"Clout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rose satin mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping, scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... but his face was pale. He could cheat with his words, but I saw his face bleacht like a linen clout behind his laugh, and I swear at that time he loved me, though he loved advancement better. "You are bright and early, young woman! Are you for the garden, to get you a stomach for breakfast? Well, so-so! and pray for poor Presto as ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... AEolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his storms, chance to hit upon the crazy barque of their bruised ruffs, then they goeth flip-flap in the wind, like rags that flew abroad, lying upon their shoulders like the dish-clout of a slut.' Having thus, with great exultation, described these reproofs to human pride, he mentions how 'the devil, as he, in the fulness of his malice, first invented these great ruffs, so hath he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... the remarkable Mother Hubberds Tale, a bitter satire on the army, the court, the church, and politics. His Daphnaida was also published about the same time. On his return to Ireland he gave a charming picture of life at Kilcolman Castle, with an account of his visit to the court, in Colin Clout's Come Home Again. The story of the long and desperate courtship of his second love, Elizabeth, whom he wedded in 1594, is told in the Amoretti, a sonnet sequence full of passion and tenderness. His rapturous ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... cam to the wren's nest, And keekit in, and keekit in: O weel's me on your auld pow! Wad ye be in, wad ye be in? Ye'se ne'er get leave to lie without, And I within, and I within, As lang's I hae an auld clout, To row ye ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... second son came out, and she asked him the same question, and he told the same lies, and she gave him another clout that left his head as solid as any stone in ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... not far wrong; for Mrs. Leigh's companion was none other than Mr. Secretary, Amyas's Smerwick Fort acquaintance; alias Colin Clout, alias Immerito, alias Edmund Spenser. Some half-jesting conversation had seemingly been passing between the poet and the saint; for as they came in she said with a smile (which was somewhat of a forced one)—"Well, my dear sons, you are sure of immortality, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... help us. [Proudly.] And if 'twasn't for me and my great strength, I'm telling you—and it's God's truth—there'd been mutiny itself in the stokehole. 'Twas me held them to it, with a kick to wan and a clout to another, and they not caring a damn for the engineers any more, but fearing a clout of my right arm more than they'd fear the sea itself. [He glances at her ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... bad news for the poor Indian. Me lose a son, me lose a broder. The squaws have taken the breech clout, and fight ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... that, but then old Harry picked him up and carried him off to The British Oak on his own back, and threw him down in his own kitchen between his own two girls like a dead dog. They do say that the little one Agnes flew at her father like a raging cat until he knocked her senseless with a clout over head; rough ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... as the one hope of the Empire's overthrow, and did not propose to have him taken. Scouts, spies, the entire French secret service, delved, gestured, and sweated. But they laid bare next to nothing. At the Palacio Municipal a number of functionaries told of a peon in breech clout, a wretch coated with alkali dust till the muscles of his legs looked like grayish ropes, who had emerged from the cacti plain ten days before and come running into Chihuahua. The peon had made ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... water, the Rocket ran out By jumping the railings and kicking a clout Of rotten white woodwork to startle the trout. When Charles cleared the water, the grass stretcht before And the glory of going burned ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... Town, Jamaica, which he resigned to settle in England, where he now resides. Early in his career he became an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and published the attractive books entitled 'Science in Arcady,' 'Vignettes from Nature,' 'The Evolutionist at Large,' and 'Colin Clout's Calendar.' In his preface to 'Vignettes from Nature,' he says that the "essays are written from an easy-going, half-scientific half-aesthetic standpoint." In this spirit he rambles in the woods, in the meadows, at the seaside, or upon the heather-carpeted moor, finding in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... gloated, while she performed that dreadful, menial task. 'A trifle balky at times, Professor, a trifle balky; but a clout alongside the jaw makes her as meek and gentle ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... of blue, with gaudy belt and buckskins, and cap of fur and moccasins of hide, mingling fraternally with their tufted and bepainted visitors, as well as with those rangers, both envied and hated, the savage coureurs de bois of the far Northern fur trade; men bearded, silent, stern, clad in breech-clout and leggings like any savage, as silent, as stoical, as hardy on the trail as on the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... chief dress was a breach clout and deerskin leggings, formidable in their war-paint and war plumes, with scalping-knives and tomahawks, were only partially held in hand by Chief Brant, conspicuous by his height, his wampum fillet and eagle plumes, and his King George's medal ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... slayer of forests, became the pilot of our voyage up Lake Moosetocmaguntic. We shoved off in a bateau, while Joseph Bourgogne, sad at losing us, stood among the stumps, waving adieux with a dish-clout. We had solaced his soul with meed of praise. And now, alas! we left him to the rude jokes and half-sympathies of the lumbermen. The artist-cook saw his appreciators vanish away, and his proud dish-clout drooped ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... that nature ripens through long winters, lead up to this garden by way of clumps of bamboo grass. You see the Smell was right when it talked of meeting old friends. Half-a-dozen blue-black pines are standing akimbo against a real sky—not a fog-blur nor a cloud-bank, nor a gray dish-clout wrapped round the sun—but a blue sky. A cherry tree on a slope below them throws up a wave of blossom that breaks all creamy white against their feet, and a clump of willows trail their palest green shoots in front of all. The sun sends for an ambassador through the azalea bushes a ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... blinking at the scene—no doubt belonging to our corps of runners, scouts, and guides, for all were shaved, oiled, and painted for war, and, under their loosened blankets, I could see their lean and supple bodies, stark naked, except for clout and ankle moccasin. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... when Orestes was cast out I was a child.... If I did weave some clout Of raiment, would he keep the vesture now He wore in childhood? Should my weaving grow As his limbs grew?... 'Tis lost long since. No more! O, either 'twas some stranger passed, and shore His locks for very ruth before that tomb: ...
— The Electra of Euripides • Euripides
... not be sendin' me to choppin' poles wid a head on me like a lobster-pot?" he whispered. "Sure, skipper, me poor head feels that desperate bad, what wid the liquor an' the clout ye give me, I couldn't heave it up from the pillow if Saint Peter ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... encampment on the Pecan are neither squaws, dogs, nor ponies; only men, naked to the breech clout, their bodies brightly painted from hip to head, chequered like a hatchment, or the jacket of a stage harlequin, with its fantastic devices, some ludicrous, others grotesque; still others of aspect terrible—showing a death's-head ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... quarter, went out. In five minutes he returned with old Lizzie,—she smelling strong of spirits and wearing several jackets which she had put on one over the other, and a number of skirts, long and short, which made her resemble an animated dish-clout. She had, of course, to borrow her equipment from Mrs. Foley, and toiled up the long flights, dragging mop and pail and broom. She told Hedger to be of good cheer, for he had got the right woman for the job, and showed him a great leather strap ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... but there was no one near to help us; and as I was offering to bid 'em keep the peace, Psyche fell a nipping and pricking me with her bodkin: on the other side also, the young wench half stifled Ascyltos with a dish-clout she had ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... which Mark Twain has fitly characterized as "an attempt to navigate a sardine dish with Great Eastern machinery"; and it suggested also the Indian chief humorously mentioned by Irving as generously "decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast with his breech clout and leathern leggins, being grand officer at top and ragged Indian at bottom." [Footnote: Bonneville, p. 34.] Whatever may be said by credulous and enthusiastic authors to decorate this Indian pueblo, its houses and its breech-cloth ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... and some o' the dirty jaups splashed about his shins. But was I to blame for that?—ye maun walk wide o' a whalebone besom if ye dinna want to be splashed. Afore I kenned where I was, he up wi' a dirty washing-clout and slashed me in the face wi't! I hit him a thud in the ear—as wha wadna? Out come his mither like a fury, skirling about her hoose, and her servants, and her weans. 'Your servant!' says I—'your servant! You're a ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... passed, and I could again see clearly, the warrior was standing upon the Stone of Sacrifice—naked save for his breech-clout, and armed with a round shield and a maccahuitl of hardened gold. The monk still wore his flowing habit, whence the hood had fallen back, so that his head was bare; in one hand he held his crucifix, and with the other he was motioning away the sword and shield that a ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... "Outrageous indeed!" Another clout. "Nothing but wallopping will be effective on you scheming guys." The remark was followed by a shower of blows. I soaked Clown at the same time, and made him think he saw the way to the Kingdom-Come. Finally the two crawled and crouched at ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... Sir! I knew The valor of the gen'ral and his troops; And seeing this affair must end in blood, I brought a clout, to ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... installed, Rollanz the count, And Oliver; the dozen peers around; A thousand score of Franks in armour found. Marsile the king fought with them there, so proud; He and Rollanz upon that field did joust. With Durendal he dealt him such a clout From his body he cut the right hand down. His son is dead, in whom his heart was bound, And the barons that service to him vowed; Fleeing he came, he could no more hold out. That Emperour has chased him well enow. The ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... sort of visor made from the beak of a hornbill, the whole surmounted by a bunch of yard-long tail-feathers from some bright-plumaged bird. When the presentation was concluded all the chieftain had left was his breech-clout. He did not share in my enthusiasm. From the murderous glance which he shot at me when the Regent was not looking, I judged that if he ever met me alone in the jungle he would get his shield back, with another scalp to add to his collection. And I could guess ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... about his form. 'Tonio sought not, as does his red brother of the plains, the theatrical aid of impressive costume. Tall, spare and erect, his sinewy legs and arms bare almost their entire length, his moccasins worn and faded, but his fillet, camisa and trailing breech-clout almost snowy white; destitute of plume, feather, necklace, armlet, ornament of any kind, unarmed, yet unafraid, with slow and measured stop the chief approached the council tent, three of his warriors in his train, and, escorted by Bright, turned squarely as he came before the ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... dived instantly, followed, first by a dish-clout, rolled tightly up and well aimed, and afterwards by his active-limbed superior. Both reached the region of smells, cruets, and crockery at the same moment, and each set energetically to work at ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... side stood an old gnarled Tree, who gave the Little Oak a clout on the head with one of his lowest boughs. "Hold your tongue," he said, "and don't talk till you have something to talk about. You need none of you believe a word of the Bear's nonsense. I am much taller than you, and I can see far out over the wood. But so far ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... it was a very good cloak, It hath been always true to the wear; But now it is not worth a groat: I have had it four and forty year'. Sometime it was of cloth in grain: 'Tis now but a sigh clout, as you may see: It will neither hold out wind nor rain; And I'll have a new ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... eleven o'clock at the time, I thought I had better hurry in case there was another Flushing-bound train. So I scuttled towards the door only to receive another heavy clout from the sentry's rifle. What the interpreter really said was "Ah! No, you can't go!" As I rubbed my bruised head I treated that interpreter to a candid opinion of his English speaking qualifications, but he did not understand half ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... way to go to Bursley Station, that is," said Amy, observing that Constance was descending King Street instead of crossing it into Wedgwood Street. And she caught Spot 'a fair clout on the head,' to indicate to him that she had him alone in the ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... grandiloquentest poets at this present." Francis Meres (Palladis Tamia, 1598) mentions him in conjunction with many great names among "the most passionate, among us, to bewail and bemoan the perplexities of love." Spenser, in "Colin Clout's come home again," calls him with a spice of raillery "old Palaemon" who "sung so long until quite hoarse he grew." His writings, with the exception of his contributions to the Mirror for Magistrates, are chiefly autobiographical in character or ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... barke of trees.] There are neere to the sea vpon this Riuer diuers inhabitants, which are mighty bigge men and go al naked except some thing before their priuie parts, which is like a clout about a quarter of a yard long made of the barke of trees, and yet it is like a cloth: for the barke is of that nature, that it will spin small after the maner of linnen. [Sidenote: The Negroes race their skinnes.] Some of them also weare the like vpon their heades being painted with diuers ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... wi' a braw burn trout, An' speer'd how acquaintance were greeing; He brought it frae Peebles, tied up in a clout, An' said it wad just be a preeing, a preeing, An' said it ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... curse my noble father laid on thee, When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper, And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes; And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland;— His curses, then from bitterness of soul Denounc'd against thee, are all fallen upon thee; And God, not we, hath plagu'd ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... and the squaws beat on them while the Indians, all painted hideously, jumped stiff legged, cut themselves until they were covered with blood and sweat and yowled their hideous war whoop. They were naked excepting their breech clout. Sargeant Jones had control of all the guns at the fort, and unknown to us, the cannon were all trained on the dancers. We could not understand why the soldiers were so near us, but later in the day learned that there was a soldier ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... up with an old clout," he continued, "and slashed it across my face, saying, 'Take that, pale face! Take that, man with a woman's skirts on!' and 'Take that!' howled a young buck, fetching the flat of his dagger across me forehead, close-cropped hair giving no grip for scalping, not to mention ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... to clout you ovah de haid wid dis pokah you ain' gwine to transack no mo' bisniss fo' a tollable long time!' she says. She's mad all right, 'n' she hollers this ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... Powys—instead of passion, of rage, of tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do you, hein? sink it will come out,"—Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle smile askew,—"I have sot so;—it will come out when she is one day in a terrible scene . . . Mon Dieu! it was a terrible scene for me when I looked on ze clout zat washed ze blood of ze terrible assassination. So goes out a voice, possibly! Divine, you say? We are a machine. Now, you behold, she has faints. It may happen at my concert where she sings to-morrow ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Mr. Lorimer Fison, "this possession, and a horrible sight it is. In one case, after the fit was over, for some time the man's muscles and nerves twitched and quivered in an extraordinary way. He was naked except for his breech-clout, and on his naked breast little snakes seemed to be wriggling for a moment or two beneath his skin, disappearing and then suddenly reappearing in another part of his chest. When the mbete (which we may translate 'priest' ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... without constraint, his eyes are fixed upon the ground in a manner suggestive of some disturbing thought. And as the breeze ruffles his dishevelled beard and ragged pea-jacket it ends by robbing his head of his cap—of the tattered, peakless clout which, with rents in its lining, so closely resembles a tchepchik [Woman's mob-cap], as to communicate to the picturesque features of its ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... being once more restored to favour, speaks of 'that nearness to her Majesty which I still enjoy,' and directly contradicts the rumour of his disgrace. This, however, is not in accordance with the statement made by Spenser in his poem of Colin Clout's come home again, in which he says that all Raleigh's speech at this ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... This priest has gone quite off his head. I don't know what I am about That I don't give the Jew a clout: 430 Would you empty Hell ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... many beautiful and touching allusions. Amid references to the tints of the Jungfrau, the blue rifts of the glaciers, and the noble Niesen towering over the Lake of Thun, we come upon the charming little scrap which I have elsewhere quoted: 'Clout-nail making goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop and anything relating to smithery. My father was a smith.' This is from his journal; but he is unconsciously ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... now the rest of the lining. It was very difficult to see the transition from jacket to trowsers, the rags glided so into one another. The whole clothing was arranged so as to give him an air-bath: there were draught holes on all sides and ends; a yellow linen clout fastened to the nethermost regions seemed as if it were to signify a shirt. A very large straw hat, that had certainly been driven over several times, was stuck sideways on his head, and allowed the boy's wiry, flaxen hair to grow freely through the opening where the crown ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... it was a very good cloak, It hath been always true to the wear, But now it is not worth a groat; I have had it four and forty year: Sometime it was of cloth in grain, 'Tis now but a sigh-clout, as you may see, It will neither hold out wind nor rain; And I'll have ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... dashed wildly about the floor and up the bed-curtains, with its back up and its tail thickened, and its green eyes glaring defiance at everything animate, inanimate, or otherwise, insomuch that Maggot made sundry efforts to quell it with the three-legged stool—and Mrs Maggot followed suit with a dish-clout—but in vain! ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... if the man has discovered that I have entered, and is showing off his poverty in order to make fun of me. Shall I kill him, or is the poor devil talking in his sleep? [He takes a look.] But see! This thing wrapped in a ragged bath-clout, now that I inspect it by the light of my candle, is in truth a jewel-casket Suppose I take it. But no! It is hardly proper to rob a man of good birth, who is as poor ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... kindly after my little Jane—had summoned us to the dining-room, I was presented to a small, quiet mouse of a woman whose head reached no higher than Dawson's heart. This was the redoubtable Emma! "Did she really clout you over the head and chuck you into the street?" I whispered. "She did, sir!" he replied, smiling. "She threw me ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... said "Love laughs at locksmiths?" Just show him to muh. I'll show him where he got in wrong. It's enough to get a perfect lady's goat. My Wilbur tried it the night he got pinched, and all he got was a clout on the knob from the desk sergeant and a languishing number in a prison, and I don't dare to go within a mile ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... "I'll tell you how I think you will succeed in driving away the evil eye. It seems to me that it has not been cast on your cows, but on your dishes. Gang hame and tak' a' your dishes down to the burn, and let them lie awhile in the running stream; then rub them well and dry with a clean clout. Tak' them hame and fill each with boiling water. Pour it out and lay them aside to dry. The evil eye cannot withstand boiling water. Sca'd it out and ye'll get butter." The prescription was followed, and a few weeks after the woman called ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... gathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and miry, and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallen upon my head, which is of uncommon substance); nevertheless John Fry was laughing, so that I longed to clout his ears for him; "Not at all bad work, my boy; we may teach you to ride by-and-by, I see; I thought not to see you ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... home again, And to a constant lass give back her swain. Have I not sat with thee full many a night, When dying embers were our only light, When every creature did in slumber lie, Besides our cat, my Colin Clout, and I? No troublous thoughts the cat or Colin move, While I alone am kept awake by love. Remember, Colin, when at last year's wake I bought the costly present for thy sake: Could thou spell o'er ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... and ye would like a lady's maid, and perfumery 'till your toilet. Aweel, there is a stone jug and bowl of water, and a hempen clout ahint the stove, gin that will serve your purpose," said the dame, setting down the breakfast, and gathering the empty cans from the floor as she left ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... but that every bricklayer should survive and succeed. It sought to rebuild the ruins of any bricklayer, and to give any faded whitewasher a new white coat. It was the whole aim of the Guilds to cobble their cobblers like their shoes and clout their clothiers with their clothes; to strengthen the weakest link, or go after the hundredth sheep; in short to keep the row of little shops unbroken ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... by the way Weeping for sorrow, I saw a simple man me by, Upon the plow hanging. His coat was of a clout That cary[8] was called; His hood was full of holes, And his hair out; With his knopped[9] shoon Clouted full thick; His toes totedun[10] out As he the land treaded; His hosen overhung his hockshins On every side, All beslomered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... restless nature something of the placid serenity of the white-haired stranger. He regarded the man more closely, saw there was an alien look about him that marked him as different and apart from the men of Earth. His sole garment was a wide breech clout of silvery stuff that glinted with changing colors—hues foreign to nature on Earth. His was a superhuman perfection of muscular development, and there was an indescribable mingling of gentleness and sternness in his demeanor. With a start, Bert ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... ignorant of Indian treachery and in spite of the warnings of Antoine, offering no obstruction to their approach, has allowed them to enter the camp. What madness! They have divested themselves of their buffalo-robes, and appear naked to the breech-clout and armed with bows and arrows, tomahawks, and scalping knives. Six or seven only come in at first, but others quickly follow, dropping in by twos and threes until a score or more are ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... beating to arms, and the soldiers were seen flying to their rendezvous. I stood composedly at the dining-room window, and was very thankful that I wasna provost in such a hurricane, when I saw poor Mr Keg, as pale as a dish clout, running to and fro bareheaded, with the town-officers and their halberts at his heels, exhorting and crying till he was as hoarse as a crow, to the angry multitude, that was raging and tossing like ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... a Hubert!' shouted the populace, more interested in a known person than in a stranger. 'In the clout!—in the clout!—a Hubert forever!' ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... forward, Halliday and I shouting to the Arab to stop, while Ben with loud cries advised Boxall to give the black rascal a thundering clout on the head, and that we would quickly come to his assistance; but I am inclined to think that neither the one nor the other heard us. Boxall did endeavour to release himself, but the Arab held him fast. ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... rag of a merchant,' he cried out. 'If this were the Queen's cousin should we bear him thus on a clout?' ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... said I, standing up and taking off MacMuir's coat, "and call me a lubberly clout like yourself, and we will see which is the better clout." I put off the longsleeved jacket, and faced him with my fists doubled, crying: "I'll teach you, you spawn of a dunghill, to speak ill ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... turns to water at the nude recollection of such an unparalleled predicament, for the now unrestrained bicycle vires acquirit eundo, and in seven-league boots! While I, wet as a clout with anxiety and perspiration, did grasp the handles like the horns of a dilemma, calling out in agonised accents to the bystanders,—"Help! I am running away with myself! Half a rupee ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... clothes. A battered high hat surmounted his block of midnight hair, and a cutaway coat, built for a man much smaller around the chest, held his torso in bondage. As it was warm on the day he arrived, he had discarded his trousers—a breech-clout was plenty leg-gear, he thought. He bore a letter of ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... features, although somewhat flat and broad, created a favourable impression at first; upon closer scrutiny, however, the eyes modified that impression. They were small, and their look piercing rather than bright. His costume was limited to a tattered breech-clout of buckskin. A collar of small white shells encircled the neck, and from this necklace dangled a triangular piece of alabaster, flat, and with a carving on it suggesting the shape of a dragon-fly. His hair streamed loose over the left ear, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... that my slowly returning senses at length enabled me to recognise as a native dug-out canoe. She was about forty feet long by four feet beam and about two feet deep; and was manned by thirty as ferocious- looking savages as one need ever wish to see. They were stark naked, save for a kind of breech-clout round the loins, and squatted in pairs along the bottom of the canoe, plying short broad-bladed paddles with which they seemed to be urging their craft at a pretty good pace through the water. A big, brawny, and ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... were cooking up something. They've got some Indians in it too. Saw them rehearsing old Thunder Mountain the other day in nothing but a breech-clout." ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Ketch," he said that evening, as he stood at the door of the smithy, with half a dozen of his children at his heels. "Bring a dozen clout-nails; here's a tremendous piece ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... out about fifteen miles on the road, an Apache Indian appeared, and so suddenly that it seemed as if he must have sprung up from the ground. He was in full war dress—that is, no dress at all except the breech clout and moccasins—and his face and whole naked body were stained in many colors in the most hideous manner. In his scalp lock was fastened a number of eagle feathers, and of course he wore two or three ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... Swiss, in red breech-clout and spectacles, the lamplight shining on his bald head, sat in the midst of them, familiar by a score of years with their chants. Pae filled the pipe and the bowls and joined in the chorus, while the Paumotan boys, in a shadowy recess, ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... A staggering clout from a heavy hand hurled him against a side wall like a battering-ram. The breath was driven out of his lungs. Dizzily he plunged forward to his hands and knees among the debris on ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... have had the whole piece interrupted, and a crowded audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting, because the actors had hid away the breeches of Rosalind, and have known Hamlet stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a dish-clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful consequences of a manager's getting a ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... hit him a clout on the head, but I did not. The sunlight was coming in through the window at the top of the stairs, and shining on the rope that was tied to the banister. The end of the rope was covered with stains, brown, with a glint of ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... or Dinley; but of a person so Christian-named no record has yet been found, though the surname Dyneley or Dinley occurs in the Whalley registers and elsewhere. In the Eclogue of the Shepheardes Calendar, to which this note is appended, Colin Clout—so the poet designates himself—complains to Hobbinol—that is, Harvey—of the ill success of his passion. Harvey, we may suppose, is paying him a visit in the North; or perhaps the pastoral is merely ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... "Thus I, Colin Clout, As I go about, And wondering as I walk, I hear the people talk: Men say for silver and gold Mitres are bought and sold: A straw for Goddys curse, What ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... he at last, "it's no a vera genteel present tae be makin' ye, I doot," and he held up the battered shoes. "They're unco worn, an' wi' a clout here an' there, ye'll notice, but the buckles are guid siller, an' I hae naething else to gi'e ye. Ay, man! but it's many a weary mile I've marched in these at the head o' the Ninety-Second, an' it's mony a stark ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... of a Puritan—it won't deny—but I'll uphold him a gentleman and a pretty fellow, for all that.—Madam, says I, you may think your cousin looks like a psalm-singing weaver, in that bare felt, and with that rascally brown cloak; that band, which looks like a baby's clout, and those loose boots, which have a whole calf-skin in each of them,—but let him wear on the one side of his head a castor, with a plume befitting his quality; give him a good Toledo by his side, with a broidered ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... inspiration came to him like a ray of sunlight piercing the blackness of a dungeon. He felt among the inner folds of his ragged blanket, withdrew a small object and thrust it into his mouth. A second later the blanket was snatched from his body leaving him clad only in a breech clout, and he was given a push into the lane as a hint that his time ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... struck what Milton missed, Milling an English grist With homely turn and twist. He was English through and through, Not Greek, nor French, nor Jew, Though well their tongues he knew, The living and the dead: Learned Erasmus said, Hie 'unum Britannicarum Lumen et decus literarum. But oh, Colin Clout! How his pen flies about, Twiddling and turning, Scorching and burning, Thrusting and thrumming! How it hurries with humming, Leaping and running, At the tipsy-topsy Tunning Of Mistress Eleanor Rumming! How for poor Philip Sparrow Was murdered ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... certain that his wife frequently appeared at church with red eyes after her lord and master had held his usual Sunday forenoon inspection of the house, and had discovered a cockroach in the kitchen or a dish-clout in the scullery, while it was true that he permitted his three children to wear good conduct badges, each carrying with them the sum of 1d. per week, after three months' exemplary behaviour. But only one of ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... precious throttles with the pieces? Far be it from us! Let us waste no time in looking foolish; but pick up the gray-goose shaft that lies so innocently at our feet among the daisies; and it's odds but the second plants it i' the clout.' The lover, the hero of the piece, upon whose requited passion and splendid settlements the curtain goes down, is a role not always safely to be confided to the genius and discretion of a single performer. Take ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... clout! you have hit the very white," said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... to work about the house, and Jack was sent out into the fields to mind the sheep. As he went he sang merrily, for he loved the green fields and the animals. He doubted the dinner his stepmother had put up for him, wrapped in a kitchen clout; yet he sang merrily as he went ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... to meet the test just then, however, for just at that moment a courier in breech-clout and sandals dashed up the gallery and burst into the room, bearing in his right hand a thin square ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... repent a snout that's bent, And if again I tap it, Oh, with a clout I'll bend that snout With force ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... sun whose level beams made the bellying sail above me a thing of glory where it swung against an azure heaven, flecked with clouds pink and gold and flaming red; and stark against this splendour was the grim figure of Resolution Day, a bloody clout twisted about his head, where he sat, one sinewy hand upon the tiller, the other upon the worn Bible open upon his knees, his lips moving as he read, while hard beside me on the floor of the boat ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... when victorious. The palestra was on a lawn by the sea, and in formal contests district champions met those of other districts, and islands competed for supremacy with other islands. The maona wore a breech-clout and a coat of cocoanut oil freshly laid on, but not sand, as in the Olympiads. When one was thrown, the victor's friends shouted in triumph and sang and danced about him to the music of tom-toms, while the backers of the loser met the demonstrations with ridicule. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... advance, all the others are costumed, and their horses caparisoned, nearly alike. Their dress is of the simplest and scantiest kind—a hip-cloth swathing their bodies from waist to mid-thigh, closely akin to the "breech-clout" of the Northern Indian, only of a different material. Instead of dressed buckskin, the loin covering of the Chaco savage is a strip of white cotton cloth, some of wool in bands of bright colour having a very pretty effect. But, unlike their red brethren of the North, they ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... his confidences, under the name of Colin Clout, a name borrowed from Skelton, a satirical poet of Henry VIII.'s time, which Spenser kept throughout his poetical career. Harvey reappears in one of Spenser's latest writings, a return to the early pastoral, Colin Clout's come home again, a picture ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... in the sixteenth century, well wooded. The castle is now a roofless ivy-clad ruin. The poet was turning it into a pleasant residence. Ralegh came to see it and him. Spenser has described the visit in the tenderest and least artificial of his poems. Colin Clout's Come Home Again, printed in 1595, was inscribed to his friend in 1591. The dedication was expressed to be in part payment of an infinite debt. The poet declared it unworthy of Sir Walter's higher conceit for the meanness of the style, but agreeable to the truth in circumstance and ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... advice Which we so oft despise, "Cast not a clout Till May goes out." May like a ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... poor old daddy spends his time grinding dress material for his family from the faces of the poor. I've got some funny clerks, too: one of them is a curiosity." Here, growing suddenly furious, he gave an egg a clout. ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... called Madari. Girdhari wanted to have the cane cut down as near as he could to the ground, while the boy, to save himself the trouble of stooping, would persist in cutting it a good deal too high up. After admonishing him several times, the shopkeeper gave him a smart clout on the head. The boy, to prevent a repetition, called out, "Murder! Girdhari has killed me—Girdhari has killed me!" His old father, who was at work carrying away the cane at a little distance out of sight, ran off to the village watchman, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Rough clout upon his patient head, The stately camel round doth go, With gentle hesitating tread; And yoked, and blind with frontlets, made Of black Nile mud, the buffalo Plies with ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... the lonely Sir Calidore, seeking Pastorella, catches a glimpse of the Graces dancing in the forest to the piping of Colin Clout (a personification of Spenser). Shortly after, Calidore has the good fortune to rescue Pastorella from a tiger, just after Coridon has ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... conceits That like a needless eyeglass or black patch Give those who wear them harmless happiness; The twists and cracks in our poor earthenware, That touch me to more conscious fellowship (I am not myself the finest Parian) With my coevals. So poor Colin Clout, To whom raw onions give prospective zest, Consoling hours of dampest wintry work, Could hardly fancy any regal joys Quite unimpregnate with the onion's scent: Perhaps his highest hopes are not all clear Of waftings from that energetic bulb: 'Tis ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... meeting Mopsa in my way, And looking on her face of clay, Been healed, and cured, and made as sound, As though I ne'er had had a wound? And when in tables of my heart, Love wrought such things as bred my smart, Mopsa would come, with face of clout, And in an instant wipe them out. And when their faces made me sick, Mopsa would come, with face of brick, A little heated in the fire, And break the neck of my desire. Now from their face I turn ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... crossed the place affected with his thumb, and mumbled to himself some words in secret, after gaue the patient a powder like the ashes of wood, which was to be boiled in running water, and with it to wash the vlcer, after certaine clouts were to be applyed, with speciall care to lay that side of the clout vnto the sore, which was by him crossed, and marked; and all these clothes must at once be bound vpon it, and euery day the lowest remoued or taken away: thus in short time that anguish and griefe ceased; ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames; A clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd, 'Gainst fortune's state ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare |
