"Broadsword" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went up from the black stevedores of the far South when there landed in their midst a mighty band of black infantry, nearly 100,000 strong who, in a few short months had learned the use of powder and shot, of sword and broadsword, of bayonet and bludgeon, of trench knife and battle-ax. Cold steel or blackjack, smooth bore or sawed-off, machine gun or automatic, were all the same to them. It was a great experience for stevedore and infantryman. And the stevedore's heart leaped to his throat as he saw the black officers ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... for a man to know than I had even guessed at in the whole course of my life. For the Captain, who was an accomplished swordsman, and Lancelot, who was a promising pupil, were at great pains to teach me the use both of the small sword and the broadsword, at which they exercised me daily upon the deck. Captain Amber had a great regard for Sir William Hope of Balcomie's book, wherein I made my daily study, and he or Lancelot would make me practise all that ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... infantry were armed with a long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw, a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were also furnished with a quiver containing ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... warrant thou knowest better how to draw the bow, than how to draw a bill of charges—canst handle a broadsword better than a pen—ha!" ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... hours, become too settled for alteration. Alan, as the challenged, was, according to duelling etiquette, entitled to the choice of weapons and place of meeting. Although the pistol had in a measure superseded the rapier in England, the broadsword remained the favourite weapon in the north when required for the purpose of personal satisfaction. Highlanders had always a preference for the weapon named by Ossian—An Lann tanna—and by the modern bards—Tagha nan Arm. Alan decided on making choice of the steel blade, and ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... George's Guard. 'A guard of the broadsword or sabre used in warding off blows directed against the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... you new tactics." Releasing his sword, the fencing-master ran to the other end of the platform and, seizing a broadsword, cried: ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Robert girned wi' pain, the jackanape girned too, like a sheep's-head between a pair of tangs—an ill-faur'd, fearsome couple they were. The laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin behind him, and his broadsword and his pistols within reach; for he keepit up the auld fashion of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night, just as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, and away after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... you listening to me so long; I have done. I wish to hear now what that respectable-looking broadsword has to say. We two ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen
... plain, unvarnished account of an Oriental battle might feel inclined to criticise Santa Coloma's tactics; for his men were, like the Arabs, horsemen and little else; they were, moreover, armed with lance and broadsword, weapons requiring a great deal of space to be used effectively. Yet, considering all the circumstances, I am sure that he did the right thing. He knew that he was too weak to meet the enemy in the usual way, pitting man against man; also that if he failed to fight, his temporary prestige would ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... training. This getting used to the saddle is no light matter for the civilian spoiled by years of ease and comfort. But the General gives all his officers plenty of horseback discipline. Then there is the broadsword exercise to fill up the idle time. Evening is the festive hour in camp; though I judge, from what I have seen and heard, that our camp has little of the gayety which is commonly associated with the soldier's life. We are too busy for merrymaking, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... closet and brought out the Sunday umbrella; but its shiny black silk did not appear to inspire any fluffy maneuvres, so she utilized it in the guise of a broadsword and did something that savored of the Highlands, and seemed to rebel bitterly at the length of her skirt. Aunt Mary writhed around in ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... that was fitted up in the house of Count Medole, where, among two or three, there was the ordinary shrugging talk of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to hear. Luciano Romara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to small-sword and broadsword. Both being ireful to boiling point, and mad to strike at something, they attacked one another furiously, though they were dear friends, and the helmet-wires and the padding rattled and smoked to the thumps. For half an hour they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of horsemen on their road to the little borough-town were preceded by Niel Blane, the town-piper, mounted on his white galloway, armed with his dirk and broadsword, and bearing a chanter streaming with as many ribbons as would deck out six country belles for a fair or preaching. Niel, a clean, tight, well-timbered, long-winded fellow, had gained the official situation of town-piper of—by his merit, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making omelets, was all you ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... began to bring them up for introduction to Don Teodor, separately. First of all, I had the honor of receiving Monsieur Laramie, a stout, stanch, well-built marine, who professed to be maitre d'armes of our "royal boarding-house," and tendered his services in teaching me the use of rapier and broadsword, at the rate of a franc per week. Next came a burly, beef-eating bully, half sailor, half lubber, who approached with a swinging gait, and was presented as frere Zouche, teacher of single stick, who was also willing ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... thought or aim in life but to win her favor, to gain a position worthy of her; I would have crossed the Channel, and marched into St. James's, and hacked off the Hanoverian's heavy head with my father's broadsword, I verily believe, to have had one smile from her lips. Yet I had to pocket this all, and stand smilingly by and see her wedded to my tent-mate, Tony Cross. I thought the world had come to an end—but it hadn't. Women are kittle cattle, my boy. They must have their head, or their ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... When was it before these last months, that a follower of his was obliged to gnaw the meat from the bone so closely, as I am now peeling the morsel which I hold in my hand?" [Footnote: It is said in Highland tradition, that one of the Macdonalds of the Isles, who had suffered his broadsword to remain sheathed for some months after his marriage with a beautiful woman, was stirred to a sudden and furious expedition against the mainland by hearing conversation to the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... He therefore, like a faithful guardian, precipitately withdrew and shut the doors, but as most of our houses are without locks, he was reduced to the necessity of fixing his knife over the latch, and then flew upstairs in quest of a broadsword he had brought from Scotland. The Indians, who were Mr. P. R.'s particular friends, guessed at his suspicions and fears; they forcibly lifted the door, and suddenly took possession of the house, got all the bread and meat ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... We also saw his bow, which hardly any man now can bend, and his Glaymore>, which was wielded with both hands, and is of a prodigious size. We saw here some old pieces of iron armour, immensely heavy. The broadsword now used, though called the Glaymore, (i.e. the great sword) is much smaller than that used in Rorie More's time. There is hardly a target now to be found in the Highlands. After the disarming act[591], they made them serve as covers to their butter-milk barrels; a kind of change, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... vague earnestness that the informer was trustworthy, precautionary measures were not relaxed at any time. Hugh was now the possessor of a heavy sword made of the metallic-like wood. It had two edges and resembled an old-fashioned broadsword. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... dress of tunic and tasseled coif, with pike and bull-hide shield and a light broadsword. He was no ordinary bearer of arms. He walked like a man accustomed to command; he turned a cold eye upon too-familiar wayfarers and startled them into silence by the level blackness of his low brows. Wealth, beauty, age nor rank won servility or superciliousness ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... although but a small village, was just now crowded with visitors, albeit rather of a rough description, being chiefly highland drovers in plaid and kilt, or trowes, with daggers stuck in their belts, carrying, however, long goads or staves in the place of broadsword and targets. There were purchasers also of the cattle they came to dispose of from all parts of the country, mostly as rough in their way as the Scotchmen they came to meet. The accommodation which the inn afforded was suitable to such characters as the ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... {BartleMUD}s, in which players were described carrying a list of objects, the most common of which would usually be a brand. Often used as a joke in {talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here, carrying brand ruby brand brand brand kettle broadsword flamethrower". A brand is a torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons. Prob. influenced by the famous ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... observed to David Drummond that he felt as if this was a nest of eider-ducks, all down and fluff. Davie responded that it was like a pasteboard town in a mystery play, and that he longed to strike at it with his good broadsword. The English squire who stood by, in his turn compared it to a castle of flummery and blanc-manger. A French captain of a full company declared that he wished he had the plundering of it; and a fierce-looking ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Thou monster!' and cleave him in twain with my good broadsword, and when he saw its shining blade smite through the air he'd ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... faithful heart is my only charm, But my good broadsword is keen, And love for the princess nerves my arm With the strength of ten, I ween. Come weal, come woe, no knight can fail Who goes at Love's behest. Long ere one moon shall wax and wane, I shall be back from my quest. I have only to find the South Wind's flute. ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... been broken by the clank of his sword on the stone floor, and he now smiled grimly as he realised that they had not dared to deprive him of his formidable weapon; they had caged the lion from the distant desert without having had the courage to clip his claws. The Count drew his broadsword and swung it hissing through the air, measuring its reach with reference to the walls on either hand, then, satisfying himself that he had free play, he took up a position before the door and stood there motionless as the statue ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... are crack regiments in the British Army which wear the kilt—the kilt which, as Macaulay says with perfect truth, was regarded by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. The Highland officers carry a silver-hilted version of the old barbarous Gaelic broadsword with a basket-hilt, which split the skulls of so many English soldiers at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. When you have a regiment of men in the British Army carrying ornamental silver shillelaghs you will have done the same thing for Ireland, and not before—or when you mention Brian Boru ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... muskets of small bore and with long-barreled rifles which they loaded from the muzzle by the use of the ramrod; equipped with powder horn, charges made of cane for loading, bullet molds and wadding, but bravely arrayed in home-spun of blue, and belted with cutlass and broadsword by the side, cockade on the hat and courage in the heart, her revolutionary soldiers marched to the music of fife and drum into battle for freedom against the power and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... teeth to an evasive enemy. While he cheated at cards and cogged the dice, she trained dogs and never missed a bear-baiting. He shrank, like the coward that he was, from the exercise of manly sports; she cared not what were the weapons—quarterstaff or broadsword—so long as she vanquished her opponent. She scoured the town in search of insult; he did but exert his cunning when a quarrel was put upon him. Who, then, shall deny her manhood? Who shall whisper that his style was the braver or the better suited ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... stare and the congested redness have gone out of his eyes, and his voice is less dull and toneless. He is coming back to his outward self again, even while the inner man lies mangled and bleeding, crushed by that tremendous broadsword stroke of Fate that has been dealt him by the gold pen of Lady Hannah, and he is ready enough to argue with the Chaplain. He gets off the bed and slips on his jacket, takes a turn or two across the narrow floor-space, then leans against the distempered ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... day he heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg.[774] Again, at Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out his broadsword, and put them to flight. As they were scurrying away he struck at them and cut off a leg of one of the cats. To his astonishment it was a woman's leg, and next morning he found one of the witches short ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... blows up grand facts in the science of art with gunpowder, while the English dig them out with a shovel, and the Germans bore for them. He finds Raphael, king of pastel artists, and never mentions his discovery to the English. He is more dangerous with the fleurette than many a trooper with broadsword. Every thing that he appropriates, he stamps with the character of his own nationality. The English race-horse at Chantilly has an air of curl-papers about ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... by the veteran's door, beside which you generally, if the evening were fine, or he was not drinking with neighbour Dealtry—or taking his tea with gossip this or master that—or teaching some emulous urchins the broadsword exercise—or snaring trout in the stream—or, in short, otherwise engaged; beside which, I say, you not unfrequently beheld him sitting on a rude bench, and enjoying with half-shut eyes, crossed legs, but still ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... HOW TO FENCE.—Containing full instruction for fencing and the use of the broadsword; also instruction in archery. Described with twenty-one practical illustrations, giving the best positions in fencing. A ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... an hour and a half in the forenoon, when not prevented by chase or the state of the weather, the men were exercised at training the guns, and for the same time in the afternoon in the use of the broadsword, pike, musket, etc. Twice a week the crew fired at targets, both with great guns and musketry; and Captain Broke, as an additional stimulus beyond the emulation excited, gave a pound of tobacco to every ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... were out, left him but little time. The contest was a close one, and when it was over the winner was led by the city marshal to the royal pavilion, where the queen bestowed upon him a silver arrow, and the king added a purse of money. Then there were several combats with quarterstaff and broadsword between men who had served among the contingents sent by the city to aid the king in his wars. Some good sword-play was shown and many stout blows exchanged, two or three men were badly hurt, and the king and ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... so absent now that it was spread round me in its perfection. The peat and bog-fir fire before me, and the merry faces glistening through the white smoke beyond; the chimney overhead, like some great minster bell (the huge hanging pot for the clapper); the antlers, broadsword, and sporting tackle on the wall behind; the goodly show of fat flitches and briskets around me and above, and that merry and wise old fellow, glass in hand, with endless store of good stories, pithy sayings, and choice points of humour, by my side; yet with all I sat melancholy and ill at ease. ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... wore on earth. All the etchings and their copies give a characteristic presentation of the spiritual precursor of Luther, who pricked the false image with his rapier which the sturdy monk slashed with his broadsword. What a face it is which Hans Holbein has handed down to us in this wonderful portrait at Longford Castle! How dry it is with scholastic labor, how keen with shrewd scepticism, how worldly-wise, how conscious of its owner's wide-awake sagacity! Erasmus and Rabelais,—Nature used up ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... years of blood and battle were now half forgotten by Prince Andras; but often Yanski Varhely, his companion of those days of hardship, the bold soldier who in former times had so often braved the broadsword of the Bohemian cuirassiers of Auersperg's regiment, would recall to him the past with a mournful shake of the head, and repeat, ironically, the bitter refrain of the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... anger darkening into malignity, and spleen fermenting into venom,—were carelessness of style, inequality, and want of condensation. Compared to the satires of Pope, Churchill's are far less polished, and less pointed. Pope stabs with a silver bodkin—Churchill hews down his opponent with a broadsword. Pope whispers a word in his enemy's ear which withers the heart within him, and he sinks lifeless to the ground; Churchill pours out a torrent of blasting invective which at once kills and buries his foe. Dryden was his favourite model; and although ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Squire, I say, bind each man his horse to a tree. The skene and broadsword, which I see you all wear, will be ten times as ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a jazeran, or mailed cuirass, which was not only lighter than a steel corselet, but was equally proof against poniard or pike. In his broad leather belt were stuck two pairs of pistols, and a long dagger; a heavy broadsword also hung by his side. His black boots came up nearly to the knee—in contravention of the prevailing fashion of that age, when these articles of dress seldom reached above the swell of the leg. A large slouched hat, without plumage or any ornament, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the Highlands during the eighteenth century, when many chiefs, and most of the clans, lived far from any town. But these rural smiths did not make sword- blades, which Prince Charles, as late as 1750, bought on the Continent. The Andrea Ferrara-marked broadsword blades of the clans were of foreign manufacture. The Highland smiths did such rough iron work as was needed for rural purposes. Perhaps the Homeric chief may have sometimes been a craftsman like the heroes of the Sagas, great sword-smiths. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... sent to a military academy to make his way without the use of money. Life at an up-to-date military academy is described, with target shooting, broadsword exercise, trick riding, sham battles etc. Dick proves himself a hero in the best sense ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... defenders, who all along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a man, to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear a coat of mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was stamping to and fro, bellowing at his crew while he flourished a broadsword by way of emphasis. The hapless company of the Plymouth Adventure shivered at the very sight of him and yet there was something almost ludicrous in the antics of this atrocious pirate, as though he were play-acting upon the stage of a theatre. He had tucked up the tails of his military coat ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... and put them on her feet, which was easy enough, as they were a little too big for her. He had hardly done this, and dressed himself, when he heard some one approaching; and hastily removing the fallen stool, he got behind the door just as a fat old fellow entered with a broadsword in one hand, and a pitcher of hot water and some towels in the other. Glancing at the bed, and seeing the yellow boots sticking out, the old fellow muttered: "Gone to bed with his clothes on, eh? Well, ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... rushed forward with the terrific impetuosity peculiar to a charge of the clans. They received the fire of the regular troops without flinching, reserved their own until they were close at hand, poured in a murderous volley, and then, throwing away their firelocks, attacked the enemy with the broadsword. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... when the long line moving over the school floor coils and uncoils itself more swiftly than any serpent, each horse moving at speed, each one obeying as implicitly as any creature of brass and iron moved by steam. And then he talks of broadsword fights, in which the left hand, managing the horse, outdoes the cunning of the right, and of the great reviews, when, if ever, a monarch must feel his power as he sees his squadrons dash past him, saluting as one man, and reflects ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... day sought the suffrages of electors with an unembarrassed and fluent eloquence, so proving that his failure came not of folly or cowardice, but from lack of training in a certain school of fence. He needed the open air for the play of his broadsword; and to his hand, apt to another hilt, the foil appeared a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims and national ideals, he moved in a large place oblivious of himself; but in the social arena he ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... far superior to the ordinary irregular troops of Greek warfare. They were about six thousand strong. Besides these, he had several bodies of Greek regular infantry; and he had archers, slingers, and javelin-men, who fought also with broadsword and target. These were principally supplied to him by the highlanders of Illyria and Thracia. The main strength of his cavalry consisted in two chosen corps of cuirassiers, one Macedonian, and one Thessalian each of which was about fifteen hundred strong. They were provided ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... acquiring the rude accomplishments of the age. In the management of the broadsword the ardent and daring boy soon acquired proficiency; his frame was robust and muscular, and his arm of unusual length. At an early age he is said by tradition to have tried his powers in a predatory excursion, of which he ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... I am sure that you will not wonder that, while the Barons of Scotland have been, for one cause or other, perpetually in the field, the education of their children at home must have been much neglected, and that young men of my friend's age know better how to use a broadsword, or to toss a pike, than the decent ceremonials ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Frederick opened his eyes wide in astonishment; he did not know what to make of it, for Reinhold's dress was in keeping with anything sooner than a journeyman cooper's on travel. His doublet of fine black cloth, trimmed with slashed velvet, his dainty ruff, his short broadsword, and baretta with a long drooping feather, seemed rather to point to a prosperous merchant; and yet again there was a strange something about the face and form of the youth which completely negatived the idea of a merchant. Reinhold, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... bull-nosed, slit-mouthed, hunch-backed, sly. Next, on the lowest bench, the Vestals, old and young, the elder looking on with hard faces and dry eyes, the youngest with wide and startled looks, and parted lips, and quick-drawn breath that sobs and is caught at sight of each deadly stab and gash of broadsword and trident, and hands that twitch and clutch each other as a man's foot slips in a pool of blood, and the heavy harness clashes in the red, wet sand. Then grey-haired senators; then curled and perfumed knights of Rome; and then the people, countless, vast, frenzied, blood-thirsty, stretching ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... war. He bad only to show himself on the coast of Lorn; and an army would, in a few days, gather round him. The force which, in favourable circumstances, he could bring into the field, amounted to five thousand fighting, men, devoted to his service accustomed to the use of target and broadsword, not afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open plain, and perhaps superior to regular troops in the qualifications requisite for the defence of wild mountain passes, hidden in mist, and torn by headlong torrents. What such a force, well directed, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the former, the original bearing of Hugh Lupus, was often used by the constables of Chester, in compliment to their chief lord. Its shape was angular, and suspended from the neck by a strap called guige or gige, a Norman custom of great antiquity. A huge broadsword was carried by his armour-bearer, the person of the chief being without any further means of impediment or defence than a French stabbing sword, fastened on one side of his pommel, and a stout battle-axe on the other. The horse was decorated with great and costly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... wise princess, fearing in advance some unfortunate adventure for Bonne—the more so as the constable was as ready to brandish his broadsword as a priest to bestow benedictions—the said queen, as sharp as a dirk, said one day, while coming out from vespers, to her cousin, who was taking the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Some words refer especially to literature, and never to any attacks made on present company. Of these, satire aims at making a man odious or ridiculous; lampoon, contemptible. Satire is the rapier; lampoon the broadsword, or even the cudgel—the former points to the heart and wounds sharply, the latter deals a dull and blundering blow, often falling wide of the mark. In general a different man selects a different weapon; the educated and refined preferring satire; ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... company, and single file and double file, and performed a variety of evolutions; all most admirably. In respect of an air of enjoyable understanding of what they were about, which seems to be forbidden to English soldiers, the boys might have been small French troops. When they were dismissed and the broadsword exercise, limited to a much smaller number, succeeded, the boys who had no part in that new drill, either looked on attentively, or disported themselves in a gymnasium hard by. The steadiness of the broadsword boys on their short legs, and the firmness with which they sustained the different ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... achievements. The galley in which he sailed was lying, yard-arm to yard-arm, alongside of a Turkish galley, with which it was hotly engaged. In the midst of the action, the young Farnese sprang on board of the enemy, and with his stout broadsword hewed down all who opposed him, opening a path into which his comrades poured one after another; and after a short, but murderous contest, he succeeded in carrying the vessel. As Farnese's galley lay just astern of Don John's, the latter ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... and I wondered, since the pirate bark was so near at hand, that naught was stirring in the street or on the jetty. Now, St. Pierre Port was a pleasant place to me. A little world of its own, for every man of St. Pierre Port was a soldier, and could draw bow and slash with his broadsword, and pirates meddled not much with St. Pierre Port, for its men were tough and stern and ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... are of several kinds,—the punal (a wedge-bladed knife), the campalon (a long broadsword), and the sundang (a Malay kriss). They also use head-axes, spears, and dirks. Being Mohammedans, they show a fatalistic bravery in battle. It is a disgrace to lose the weapon when in action; consequently it is tied to the hand. Many of their knives were made ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... is to brutalise him. There may be skill displayed—I am told there is,—but it is not apparent. The mere fighting is like nothing so much as a broadsword combat at a Richardson's show; the display as a whole a successful attempt to combine the ludicrous with the unpleasant. In aristocratic Bonn, where style is considered, and in Heidelberg, where visitors from other nations are more common, the affair is perhaps more formal. I am told that ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... while our noble king, His broadsword brandishing, Down the French host did ding, As to o'erwhelm it; And many a deep wound lent, His arms with blood besprent, And many a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... of the names of that great scholar and quack Paracelsus. He used to fight the devil every night with a broadsword, to the no small terror of his pupil Oporinus, who has recorded ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... sign or murmur, though oftentimes he felt as though his gorge would burst with loathing of the life. Indeed, that was why he had come there at all, who otherwise would have been far away, hewing a road to fame and fortune, or digging out a grave with his broadsword. For here at least he could be near to Margaret, could touch her hand at morn and evening, could watch the light shine in her beauteous eyes, and sometimes, as she bent over him, feel her breath upon his hair. And now his purgatory ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... example then and there of the contemners of his power and magnificence. But the culprits has shown such an aptitude in the use of arms as to inspire his wholesome respect, and he was very far from sure that they might not make a display of his broadsword an occasion for heaping fresh ridicule upon him. An opportune remembrance came to ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... windward among their wigwams. In an instant the encampment was in a blaze. Not a soul escaped. Six hundred Indians, men, women, and children, perished by the steady hand of the marksman, by the unresisted broadsword, and by the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... he did not hit so hard as Dryden, struck more deftly and probed deeper. He wielded a rapier where the other used a broadsword, and though both used their weapons with the highest skill and the metaphor must not be imagined to impute clumsiness to Dryden, the rapier made the cleaner cut. Both employed a method in satire which their successors (a poor set) in England have not been intelligent enough to use. They ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... deep joy, the unspoken fervor, the sacred fury of the fight. Yours is the power to redress wrong, to defend the weak, to succor the needy, to relieve the suffering, to confound the oppressor. While vigor leaps in great tidal pulses along your veins, you stand in the thickest of the fray, and broadsword and battle-axe come crashing down through helmet and visor. When force has spent itself; you withdraw from the field, your weapons pass into younger hands, you rest under your laurels, and your works do follow you. Your badges are the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... present, but the moment he saw him he ordered his men to shoot him down. Several refused; but three, shall I call them men? obeyed the dastardly order, and yet he possibly would have survived his wounds, had not the miscreant in authority cut him down with his own broadsword. The sword was caught in its first descent, and the valiant captain drew it out, cutting the hand ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... his horse under control, drew his broadsword with his right hand, his pistol with his left,—which held also the rein,—and ordered his men to charge, to fire at the moment of contact, then to cut, slash, and club. So the little troop, the well and the wounded ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to strength and his hands to skill in arms. The old bowman had served with Lord Falworth's father under the Black Prince both in France and Spain, and in long years of war had gained a practical knowledge of arms that few could surpass. Besides the use of the broadsword, the short sword, the quarter-staff, and the cudgel, he taught Myles to shoot so skilfully with the long-bow and the cross-bow that not a lad in the country-side was his match at the village butts. Attack and defence with the lance, and throwing the knife and ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... breast, and a truncheon in his hand, he rushed into the apartment of the astonished Major, with his eyes sparkling, and his cheek inflamed, while he called out, "Up! up, neighbour! No time now to mope in the chimney-corner! Where is your buff-coat and broadsword, man? Take the true side once in your life, and mend past mistakes. The King is all lenity, man—all royal nature and mercy. I will get your ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... under a blue velvet bonnet, fantastically placed sideways on his head—he had a sound and tough coat of English blue broad-cloth, which, unlike his former vestment, would have stood the tug of all the apprentices in Fleet Street. The buckler and broadsword he wore as the arms of his condition, and a neat silver badge, bearing his lord's arms, announced that he was an appendage of aristocracy. He sat down in the good citizen's buttery, not a little ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Society present me with the most splendid broadsword I ever saw; a beautiful piece of art, and a most noble weapon. Honourable Mr. Stuart (second son of the Earl of Moray), General Graham Stirling, and MacDougal, attended as a committee to present it. This was very kind of my friends ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Too long has Loch Finne side been ruled childishly. I have no complaint about its civil rule—his lordship here might well be trusted to that; but its religion was a thing of rags. They tell me old Campbell in the Gaelic end of the church (peace with him!) used to come to the pulpit with a broadsword belted below his Geneva gown. Savagery, savagery, rank and stinking! I'll say it to his face in another world, and a poor evangel and ensample truly for the quarrelsome landward folk of this parish, that even now, in the more unctuous times of God's grace, doff steel weapons so reluctantly. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... to Cambridge, as he states in his Pic Nic (1837), to visit his pupils. He had made Byron's acquaintance at Harrow by teaching him to fence, and in later years had many bouts with him with the foils, single-sticks, and Highland broadsword. His Reminiscences (1830), together with his Pic Nic, contain numerous anecdotes of Byron, to whom he seems to have been sincerely attached. In 1806 he had several rooms in London for the use of his pupils. One of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... and travel weary, having eaten perhaps but a piece of dry bread in the last twenty-four hours, he must stand up and kill or be killed. Often he falls beneath the thrust of an assegai or the slashing broadsword of the charging enemy. Then, after the fight is over his comrades turn up the sod where he lies, bundle his poor bones into the shallow pit, and leave him without even a cross to mark his solitary grave. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... myself," said the General, ruefully, "except the Latin the old dominie thrashed into me; and some French which all our set in Scotland used to have, and . . . I can hold my own with the broadsword. When I think of all those young officers know, I wonder we old chaps were ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... of the ship, and made me a belt to hang it on also; so that I was now a most formidable fellow to look at when I went abroad, if you add to the former description of myself the particular of two pistols, and a broadsword hanging at my side in a belt, but ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... field beneath, Then we bounded from our covert.—Judge how look'd the Saxons then, When they saw the rugged mountain start to life with armed men! Like a tempest down the ridges swept the hurricane of steel, Rose the slogan of Macdonald—flash'd the broadsword of Lochiel! Vainly sped the withering volley 'mongst the foremost of our band, On we pour'd until we met them, foot to foot, and hand to hand. Horse and man went down like drift-wood, when the floods are black at Yule, And their carcasses are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... "Blind, screaming idiocy. You've gone out of your mind—that's all there is to it. Can't you see what you've done? Aside from selling your colleagues down the river, that is?" He clenched the reprint of Coffin's address in his hand and brandished it like a broadsword. "'Report on a Vaccine for the Treatment and Cure of the Common Cold,' by C. P. Coffin, et al. That's what it says—et al. My idea in the first place. Jake and I both pounding our heads on the wall ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... In brawny fist he grasped a rod or angle, With hook wherefrom sad worm did, writhing, dangle. Full well he loved the piscatorial sport, Though he as yet no single fish had caught. Hard by, in easy reach upon the sward, Lay rusty bascinet and good broadsword. Thus patiently the good Knight sat and fished, Yet in his heart most heartily he wished That he, instead of fishing, snug had been Seated within his goodly tower of Shene. And thinking thus, he needs must cast his eye On rusty mail, on battered shoon, and sigh, And murmur fitful curses and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... the adjournment, he went up to Mr. Sumner, who sat writing at his desk, with his head down, and dealt him several severe blows in the back of his head with a stout gutta- percha cane as he would have cut at him right and left with a dragoon's broadsword. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Lord Salisbury and Lord Granville, and it must have been among the relaxations of their office to point out tactfully the defects and errors in his dispatches. Nevertheless when he did not misread history or misquote precedents but wielded the broadsword of equity, he often caught the public conscience, and then he was not ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... little elderly man in a brown coat and a brown wig, by his side, who sought to remove his hand from the lock. Next appeared a huge stalwart figure, in shabby old tartans, and laid his hand on the head of each. But the wonder widened and grew; for now came a stately Highlander with his broadsword by his side, and an eagle's feather in his bonnet, who laid his hand on the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... rank of the wearer. Broad, sturdy, and richly ornamented were their bucklers—the pride and darling of their arms, the loss of which was the loss of honour; their spears were ponderous, thick, and long— a chief mark of contradistinction from the slight shaft of Persia— and, with their short broadsword, constituted their main weapons of offence. No Greek army marched to battle without vows, and sacrifice, and prayer—and now, in the stillness of the pause, the soothsayers examined the entrails of the victims—they were propitious, and Callimachus solemnly vowed to Diana a ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... whole strength to the effort I was dimly aware of screams and panic among the nursery—maids and children who were but a moment before my fellow-spectators. At the same time I caught the flash of the Guardsman's sabre as he cut down at me after the fashion prescribed in the broadsword exercise. Fortune, however, did not desert me. My antagonist had not enough elbow-room, and his sword-point was shivered against the stone arch overhead, the blade descending flatways and harmlessly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... whitening. See with what a ferocious air the gentleman who personates the Mexican chief, paces up and down, and with what an eye of calm dignity the principal tragedian gazes on the crowd below, or converses confidentially with the harlequin! The four clowns, who are engaged in a mock broadsword combat, may be all very well for the low-minded holiday-makers; but these are the people for the reflective portion of the community. They look so noble in those Roman dresses, with their yellow legs and arms, long black curly heads, bushy eyebrows, and scowl ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... the spell is upon me!) "Come on, Macduff!" (The only suitable and familiar challenge my warlike tenant can summon at the moment.) "I am the son of a Gael! My dagger is in my belt, and with the guid broadsword at my side I can with one blow cut a man in twain! My bow is cut from the wood of the yews of Glenure; the shaft is from the wood of Lochetive, the feathers from the great golden eagles of Lochtreigside! My arrowhead was made by the smiths of the ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... became furious of anger. 'We, too,' he interposed, 'colonize. Say you will come under the protection and acknowledged allegiance to our Queen, and yours shall be a scarlet coat, a cocked hat, and a great broadsword wherewith to fight your way in the world.' The chief moved his head doubtingly, as his body vibrated from head to foot. What strange opinions invaded his thoughts! He placed his broad hard hands gently ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Southron, and it was a foul shame and dishonour that such as he should pay a Highland chief only twenty-seven shillings and sixpence for beasts that had cost ten pounds each. That was not the way in the good old days when the hardy men of the north descended from the mountains with broadsword and shield, lifted the cattle of the Saxon, and drove them to their ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... arena six combatants: Niger and his net, matched against Sporus with his shield and his short broadsword; Lydon and Tetraides, naked save by a cincture round the waist, each armed only with a heavy Greek cestus—and two gladiators from Rome, clad in complete steel, and evenly matched with immense ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... continent— one of the prettiest spots which Nature, with all her vagaries, ever formed—and shut it up from all the world for purposes of war? Would not any plain, however ugly, do for military exercises? Cannot broadsword, goose-step, and double-quick time be instilled into young hands and legs in any field of thirty, forty, or fifty acres? I wonder whether these lads appreciate the fact that they are studying fourteen hours a day amid the sweetest river, rock, and mountain ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... doublet. He wore a rusted steel head piece; a buff jacket of rather an antique cast; gloves, of which that for the right hand was covered with small scales of iron, like an ancient gauntlet; and a long broadsword completed his equipage. ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the heads of a battalion; and oft as any of us showed himself he displayed fresh cap. One Indian, I mind, got a stockade off and an arm inside the wall. That arm was never withdrawn, for M. Radisson's broadsword came down, and the Indian reeled back with a yelping scream. Then the smoke cleared, and I saw what will stay with me as long as memory lasts—M. Radisson, target for arrows or shot, long hair flying and red doublet alight in ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... only nations entitled to the appellation of soldiers. [85] Their encounter was varied, and balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the brandished javelin; of a weighty broadsword, and a crooked sabre; of cumbrous armor, and thin flowing robes; and of the long Tartar bow, and the arbalist or crossbow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown to the Orientals. [86] As long as the horses were fresh, and the quivers full, Soliman maintained the advantage of the day; and four thousand ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Woman's sovereignty has been long deferred, because of the preparation necessary for it. A John the Baptist must precede the Christ in the wilderness. Fiends robed and sceptred, once reigned over fiends clothed in skins and armed with broadsword and battle axe. To-day a gentleman, or gentlewoman can sit secure on any throne of Christendom. While we congratulate ourselves, let us not deny that the Tamerlanes, the Alarics, the Napoleons have had their share in the intermediate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the Macdonald triumphantly, a challenge in his voice and manner, "and so, who but Donald should be your enemy? My certes, a prettier foe at the broadsword you will ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Lochinvar is come out of the West,— Through all the wild border his steed was the best! And, save his good broadsword, he weapon had none,— He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... better than that, sir," cried Malcolm, eagerly. "I'll get up from Lossie Home my lord's very dress that he wore when he went to court—his jewelled dirk, and Andrew Ferrara broadsword with the hilt of real silver. That'll greatly help your design upon my lady, for he dressed up in them all more than ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... come out of the west, Through all the wide border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword he weapons had none, He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hand-grenades! Am I a fit subject for mounting the sides of a smuggler, with a broadsword between my teeth! If you will put me into the smallest and most peaceable of your boats, with a crew of two boys, that I can control with the authority of a magistrate, and covenant to remain here with your three top-sails aback, having always a flag of truce at each mast, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... companies, and that he did not think the services of these would be required more than twenty days. He estimated the Mormon forces in the disturbed counties at from thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred men, most of them carrying a rifle, a brace of pistols, and a broadsword; "so that," he added, "from their position, and their fanaticism, and their unalterable determination not to be driven, much blood will be spilt and much suffering endured if a blow is at once struck, without the interposition of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... was nearing / of Saxons a great throng, Each a broadsword bearing / that mickle was and long, With blade that cut full sorely / when swung in strong right hand. 'Gainst strangers were they ready / to guard their ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... not quote the numerous passages scattered over his writings, both early and late, in which he dwells with, fond affection on the chivalrous character of Invernahyle—the delight with which he heard the veteran describe his broadsword duel with Rob Roy—his campaigns with Mar and Charles Edward—and his long seclusion (as pictured in the story of Bradwardine) within a rocky cave situated not far from his own house, while it was garrisoned by a party of English soldiers, after ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... gardeners, plumbers, cutlers, gunsmiths, so, as they all are farmers by origin and sportsmen by practice, they will make a rare household body of men. They are nearly all first-class shots, and I am having them practise with revolvers. They are being taught fencing and broadsword and ju-jitsu; I have organized them in military form, with their own sergeants and corporals. This morning I had an inspection, and I assure you, my dear, they could give points to the Household troop in matters of drill. I tell you I ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... for me!"—"Come forth, and I'll give thee both at once!" cried the Prince. Then the Dragon wouldn't wait any longer, but stuck out all his six heads and began to wriggle out of the cavern; but the Prince attacked him with his huge broadsword, a full fathom long, which the Lord had given him, and chopped off all the Dragon's six heads, and the rock fell upon the Dragon's body and crushed it to pieces. Then the Prince gathered up the six dragon-heads and laid them on one side, and cut out the six lolling ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... when there was a dispute as to whose duty it was to move timbers. There was a great two-handled cross-cut saw lying on the ground, and Stone seized it and began to wave it, like a mighty broadsword, in the face of a little Bohemian miner. "Load them timbers, Hunkie, or I'll carve you into bits!" And as the terrified man shrunk back, he followed, until his victim was flat against a wall, the weapon swinging ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... mounted upon a handsomely caparisoned mule and attended by seven servants who carried gourds and skins of grain. He was a pale-faced senior with a white beard, dressed in a fine Tobe and a snowy turban with scarlet edges: he carried no shield, but an Abyssinian broadsword was slung over his left shoulder. We exchanged courteous salutations, and as I was thirsty he ordered a footman to fill a cup with water. Half way up the hill appeared the 200 Girhi cows, but those ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... bosom of the water in the dim light of night, ensued a stubbornly contested duel, in which oars took the place of broadsword and sabre. ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... within which Scott kept his most valuable papers. Above the cabinet, in a kind of niche, was a complete corslet of glittering steel, with a closed helmet, and flanked by gauntlets and battle-axes. Around were hung trophies and relics of various kinds: a cimeter of Tippoo Saib; a Highland broadsword from Flodden Field; a pair of Rippon spurs from Bannockburn; and above all, a gun which had belonged to Rob Roy, and bore his initials, R.M.G., an object of peculiar interest to me at the time, as it was understood Scott was actually ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving |
