"Cocked hat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well, almost frightened at the success of her adventure. A figure emerged from a thicket close by. It was that of a man in a huge red cloak, and with a great cocked hat, like that of a gens-d'armes. Could this possibly be De Secqville? He whistled a shrill summons as he approached, and she heard the sound of steps hurrying to the spot. She was full of fear, apprehensive of treason and danger. The gentleman ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... his chair, placed his cocked hat on his head, and turned the buckle of his sword-belt in front. "The King!" he shouted, raising his hat with one hand and filling a bumper with the other. "The King!" he repeated, scowling fiercely at his ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... whom they addressed some quickly delivered jargon. With one or two exceptions, all noticed the entrance of the strangers; and some of them bowed to them, with mock gravity. One man, who wore an old cocked hat with a shabby feather, tapped ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... from Max's "Memoirs," that Charles was not so coarse in his dress as is usually represented, for his clothes were made of fine materials. He always wore a plain blue coat with gilt buttons, buff waistcoat and breeches, a black crape cravat, and a cocked hat; a waist-belt, and a long cut-and-thrust sword. He never disfigured himself by the full-bottomed wig of the period, but always wore his own brown hair, combed back from his forehead. His camp-bed consisted of a blue silk mattress, pillow ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... modest building, not very straight, not large, not tall; not bold-faced, with great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one eye. It was not built of brick or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster; it was not planned with a dull and wearisome regard to regularity, for no one window matched ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... went three clowns, or diablos, with masks, fit caricatures of the Spaniards. Like all other Indian feasts, this ended in getting gradually and completely drunk. During the ceremony a troop of horsemen, gayly dressed, and headed by one in regimentals with a cocked hat, galloped twice around the Plaza, throwing oranges at the people; after which there was ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... Cherito, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy judge, who blacked her face and tramped off as a cymbal boy under the protection of the drum-major of the Eighty-eighth—a magnificent fellow, whose gorgeous uniform and imposing cocked hat caused him to be taken by the Portuguese for nothing less than a general of division. The young lady had not forgotten to take her jewels with her, and the old judge made a great fuss, and appealed to the colonel, who requested him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... came the clank of a sword and a hurried step, and then the door burst open and in marched Master Dick in all the glory of his full regimentals. And so brave was the show that he made in his cocked hat, scarlet coat, with its facings of buff, and the long clanking sword, that I longed to spring up and don my own then and there. But my mother's finger on her lip caused him to stop the cheery greeting, and he came forward on his tiptoes, ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... who knew him well, said to us that Louis Napoleon had ten times the political sagacity of his uncle; but who foresaw or foretold an Augustus in the dull-eyed frequenter of Lady Blessington's, the melodramatic hero of Strasburg and Bologne, with his cocked hat and his eagle from Astley's? What insurance company would have taken the risk of his hare-brained adventure? Coleridge used to take credit to himself for certain lucky vaticinations, but his memory was always inexact, his confounding of what he ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... in its place, a fact, as an offset to the truculent garrulity of the porters. We were shown round the cathedral by a respectable-looking old man in a red scarf, a cocked hat, and a livery, one of the officers of the place. He was respectful, modest, and well instructed in his tale. The tone of this good old cicerone was so much superior to anything I had seen in England—in ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the town sergeant's bell at the end of the street called tradesmen from their benches and housewives from their kitchens to hear the following proclamation, to which Tommy had done honour by donning his official robe (of blue, gold-laced) with a scarlet pelisse and a cocked hat. A majestic figure he made, too, standing in the middle of the roadway with spectacles on nose, and the great ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... white-capped women and blue- bloused men, poultry, vegetables, fruits, flowers, pots, pans, praying-chairs, soldiers, country butter, umbrellas and other sun- shades, girl-porters waiting to be hired with baskets at their backs, and one weazen little old man in a cocked hat, wearing a cuirass of drinking-glasses and carrying on his shoulder a crimson temple fluttering with flags, like a glorified pavior's rammer without the handle, who rings a little bell in all parts of the scene, and cries his ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... devil you are, Sybilla!" he said, with lover-like candor. "I've heard tell that you wimmin knock us men into a cocked hat in the way of hating, and I now begin to think it is true. What has this 'ere baronet done to you, I should admire to know? You don't hate him like ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... 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 on our heads, drew us lovingly ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... experience which far transcended metaphysician's normal ken. Nor is it surprising to find him naively admitting that "this unexpected event hastened my return home." Imagination can easily round out the picture,—the rising in terror, the overturning of the chair, the seizing of cocked hat and gold-headed cane, the few explanatory words to the astonished innkeeper, the hurried departure, and the progress, perchance at a more rapid gait than usual, to the sleeping quarters in another section of the town. Arrived there, safe in ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... has knocked the telephone service into a cocked hat," he explained to the others. "The only way for us to reach Carwell is to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... brought when this visitor appeared. Not to be outdone in hospitality, Murphy at once pointed out the repast that had been spread, and stood by while the other ate, though he had himself had nothing since the early morning, and could, had he been so minded, have knocked the stranger into the proverbial cocked hat. All he did was to wag his tail and look pleased, as his dinner slowly disappeared. But, after all, such episodes as these belong to a later period, when he had become well-nigh human; when—it may as well be now ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... said Waller haughtily, as he strode past the stiff-looking military man so as to bring himself within arm's length of the cobbler, and, with a movement quick as a flash, struck off his cocked hat and sent it flying. "What do you mean by that, sir?" he shouted at him. "Is that the way to enter a gentleman's house?" and with a half-run across the echoing polished oak boards he made a kick at the hat, and, to the great ...
— The New Forest Spy • George Manville Fenn
... Napoleon stood with arms folded, waiting to strike, it knew not where. It was the time when military genius reached its height, a height that could be only brought low by one thing, and that was an English General with a long nose and a cocked hat. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... understand the childish wonder of the passers-by, who turned to look after him, but was stirred with a deeper curiosity. He quickened his pace, but was unable to distinguish anything of the face or features of the stranger, except that his hair under his cocked hat appeared to be tightly curled and powdered. Paul's companion, who was amused at what seemed to be the American's national curiosity, had seen the figure before. "A servant in the suite of some Eastern Altesse visiting the baths. You will see stranger things, my friend, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... arrival at the mill they dismounted, and, in order to give some appearance of truth to their story, they went into the house, leaving their prisoner outside, in the hope that he would make some attempt to escape. In an instant Waters threw his cloak upon a neighbouring olive-bush, and mounted his cocked hat on the top. Some empty flour-sacks lay upon the ground, and a horse laden with well-filled flour-sacks stood at the door. Sir John contrived to enter one of the empty sacks and throw himself across the horse. When the soldiers came out of the house they fired ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... management of their craft. With great rapidity and no little skill these punts are metamorphosed into brigs, full-rigged ships, paddle-wheeled steamers, and ram-bowed ironclads. The "captain's" get-up is the most gorgeous and elaborate thing possible—a profusion of gold lace, a monster cocked hat suitable for the top of the great pyramid, and a tremendous speaking trumpet whose bore would do very well for a tunnel. His crew generally attire themselves in the fantastic dress of niggers. Just as the proceedings for the day were about to begin, a pigmy paddler was observed bearing down ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... a girdle about the globe fitly to decorate Christmas. Diedrich Knickerbocker, in his cocked hat and flowered coat, had heard of Japan, perhaps, as a romance of Prester John. But it would have been a wilder romance for him to imagine his grandchildren dealing at the feast of St. Nicholas with Japanese merchants in Japanese shops upon the soil of his own Manhattan ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... are again, those unpaved streets of old Annapolis arched with great trees on either side. And here is Dolly, holding her skirt in one hand and her fan in the other, and I in a brave blue coat, and pumps with gold buttons, and a cocked hat of the newest fashion. I had met her leaning over the gate in Prince George Street. And, what was strange for her, so deep in thought that she jumped ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... London policemen are never at hand. The stout fellows with their clubs look as if they might do service; but what a contrast they are to the Paris sergents de ville! The latter, with his dress-coat, cocked hat, long rapier, white gloves, neat, polite, attentive, alert,—always with the manner of a jesuit turned soldier,—you learn to trust very much, if not respect; and you feel perfectly secure that he will protect you, and give you your rights in any corner of Paris. It does look as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... in color and material corresponded with the inner decorations of the carriage, sat the chub-faced coachman, his head buried in the vast expanse of a flowing wig, and surmounted by a gold-and-purple cocked hat. The handle of his coach- whip was of steel inlaid with gold, and he flourished it with as much ostentation as if it had been the baton of a field-marshal. Behind this princely equipage were two footmen in state livery; on either side were ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... plainly knock the three precious articles aforementioned into a cocked hat. Thence they will be retrieved to be turned against her—used to her condemnation by Anthony frantic. As for their love, the fragments of this that remain will not be ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and especially curses the hour when white muslin cravats became the sine qua non of a gentleman's full dress. Just think how reverend he must look! I believe he would even rather wear a sword and cocked hat, for he declares a white muslin cravat the last abomination, the chief enormity of fashion, and that all the natural feelings of a man cry out against it; and that it is alike abhorrent to taste and to sentiment. To all this I reply that he looks a ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Thames street on the right, the man in brown with a cocked hat. I recognize his walk. Keep behind him, Bob. The sight of a Continental uniform may have a bad effect ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... neatness, black silk stockings, his shirt ruffled at the breast and the wrists, a light sword, his hair fully {74} dressed, so as to project at the sides, and gathered behind in a silk bag, ornamented with a large rose of black ribbon. As he advanced toward the chair, he held in his hand his cocked hat, which had a large black cockade. When seated, he laid his hat upon the table. Amid the most profound silence, Washington, taking a roll of paper from his inside coat pocket, arose and read with a deep, ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... overtook me, and I had a series of disagreeable dreams, in one of which I was waited upon by the ghost of Silas Trefethen with an exorbitant bill for the use of his guns. In another, I was dragged before a court-martial and sentenced by Sailor Ben, in a frizzled wig and three-cornered cocked hat, to be shot to death by Bailey's Battery—a sentence which Sailor Ben was about to execute with his own hand, when I suddenly opened my eyes and found the sunshine lying pleasantly across my face. I tell ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Presidency spoke of him as dressed in purple satin, and at his levees he is described by Sullivan as "clad in black velvet; his hair in full dress, powdered and gathered behind in a large silk bag; yellow gloves on his hands; holding a cocked hat with a cockade in it, and the edges adorned with a black feather about an inch deep. He wore knee and shoe buckles; and a long sword, with a finely wrought and polished steel hilt, which appeared at the left hip; the coat worn over the sword, so that the hilt, and the part below the ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... war. He apologised for not inviting us to dine during these depressing days, but said he could not, as his cook was a Lucretia di Borgia. He is confident that the war is going to knock Brussels life into a cocked hat this winter. So many of the families will be in mourning, and so much poverty will come as a result of the war. Life goes on so normally now, save for the little annoyances of living under martial law, that it is hard to realise that such ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... occurred at Chads Ford. As he was lying with his men in the woods, in front of Knyphausen's army, so he relates, he saw two American officers ride out. He describes their dress minutely. One was in hussar uniform. The other was in a dark green and blue uniform with a high cocked hat and was ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... savages do these things better than others. Every child, when it wants to thoroughly enjoy itself, plays at being something other than it really is. The girl takes a doll and plays at being a mother. The boy puts on a paper cocked hat and plays at being a soldier. We can all act more or less. Between Mr. Irving as King Lear, and the beggar who shivers on your door-step and swears that his wife and six children have not tasted food for a fortnight, the difference is one of degree, not ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... which the Princess Oninga had seen fit to dress her head was indeed peculiar, I may say ludicrous. Her woolly hair had been arranged in the form of a cocked hat, with a horn projecting in front, and at a short distance off it might easily have been mistaken for the headpiece of a general officer minus the feathers. There was little in the way of artificial ornament about it, but the princess wore a number of heavy brass rings ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... more lessons on the sewing machine lately—eh, old chap?" inquired Joe. "We know all about you, Magnus minor and I. There's fellows at our school could lick you into a cocked hat. You come to our sports one day ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... bag-wig, night-cap-wig, and riding-wig were worn by the gentleman of quality as occasion required. At times he wore, also, a small three-cornered cocked hat, felt or beaver, elaborately laced with gold or silver galloon. If he walked, as to church or court, he carried, in addition to his sword, a gold or ivory-headed cane, at least five feet long, and wore square-toed, "low-quartered" shoes with paste or silver ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... fulness of summer sunshine and shadow, the flying of November gold through the air, the gaunt limbs, and stark, rigid, death-like whiteness of winter. It has seen children in their queer, wicker baby-carriages, old men and women, and occasionally that grim usher of death, in sable cloak and cocked hat,—a baleful figure for the wandering invalid tourist to meet,—who acts as undertaker for this ducal city, and marshals the last melancholy procession. I well remember my first meeting with this ominous functionary. ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... you know them? No? Oh, I had forgotten you have only just arrived. You will know them 'ere long, however, for they are the leaders in such affairs. That is Captain Andre there with O'Hara." He waved his hand, and the younger officer lifted his cocked hat in acknowledgment. "Let us spur over there, Lieutenant, until I get you a ticket ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... re-echoed as the captain ascended the side. He appeared on the quarter-deck—every hat descending to do him honour; the marines presented arms, and the marine officer at their head lowered the point of his sword. In return, the omnipotent personage, taking his cocked hat with two fingers and a thumb, by the highest peak, lifted it one inch off his head, and replaced it, desiring the marine officer to dismiss the guard. I had now an opportunity, as he paced to and fro with the first lieutenant, to examine his appearance. He was a tall, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... A form of spelling buttress. See Murray's New English Dictionary, s.v. Compare Jamieson, s. vv. Rig and Butt. It may mean the lace or band tying up the fold of a cocked hat. ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... which traded our harbor, Twin Islands are t' the west'ard o' the Scarf o' Fog, a bit below the Blue Gravestones, where the Soldier o' the Cross was picked up by Satan's Tail in the nor'easter o' the Year o' the Big Shore Catch. "Oh, I knows un!" says he. "You opens the Tickle when you rounds Cocked Hat o' the Hen-an'-Chickens an' lays a course for Gentleman Cove, t'other side o' the bay. Good harbor in dirty weather," says he: "an', ecod! my lads, a hearty folk." This is forbidding enough, God knows! as to situation; but though the ancient islands, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... pens, his clothes and his weapons. And one evening, not knowing how to dress himself up more originally than the rest for a masked ball that stout Toinette Danicheff was going to give as her house-warming, without saying a word to his mother, he took down the Academician's dress, the sword and cocked hat that had belonged to Jean Ramel, and put it on as if it had been a disguise on ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... visage of battle. Picton, on lying down in his bivouac the night before the battle, had adorned his head with a picturesque and highly coloured nightcap. The sudden attack of the French woke him; he clapped on cloak and cocked hat, and rode to the fighting line, when he personally led the attack which flung the last of Regnier's troops down the slope. At the moment of the charge he took off his cocked hat to wave the troops onward; ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... brigade commanders in advance, notifying them of the hour when the commanding general might be expected. This was done so that all the army might be under arms to salute their chief as he passed. On these occasions he wore his dress uniform, cocked hat, aiguillettes, sabre and spurs. His staff proper, besides all officers constructively on his staff—engineers, inspectors, quartermasters, etc., that could be spared—followed, also in uniform and in prescribed order. Orders were prepared with great care and evidently with the view that they ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... poem that will spread my misfortunes from Dan to Beersheba!" At last it was decided that Billy should act as special ambassador to Bishop and endeavor to divert him from his purpose. Meanwhile Bishop had got out his old clothes—Cumberland cocked hat and all—of the period of the French War, had dressed with great care and, taking up his staff, had laid his line of march straight to the Mansion House. Billy met him midway upon the road and much skirmishing ensued, Billy taking two lines of attack: first, that Smith was a perfect ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... realism which is so admirable in Scott's best work. For example, though my Scotch blood (for I can boast of some) may prejudice me I am profoundly convinced that Balfour of Burley would have knocked M. Lantenac into a cocked hat and stormed la Tourgue if it had been garrisoned by 19 x 19 French spouters of platitude in half the time that Gauvain and Cimourdain took about it. In fact, Balfour seems to me to be flesh and blood and Gauvain & Co. to be too often mere personified bombast: and therefore I fancy that Old Mortality ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... increased from day to day, had its gradual effect upon our worthy burgher, insomuch that it at length implanted two or three wrinkles in his brow, things unknown before in the family of the Webbers, and it seemed to pinch up the corners of his cocked hat into an expression of anxiety totally opposite to the tranquil, broad-brimmed, low-crowned ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... fear of Bony in those days, especially the naughty children, who were kept in order during the day by threats of "Bony shall have you," and who had nightmares about him in the dark. They thought he was an Ogre in a cocked hat. The Gray Goose thought he was a Fox, and that all the men of England were going out in red coats to hunt him. It was no use to argue the point; for she had a very small head, and when one idea got into it there was no room ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... and ignorance, child as I was, I had looked forward to several months preparation; to buying and fitting of uniforms, and dirks, and cocked hat, and swaggering therein, to my own great glory, and the envy of all my young relations; and especially I desired to parade my fire—new honours before the large dark eyes of my darling little creole cousin, Mary ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... thing for the Kaiser to get killed in the war so as to guarantee the SUCCESSION of the Empire.... Perhaps he is doing this for my benefit.... Anyway he occupies the center of the stage at present and GOVERNS this greedy and unruly mob by kicking discipline into a cocked hat and allowing every unshaved Bolshevik his own unrestricted way!... Under other circumstances I should dearly like to meet this boasting Furioso in a ten-foot ring when a little exercise is needed ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... led me up to a room prepared for me—with candles lit, hot water ready, and bed neatly turned down. On the bed lay the full costume of a Punchinello: striped stockings, breeches with rosettes, tinselled coat with protuberant stomach and hump, cocked hat, and all proper accessories—even to a ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he was called, made a creditable figure in his office, and there used to be in Binan a painting of him with his official sword, cocked hat and embroidered blouse. The municipal executive in his time did not always wear the ridiculous combination of European and old Tagalog costumes, namely, a high hat and a short jacket over the floating tails of a pleated shirt, which later undignified the position. He has a notable record for his ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... in broken English the man gladly obeyed, and Ben begged to be allowed to make Jacko equally comfortable, explaining that he knew all about monkeys and what they liked. So the poor thing was freed from his cocked hat and uniform, fed with bread and milk, and allowed to curl himself up in the cool grass for a nap, looking so like a tired little old man in a fur coat that the children were ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... habiliments, which seemed left to themselves to provide, was a covering for the head, the red or green cap being given them only upon entering the bagne. For their journey, some of the fellows had provided themselves with strange head-gear, mostly made of straw; one had a three-cocked hat; others, one of all kinds of outre shapes. A prime vagabond had woven for himself a complete and magnificent tiara, precisely like the Roman Pontiff's in form, and surmounted by a cross. This was the Pope, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... Commander-in-Chief is not like a poet. But when a Commander-in-Chief dies, the spirit of a thousand Beethovens sob and wail in the air; dull cannon roar slowly out their heavy grief; silly rifles gibber and chatter demoniacally over his grave; and a cocked hat, emptier than ever, rides with the mockery of despair on ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... reckon you will. Do you see my nose? Look at it! Don't you see that it is knocked into a cocked hat?" ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... last, stopping short in the middle of his marching, "I can't stand this any longer! There, Jerry, we've had drill enough, thank you; I am knocked into a cocked hat, for my part!" ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... fellow has cut the logs under his permit; but I'd like to make that doubly sure before we go to trial. If we can get a double cinch on that, we'll knock the claim of the Forestry Department to keep homesteaders out into a cocked hat." ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... long, straggling street, noting appearances, a little in advance of our singular cavalcade, we observed a very magnificent officer of police, with a cocked hat and feathers, and sword by his side, sitting on a bench, smoking his pipe. He scrutinised us closely as we passed, munching chestnuts, and carelessly throwing the shells not very far from his worshipful presence. Filippi soon following with the mules, he was stopped by this important personage, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... "Into a cocked hat," was the verdict of Pym, meaning thereby that thus did Tommy's second work beat his first. ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... last century. Nothing could be more ignorant, unsuitable, or unbecoming, that the whole system of theatrical costume. Garrick, for example, usually played Macbeth in the uniform of an officer of the Guards—scarlet coat, cocked hat, and regulation sword, were the exhibition of the Highland chieftain's wardrobe, and the period, too, when the Highland dress was perfectly known to the public eye. It must be acknowledged that we owe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Falls, which, he declared, were utterly unworthy of being visited by any sane man. "If you want to see real falls," said he, "I'll take you to the Falls of Tummel, which could knock those of Bruar into a cocked hat!" (such was the curious metaphor he employed). I told him he could take me to both if there was time, but Bruar I must see. He landed me at the Tummel, and drove on recklessly himself a mile further to see his sweetheart. The desire ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... I see from the way you look that you feel it. Ah, ha! you know now, don't you, how it feels to squirm under public scorn and lose something you hold dear? They tell me old Mitchell sees through you and is leaving all he's got to Virginia kin. The dying of your child knocked all that into a cocked hat—your own child, think of that! I've laughed till I was sick over it. First one report come, then another, till your three staggering, knock-out blows was made public. I don't know how true it is"—Henderson wrung his talon-like hands together tightly—"but ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... if it were an island, and the streets were rivers, and inside, in the middle of the building, there is a yard, with trees in it and a garden. It does seem so funny to find a garden here amongst all the houses. If you went into the Bank to see it, you would meet a man wearing a funny cocked hat like those that men used to wear in old times; and if you showed him that you had leave to go all over the building, he would tell you where to go and be very civil. We shall hear more ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... some time since, and has not since been heard of, a small elderly gentleman, dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, by the name of Knickerbocker. As there are some reasons for believing he is not entirely in his right mind, and as great anxiety is entertained about him, any information concerning him left either at the Columbian Hotel, Mulberry Street, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the first lieutenant descended to the cabin, but returned again almost immediately, followed closely by the captain, in his cocked hat and sword, grasping in one hand the well-known roll of paper containing the articles of war, and in the other the master-at-arms' report of prisoners. Every head was uncovered at his appearance; and as he lifted his hat in answer to this salute, he laid it on the capstan, against ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... in one of his stories as "made up of gable-ends, and full of angles and corners as an old cocked hat. It is said, in fact, to have been modeled after the hat of Peter the Headstrong, as the Escurial of Spain was fashioned after the gridiron of the blessed St. Lawrence." Wolfert's Roost, as it was once styled (Roost signifying Rest), took its name from ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... a whim and insisted on his coming to her one night clad in his magnificent chamberlain's costume. Then how she did laugh and make fun of him when she had him there in all his glory, with the sword and the cocked hat and the white breeches and the full-bottomed coat of red cloth laced with gold and the symbolic key hanging on its left-hand skirt. This key made her especially merry and urged her to a wildly fanciful and ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... greater surprise awaited Colonel Kenton. This was the consul himself, who proved to be an old companion-in-arms, and into whose awful presence the colonel was ushered by a Hausmeister in a cocked hat and a gold-braided uniform finer than that of all the American major-generals put together. The friends both shouted "Hollo!" and "You don't say so!" and threw ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... McGraw,' the Captain said, 'Will ye make a sojer av your son Ted? Wid a g-r-rand mus-tache, an' a three-cocked hat, Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that! You like that—tooroo looroo loo! Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... bore a bag slung at his back and a large pocketbook in his hand. He wore a cocked hat and a bluish-grey swallow-tailed coat and seemed very much out of breath from ascending the five flights of stairs. His manners were very affable and his steps sounded as sonorously as that of a money-changer's counter ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... the garden with its army of children and nurses, leaning on my stick with halting step, how I regret my General's cocked hat, my paper plume, my wooden sword and my pistol. My pistol that would snap caps and was the ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... had come to Cronstadt to inspect the troops, and had been invited by our friend, in compliment to his rank, to join him in a bear hunt. Now, the general, though more accustomed to drilling than hunting, accepted the invitation, and appeared in due time in a cocked hat and long gray greatcoat, the uniform of an Austrian general. When they had taken up their places, the general, with half a dozen rifles arrayed before him, paid such devoted attention to a bottle of spirits he had brought with him, that he quite forgot the object of his coming. At ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing, self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat, penetrating, as ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... long descent, we remarked Cravant, a little town to the right, fortified in an ancient and picturesque manner, and which, the peasants said, had been the seat of much fighting in days of old. Our informant was ploughing in a fierce cocked hat, with a team composed of a cow and an ass. Query, might not cocked hats, which appear to our ideas an exclusively military costume, have originated in such countries as these, among the vine-dressers? who flap down the sides ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... drumsticks. Jamie had "trained" before, and was made a colonel at once; but Pokey was the best of all, and called forth a spontaneous burst of applause from the spectators as she brought up the rear, her cocked hat all over one eye, her flag trailing over her shoulder, and her wooden sword straight up in the air; her face beaming and every curl bobbing with delight as her fat legs tottered in the vain attempt ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... is just as secretly proud of his riches and honours as a PARVENU Snob who makes the most ludicrous exhibition of them; and a high-born Marchioness or Duchess just as vain of herself and her diamonds, as Queen Quashyboo, who sews a pair of epaulets on to her skirt, and turns out in state in a cocked hat ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... peeped out at us from her portholes. Above the line of hammocks, which hung like carded wool along her bulwarks, we could see the heads of the seamen staring down at us, and pointing us out to each other. On the high poop stood an elderly officer with cocked hat and trim white wig, who at once whipped up his glass and gazed at us ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had requisitioned at Oswego, was of the largest size, and in addition to six Indian paddlers was provided with a square sail, for use before fair winds. In the middle of this craft, seated in his beloved tub as on a throne, appeared the doughty paymaster, in full uniform. This included a cocked hat, carefully powdered wig, laced coat, sword, perfectly fitting breeches, white silk stockings, and high-heeled pumps, surmounted by large silver buckles. As the big canoe dashed up to the beach, it was noticed that its native crew dropped their paddles ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning over the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual collisions, showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and-wood car could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat!... The decoration of the all-steel car does not atone for its probable combustibility and its proved fragility. In particular, the smoking-cars of all the Limiteds I intrusted myself to were defiantly and wilfully ugly. Still, a fine, proud train, handsome in some ways! And the trainmen ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... little table, with a Bible upon it, was placed in the entrance-way at the foot of the stairs, that all might hear what the clergyman should say. The body lay in the parlor, with the Major's sword and cocked hat upon the coffin; and the old gentleman's face had never worn an air of so much dignity as it wore now. Death had refined away all trace of his irritable humors, of his passionate, hasty speech. It looked like the face of a good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... repeal, that "every dog shall have his day." All this methinks I see, and as vividly too as if I had the living Grumbo before my bodily eyes; for, in the course of his long and eventful career, it grew to be as characteristic of our canine hero as, twenty years later, became a little cocked hat, a gray great-coat, military boots, and a certain attitude, of that famous Corsican, Napoleon the First—commonly, vulgarly, bogusly called ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... gown; the royal imps succeeded; there stood the pageantry of Makin marshalled on its chosen theatre. Dickens might have told how serious they were; how tipsy; how the king melted and streamed under his cocked hat; how he took station by the larger of his two cannons—austere, majestic, but not truly vertical; how the troops huddled, and were straightened out, and clubbed again; how they and their firelocks raked at various inclinations like the masts of ships; and how an amateur photographer reviewed, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wrists, which are immersed in crimped ruffles, she doddles up and down the hall in a state of general excitement. A corpulent colored man, dressed in the garb of a beadle,—a large staff in his right hand, a cocked hat on his head, and broad white stripes down his flowing coat, stands midway between the parlor doors. He is fussy enough, and stupid enough, for a Paddington beadle. Now Madame Flamingo looks scornfully at him, scolds ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... morning about the King's walk and being followed, and said that for the future he must walk early in the morning, or in some less public place, so there are hopes that his activity may be tamed. He sent George Fitzclarence off from dinner in his silk stockings and cocked hat to Boulogne to invite the King of Wuertemberg to come here; he was back in fifty-six hours, and might have been in less. He employs him in everything, and I heard Fitzclarence yesterday ask the Duke of Leeds for two of his ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... variegated lights and shades, from soaking rains and partial dryings, bore sullen testimony to the changeable state of the weather for the last week. Out of this great-coat shot up, to a monstrous height, a head surmounted by a huge cocked hat, one end of which hung over the stem, the other over the stern of the horse: the legs belonging to this head were sheathed in a pair of monstrous boots, technically called 'field-pieces,' which, descending rather ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... me now, my hobby-horse, my steed of prancing paces! Time is it that you and I won something more than races. I have got a fine cocked hat, with feathers proudly waving; Out into the world we'll go, ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... up-stream all the way from tide water to within sight of the Rocky Mountains. Up these waters, with rapids so numerous that one loses count of them, came doughty traders of the Company with the swiftest paddlers the West has ever known. The gentleman in cocked hat and silk-lined overcape, with knee-buckled breeches and ruffles at wrist and throat, had a habit of tucking his sleeves up and dipping his hand in the water over the gunnels. If the ripple did not rise from knuckles to elbows, he forced speed ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... the instrument from me and holding it up to the firelight. "There's a picture of some sort here. It looks like a man in a cocked hat." ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... a woman in your house, or hain't you? or is it a ghost, or what is it?' Folks somehow never does come to that. Ye see, there was the cap'n so respectable, a settin' up every Sunday there in his pew, with his ruffles round his hands and his red broadcloth cloak and his cocked hat. Why, folks' hearts sort o' failed 'em when it come to say in' any thing right to him. They thought and kind o' whispered round that the minister or the deakins oughter do it: but Lordy massy! ministers, I s'pose, ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... beard, which had been shaved before the burial, had apparently a week's growth. The white satin which had lined the lid of the coffin had crumbled into dust, and lay like a mist over the body, which was dressed in a green uniform, with the cocked hat across its knees. ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... 'genty drab,' his long spare limbs encased in blue striped stockings, with shoes and buckles, and sporting ruffles of the finest cambric at his wrists, while adown his back hung a long queue, and on his head was perched a small three-cocked hat, which, with a politesse tout a fait Francais, he invariably took off when saluting a friend. Captain Paton, while a denizen of the camp, had studied well the noble art of fence, and was looked ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was over. What struck me as singular, the person who performed the part usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, I believe, a sword, and had the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eyeglasses, of the potential ducking that awaited him at the hands of Matt Peasley; for just before McBride said good-bye and started for the train Cappy and Mr. Skinner discovered that their apple cart again had been upset. The following cablegram received from Matt Peasley knocked into a cocked hat all their high hopes of ridding ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... whole appearance on these journeys was somewhat grotesque, and in proof of this assertion he was accustomed in relating his adventures to add the following description:—'I wore a blue military cloak and a military cocked hat; I had a sword by my side; my whole luggage was carried in two bags, one on each side of the horse. In one of these I usually carried a leg of mutton, from which I cut two or three slices when I wished to prepare ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... the eye of a tall, gaunt-looking man in a top-boot and plush breeches, but without coat or waistcoat, and wearing a gold-laced cocked hat on his head, hind part before, from beneath which peeped out a white cotton night-cap. Having succeeded in attracting the attention of this worthy, who in his proper person supported the dignity of parish beadle, Coleman repeated the same stratagem he had so ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... The simple-minded chiefs have easily been brought over to the Russian schemes. Some of them have been won by money and soft words; others by some mark of distinction, such as a medal, a handsome sabre, a cocked hat or a gold-laced coat. Rather than give these up some of them would have sold half the steppes. They have signed papers of which they did not understand a word, and given away rights of whose value they were ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... himself, as he got into the cab, 'why, if I were to send a thing like that there would be murder and suicide! She'd show it to her husband, and he'd come round and knock me into a cocked hat for it. Dear Lady Everard—she's a dear, but she doesn't know ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... heard in his early days in the service a tradition of a ship commanded by Creighton, which he believes to have been the Washington, and which illustrates the methods by which this extreme smartness was obtained. In each boat at the booms was constantly a midshipman in full dress, cocked hat included, so that no time might be lost in dropping alongside when called away. The full crew was probably also kept ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... lined with tall, full-foliaged trees, with a crowded roadway on each side bordered by stately buildings. Close by me a colossal equestrian statue in bronze towered up till the head of the rider was on a level with the eaves of the houses. The rider was in cocked hat, booted and spurred, the eye turned sharp to the left as if reconnoitring, the attitude alert, life-like, as if he might dismount any moment if he chose. In the distance down the long perspective of trees ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... There are two degraded men among the female hemp-beaters—one an old card-sharper in laced coat and foppish wig; another who stands with his hands in a pillory, on which is inscribed the admonitory legend, "Better to work than stand thus." A cocked hat and a dilapidated hoop ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of his practice, by seeing them stopping up the embrasure with sandbags. After waiting a little, he saw them beginning to remove the bags, when he made his men open upon it again, and they were instantly replaced without the guns being fired; presently he saw the huge cocked hat of a French officer make its appearance on the rampart, near to the embrasure; but knowing, by experience, that the head was somewhere in the neighbourhood, he watched until the flash of a musket, ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... star of the Order of the Garter, and the Order of the Golden Fleece, a waistcoat of scarlet cashmere covered with gold lace, breeches of scarlet kerseymere trimmed with gold lace; gold buckles, white silk stockings, cocked hat laced with gold, sword studded ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... you're there, marching 'long with the 'Merican soldiers. There's General Taylor, sitting stiff and straight on a white horse. Up rides a little Mexican on a pony. 'Look at our gre't big army and see how few men you've got,' he says. 'S'render, General Taylor, s'render, before we beat you into a cocked hat.' General Taylor looks at him—no, he doesn't, he looks 'way 'cross the hills,—mountains, I mean—and says, 'General Taylor never s'renders.' And the Mexican whips his pony and gallops away. Then General Taylor he draws up his little ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... common or insignificant about him. Indeed, it had been said, that, when, just after the declaration of peace, he walked through the town in the commemorative procession side by side with General Washington, the minister, in the majesty of his gown, bands, cocked hat, and full flowing wig, was thought by many to be the more majestic and personable ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... this dining-room, from which all seats had been removed for the time. On entering, he saw the tall, manly figure of Washington, clad in black velvet; his hair in full dress, powdered and gathered behind in a large silk bag; yellow gloves on his hands; holding a cocked hat with cockade in it, and the edges adorned with a black feather, about an inch deep. He wore knee and shoe buckles; and a long sword with a finely wrought and polished steel hilt. The scabbard ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... sword (the Major was her late husband), and desired him to put it very carefully behind his pillow at night, turning the edge towards the head of the pillow. He was a sharp lad, she was sure; for, spying out the Major's cocked hat, he had said, if he might have that to wear, he was sure he could frighten two Englishmen, or four Frenchmen any day. But she had impressed upon him anew that he was to lose no time in putting on hats or anything else; but, if he heard any noise, he was ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... don't even intend to try to amuse you with Vienna matters. What is it to you that we had a very pleasant dinner-party last week at Prince Esterhazy's, and another this week at Prince Liechtenstein's, and that to-morrow I am to put on my cocked hat and laced coat to make a visit to her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Mother, and that to-night there is to be the first of the assembly balls, the Vienna Almack's, at which—I shall be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gentlemen. Now there is much greater plainness and uniformity. When Washington held his levees, he was generally dressed "in black velvet, with white or pearl-colored waistcoat, yellow gloves, and silver knee and shoe-buckles." "His hair was powdered and gathered in a silk bag behind. He carried a cocked hat in his hand, and wore a long sword with a scabbard of polished white leather." The display of dress was not less marked in other officials, and in men of high social rank. The judges of the Supreme Court wore scarlet ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... went direct to a solitary street in the old part of Rome. At the door of the big, sad palace where Cardinal Spada lived, a porter with a cocked hat, a grey greatcoat, and a staff with a silver knob, ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... beruffled and begemmed, that they gazed with awe upon the French Adonis. But the bridegroom was a sight for gods and men. In full regimentals with a big sword, so many orders that there was hardly room for them on his little breast, and a cocked hat, with a forest of feathers, in which he extinguished himself at intervals. How his tiny boots shone, his tawny moustache bristled with importance, and his golden epaulets glittered as he shrugged and pranced! His honoured papa and mamma were both tall, portly people, beside whom the ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... would do whatever was wanted of him, and he could send home and get some knee-buckles and a cocked hat. ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... winding around the trunk. Chestnut Number 3 is a fine old tree, a little bent, its sturdy lower branches supporting a platform surrounded by a balustrade, six rotten wooden pillars, and a thatched roof, shaped like a cocked hat, to shelter the whole. All the neighboring trees contain similar constructions, which look from a little distance like enormous nests. They are greatly in demand at the dinner hour; you dine thirty feet up in the air, and your food is brought ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... hesitate at rebellion, but he did not. Unlike some of our present-day citizens of foreign extraction, and in circumstances involving not merely sentiment, but property and perhaps life, he showed no tendency to split his Americanism, but boldly threw his noble old cocked hat into the ring. Nor did he require a Roosevelt to make ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... gentleman of about fifty, with a profusion of nearly white whiskers, which met at his chin, mounted upon a sleek charger, whose half-ambling, half-prancing pace, had evidently been acquired by long habit of going in procession; this august figure was habited in a scarlet coat and cocked hat, having aiguillettes, and all the other appanage of a general officer; he also wore tight buckskin breeches, and high jack-boots, like those of the Blues and Horse Guards; as he looked from side to side, with a self-satisfied contented air, he appeared quite insensible ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... a martial tap, tap at the glass door of the hall entrance, from an officer arrayed in green and gold, wearing cocked hat and feathers and high top-boots, with a sword in one hand and ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... Nelson, and George and Harry Butler, and Bill Johnson, and a dozen others, who could knock the whole thing into a cocked hat, in less than ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... of the sanguine and unsuspicious temperament of youth. Her cousin, meanwhile, exerted himself to the utmost to render himself agreeable. He was a young, frank, handsome soldier, who had leapt into the very middle of many a lady's heart—red coat, sword, epaulette-belt, cocked hat, feathers, and all. But he was not destined to leap into Emily's. She had enclosed it within too strong a line of circumvallation. After a three months' siege, it was impregnable. So Henry, who really loved his cousin, thinking it folly ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... 'Black Hawk is a squaw; he is too old to be a chief; he is no Sac.' This caused me to raise the war-whoop. I say no more of it; all is known to you." He returned to Iowa, and died on the 3d of October, 1838, at his camp on the river Des Moines. He was buried in gala dress, with cocked hat and sword, and the medals presented him by two governments. He was not allowed to rest even in his grave. His bones were exhumed by some greedy wretch and sold from hand to hand till they came at last to the Burlington Museum, where they ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... looking in a very strange way. He had been about the house since daybreak, and insisted on seeing Mrs. Bluebeard. "Let him enter," said that lady, prepared for some great mystery. The beadle came; he was pale as death; his hair was dishevelled, and his cocked hat out of order. "What have you to say?" said ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various |
