. Essex distinguished himself in every skirmish; and, knocking at the gates of Lisbon itself, challenged the governor, or any other of equal rank, to single combat: but this romantic proposal was prudently declined; and though the city was known to be weakly guarded, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... pleasing to the man as it was dishonourable in the prince; in which his frivolous nature found and took vengeance for the gravity and burthen of the afternoon. He chuckled as he thought of it: and Greisengesang heard him with wonder, and attributed his lively spirits to the skirmish of the morning. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A.M., 2d of June, when within three miles of Ridgeway, Col. Owen Starr in command of the advanced guard, came up with the advance of the enemy, mounted, and drove them some distance, till he got within sight of their skirmish line, which extended on both sides of the road about half a mile. By this time, O'Neill could hear the whistle of the railroad cars which brought the enemy from Port Colborne. He immediately advanced his skirmishers, and formed line of battle behind temporary breastworks made of rails, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... flight, George was thankful that the girl had disappeared. He perceived that he had too quickly eliminated Percy from the list of the Things That Matter. Engrossed with his own affairs, and having regarded their late skirmish as a decisive battle from which there would be no rallying, he had overlooked the possibility of this annoying and unnecessary person following them in another cab—a task which, in the congested, slow-moving traffic, must have been a perfectly simple one. Well, here ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... reader tired of the short marches and frequent halts of the Seventh? Remember, gentle reader, that you must be schooled by such alphabetical exercises to spell bigger words—skirmish, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... thing; he knew that his party had been watched by the savages for several days, as they had noticed several times, during the past week, objects which they believed to have been wolves, moving on the summits of the divides, but after their unfortunate skirmish with the Indians they felt sure that what they had taken to be ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... days the green swamp or morass, called by the natives of Auld Reekie the Nor Loch; it was a dark gloomy day, and a thin veil of mist was beginning to settle down upon the brae and the morass. I could perceive, however, that there was a skirmish taking place in the latter spot. I had an indistinct view of two parties—apparently of urchins—and I heard whoops and shrill cries: eager to know the cause of this disturbance, I left the Castle, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... and dashed on, without thinking of the fate of the rest. On horseback, with a loaded revolver in hand, I had to keep guard at the side of the ambulance carts, to keep the marauders away from the wounded. Once I had a narrow escape from being captured by the Bavarians. It was at a skirmish of artillery. A couple of French and a couple of German pieces were in position. The French were quickly disabled by the Germans, and even the head gunner was severely wounded. I took him on my shoulders, and got him out of the line of ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... temporise and compromise, and try to lead a comfortable and quiet life. I repeat, Lester, that this fellow is a great criminal, and that he finds life infinitely more engrossing than either you or I. I hope I shall meet him some time—not in a little skirmish like this, but in an out-and-out battle. Of course I'd be routed, horse, foot and dragoons—but it certainly would be interesting!" and he looked at ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... to do," declared Bud. "Some of us have got to go down there and stop 'em from crossing. This is the first skirmish ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... Ard is a beautiful lakelet, about five miles south of Loch Katrine. On its eastern side is the scene of Helen Macgregor's skirmish with the King's troops in Rob Roy; and near its head, on the northern side, is a waterfall, which is the original of Flora MacIvor's favorite retreat in Waverley. Aberfoyle is a village about a mile and a half to the east ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... senoritas fell to him as alamo leaves shower down to autumn winds; when pride consumed him, and ambition for a Division was burning in his brain. But now this demon of a frontier has scorched and driven him till naught remains to him but the chance of an occasional fruitless skirmish, his thirst for mescal, his greed for aguilas, and his cocks to win them! But, senor, bet no money against them, for it would grieve me to win from a ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... of hot milk, passes it lightly, ever so lightly, over her mistress' face. The Poppaean pastes melt beneath it like snow. A cooling lotion is poured over her brow, and is fanned with feathers. Phiale comes after, a clever girl, captured in some sea-skirmish on the Aegean. In her left hand she holds the ivory box wherein are the phucus and that white powder, psimythium; in her right a sheaf of slim brushes. With how sure a touch does she mingle the colours, and in what sweet proportion blushes and blanches ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Marston cared to bother about breaking such a humble citizen, malice had a handy weapon. But most of all was Mayo concerned with the view Alma Marston would take of the situation. She would either believe that he had fallen overboard in the skirmish with the attacking Polly or had deserted without warning—and in the case of a lover both suppositions were agonizing. His distress was so apparent that the girl, from her seat on the opposite transom, extended sympathy in the glances she ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Rutherford gives an account of a great battle, in which the chief Hongi was a prominent figure. His description of what took place is incorrect in several respects. Victory went to Hongi, not, as Rutherford says, to the people of Kaipara and their allies, although they were victorious in the first skirmish. The battle is known as Te Ika-a-rangi-nui, that is the Great Fish of the Sky or the Milky Way, and it took place in February, 1825. As Rutherford states, Hongi was present, and wore the famous coat of mail armour which had ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... of General McDowell's army had a skirmish with General Longstreet's brigade at Blackburn's Ford, which the Rebels call the battle of Bull Run, while that which was fought on the 21st they call the battle of Manassas. General Beauregard expected that ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... be dissuaded; and it was misery to him now to reflect that his dear old friend, and his whole household, might come to ruin for the sake of the sisterhood who were nothing to them; for he had received private information that there had been a skirmish between the Moslems and the deliverers of the nuns, which had cost the lives of several combatants on ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Bazaar. The hostess intervened promptly with anecdotes of her own cynical daring as a Bazaar-seller, Miss Sharsper offered fragments of a reminiscence about signing one of her own books for a Bookstall, Blenker told a well-known Bazaar anecdote brightly and well, and the impending skirmish was averted. ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... instant a single rifle-shot was heard, away to the front, beyond the skirmish-line, followed, almost attended, by the savage hiss of an approaching bullet which passing through the line, struck audibly, punctuating as with a full stop the captain's exclamation, "What ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... whether silvered or golden, followed 'em in an intercalary figure, and seemed to skirmish a while, till the golden nymph who had first entered the lists, striking a silvered nymph in the hand on the right, put her out of the field, and set herself in her place. But soon the music playing a new measure, she ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... movements, we halted too; but that did not suit; we received an intimation to proceed. I had performed this sort of service before, and in the exercise of my discretion deployed my platoon, pushing it forward at a run, with trailed arms, to strengthen the skirmish line, which I overtook some thirty or forty yards from the wood. Then—I can't describe it—the forest seemed all at once to flame up and disappear with a crash like that of a great wave upon the beach—a crash that expired in hot hissings, and the sickening "spat" ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... he had been sitting opposite to me up to this time. With one effort he appeared to free his mind from the whole pressure on it of the interview between us thus far. "Ouf!" he cried, stretching his arms luxuriously, "the skirmish was hot while it lasted. Take a seat, Mr. Hartright. We meet as mortal enemies hereafter—let us, like gallant gentlemen, exchange polite attentions in the meantime. Permit me to take the liberty ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... important settlement of the enemy in that quarter of the federal territory." Wilkinson's detachment had reached the village near daybreak. The advance columns of the Kentuckians charged impetuously into the town just as the Indians were crossing the Wabash, and a brief skirmish ensued from the opposite shores, during which several Indian warriors were killed and two Americans wounded. Many of the inhabitants of Kethtipecanunck were French traders and lived in a state of semi-civilization. "By the books, letters, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... the night— A stinging one. Our heedless boys Were nipped like blossoms. Some dozen Hapless wounded men were frozen. During day being struck down out of sight, And help-cries drowned in roaring noise, They were left just where the skirmish shifted— Left in dense underbrush now-drifted. Some, seeking to crawl in crippled plight, So stiffened—perished. Yet in spite Of pangs for these, no heart is lost. Hungry, and clothing stiff with frost, Our men declare a nearing sun Shall see the fall of Donelson. And ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... Hampden (born 1594, died 1643), the maintainer of the rights of the people in the reign of Charles I. He resisted the imposition of ship-money, and died in a skirmish at Chalgrove during ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... snuff-bottle and plunged a stick vigorously into the contents, and, as the miller showed no disposition to skirmish, she continued: ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... FIGHTING. AND AT THE END OF THE CONFLICT HE ADDRESSED his own soldiers, encouraging them and whetting their eagerness for war. Scipio also did this on the Roman side. Then the contest began and looked at the outset as if it would involve the entire armies: but Scipio in a preliminary cavalry skirmish was defeated, lost many men, was wounded and would have been killed, had not his son Scipio, though only seventeen years old, come to his aid; he was consequently alarmed lest his infantry should similarly meet with a reverse, and he ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... the arrival of Eugene is announced. Villars returns, reaches, before him, the bridge over which he must pass, takes possession of it, and awaits him. There the true combat takes place, for the taking of Denain had been but a short skirmish. Eugene makes attack after attack, returns seven times to the head of the bridge, his best troops being destroyed by the artillery which protects it, and the bayonets which defend it. At length, his clothes riddled with balls, and bleeding from two wounds, he mounts ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... birthplaces, or of the lanes, woods, and fields through which they roam. Not one young man in twenty knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or the bee-orchis; still fewer can tell the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, or the place where the last skirmish was fought in the Civil War, or where the parish butts stood. Nor is this ignorance confined to the unlearned rustics; it is shared by many educated people, who have travelled abroad and studied the history of Rome or Venice, Frankfort or Bruges, and yet pass by unheeded the rich stores ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... are a-totin' guns, too. Ah, I thought so—thar goes a lad horseback, hell-bent-fer-'lection down the trail, huntin' after more roughs, I reckon. Well, ther more ther merrier, as ther ol' cat said when she counted her kittens. Darned ef they ain't got a reg'lar skirmish line thrown out 'long ther gulch yonder. Yer bet they mean business ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... the journey until the weather changed. Yuba Bill alone was for pressing forward as they were. "Two miles more and we're on the high grade, whar the wind is strong enough to blow you through the windy, and jist peart enough to pack away over them cliffs every inch of snow that falls. I'll jist skirmish round in and out o' them drifts on these four wheels whar ye can't drag one o' them flat-bottomed dry-goods boxes through a drift." Bill had a California whip's contempt for a sledge. But he was warmly seconded by Thatcher, ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... hard earned dough?'—till bimeby we just dripped melancholy, you might say. Howsomever, we weren't booked for a dull time just yet. That afternoon there was a great popping of whips like an Injun skirmish and into town comes a bull train half-a-mile long. Twelve yoke of bulls to the team; lead, swing, and trail waggons for each, as big as houses on wheels. You don't see the like of that in this country. Down the street they come, the dust flying, whips ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... indifferent moment, point the arrows of their wit at him. If he is not merely a stuffed Saracen, like those on whom the knights used to practise their lances in mock battles, but understands himself how to skirmish, to rally, and to challenge, how to wound lightly, and recover himself again, and, while he seems to expose himself, to give others a thrust home, nothing more agreeable can be found. Such a man we possessed in our friend Horn, whose name, to begin with, gave occasion for all sorts of jokes, and ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... of course it pays most attention to property which its proprietors have guaranteed. The central station receives the greatest number of "calls;" but as a commander-in-chief does not turn out for a skirmish of outposts, so Mr. Braidwood keeps himself ready for affairs of a more serious nature. When the summons is at night—there are sometimes as many as half-a-dozen—the fireman on duty below apprizes the superintendent by means of a gutta percha speaking-tube, which comes up to his bedside. ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... the governor, Shams-o-deen Khan, a cousin of Mohammed Akhbar. The dispersion of this tumultuary array was apparently accomplished (as far as can be gathered from the extremely laconic despatches of the General) without much difficulty; and, on the 6th of September, after a sharp skirmish in the environs, the British once more entered Ghazni. In the city and neighbouring villages were found not fewer than 327 sepoys of the former garrison, which had been massacred to a man (according to report) immediately after the surrender; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... with spirit. About the same time, the Half King and his warriors came down to the bottom of the hill on the opposite side of the hollow, and, screening themselves behind a bit of rising ground, joined the music of their rifles with the rest. For about fifteen minutes, the skirmish was kept up with great spirit on both sides; when the French, having lost ten of their number (among whom was their leader, Capt. de Jumonville), surrendered, and yielded up their arms. Washington had one man shot dead at his side, and three men wounded; but his ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... headquarters. Bonaparte, who was at the window of the sheik's house, indignant at this insolence, turned to one of his aides de camp, who happened to be on duty, and said, "Croisier, take a few guides and drive those fellows away!" In an instant Croisier was in the plain with fifteen guides. A little skirmish ensued, and we looked on from the window. In the movement and in the attack of Croisier and his party there was a sort of hesitation which the General-in-Chief could not comprehend. "Forward, I say! Charge!" ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... art of war, too, has gradually grown up to be a very intricate and complicated science; when the event of war ceases to be determined, as in the first ages of society, by a single irregular skirmish or battle; but when the contest is generally spun out through several different campaigns, each of which lasts during the greater part of the year; it becomes universally necessary that the public should maintain those who serve the public in war, at least while they are employed in that service. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... disappointment, the Rangers took no share in this the first skirmish of the war. But Hill's orders were not to press on the enemy's rear. Three days more of marching and skirmishing brought them close to the Duoro on the evening of the 11th. The enemy crossed that evening and destroyed the ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... to the squire, 'how came the knight to have such fancies, that he cannot sleep quietly in bed but must rise and skirmish about the house! ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... scarcely begun, we answer; one must be blind not to see it. What is ended, is only the first skirmish. As to the war, it will be as long, believe me, as the life of the two principles which are struggling in America. Let Mr. Lincoln assure himself, and let the European adversaries of slavery remember as well, that it will be necessary to combat and to persevere. Never was ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... few minutes, all had joined him. They were in high spirits at the success of this first skirmish; and wondered why they had been so suddenly called off, when the Romans had shown no signs of advancing ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... Turkish army could not be far away, but our aeroplanes reported no signs of it. A few weeks later an attack was made by about twenty thousand Turks on the Scottish regiment holding the line to the north of us and we had a bit of a skirmish with their flank guard. They surprised us completely; the fight was fought mostly in pyjamas on our part, but we had little difficulty in driving them off. This raid was some achievement and I take off my hat to ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... side Tarzan struggled to his feet, the spear still protruding from his shoulder. The girl rose too, and as Tarzan wrenched the weapon from his flesh and stepped out from behind the concealment of their refuge, she followed at his side. The skirmish that had resulted in their rescue was soon over. Most of the lions escaped but all of the pursuing Xujans had been slain. As Tarzan and the girl came into full view of the group, a British Tommy leveled his rifle at the ape-man. Seeing the fellow's actions and realizing instantly ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... then, if your cattle are driven away, all you have to do is just to send him word and he will have them sent back, or others as good in their places. Oh, you do not know how dreadful to be at feud with a man like Fergus Mac-Ivor. I was only a girl of ten when my father and his servants had a skirmish with a party of them, near our home-farm—so near, indeed, that some of the windows of the house were broken by the bullets, and three of the Highland raiders were killed. I remember seeing them brought in and laid on the floor in the hall, each wrapped ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Tremontes stands in a wood of oaks, a little way off the high-road; it takes its name from the three mounds that rise in the castle yard, covered now with turf and daisies, but piled together within of stones, which cover, so the legend says, the bodies of three Danish knights killed in a skirmish long ago; the river that runs in the creek beside the castle is joined to the sea but a little below, and the tide comes up to Tremontes; when the sea is out, there are bare and evil-smelling mudbanks, with a trickle ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the end of 870 the storm burst; and the year which followed has been rightly called "Alfred's year of battles.'' Nine general engagements were fought with varying fortunes, though the place and date of two of them have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at Englefield, Berks (December 31, 870), was followed by a severe defeat at Reading (January 4, 871), and this, four days later, by the brilliant victory of Ashdown, near Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham Hundred. On the 22nd of January the English ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to get many men together—of the kind we want," admitted Lefever. "You'll have to skirmish some between now and midnight. What do ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... they keep distance, and attend my state.— Parent to her, whose eyes my soul enthral, [To ABEN. Whom I, in hope, already father call, Abenamar, thy youth these sports has known, Of which thy age is now spectator grown; Judge-like thou sit'st, to praise, or to arraign The flying skirmish of the darted cane: But, when fierce bulls run loose upon the place, And our bold Moors their loves with danger grace, Then heat new-bends thy slacken'd nerves again, And a short youth runs ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... a party of coiners, disguised as guardsmen, would arrive at his inn, and that he was to take measures to arrest them. The six men who brought him these orders disguised themselves as servants and stable-boys, and remained to assist in the capture. In the skirmish, Athos shot two of them, wounded a third, cut the host across the face with the flat of his sword, and retreated fighting to the cellar stairs. Entering the cellar, he pulled the door to and barricaded it. His assailants left the house, carrying off their killed and wounded; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... who kept it and brought it down to the earth. Its name, Lavasii, became a title of chief ruler, and that title has remained in that particular family to this day. One of the Samoans killed in 1876 in a skirmish with the marines of H.M.S. Barracoutta had at that ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... believe it at the time, but, by God, it's true. Why, I've gone straight into the enemy's lines and heard the bullets whistling in my ears, but I've always come out whole. When I rode with Stuart round McClellan's army, I was side by side with poor Latane when he fell in the skirmish at Old Church, and I sat stock still on my horse and waited for a fellow to club me with his sabre, but he wouldn't; he looked at me as if he thought I had gone crazy, and actually shook his head. Some men can't die, confound it, ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... thoroughly aroused it was useless, and the Indians having retreated, most of his own men ran off, leaving him and Captains Chevalier Duchesnay and Gaucher, officers much like himself in stamp, with a few trusty Voltigeurs to skirmish with the enemy as long as daylight permitted it.[17] He then withdrew to Chateauguay, taking the precaution of breaking up the forest road in his rear, in pursuance of the general policy of the campaign, which was to destroy and obstruct as much as ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... village of St Mande, and struck into the Bois de Vincennes. There had been rain during the night, and the leaves and grass were heavy with water drops. The sky was bright blue, and the sun shone brilliantly; but over the ground and between the tree trunks floated a light mist, like the smoke of a skirmish, growing thinner as it ascended, and dissipated before it reached the topmost branches. At some distance within the wood, we turned into a secluded glade, seated ourselves upon a fallen tree, and waited. We had come faster than we expected, and were fully a quarter of an hour before our time; ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... if either side retreated, the other would perforce be acknowledged by the Bakufu, and both were reluctant to put their fortunes to the final test. At length, early in July, 1467, a petty skirmish precipitated a general engagement. It was inconclusive, and the attitude of mutual observation was resumed. Two months later re-enforcements reached the Western Army, and thereafter, for nearly two years, victory rested with the Yamana. But Katsumoto clung ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... The natives, confident of their strength, refused to listen, and began to discharge their culverins and a few arrows. The captain, seeing that they would not listen to reason, ordered them to be fired upon. The skirmish lasted in one place or the other about three hours, since the Spaniards could not assault or enter the fort because of the moat of water surrounding it. But, as fortune would have it, the natives had left on the other side, tied to the fort, a small boat capable of holding twenty ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... shining again with a heat so fierce and intense that the earth smoked vapor all around us. It was at this time that I, personally, experienced the only close fighting of the day, which brought a sudden end to this most amazing and bloody skirmish. ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Sir Walter Scott joined the Stuart Prince in 1715, and, with his brother, was engaged in that unfortunate adventure which ended in a skirmish and captivity at Preston. It was the fashion of those times for all persons of the rank of gentlemen to wear scarlet waistcoats. A ball had struck one of the brothers, and carried part of this dress into his body, and in this condition he was taken prisoner with a number of his companions, ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... repeatedly records such incidents as the following: "The 24 of November [1567], at two afternoon, the Laird of Airth and the Laird of Weems met on the High Gate of Edinburgh, and they and their followers fought a very bloody skirmish, where there were many hurt on both sides with shot of pistol." These skirmishes also took place in London itself. In Shadwell's play of The Scowrers, an old rake thus boasts of his early exploits:—"I knew the Hectors, and before them the Muns, and the Tityretu's; they ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... made a sudden sally against the enemy's 9 outposts, and after a slight skirmish, in which they tested each other's temper, both sides withdrew without advantage. Soon after, Caecina entrenched a strong position between a Veronese village called Hostilia[36] and the marshes of the river Tartaro. Here he was safe, with the river in his rear and the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... Carigliano is a friend of the Duchesse de Berri," he went on, after a pause; "you are sure to see her, will you be so kind as to present me to her, and to take me to her ball on Monday? I shall meet Mme. de Nucingen there, and enter into my first skirmish." ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... case of recovery from multiple arrow-wounds. In a skirmish with some Indians on June 3, 1863, the patient had been wounded by eight distinct arrows which entered different parts of the body. They were all extracted with the exception of one, which had entered at the outer and lower margin of the right scapula, and had passed inward and upward ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... There was a skirmish of small talk, during which Mr. Clamp was placid and self-conscious, while his vis-a-vis, though smiling and apparently at ease, was yet alert and excited,—darting furtive glances, that would have startled him like flashes of sunlight reflected from a mirror, if he had not been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... Noir entered the city of Mexico with the victorious army, but on the subsequent day, being engaged in a street skirmish with the leperos, or liberated convicts, he fell mortally wounded by a copper bullet, and he was now dying by inches at his ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... in contact, and were thrown into confusion. A detachment of the enemy which had also become bewildered in the woods, fell in with the right column, at the head of which was lord Howe, and during the skirmish which ensued, Howe was killed. Abercromby ordered the army to march back ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... home," 193; marriage one sided contract, favors divorce res., 194; regrets Phillips' action, rec. lets. of approval, no desire to dictate platform, 195; writes Phillips for money, he praises her, tilt with Rev. Mayo, 196; fights Mrs. Stn.'s battles, on the skirmish line, looks after "externals," domestic work, 197; extracts from journal, demands equal pay for women at State Teacher's Con., Syracuse, writes from birthplace of women's hard work there, 198; climbs "Greylock," describes visit to old ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... there in readiness to move whichever way they might be required. Then, with Sergeant O'Grady and the reluctant Indians, Mr. Billings pushed up to the left front, and was soon out of sight of his command. For fifteen minutes he drove his scouts, dispersed in skirmish order, ahead of him, but incessantly they sneaked behind rocks and trees out of his sight; twice he caught them trying to drop back, and at last, losing all patience, he sprang forward, saying, "Then ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... of the warrior to one side Tarzan struggled to his feet, the spear still protruding from his shoulder. The girl rose too, and as Tarzan wrenched the weapon from his flesh and stepped out from behind the concealment of their refuge, she followed at his side. The skirmish that had resulted in their rescue was soon over. Most of the lions escaped but all of the pursuing Xujans had been slain. As Tarzan and the girl came into full view of the group, a British Tommy leveled his rifle at the ape-man. Seeing ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his dragoman; "in the past, the present, or the future. Stocks are booming. The barometer of joy stands very high. Nothing like it has been known for thirty years; not, indeed, since the days of the Great Skirmish." ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... they were quite alike, except in the palpable certainty possessed by each of the betterness of the other. What an age it seemed since first they met, positively without thinking, and in the very middle of a skirmish, yet with a remarkable drawing out of perceptions one anotherward! Did Mary feel this, when she acted so cleverly, and led away those vile pursuers? and did Robin, when his breath came back, discover why his ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... March, and was prominently concerned in the attack and capture of Knockadoon coast-guard station. He and his companion, Edward Kelly, were captured by a military party at Kilclooney Wood, on March 31st, after a smart skirmish, in which their compatriot the heroic and saintly Peter Crowley lost his life. His trial took place before the Special Commission at Cork, on May 22nd and 23rd, 1807. The following are the spirited and eloquent terms in which he addressed the court ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... much anxiety, after his late skirmish, for the safety of the stationary camp he had left behind, and having lost no time during his return, he was relieved to find his camp ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... deciphered from the Autograph, written upon the back of one of the original drawings in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford. This drawing formed part of the Ottley and Lawrence Collection. It represents horses in various attitudes, together with a skirmish between a mounted soldier and a group of men on foot. Signor de Tivoli not only prints the text with all its orthographical confusions, abbreviations, and alterations; but he also adds what he modestly terms a restoration of the sonnet. Of this restoration I have made the subjoined ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... each one of them, in their semi-barbarous moral state, might not have been capable of the same savage impulse that had made this particular individual a horror to all beholders. At the close of some battle or skirmish, a wounded Union soldier had crept on hands and knees to his feet, and besought his assistance,—not dreaming that any creature in human shape, in the Christian land where they had so recently been brethren, could refuse it. But this man (this fiend, if you ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... scouts having no writing materials, and thinking the peasant incapable of bearing a verbal message correctly, had taken this novel means of conveying intelligence to his chief. In danger of being outflanked, Zumalacarregui was compelled to abandon his advantageous position. The following day a skirmish took place without result; and at last Valdes, finding that he only fatigued his men uselessly, by pursuing an adversary whom it was impossible to overtake, remained for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... moving forward along the skirmish line with a nod and smile for the groups now disintegrating into couples, the Page boys with Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel, Marion Page followed by Alderdene, Mrs. Vendenning and Major Belwether and the Tassel girl convoyed by ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... that day! Out on the prairie, the gay guidons of the troops were fluttering in the brilliant sunshine; here, there, everywhere, the skirmish-lines and reserves were dotting the plain; the air was ringing with the merry trumpet-calls and the stirring words of command. Yet men forgot their drill and reined up on the line to watch Van as he flashed by, wondering, too, what could take the adjutant off at such an hour and at such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... they abound no less in repetitions than in arguments dropped and left at loose ends—the whole bewraying a man called unexpectedly to a post where in the act of adapting himself, of learning that he might teach, he had often to adjourn his main purpose and skirmish with difficulties—they will be the truer to life; and so may experimentally enforce their preaching, that the Art of Writing is ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... directions, and the King of France renewed the war. In addition to his own troubles from the debts he had incurred, and the enemies who rose against him, he was further shaken by the death of his mother Philippa, whom he tenderly loved. His friend Chandos, too, was killed in a skirmish. Unhappily, while thus weakened in mind and body the treachery of the bishop and people of Limoges, who, having bound themselves by innumerable promises to him, surrendered their city to the French, caused him ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... come from tradition to fact. The affair began with a sharp skirmish of musketry on both sides. To every regiment of cavalry there were then joined a certain proportion of dragoons who seem to have held much the position of our mounted infantry, men skilled in the ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... country bred, To arms by thirst of honour led, When at a skirmish first he hears The bullets whistling round his ears, Will duck his head aside, will start, And feel a trembling at his heart, Till 'scaping oft without a wound Lessens the terror of the sound; Fly bullets now as thick as hops, He runs into a cannon's chops. An author ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... or receive a letter from Belogorsk. My only pastime consisted in military sorties. Thanks to Pougatcheff I had an excellent horse, and I shared my meager pittance with it. I went out every day beyond the ramparts to skirmish with Pougatcheff's advance guards. The rebels had the best of it; they had plenty of food and were well mounted. Our poor cavalry were in no condition to oppose them. Sometimes our half-starved infantry went ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... listen to her cousin's performances, rather than go through the drudgery of scales and exercises, upon which Charlie insisted, as the orthodox preparation for later work. Accordingly, Allie's music usually ended in a playful skirmish which sent Charlie back to the piano, to beguile her into good temper again, by means of some favorite melody. On rare occasions, when she was uncommonly meek, or when all other employment failed, she would be coaxed into running up and down over a few scales; but, ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... is therefore far less desirable in artillery than skill, patience, and cool courage. Artillery always acts at a distance, and in mass; single pieces are seldom employed, except to cover reconnoitring parties, or to sustain the light infantry in a skirmish. Mounted batteries sometimes approach within two or three hundred yards of the enemy's infantry; but this is only done with a strong support of other troops, and to prepare the way for a charge of cavalry. The batteries do not accompany the charge, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... blighted her brother's life and so filled him with determination to revenge that he afterward became the most desperate of desperate men. "Quantrell sometimes spares, but Anderson never," became a tradition of the Kansas line. Before he died in a skirmish with Northern troops in 1864, he had tied fifty-three knots in a silken cord which he ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... received a letter from Lydia, which contains what to me is the most melancholy intelligence—the news of the death of Eugene Fowler,[10] who was killed on the 22d of August, in some battle or skirmish in Virginia. Poor Eugene!... Does it not seem that this war will sweep off all who are nearest and dearest, as well as most worthy of life, leaving only those you least ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Ortwin and Hagen did many wonderful deeds, and if any devised a sport, warriors, joyous in strife, welcomed it straightway. So were the knights proven before the guests, and they of Gunther's land won glory. The wounded also came forth to take part with their comrades, to skirmish with the buckler, and to shoot the shaft, and waxed strong thereby, ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... unable successfully to contend. Nevertheless, they still struggled on; fresh troops were raised, and in a sort of sacred battalion, composed of officers, young Pepe, who had just completed his sixteenth year, was appointed serjeant-major. In this capacity he first saw fire, in a skirmish with a band of armed peasants. But the enemy gained ground, the limits of the Republic grew each day narrower, until at last they were restricted to the capital and its immediate environs. Cardinal Ruffo's army, now amounting to forty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... every year. The Eastern immigrant societies were met by inroads of Missouri and Southern settlers. A state of civil war virtually obtained in 1856-57, and throughout Buchanan's administration there was a sharp skirmish of new settlers and a sharp maneuver of parties for position. The Georgia State Democratic Convention of 1857 demanded the removal of Robert J. Walker, who had been appointed Governor of Kansas. He was a Southern man, but was regarded as favoring the antislavery party in its efforts ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... In less than a quarter of an hour the brigands were scampering, some on foot and some on horseback, out of the farm-buildings, followed by a few stray and harmless shots from such of the volunteers as had their hands free. We lost three men killed and five wounded in this little skirmish, and killed six of the brigands, besides making a dozen prisoners. When I say we, I mean my companions; for having no weapon, I had discreetly remained with the volunteers. The scene of this gallant exploit was on the classic battle-field of Cannae. This ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... with a force of 3000 men, sailed from Martinique on the 8th of April, and, after a delay at St. Christopher's, for the purpose of procuring pilots and guides, reached Porto Rico on the 17th and anchored off Cangrejos Point. Next day the troops disembarked, and, after a slight skirmish with the enemy, took up a position before the town. The siege continued for a fortnight without the British making any appreciable progress, while the force of the enemy, originally larger than that of the ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... passed the night in the wood of Serrelemi. A fog fortunately rising, enabled them to advance to a hamlet called La Majere, where a shower of rain gave them a much-needed supply of water. On the 17th of May, 1690 they had a sharp skirmish in the village and churchyard of Pramol. They killed fifty-seven, and captured the commandant, from whom Arnaud learnt that in three days Victor Amadeus would have to decide as to the question of continuing his alliance with France, or of uniting with England and other European states against ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... Touaricks are about to have a set-to. Last year they had a skirmish, and the Touaricks killed about eighty of the Shâanbah. These latter are going to avenge their defeat; they will attack the open districts, and then proceed to Ghat. The Shâanbah inhabit a desert of sand in the neighbourhood of Warklah—‮وارقلة‬—about ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to fill the gap in the line—Hill followed Longstreet—and then the world beheld the singular spectacle of an army extended in a long skirmish line over a hundred miles, with another army massed not daring to ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... distance which is not stated, but which could not have been many miles, they came to an extensive plain covered with maize fields, temples and houses. This was Cintla. There were many warriors gathered there, and after a sharp skirmish the Spaniards fell back. ...
— The Battle and the Ruins of Cintla • Daniel G. Brinton
... the perimeter of defense had been pushed out in a bulge at the north-west corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude breastwork of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery, packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging potshots with Skilkans ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... fallen into the hands of the royalist Yanez, whose bloodthirsty followers beheaded eighty soldiers who had been left behind, killed men, women and children, and destroyed the whole city by fire. A few days later this man was killed in a skirmish, and thus ended the life of a fiend whose name may be placed at the side of those of Boves and Morales, because of his delight in committing crimes. In the rest of the country the royalists were conducting guerrilla warfare, preventing the reunion ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... and her gifts in composition are amply proven by her four-part chorus, which can be found in J. Paix's organ collection. Her career was brought to an untimely end by grief. She was engaged to Jean de Peyrat, a royal officer, who met his death in a skirmish with the Huguenots in 1560. Her sorrow at this disaster proved incurable, and she died ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... A celebrated statesman and general, born before 268 B.C., died in 208; five times Consul; defeated the Gauls; defended Nola; captured Syracuse; commanded Apulia against Hannibal; killed in a skirmish at Venusia.] ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... said it! This sure is a hell of a war. Tough on a guy's feet. Yeah, that's right. Holland Tunnel skirmish. Where the Ruskies used that new gun. Uhuh. God! It was awful. Guys popping off all around a guy and him not knowing why. No sense to it. No noise. No wound. ...
— Belly Laugh • Gordon Randall Garrett
... on, without thinking of the fate of the rest. On horseback, with a loaded revolver in hand, I had to keep guard at the side of the ambulance carts, to keep the marauders away from the wounded. Once I had a narrow escape from being captured by the Bavarians. It was at a skirmish of artillery. A couple of French and a couple of German pieces were in position. The French were quickly disabled by the Germans, and even the head gunner was severely wounded. I took him on my shoulders, and got him out of the line of fire. The Bavarians ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... but ruined the buildings. Later on the Frenchman had helped in the abduction of little Nell, but the girl had been rescued by Dave and her brother Henry. Then Jean Bevoir drifted to Montreal, and while trying to loot some houses there during the siege, was shot down in a skirmish between the looters on one side, and the French and the English soldiers on the other. The Morrises firmly believed that Jean Bevoir was dead, but such was not a fact. A wound thought to be fatal had taken a turn for the better, and the fellow was now lying in a French farmhouse on the St. Lawrence, ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... there came one with eager eyes And keen sword, ready for the fray. He missed the storms of Northern skies, The reckless raid and skirmish gay! ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... Blackett and his friend Cornet Fairburn found themselves once more in the thick of war. They had had a preliminary skirmish or two not long before—the retaking of Huy, the frightening of Villeroy from Liege, and what not—but now something more serious was afoot. That the task the Duke had set himself was a difficult one, every man in his service knew, but they knew also that ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... to and surrendered; but the other fellow pounded away at the British privateer with a couple of swivel guns and put up a smart, little skirmish before a well-directed shot from the deck of the Englishman, knocked a topmast crashing over the port ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... and carefully fixing on their snow-shoes, they made the venture, the lightest and most experienced Eskimo taking the lead, with the few remaining dogs attached to the long sledge following, "and the rest of the party abreast, in widely extended skirmish line, some distance behind the sledge." They crossed in silence, the ice swaying beneath them as they skimmed along. What the result would be none could tell; but they all felt the greatness of ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... died, poisoned,—you know by what mistake. Caesar, poisoned at the same time, escaped by shedding his skin like a snake; but the new skin was spotted by the poison till it looked like a tiger's. Then, compelled to quit Rome, he went and got himself obscurely killed in a night skirmish, scarcely noticed in history. After the pope's death and his son's exile, it was supposed that the Spada family would resume the splendid position they had held before the cardinal's time; but this was not the case. The Spadas remained in doubtful ease, a mystery hung over this dark affair, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... keep the natives out. We agreed to this, of course. Then the Castalian general said that we must have some kind of a battle or he would be afraid to go home, and we cooked up a nice little battle. When the men got into it, however, it turned out to be quite a skirmish, and a number were killed on both sides. Then they surrendered and we went in and put a guard at the gates, and wouldn't let the niggers in. You wouldn't believe it, but they actually kicked at it. They're an ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... however, was unaccomplished, for his enemy was not present; and in the confusion into which the congregation were thrown by such a warlike apparition, the dauntless intruder made his exit, though subjected to a struggle at the church door. His casque, which was captured in the skirmish that there took place, is yet to be seen in the church, and the fame of this redoubtable attempt, which was long held in remembrance through the country side, excited the poetic genius of a rhymer of the day to embody it in a ballad, entitled ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... war breaks out in earnest. No matther how manny is kilt, annything that happens befure th' war expert gets to wurruk is on'y what we might call a prelimin'ry skirmish. He sets down an' bites th' end iv his pencil an' looks acrost th' sthreet an' watches a man paintin' a sign. Whin th' man gets through he goes to th' window an' waits to see whether th' polisman that wint into th' saloon is afther a dhrink or sarvin' a warrant. If he comes r-right out ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... although I believe unconsciously, by the side of Elvira, the host and hostess were left together. Yet it was to be noted that they never addressed a word to each other, nor so much as suffered their eyes to meet. The interrupted skirmish still survived in ill-feeling; and the instant the guests departed it would break forth again as bitterly as ever. The talk wandered from this to that subject - for with one accord the party had declared it was too late to go to bed; but those two never relaxed towards each other; Goneril ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there was a large body of Carranza's troops down the railroad a short distance. If he meant by a short distance six or eight miles they can not be more than a couple of miles from where we now are. I feel sure that the skirmish we passed through has proved disastrous to the Huerta forces and I am willing to go out and find Captain ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... who, like myself, despise it most completely, cannot by any art bring forward a rationale, a theory of its hollowness that will give plenary satisfaction except to those who are already satisfied). Thus Cicero, feeling that if this were nothing, then had all his life been a skirmish, one continued skirmish for shadows and nonentities; a feeling of blank desolation, too startling—too humiliating to be faced. But (2ndly), the unsearchable hypocrisy of man, that hypocrisy which even to himself is but dimly descried, that latent hypocrisy which always ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... firm were going to make a book out of the letters in order to get back the thousand dollars which they had paid for them. I said that if they had acted fairly and honorably, and had allowed the country press to use the letters or portions of them, my lecture-skirmish on the coast would have paid me ten thousand dollars, whereas the "Alta" had lost me that amount. Then he offered a compromise: he would publish the book and allow me ten per cent. royalty on it. The compromise did not appeal to me, and I said so. I was now quite unknown ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... during the trip; but we were no strangers to such contingencies, and made the best of it. The irregular Spanish coast was in sight through a veil of mist nearly all the way until we landed, after a slight skirmish with the custom-house officers, at Malaga, March 15th. It is commercially one of the most important cities of Spain, and was once the capital of an independent state, with plenty of ancient lore hanging about it, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... head of his marines and Turks, had a gallant skirmish on the Kelbson, or Dog River, when he dispersed the Egyptian forces, and took between 400 and 500 prisoners. Next day he returned on ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... these terms were better than a perpetual skirmish; but, notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a profound distrust and even terror ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... not, sir, mistake my niece: there is a kind of merry war betwixt signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there is a skirmish of wit ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... debt,—not the maiming of strong men and their violent removal from the future labors of peace, nor the emotional suffering of thousands of families whose hearts are in the field with their dear ones, tossed to and fro in every skirmish, where the balls slay more than the bodies which are pierced: not these evils alone,—nor the feverish excitement of eighteen millions of people, whose gifts and intelligence are all distraught, and at the mercy of every bulletin,—nor yet the possible violations ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... from men of the church or closet as from those who have drunk deepest of war's reality. A man of exuberant vitality, whose personal delight in physical strife colors his statesmanship, and who is exhilarated by the memory of a skirmish or two in Cuba, may talk exultantly of "glory enough to go round," and preach soldiering as a splendid manifestation of the strenuous life. But the grim old warrior whose genius and resolution split the Confederacy like ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... into line in a moment, and everything was on the qui vive: but it proved to be no more than a rencounter between a party of American riflemen and the flank patrol. After firing a few shots, the enemy gave way, and our main body, which had continued to move on during the skirmish, came in without the slightest opposition to the ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... trip. If we had, there would have been no trip, as he was not equipped until afternoon. After lunch he started off boldly for Namur, but got turned back before he reached Wavre, where there had been a skirmish with Uhlans. ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... who, seeing Petty Officer Moffat in difficulties, turned on his knee and faced his pursuers. Their fire was erratic, but his was cool and accurate, and after three or four rounds the Magyars kept their heads well down in the long marsh grass, which permitted the party to escape. The result of this skirmish, however, allowed the enemy armoured train to advance to a point dangerously near our defensive works, which, with a little more enterprise and determination, he might easily have enfiladed. But though the enemy train had mounted a 6-inch gun our ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... drew off and again they came out, and twice during the day they did the same, always returning when we sailed in to meet them. Their fire was exceedingly accurate, and after each skirmish with them we had to draw off and repair damages. It seemed to us that there must be some object in the gun-boats' action, and that they were trying to decoy us to go close inshore, where some larger ship might be ready to come out against us. Just before daybreak on the 6th we again ran in towards ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... destruction there, Irruptions into Tygart's valley, Indians attack the house of Samuel Cottrail, Murder of John Schoolcraft's family, Projected campaign of British and Indians, Indians again in Tygart's Valley, mischief there, West's fort invested, Hazardous adventure of Jesse Hughs to obtain assistance, Skirmish between whites and savages, coolness and intrepidity of Jerry Curl, Austin Schoolcraft killed and his niece taken prisoner, Murder of Owens and Judkins, of Sims, Small Pox terrifies Indians, Transactions in Greenbrier, Murder ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... a lump in her throat that threatened tears, slipped behind the people, caught the two little step-brothers in her arms and smothered them with kisses, amid their loud protestations and the laughter of those who stood about. But the little skirmish had served to hide the tears, and the bride came back most decorously to where her stepmother stood awaiting her with a smile of complacent—almost completed—duty upon her face. She wore the sense of having carried off a trying situation in a most creditable manner, and she knew she had ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... did belong. From Victoria to Charing Cross is a journey that occupies no considerable time, and Babington found himself at his destination with five minutes to wait. At twenty past his cousin arrived, and they made their way to the theatre. A brief skirmish with a liveried menial in the lobby, and they were in ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... of a great battle, in which the chief Hongi was a prominent figure. His description of what took place is incorrect in several respects. Victory went to Hongi, not, as Rutherford says, to the people of Kaipara and their allies, although they were victorious in the first skirmish. The battle is known as Te Ika-a-rangi-nui, that is the Great Fish of the Sky or the Milky Way, and it took place in February, 1825. As Rutherford states, Hongi was present, and wore the famous coat of mail armour which ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Mr. Chaffanbrass had not done much; but that was only the preliminary skirmish, as fencers play with their foils ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... heads were afterwards exposed from the tower of the church. Then there is the story of the famous siege in 1642, when the King's forces tried to take the town and were repulsed by the townsfolk, who were staunch Roundheads. "A great and furious skirmish did ensue," and the "Seven Stars" was in the centre of the fighting. Sir Thomas Fairfax made Manchester his head-quarters in 1643, and the walls of the "Seven Stars" echoed with the carousals of the Roundheads. When Fairfax marched from Manchester to relieve Nantwich, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... went, by the queen's permission, with his uncle Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made governor of Flushing—the key to the navigation of the North Seas—with the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed, seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs, prompted by mistaken but chivalrous generosity, he took off his own, and had his thigh broken by a musket-ball. This was on the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... in the midst of plenty? This practice is detested very much by those of Tongataboo, who cultivate the friendship of their savage neighbours of Feejee, apparently out of fear, though they sometimes venture to skirmish with them on their own ground, and carry off red feathers as their booty, which are in great plenty there, and, as has been frequently mentioned, are in great estimation amongst our Friendly Islanders. When the two islands are ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... with Field's swift trotting support by this time, and the eyes of the men kindled instantly at sight of their leader speeding easily by, cool, confident and as thoroughly at home as though it were the most ordinary skirmish drill. Those who have never tried it, do not quite realize what it means to ride in closed ranks and compact column, silent and unswerving, straight forward over open fields toward some equally silent crest, that gives no sign of ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... some distance north of Moreau. [51] The design of the Archduke succeeded in the end, but it opened Germany to the French for six weeks, and showed how worthless was the military constitution of the Empire, and how little the Germans had to expect from one another. After every skirmish won by Moreau some neighbouring State abandoned the common defence and hastened to make its terms with the invader. On the 17th of July the Duke of Wuertemberg purchased an armistice at the price of four million francs; a week later Baden gained the French general's protection in return for immense ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... to persuade a rich vulgarian into belief of one of the simplest of philosophical principles, had the mortification of seeing that his opponent actually flattered himself with the idea that he had come off victorious in the wordy skirmish. "One would have thought that living where he does, and as he does, he would have taken in ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... though we just has it on 'em completely in the matter of intelligence, but for myse'f I ain't so shore. The biggest fool of a mule-eared deer savvys enough to go feedin' up the wind, makin' so to speak a skirmish line of its nose to feel out ambushes. Any old bull elk possesses s'fficient wisdom to walk in a half-mile circle, as a concloodin' act before reetirin' for the night, so that with him asleep in the center, even if the wind does shift, his nose'll still get ample notice ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... a succession of small contests, for the sake of finding out who is boss builds up a habit of fighting that may lead to a bitter end. It is useless to discover who can win in any particular skirmish. What is important is to learn whether one of you is set on being "head of the house." If your spouse craves that distinction, by all means hand it over without delay. It is an empty honor, for the one who bends but does not break will readily develop the ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... the rafters of the ranch having by this time tumbled in and turned the interior into a glowing furnace, there came riding from the west a slender skirmish line of horsemen in the worn campaign dress of the regular cavalry. With the advance there were not more than six or eight, a tall, slender lieutenant leading them on and signalling his instructions. With carbines advanced, with eyes peering ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... tranquillity through the following (p. 121) winter[122] and spring. The rebel chief, however, again very shortly carried the sword and flame with increased horrors through his devoted native land. We read of no battle or skirmish till the campaign of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... two friends was not in the least altered by the morning's skirmish. They breakfasted with a good appetite, looking now and then at poor Raoul, who with moist eyes and a full heart, scarcely ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 1608-1643), who thus became 2nd Lord Brooke. This nobleman was imprisoned by Charles I. at York in 1639 for refusing to take the oath to fight for the king, and soon became an active member of the parliamentary party; taking part in the Civil War he defeated the Royalists in a skirmish at Kineton in August 1642. He was soon given a command in the midland counties, and having seized Lichfield he was killed there on the 2nd of March 1643. Brooke, who is eulogized as a friend of toleration ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... very early start, and continued on. At one mile found a sandy soak in a gully, and by digging it out got sufficient water for all our horses. Still proceeding onwards, following a gully for two miles, came to Mr. Gosse's depot Number 13, at Skirmish Hill. A bullock had been killed here, and the flesh jerked. Found a large white gum-tree marked GOS. 13 at camp. All the water was gone. I, however, camped, and took our horses to a place a mile west, where, by digging in the sand, we got enough for them. Went with Pierre to the summit of Skirmish ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... then placed behind our cover dismounted, boxes of ammunition distributed along the line, and the order passed along that the place must be held. All this was done in the darkness, and while we were working away at our cover the enemy could be distinctly heard from our skirmish-line giving commands and ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... and Sheridan there was a never-ending "skirmish of wit," both verbal and practical; and the latter kind, in particular, was carried on between them with all the waggery, and, not unfrequently, the malice of school-boys. [Footnote: On one occasion, Sheridan having covered ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... outbreak was a haphazard affair. Alarmed by the sudden and seemingly concerted departure of Papineau and some of his lieutenants, Nelson, Brown, and O'Callaghan, from Montreal, the Government gave orders for their arrest. The petty skirmish that followed on November 16, 1837, was the signal for the rallying of armed habitants around impromptu leaders at various points. The rising was local and spasmodic. The vast body of the habitants stood aloof. The Catholic ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... opportunity was lost. Lutzen, though in sight, proved not so near as flattering guides and eager eyes had made it. The deep-banked Rippach, its bridge all too narrow for the impetuous columns, the roads heavy from rain, delayed the march. A skirmish with some Imperial cavalry under Isolani wasted minutes when minutes were years; and the short November day was at an end when the Swede reached the plain ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... had escaped for a moment from his castle to visit his mistress; his imagination conjured up a war between the opposing towers of Cadurcis and Cherbury; and when his mother fell into a passion on his return, it passed with him only, according to its length and spirit, as a brisk skirmish or a ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... his return. They were engaged in an altercation. It had evidently been planned that this battle was between Indians and soldiers. The smaller and weaker boys had been induced to appear as Indians in the initial skirmish, but they were now very sick of it, and were reluctantly but steadfastly, affirming their desire for a change of caste. The larger boys had all won great distinction, devastating Indians materially, ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... recover his liberty. Booth at last perceived her to be so uneasy, that, as he saw no hopes of contriving any fiction to satisfy her, he thought himself obliged to tell her the truth, or at least part of the truth, and confessed that he had had a little skirmish with Colonel Bath, in which, he said, the colonel had received a slight wound, not at all dangerous; "and this," says he, "is all the whole matter." "If it be so," cries Amelia, "I thank Heaven no worse hath happened; but ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Jurissa Caiduch and some others of the inferior woivodes or officers; and she apprehended that, if she confided her plan to them, they would be more likely to thwart than to aid her in it. The crews of the two boats which had been engaged in the skirmish with the Venetian galleys when Dansowich was captured, and the men composing the garrison of the castle on the evening of that fatal occurrence, were therefore all whose assistance she could reckon upon. Some of those were her relatives, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the whole island. Pursuant to this plan he called on the Spanish governor, General Joaquin Garcia, to surrender the Spanish colony in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty of Basle, Governor Garcia prepared to resist, but Toussaint invaded the colony with an army, was successful in a skirmish on the Nizao River and appearing before the capital protested that he came as a French general in the name of the French republic. Garcia had no alternative but to comply with the negro chief's demands. On the 27th of January, 1801, Toussaint l'Ouverture entered the capital with his troops and ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... and social and Christian world wisdom, nothing ever will; and, moreover, it does not deserve to learn. Yet, only the other day, I heard some elderly gentlemen discussing the next war—as if the last one were but a slight skirmish far away amid the hills of Afghanistan. Well, better an era of the most revolutionary socialism than that the world should once again be plunged into such another tragedy as it has passed through during ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... territory, nor to fall upon some one of his invading columns. Not only was the defensive strictly maintained, but an effort was made to defend every inch of the border. In the face of superior forces concentrating for invasion at certain points, a skirmish line, which employed all of our forces, was thrown out to hold all points from Richmond ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... are respectfully requested to enlist in a | | Military Skirmish | | On Friday Evening February twenty-second | | At the Barrack, seven forty-six First Street. | | Assembly call By order of | | Eight o'clock Mrs. John Smith | | sharp General pro-tem. ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... regardless of this despairing remark, "that a good while ago the Nor'-westers took him prisoner, when he was wounded after a skirmish with them, and carried him to Canada—treating him with great barbarity on the way. There he was put in jail, but, as nothing could be proved against him, he was liberated, and then tried to return to his family in Red River, but the Nor'-westers caught him again, imprisoned him, sent ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... officer was Meriot, and as finished a gentleman he was too, as I ever saw. I got acquainted with him after the war, at New York. Soon as the ceremony of introduction was over, he smiled, and asked if I were not in the skirmish just related? On being answered in the affirmative, he again inquired, if I did not recollect how handsomely one of the British officers gave me the slip that day? I told him I did. "Well," continued he, "I was ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... but little ammunition. With courage which must be commended at the expense of their discretion, they resolved to engage the enemy, and, after a combat of an hour and a half or more, retired, having inflicted heavy loss upon the enemy, and suffering but little themselves. This first skirmish between the Federal troops and the Missouri militia inspired confidence in their fellow-citizens, and checked the contemptuous terms in which the militia had been spoken of by the enemy. Governor Jackson, with some two hundred and fifty ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... were busily crossing Buell's army all of Sunday night. We could hear their boats ringing their bells, and hear the puff of smoke and steam from their boilers. Our regiment was the advance outpost, and we saw the skirmish line of the Federals advancing and then their main line and then their artillery. We made a good fight on Monday morning, and I was taken by surprise when the order came for us to retreat instead ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... which he could assume at pleasure, he made himself a welcome guest, and with scarcely any trouble received much of the information he desired. He was told of the first capture and rescue of the Countess of Buchan; that it was through one of the men left for dead on the scene of the skirmish the earl had received such exact information concerning the movements and intended destination of the Bruce; that immediately on receiving this intelligence he had gathered all his force, amounting to five hundred men, and dividing them into different bands, sent skilful ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... masking the position of his own chief. He gave a few orders necessary to the probable abandonment of the house, and then returned to it. Shot and shell were already dropping in the field below. A thin ridge of blue haze showed the line of skirmish fire. A small conical, white cloud, like a bursting cotton-pod, revealed an open battery in the willow-fringed meadow. Yet the pastoral peacefulness of the house was unchanged. The afternoon sun lay softly on its deep verandas; ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... permit him to accept the advice of a simple marshal, but Napoleon knew perfectly well that the young prince had never in his life commanded so much as a single battalion, nor taken part in the most minor skirmish, and yet he confided to his care an army of 60,000 men, and this at a somewhat critical juncture. General Junot, who replaced Jrme, was, before long, also guilty ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... Countess, "you are always unreasonable. But Gwen may see some sense in what I say. It's no use your looking amused, because that doesn't do any good." After which little preliminary skirmish she came to the point, speaking to Gwen in a half-aside, as to a fellow-citizen in contradistinction to an outcast, her father. "Why should not your old woman be put up at Mrs. Marrable's? They do this sort of thing there. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... of August, Walter was taken prisoner in a skirmish; and from the time that this news reached his parents, until the 18th of the following March, they could ascertain nothing of his fate. A general exchange of prisoners having been then effected, they learned that he had died on ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a bright fellow too, and may have developed into a man of business, a reporter, or even an editor. "Another great battle!" was his constant cry. But the purchaser of his paper would commonly read of nothing but a skirmish or some fresh account of a battle fought several days before—perhaps not even this. On one occasion an officer in uniform, finding nothing in his paper to justify the cry, turned upon the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... the Samnites, Manlius was wounded in a skirmish. His army being thereby endangered, the senate judged it expedient to send Papirius Cursor as dictator to supply his place. But as it was necessary that the dictator should be nominated by Fabius, the other consul, who ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... ourselves into a skirmish line. The shells come. The dirt flies: holes to bury an ox? One can see them coming: zzz—boom! There is time to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... will leave at once; for we must get back inside our lines as quickly as possible. Mosby will hear of this skirmish, and may send a superior force after us. By the way, Miss Metoaca, did you ride or drive ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... "Ensign Knightley takes part in a skirmish, and is clubbed on the head so fiercely that Major Shackleton thought his skull must be broken in. At what hour was he struck?" Again he put ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... him the Indian prince, Pizarro now resumed his march. It was interrupted for a few hours by a party of the natives, who lay in wait for him in the neighboring sierra. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which the Indians behaved with great spirit, and inflicted some little injury on the Spaniards; but the latter, at length, shaking them off, made good their passage through the defile, and the enemy did not care to follow ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the most serious period in the history of the Covenanters. Hitherto we have been on the skirmish line. All we have yet reviewed has been leading up to the desperate and sanguinary struggle, which lasted twenty-eight years, costing treasures of blood and indescribable suffering, yet finally resulting in the wealthy ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... have paid with gratitude as well as with money. In 1802 he was approaching his sixtieth year, but was vigorous and attentive to business. He was a fine speaker. His voice was melodious, and its compass exceeded belief. It could be heard along the line of a whole brigade, and in the clatter of a skirmish. It is one of the traditions of the bar, that he could, by condensing his voice as he approached it, break a pane of glass in pieces. His learning was respectable; and with the jury he had great weight; and he was heard with respect by the court; and always having lived and practised in sea-ports, ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... the wet and mud of the day. It was clear that this party had ridden far; and the horses, from their drooping crests and sluggish action, were evidently weary. Four of the men had been wounded in some skirmish, for they sat their horses with difficulty, and the bandages about them were ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... was that Truxton King remembered. Marlanx's sappers had been quietly at work for days, drilling from the common to the gates. It was a strange coincidence that Marlanx should have chosen this day for his culminating assault on the Castle. The skirmish at daybreak had hurried his arrangements, no doubt, but none the less were his plans complete. The explosives had been laid during the night; the fuses reached to the mouth of the tunnel, across the common. As he swept up the avenue at the head of his command, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... passage was soon blocked up by freshly advancing bodies of Spanish and Flemish cavalry, while Nevers slowly and reluctantly fell back upon the Prince of Conde, who was stationed with the light horse at the mill where the first skirmish had taken place. They were soon joined by the Constable, with the main body of the army. The whole French force now commenced its retrograde movement. It was, however, but too evident that they were enveloped. As they approached the fatal pass through ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... under a heavy rifle fire, but so far as ever known no Indians were hurt. They left two of their ponies down on the river bank, which probably had been disabled. The Mexicans sustained no loss. After the skirmish was ended a few well directed shots dispersed the party that had remained on the hill; and one Indian, not exceeding 800 yards away, who seemed to be acting as a signal man, was directly fired at—the rifleman resting his piece on a wagon tongue; so far as we knew ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... hauteur he prepared to teach the ex-Marquis his place from the outset. He placed for him a stiff small chair; but the envoy quickly repelled the slight and vindicated the honour of the Republic by occupying the largest arm-chair available. After this preliminary skirmish things went more smoothly; but only the briefest summary of their conversation can be given here. Chauvelin assured Grenville of the desire of France to respect the neutrality of the Dutch, though they had fired on two French ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... sometimes even on the pierheads. Their operations are varied by circumstances. Let us draw nearer and look at them while in action, and observe how the enemy assails them. I shall confine myself at present to a skirmish. ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... collar and pulled him to his feet. "I don't want to see you killed, but you'd better get away from here as fast as you can, and drop this witch man business for good and all. Here's two shillings. They'll get you something to eat when you get to Pennsylvania, but you'd better skirmish along in the woods the best you can till then, or you'll be ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... expression, or the measure of their own eager gaze, had led the Swedes to calculate. Moreover, a small river, the Rippart, that lay between the King and Luetzen, whose narrow bridge could be only passed by one or two at a time, impeded the advance full two hours—a skirmish with Isolani's cavalry, who were quartered at a village near the bridge, may also have occasioned some little loss of time—so that when the Swedish army had reached the fatal field it was nightfall, and too ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the fragment of fried bread as if to increase it by diligent mastication. A self-condemning sense of guilt disturbed her. In her dire need she had become involved with tricksters. Her nephews laughingly told her, "We use crooks, and crooks use us in the skirmish ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... knew nothing. All he was sure of was that she would be in the Grande Place at the appointed time. He was a skilful leader. He took his followers by a multitude of back streets, avoiding every point where soldiers were likely to be. Every man was valuable, and to lose even one in a skirmish which could achieve nothing was to jeopardize the success of the rebellion to that extent. He constantly turned aside to avoid some particular corner which the scouts sent on before reported occupied; but although this often necessitated returning for some ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... able to write that such a conflict had not yet occurred. Surely the powder required for a predestinarian conflagration was everywhere stored up in considerable quantities, within as well as without the Lutheran Church. Nor was a local skirmish lacking which might have served as the spark and been welcomed as a signal for a general attack. It was the conflict between Marbach and Zanchi, probably referred to by the words quoted above from Article XI: "Something of it [of a discussion ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... of a military tank, sans heavy armament. But even a small stinger was part of the patrol car equipment. As for armament, Beulah had weapons to meet every conceivable skirmish in the deadly battle to keep Continental Thruways fast-moving and safe. Her own two-hundred-fifty-ton bulk could reach speeds of close to six hundred miles an hour utilizing one or both of her ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... some object where he might shelter himself in case of a skirmish. He was sidling behind a high point of the parapet, when the stranger rushed forward, and, throwing both arms about his neck, poured forth a perfect cataract of Spanish, in which the word gracias ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... were occupied by between six and seven thousand warriors, extending up and down the river for a distance of six miles. There was nothing for the Spaniards to do but to press forward. To turn back, in sight of their foes, was not to be thought of. After a pretty sharp skirmish, in which the Spaniards attacked their opponents, the natives sprang into their canoes, and some by swimming crossed the river and joined the main body of the Indians upon ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... South is forcing him reluctantly to defend the Union by force. The South is mad. She will come to her senses after the shock of the first skirmish is over. With the Southern members in their places, they have a majority in Congress against the President. He can move neither hand nor foot. What has the South to gain by Secession? They always controlled the Union ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... effort, however, was foiled, as was a later attempt to capture Hulst, when Frederick Henry and the States sustained a great loss in the death of the gallant Henry Casimir of Nassau, who was killed in a chance skirmish at the age of 29 years. This regrettable event caused a vacancy in the stadholderates of Friesland and Groningen with Drente. A number of zealous adherents of the House of Orange were now anxious that Frederick Henry should fill the vacant posts to the exclusion of his cousin, William Frederick, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Roland, and very probable that it is a good deal later. On the other hand, of actual historical basis we have next to nothing except the mere fact of the death of Roland ("Hruotlandus comes Britanniae") at the skirmish of Roncesvalles. There are, however, early mentions of certain cantilenae or ballads; and it has been assumed by some scholars that the earliest chansons were compounded out of precedent ballads of the kind. ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... have known," Jack grumbled. "Somehow everything has gone wrong with us. If we ride back in the night we'll probably have a skirmish." ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... in the day, and bivouacked for the night. The regiment had been more or less exposed all day to shell-fire, but lost from it only four or five men wounded, in addition to the ten or twelve men wounded in the skirmish with ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... few minutes the skirmish was hot. The British fought doggedly, as many believed what Dunmore had told them, that if captured the Virginians would scalp them. Rodney received a light flesh wound, but most of the Americans escaped uninjured, while several ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... had marching orders this morning and left camp about five o'clock; when we got outside the picket lines, our regiment was detailed to do skirmish duty and we immediately deployed on both sides of the road and into the woods, when we came to the remnants of a bridge that had been destroyed by the Confederates. We halted here and our regiment was sent out on picket duty ...
— The Twenty-fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion • George P. Bissell
... in its undeviating course to the centre of the city, sat the centurion. He was a man of medium height, short necked, and thick set, with blunted features and grizzled hair and beard. Two of the fingers of his left hand were wanting, and a broad scar, the trophy of a severe skirmish among the Alemanni, crossed his right cheek and one side of his nose, giving him an expression more curious than pleasing. His general appearance was after the common type of an old, war-worn soldier, rough and unscrupulous by ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... great debate, a lively skirmish occurred over the limitation of suffrage to the white voter. Strangely enough, this proposition was sustained by Erastus Root, the ardent champion of universal suffrage and the abolition of slavery; and it was opposed with equal warmth by Peter ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... Charing Cross is a journey that occupies no considerable time, and Babington found himself at his destination with five minutes to wait. At twenty past his cousin arrived, and they made their way to the theatre. A brief skirmish with a liveried menial in the lobby, and they ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... thus became 2nd Lord Brooke. This nobleman was imprisoned by Charles I. at York in 1639 for refusing to take the oath to fight for the king, and soon became an active member of the parliamentary party; taking part in the Civil War he defeated the Royalists in a skirmish at Kineton in August 1642. He was soon given a command in the midland counties, and having seized Lichfield he was killed there on the 2nd of March 1643. Brooke, who is eulogized as a friend of toleration by Milton, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... indignant at this insolence, turned to one of his aides de camp, who happened to be on duty, and said, "Croisier, take a few guides and drive those fellows away!" In an instant Croisier was in the plain with fifteen guides. A little skirmish ensued, and we looked on from the window. In the movement and in the attack of Croisier and his party there was a sort of hesitation which the General-in-Chief could not comprehend. "Forward, I say! Charge!" he exclaimed from the window, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... cockiness begotten of big lumps of armed friends approaching from the rear, determined to go on occupying. This, in a spirit of great courage, with slowly increasing forces, against rapidly increasing forces, they did, until the brisk and pliant skirmish which opened the business of the day had grown so in weight and ferocity that it was evident to the least astute that the decisive battle of the ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... that skirmish proves the capacity of the weapon in question for the performance of more than ought ever to be asked of it. Had the troops who attempted the charge been thoroughly disciplined and accustomed to the work, they could not have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Borealis was streaming across the sky, giving a radiance like that of a full moon, only more beautiful. The captives could see that they were in the hands of quite a large band of Indians. More of the Alaskans had evidently arrived since the first skirmish. Among them was Zank, on whose evil face was an ugly grin at his success in betraying those who ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... when our lips were engaged in happy concert. She held me so tight against her bosom that I could not use my hands to secure other pleasures, but I felt myself perfectly happy. After that delightful skirmish, I asked her whether we were never ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... continued in the same order, but the guides proving ignorant, the columns came in contact, and were thrown into confusion. A detachment of the enemy which had also become bewildered in the woods, fell in with the right column, at the head of which was lord Howe, and during the skirmish which ensued, Howe was killed. Abercromby ordered the army to march back to the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... upon him. He was now certain of one thing; he knew that his party had been watched by the savages for several days, as they had noticed several times, during the past week, objects which they believed to have been wolves, moving on the summits of the divides, but after their unfortunate skirmish with the Indians they felt sure that what they had taken to be wolves ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... from no throat but one. The young lady friend reiterated the question in which she was interested, and Diana answered; I do not know how, nor did she; while she was at the same time collecting her forces and reviewing them for the coming skirmish with circumstances. Evan Knowlton was here at Mainbridge. How could it possibly be? And even as the thought went through her, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Robert soon learned, was the young officer, George Washington, who had commanded the Virginians in the first skirmish with the French and Indians in the ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... moment the arrival of Eugene is announced. Villars returns, reaches, before him, the bridge over which he must pass, takes possession of it, and awaits him. There the true combat takes place, for the taking of Denain had been but a short skirmish. Eugene makes attack after attack, returns seven times to the head of the bridge, his best troops being destroyed by the artillery which protects it, and the bayonets which defend it. At length, his clothes riddled with balls, and bleeding from two wounds, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... one indulging a childish skirmish of wits; but controlled as his face was, I could see the relief that overspread it at my admission. "My name is Starling. I have a packet for you, monsieur," and ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... off, and I could not send or receive a letter from Belogorsk. My only pastime consisted in military sorties. Thanks to Pougatcheff I had an excellent horse, and I shared my meager pittance with it. I went out every day beyond the ramparts to skirmish with Pougatcheff's advance guards. The rebels had the best of it; they had plenty of food and were well mounted. Our poor cavalry were in no condition to oppose them. Sometimes our half-starved infantry went into the field; but the depth of the snow hindered them ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... stricken field fighting against the Normans, an old man of over fourscore years; and of his gallant son, Prince Rhys, who, after wrenching his patrimony from the invaders, died of a broken heart a few months after his wife, the Princess Gwenllian, had fallen in a skirmish at Kidwelly. No doubt he heard, though he makes but sparing allusion to them, of the loves and adventures of his grandmother, the Princess Nesta, the daughter and sister of a prince, the wife of an adventurer, the concubine of a king, and the paramour of every daring lover ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... of Edinburgh to present to the Earl of Middleton a petition upon this subject. Middleton told Mr. Dickson "he was mistaken if he thought to terrify him with papers,—he was no coward." Mr. Dickson dryly replied, "They knew well he was no coward ever since the bridge of Dee." This was a skirmish which took place on the 19th of June, 1638, in which Middleton had displayed great zeal for the covenant, in opposition to Charles I. He took no notice of Mr. Dickson's sarcastic remark.—Kirkton's "History of the ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... in course of time, discovered, and instituted a "minor order" of ministers, under the title of colporteurs. But it was timidly and tardily done, and therefore ineffectively. The Presbyterians lost their place in the skirmish-line; but that which had been their hindrance in the advance work gave them great advantage in settled communities, in which for many years they took precedence in the building up ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... then this rivalry between the two young Parisians would drop into a hand-to-hand fight. I myself was witness to such a skirmish one day, in front of 'La Prunelle.' The rivals pulled each other's hair mightily while the manuscripts flew about over the pavement, and Virginie, in her short skirts, stood at the door of the cafe and laughed until she seemed ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the month our cavalry relieved the infantry on the line of the Rapidan, and on the nineteenth, in a sharp skirmish between Stuart's and Bayard's forces, Captain Charles Walters, of the Harris Light Cavalry, was killed. This officer was very popular in the regiment, and his death cast a gloom over all. Wrapped in a soldier's blanket his body was consigned to a soldier's grave at the solemn hour of midnight. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... and plunged a stick vigorously into the contents, and, as the miller showed no disposition to skirmish, she continued: ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... about leaving for London—in the dress and character of a servant-maid. He was well fitted for such disguise, being extremely young and having very delicate features. Besides this, he was supposed to be dead, having received a slight wound in the skirmish at Ballingarry. He obstinately refused to adopt the disguise, but consented to that of a servant boy. When the matter was finally arranged, it was proposed to us to sleep at Templenoe, on the north side of Kenmare Bay, where he was to be furnished with suitable clothes. Since the commencement, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... Edwards—a notorious desperado loyalist—had come down from Sandy Hook, and were approaching the neighborhood of Cedar Creek. Upon receipt of the intelligence the young captain had immediately set forth to prevent their marauding progress into the interior. A sharp skirmish took place which resulted in victory for the Monmouth defenders, and when at length they reentered Freehold, they bore with them the notorious Edwards, a prisoner, together with a majority of his Tory band. ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... troubles from the debts he had incurred, and the enemies who rose against him, he was further shaken by the death of his mother Philippa, whom he tenderly loved. His friend Chandos, too, was killed in a skirmish. Unhappily, while thus weakened in mind and body the treachery of the bishop and people of Limoges, who, having bound themselves by innumerable promises to him, surrendered their city to the French, caused him to commit the one act of cruelty which ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... gates were strictly guarded, or insolently open; and after some hesitation they sounded a retreat. The two first divisions had passed along the walls, but the prospect of a free entrance tempted the headstrong valor of the nobles in the rear; and after a successful skirmish, they were overthrown and massacred without quarter by the crowds of the Roman people. Stephen Colonna the younger, the noble spirit to whom Petrarch ascribed the restoration of Italy, was preceded or accompanied in death by his son John, a gallant ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... show that this man was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with the commonest pretension to honesty would dream of employing him. The history of his father could be adduced, and any private little anecdotes of his mother would find a favourable opportunity for mention. Though a mere skirmish, if judiciously managed, this will occupy a week or two, and at the same time serve to indicate that you mean to show fight; for by this time the 'Legale's' blood will be up, and he is certain to make reprisals on your man, so that for a month or so you and the ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Officer Moffat in difficulties, turned on his knee and faced his pursuers. Their fire was erratic, but his was cool and accurate, and after three or four rounds the Magyars kept their heads well down in the long marsh grass, which permitted the party to escape. The result of this skirmish, however, allowed the enemy armoured train to advance to a point dangerously near our defensive works, which, with a little more enterprise and determination, he might easily have enfiladed. But though the enemy ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... without thinking of the fate of the rest. On horseback, with a loaded revolver in hand, I had to keep guard at the side of the ambulance carts, to keep the marauders away from the wounded. Once I had a narrow escape from being captured by the Bavarians. It was at a skirmish of artillery. A couple of French and a couple of German pieces were in position. The French were quickly disabled by the Germans, and even the head gunner was severely wounded. I took him on my shoulders, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... better," Abner explained. "Mam and I gen'ally have to skirmish round for vittles. We don't often ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... illustrated its several events, and delegates of foreign countries have been allowed to mingle freely with its soldiery, and to observe and describe its battles. The pen and the camera have accompanied its bayonets, and there has not probably been any skirmish, however insignificant, but a score of zealous scribes ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... who made report of this skirmish to General Terry, well expresses the feelings of loneliness that still prevailed ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... hither once, On horseback, that I saw a poor lad, slain In some sad skirmish of these cruel wars; There seem'd no wound, and so I stay'd by him, Thinking he might live still. But, ever, whilst I stretch'd to reach some trifling thing for aid, His sullen head would slip from off my knee, And his damp hair to earth would wander down, Till I grew frighten'd thus to challenge ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... though sad and fast-fading slave of her Ishmaelitish lord, himself the slave of lawless passions, yet not wholly depraved, —fitfully tender and tyrannic,—and when, at last, he fell in some inglorious skirmish, she buried him with her own hands, and wept and fasted over his shallow grave till she died. There was a child, but she had no look of the father to charm that poor, broken heart back to life; she was left in the camp and became a little "Daughter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... with the natives of Aleppo, and returned to Jerusalem in order to make the necessary preparations for defence. The pilgrims, however, succeeded in landing, for Emir Fakhr ed-Din, the Egyptian commander, had taken to flight after a short skirmish, and the fortress was allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy (June, 1249). Ayyub now established a firm footing in the town of Cairo—which his father had founded—in a district intersected by canals, and harassed the Christian ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... in the king's army; but the fact was that Lambert had acted upon Cromwell's orders, which were, to harass and delay the march of the king as much as possible, but not to risk with his small force anything like an engagement. After this skirmish it was considered advisable to send back the Earl of Derby and many other officers of importance into Lancashire, that they might collect the king's adherents in that quarter and in Cheshire. Accordingly the earl, with about two ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... in an American ravine, waiting for the game; on a Highland moor, when the stags had got scent and the last chance of sport in the day was gone like a beautiful dream; in an artist's attic in Florence, where the tobacco smoke was too thick to cut with anything less than a hatchet; and after a skirmish with the dervishes, when a cup of coffee seemed almost as precious as the life one had just managed to save by the skin of one's teeth; but I never made it under more pleasant circumstances ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... have no doubt brought arms for those escaped recruits. Now, if we try to outmarch them, they will catch us in the woods and shoot every one of us before we can get to Ernee. We must argue, as you call it, with cartridges. During the skirmish, which will last more time than you think for, some of us ought to go back and fetch the National Guard and the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... not our son's writing, yet his name is signed; O a strange hand writes for our dear son—O stricken mother's soul! All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only; Sentences broken—"gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital, At present low, but will soon ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... his regiment in a charge. His comrades armed themselves to avenge the indignity, and the students, eager for the fray, sallied out to meet them with pistols and fencing-foils, the latter with buttons snapped off and points sharpened. There was hopeful promise of a very respectable skirmish; but it was nipped in the bud by the interposition of our peace-making instructors, aided by the authority of a Prussian officer. When the affair was over, some wonder was expressed why our fire-eating military attendant had not given us his professional ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... death of the nineteenth century—was of another range and power; more terrible a thousandfold in its merely physical grasp and grief; more terrible, incalculably, in its mystery and shame. What were the robber's casual pang, or the range of the flying skirmish, compared to the work of the axe, and the sword, and the famine, which was done during this man's youth on all the hills and plains of the Christian earth, from Moscow to Gibraltar? He was eighteen years old when Napoleon came down on ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... others, to enliven many an indifferent moment, point the arrows of their wit at him. If he is not merely a stuffed Saracen, like those on whom the knights used to practise their lances in mock battles, but understands himself how to skirmish, to rally, and to challenge, how to wound lightly, and recover himself again, and, while he seems to expose himself, to give others a thrust home, nothing more agreeable can be found. Such a man we possessed in our friend Horn, whose name, to begin with, gave ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... burst; and the year which followed has been rightly called "Alfred's year of battles.'' Nine general engagements were fought with varying fortunes, though the place and date of two of them have not been recorded. A successful skirmish at Englefield, Berks (December 31, 870), was followed by a severe defeat at Reading (January 4, 871), and this, four days later, by the brilliant victory of Ashdown, near Compton Beauchamp in Shrivenham Hundred. On the 22nd of January the English were again defeated at Basing, and on the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Webster lived at Sissinghurst and Cranbrook for many years, and found there frequent subjects of rustic study. The Sissinghurst ruins are fragmentary, excepting the grand entrance, which is well preserved. Baker's Cross survives to mark the spot where the Anabaptists had a skirmish with their great enemy; and the legend is that he was killed there, though history asserts that this theological warrior died in his bed peaceably ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... doors and windows of the palazzos, and all those other architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and a different tongue. These people are the Croats, ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... MR. PUNCH, SAYS TO THE ARTISTS' CORPS.—"Gentlemen, you would no doubt like a brush with the enemy, to whom you will always show a full face. Any colourable pretence for a skirmish won't suit your palette. You march with the colours, and, like the oils, you will never run.' You all look perfect pictures, and everybody must admire your well-knit frames. Gentlemen, I do not know whether you will take ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... he said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess board—the human mind—with the black men ranged on one side and the white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten, manoeuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares represent the checkered ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... captain just then coming out of his cabin, where he had been busy getting all his papers and bills of lading together, and ordering the jolly-boat to be lowered to pull him ashore, Tim turned away to see to the job—so, he had the best of me in our little skirmish, albeit we were nevertheless good ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thicket, near a wretched cabin, a horse and rider were visible tearing through the foliage of a winding lane. He drew up his musket in prompt recognition of his duty, but he saw with mortification that the horse and rider continued unharmed. Other shots from the skirmish-line followed, but Jack's rebel was the only enemy seen, when, in the early dusk, an orderly from the main column brought the command to set pickets and bivouac for the night. Jack would have written with better grounds for his solemnity if ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... he made this allusion to mischief formerly done to the crew of the Foam, that he touched a rankling sore in the breast of Scraggs, who in a skirmish with the natives some time before had lost an eye; and the idea of revenging himself on the defenseless women and children of his enemies was so congenial to the mind of the second mate, that his objections to act willingly under Manton's orders ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... is scarcely begun, we answer; one must be blind not to see it. What is ended, is only the first skirmish. As to the war, it will be as long, believe me, as the life of the two principles which are struggling in America. Let Mr. Lincoln assure himself, and let the European adversaries of slavery remember as well, ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... ten seconds, and then his rifle cracked; and a yell of astonishment and rage broke from the Indians, as one of their chiefs, conspicuous from an old dragoon helmet, taken probably in some skirmish with the soldiers, fell from ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... Two found us in the Village of the Temple, a tumble-down little place, but a very citadel of pride and the arrogance of ignorance. We did not know that at first, of course, but we very soon found it out. There was the usual skirmish at the sight of a live white woman; no one there had seen such a curiosity. But even curiosity could not draw the Brahmans. They live in a single straggling street, and would not let us in. "Go!" said a fat old Brahman disdainfully; "no white man has ever trodden our ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... being rendered unserviceable by the wet. The first engagement of importance was that of the 21st of August between Wallmoden and Davoust at Vellahn. A few days afterward, Theodore Korner, the youthful poet and hero, fell in a skirmish between the French and Wallmoden's outpost at Gadebusch.—Oudinot advanced close upon Berlin, which was protected by the crown prince of Sweden. A murderous conflict took place, on the 23d of August, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... lines were north of Knoxville beyond the railway and the station buildings. He also occupied a line of hills, but pushed forward strong skirmish lines and detachments to cover the making of intrenchments closer to the town. There were frequent bickering combats, but no general engagement. The enemy made efforts to destroy the pontoon bridge by sending down logs and rafts from above. These were met by an iron cable boom stretched across ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... shorter route was eleven miles. I chose the latter. It led through a sparsely settled, open oak country. Two regiments of Wheeler's cavalry had been hovering about Hillsboro during the day, evidently watching our movements. After proceeding about three miles, a dash was made upon my skirmish line, which resulted in the killing of a lieutenant, the capture of one man, and the wounding of several others. I instantly formed line of battle, and pushed forward as rapidly as the nature of the ground would admit; but ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Countries, then struggling, with Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made governor of Flushing—the key to the navigation of the North Seas—with the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed, seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs, prompted by mistaken but chivalrous generosity, he took off his own, and had his thigh ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... away with him Don Jerome, the king's nephew, and a brother of his who was made prisoner in a skirmish with the natives, who was converted, and died at Goa. All the Jesuits agreed to desist from the mission of Madagascar, and departed along with Andrada much against his inclination; and thus ended the attempt to convert the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... combined action, and Colonel Opdycke with his regiment (One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Ohio) took the lead. He made a demonstration as if to turn the north point and go up the eastern side; then leaving the brigade skirmish line to continue to push there, he rapidly moved again to the west side and climbed swiftly to the ridge. Here was only room for four men to march abreast, but charging from rock to rock he succeeded in advancing about a third of a ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... an ornate and indecipherable monogram, wherewith to wipe his troubled brow. Susan Gluck's Orphan, who was playing down-wind, paused to inhale deeply and with a beatific expression. Restoring the fragrant square to its repository, the pink one essayed another conversational skirmish. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Scotland in May. Meanwhile the patriotic party had failed to take advantage of their opportunity. Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, the regent chosen to succeed Mar (who had fallen at Dupplin), had been captured in a skirmish near Roxburgh, either in November, 1332, or in April, 1333, and was succeeded in turn by Sir Archibald Douglas, the hero of the Annan episode, but destined to be better known as "Tyneman the Unlucky". The young king had been ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... and were intoxicated with the hope of deliverance from Ashantee rule. He should have waited for the trained troops of Major Chisholm. This was his fatal mistake. His pickets felt the enemy early in the morning of the 21st of January, 1824. A lively skirmish followed. In a short time the clamorous war-horns of the advancing Ashantees were heard, and a general engagement came on. The first fighting began along a shallow stream. The Ashantees came up with the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... valiant and better trained than that of the Royalists, were yet unable to withstand the impetuosity with which the latter always attacked, the men seeming, indeed, to be seized with a veritable panic at the sight of the gay plumes of Rupert's gentlemen. In a fierce skirmish between Harry's troop and a party of Parliament horse of about equal strength, the latter were defeated, and Harry, returning with the main body, found a Puritan officer dismounted, with his back against a tree, ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... so many lovers that she herself could not tell who was the father of her child; but the lumps of gold had a language of their own. The disbanded army espoused the young priest's cause; there was a skirmish, Macrin was killed, and Heliogabalus was emperor ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... to the forest-camp, where he heard the details of the skirmish—how that his men had been out-numbered five to one, but got off safely, as they thought, until a count of their members had shown the loss of the widow's ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... and Companies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8 promptly "formed square" on the road. As soon as it was discovered that the alarm was a false one, the order was given to "Reform Column," and for the two leading companies (Nos. 1 and 2) to "extend." On reforming, the reserve, being too close to the skirmish line, was ordered to retire. The left wing of the Thirteenth, who were in rear, seeing the four companies of the Queen's Own reserve retiring, and thinking a general retreat had been ordered, broke ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... the coxswain. "Mr. Nelson's in command," he added, turning to his companions. "Douse my to'-gallant top-lights but we'll have a skirmish now sure." ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... was fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly explained the distribution of the forces. Large square mounds were scattered about the plain where the German dead were buried, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... may think, added a good deal to the colonel's reputation; and when we had that affair with the Bedouins at Laghouat we soon saw that he could fight as well as manoeuvre. In the thick of the skirmish one of the rogues, seeing De Malet left alone, flew at him with drawn yataghan, but the colonel just dropped on his horse's neck and let the blow pass over him, and then gave point and ran the fellow right through the body, as neatly as any fencing-master could have done it. You may be sure we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... set apart for him in the convent, Harold found Haco and Wolnoth already awaiting him; and a wound he had received in the last skirmish against the Bretons, having broken out afresh on the road, allowed him an excuse to spend the rest of the evening alone with ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mattered little, for by capturing the non-combatants the Queres still remained masters of the situation. Tyope was explaining all this to the Hishtanyi Chayan; and the two, in consequence of their conversation, had remained behind the foremost skirmish-line. The shaman was listening, and from time to time grunting assent to ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... their master, Hussein Pacha, was tottering on the verge of dissolution; a plot against his life had just been discovered, he had punished the ringleaders with death, and many who had been concerned in the conspiracy felt that there was no safety for them with him. Beaten constantly in every skirmish or battle, they conceived a high respect for the military genius of the invaders, and, ere the close of the summer campaign, offered their services in a body to General Clausel; this offer he promptly declined, and they thereupon withdrew, carrying their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... as if the bullet that had been fired from a musket had cut the leaves above his head and stood listening to the roll of echoes which followed the shot. Then there was another, and another, followed by scores, telling him that a sharp skirmish had begun; and after a while he could just make out a faint cloud of smoke above the trees, where the dim vapour was ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... the row?' said Maulevrier marching into his grandmother's room with a free and easy air. He was prepared for a skirmish, and he meant to take the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... called out, "For God's sake, boys, don't shoot!" We halted among them without firing a shot. They then related to us their story. They were camped at the place hunting when the Snakes came upon them about 1 o'clock the previous evening. A skirmish had taken place, but without serious consequences on either side, when the Snakes made overtures for peace, saying they did not want to fight them, that they were only enemies of the white man. They proposed, in order to settle the terms of peace, that the two chiefs, Polina, or as some give ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... Walter Scott joined the Stuart Prince in 1715, and, with his brother, was engaged in that unfortunate adventure which ended in a skirmish and captivity at Preston. It was the fashion of those times for all persons of the rank of gentlemen to wear scarlet waistcoats. A ball had struck one of the brothers, and carried part of this dress into his body, and in this condition he was taken prisoner with a number of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Nott, with beaming unconsciousness, "she had n't any trunks. I reckon she had n't even an extra gown hanging up in the wagin, 'cept the petticoat ez she had wrapped around yer. It was about ez much ez we could do to skirmish round with Injins, alkali, and cold, and we sorter forgot to dress for dinner. She never thought, Rosey, that you and me would live to be inhabitin' a paliss of a real ship. Ef she had she would have died a ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... threw themselves at their feet and clung to their knees. With some difficulty the major stopped the slaughter, and had the four terrified girls locked up in a room under the care of two soldiers, and then he organized the pursuit of the fugitive, as carefully as if they were about to engage in a skirmish, feeling quite sure that ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... his conduct in not waiting for the arrival of the great force under Pausanias, which was at Plataea, close by, seems like bad generalship. He would not stay till the main body arrived, but rashly assaulted the city, and fell by an unknown hand in an insignificant skirmish. He did not meet his death facing overwhelming odds, like Kleombrotus at Leuktra, nor yet in the act of rallying his broken forces, or of consummating his victory, as did Cyrus and Epameinondas. All these ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the Indian raised his bark wigwam, and the smoke of his council fire curled up like a mist-wreath in the forest. Here the red man filled the wild gourd cup when he returned weary from the chase or the skirmish. And here, too, the Indian maiden smoothed her dark locks, and her lustrous, laughing eyes gazed upon the image of her own dusky beauty, mirrored on the surface of the wave. By and by the red man ceased to drink of my unfailing rill. Beings with ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... well for you to joke about the poor! You may skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is not a joy or ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... both mythical and real. In the centre is the great stone lion, massively impressive, standing over the prostrate form of a man. The lion has suffered from fire and man; there have even been chips made in it recently by Arab rifles, probably not wantonly, but in some skirmish. Standing alone in its majesty in the midst of ruin and desolation amid the black tents of a people totally unable to construct or even appreciate anything of a like nature, it gave one much to think over and moralize about. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... over the ground to-day, boys, Tread each remembered spot. It will be a gleesome journey, On the swift-shod feet of thought; You can fight a bloodless battle, You can skirmish along the route, But it's not worth while to forage, There are rations ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... telling the truth—have I been able to discover in its columns one single line of common sense. Its facts are sensational—its articles gross appeals to popular folly, popular ignorance, and popular vanity. Every petty skirmish of the National Guard has been magnified into a stupendous victory; every battalion which visited a tomb, crowned a statue, or signed some manifesto pre-eminent in its absurdity, has been lauded in language which would have been exaggerated if applied to the veterans of the first Napoleon. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... given something of a thrill in watching the evolutions of a half dozen planes, skirmish escort men of the air, flying high and wide covering our movements. We were now on the division of road operated by our own gallant 13th Engineers, of which my friend, Sergeant McDowell of Blue Island, was ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... Wisdom, and Mr. Man's Invention.' They were allowed to join, and were placed in positions of trust, the captains of the covenant being apparently wanting in discernment. They were taken prisoners in the first skirmish, and immediately changed sides and went over to Diabolus. More battles follow. The roof of the Lord Mayor's house is beaten in. The law is not wholly ineffectual. Six of the Aldermen, the grosser moral sins—Swearing, Stand to Lies, Drunkenness, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... reply. It was clearly impossible to assert that he wanted to fight for liberty, to give his life to the cause of an oppressed nationality. It would be utterly absurd to tell the story of his father's vision, and say that he looked on the South African War as a skirmish preliminary to the Armageddon. Sitting opposite to this cynical man of the world and listening to his talk, Hyacinth came himself to disbelieve in principle. He felt that there must be some baser ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... force of nearly twice his numbers, commanded by Arista. The battle of Palo Alto ensued, and next day that of Resaca de la Palma, Taylor completely victorious in both. May 13th, before knowledge of these actions had reached Washington, warranted merely by news of the cavalry skirmish on April 26th, Congress declared war, and the President immediately called for 50,000 volunteers. In July Taylor was re-enforced by Worth, and proceeded to organize a campaign against Monterey, a strongly ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... who labored with us. Paul, divining that she meant the kitchen, fled down-stairs. I stole a look at Emma Hulett's face as she bent over the sister she had not seen in thirty years, and I knew that Mrs. Purdon's battle was won. It even seemed that she had won another skirmish in her never-ending war with death, for a little warmth began to ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... once started in pursuit, only to find that the French had retired before him to Poitiers, eighteen miles due west of Chauvigny. Careless of his convoy, he hurried across country in the hope of catching the elusive enemy, but was only in time to fight a rear-guard skirmish at a manor named La Chaboterie, on the road from Chauvigny to Poitiers, on September, 17. That night the English lay in a wood hard by the scene of action, suffering terribly from want of water. Next day, Sunday, September 18, Edward pursued the French as near as ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the nearest boat, the free-traders forming up around her, and hustling the dragoons. It was old Solomon Tweedy's boat, and he, prudent man, had taken advantage of the skirmish to ease her off, so that a push would set her afloat. He asserts that as July came up to him she never uttered a word, but the look on her face said "Push me off," and though he was at that moment meditating his own escape, he obeyed and pushed the boat off "like a mazed man." I may ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... account extracted from the journal of the late John Berthier Heatherstone, of the events which occurred in the Thul Valley in the autumn of '41 towards the end of the first Afghan War, with a description of the skirmish in the Terada defile, and of the death of the man ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... many instruments, and her gifts in composition are amply proven by her four-part chorus, which can be found in J. Paix's organ collection. Her career was brought to an untimely end by grief. She was engaged to Jean de Peyrat, a royal officer, who met his death in a skirmish with the Huguenots in 1560. Her sorrow at this disaster proved incurable, and she ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... a decisive battle, if possible, before his short-term volunteers were discharged. Learning that the enemy was slowly advancing from the southwest by two or three different roads, Lyon moved out, August 1, on the Cassville road, had a skirmish with the enemy's advance-guard at Dug Springs the next day, and the day following (the 3d) again at Curran Post-office. The enemy showed no great force, and offered but slight resistance to our advance. It was evident ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... ones too. It was but the other day that he pensioned a poor widow, whose only son fell in a skirmish at his side. Heaven bless his old ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... in the hospital and there he loved her. Rhett Sempland met her in a hospital, also. Poor Sempland had been captured in an obscure skirmish late in 1861. Through some hitch in the matter he had been held prisoner in the North until the close of 1863, when he had been exchanged and, wretchedly ill, he had come back to Charleston, like ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... years, there was not so much ceremony in his banquet, neither was there so much state; nor was the friendship less keen or the intimacy less enjoyable in Leigh's humbler days of "off-n-off." A wonderful company—a brilliant company; with flashing wit and dazzling sallies, with many "a skirmish of wit between them." From more, the quieter flow of genial humour. And among the rest, the listeners; men—some of them—who prefer to attend than to talk, even to the point of reserve and almost of taciturnity. Such men were ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... School, also Business College. Thirty-five churches, two newspapers, the Daily Banner and the Index; fifty miles of paved streets; largest stone arch bridge in the West, marking site of Battle of Sycamore Ridge, a border ruffian skirmish; home of Watts McHurdie, famous as writer of war-songs, best known ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... the embattled kings, Jack-frost and Sombre-pine, has his children in abundance to possess the land as he wins it. Right up to the skirmish line are they. ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... more reason for Charles to be heartsick at the sight than for John Paston, and he did grow weary of the further waiting and anxious, for his truce with Louis was drawing to a close. On May 22d, there was a skirmish between his troops and the imperial forces, wherein Charles claimed the victory. In reality, there was none on either side, but the semblance was sufficient to soothe his amour propre, and to convince him that an accommodation ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... little laugh that was sadder than tears; and as she spoke she slipped down to a lower step and rested her head on his knee, drawing down one of his strong hands to shade her eyes. He talked of his sketch, of his word-skirmish with the basket women, of the view from the amphitheatre; but she did not much hear what he said, she was looking at the hand that shaded her eyes. That strong hand which had toiled for her when she was ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... would not. The blood hunger of a mob is easy to whet and hard to hold. McNamara would resist, as would Voorhees and the district-attorney, then there would be bloodshed, riot, chaos. The soldiers would be called out and martial law declared, the streets would become skirmish-grounds. The Vigilantes would rout them without question, for every citizen of the North would rally to their aid, and such men could not be stopped. The Judge would go down with the rest of the ring, and what ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... means he was spared many an exhibition of hateful passions and ruffian violence, which annoyed his guests and friends. But now all things had changed: deep silence reigned in the pantry; the kitchen rang no more with martial alarums; and the hall was unvexed with skirmish or pursuit. Yet it may be readily supposed that to Kant, at the age of seventy-eight, changes, even for the better, were not welcome: so intense had been the uniformity of his life and habits, that the least innovation in the arrangement of articles as ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... sporran, tagged with thong points tied in knots, and with no plaid on the shoulder. I've never seen a more jaunty and suitable garb for campaigning, better by far for short sharp tulzies with an enemy than the philamore or the big kilt our people sometimes throw off them in a skirmish, and fight (the coarsest of them) in their ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Charles's part to seize Hampden and four other members precipitated the Civil War; he took an active part in organising the Parliamentary forces, and proved himself a brave and skilful general in the field; he fell mortally wounded while opposing Prince Rupert in a skirmish at Chalgrove Field; historians unite in extolling his nobility of character, statesmanship, and single-minded ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the valiant men. Ortwin and Hagen did many wonderful deeds, and if any devised a sport, warriors, joyous in strife, welcomed it straightway. So were the knights proven before the guests, and they of Gunther's land won glory. The wounded also came forth to take part with their comrades, to skirmish with the buckler, and to shoot the shaft, and waxed strong thereby, ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... nothing of their own birthplaces, or of the lanes, woods, and fields through which they roam. Not one young man in twenty knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or the bee-orchis; still fewer can tell the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, or the place where the last skirmish was fought in the Civil War, or where the parish butts stood. Nor is this ignorance confined to the unlearned rustics; it is shared by many educated people, who have travelled abroad and studied the history of Rome or Venice, Frankfort or Bruges, and yet pass by unheeded ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... on Rodney and upset the balance of superiority. But the lack of aggressiveness in the French doctrine was again fatal to French success. De Grasse merely sent his second in command to conduct a skirmish at long range—and thus ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... carefully poled up the Alleghany shore against the current, then headed out and vigorously paddled towards the Pittsburgh side. Nearing the enemies' headquarters a skirmish would be opened by a shower of stones sent into their ranks. If the Pittsburghers were not sufficiently numerous to repel the invasion, the "Gray Eagle" was landed. The majority of the crew pursued the flying ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... soldiers became encamped at the Mooney plantation they had camped upon a hill and some skirmishing had occurred. Uncle Joe remembers the skirmish and seeing cannon balls come over the fields. The cannon balls were chained together and the slave children would run after the missils. Sometimes the chains would cut down trees as the balls rolled through ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... purpose was diverted to a mad crusade against the Moors, his plans were carried out in 1579 by the landing of a few soldiers under the brother of the Earl of Desmond, James Fitzmaurice, on the coast of Kerry. The Irish however held aloof, and Fitzmaurice fell in a skirmish; but the revolt of the Earl of Desmond gave fresh hope of success, and the rising was backed by the arrival in 1580 of two thousand Papal soldiers "in five great ships." These mercenaries were headed by an Italian captain, San Giuseppe, and ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... skeleto. Sketch skizi. Sketch skizo. Skewer trapikileto. Skid malakcelo. Skiff boateto. Skilful lerta. Skill lerteco. Skilled lerta. Skim sensxauxmigi. Skimmer sxauxmkulero. Skin hauxto. Skin (animal) felo. Skin senfeligi. Skinner felisto. Skip salteti. Skirmish bataleto. Skirt jupo. Skittles kegloj. Skulk kasxigxi. [Error in book: kasigxi] Skull kranio. Sky cxielo. Skylight fenestreto. Slack malstrecxa. Slacken (speed) malakceli. Slacken (loose) malstrecxi. Slag metala sxauxmo. Slake sensoifigi. Slander ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... not far distant. Both were in the dress of the men-at-arms composing the Duke's guard, a disguise probably assumed to execute the fatal commission of the Secret Tribunal. It is supposed that a party of the traitor Campo-Basso's men had been engaged in the skirmish in which the Duke fell, for six or seven of them, and about the same number of the Duke's guards, were found near ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... This was the preliminary skirmish. Real and bloody battle was joined twenty-four hours later. But, in the meantime, there was an early-evening lull which enclosed a delightful cricket match. A team of junior Kensingtonians, that included Doe and myself, was going across Kensingtowe ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... await their onslaught; and it will not be until the Convention becomes aware of the really serious nature of the storm they have raised, that there will be any hard fighting. Still, even in a petty skirmish men fall; and it is right that, before I go, we should arrange as to what course you had best pursue, in case of ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... bravely, and the young master, finding he was getting the better of him, undertook to tie his hands behind him. He failed in that likewise. By dint of kicking and fisting, William came out of the skirmish none the worse for ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... contest or a succession of small contests, for the sake of finding out who is boss builds up a habit of fighting that may lead to a bitter end. It is useless to discover who can win in any particular skirmish. What is important is to learn whether one of you is set on being "head of the house." If your spouse craves that distinction, by all means hand it over without delay. It is an empty honor, for the one who bends but does not break will readily develop the fine ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... they supposed the force there only a small one, for they retired and soon came up again reinforced in some numbers, and a sharp little skirmish ensued, hot enough to make them more prudent afterwards, though the picket retired up the mountain. This gave them encouragement and probably misled them, for they now advanced boldly. They saw the redoubt on the crest as they came on, and unlimbering a section or two, flung a few shells ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... however, was not one of these. Her heart sank sometimes when she heard the talk of her bold husband and warlike sons. They had all three of them fought for the king at the first battle, or rather skirmish, at St. Albans four years before, and were ardent followers and adherents of the Red Rose of Lancaster. Her husband had received knighthood at the monarch's hands on the eve of the battle, and was prepared ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... for some object where he might shelter himself in case of a skirmish. He was sidling behind a high point of the parapet, when the stranger rushed forward, and, throwing both arms about his neck, poured forth a perfect cataract of Spanish, in which the word gracias (thanks) was of ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... certain Baron Wrede, two doctors, and myself, besides five or six servants, and the two chiefs with the body-guard of twelve Arabs. All were strongly armed with guns, pistols, swords, and lances, and we really looked as though we sallied forth with the intention of having a sharp skirmish. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
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