"Tenpenny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a practical jest, which was still more barbarous. They cut off the heads of eleven prisoners and put them into a barrel, which they threw into the Spanish camp. A Label upon the barrel contained these words: "Deliver these ten heads to Duke Alva in payment of his tenpenny tax, with one additional head for interest." With such ghastly merriment did besieged and besiegers vary the monotonous horror of that winter's siege. As the sallies and skirmishes were of daily occurrence, there was a constant ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... you, truly. I lay you a tenpenny-bit there isn't a tattler in the town but has the story by rote—a pretty kettle o' fish you'll make of it, with your meddling and lying. If 'twas true, 'twould be another matter, but—hold your tongue;—how the plague are you to know one card from another when they're ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... wherein my childhood took delight. Here be whips, trumpets, swords, guns, cartridge-pouches, belts, scabbards, sabretaches, all those magic toys which, from five to nine years old, made me feel that I was fulfilling the destiny of a Napoleon. I played that mighty role, in my tenpenny soldier's kit, I played it from start to finish, bating only Waterloo and the years of exile. For, mark you, I was always the victor. Here, too, are coloured prints from Epinal. It was on them that I began to spell out those ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... self-indulgent life of the Missionary Bishop! What nuts for the "Pall Mall Gazette"! How would all subscriptions cease, and denunciations be launched upon my devoted head, because good Mr. Tilly bought, at San Cristoval, for the price of one tenpenny hatchet, a little turtle, a veritable turtle, with green fat and all the rest of it, upon which we have made to-day ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge |
