"Skirmish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... main army. He went on September 1—the king promised to start next day. D'Alenon returned to the Maid, the king still loitered. At last d'Alenon brought him to St. Denis on September 7, and there was a skirmish ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... 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
... 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. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... 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, battle, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... skirmish between a detachment of Bouille's cavalry and the national guard of Varennes, Louis was started back for Paris, surrounded by armed contingents from all the near-by villages. The whole course of the Revolution had for an instant ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... 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 |
