"Staves" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... employed his royal lungs On nails, hoops, staves, pumps, barrels, and their bungs, The king and Co. sat down to a collation Of flesh and fish, and fowl of every nation. Dire was the clang of plates, of knife and fork, That merciless fell like tomahawks to work, And fearless scalped the fowl, the fish, and cattle, While ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... not weary my readers with the talk of three young people enamoured of Byron. Of course the feelings the girls had about him differed materially from those of Alec; so that a great many of the replies and utterances met like unskilful tilters, whose staves passed wide. In neither was the admiration much more than an uneasy delight in the vivid though indistinct images of pleasure raised by the magic of that "physical force of words" in which Byron excels all other English poets, and in virtue of which, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... 1825, Crockett built two large flat-boats, to load with staves for the making of casks, which he intended to take down the river to market. He employed a number of hands in building the boat and splitting out the staves, and engaged himself in these labors "till the bears got fat." He then plunged into the woods, ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... all kinds in the woods. They remained there half a month, and enjoyed themselves, and kept no watch. They had their live-stock with them. Now one morning early, when they looked about them, they saw a great number of skin-canoes,[36-2] and staves were brandished from the boats, with a noise like flails, and they were revolved in the same direction in which the sun moves. Then said Karlsefni: "What may this betoken?" Snorri, Thorbrand's son, answers him: "It may be, that this ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... lined by beautiful glass mosaics, and the semi-dome is mosaic work to match. This sounds a mere catalogue, but it is quite impossible to give any idea of this singularly richly-decorated chapel without descending to detail. The tattered colours used at the Crimea and Waterloo hang from their staves on the pillars. Anyone is admitted to parade service on Sunday mornings by ticket, to be procured beforehand ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... Conjurors proclaimed the merits of their miracles, bawling in the faces of the curious. Dwarfs went to and fro, dressed in bright colours with green and yellow turbans on their enormous heads, tapping with long staves, and relating their deformities. Water-sellers sounded their gongs. Before pyramids of oranges and dates, neatly arranged in patterns, sat boys crying in shrill voices the luscious virtues of their fruits. Idiots, with blear eyes and protending under-lips, gibbered and whined. Dogs ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... them," is very much of a piece with his reply to the armed party which seized him, as we read it in Saint Mark's Gospel, and in Saint Luke's:(Mark xiv. 48. Luke xxii. 52.) "Are you come out as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not." In both answers we discern the same tranquillity, the same reference to his public teaching. His mild expostulation with Pilate, on two several occasions, as related by Saint John, (Chap. xviii. 34; xix. 11.) ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... complained of the weakness, or humanity, of their commander towards his prisoners, and they now turned him out and elected a new captain, and marooned England and three others on the Island of Mauritius. The captain and his companions set about building a small boat of some old staves and pieces of deal they found washed up on the beach. When finished they sailed to Madagascar, where, when last heard of, they were living on the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... velvet pall was removed and the crown placed on the coffin, which, at the appropriate time in the service, was lowered to the side of King William's coffin. Sir Charles Young, King-at-Arms, proclaimed the rank and titles of the deceased. The late Queen's chamberlain and vice-chamberlain broke their staves of office amidst profound silence, and kneeling, deposited them upon the coffin. The organ played the "Dead March in Saul," and the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... middle and fasten the ends on the toe covering, as shown in Fig. 1. The straps are used to attach the snowshoe to the regular shoe. When buckling up the straps be sure to leave them loose enough for the foot to work freely, Fig. 2. Fasten the barrel staves in pairs, leaving a space of 4 in. between them as shown in Fig. 3, with thin strips of wood. Nail the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... days, there have been many pilgrims in Rome, who come hither to attend the ceremonies of holy week, and to perform their vows, and undergo their penances. I saw two of them near the Forum yesterday, with their pilgrim staves, in the fashion of a thousand years ago. . . . . I sat down on a bench near one of the chapels, and a woman immediately came up to me to beg. I at first refused; but she knelt down by my side, and instead of praying to the saint prayed to me; and, being thus ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had the majority; upon which the old fox suggested to the Sheriff, to divide the meeting to the right and to the left. This was no sooner said than, as if by previous consent, about forty constables made a wide passage down the middle, which they cleared with their staves, while the Magistrates and Parsons, with the most scrutinising eyes, marked all those that passed over from their side to support my address. This very unfair conduct produced the desired effect; hundreds, who had held up ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... glorious to see the British spirit stanch and unsubdued. The order was given for every man to arm himself in the best manner he could, and it was obeyed with the utmost promptitude and alacrity. Rude pike staves were formed by cutting down young trees; small swords, dirks, knives, chisels, and even large spike nails sharpened, were firmly fixed to the ends of these poles, and those who could find nothing better hardened the end of the wood in the fire, and bringing it to a sharp point, formed ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... begins to want some society. He hasn't seen a priest for ten months or so, and he's afraid of the loup-garou, for all I know. So he comes down river, takes his Newport season here at Moisie, and goes to mass and staves off the loup-garou. They're all here now. Maybe you can get a couple to go up river and maybe ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... called to him the Twelve, gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city shake off the very dust ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... hae been fashed wi' few o' mine," said the downright man of staves and hoops, "if I had only your gude-will to thank ye for: I suld e'en hae set the guse, and the wild deukes, adn the runlet of sack to balance that account. Gude-will, man, is a geizen'd tub, that hauds in nae liquor; but gude deed's like the cask, tight, round, and sound, that will haud ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... struck off his right ear. 51 But Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye them thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him. 52 And Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and elders, that were come against him, Are ye come out, as against a robber, with swords and staves? 53 When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched not forth your hands against me: but this is your hour, ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... he saw the gypsy. She ran past him, half-a-score of men, armed with staves and pikes, at her heels. At first he thought they were chasing her. but they were following her as a leader. Her eyes sparkled as she waved them to ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... afternoon in the summer of 1810; the water was high in the brook, yet two washerwomen were busily employed in it; reed-matting was fast bound round their bodies, and they beat with wooden staves the clothes upon their washing-stools. They were in deep conversation, and yet ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... from each corner and hole of the Court Your Bedchamber lordlings, your salaried slaves, Who, ripe for all job-work, no matter what sort, Have their consciences tackt to their patents and staves. ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... monarchy wished there for such success to the parliamentary forces as might put an end to these oppressions. The country people, despoiled of their substance, flocked together in several places, armed with clubs and staves; and though they professed an enmity to the soldiers of both parties, their hatred was in most places levelled chiefly against the royalists, from whom they had met with the worst treatment. Many thousands of these tumultuary ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... You can make a sort of spring bottom affair if you can find the poles for it, and have a little ingenuity and patience; or you can more quickly drive four large stakes, and nail a framework to them, to which you can nail boards or barrel-staves.[9] All this kind of work must be strong, or you can have no rough-and-tumble sport on it. We used to see in the army sometimes, a mattress with a bottom of rubber cloth, and a top of heavy drilling, with ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... these, the party descended, and explored the place, to find that, where the powder had exploded, the walls were blackened and grisly, and that scores of little barrel staves were lying about shattered in all directions and pretty well burned away. On the other hand, the staves of the brandy kegs were for the most part hardly scorched, and the stone floor showed no traces of fire ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... girl, and she and me done a lot of spinning and weaving too. I helped the cook and carried water and milked. I carried the water in a home-made pegging set on my head. Them peggings was kind of buckets made out of staves set around a bottom and ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... conscientious constable floored with a truncheon. But a shower of fists fell on the zealot's face, and he tottered back bleeding. Then the storm broke in all its fury. The upper air was black with staves, sticks, and umbrellas, mingled with the pallid hailstones of knobby fists. Yells and groans and hoots and battle-cries blent in grotesque chorus, like one of Dvorak's weird diabolical movements. Mortlake stood impassive, ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... staves, and set fire to at least ten thousand wax-candles that were hanging in brilliant chandeliers in various parts of the chapel. Curtains were dropped over the upper windows as these illuminations were effected, and the church ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")
... fresco, the subject of which I did not trouble myself to make out. More appropriate adornments of the place, dedicated as well to martial reminiscences as religious worship, are the long ranges of dusty and tattered banners that hang from their staves alt round the ceiling of the chapel. They are trophies of battles fought and won in every quarter of the world, comprising the captured flags of all the nations with whom the British lion has waged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... expedition, assisting and looking after every creature, seeing us all out of our carriages and into them, and addressing the people, when they pressed too forward, with a steadiness and authority that made them quicker in retreat than all the staves of all the constables, who were attending by dozens at the entrance ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... lance in his right hand. Most of the spears have wooden shafts, but others are all metal, and mostly iron. Some are of fine and elegant workmanship, inlaid with brass, and of the value of a good maharee, or thirty dollars. They have staves also, which they use as walking-sticks, or weapons of war, as it may be[81]. These are their weapons of warfare. The matchlock they despise. "What can the enemy do with the gun against the sword?" the Targhee warriors ask contemptuously. They, indeed, use the sword, their grand weapon, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... cask which I had been wanting for some time, and expected to have found ready. Afraid to punish him myself, I brought my master to witness his conduct. The Jew, enraged at his idleness, struck him on the head with one of the staves. The Ethiopian sprung up in a rage, but on seeing his master with the stave in his hand, contented himself with muttering, "That he would not remain to be beaten in that manner," and reapplied himself to his labour. As ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... end of the quintain was of all men laughed to scorn, and he that hit it full, if he rid not the faster, had a sound blow in his neck with a bag full of sand hung on the other end. I have also in the summer season seen some upon the river of Thames rowed in wherries with staves in their hands, flat at the fore end, running one against another, and for the most part, one or ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... saw the King come in with all the persons (but the soldiers) that were yesterday in the cavalcade; and a most pleasant sight it was to see them in their several robes. And the King come in with his crowne on, and his sceptre in his hand, under a canopy borne up by six silver staves, carried by Barons of the Cinque Ports, and little bells at; every end. And after a long time, he got up to the farther end, and all set themselves down at their several tables; and that was also a brave sight: and the King's first course carried up by the Knights of the Bath. And many fine ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... leaving an opening of about a foot and a half, through which could be seen what was within, and through which could be thrown on the coffin, as is customary at the obsequies of kings, the broken staves of the officers and the ensigns and banners with their arms. This nocturnal ceremony ended, Melville, Bourgoin, and the other deputies were taken to the bishop's palace, where the persons appointed to take part in the ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to which Don Quixote is so frequently exposed in his various adventures. But what are the unconscious indignities which he suffers, compared with the sensible mortifications which Falstaff is made to bring upon himself? What are the blows and buffetings which the Don receives from the staves of the Yanguesian carriers or from Sancho Panza's more hard-hearted hands, compared with the contamination of the buck-basket, the disguise of the fat woman of Brentford, and the horns of Herne the hunter, which are discovered on Sir John's head? In reading the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... the wine-melon fields had been in pink blossom. Must have gotten the crop in early, on this side of the mountains. Maybe they were still harvesting, over in the Gordon Valley. Or maybe this gang below was going to the wine-pressing. Now that he thought of it, he'd seen a lot of cask staves going aboard ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... charity to one priest and two brethren. Fortunately, St. Cross was spared at the Reformation, and its endowments were not confiscated. The Vicar-General reported that there were "certain things requiring reformation", and that sturdy beggars were to be "driven away with staves"; also that the Lord's Prayer and the Creed were to be taught in English, and that relics and images were not to be brought out for the devotion of pilgrims. In 1632 Archbishop Laud caused a strict enquiry to be made, with the result that the Master, Dr. Lewis, reported that the fabric ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... little shawls and strange short, full frocks, revealing enormous boots, with their pails swung from their shoulders on wooden yokes; the inveterate footmen hooked behind the coaches of the rich, frequently in pairs and carrying staves, together with the mounted and belted grooms without the attendance of whom riders, of whichever sex—and riders then were much more numerous—almost never went forth. The range of character, on the other hand, reached rather dreadfully down; there were embodied and exemplified "horrors" ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of supers were engaged. Downes dilates at quite unusual length upon the magnificence of the new scenery and costumes. The court scene was especially crowded with 'the Lords, the Cardinals, the Bishops, the Doctors, Proctors, Lawyers, Tip-staves.' On New Year's Day, 1664, Pepys went to the Duke's house and saw 'the so much cried up play of Henry VIII; which tho' I went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing, made up of a great many ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... orchestra, "Lelewala," a legend of Niagara, is published for piano accompaniment. Now, Niagara is a dangerous subject for the frail skiffs of rhyme, prose, or music to launch out upon. Barrel staves may carry one through the whirlpool, but music staves cannot stand the stress. Of all the comments upon the Falls of Niagara that I have ever read, or heard of, there has been only one that seemed anything but ridiculously ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... of the family were dressed as though for a journey, with shoes on their feet and staves in their hands. They stood round the covered table on which the roasted lamb smoked in a dish surrounded by bitter lettuce. The ancestral wine-cup was filled with wine, and white unleavened bread laid ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... her reflections were suddenly interrupted by loud and prolonged shouts of joy. A whole throng of Pierrots had swarmed into the Place from every side, carrying lighted torches and tall staves, on which were hung lanthorns with ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... he is usually restricted, as the disposal of it in the island would interfere with the loading of ships and consignments, he purchases wholesale cargoes, and retails them out to the estate at a large profit. Staves bought by the attorney at 18 per thousand, have been known to be sold to the estate for 45 per thousand; and the cart belonging to the property has carried the rum to pay for them. It is well known that the rum made upon an estate will seldom ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... to our feet and gripped our staves firmly. And at the prospect of a fight my terror died away. There was no ghostly fear about things of flesh and blood. You can strike a man, but who can ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... woolen cloth, and wampum with the Indians for beaver skins, which they sent to England to pay for articles bought from the mother country. They salted cod, dried alewives and bass, made boards and staves for hogsheads, and sent all these to the West Indies to be exchanged for sugar, molasses, and other products of the tropics. They built ships in the seaports where lumber was cheap, and sold them abroad. They traded with Spain and Portugal, England, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... of my ancestors? how attentively should I listen to it! In earnest, it would be evil nature to despise so much as the pictures of our friends and predecessors, the fashion of their clothes and arms. I preserve their writing, seal, and a particular sword they wore, and have not thrown the long staves my father used to carry in his hand, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. 42. And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. 43. And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44. And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field. 45. Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... we did. Afterwards, the clerk of the hospital delivered to the Lord Mayor a list of the several governors to the several hospitals nominated the preceding year. Then the several beadles of all the hospitals came in, and laying down their staves on the middle of the floor, retired to the bottom of the hall. Thereupon the Lord Mayor addressed himself to the City Marshal, enquiring after their conduct, and if any complaint was to be made against any one in particular; and no objection being made, the Lord Mayor ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... the pot-hooks he had forged for Judith. There were strings of dried pumpkin, too, and of shining red peppers. On a low shelf, scarce visible at all in the dense shadow, stood a keg of sorghum, and one beside it of vinegar, flanked by the butter-keeler and the salt piggin with its cedar staves and hickory hoops. And there, too, was the broken coffee-pot in which ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... when the wind set in strong from the eastward. I now called the officers and the master of the ship together, to consider of our situation, with respect to water and provisions. We had been fitted out in a very hasty and careless manner, with water-casks built from old worm-eaten staves, which had been laying exposed to the sun for more than a year; so that by the time we had arrived within the above distance of the island, we had lost by leakage full three weeks water, and had every reason to fear the loss ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... is the gypsum trade, the St John's steamer, the Halifax coach, and a new house that is building. In King's County it is export of potatoes, bullocks, and horses. At Annapolis, cord, wood, oars, staves, shingles, and agricultural produce of all kinds. At Digby, smoked herrings, fish weirs, and St John markets. At Yarmouth, foreign freights, berthing, rails, cat-heads, lower cheeks, wooden bolsters, and the crown, palm, and shank of anchors. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... There was Moscow with its white stone walls and painted churches. Why, there were the market at Nijni Novgorod, and the Arab merchants with their camels, and the Chinese with their blue trousers and bamboo staves. And then there was the great river Volga, with men on the banks towing ships against the stream. Yes, and she saw a sturgeon asleep in a ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... September I dig my roots, procure an old thin stave dry cask, bore holes an inch diameter in every stave, 6 inches asunder round the cask, and up to the top—take first a half bushel of rich garden mold and put into the cask, then run the roots through the staves, leaving the branches outside, press the earth tight about the root within, and thus continue on thro' the respective stories, till the cask is full; it being filled, run an iron bar thro' the ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... opinions,—that ere this day I would be a Christian indeed. And looking back upon my alternating feelings, ever since reason was mine, upon the innumerable resolutions to do good, which have been as staves of reed, I must want common perception not to assent to the truth, that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" But, oh, it is not this only, which my intellectual ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... packed. I do not know exactly how many I ate, but I should say not much over fifteen. The keg was then put in a safe place, where I should be certain to find it by and by. In the course of the forenoon, I came upon a frozen bear; and I also found, in the same vicinity, plenty of old barrel-staves, and broken hoops, and other pieces of wood, great and small, which I laid in a heap upon the earth. "Now," said I, "we will have a bit of roast meat for dinner, with a few toasted crackers for dessert." Before two o'clock, I had a ...
— John Whopper - The Newsboy • Thomas March Clark
... building, they made excellent shingles which would last a lifetime. The swamps, indeed, became known as shingle mines, and it was a good description of them. An important trade was developed in hogshead staves, hoops, shingles, boards, and planks, much of which went into the West Indian trade to be exchanged for rum, sugar, molasses, ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... its own standard; these were all of religious character, and represented animals sacred to the gods, sacred boats, emblematic devices, or the names of the king or queen. These were in metal, and were raised at the ends of spears or staves. The standard-bearers were all officers of approved valor. Behind the army followed an enormous baggage-train; and as soon as this had arrive on the ground the tents of the king and ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... opposite the Tabernacle. Thereupon the leaders of the twelve tribes would appear, each with his staff and chant these words to the well, "Spring up, O well, sing ye unto it; nobles of the people digged it by the direction of the lawgiver with their staves." Then the water would gush forth from the depths of the well, and shoot up high as pillars, then discharge itself into great streams that were navigable, and on these rivers the Jews sailed to the ocean, and hauled all the treasures of the world ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... Staves in their hands, loins girded too, They waited the command To throw their loosened shackles off, And ...
— Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered Life. • Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
... power of this relic first appeared with a terrible example in that country, through the foolish and absurd blowing of Bernard, a priest, as is set forth in our Topography of Ireland. Both the laity and clergy in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales held in such great veneration portable bells, and staves crooked at the top, and covered with gold, silver, or brass, and similar relics of the saints, that they were much more afraid of swearing falsely by them than by the gospels; because, from some hidden and ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... were large and turned back, and they girded up their clothes around the waist. Each party went to their own table; and two sets of disciples in the side rooms, and our Lord and his Apostles in the supper-room. They held staves in their hands, and went two and two to the table, where they remained standing, each in his own place, with the stave resting on his arms, and his ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... cask that has been just emptied, with part of a stave or two knocked out at the head, and into the others drive hooks to hang your fowls, but not so as to touch one another, covering the open places with the staves or boards already knocked out, but leaving the bung-hole open as an air vent. Let them dry in a cool place, and in this way you may keep fish ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... journey are aggravated by the savage temper of the drivers. Jealousies between the natives of rival districts spring up; and there are men alive who have fought the whole way down from Fluela Hospice to Davos Platz with knives and stones, hammers and hatchets, wooden staves and splintered cart-wheels, staining the snow with blood, and bringing broken pates, bruised limbs, and senseless comrades home to their women to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... hands and listened to the measured periods of the orators exhorting them to remember their wrongs and die fighting. These old men, white-haired, scarred with the wounds of bygone battles, their wrinkled hands clasping the staves on which they leaned, never winced as the shells whistled above their heads, nor abated by a hair's breadth their tone of strident warning and encouragement. At such a distance, and against a target six hundred feet above ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... on which the houses of Sancerre are grouped is so far from the river that the little river-port of Saint-Thibault thrives on the life of Sancerre. There wine is shipped and oak staves are landed, with all the produce brought from the upper and lower Loire. At the period when this story begins the suspension bridges at Cosne and at Saint-Thibault were already built. Travelers from Paris to Sancerre by the southern road were no longer ferried across the river from Cosne ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Count let smite out one head of the tun, and took the Lady, who was his daughter, and who was much fair and well attired, and made her to enter in the tun, would she, would she not; and then let head up the tun again straightway, and dight it well, and let redo the staves, and stop it well, that the water might not enter in no manner. Then the Count let put it overboard the ship, and he laid hand thereto with his very own body, and thrust the tun into the sea, and said: "I commend thee unto the winds and ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... a convenient distance from the charcoal fire, the heat of which the season rendered oppressive, a strapping Highland damsel placed before Waverley, Evan, and Donald Bean, three cogues, or wooden vessels, composed of staves and hoops, containing EANARUICH, [This was the regale presented by Rob Roy to the Laird of Tullibody.] a sort of strong soup, made out of a particular part of the inside of the beeves. After this refreshment, which, though coarse, fatigue and hunger rendered palatable, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... spot at the base of it, he lapped greedily at a darkish aromatic liquid which, as the entranced watchers now were aware, oozed forth in a stream upon the cage floor through a cranny treacherously opened between two sprung staves. And all the while he tongued up the escaping runlet of fluid he purred and rumbled joyously and his tawny sides heaved and little tremors of pure ecstasy ran lengthwise through him to expire diminishingly in lesser wriggles at the tufted tip of his ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... They eat them in their milky state. Monsieur de Bergasse has a wine-cellar two hundred and forty pieds long, in which are one hundred and twenty tons, of from fifty to one hundred pieces each. These tons are twelve pieds diameter, the staves four inches thick, the heading two and a half pouces thick. The temperature of his cellar is of 9 1/2 deg. of Reaumur. The best method of packing wine, when bottled, is to lay the bottles on their side, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... floodmark gain, And girdled in the saint's domain: For, with the flow and ebb, its style Varies from continent to isle; Dry-shod, o'er sands, twice every day, The pilgrims to the shrine find way; Twice every day, the waves efface Of staves and sandalled feet the trace. As to the port the galley flew, Higher and higher rose to view The castle with its battled walls, The ancient monastery's halls, A solemn, huge, and dark-red pile, Placed on the margin ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... his sharp knife; a practice which, I am informed, frequently occurs in London and which is called hamstringing. The populace, men and women, appeared very much enraged against this monster of a drover, and two constables, with their staves, stood ready to seize him; but he kept them and the whole crowd at bay, with the violent brandishing of his knife, and threatening destruction to any one who attempted to meddle with him. Several efforts were made to seize him, which he dexterously avoided. At ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... not, in comparing me with the pyramids of stone; for I have the pre-eminence over them, as far as Jupiter has pre- eminence over the gods. For, striking with staves into the pool, men gathered the clay which fastened itself to the staff, and kneaded bricks out of ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... Hood, said he that came from Nottingham, but thou shalt not. By Maid Marrion, said he that was going thitherward, but I will. Thou shalt not, said the one. I will, said the other. Ter here! said the one. Shue there! said the other. Then they beat their staves against the ground, one against the other, as there had been an hundred sheepe betwixt them. Hold in, said the one. Beware the leaping over the bridge of any sheepe, said the other. I care not, said the other. They shall not come ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... there, that bears the name o' Scot, But feels his heart's bluid rising hot, To see his poor auld mither's pot Thus dung in staves, An' plunder'd o' her hindmost groat By ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... vestures, which sing in the tree before the procession. After this there followed certain young men with wax tapers in their hands burning and a great lantern, that all the light should not go out; after them followed two with long banners, and six with round plates set upon long staves (the plates were of copper, very full of holes, and thin); then followed six carrying painted images upon their shoulders; after the images follow certain priests to the number of one hundred or more, with goodly vestures, whereof ten or twelve ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... recognizing her, 'Alack, madam, who hath brought you up yonder? Your maid hath gone seeking you all day; but who had ever thought you could be here?' Then, taking the ladder-poles, he set them up in their place and addressed himself to bind the cross-staves thereto with withy bands.[393] Meanwhile, up came the maid, who no sooner entered the tower than, unable any longer to hold her tongue, she fell to crying out, buffeting herself the while with her hands, 'Alack, sweet my lady, where ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... seated on the subsellia, one of the Duumvirs presiding, in his white robe bordered with purple; his lictors, with staves, not fasces, standing behind him. In the vestibule of the court, to confront the prisoner on her first entrance, were the usual instruments of torture. The charge was one which can only be compared, in the estimation of both state and ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... Sun-god in their midst, they would throw stones at him, or thrust at him with their knives, or strike with their wooden staves; and the wood or the knife or the stone would glance off from Balder and leave him ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... with stags' horns and instruments of the chase, tusks of boars, spear-staves, boarknives, and silver horns, my father, I, and Temple sat down to a memorable breakfast, my father in his true form, dressed in black silken jacket and knee-breeches, purple-stockings and pumps; without a wig, I thanked heaven to see. How blithely ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... take up the theory of building a bridge with staves and cords," the Scoutmaster said. "The Fox patrol was to have ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... liquorice, iron, wadmote, goat-fell, red-fell, saffron and quicksilver; wine, salt, linen and canvas from Brittany; corn, hemp, flax, tar, pitch, wax, osmond, iron, steel, copper, pelfry, thread, fustian, buckram, canvas, boards, bow-staves and wool-cards from Germany and Prussia; coffee, silk, oil, woad, black pepper, rock alum, gold and cloth of gold from Genoa; spices of all kinds, sweet wines and grocery wares, sugar and drugs, from Venice, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... lances flew into the air, and no weapon remained for either but the fragment which he held in his hand. Then those two knights, covered with iron mail, were reduced to the necessity of fighting with staves, in the manner of two rustics, who dispute the boundary of a meadow, or the possession ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... men of King Mark had thrown the bridge over the embankment. But as the first of them rushed upon it the thick staves of the four men did their work well. Mighty work it was but it was question whether there were four men in all of England who had greater strength than these. And so as the men came rushing over, the ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... which the people gave way to at the discovery of a new spring: "Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it: the well which the princes digged, which the nobles of the people delved with the sceptre and with their staves."** ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... emerges, we most require. As in some of those sunny islands of the Southern Pacific, one tree supplies the people with all that they need for their simple wants, fruit for their food, leaves for their houses, staves, thread, needles, clothing, drink, everything—so Jesus Christ, this Tree of Life, is Himself the sum of all the promises, and, having Him, we have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... his skilful and judicious use of the quarter-staff in fulfilling the duties of his office, which gives rise to the incidents of the story. A curious relic of chivalry appears in the passage where Robin Hood the outlaw, and George a-Green the pound-keeper, meet to decide with their quarter-staves the relative merit of ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... loud the royal train, And brandished swords and staves amain, But stern the Baron's warning: 'Back! Back, on your lives, ye menial pack! Beware the Douglas.—Yes! behold, King James! The Douglas, doomed of old, And vainly sought for near and far, A victim to atone the war, A willing victim, now attends, Nor craves ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... David he was filled with scorn, and disdained him; for he was but a youth, as any one could plainly see. And with a frown upon his face he said angrily, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of ...
— Children of the Old Testament • Anonymous
... Presbytery, and is still vacant. It was not till August 3rd, 1704, that Mr William Haly was ordained as minister of Muthill. On the day of his ordination there was a riot, "several in the parish keeping the doors of the kirk and kirkyard with swords and staves"; and not until the following year (March 20, 1705) were the keys of the church of Muthill finally laid upon the table of the Presbytery. The new members of the Presbytery were very different from the old. They were now strongly Presbyterian in feeling, and ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... of the rainbow, and all talking and yelling at the same time. Four little Cingalese boys, the oldest of which could not have been more than twelve of age, and who paddled a bamboo canoe around with barrel staves, attracted the most of our attention. They could swim and dive like otters, and shillings and sixpences cast into the water they brought up from the bottom, catching it in many instances before it had found a resting place on the sands. "Frow it," they would shout, and scarcely had the shining ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... their whole care, and their business! weapons in their hands, some bright, some rusty, equally venerable for their antiquity and inoffensiveness! others of more authoritative demeanour, strutting before with fine painted staves! shoals of people following, with a Which is he whom the young lady appears against?— Then, let us look down, look up, look round, which way we will, we shall see all the doors, the shops, the windows, the sign-irons, and balconies, (garrets, gutters, and chimney-tops ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... been beheaded yesterday at Hertford,"[667] and goes back to his prison to suffer death. Every detail is found there, even the simple picturesque detail; the rebels arm themselves as they can, with staves, rusty swords, old bows blackened by smoke, arrows "on which only a single feather remained." The account of the death of Edward III. in the same annals is gloomy and tragic and full of grandeur. In the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... canals, and the construction of the embankments. They wrought in gangs, each gang having a costume peculiar to it, which probably marked its nation. Over each was placed a number of taskmasters, armed with staves, who urged on the work with blows, and severely punished any neglect or remissness. Assyrian foremen had the general direction of the works, and were entrusted with all such portions as required skill or judgment. The forced laborers often worked in fetters, which were sometimes supported by a ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... if, when drawn out, the blade smells rancid or unpleasant, the butter is bad. The layers in tubs will vary greatly, the butter being made at different times; so, to try if the whole tub be good, the cask should be unhooped, and the butter tried between the staves. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... fronts open to the street beneath stories of timber overhanging so far on each side that a slit of sky was left at the top for the light to descend, and no more. A blue misty obscurity pervaded the atmosphere, into which the sun thrust oblique staves of light. It was a street for a mediaevalist to revel in, toss up his hat and shout hurrah in, send for his luggage, come and live in, die and be buried in. She had never supposed such a street to exist ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... barrels, it is essential that they be cut radially in the log, in order that the staves be as ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... Eyes." Formerly there were five hundred blind men, who lived here in order that they might be near the vihara.(12) Buddha preached his Law to them, and they all got back their eyesight. Full of joy, they stuck their staves in the earth, and with their heads and faces on the ground, did reverence. The staves immediately began to grow, and they grew to be great. People made much of them, and no one dared to cut them down, so that they ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... tradition,' he said, 'that the blessed Virgin was sought in marriage by so many young men that her parents besought the high-priest to aid them in their choice of her husband. He accordingly demanded that her suitors should give their staves into his keeping, to be placed over night before the altar, with the understanding, in which Mary herself meekly acquiesced, that he whose staff budded should become her husband. On the morrow Joseph's staff was found to have put forth blossoms. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to listen to the himene of the musicians thirty feet away, which consisted mostly of familiar American airs, interpolated with bizarre staves and dissonances. One caught a beloved strain, and then it wandered away queerly as if the musician had forgotten the score and had done his best otherwise. I never heard in Tahiti one air of Europe or America played through as composed, without variation ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Richard sent three boats, and afterwards a fourth, to take a brig that was becalmed in the northwest quarter—just out of gun-shot. It proved to be the Fortune, of Bristol, bound from Newfoundland for her home-port with whale-oil, salt fish, and barrel staves. Manned by a prize-crew of two warrant officers and six men, she was sent ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... character. Thus, when everything was quiet in the crowded assembly, and when the ringing applause that always welcomed his appearance, but which he never by any chance acknowledged, had subsided—when he began: "A Christmas Carol, in four staves. Stave one, Marley's Ghost. Marley was dead to begin with." Having remarked, yet further, that "there was no doubt whatever about that," the register of his burial being signed by this functionary, that and ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... of hand" guess where it is concealed. To heighten the excitement and confuse the guessers, a number of dry poles are laid before each platoon, upon which the members of the party "in hand" beat furiously with short staves, keeping time to the choral chant already mentioned, which waxes fast and furious as the game proceeds. As large bets are staked upon the game, the excitement is prodigious. Each party in turn bursts ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... sailing thence and pursuing Demokedes reached Croton, and finding him in the market-place they laid hands upon him; and some of the men of Croton fearing the Persian power were willing to let him go, but others took hold of him and struck with their staves at the Persians, who pleaded for themselves in these words: "Men of Croton, take care what ye are about: ye are rescuing a man who was a slave of king Dareios and who ran away from him. How, think you, will king Dareios be content to receive such an insult; and how shall this ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... of each pall, two of which are carried in front of the coffin. After the hearse come members of the confraternity of Blue Penitents, one of whom carries a great wooden cross upon his shoulder. Others carry staves with small crosses at the top, or emblems of the trades that they follow. The dead boy's father is a Penitent, and this is why the confraternity has come out to-day. They now wear their cagoules raised; but on Good Friday, when they go in procession to a high spot ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... put up for sale with two other staves. The purchaser inquired of the first what he could do; and he, to put a price upon himself, described all sorts of marvels; the second said as much for himself, or more. When it came to AEsop's turn, and he was asked what he could do:—Nothing, he said, for these two have taken ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... well, in comparatively large numbers, and would no doubt be used very freely. Besides books properly so called, the religious used waxed tablets of wood, which were sometimes called books. St. Ciaran, for example, wrote on staves, which are called in one place his tablets, and in two other places the whole collection of his staves is called a book.[1] Such tablets were indeed books in which the fugitive pieces of the time were written.[2] Considering all things, Bede ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... over, it almost amounts to a mania among the excursionists. You should have seen us—men, women and children—hurrying along the beach toward the heart of Juneau, where we saw flags flying from the staves that stood by the trading-stores. It was no easy task to distance a competitor in those great thoroughfares. Juneau has an annual rainfall of nine feet; the streets are guttered: indeed the streets are gutters in some cases. I know of at least one little bridge that ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... these things. But, with transport in such a condition, a new factory means merely a new demand for material and fuel which there are neither engines nor wagons to bring. Meanwhile, all over Russia, spades are worn out, men are plowing with burnt staves instead of with plowshares, scratching the surface of the ground, and instead of harrowing with a steel-spiked harrow of some weight, are brushing the ground with light constructions of wooden ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... passed the marching soldiers, their riders evidently delivered some message to the captains, for the soldiers suddenly broke forward in a run, using their long cross-bows with great dexterity as jumping staves. Placing the outer end upon the ground ahead of them as they ran, they leaped and hung upon the cross-piece with their hands. The springy resistance of this tough wood imparted to them a forward motion with its rebound, and they scaled great distances at each ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... say?-With regard to the fishing, I would like liberty to sell my fish to any man who would give me the highest price for them, or to cure for myself. We had some casks for storing salt, and we broke them down, and parted the staves among the partners to whom they belonged. Then there was a fish vat which is my own, and it is lying on the beach, and no man to buy it from me. It has been a loss to ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... reptiles, and they were entirely naked, except a piece of mat before them. A boat was sent ashore well armed, and immediately on landing, about thirty of the natives rushed from a wood, armed with clubs, slings, and long staves or spears, and would have seized the boat and taken away the arms from the soldiers; but on receiving a discharge of musquetry they run off. Not being able to anchor here, they called this the Island without ground. It is low, and mostly composed of white sandy ground, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... "by yonder wight, Who rides upon the waves; Let's wade out to him, through the surf, And beat him with our staves." ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... with the police; the bridge had a dimple in the middle of it; the house that covered the steam steering-gear was split as with hatchets; there was a bill for small repairs in the engine room almost as long as the screw-shaft; the forward cargo hatch fell into bucket staves when they raised the iron crossbars; and the steam capstan had been badly wrenched on its bed. Altogether, as the skipper said, it was "a pretty ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the citie, and after their arrival, little longer in the countrey; which past, they melt like Butter, or match a pipe, and so Burne[DK]. But indeede, most commonly it is the height of their ambition to aspire to the imployment of stopping mustard-pots, or wrapping up pepper, pouder, staves-aker, &c. which done, they expire. Now for his habit, Wapping and Long-lane will give him his character. Hee honours nothing with a more indeered observance, nor hugges ought with more intimacie than antiquitie, which he expresseth ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... were too young, of course. Well, it was in the Vishnu, a brig in which the Colonel had embarked for Manilla. The brig was laden with hogshead staves and box shooks, and the Colonel went there partly for his health, partly on business, taking with him ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... work to patch up the ruin the envious Wickersham had made. But they were not permitted to do this in peace, for their enemy, returning in the dark of night, bombarded the windows of the editorial rooms with the staves of old ash-barrels he ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... night. What follows from that? Do not let us pursue the wandering lights and treacherous will-o'-the-wisps that lure men into bottomless bogs where they are lost. If we have light in our dwellings whilst Egypt lies in darkness, let it teach us to eat our meat with our loins girded, and our staves in our hands, not without bitter herbs, and ready to go forth into the wilderness. You do not belong to the world in which you live, if you are Christian men and women; you are only camped here. Your purposes, thoughts, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... timber of an Australian tree, Alphitonia excelsa, Reiss, N.O. Rhamneae. The wood becomes dark with age, and is used for coopers' staves ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... can travel out over the sea. And an hour or two later, as the sun goes down, here comes a long string of red-flanked cattle trailing down, with a faint jangle of bells, over the far-off ridges. The boys halloo them on—"Ohoo-oo-oo!"—and swing their ringed rowan staves, and spit red juice of the alder bark that they are chewing as men chew tobacco. Far below them they see the farm lands, grey in shadow, and, beyond, the waters of the fjord, yellow in the evening light, ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... couldn't last. You can't make a zlave of an Englishman, Master Nic. You may call him one, and put irons on him, or shut him up like zyder in a cask, and hammer the bung in; but zooner or later he'll zend the bung out flying, or burst the hoops and scatter the staves. It was only waiting our chance, and we've got it; and here we are rowing down this here river in the boat, and they may hoe the old plantation themselves. ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... the spigot and mounted in hot haste, kicking his little heels into the bleached staves, and plying the riding whip like a young fury. The horse acted badly ("Dodd's" horses always acted badly), and he jerked smartly on the bridle rein to subdue him. It was rare sport, and the lad fairly reveled in it, in his little heart defying those who had forbidden ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... Leon), it is fitting that he eat of it for two, for he holds two realms and he is not sufficient for one; but if he will eat of it, 'twere well that he eat in secret: for if his mother were to know it, she would beat him with staves." ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... legislation's fiat came With moral might to do the same. Well's and McCrea of lumbering note, Who had on many a stream afloat Vast rafts of red pine timber, when White pine was little thought of; then Oak, elm, cedar and red pine And staves, together did combine, With now and then a mast or spar, To make up what would go at par, At Stadacona—old Quebec— Where brave Montgomery got a check In a most bootless, foolish strife, Which cost him his undaunted life— Where Arnold got a broken thigh, Ere at West ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... it difficult to manipulate the large ones. The English bear this in mind much better than the Russians. (Steinhaus.) A merchant sending wood to Southern France must be acquainted with the form of the staves used in the manufacture of barrels there. Compare Buesch, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... earnestness, is curiously enlivened with this. When the two Prelates, entering Glasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly up, take to hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and at last flourishing their crosiers like quarter-staves, it is a great sight for him everyway! Not mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though there is enough of that too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh mounts-up over the earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a laugh in the eyes most of all. An honest-hearted, brotherly man; ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Dolbear went home early. Peck, who was believed to be one of the chiefs, came in rather softly, at one o'clock in the morning. The boys noticed some indications of red paint behind his ears, next day. The only tools they used were staves, which they ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... see a yellow head in the white peals of the improvised lily. Cora satisfied her curiosity by finding out that these petals were nothing more than barrel staves ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... if we've hove a stone out of this boat since we got off, we've hove two hundredweight, and, if the Lord had not fought for us, she'd have been beat to noggin-staves ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and lay it about his neck, "clasping it before with a rich owche." The King and the Queen on Twelfth Night were to take the void (evening repast) in the hall; as for the wassail, the steward and treasurer were to go for it, bearing their staves; the chapel choir to stand on the side of the hall, and when the steward entered at the hall door he was to cry three times, "Wassail! Wassail! Wassail!" and the chapel to answer with a good song; and when all was done the King and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... mitre, spreading at the base into two red skull caps, which are the eyes. To split her cranium in the middle, shunt the two halves to the right and left and send surging through the gap a tumor which staves the barrel with its pressure: this ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... down upon the land. Here met me four men—swashbucklers and Muhammadans—with their faces bound up, laying hold of my horse's bridle and crying out: 'This is Ram Dass! Beat!' Me they beat with their staves—heavy staves bound about with wire at the end, such weapons as those swine of Punjabis use—till, having cried for mercy, I fell down senseless. But these shameless ones still beat me, saying: 'O Ram Dass, this is your interest—well weighed and counted into your hand, Ram Dass.' I ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... movements, form a circus by placing wattle hurdles on end, leaning outward against the shores or staves; take the stirrups off, tie a string over the flaps and the horse's head loosely to this—a man with a driving whip in the middle. Circus riding, I believe, originated in England, in the time of our grandfathers; in Germany it is called ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... undecided as we had left Rome. On the one hand, there had been the land, soaked and sodden,—wild, shagged with scrubby growths of timber and brooded over by sullen clouds, and visibly inhabited only by shepherds, leaning upon their staves at an angle of forty-five degrees, and looking, in their immovable dejection, with their legs wrapped in long-haired goat-skins, like satyrs that had been converted, and were trying to do right; turning dim faces to us, they warned us with every mute appeal against the land, as ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... there are mounted and foot patrols carrying muskets with fixed bayonets. Every block and sometimes every house has its private watchman, and at regular intervals during the night you may hear these guardians thumping their long staves on the pavement to assure themselves and others that they are awake. The fire department belongs to the police, and its apparatus consists of hand engines, water carts, and hook and ladder wagons. There are several watch towers, from which a semaphore telegraph signals the existence ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long succession of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the village or climbed down the village by the staves between, some six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. The old pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as one of the appendages of its infancy, flourished here intact. Strings ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... space, which may have been sixty paces long and thirty across, there were gathered great piles of casks, kegs and cases; muskets, cutlasses, staves, cudgels, and straw were littered about upon the floor. At one end a high wood fire blazed merrily, casting strange shadows along the walls, and sparkling like a thousand diamonds among the crystals on the roof. The smoke was ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... covered with the dust raised by the contending armies, birds began to drop down on the earth. And the sun himself disappeared behind the thick cloud of arrows shot, and the firmament looked bright as if with myriads of the fireflies. And shifting their bows, the staves of which were decked with gold, from one hand to another, those heroes began to strike each other down, discharging their arrows right and left. And cars encountered cars, and foot-soldiers fought with foot-soldiers, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... musing and planning, he made brief jottings, often merely a new idea in instrumentation. The rest was in his head; the vocal parts were added to the score without hesitation, and never needed correction. For the orchestra he employed three staves, one of which was reserved for special notes, as, for instance, when a particular instrument was to enter. From these sketches the vocal parts could be written out immediately, although the instrumentation ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. 50 Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... scattered about as if they had no owner—iron ploughs and rusty harrows—cases of door-frames and windows that had once been glazed—heaps of the best slates half tumbling down—winnowing-machines broken to pieces—blocks of Roman cement, now hard as stone, wanting nothing but the staves and hoops—Sydney cedar, and laths and shingles from Van Diemen's Land in every direction; whilst on the high ground are to be seen pigs eating through the flour-sacks, and kegs of raisins with not only the head out, but half the contents; onions and potatoes apparently to be ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... hundred and ninety-eight, the royal seal of the Audiencia was received. It was taken from the monastery of San Agustin to the cathedral upon a horse caparisoned with cloth of gold and crimson, and under a canopy of the same material. The staves of the canopy were carried by the regidors of the city, who were clad in robes of crimson velvet lined with white silver cloth, and in breeches and doublets of the same material. The horse that carried ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... other guardians of the night. Quilt, who was an ardent lover of mischief, could not help laughing most heartily at the rueful appearance of these personages. Not one of them but bore the marks of having been engaged in a recent and severe conflict. Quarter-staves, bludgeons, brown-bills, lanterns, swords, and sconces were alike shivered; and, to judge from the sullied state of their habiliments, the claret must have been tapped pretty freely. Never was heard such a bawling as these unfortunate wights kept up. Oaths exploded ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... overwhelming are the beadles of St. Mary Axe and St. Margaret Moses on this tremendous morning, and no young ensign ever bore his colours prouder than do these good-natured dignitaries their maces, staves, and ponderous badges. In endless ranks pour in the children, clothed in all sorts of quaint dresses. Boys in the knee-breeches of Hogarth's school-days, bearing glittering pewter badges on their coats; girls in blue and orange, with quaint little mob-caps white as snow, and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... especially roused the ire of the Puritans. In Mr. Alfred Maskell's incomparable book on Ivories, he translates a satirical verse by Guy de Coquille, concerning these objectionable pastoral staves (which were often ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... planted in the box. A sunny window is best, but any window will do. If space is at a premium, a nail keg may be made to yield a large amount of leaves. Not only may the tops be filled with plants, but the sides also. Holes should be bored in the staves about 4 inches apart. (See illustration, page 2.) A layer of earth is placed in the bottom as deep as the lowest tier of holes. Then roots are pushed through these holes and a second layer of earth put in. The process is repeated till ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... hawks, and owls, and ravens was too large not to cost us much toil, anxiety, and even sorrow. We fished in the Ettrick and the lesser streams. These last suited our way of it best, since we generally fished with staves and plough-spades—thus far, at least, honourably giving the objects of our pursuit a fair chance of escape. When the hay had been won, we went to Ettrick school, at which we continued throughout the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... food. A band of these men presented a terrifying aspect, suggesting a scattered invasion of some warlike barbarian tribe. Their bodies were clad in the skins of wolves and boars; slung at their sides or poised in their hands were clubs, lances and long shepherds' staves. Each squadron was followed by a pack of large and powerful hounds. Strength, leisure, need, all suggested brigandage as an integral part of their profession. At first they murdered the wayfarer who went alone or with but one companion. Then their courage rose and they concerted nightly attacks ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... and thirty tribes belonging to thirty different linguistic stocks. Throughout this wide distribution the "dice" are not only of different forms but are made from a variety of materials: split-cane; wooden or bone staves or blocks; pottery; beaver or muskrat teeth; walnut shells; persimmon, peach or plum stones. All the "dice" of whatever kind have the two sides different in color, in marking, or in both. Those of the smaller type are tossed in a basket or bowl. Those that ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... lines of pearly white run hither and thither, with delightful distant effect, upon ruby and dark blue. Approaching nearer you find it to be a Travellers' window, and those odd lines of white the long walking-staves in the hands of Abraham, Raphael, the Magi, and the other saintly patrons of journeys. The appropriate provincial character of the bourgeoisie of Champagne is still to be seen, it would appear, among the citizens of Troyes. Its ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... is a slave to my husband," and so forth. The little tribe, hoisting two flags of red and white calico with green palm-fronds for staves, dared the foe to attack it; after a loss of four killed and sundry wounded, all ran away manfully, leaving their goods at the mercy of the conqueror. Shaykh Hasan el-'Ukbi was assisted by the Ma'azah in looting the Magani huts, and in carrying off the camels, while Shaykh Furayj ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... reply as mere politeness, the affair as ended. What was our surprise next morning to see the sheykh and all the able men, accompanied by many children, set off up the mountain armed with staves and scimitars, and all the antique armament the village boasted! It had been our purpose to depart that day, but we remained to watch the outcome of that ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... grandmother, born in 1744, had only traditions of this spirit. He was said to have worn a three-cocked hat, and appeared as a gentleman, and whilst divine service was performed he stood up in the church. But at night the church was lit up by his presence, and the staves between the railings of the gallery were set in motion, by him, like so many spindles, although they were fast in their sockets. He is not reported to have harmed any one, neither did he commit any damage ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... burned forth more serene and clear. Bright, in that azure air, streamed the silken tents of the court, blazoned with heraldic devices, and crowned by gaudy banners, which, filled by a brisk and murmuring wind from the mountains, flaunted gaily on their gilded staves. In the centre of the camp rose the pavilion of the queen—a palace in itself. Lances made its columns; brocade and painted arras its walls; and the space covered by its numerous compartments would have contained the halls and outworks of an ordinary castle. The pomp ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... under American colours, with an American (U.S.) register, no question arises as to the ship. There are two shippers of the cargo, Messrs. Chamberlain, Phelps, and Co., and Mr. H.J. Burden, both houses of New York city. Chamberlain, Phelps, and Co. ship 1424 barrels of flour, and a lot of pipe staves, to be delivered at Gibraltar or Messina, to their own order; and 225 kegs of nails to be delivered at Messina, to Mariano Castarelli. The bill of lading for the flour and staves has the following indorsement, sworn ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... axes, clubs, sickles, brazen spears, heavy staves, slings, the shepherds' weapons of defence against the wild beasts of the desert, or bows and arrows, and as soon as a goodly number of strong men had joined him, Hur fell upon the Egyptian overseers who were watching the labor of several hundred Hebrew slaves. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... alike of the sullen indifference of the population, which each had sought to excite in favour of Edward. Light riders [Hall] were despatched in various directions, still further to sound the neighbourhood. All returned ere noon, some bruised and maltreated by the stones and staves of the rustics, and not a voice had been heard to echo the cry, "Long live King Edward!" The profound sagacity of Gloucester's guileful counsel was then unanimously recognized. Richard despatched a secret letter to Clarence; and it was ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... often found depicted on the sculptures. These shrines were of two kinds, one a canopy, but the other, called the great shrine, was an ark or sacred boat. It was borne on the shoulders of priests by means of staves passing through rings in its sides, and was taken into the temple and deposited on a stand. Some of these arks contained, says Wilkinson (Notes to Herod. II. 58, n. 9), the elements of life and stability, and others the sacred beetle of the sun, overshadowed by the wings of two figures ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... were rude in the extreme. They were made of bars of iron hooped together like the staves of a barrel, and were larger at the muzzle than at the breech. The size was very soon decreased, so that two men could carry one, and fire it from a rest. The 400 cannon with which Froissart said that the English besieged St. Malo, in 1378, were probably of this kind. Nearly a century elapsed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... great deal of the rest of the procession. The whole choir was already a field of clergy and choristers, the white robes of the latter giving relief to the richly-embroidered purple and lace-covered robes of the Bishops, who wore their gold and jeweled mitres, while their richly-gilded pastoral staves and crosses were borne before them. The Coadjutor of Paris, who was to be the Celebrant, was already by the Altar, his robes absolutely encrusted with gold; and just after we had taken our places there passed up the Cardinal, with his pillars borne before him, ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... make sure of a sufficient supply of fodder for them, nearly a thousand tons of hay were purchased in New York and taken out aboard the ship. Five hundred tons of it were left at the Island of St. Helena, to be taken up on the return trip, and a great supply of staves and hoops were also left there for the construction of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... already began to approach them, turning his hair with his fingers, when Fontrailles and Montresor fortunately arrived in the dress of Swiss soldiers. A group of gentlemen, disguised as sailors, followed them with iron-shod staves in their hands. There was a paleness on their faces ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... Shropshire, and in the eastern counties. Even with the elucidation it seems a shockingly bad system. One doubts whether it be worse for an inspector or for the school inspected by him, that he should have no opportunity for food from breakfast to four o'clock, when he staves off death by inviting disease in the shape of the malefic bun; for him or for certain luckless pupil-teachers that, after dinner, he should be "in for [them] till ten o'clock." With this kind of thing when on duty, and no home when off it, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... they saw fruit trees, vines, shrubs, woods, and streams, and drank and ate of the grapes. Now there were men at the tops of these hills who kept watch on their flocks, and as they stood by the high way, Christian and Hopeful leant on their staves to rest, while thus they spoke to the men: Who owns these Delectable Mountains, and whose are the ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin |
