"Mettlesome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touched the saddle, the mettlesome creature bounded from the earth with a sudden spring, that threw his master sprawling, some feet off, on the soft, dry turf. Sam, with frantic ejaculations, made a dive at the reins, but only succeeded in ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... would now and then shake it in that manner peculiar to the equine race. Angel and I followed closely with occasional caracoles, and cavortings, and scornful blowings through the nostrils. All three shied at a lamp-post. It needed no second glance to perceive that we were mettlesome steeds out for ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... forthwith and there ensued a pause filled with the snorting and prancing of steeds, as, mettlesome with oats and hay, they issued from their stalls, or with the grass yet dewy about their noses were led in from the field. Darnaway took his leave of Sholto with a backward neigh of regret, as if to say he was not yet tired of going on ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... So everywhere monotony is absent from the frieze. Fig. 126 is taken from the most animated and crowded part of the design. Here Athenian youths, in a great variety of dress and undress, dash forward on small, mettlesome horses. Owing to the principle of isocephaly (cf. page 145), the mounted men are of smaller dimensions than those on foot, but the difference does not offend the eye. In Fig. 127 we have, on a somewhat larger scale, the heads of four chariot-horses instinct with fiery life. Fig. ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... gentleman was not only to accompany the lady every foot of the route, but was meantime to cling valiantly to the bridle with both hands. Unfortunately, this arrangement, so deeply satisfying to all, was not ratified by the mettlesome Irish pony; the result being that, after the guide had been swept off his feet by a sudden and unexpected lift of the animal's forelegs, Aunt Nancy and the pony continued the excursion alone. Judging from the terse words of one ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... the Sea Islands, when found by us, had become an abject race, more docile and submissive than those of any other locality. The native African was of a fierce and mettlesome temper, sullen and untamable. The master was obliged to abate something of the usual rigor in dealing with the imported slaves. A tax-commissioner, now at Port Royal, and formerly a resident of South Carolina, told me that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... her head like a restless horse, blooded, mettlesome, and resumed her pacing up and down, her hands now clasped behind ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... have thought the lad was so wiry and mettlesome, with his soft face, blue eyes, and lank locks? but a green mead has more in it than many a black mountain. Hail, and well done! if I could dub you knight, I would: trust me!' and he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brain, ample breathing space in her chest, a rich-toned voice responsive to her feelings, and a mind not exactly intellectual, but felicitous in vocabulation and ingenious in the construction of sentences. Her emotions were mettlesome horses well-bitted—quick and powerful, but firmly held. Though her exegesis was second-hand and commonplace, yet upon the familiar chords of traditional and superficial interpretation of the Bible she knew how to play many emotional variations, and her hearers, who were ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... steed in place of another. But the prince only laughed and shook his head, in the end selecting a fine chestnut colt only just broken to the wearing of the halter; and the kinsmen spent the best part of the next days in teaching the mettlesome though tractable creature how to answer to the rein and submit to saddle and rider. It was shod at Ives's forge, and christened by the name of Crusader, and soon learned to love the lads, who, whilst showing themselves ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... unrefined, though of almost too mettlesome an eye; in length of leg showing just the lack, in girth of waist just the excess, to imply a better dignity on horseback and to allow a proud tailor to prove how much art can overcome. Out on the road a liveried black coachman had halted an open carriage, in which this soldier had ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... was able to put his mind on nothing else. He eagerly took every chance to visit likely stock; he was never so happy as when he was astride of some mettlesome animal, interpreting its moods as only the born horseman can do, and drawing on the reserves of strength which are closed to all but the expert rider. He responded in every fibre of his great physique to the zest of this renewed experience ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Sloboda—the Stage-drivers' Borough; or simply Yamskaya, or Yamkas—Little Ditches, or, shorter still, Yama—The Pit. In the course of time, when hauling by steam killed off transportation by horses, the mettlesome tribe of the stage-drivers little by little lost its boisterous ways and its brave customs, went over into other occupations, fell apart and scattered. But for many years—even up to this time—a shady renown has remained to Yama, as of a place exceedingly gay, tipsy, brawling, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... impressionable; susceptive, susceptible; alive to, impassionable^, gushing; warm hearted, tender hearted, soft hearted; tender as a chicken; soft, sentimental, romantic; enthusiastic, highflying^, spirited, mettlesome, vivacious, lively, expressive, mobile, tremblingly alive; excitable &c 825; oversensitive, without skin, thin-skinned; fastidious &c 868. Adv. sensibly &c adj.; to the quick, to the inmost core. Phr. mens aequa in arduis [Lat.]; pour salt ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... hunting in Virginia, and for this reason the more experienced riders to hounds prefer the thoroughbred, though half-bred and three-quarter-bred horses are also used to some extent, the thoroughbred often being too mettlesome, when he becomes excited, for any but the best riders. The finest qualities of a horse are brought out in hunting in the Piedmont section, for the pace here is very fast—much faster than in England, though it should be added that in the English hunting country there are ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... in an open place, and were just discussing the matter, when—whiz!—a bullet grazed the flank of Wildgoose, and the mettlesome creature reared straight into the air, threatening to ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... prairie, three hundred yards beyond, a spotted Indian pony, heels up, was rolling on the turf, evidently sorely wounded. Behind this rolling parapet crouched a feathered warrior, and farther still away, sweeping and circling on their mettlesome steeds, three more savage braves were darting at speed. Already they had sighted the coming reinforcements, and while two seemed frantically signalling toward the northwest, the third whirled his horse and sped madly ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... Desmond learned of changes that had happened at home. His brother had been thrown by a young and mettlesome horse, and so badly trampled that he must remain a helpless invalid for the rest of his life. Sir Willoughby Stokes, even before he heard of the death of his nephew Peloti, had made Desmond his heir. Mr. Merriman ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... along the Subura, that thronged and unsavory Bowery of ancient Rome. Three street urchins were teasing and maltreating a rough coated, muddy little cur. Brinnaria called imperiously to her lictor to interfere. He was too far ahead to hear her. Her coachman had all he could do to control her mettlesome span of Spanish mares. She spoke to the boys and they laughed at her. Before she knew it she had flung open her carriage door, had leapt out, had cuffed soundly the ears of the three dumbfounded gamins, and was back among her cushions, the dog in ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... other knight, proceeded to the stable, from whence, with his own hands, he drew forth one of his best horses, a fine mettlesome sorrel, who had got blood in him, ornamented with rich trappings. In a trice, the two knights, and the other two strangers, who now appeared to be trumpeters, were mounted. Sir Launcelot's armour was lacquered black; and on his shield was represented ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Wilder and Nails were ending it. Though forced to ride carefully so long as they were on the mountain trail, when the latter reached the plains they had "cut loose." Both were expert horsemen and the ponies under them were mettlesome. Indeed, Blackhawk had not entirely recovered his temper since his roping and it was he that set the pace. Yet the riders did not allow the ponies to run themselves out in the first few miles, holding them down to a long, steady lope ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... judging from the manner in which it acted; for he sat with his hat cocked on one side, a pipe in his mouth, and the two reins in his hands, just as the skillful driver controls the mettlesome horses and keeps them well ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... rowed up and down a few times before the spectators. They appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of oars. The fisherman offered to make his ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... her hunting, as she was returning from the chase, and was arrived within a little distance from Mr Western's house, her horse, whose mettlesome spirit required a better rider, fell suddenly to prancing and capering in such a manner that she was in the most imminent peril of falling. Tom Jones, who was at a little distance behind, saw this, and immediately galloped up to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the man nor the woman curbed the mettlesome Pegasus "Emotion", methinks the colts and fillies would want for hay and oats. * ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... one did Nancy speak so interestedly as she did to a tall, good-looking young fellow with peculiarly frank eyes and a particularly winning smile, who cantered up to the side door on a mettlesome thoroughbred at ten o'clock that Thursday morning. At the same time, to no one did she talk with so much evident embarrassment, so far as the manner of address was concerned; for her tongue stumbled and blundered ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... (Irish), who could show me the lines and relics of battle, and give me the lists of killed, wounded, and missing. I repaired to his room, and arrayed myself in a fatigue officer's suit, with clean underclothing, after which, descending, I climbed into his saddle, and dashed off, with a mettlesome, dapper pony. The railroad track was about a mile from the house, and the whole country, hereabout, was sappy, dank, and almost barren. Scrub pines covered much of the soil, and the cleared fields were dotted with charred stumps. ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Mr. Brent, however, admits that the beauty of the male probably aids in exciting the female; and her acquiescence is necessary. Mr. Hewitt is convinced that the union is by no means left to mere chance, for the female almost invariably prefers the most vigorous, defiant, and mettlesome male; hence it is almost useless, as he remarks, "to attempt true breeding if a game- cock in good health and condition runs the locality, for almost every hen on leaving the roosting-place will resort to ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... down. Sometimes, however, the rare occasion serves the rare harpooner, when the whale and canoe appear as if about to meet each other straight head-on. Then, in a flash, the man in the bow is up on his feet, with the harpoon so poised that the rocking water, the mettlesome canoe, and his watchful comrade in the stern, all form part of the concentrated energy with which he brings his every faculty to a single point of instantaneous action. There, for one fateful moment, he stands erect, his whole ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... transparent embodiment of passion whose outburst of amorous rebellion had been uttered not because I was there, but only in pure recklessness of my presence. Of course I ought to have seen that this was a soul only over-rich in woman's love; mettlesome, aspiring, but untrained to renunciation; consciously superior in mind and soul to the throng about her, and caught in some hideous gin of iron-bound—convention-bound—or even law-bound—foul play. But I was so besotted as to suggest ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... to love their uncle, John L——, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out—and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horses with a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after them, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... furious fire; 'very heavy,' they say, from great guns and small; till close upon the place, when he summons Du Chatelet: 'No;' and thereupon attempts scalade. Cannot scalade, Du Chatelet and his people being mettlesome; takes then to flinging shells, to burning the suburbs; Town itself catches fire,—Town plainly indefensible. 'Truce for one hour' proposes Du Chatelet (wishful to consult the covering General across the River): 'No,' answers ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... squalor that stretches Unchanged o'er the realist's page, The sunshine that glows in your Sketches Is potent our griefs to assuage; And when, on your mettlesome charger, Full tilt against reason you go, Your Lunacy's finer and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... I have said, thou dost not gather, worthy reader, that Peter Stuyvesant was a tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited old governor, either I have written to but little purpose, or thou art ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... said, "though a bit mettlesome and wild; but I'm not saying anything again her. The Lord forbid that I should run down my own flesh and blood! An' she's better than most gels of her age. I wouldn't grudge her a bit of fun while she's got it in her,—Heaven knows it'll be soon gone out ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... more recently in the case of the quaggas, is absolute evidence of the North African origin of a horse, and he shows that all the swiftest horses mentioned in history are of that race, while the heavier and less mettlesome horses of Northern origin have been, when pure bred, dun ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... forgot that she was tired and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both private and public. Her body responded to the sun, and her mind also. She felt almost magically healthy, strong and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel happy; she rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand what it is to be young. She had risen partly because of the futility of bed, but more because ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... she is said to have had an encounter with the arm of the law. The story is that, mounted on a blood horse, she attended a review held in honour of the King and the Czar; and her steed, being somewhat mettlesome, carried her at full tilt across the parade ground and into the midst of the royal party ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... and a mettlesome spirit! You struck him swift and hard. 'Twould please me better if ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... convalescent who stands before me, wondering how I should know in what language to address him, is Joseph Frowenfeld, of whom Doctor Keene has had so much to say to me. A good face—unsophisticated, but intelligent, mettlesome and honest. He will make his mark; it will probably be a white one; I will ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... slenderness is deceptive. She's one of the build that aren't so big as they look, nor yet so small as they look. Thoroughbred is the word for her, style and action, as the horse people say, perfect. The poise of her head, her mettlesome manner, her walk, show that she's been bred up like a Derby winner. Her face is the one all the aristocrats are copied from, finely cut nose, chin firm but dainty, lips just delicately full and the reddest ever, and her colour when she has any a rose-pink. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... and glowing; Rose, who was the brilliant young Amazon, smoothing the neck of a mettlesome gray cob. Evan's heart bounded up to her, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... births, marriages, deaths, floods, earthquakes, tea-parties, and balloon ascensions. Millions of miles did these energetic women travel, dressed in hats and habits never seen before by mortal eye, perched on the bed, driving the posts like mettlesome steeds, and bouncing up and down till their heads spun. Fits and fires were the pet afflictions, with a general massacre now and then by way of change. Nan was never tired of inventing fresh combinations, and Daisy followed her leader with blind admiration. Poor Teddy was a frequent victim, and ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... be no limit to the praise earned by the mettlesome veterans of Jackson's corps, in the deadly fight at Fairview. They had continuously marched and fought, with little sleep and less rations, since Thursday morning. Their ammunition had been sparse, and they had been obliged to rely frequently upon the bayonet alone. They had fought under circumstances ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... on horseback; there was something of the fighter, something bold and mettlesome about him, a valiant look, as our grandmothers used to say, when they threw themselves into the arms of the conquerors, between two campaigns, though the same conquerors had loud, rough voices, even when they were making love, as they had to dominate ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... fortified town. Our next stage was Dommartin; behind which appeared to be a fine hilly country, now purpled by the rays of a declining sun. The church of Toul, in our rear, assumed a more picturesque appearance than before. At Velaine, the following post-town, we had a pair of fine mettlesome Prussian horses harnessed to our voiture, and started at a full swing trot—through the forest of Hayes, about a French league in length. The shade and coolness of this drive, as the sun was getting low, were quite refreshing. The very postilion seemed to enjoy it, and awakened the echoes of each ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that he looked at delighted him—the richness of shop-windows, showing all the expensive useless goods that no sensible person ever wants; the liveries worn by pampered servants standing at carriage wheels; the glossy coats of mettlesome, prancing horses; the extravagant dresses of fine ladies mincingly walking on the common public pavement; the stolid grandeur of huge policemen, and the infinite audacity of small newspaper boys; the life, the color, the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... wonderful fair, But for years I had scarcely seen her face. Now, with troopers Holdsworth, Huntly, and Clare, Old Miles kept guard at St. Hubert's Chase, And the chatelaine was a Mistress Ruth, Sir Hugh's half-sister, an ancient dame, But a mettlesome soul had she forsooth, As she show'd when the time of her trial came. I bore despatches to Miles and to her, To warn them against the bands ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... horse was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and he wanted a free rein and his own way. Helen tried that, only to lose the trail and to get sundry knocks from trees and branches. She could not hear the hound, nor Dale. The pines were small, close together, and tough. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Ayr with a gathering host overflowed, She marked with a look of delight A white-bearded horseman who gallantly rode On a mettlesome steed black as night, And cried, forcing wildly her way through the throng, "Oh! master, thy pupil hath mourned for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... hired men at the farm, drove the three spans on the scoot; Addison and I sat on the load behind and held the halters of the led horses. We had often taken horses into the woods in that way, and expected to have no trouble this time; although these horses were young, they were not high-spirited or mettlesome. We started at daybreak, and expected, if all went well, to reach the first of the two lumber camps ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... animal. And the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky muscular frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks a new sort of beast with four legs and two bodies. And the clean-limbed mettlesome creature under him! Man and beast seemed truly a part of each other. Lady Bridget O'Hara's soul warmed to that stockman and to ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... people had been gay and careless livers on this very soil; among them all he knew of not one who had gone without the smallest of his desires, nor of one who had permitted his left hand to learn what his right one cast away. Big, blithe, mettlesome, they passed before him in a long, comely line, flushed with the pleasant follies which had helped to sap the courage ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... hent her lute in hand * And her music made us right mettlesome: For her song gave hearing to ears stone-deaf, * While Brava! ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... long hollow, and up a slope again, until, as the white grass rolled behind her, Flora Schuyler yielded to the exhilaration of swift motion, and, flinging off the constraint of the city, rejoiced in the springy rush of the mettlesome beast beneath her. Streaming white levels, the blue of the sliding sky, the kiss of the wind on her hot cheek, and the roar of hoofs, all reacted upon her until she laughed aloud when she hurled her ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... But, like a mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his stride during the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind being foul for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and captured Santiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... eyes Will search the marrow. Jim will have his hands full, Unless she's used to menfolk and their ways, And past the minding. She'd the quietness That's a kind of pride, and yet, not haughty—held Her head like a young blood-mare, that's mettlesome Without a touch of vice. She'll gan her gait Through this world, and the next. The bit in her teeth, There'll be no holding her, though Jim may tug The snaffle, till he's tewed. I've kenned that look In women's eyes, ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... She was a mettlesome, warm-blooded creature, full of the energy and audacity of youth, to whom as yet life was only a frolic and a play spell. Work never tired her. She ate heartily, slept peacefully, went to bed laughing, and got up in a merry humor in the ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... mettlesome steed, the next thing was to water him. The Anakim remembered to have seen a pump with a trough somewhere, and they proposed to reconnoitre while we should "wait by the wagon" their return. No, I said we would drive on to the pump, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Cranbery. He didn't know how to manage her. His bridle hand warn't good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull critter with no action, don't mate well in ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... she leaped lightly into the saddle, and soon she was flying over the old familiar road, down across the creek bridge, past the old grist-mill, around the fort and then out on the river bluff. The Indian pony was fiery and mettlesome. He pranced and side-stepped, galloped and trotted by turns. He seemed as glad to get out again into the warm sunshine as was Betty herself. He tore down the road a mile at his best speed. Coming back Betty pulled him ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... objectivity which we have to expect from this book. Not the soft, flabby, indifferent, contradictory objectivity of the scientific dilettante, of the arch-eunuch: but a mettlesome objectivity which is appropriate in this fighting age, the objectivity of one who honestly attempts to see everything and to know everything; but who, having done so, endeavours to organise his data in accordance with a hypothesis, an ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... Archie only wagged his head and answered, "Odd zooks, Cousin Charlie, Christmas raisins are not the only fruit that burns the fingers in the plucking, and mayhap you too may live to know that a mettlesome horse never stumbleth but when ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... the poor to grind each other without scruple, whilst religiously avoiding all inquiry into the claims of the rich—a code, in fact, which makes the greasing of the fat pig a work holy unto the Lord. The keen selfishness of my proposal touched a kindred chord in poor Tom's bosom; the mettlesome casting of my sprat upon the waters, in sure hope of finding a mackerel after many days, awoke his admiration; whilst an immediate and prospective advantage to himself stood out through it all. Yet, under this crust of clannishness, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... scare my birds. Rein in that mettlesome steed of yours! That green cock was just ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... taking a glass of something before you are off.—Patrick!" But before Patrick has even started on my lady's errand Hyacinthe has fetched from the hall a glass of claret-cup, and holds it up to him where he sits on his lithe and mettlesome hunter. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... this—that Sir Guy knows well to choose in love; although, an I read you aright, my Mistress Mockery, his wife is like to prove passing mettlesome. For the rest, your lover knows poor Will Shakespeare's secrets—his Macbeth and half-written Hamlet. 'Tis with these you have made so bold to-day! My muse, in sooth! Oh, fie—fie!" And he shook ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... what they wuz talkin' about, I hoped it wuz religion, but felt dubersome, and hurried there fast as I could. I crossed the automobile track where crowded cars wuz runnin' all the while round and round, past the rows of big high headed mettlesome hosses (this is a pun; they ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... comparatively a short one to the handsome residence of the Warmores. As Tom guided the mettlesome pony through the open gate and up the winding roadway to the front of the porch, Mrs. Warmore came out pale with fright. She had just learned of the accident from G. Field Catherwood, who had limped up the steps with a rambling tale ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... two vigorous and mettlesome horses resounded on the pavement, a gigantic footman opened the emblazoned door, and a young man descended slowly from this brilliant vehicle, and not less slowly mounted the five or ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... points to be anticipated. "On the contrary, she treated him with every mark of affection, and was constantly bestowing on him gifts of the costliest description. One day she presented him with a wondrous mechanical horse, fiercer and more mettlesome than even the steeds that ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... the Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse—a horse gifted with ungodly speed in the legs and a mettlesome, race-track temperament. On a certain Saturday, after services at Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William tightened ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... geese were quite as good as those of Mukhan, and I had genuine slate-coloured tumbler-pigeons.... I was an amateur of all sorts of things! Except that I never was a dog-fancier, because of the drunkenness and the clownishness! I was mettlesome, untamable! God forbid that a Telyegin should be anything but first-class in everything! And I had a splendid horse-breeding establishment.... And those horses came ... whence, thinkest thou, my little sir?—From those very renowned studs of the Tzar Ivan Alexyeitch, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... gaining fast, for Jack gave his ankle an ugly wrench on a round pebble, and the weak knee began to fail. He did his best, however, and quite a breeze of enthusiasm stirred the spectators as the three boys came down the course like mettlesome horses, panting, pale, or purple, but each bound to win at ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... lo! it was Captain Lane, with his own troop ("E" of the —th), sent out to lead the general's escort into camp. Leaving the companions of the long, jolting ambulance ride, Geordie sprang to the back of a mettlesome bay, led forward by a muffled-up trooper who steadied the young officer's stirrup before turning aside to remount, while a tall, spare, wiry-looking sergeant sat stiffly in saddle, his fur-covered hand at salute, his long gray mustache ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... him; but, like a mettlesome old horse suddenly pulled up in full career, he stamped and reared and plunged with fury, and foamed and spluttered and stuttered before ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... desperate poachers. Such scenes are quite within the scope of some feminine imaginations, but scarcely such a power of description as that wherewith we have them here set forth. Women thrill sometimes at fierce tales of stalwart knock-down struggles, many of them will back fearlessly the most mettlesome of thoroughbreds; but when it comes to talk thereof, they strive in vain for adequate power of language. The best words and the strongest sentences will not come. These demand the clarion roundness and ring essentially masculine—very ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Signor Giovanni, was made Duke; but that certain conditions had been imposed at his election, which would hold him back from kicking up his heels at his own pleasure. I now had my opportunity for laughing at them, and saying: "Those men of Florence have set a young man upon a mettlesome horse; next they have buckled spurs upon his heels, and put the bridle freely in his hands, and turned him out upon a magnificent field, full of flowers and fruits and all delightful things; next they have bidden ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... the stairs; a gleam of coquetry, of allurement, of joy shining through her glances like delicate antennae searching to feel where her power lay. Should she venture, as her Uncle George had suggested, to take the reins in her own hands and guide this restive, mettlesome thoroughbred, or should she surrender to him? Then a certain mischievous coquetry possessed her. With a light, bubbling laugh she drew ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the fortress. As his usual custom was, he went to see Grigori Aleksandrovich, who always used to give him sweetmeats to eat. I was present. The conversation was on the subject of horses, and Pechorin began to sound the praises of Kazbich's Karagyoz. What a mettlesome horse it was, and how handsome! A perfect chamois! In fact, judging by his account, there simply wasn't another like it in the ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... who sat calm and judicial on the other side. Judge Harlin pleased himself much by believing that he could handle Nick Ellhorn better than any other man in the county, except Emerson Mead, and he liked to have the opportunity to try his hand, just as he liked to drive a nervous, mettlesome, erratic horse. He could drive the horse, but he could not manage Nick Ellhorn. The tall Texan had learned not to batter words against the judge's determination, which was as big and bulky as his ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... it, the high-spirited mettlesome animal, scarcely broken, reared and sprang forward, all but unseating him. He dropped the reins and instinctively caught its mane, at the same time pressing his legs more closely in against the animal's sides, thus driving the spur deeper. They shouted to ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... its celebrity both at home and abroad, and that period is the long reign of George III." Dr. Knapp expresses himself as much terrified by the invasion of the free path by "a party rushing madly up, striving to keep pace with a mettlesome steed . . . at the sight of whose enormous hoofs and shaggy fetlocks you are all but ready to perish." Such niggling super refinement would be quite repugnant ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... neighing of those mettlesome horses? They brought me hither, and I can guide them well; nay, at the last Isthmian games I won the crown with my own quadriga. You said you had never ridden standing in a chariot. How would you like to try for once how it feels? I will drive you with pleasure up ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sure, she did not know then who he was, and she had stopped coming when she learned; but why had she crossed again that day? Perhaps she too was bantering him, and he was at once angry and drawn to her; for her mettlesome spirit touched his own love of daring, even when his humiliation was most bitter-when she told him he warred on women; when he held out to her the branch of peace and she swept it aside with a stroke of her oar. But Rome was little conscious of the weight ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... speed of his horse, proposed to Richard a gallop towards a clump of trees about a mile off, and the young man assenting, away they started. Master Potts started too, for Flint did not like to be left behind, but the mettlesome pony was soon distanced. For some time the two horses kept so closely together, that it was difficult to say which would arrive at the goal first; but, by-and-by, Robin got a-head. Though at first indifferent to the issue of the race, the spirit of emulation ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that Prosper, riding hard to Hauterive, came in sight of a besieging army round about it—a tented field, a pavilion, wherefrom drooped the saltire of De Forz, a long line of attack, in fine, a notable scheme of offence. He saw a sortie from the gates driven back by as mettlesome a cavalry charge as he could have ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... couldn't face that highest rock; the one below had made her feel cold and queer and shaky as she stood on it. Besides, why was she trying, for the first time in her life, to go Nan's pace, which had always been, and was now more than ever before, too hot and mettlesome for her? She didn't know why; only that Nan had been, somehow, all day setting the pace, daring her, as it were, to make it. It was becoming, oddly, a point of honour between them, and ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... to sit there and watch his horses graze, but ever he saw that the riders were close at hand, and that the horses did not get out on the slope of sage. He sat back and gloried in the sight. He owned bands of mustangs; near by was a field of them, fine and mettlesome and racy; yet Bostil had eyes only for the blooded favorites. Strange it was that not one of these was a mustang or a broken wild horse, for many of the riders' best mounts had been captured by them or the Indians. And it ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... would be unavailing, and very reluctantly got ready the mettlesome steed. Gilbert jumped on his back and put his feet in ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... southward on that road. In truth, burdened as he was, the young man really could not do it, without incurring too much risk to the lady behind him. Those who have ever had such a battle with a wilful, mettlesome horse, know that it often requires the utmost patience and determination on the part of his rider, to come out victorious. The best plan—the writer speaks from some experience—is to pull the animal round in a circle until his brain becomes confused, and then ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... call, and his murmuring voice. A long, shrill whistle, with the words, "Good humour, ahoy!" had hitherto served to keep down the rising tempers of the different parties, when the joke bore too hard on the high-spirited soldier, or the revengeful, though perhaps less mettlesome, member of the after-guard. But an oversight on the part of him who in common kept so vigilant an eye on the movements of all beneath his orders, had nearly led to results of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... lines of a cat. Her extraordinary grace is frightening, as, with the sweat of her hot sides rising upwards and her steel muscles stiffening, she puts in motion the immense rose-window of her fine wheels and darts forward, mettlesome, along rapids ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... evolved,—correlative with the ardour of the male is a certain amount of reluctance in the female. The pairing act on her part only takes place after prolonged stimulation, for affording which the behaviour of male courtship is the requisite presentation. The most vigorous, defiant and mettlesome male is preferred just because he alone affords a contributory stimulation adequate to evoke the pairing impulse with its ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Sancho, perceiving that daybreak was coming on apace, very cautiously untied Rocinante and tied up his breeches. As soon as Rocinante found himself free, though by nature he was not at all mettlesome, he seemed to feel lively and began pawing—for as to capering, begging his pardon, he knew not what it meant. Don Quixote, then, observing that Rocinante could move, took it as a good sign and a signal that he should attempt the dread adventure. By this time day had fully broken and everything ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Consuls, of which I inclose you a printed copy. The civil officers were habited in their dresses of parade, and decorated with tricoloured sashes; the heads of their steeds, which, by the bye, were not of a fiery, mettlesome race, being adorned ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... land at a clearing containing the small settlement of Davenport. We had come down the Mississippi, mightiest of rivers! half a mile wide seventeen hundred miles from its mouth, and were in the far West. Waggons with white tilts, thick-hided oxen with heavy yokes, mettlesome steeds with high peaked saddles, picketed to stumps of trees, lashing away the flies with their tails; emigrants on blue boxes, wondering if this were the El Dorado of their dreams; arms, accoutrements, and baggage surrounded the house or shed where we were to breakfast. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... cried; 'what are you doing here? This very moment, while you sit dreaming about her beauty, Moufette is in direst peril! See, here is a rose-leaf; I have but to blow upon it and it will become a mettlesome steed.' ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... smokin' in his fist. It seems to be the opinion that it was cussedness—just cussedness—that made Malachi turn the sheriff's boots to the sun. For Malachi was quarrelsome. I'll give you a quarter on that. And the sheriff was mettlesome, used to have high spirits, like as if he's lift himself over the fence with his bootstraps. So when Malachi come and saw the sheriff steppin' round in his paten' leathers, it give him the needle, and he got a bead on him—and away went Sheriff Fargo— right away! That seems to be the sense ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... some little distance. The way is hilly, and the roads are narrow and rough. Bad going it is on those roads even to-day, and far worse in the times of which I write. Therefore the troopers quickly grew weary of their task, weary of trying to rein in their mettlesome horses to keep pace with the slow steps of their prisoners, weary, too, of even the sport of pricking at these last with their swords, to try to make ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... no little interest that the bishop and his friends watched the young page mount his new steed, for it was a mettlesome one, and used only to a man's weight. When Pierre bounded into the saddle, the horse reared and plunged; but the boy kept his seat, and soon, with the aid of bit and spur, had the animal under complete control. The guests praised him greatly, and his father ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... were shown maps of the salient, and had the area pointed out to us where the French joined up with the second and third brigades of Canadians, and where the British troops joined up with the Canadians. When about to leave, a friend, Major Maclaren of the 10th Infantry battalion, riding a mettlesome horse, rode up and I got out of the car and held the bridle while we had a long talk about the experiences of the Canadians since we had left ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... animal took fright at a shadow cast by a post, shied, backed, and reared up so suddenly that his rider was all but thrown off. Julie cried out, her face grew white, people looked at her curiously, but she saw no one, her eyes were fixed upon the too mettlesome beast. The officer gave the horse a sharp admonitory cut with the whip, and ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... out yet," began Sam, when he caught sight of a buggy on a road behind the barn. It was going at a furious rate, the scarred man driving, and lashing his mettlesome ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... at once. She is the most beautiful animal in the world. Though small of limb, she is swift as the wind, and as easy as a cradle in her gaits. She is mettlesome and fiery, but full of affection. She often kisses Dorothy. Mare and rider are finely mated. Dorothy is the most perfect woman, and Dolcy is the most perfect mare. 'The two D's,' we call them. But Dorothy says we must be careful not to put a—a dash between ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... wagons, now and then an elephant trumpeted or a lion gave a hungry roar. Gay banners fluttered, glistening spears flashed with points of light, gaily attired women and men sat on the backs of swaying, ugly camels, or galloped on mettlesome steeds. And looking at it all was a vast throng of eager-eyed men, women and children. It was the opening ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... Temple carriage drive the worried man could see a boy holding a mettlesome saddle horse, caparisoned for a woman's use. In fair weather it stood there at this hour every day. To-day it was suggestive. Shelby sprang ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... hopefully for her and with credit to myself. With respect to the rest of my flock, I felt a different sort of interest—the wide-awake concern of one who finds himself suddenly perched on the back of a mettlesome, untried steed. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... day, and next day, for no earthly reason, he returns your hospitality by slapping you on the cheeks in the face of all decent society, if the fancy takes him, out of sheer wantonness. And what's more, the fair sex is everything for them, these butterflies and mettlesome-cocks! Grand gentlemen with little wings like the ancient cupids, lady-killing Petchorins! It's all very well for you, Stepan Trofimovitch, a confirmed bachelor, to talk like that, stick up for his excellency and call me a slanderer. But if you married a pretty young wife—as you're still ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and mettlesome, stood waiting for music that could scarcely be lighter or more devoid of moral quality than her own immature heart. Life, at that time, had for her but one great desideratum—fun; and with her especial favorites about her, with a careful ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... of the dark. He knew that trail almost as well by night as by day. His horse was a mettlesome colt that had not been worked during the harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if, indeed, to verify Jerry's fears. Presently the thin, pale line that was the trail disappeared on the burned ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... of the evening in a state of expectancy, and Maud Barrington fancied that his hard hands were suspiciously unresponsive as she took them when he helped her into the Silverdale wagon—a vehicle a strong man could have lifted, and in no way resembling its English prototype. The team was mettlesome, the lights of Macdonald's homestead soon faded behind them, and they were racing with many a lurch and jolt straight as the crow ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... Kaiser's horse in the ribs, that animal gave a mighty spring and bounded from his position. Usually a tractable, though mettlesome beast, the horse was greatly surprised at the treatment he was receiving, and it is not surprising that he made every ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the square—a distance of about one hundred yards. James Cooper was named as one of the runners, and his rival was soon chosen. According to custom, the village boys, girls, men, and women were spectators. Like a mettlesome steed in curb young Cooper looked at the wager,—a basket of fruit,—then at his race-mate, and accepted the challenge, but not on even terms. It was not enough for a sailor simply to outrun a landsman; he could do more. A little girl stood near, her bright ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... you must swear her every thought lived always in the open. Yet, with it all, she was a wild thing, alert, suspicious of the lasso, nosing it in every man's hand, more curious about it than about aught else in the world; her quivering delight was to see it cast for her, her game to elude it; so mettlesome was she that she loved it to be cast fair that she might escape as it was closing round her; she scorned, however her heart might be beating, to run from her pursuers; she took only the one step backward, which still left her near them but always out of reach; her ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... would be chased, the boy had urged Firefly into a mad gallop, desirous of getting as long a start as possible. And well it was that he did, for so mettlesome were the horses of the conspirators that, despite the start the loungers had, ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... are sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold, will break: and after you have overcome them, they will make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The Carp is far stronger and more mettlesome ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... been galloping nearly an hour. Mitya was silent, and though Andrey was, as a rule, a talkative peasant, he did not utter a word, either. He seemed afraid to talk, he only whipped up smartly his three lean, but mettlesome, bay horses. Suddenly Mitya cried ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and La Gloire awhile, and, instead of riding a war horse, canter along upon the hobby, or a good serviceable Canadian pony, the best of all hobbies for seeing the Canadian world, and on which mettlesome charger we can much better instruct the emigrant than by long prosings about political economy and ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... weeks they were to spend at home. Peaceful thoughts filled the hearts of most of them, but B.J. dreamed chiefly of the furious conflicts that awaited him on the lake, which had been the scene of many an adventure in his mettlesome ice-boat. ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... it greatly. This was one of the greatest dangers that has threatened Manila, for the Spaniards were few in number, and the Japanese more than one thousand five hundred, and they are a spirited and very mettlesome race. Had they come to blows on this occasion, the Spaniards would ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... is definitely known of Lewis's family and early life. It is not much; but it suffices to show that he came of fine, fearless stock, mettlesome and reliant,—the sort of stock that brings forth men of action. The invertebrate vanity of blood is kept out of this story, in accord with the democratic belief of the time that a strong man's ancestors are what he himself makes ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... lye. When he had finished his dinner, Lavretzky said that he would like some tea, if.... "This very moment, sir, I will serve it, sir,"—interrupted the old man,—and he kept his promise. A pinch of tea was hunted up, wrapped in a scrap of red paper, a small but very mettlesome and noisy samovar was searched out, also sugar, in very tiny bits, that seemed to have been melted around the edges. Lavretzky drank his tea out of a large cup; he remembered that cup in his childhood: playing-cards were depicted on it, only ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... accepted: he lingered but a moment, to give directions by which they might find his camp, and then, wheeling round, and giving the reins to his mettlesome steed, was soon out of sight. The travellers followed, with gladdened hearts, but at a snail's pace; for their poor horses could scarcely drag one leg after the other. Captain Bonneville, however, experienced a sudden and singular change of feeling. Hitherto, the necessity of conducting his party, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... does not come far short of the ideal thus pictured. His bravery, versatility, frankness, and readiness of speech are all vividly portrayed, while his mettlesome temper and his arrogance are alike essential to his role, and are true to the record of the historical D'Ambois. But there is a coarseness of fibre in Chapman's creation, an occasional foul-mouthed ribaldry of utterance which robs him of sympathetic charm. He has in him ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... sensible, sensitive; impressible, impressionable; susceptive, susceptible; alive to, impassionable[obs3], gushing; warm hearted, tender hearted, soft hearted; tender as a chicken; soft, sentimental, romantic; enthusiastic, highflying[obs3], spirited, mettlesome, vivacious, lively, expressive, mobile, tremblingly alive; excitable &c. 825; oversensitive, without skin, thin-skinned; fastidious &c. 868. Adv. sensibly &c. adj; to the quick, to the inmost core. Phr. mens aequa in arduis[Lat]; pour salt ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... their wonder, for the first words he said after they left the ground were, "Pixie, though small, is mettlesome, gentlemen," (here he contrived that Pixie should himself corroborate the assertion, by executing a gambade,)—"he is diminutive, but full of spirit;—indeed, save that I am somewhat too large for an elfin horseman," ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... breaking forth of hidden flames. Let two schoolfellows meet after twenty years, the rich man will avoid the poor; he does not recognize him, he is afraid even to glance into the gulf which Fate has set between him and the friend of other years. The one has been borne through life on the mettlesome steed called Fortune, or wafted on the golden clouds of success; the other has been making his way in underground Paris through the sewers, and bears the marks of his career upon him. How many a chum of old days turned aside ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Experience, that these Creatures are made fierce by these Colours, just as Tygers are made so raging mad by the Sound of a Drum, that they will tear their own selves; and Jockies have particular Sounds, and Whistles, and Stroakings, and other Methods to sooth Horses that are mettlesome: How much more does it become us to use these Acts towards our Husbands, with whom, whether we will or no, we must live all our Lives ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... sportsman, one of intense and surpassing interest—an interest which, even to Woodward, who only laughed at Barney's story of the witch, was, nevertheless, deepened tenfold by the coincidence between the two circumstances. The swift and mettlesome dogs pushed her hard, and succeeded in turning her several times, when it was observed that she made a point to manage her running so as to approximate to the haunted house—a fact which was not unobserved by Barney, who now, having ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... five horses—two saddled, two packed, and the remaining one carried only a blanket. Ladd shortened the stirrups on his mount, and helped Mercedes up into the saddle. From the way she settled herself and took the few restive prances of the mettlesome horse Gale judged that she could ride. Lash urged Gale to take his horse. But this Gale refused ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... were his pets, and he knew the peculiarities of each as well as did the man who cared for them. Riding and driving came to him as naturally as breathing, and the fact that a steed was mettlesome did ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... mounted my cob and cantered down the avenue of Bingley Hall, followed by the young people, whose fresh and mettlesome steeds curvetted and ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... our Lesbia, that Lesbia, the self-same Lesbia whom Catullus more than himself and all his own did worship, now at cross-roads and in alleys husks off the mettlesome descendants ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... doubt we shall nicely agree, As no twins can be liker, in most points, than we; Both, specimens choice of that mixt sort of beast, (See Rev. xiii. I) a political priest: Both mettlesome chargers, both brisk pamphleteers, Ripe and ready for all that sets men by the ears; And I, at least one, who would scorn to stick longer By any given cause than I found it the stronger, And who, smooth in my turnings, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... great prevalence of the bicycle, which is daily increasing its ubiquity, nor do I see the rationality of engaging a sais in topped boots to attend upon each machine, under the transparent pretentiousness of its belonging to the equine genus, since it can never become the similitude of a horse in mettlesome vivacity. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... understanding why that member should be accounted too august for such employment. Even so in my later life. Loth to obey, loth to command. Convention (for she too frightens me) has made me accept what servants would do for me by rote. But I would liefer have it ill-done than ask even the least mettlesome of them to do it better, and far liefer, if they would only be off and not do it at all, do it for myself. In Italy—dear Italy, where I have lived much—servants do still regard service somewhat in the old way, as a sort of privilege; so ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... quoth Oleg, "is my good battle-horse? My mettlesome charger—how fares he? Is he playful as ever, as fleet in the course; His age and his freedom how bears he?" They answer and say: on the hill by the stream He has long slept the slumber that knows not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... horse was new to this bear chasing. He was mettlesome, and he did not want to do what I wanted. When I jabbed the spurs into his flanks he nearly bucked me off. I was looking for a soft place to light when he quit. Long before I got down that open slope Teague and R.C. had disappeared. I had to follow their tracks. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... evil switching of her tail ceased, she half rose; she began to purr, a purr that sounded to me as loud as the roar of a water-fall in a gorge; she took a few steps towards me, then, suddenly, she made a peculiar movement hard to describe, something like the curvetting of a mettlesome colt, but characteristic of a leopard and therefore like the movement of no other animal save a leopard or lion or tiger; she leapt daintily clear of the pavement and struck sideways with her forepaws. The antic perfectly expressed playful ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... hooded and lured as ours in England. The horses that accompanied him for his own riding were six in number, and were all richly caparisoned. These horses were not tall, but of the size of our middling nags, short and well knit, small-headed, and very mettlesome, and in my opinion far excelling the Spanish jennet in spirit and action. His palanquin was carried before him, being lined with crimson velvet, and having six bearers, two and two to carry ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... with the jolt All his wits made a bolt, As if he'd been flung by a mettlesome colt; And while in his faint, To avoid all complaint, The muse shall endeavor his ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... milk-pail. 'Mid these scattered, now here and now there, were numberless flocks of Sheep with fleeces white, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds, Flock-wise spread o'er the heavenly vault when it bloweth in springtime. Coursers two times twelve, all mettlesome, fast fettered storm-winds, Stamping stood in the line of stalls, and tugged at their fodder. Knotted with red were their manes, and their hoofs all white with steel shoes. Th' banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir. Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... with a handsomely decorated carriage, which he entered, and a procession was formed. The king's carriage somewhat resembled a chariot, being drawn by four mettlesome coal-black horses, all gayly caparisoned with gold and silver ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... such a queer little creature to marry her. The consideration of that question led him to the conclusion that perhaps Thalassa had been impelled to his choice by the realization that she was as good-looking a wife as he could afford. Barrant reflected that women resembled horses in value. The mettlesome showy ones were bred to display their paces for rich men only. Serviceable hacks, warranted to work a lifetime, could not be expected to be ornamental as well as useful. So long as they pulled their burdens without jibbing overmuch, one had ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him who has achieved it you have looked on one of the masters of the artists of all nations and times. You shall not contemplate the flight of the gray gull over the bay or the mettlesome action of the blood horse or the tall leaning of sunflowers on their stalk or the appearance of the sun journeying through heaven or the appearance of the moon afterward with any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... on high gear—that tin car certainly pulled strongly—a horseman emerged from a fold in the hills. He was riding a sweat-covered, mettlesome black with a rolling eye. His own eye was bitter, and likewise the other features of his face. After trying in vain to get the frantic animal within twenty feet of our ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White |
