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Gauntlet   Listen
noun
Gauntlet  n.  
1.
A glove of such material that it defends the hand from wounds. Note: The gauntlet of the Middle Ages was sometimes of chain mail, sometimes of leather partly covered with plates, scales, etc., of metal sewed to it, and, in the 14th century, became a glove of small steel plates, carefully articulated and covering the whole hand except the palm and the inside of the fingers.
2.
A long glove, covering the wrist.
3.
(Naut.) A rope on which hammocks or clothes are hung for drying.
To take up the gauntlet, to accept a challenge.
To throw down the gauntlet, to offer or send a challenge. The gauntlet or glove was thrown down by the knight challenging, and was taken up by the one who accepted the challenge; hence the phrases.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Gauntlet" Quotes from Famous Books



... captive. If it were a question of the rescue of the political captives of Varignano, or of political captives in Bourbon, in Naples, or in Poland, or in Paris, even earls might be found so to argue. Wherein is our sister Ireland less than these? In executing these men, they would throw down the gauntlet for terrible reprisals. It was a grave and solemn question. It had been said by a previous speaker that they were prepared to go to any lengths to save these Irishmen. They were not. He wished they were. If they were, if the men of England, from one end to the other, were prepared to ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant

... Ruthven had arrived earlier. The company rose from table, and Henderson, who was not at the moment in the room, heard them moving, and thought that they were 'going to make breeks for Maconilduy,' that is, to catch the Highlander. Finding he was wrong, he threw his steel gauntlet into the pantry, and sent his boy to his house with his steel cap. He then followed Gowrie to meet the King, and, after he had fetched 'a drink' (which James says 'was long in coming'), the Master ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... with Russia. But this, again, was the result of internal pressure. Hamburg, and all the interests which the name stands for, cared less for expansion in the East than for the capture of markets overseas. For this important section of conservative Germany, England was the enemy. So the gauntlet was thrown down to the whole civilised world at once, and the odds against Germany were ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... secured the help of some important political sympathiser one day, scoured the country for arms and clothing, powder and assignats another; who treated with smuggling captains and chartered vessels that were to run the gauntlet on the Norman and Breton coast, and supply the means of war to struggling and undaunted loyalists. All this relentless work, little suited, on the whole, to an Englishman, and in a cause the rights of which he ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... are throwing the gauntlet down to the gentlemen,' observed Lord B.; 'but I shall throw my warder down, and not permit this combat a l'outrance. I perceive you drink no more wine, gentlemen; we will ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat

... press and commercial bodies, undertook to run the unwelcome guests out of town. That this was not done gently is clearly disclosed by subsequent official evidence. Culprits were loaded into auto trucks at night, taken to the county line, made to kiss the flag, sing the national anthem, run the gauntlet between rows of vigilantes provided with cudgels and, after thus proving their patriotism under duress, were ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we encountered 'on the grounds'—it is a bad spot to be in, even in good weather—but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the Moskoe-strom itself without accident; although at times my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we thought it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we could wish, while the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... this, still amiably threw the gauntlet down to Father Riley, demanding the Catholic view of the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson

... as ridiculous, may, after all, not be so very far beyond the truth. Jack has told some rare tales in his time,—"yarns" that appear to be "spun" out of his fancy, quite as much as this one,—which, after having run the gauntlet of philosophic ridicule on the part of closet naturalists, have in the long run turned out to be true! Has not his story of the "King of the Cannibal Islands,"—Hokee-pokee-winkee-wum, with his fifty wives ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... the commandant told me that five peasants belonging to a landowner in the Tamboff government had lately been sent to Georgia. These men had been sent for soldiers, but they would not serve; they had been several times flogged and made to run the gauntlet, but they would submit readily to the cruelest tortures, and even to death, rather than serve. 'Let us go,' they said, 'and leave us alone; we will not hurt anyone; all men are equal, and the Tzar is a man like us; why should we pay him tribute; why should I expose my life to danger to kill ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... first she hit among the Christian peers Was the bold son of England's noble king, Above the trench himself he scantly rears, But she an arrow loosed from the string, The wicked steel his gauntlet breaks and tears, And through his right hand thrust the piercing sting; Disabled thus from fight, he gan retire, Groaning for pain, but fretting more ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... "Never!" was the indignant reply of the truly loyal girl, "burn the house if you will! I will never do that, while the Union which has protected me and my friends, exists." The rebels at once fired the house, and the brave girl and her aunt made their way to the home of friends, running the gauntlet of the fire of both armies, and both were subsequently unwearied in ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... John Humphreys met me. He was in good humour, and delighted that Conde had at last thrown down the gauntlet. ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... importance, were introduced later. Capital punishment, which still disgraces human justice in more enlightened states, was unconditionally abolished; the number of offences amenable to corporal punishment was gradually reduced, until, on April 29, 1863, all the horrors of the gauntlet, the spur, the lash, the cat, and the brand, were consigned to eternal oblivion. The barbarous system of the judiciary was replaced by one that could render justice "speedy, righteous, merciful, and equitable." Railway communication, postal and telegraph service, police protection, ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... three flights of stairs to her office, visitors will encounter red signs to the right of them, red signs to the left of them, like the cannon at Balaklava. A conservative stranger needs all the courage of the immortal Light Brigade to run the gauntlet of the blazing word "Revolution" staring at him on so many sides. Miss Anthony has taken uncommon pains to make her paper this week captivating and irresistible, as will be seen by the advertisement she has inserted ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... she could have taken her choice. Her beauty, her position, her accomplishments, her father's wealth, all made her eminently desirable. But, on the other hand, the same things rendered her more difficult to reach, and harder to please. To get access to her heart, too, it was necessary to run the gauntlet of her parents, which, until she had reached the age of twenty-three, no one had succeeded in doing safely. Many had called, but ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... ready with his "Ou allez-vous, Monsieur?" to which the only sensible reply would have been "Pas au ——, comme vous," but silence and an utter indifference were better still, and armed with these I ran the gauntlet of the pests, and finding the "Chef de Gare" in his "bureau," at once received the desired permission. There was not much time for perambulation, as the train soon steamed in, though without Mr. Sydney, who was detained for a day or two longer, and once ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... her head. "No woman could keep him in leading-strings, your Majesty. There is something domineering, savage, crushing, in his hand. Look at it, on the table there. Is it not mighty as an iron gauntlet? What other man at the board has such a brutal hand? The strength in it makes me shudder. Will she not ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... man-of-war's boats!" exclaimed Gascoyne; "why, that would make them set us down as pirates at once, and we should have to run the gauntlet of half the British navy before this time ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... Judith could pick up the gauntlet, the horses came to pause before the lighted window. Judith jumped from Swift, unsaddled her and turned her into the corral. Then she went hurriedly into the house. Douglas unsaddled more slowly, and strode toward the sheds where calves ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... splendid britchzka along it, with his perfection of a little tiger by his side; and such cattle as never besides were seen in even harness of such richness and elegance. Nay, some scores of ambitious young whips became sick of their envy of his superb gauntlet driving-gloves. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... receiving the tidings, was greatly discomforted, and bade the Sieur Enguerrand de Marigni summon the offending parties to appear before him. It chanced most untowardly, that they met as they were travelling towards the court; and the Lord of Harecourt attacked the Chamberlain, and with his gauntlet put out his left eye, and then returned to his own people. No sooner was he of Tancarville healed, than he repaired to the royal presence, and defied the Lord of Harecourt to single combat. The pledge was accepted by M. Charles de Valois, brother of the king, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman

... in the House of Commons at the first grand debate on the German war after the Great Commoner's retirement from office—"the pitched battle," as Sterne calls it, "wherein Mr. P. was to have entered and thrown down the gauntlet" in defence of his military policy. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... a curious mode of challenge. The parties cut a quantity of straw, each taking a half, and then retire to the Dempster Gardens to test their strength. Forms of challenge vary much. There is the gentlemanly way of throwing down one's glove or gauntlet, the biting of one's thumb as in Romeo and Juliet, and boys have their modes as well as their elders. We remember a common one in Inverness some twenty-five years ago, was to count an opponent's buttons, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various

... discover flaws in the eminently fashionable costume of white striped serge, the brand-new yellow shoes, the jaunty summer necktie, and the appropriate hat, whereby I was transformed from a plain man to a respectable-looking member of society. The father who can run the gauntlet of his children's censorship may look the cold world in the face without a quaver. Philosophy has taught me this, and it was under the spur of the philosophic spirit that I had sought out the most expensive and most fashionable tailor in town, and told him to ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... stereotyped compliments of society were poured into her ear. Sir Victor was congratulated, sincerely by the men, with an under-current of pity and mockery by the women. Then they were all at dinner—the bride in the place of honor—running the gauntlet of all those eyes on the alert for any solecism ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... them among, No good dish to suffer on borde to be longe: If the dishe be pleasaunt, eyther fleshe or fishe, Ten handes at once swarme in the dishe: And if it be flesh ten kniues shalt thou see Mangling the flesh, and in the platter flee: To put there thy handes is perill without fayle, Without a gauntlet or els ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt

... both man and brute. A complete suit of armour stood upright under each beam in an attitude as resolute and proud as if it were still filled with the soul of the brave man it had once decked for mighty adventures. The gauntlet grasped the lance in its ten iron fingers, while the shield rested against the plates of the greaves as if to prove that prudence is necessary to courage, and that the best fighter is armed as well for defence ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... would hover in the shop bored to death with his business and his home and Miriam, and yet afraid to go out because of his inflamed and magnified dislike and dread of these neighbours. He could not bring himself to go out and run the gauntlet of the observant windows and the cold ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... turn," said his antagonist coolly, casting aside his gauntlet. And with one blow of his fist the knight sent the friar spinning to ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... always been in the old province of Maryland, the gentlemen led the people, and everywhere the spirit of fire ran like molten steel through the veins of the gathering hosts, and the people took up the gauntlet of war with a laugh and a cheer and shook their clenched hands at the King who was over the sea; so it was the length and breadth of the province, and ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson

... and stores, while many prefer the street itself, and with feet on curb or other coign of vantage, tilt their chairs at most alarming angles. A sort of animated lovers' lane is thus formed, through which the promenaders have to run the gauntlet, and are subjected to a certain amount of criticism. Everyone knows everyone. Good natured badinage plays like wild-fire, up and down and across the street. Later on, the tinkle of mandolin and guitar is heard far into the ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... through the windward passage as far as seventy degrees of longitude, when she was out of the range of West India cruisers. Jack afterwards heard an account of her from a friend on the African station. She had then really become a pirate. She used to watch for the slavers after they had run the gauntlet of the British cruisers, and would then capture them, take their slaves out, and give them her cargo of coloured cottons in exchange. When she did not manage to fall in with slavers she occasionally took a run in on her own account, and her captain ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... nations which are nominally at peace, but which are waiting for a sign at which each may spring at the other's throat. In this instance the Juno from the Close had come quite prepared to declare her casus belli as complete, and to fling down her gauntlet, unless the enemy should at once yield to her everything demanded with an abject submission. "Mrs. French," she said, "I have called to-day for a particular purpose, and I must address myself chiefly ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... only to improve her condition, but to increase the consumption of exciseable articles in Ireland; not to take away from the general taxes of the country, but to add, from the proceeds of Irish taxes, between L600,000 and L700,000 a-year to British revenue. That exposition, he said, had now run the gauntlet of three Chancellors of the Exchequer and a Prime Minister, and he thought they might take it for granted that no man in the House could gainsay it. Turning to the threat of resignation made by the Russell Cabinet, Lord George said, it was only consistent with the independence ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... critics, referring to the last sentence of the above edict, asks: "Do not these words throw down the gauntlet?" And we answer, yes. Did not the thirteen colonies throw down the gauntlet to England for less cause? Did not Japan throw down the gauntlet to Russia for less cause than the Empress Dowager had for desiring that "each strive ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... the salvation of men. If they choose to; praise him, he takes it as a matter of course; if they choose to condemn him, he takes that as a matter of course, too. He is seeking the kingdom, and, however men treat him, the kingdom he seeks, right on to martyrdom. He runs the gauntlet of their direst hate and malice, that he may open their eyes and turn them from Satan to God, and from sin to righteousness. Self is lost sight of; it is not Paul now—it is Christ and ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth

... for his couch; and he was supplied with a wooden bowl of water and a handful of pounded corn to satisfy his appetite; and it was ordered that Monega, the most skilful mediciner of the tribe, should apply her most healing salves and balsams to his hurts, that he might the sooner be ready to run the gauntlet, and endure the torture of fire, which was the destiny ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... Truths have once for all this desperate instinct of self-preservation and of desire to extinguish whatever contradicts them. My belief in the Absolute, based on the good it does me, must run the gauntlet of all my other beliefs. Grant that it may be true in giving me a moral holiday. Nevertheless, as I conceive it,—and let me speak now confidentially, as it were, and merely in my own private person,—it clashes with other truths of mine whose benefits ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized and conditioned." The Declaration of Independence meant war against the ever-growing encroachment of despotism. The gauntlet was thrown down at the feet of a king by his subjects. The Declaration of Sentiments meant war against the whole social order as then constituted. The gauntlet was thrown down at the feet of man by those who declared him to ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... auto-truck to the far limits of the city, and there—a mile from the residential section, in the high weeds that fringed the town and confined the country, the Law and Order League lined up under John Kollander and with clubs and whips and sticks, compelled the prisoners to run a gauntlet to the highroad that leads from Harvey. Men were stripped, and compelled to lean over and kiss an American flag—spread upon the ground, while they were kicked and beaten before they could rise. This was to punish men for carrying a red flag of socialism, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... here."[437] Rhodes suggests that Seward "could not conceal his exultation that the Democrats had forsaken their high vantage ground and played into the hands of their opponents."[438] He became almost dramatic when he threw down his gauntlet at the feet of every member of the Senate in 1850 and challenged him to say that he knew, or thought, or dreamed, that by enacting the compromise of 1850 he was directly or indirectly abrogating, or in any degree impairing the Missouri Compromise. "If it were not irreverent," he continued, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... of three years, the public were astonished to find how large a number of painters had abandoned Davidism and openly joined the ranks of the enemy. Delacroix himself exhibited the Marino Faliero (now at Hertford House) and eleven others. The gauntlet was flung down, and war began in deadly earnest between the opposing parties. It was at this time that the terms Romanticism and Romantic came into common use. Delacroix always resented being labelled ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies

... peace, Seeming, for courtesy, to yield assent. But, as within the lists at Camelot Some temporary knight mislays his seat And falls, and, falling, lets his morion loose, And lights upon his head, and all the spot Swells like a pumpkin, and he hides the bulge Beneath his gauntlet lest it cause remark And curious comment—so behind his hand Sir GERARD's cheek, that had his tongue inside, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various

... across the bridge, and cutting his way through the crowd. By that means he might reach the open plain, and fight his way until his horse could come up. Once in the saddle he would have laughed at their attempts to take him. It was a desperate resolve,—a perilous running of the gauntlet,—almost certain death; but still more certain death was the alternative if he remained where ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... about Autumn Session this incident should help him to make up his mind. The Government will be safer with its Members on the moors or the golf links than daily running the gauntlet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various

... went into the parlor to run the gauntlet of family inspection, and walked across the floor to show the sweep of her train, and tried her little opera hood on Tod before putting it on herself, a casual observer would certainly have decided that ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... begged alms of salt. We passed the Haunted Shanty; but both it and the legend about it looked very tame at ten o'clock in the morning. After the road had faded out, we took to the bed of the stream to avoid the gauntlet of the underbrush, skipping up the mountain from boulder to boulder. Up and up we went, with frequent pauses and copious quaffing of the cold water. My soldier declared a "haunted valley" would be a godsend; ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs

... for 't is not now A manly mood to dream of Love, When each bold champion knits his brow, And for War's gauntlet doffs his glove. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... drawbridge flies, Just as it trembled on the rise; Not lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake's level brim: And when Lord Marmion reached his band, He halts, and turns with clenched hand, A shout of loud defiance pours, And shakes his gauntlet at ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... Hun had the exact position of these bridges, and, what was more disconcerting, he also had the exact range. So he "dusted" them at irregular intervals with various calibres, and trips across resembled the noble game of running the gauntlet. This portion of night reliefs was naturally particularly exciting. The late Lt.-Col. Marshall, V.C., when second in command to the 6th L.F's., provided an amusing story for the division one day when a couple of officers failed to salute him ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... but to confirm and establish our opinions, 'tis best to argue with judgments below our own, that the frequent spoils and victories over their reasons may settle in ourselves an esteem and confirmed opinion of our own. Every man is not a proper champion for truth, nor fit to take up the gauntlet in the cause of verity: many from the ignorance of these maxims, and an inconsiderate zeal for truth, have too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth. A man may be in as just possession ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... Maria Crumpton, after that enlightened pamphleteer had nearly run the gauntlet of the whole company, 'I must introduce you to our ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the sunshine, be a match decreed For Teucrian ships, their swiftness to essay. Next, in the footrace whosoe'er hath speed, Or, glorying in his manhood, claims the meed With dart, or flying arrow and the bow, Or bout with untanned gauntlet, mark and heed, And wait the victor's guerdon. Come ye now; Hush'd be each idle tongue, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... ever when he suspected knavery, his eyes sought Tommy, who was sitting on a form, his arms proudly folded. That the whelp had put the glove there, Cathro no longer doubted, and he would have liked to know why, but was reluctant to give him the satisfaction of asking. So the gauntlet—for gauntlet it was—was laid aside, the while Tommy, his head humming like a beeskep, muttered triumphantly through his teeth, "But he lifted it, he lifted it!" and at closing time it was flung in his face with ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... had an end. One day in the spring a conveyance drove up to the cabin, and an elderly, well-dressed woman alighted. With the assistance of her driver she ran the gauntlet of dogs and reached the cabin door, which was open. There, sitting inside on a dry cow-skin which was spread on the clay floor, was the object of her visit, surrounded by a group of Mexican companions, playing a game called ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... Sir Robert Peel took up the gauntlet against capital punishment, and endeavored to induce Parliament to abolish the death-penalty for forgery; the House of Commons voted its abolition, but the Lords restored the clauses retaining the penalty. One thousand ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... aware of all this,—indeed had he not thrown down his gauntlet every night to the Incandescent Gerald precisely because he knew how well he himself looked in the lists, and how well he tilted? But perhaps Lord Henry was even better aware than Denis of the important part played by intellectual ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... king was followed by the peers, and the knights of the Garter, Bath, Thistle, and St. Patrick, all in their robes. After every one had taken his seat, the Champion, on his horse, both in full armour, rode up the hall, and threw down a gauntlet before the king, while the heralds proclaimed that he was ready to do battle with any one who denied that George the Fourth was the liege lord of these realms. Then various persons presented offerings to the king in right ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... appeal (which it is obvious no delinquent would have dared to make) was never called in question, no one ever ventured to take up the gauntlet which Paganini had thrown down, and his character as a man thenceforward stood free ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various

... not more grim and sombre made Than are these helms; the deaf and sealed-up graves Are not more icy than these arms; the staves Of hideous biers have not their joints more strong Than are the joinings of these legs; the long Scaled gauntlet fingers look like worms that shine, And battle robes to shroud-like folds incline. The heads are skull-like, and the stony feet Seem for the charnel house but only meet. The pikes have death's-heads carved, and seem to be Too heavy; but ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... run the gauntlet of all the tongues in the Temple, sometimes retorting, sometimes laughing and passing on, sometimes stopping to watch the issue of a dispute or ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... who was five feet eight, and as stately as she was tall, bowed her head graciously; and Mr. Avenel, before he knew where he was, found her leaning on his arm. But as he passed into the next division of the tent, he had to run the gauntlet of all the gentlemen, who thronged round to shake hands with him. Their warm English hearts could not be satisfied till they had so repaired the sin of their previous haughtiness and mockery. Richard Avenel might then have safely introduced his sister—gown, kerchief, thick ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... without support of any sort, the chances of effecting his purpose were small indeed. Once, for a minute only, the veteran seriously turned his thoughts to escape. It occurred to him, that he might possibly reach the castle, could he get a little start; and should the Indians compel him to run the gauntlet, as was often their practice, he determined to make an effort for life in that mode. Agreeably to the code of frontier warfare, a successful flight of this nature was scarcely less creditable than a victory in ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... of them he dreamt he was on leave and walking through the City. At every doorway he had to run the gauntlet of lithe and implacable managing directors, all ready to pounce on him, drag him within and chain him permanently to a stool—with the complete approval of the Army Council. In another he was appearing before a tribunal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various

... was more dry than that of his oldest and rustiest saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea what to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show her figure as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed her tan gauntlet with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam to revolve his rudeness, with the dash of the wet road ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore

... year's siege; but the folly and stupidity of the municipal authorities put a stop to it, for they enacted that, instead of the high prices current for grain, which had tempted the Zeelanders to run the gauntlet of the Spanish batteries, a price but little above that obtainable in other places should be given. The natural result was, the supply of provisions ceased ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... and carried it away with the body to be buried. Presently after this execution was past, two other offenders for smaller crimes were brought to the same place, to suffer the punishment of the law, which they call running the gauntlet,—a usual ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... at Mrs. Wheeler Upton's meant to run a rapid-fire gauntlet of jokes about gray-eyed girls. However, go he must, and go ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors

... becomes a substitute for honest struggle. And it is more than shallow; to guess is dishonest. It is a servant to unworthy inertia; and worse, it is a cloak to mental unreadiness and to conscious moral cowardice. The guess is a bluff to fortune when the honest gauntlet of ignorance should be thrown down ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... always is. They are all like that. Oh, these bitter-sweet, grinning, pajama-bred, match-making, ninnying, super-smart manikins—it makes your blood curdle to look at one of them. And yet a real man has got to run the gauntlet before them his whole life long, and down through their ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... of danger, not so as to slight her courage, but to emphasize his own thoughtfulness. The world in which she had lived was crumbling, and he alone could offer a refuge. She felt the steel gauntlet through the texture of ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan

... fault," replied Dam, daubing pipe-clay on the huge cuff of a gauntlet which he had drawn on to a weird-looking wooden hand, sacred to the purposes of glove-drying. "He got beastly drunk and insulted a better man than himself by insulting his Corps—or trying to. He called a silly lie after a total stranger and got ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... to knock over the first wild boar that ran the gauntlet of the cordon, when the Count's gun had missed fire from the cap having become damp. Our next position was in an open piece of forest, where luck planted me in a notched cork tree, standing on a wooded knoll, at which several avenues ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... Duke of Normandy, and I will go where I please in my own city!" exclaimed Richard, passionately pressing against the crossed staves of the weapons, to force his way between them, but he was caught and held fast in the powerful gauntlet of one of the men-at-arms. "Let me go, villain!" cried he, struggling with all his might. "Osmond, ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge

... war-steamers over some twelve or fifteen portages between the Georgian Bay and the Ottawa, and as the upper waters of that river are not navigable by such craft, it has, by some of the military writers before alluded to, been deemed preferable to descend Lake Huron, St. Clair river and lake, run the gauntlet past the British forts on the Detroit, descend Lake Erie and the Niagara[26] into Lake Ontario, so as to meet the English as they come steaming up ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... dismounted, and regaining her feet, made an exit with more speed than grace, and the performance was announced—concluded. But upon taking a peep, after the audience had retired, I saw one of the ponies, mounted by a Manilla man, running the gauntlet of four long whips around the ring, and felt certain his rider could not have enjoyed much pleasure from the act, for every now and then he caught a lash intended for the horse, and if the other naughty pony had to come in for a like portion, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... said the herald, flinging a steel gauntlet on the floor with a ringing clash, "there lieth my lord of Percy's gage! thus doth ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... produced by the Short View was immense. The nation was on the side of Collier. But it could not be doubted that, in the great host which he had defied, some champion would be found to lift the gauntlet. The general belief was that Dryden would take the field; and all the wits anticipated a sharp contest between two well-paired combatants. The great poet had been singled out in the most marked manner. It was well known that he was deeply ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... worst evils in shop life, not only for Massachusetts, but for the entire United States, that in all large stores, where fixed rules must necessarily be adopted, girls are forced to ask men for permission to go to closets, and often must run the gauntlet of men and boys. All physicians who treat this class testify to the fact that many become seriously diseased as the result of unwillingness to subject ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell

... appeared. The men dressed in loose rough clothes; the women wore sun-bonnets; the girls inclined to bandana handkerchiefs, rough-rider skirts and leggings, cowboy hats caught up at the sides, fringed gauntlet gloves. They were a good-natured, kindly lot, and Bob liked nothing better than to stroll down to the Lake in the twilight. There he found the arrangements differing widely. The smaller ranchmen lived ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... Oaklands, "do not imagine for a moment that I am inclined to blame you; the only thing that I could not help feeling rather amused at, was your throwing down the gauntlet to the gentleman opposite, when I recollected a certain lecture on prudence, with which I was ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... least what Jane had purposed to say. She had intended to broach the subject on the diplomatic basis of a mistake having been made. She realized that she had thrown down the gauntlet with a vengeance, but she was ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft

... old offender in that line), where, after ringing a round of the most ingenious conceits, every man contributing his shot, and some there the most expert shooters of the day; after making a poor word run the gauntlet till it is ready to drop; after hunting and winding it through all the possible ambages of similar sounds; after squeezing, and hauling, and tugging at it, till the very milk of it will not yield a drop further,—suddenly some obscure, unthought-of fellow in a corner, who ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... was a distinctive mark which was inseparable from the person of gentle birth, who frequently even went to war with the falcon on his wrist. During the battle he would make his squire hold the bird, which he replaced on his gauntlet when the fight was over. In fact, it was forbidden by the laws of chivalry for persons to give up their birds, even as a ransom, should they be made prisoners; in which case they had to let the noble birds fly, in order that they might not share ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... did not know where to go or what to do. Leaving the town behind him he made for the Lake, and roved aimlessly and disconsolately about, choosing sheltered paths and remote roads where he would be unlikely to run the gauntlet of acquaintances. For he shrank from recognition on this particular day, when all his domestic privacies were being bared to the public view. But altogether of late he had fought shy of meeting people. Their hard, matter-of-fact faces showed him only too plainly ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... recover his power, or should a favourable opportunity occur, might be expected to know how to break the silence. Had the energetic and prudent king Antigonus Doson lived longer, he would have doubtless taken up the gauntlet which the Romans had flung down, for, when some years afterwards the dynast Demetrius of Pharos withdrew from the hegemony of Rome, prosecuted piracy contrary to the treaty in concert with the Istrians, and subdued the Atintanes whom the Romans had declared ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... Britain in her fight against Germany summons hunger as an ally, for the purpose of imposing upon a civilized people of 70,000,000 the choice between destitution and starvation or submission to Great Britain's commercial will, then Germany today is determined to take up the gauntlet ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... awaiting her; the lover, Lord Percy Farquhart, to whom she was betrothed, to whom she would, indeed, be married in a fortnight's time, and love in the person of Harry Ashley, who had loved her long, and whom she thought she loved. Under her gauntlet Lord Percy's betrothal ring chafed her finger. On her breast lay the red rose she wore always, for no other reason than that Ashley had asked her ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... and those of us who happened to be prepared—of which the Kasanumi was one—gave them a further peppering, to which, as before, they made no reply. And now, at last, we were reaching the end of the line, and the gauntlet was almost run, for as we drew out to seaward the inshore ships were compelled to cease fire for fear of hurting their friends instead of us. There was but one more ship to pass; and as we drew near to her I saw that she ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood

... and the Rancocus was coming, fast along the northern. In order to reach either the eastern, or the southern, it would be necessary to pass within gun-shot of the Reef, and, what was more, to run the gauntlet between the crater and the Rancocus. To this danger Waally was compelled to submit, since he had no other means of withdrawing his fleet. It was true, that by paddling to windward, he greatly lessened the danger he ran from the two vessels, since it would not be in their ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... their fate was to be decided by the council.[12] But ere sentence should be pronounced, it was the unanimous decision of the savages, that they should have some amusement, by forcing the prisoners to run the gauntlet. This, to the women and children, as well as the warriors themselves, was a most delightful sport, and they at once made the welkin ring with yells ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... in the boats and on the beach that the casualties were heaviest. The troops that were landed had to run the gauntlet for fully fifty yards before reaching the cover of the scrub on the cliff, and matters were worse still for the bluejackets pulling the empty boats back to the ships. They were potted at without a chance ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges

... more lightly skim the air, than Marmion's steed flew along the drawbridge. The man drew rein when he had reached the train, turned, clenched his fists, shouted defiance, and shook his gauntlet at the towers where so lately he ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... one, of course, and the long, narrow room was filled with riotous boys and girls all much younger than himself. All the desks seemed to be occupied and he was obliged to run the gauntlet of the entire class in his search for a seat. As he walked down the room so close to the wall that he brushed the chalk of the blackboard off upon his shoulder, he made a really ludicrous figure. All of his fine, free, unconscious grace ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... 50 meters off calling to him. The soldier then tied him to a telegraph pole, and fired on Simonin's father, who fell vomiting blood, and soon after died as he lay. Meanwhile, the young man was able to free himself from his bonds, and succeeded in running the gauntlet of several shots, one ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... morality, is strictly "true." This startling fact is not left wrapped in mystery. The veriest sceptic cannot, in imagination, grave a fancied double meaning on that richest gift. No—the motto follows, and seems to say—Now, as the champion of Giles Scroggins, hurl I this gauntlet down; let him that dare, uplift ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... and wife of an English Baronet, who, in the face of formidable barriers, had dared to accept all risks and follow the promptings of his heart. One of these days there would dawn on Roy the knowledge that he was the child of a unique romance, of a mutual love and courage that had run the gauntlet of prejudices and antagonisms, of fightings without and fears within; yet, in the end, had triumphed as they triumph who will not admit defeat. All this initial blending of ecstasy and pain, of spiritual striving and mastery, had gone to the making of Roy, who ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... act of war to call a free school free! In this same petty and childish spirit the congregations are called "associations" in the text of the law. When a free school is to be opened, the teacher who is to have charge of it must run the gauntlet of a series of public officers, all of them, if they are on good terms with the Government, presumably hostile to him as a Christian. He begins with the mayor of the Commune, who may object to his opening the school in the place he has chosen, on grounds of "good ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... They "were ever where danger was." A month and more before the Merrimac and the Monitor were finished, the important capture of Fort Henry "was a victory exclusively for the gunboats." It was the Carondelet that ran the gauntlet past Island Number 10, a feat as full of romance and daring as any that the Civil War tells us of. And these things were done with vessels still unpaid for and the personal property of their builder. Their ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... a knight who stood just behind him and a little in advance of the others of the troop. In answer, the knight rode forward; the King spoke a few words of introduction, and the stranger, ceremoniously drawing off his right gauntlet, clasped the hand, first of the Earl, and then of Lord George. Myles knew that he must be the great Comte de Vermoise, of whom he had ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... are a fraud." For this crime the three young men were beheaded in a corner near Green Street. Fond women—sentimental, as usual—dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the martyrs, and a noble lady spread fine linen over their corpses. The University students picked up the gauntlet. They seized the bodies of the three young men, and carried them to be buried in the Bethlehem Chapel. At the head of the procession was Hus himself, and Hus conducted the funeral. The whole city was ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... sector for the Quartermaster and his men. Setting out from rest camp each evening with the rations—and mails when there were any—loaded on mules, they ran the gauntlet across the open to a point where they entered the Mule trench, which ran up the side of the Achi ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison

... half an hour, and having this time to run the gauntlet of the street alone, entered with a mien which caused his wife's complaints to remain unspoken. The cough of Mr. Brown, a particularly contagious one, still rang in his ears, and he sat for some time ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs

... you can make a copy of the formal notice and show it to your partner. Then, if you feel strong enough to outrage all range customs, move in and throw down your glove. I've met an accident recently, leaving me a cripple, but I'll agree to get in the saddle and pick up the gauntlet." ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams

... platform of that station is in Russia; half of it in East Prussia, the easternmost province of the German empire. All trains that pass from one country to the other stop there. There are customs men, soldiers, policemen, Prussian and Russian, who form a gauntlet all travelers must run. Here passports must be shown, trunks opened. Getting in or out of Russia is not a simple business, even in the twentieth century. All sorts of people can't come in while a good many who try to get out are turned back, and may have ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine

... advertisements of mediums. I went from city to city at their mysterious calls. I held seances in my parlor, and frightened my wife with messages—some of them ghastly enough—from her dead relatives, I ran the usual gauntlet of strange seers in strange places, who told me my name, the names of all my friends, dead or alive, my secret aspirations and peculiar characteristics, my past history ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... her friends had left. "Eastbourne has lost its charms," she wrote, "and the crowds of people on the Parade only make me feel more lonely. If it were not for fear of Dr. Luttrell, I should come back to Brunswick Place at once, but I dare not run the gauntlet of his sarcasms. ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... different. War had been declared by the Fatherland, that war expected by the nation, eagerly awaited by all Teutons, longed for, oh how much and how eagerly, by all the subjects of the Kaiser! And now that it had come, now that the Emperor had thrown down the gauntlet before France and Russia, you would have imagined that the people of Berlin would have been overjoyed, would have been delighted, too happy and too contented to be angry. And yet, it so happened that there was disappointment, anger, rage, in the hearts of almost all these Germans. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... to be more nutritious. Propagated by centuries of isolated homesteaders, heirlooms that survived did so because these superior varieties helped the gardeners' better-nourished babies pass through the gauntlet of childhood illnesses. ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon

... Berry's left hand. I saw them black against the white of his gauntlet. Spellbound I watched him train the 'smoker' upon them one by one. Three rolled slowly off before as many puffs, intoxicated, doubtless, with delight and drunk with ecstasy. The fourth one he missed. The fifth ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... he hesitated when the old home came in sight, and perhaps his resolution would have oozed out at his finger ends if he had had to march up alone in his rags, and run the gauntlet of servants before he came to speech with his father. So his father's seeing him far off and running to meet him is exquisitely in keeping, as well as movingly setting forth how God's love goes out to meet His returning prodigals. That divine insight which discerns the first motions towards return, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... the bechic reflex. Laryngeal closing for normal swallowing consists chiefly in the tilting and the closure of the upper laryngeal orifice. The ventricular bands help but slightly; and the epiglottis and the vocal cords little, if at all. The gauntlet to be run by foreign bodies entering the tracheobronchial tree is composed of: 1. Epiglottis. 2. Upper laryngeal orifice. 3. Ventricular bands. 4. Vocal cords. 5. ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... Dr. Gauntlet, about the year 1852, took out a patent covering an electric connection between the keys and the pallets of an organ,[2] but the invention of the electro-pneumatic lever must be ascribed to Barker and Dr. Peschard. The latter seems to have suggested the contrivance and the former ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller

... Marriage Faith to circumvent me. Therefore without feign'd shifts let be assign'd Some narrow place enclos'd, where sight may give thee. Or rather flight, no great advantage on me; Then put on all thy gorgeous arms, thy Helmet And Brigandine of brass, thy broad Habergeon. 1120 Vant-brass and Greves, and Gauntlet, add thy Spear A Weavers beam, and seven-times-folded shield. I only with an Oak'n staff will meet thee, And raise such out-cries on thy clatter'd Iron, Which long shall not with-hold mee from thy head, That in a little time while breath remains thee, Thou oft shalt ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... Olympus—myths tell us immortal Jove Cleft with his swan-wings the blue of the sky for boon of a mortal's love.... I have lived, I have loved, I have triumphed! Let Death come, or early or late! I hurl my challenging gauntlet full in the face of Fate! Fate may make wreck of a future—how can she alter the past? I have tasted the sweets of life's chalice—why shrink from the lees at the last? How should I cavil at aught that shall come—I stand with your head on my breast— I have fought as I might—I ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner

... renunciation. But this very fact, while it makes the inhumanity far more human, makes it far less final and convincing. Men cannot remain standing stiffly in such symbolical attitudes; nor can a permanent policy be founded on something analogous to flinging a gauntlet or uttering a battle-cry. We might as well expect all the Yale students to remain through life with their mouths open, exactly as they were when they uttered the college yell. It would be as reasonable as to expect them to remain through ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... that for my thus writing, though I thereby have designed your honour and good order; I am like enough to run the gauntlet among you, and to partake most smartly of the scourge of the tongues of some, and to be soundly brow-beaten for it by others: specially by our author, who will find himself immediately concerned, for that I have blamed him for what he hath irregularly done, both with ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... them. Each time I came home I managed, in one way or another, to get a sight, at all events, of Carette, though in some cases little more. Twice I stormed the maiden fortress in George Road, and ran the gauntlet of the Miss Maugers with less discomfiture than on the first occasion, through Miss Maddy's sympathy and my added weight of years and experience. And once Carette was making holiday with Aunt Jeanne, and Beaumanoir saw more of ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham

... door of Mrs. Legend's drawing-room opened, in the usual noiseless manner, Mademoiselle Viefville, who led the way, was startled at finding herself in the precise situation of one who is condemned to run the gauntlet. Fortunately, she caught a glimpse of Mrs. Legend, posted at the other end of the proud array, inviting her, with smiles, to approach. The invitation had been to a "literary fete," and Mademoiselle Viefville was too much of a Frenchwoman to be totally ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... young woman to wave adieu or a recognition with her handkerchief, or see others doing this, denotes that she will soon make a questionable pleasure trip, or she may knowingly run the gauntlet of disgrace ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... mountains; but the glamour and romance of the gold fields have long since departed. On the morning mentioned traffic was light, for people did not travel the twenty-eight miles through heat and dust to Nevada City for pleasure. Too often it was a case of running the gauntlet from the gold fields to ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... time for the women of Rochester in some way to recognize Miss Anthony's ability, energy and labors in behalf of her sex.... Reformers, as a rule, are not popular in their day, and Miss Anthony ran the gauntlet of derision and abuse years ago, but today the magnificent services she has rendered ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... come right now?" Stella asked. "Come up, and we'll have something served up here. I don't feel like running the gauntlet of ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... to my mother stirred me with indignation and I announced in a fit of anger my willingness to be thrashed or thrash him if the thing was repeated. It was not only repeated at once, but seizing a lump of dough, he hurled it at my head. I ducked my head and it hit another man on the jaw, but the gauntlet was on the floor and an hour afterward the port side of the gun deck was a mass of solidly packed sailors and marines. My brethren came to me one after another. They quoted scores of texts to make me uncomfortable. I tried to joke, but my lips were parched and my tongue unwilling to act. I was ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... too hot for them altogether, Harry; they think it better to run the gauntlet of the ship's guns than to be sunk at ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty

... finding him in such a scene—'A rout,' he replied, 'is just one of those singular incoherences which supply me with laughter for a month. Was there ever such a tissue of inconsistencies assembled as in these pleasure hunts? On stepping from your carriage, you run the gauntlet through two lines of quizzing spectators, who make great eyes, as the French term it, at you, and some of whom look as if they took a fancy to your knee buckles. A double row of gaudy footmen receive you in the blazing ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... deal!" howled a miner, at the same time he slapped his leather gauntlet across a ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... night the sound of a stringed orchestra floated out on the breeze as the door of the gymnasium swung back and forth to admit disguised sophomores, who each whispered the countersign to the doorkeeper, after running the gauntlet of the waiting ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... her hands of me, yet thinks she has a duty. But I was glad, for once, to see her. It's not for nothing that I have run society's gauntlet; I can aim confetti with the best of them; innocent- looking but ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... southern border were to be garrisoned jointly by the Dutch and the Austrians as a barrier against French aggression. This arrangement was overthrown at the French Revolution. The French annexed the Austrian Netherlands and Liege in November, 1792; and immediately afterwards threw down a gauntlet to England by opening to all nations the navigation of the Scheldt. This, and the threatened French attack on Holland, her ally, drew England into conflict with the Revolution; for, first, Antwerp in French hands and as an open port would be a dangerous menace; and secondly, the French had ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History

... equipped for the drive. There was the faintest suspicion of a smile wreathing the corners of her lips as she stood tapping impatiently the tesselated floor of the hall with her tiny high-heeled boot, and running the gauntlet of a few teasing remarks from her two brothers, who were loitering near; but on Winnie's approach she turned round, and waving a careless farewell, accompanied her little sister down the broad stone steps to the carriage, where Mr. ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... in love. At Ellisland, Burns lived for a long time with his handsome wife, Jean Armour. At Dalswinton the first steamboat made its first trip, and Burns was on it. All round us now was Scott's "Red-gauntlet" country; and the bridge crossing the Nith at Dumfries was built by Devorgilla. There was something to see and think of every minute; and in fifty-nine miles we had followed Burns's whole life-story on its slow way from Ayr ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... game in your hands. The romantic drama, thoroughly well done (with a touch of Shakespeare now and then), is the speciality of your theatre. Give the public the picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and (as I told you in the beginning) you may throw down your gauntlet in defiance of ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... suggested Biddlecomb, as if he were proposing a testimonial, "we make him run the gauntlet. Grim won't come out and catch us. I saw him go out for a drive an hour ago." And the idea was very ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... the lieutenant ordered. "We should have to run the gauntlet of that battery on shore if we were to attack them, and might lose another boat before we reached their side. ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty

... rectory. There had been hatred in the deanery; but the hatred at the deanery had been mild in comparison with the hatred at Plumstead. The archdeacon was a sound friend; but he was also a sound enemy. From the very first arrival of the Proudies at Barchester, Mrs Proudie had thrown down her gauntlet to him, and he had not been slow in picking it up. The war had been internecine, and each had given the other terrible wounds. It had been understood that there should be no quarter, and there had been none. His enemy was ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... ceremony, some persons entered, equipped with various arms. And then having girded up their loins, those mighty warriors, those foremost ones of Bharata's race (the princes) entered, furnished with finger-protectors (gauntlet), and bows, and quivers. And with Yudhishthira at their head, the valiant princes entered in order of age and began to show wonderful skill with their weapons. Some of the spectators lowered their heads, apprehending fall of arrows while others fearlessly ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... were undoubtedly accustomed to such disasters, for they showed amazing dexterity in taking advantage of the angles of the fences, to evade the lashes: but, in spite of all their devices, they were cruelly punished, as they had nearly a quarter of a mile of gauntlet to run through before they were clear of the lane. In vain they groaned, and swore, and prayed; the blows fell thicker and thicker, principally from the hands of the negroes, who, having now and then tasted of the cow-hide, were in high glee at the idea ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... upon the earth. That, however, was a date which even Agellius himself, young as he was, would not be likely to reach; indeed, who could expect to escape, who might not hope to gain, a Martyr's death, in the interval, in the series of assaults, between which Christianity had to run the gauntlet? Aspar said, moreover, that some martyrs lay in the chapels within, and that various confessors had ended their days there. At the present time there were representatives, there collected, of a large portion of the Churches of the Proconsulate. A post, so to call it, went between ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... a dangerous Adventure with a certain Gardener—Sublimes his Ideas, commences Gallant, and becomes acquainted with Miss Emily Gauntlet. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... double rows of roughly hewn images painted with red and black stripes. He was told that these images were intended to keep off the sickness; for the natives thought that it would not dare to run the gauntlet between the double rows of figures into the house.[509] We may conjecture that these rude images represented ancestral spirits who were doing sentinel duty over the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... out, he began a dispute, of the different merits of Italy and England; defending his own country merely to make him abuse it; while Pacchierotti most eagerly took up the gauntlet on ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... be with you in a minute," he added; bustled into the rear room and presently reappeared with a decanter and glass; poured out a stiff tot of Monongahela; "A little water?" he asked, as the trooper's eye brightened gratefully. A little water was added and off came the right hand gauntlet. "I drink the major's health and long life to him," said the soldier, gulping down the fluid without so much as a wink. Then, true to his training, set down the glass ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... is simply an inherent force which can be called into action at any moment, and which cannot be separated from the particles in which it resides. The crystal may be ground to pieces, but this force remains intact. And even after being reduced to powder, and running the gauntlet of every process in the chemical laboratory, the moment the substance is left to itself under possible conditions it will proceed to recrystallize anew. But if the Polycystine urn be broken, no inorganic agency can build it up again. ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... intended hyphenation of six words in the original printed text—hill-side, super-eminently, re-birth, school-master, red-gauntlet, hood-winking—which in it are made to run over two lines. I have attempted to hyphenate these words (or not to do so) as I think Bennett would have done, guided in these judgments in part by "A New English Dictionary" (1928), the most authoritative English ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT

... to the foppery so common among the verse-makers of our day. There is a stately, old-fashioned tread in the diction, as of a man in armor, who, should he attempt to gather flowers of mere prettiness, would crush them at the first touch of his iron gauntlet, and who, if he seems to move ungracefully at times, owes his motion to his weight of mail. Calaynos, the hero, is in every respect a nobleman, not only in blood, but what is better, in mind. He is a scholar, one who, in the words of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... intervale, and has cemeteries overlooking grand-stand and entrances. A transplanted sportsman whose every effort to name a winning steed at a Happy Valley meeting has failed signally, finds superabundance of food for introspection as he runs the gauntlet of cemetery portals on the way back to the city, and very likely indulges in mental speculation as to the purpose in giving the name of Happy Valley to a race-track whose betting ring is ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... impressed by her as on this occasion. Mrs. Churchill read a letter from Rev. Mr. Savage, a Congregationalist clergyman of the State, who advocates woman suffrage, and who, in a late ministerial gathering, took up the gauntlet thrown down by Mr. Blake, and defended the woman's cause and its advocates from the slanders of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... often—there had lain always a tenderness for this heroic France. "A man's other country," some wise person had christened it; and so it was for me, since by a chance I had been born here, and since here my father and then my mother had died. I was glad I had run the gauntlet and had reached Paris to do my part in a mighty work. An ambulance drove heavily past me, and with a thrill I wondered how soon I should bend over such a steering wheel, within ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... as black as we may, a great deal of light is still reflected, and which, placed against one of nature's deep bits of gloom, would tell as distinct light. Here we are then, with white paper for our highest light, and visible illumined surface for our deepest shadow, set to run the gauntlet against nature, with the sun for her light, and vacuity for her gloom. It is evident that she can well afford to throw her material objects dark against the brilliant aerial tone of her sky, and yet give in those ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... well known, is a rover, In Union the Pagets{17}must ever remain; Here's Smith's {18 }Jack o'lantern and Chamberlayne's Fairy,{19} Earl Harborough's{20} Ann, and F. Pake's Rosabelle{21} Lord Willoughby's {22} Antelope, Penleaze's {23}Mary, And Gauntlet's{24}Water-sprite sails very well. Come, jolly old Curtis,{25} bear up in your Emma, Eight cheerily laden with turtle and port; And Melville{26} set sail if you'd scape the dilemma Of being too late for our aquatic sport. See Norfolk {27}already is here in the Swallow, And the Don Giovanni a challenge ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... blameless. I believe Dr. Proudie has lived too long among gentlemen to be guilty, or to instigate another to be guilty, of so gross an outrage. No! That man uttered what was untrue when he hinted that he was speaking as the mouthpiece of the bishop. It suited his ambitious views at once to throw down the gauntlet to us—at once to defy us here in the quiet of our own religious duties—here within the walls of our own loved cathedral—here where we have for so many years exercised our ministry without schism and with good repute. Such an attack ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... find ourselves standing under a rook which flies with great difficulty. The poor rascal looks most disreputable, for his tail has evidently been shot away, and he is wounded. He drops on to a perch, but not before he has run the gauntlet of several lines of sharp eyes. The poor bird sits on his branch swinging weakly to and fro, humping up his shoulders in woebegone style. There is a rustle among the flock, a sharp exchange of caws, and one may almost imagine the questions and answers which pass. Circumstances prevent ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... the Chief Commanders, and may well aspire one day to hold the baton of Grand Master. The poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon the necks of Kings—a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed step shall ascend their throne—our gauntlet shall wrench the sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of your vainly expected Messiah offers such power to your dispersed tribes as my ambition may aim at. I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I have found such ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... has wanted an excuse?—"And therefore I may probably stay,"—and so on. Who does not know the false mixture of excuse and defiance which such a letter is sure to maintain; the crafty words which may be taken as adequate reason if the receiver be timid enough so to receive them, or as a noisy gauntlet thrown to the ground if there be spirit there for the picking of it up? Such letter from his little borough in the Essex marshes did Mr. Furnival write to the partner of his cares, and there was still sufficient spirit left for the picking up of the gauntlet. "I shall be home to-morrow," the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... steep sand walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of this some time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, in the uncertain moonlight, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. The place was so full of terror for me that I was prepared to undergo any risk in leaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creeping stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not there. My freedom lay before ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... presents itself, which does not have to run the gauntlet of our creeds. If it get through alive, and seem disposed to be peaceable, and to remain subordinate to them, then we let it live, and receive it into respectable society;—otherwise, we entreat it shamefully. Sometimes the truth ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... courteously that he was, whereupon I did my errand to him. I flung my gauntlet of buffalo-hide at his feet in ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... and sentinel, watch of the weal Of a nation she keeps; But her hand is encased in a gauntlet of steel, And ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... The gauntlet had been thrown down and the demon of jealousy took up his abode with the menage Bedelle and Green. For a week the comedy continued, while conversation was reduced to a minimum and transmitted in writing along the lines of Skippy's imagining. Each ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... not unnecessarily occupied a moment of the time of this Conference, and it is not now my intention to occupy the whole ten minutes to which I am entitled. But I do wish to express some of the opinions which I entertain upon the questions immediately under our consideration. "Red Gauntlet" has been cited as an authority in this body, but I think I might cite another of the same class which would be more in point. It is the "Bleak House," by Charles Dickens, in which the circumlocution office is so graphically described. It would ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden



Words linked to "Gauntlet" :   metal glove, body armour, corporal punishment, body armor, challenge, cataphract



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