"Spavined" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after Tom, with a stiff-backed idiot by his side, had clattered after him through the village behind the two spavined nags to the amusement of many people. He ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... in this fashion for an hour and more, often meeting parties of fugitives on the road, some of them bearing household treasures, leading a mooing cow, or driving a spavined old horse that was attached to a shaky wagon piled up with goods of value to ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... boys are at me to get you to petition the Tynwald Court for better harbours. They're losing many a pound by not getting out all weathers. But if the child doesn't cry, the mother will be giving it no breast. So we mane to squall till they think in Douglas we've got spavined wind or population of the heart, or something. The men are looking to you, Phil. 'That's the boy for us,' says they. 'He's stood our friend before, and he'll do it again,' ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... between leaf and branch. On one knee crossed above the other sat a squirrel with a nut in its paws, and half a dozen others scampered here and there over his great body, like so many frolicsome kittens. At a little distance grazed an old horse, gray and gaunt, springhalt and spavined, with ribs like Death's own. Its saddle and bridle adorned a limb of ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... boat-cloak, wearing it, with a gallant Spanish toss, over his cavalier shoulder. By noon, he perspired very freely; but then his cloak attracted all eyes, and that was huge satisfaction. Nevertheless, his being knock-kneed, and spavined of one leg, sorely impaired the effect of this hidalgo cloak, which, by-the-way, was some-what rusty in front, where his chin rubbed against it, and a good deal bedraggled all over, from his having used it as a counterpane ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... cloud of night, during hard frost, in a large lumbering coach, or rather waggon, compared with which indeed the generality of modern waggons were a luxurious conveyance. With four starved and perhaps spavined hacks, he slowly sets forth under a mountain of bandboxes. At his side sits the wandering virago, Marquise du Chatelet, in front of him a serving maid, with additional bandboxes, et divers effets de sa maitresse. At the next stage the postilions ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... where two such arrant jokers were in conflict, a vast throng filled the tavern-yard where the pair were to draw conclusions. At the appointed hour the court functionary dragged upon the scene a most dilapidated simulacrum of man's noblest conquest—blind, spavined, lean as Pharaoh's kind, creeking in every joint—at the same time that his fellow wagerer carried on under his long arm a carpenter's horse—gashed with adze and broadax, bored with the augur, trenched ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... the journey, for aught I knew, according to the rise and fall of provisions or the pleasure of the Amtmand; that conspiracies might be entered into against me to make me pay for all the lame, halt, blind, and spavined horses in the country, and my liberty restrained in some desolate region of the mountains; that I could not speak a dozen words of the language, and had no other means of personal defense against imposition than ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... paper "bank money," we had to pay our debts in wheat, salts or corn, so that our earnings really amounted to only sixty-two and a half dollars, my uncle said. This more than paid our interest. We gave the balance and ten bushels of wheat to Mr. Grimshaw for a spavined horse, after which he agreed to give us at least a year's extension ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... heaven and the white-domed, Moslem tombs amid the prickly, desert thickets and plains of clean, hot sand. On the edge of the encampment horses grazed—sorry beasts for the most part, galled, broken-kneed and spavined, weary and heart-sick as the captive lion. But weary not from idleness, as he. Weary from heavy loads and hard traveling and scant provender. Sick of collar ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... just bunch their woes an' cling together for comfort. She allus used to sit by his side in the twilight, singin' sorrowful love songs to him, an' once I caught him holdin' her hand. You see she was just naturally hungry for somethin' to pet an' care for; luck offered a spavined Englishman, an' she was tryin' to make the ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... chuckle and knew that they were winking, his belief in his final success never wavered. Any ordinary observer might be expected to remark that Creeping Peter was not entirely without blemish. Besides being spavined and having three of his hoofs injured by sand-crack, he had poll-evil, fistulas, malanders, ring-bone, capped hock, curb, splint, and several other maladies which made him a very suitable horse for the ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... are not subject to such ailments as horses—spavin, glanders, ringbone, and bots. If I had the committee here, I would show its members that every other mule in the quartermasters' department, over fifteen and a half hands high, is either spavined, ringboned, or ill some way injured by the above-named diseases. The mule may not be so liable to spavin as the horse, but he has ringbone just the same. I cannot, for the life of me, see how the committee could have fallen ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... stream of money keep comin'. I used to work hard—you may not believe that, but 'twas so. I used to have long days and nights of watching. 'Twas work of a kind, though you may not admire the kind. And now I have nothing to do but sit and twist me two thumbs—and one of them bog-spavined, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... of their temperaments, nervous animals possessing no particular congenital structural defects of the hock and having no history of spavined progenitors, are subject to spavin when kept at work likely to produce tarsal sprain. Spavin usually develops early in such subjects and examples of this kind may be frequently observed in agricultural ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... with Martha Deane, anyhow," Miss Lavender grimly remarked. "'T isn't good to hitch a colt-horse and an old spavined critter in one team. But that's neither here nor there; you ha'n't told us why you made up to her for a purpose, and kep' on pretendin' she didn't know her ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... schools the soldier, teaches us that we are men Born to bear the rough and tumble, wield the sword and not the pen. Some there are who dub hard riders worthless and a draghunt crew— Tailors who do all the damage, mounted on a spavined screw. Well, I grant you, hunting men are sometimes narrow-minded fools; Ignorant of all worth knowing, save what's learnt in riding-schools; Careless of the rights of others, scampering over growing crops, Smashing gates and making gaps and scattering ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... way. The horse dealer was rather astonished when the naval officer, whom he naturally supposed knew as much about horse-flesh as he himself did about the management of a ship, indignantly refused a couple of spavined animals which he offered for sale. Several others were brought forward, which Jack in like manner rejected. At length he fixed upon two beasts which, after passing his hands over their shoulders and down their legs, he thought might suit for the ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... strange sight of a dozen men of capacity working and playing together in harmony. He and his fellows are always fighting. With them familiarity naturally breeds contempt. If they ever praise each other's bad drawings, or broken-winded novels, or spavined verses, nobody ever supposed it was from admiration; it was simply a contract between themselves and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... didn't take advantage of me when I came to the regiment, as a raw recruit, and trade me a kicking mule, that made my life a burden. He said he remembered that he traded me a mule. I asked him if he didn't know the mule was balky, vicious, and spavined, that it would kick its best friend, bite anybody, that it was so ugly that he had to put the saddle on with a long pole, that he warranted the mule sound when he knew it had all the ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... pair at the station. The driver was a young fellow in a nankeen coat, with a belt below his long waist. He was glad to talk to the gentleman, especially because while they were talking his broken-winded white horse and the emaciated spavined one could go at a foot-pace, which ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... they had not to decide, for lumbering along the road, with one lamp lighted and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a heavy coach, which after a moment's suspense they recognized as the Oxford coach, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... always a great fight at town-meetings for these school board positions, especially when the school-book agents became numerous, for these committees could secure from said agents unlimited free books, and get high prices for all their spavined horses, dried up cows, and sick pigs in return for ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... proposed to put him on trial for sixty days, giving his note for the amount paid him for the horse, to be taken up in case the animal were returned. I asked him what were the principal defects of the horse. He said he'd been fired once, because they thought he was spavined; but there was no more spavin to him than there was to a fresh-laid egg—he was as sound as a dollar. I asked him if he would just state what were the defects of the horse. He answered, that he once had the pink-eye, and added, "now that's ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... of tune, and it rasped and screeched and limped like a spavined colt, but the voice of Peppers went ahead ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... his engine having by this time stopped, descended with creaks and groans to crank it up. He was so long over the operation that she began to be alarmed. However, he was not drunk, only senile. Of the two, his taxi was far worse—rickety, spavined, with every evidence of decrepitude. It started with a jerk which threw its occupant off ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... disagreeable without sayin' why. Also he takes a hand when it comes to testin' me to see whether I'm club-footed or spavined. Course, I'm no perfect male like you see in the knit underwear ads, but I've got the usual number of toes and teeth, my wind is fairly good, and I don't expect my arteries have begun to harden yet. He listens to my heart action and measures my chest expansion. Then I had to name the different colors ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... well help bein' one," snarled the Cap'n. "They're about all named Todd or Ward round here but one, and his name is Todd Ward Brackett, and he's due next. And they're all tryin' to borry money off'm me and sell me spavined hosses. Now, let's see if they can take a hint." He tentatively wriggled the toe some more, and groaned. "The Todds and the Wards better ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... still a Young Man he made the Important Discovery that the honest Laborer who digs Post-Holes for 11 Hours at a Stretch gets $1.25 in the Currency of the Realm, while the Brain-Worker who leads out a Spavined Horse and puts in 20 Minutes at tall Bunko Work, can clean up $14.50 and then sit on the Porch all Afternoon, reading "The Lives ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... the Bailie, knowing by experience that the day's jovialty, which had been hitherto sustained at the expense of his patron, might terminate partly at his own, had mounted his spavined grey pony, and, between gaiety of heart and alarm for being hooked into a reckoning, spurred him into a hobbling canter (a trot was out of the question), and had already cleared the village. The others entered the change-house, leading Edward in unresisting ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... and slop. They Rush Things. They travel too much on the high presher principle. They git on to the fust poplar hobbyhoss whitch trots along, not carin a sent whether the beest is even goin, clear sited and sound or spavined, blind and bawky. Of course they git throwed eventooally, if not sooner. When they see the multitood goin it blind they go Pel Mel with it, instid of exerting theirselves to set it right. They can't see that the crowd which is now bearin them triumfantly ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 2 • Charles Farrar Browne
... not a carriage in sight. I stumbled sleepily down into Panama and for some distance along Avenida Central before I was able to hail an all night hawk chasing a worn little wreck of a horse along the macadam. I spread my lanky form over the worn cushions and we spavined along the graveled boundary line, past the Chinese cemetery where John can preserve and burn joss to his ancestors to the end of time, out through East Balboa just awakening to life, and reached Balboa docks as day was breaking. I was not long there, and the ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... wine will be no bad preparation for the journey," said the muleteer; "and I will readily bestow one in memory of the spavined mule which you tried to palm upon me, but could not, now some three ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... or heavy omnibuses, or sub-soil ploughs, we may also bestow a tender sentiment upon the army mules. Flogged by teamsters, cursed by quartermasters, ridiculed by roaring regiments of soldiers, strained and spavined by fearful draughts, stalled in bogs and fainting upon hillsides,—their bones will evidence the sites of armies, when the skeletons of men have crumbled and become reabsorbed. I have seen them die like martyrs, when the inquisitor, with his bloody lash, stood over ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... there could be no solution of its injustice, its brutality, its dissonance, its inequalities. The rapture in the song of the bluebirds was sweeter than the voice of Cyrus to which he had listened. And in a meadow on the right, an old grey horse, scarred, dim-eyed, spavined, stood resting one crooked leg, while he gazed wistfully over the topmost rail of the fence into the vivid green of the distance—for into his aching old bones, also, there had passed a little of that longing for joy which ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... furnished for their use by the greatest nobles of the land. This flood of flashing chivalry was succeeded by an anti-masque of beggars and cripples, mounted on the lamest and most unsightly of rat-tailed srews and spavined ponies, and wearing dresses that threw derision on legal vestments and decorations. Another anti-masque satirized the wild projects of crazy speculators and inventors; and as it moved along the spectators laughed aloud at the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... contaminated, poisoned, tabid^, mangy, leprous, cankered; rotten, rotten to the core, rotten at the core; withered, palsied, paralytic; dyspeptic; luetic^, pneumonic, pulmonic [Med.], phthisic^, rachitic; syntectic^, syntectical^; tabetic^, varicose. touched in the wind, broken-winded, spavined, gasping; hors de combat &c (useless) 645 [Fr.]. weakly, weakened &c (weak) 160; decrepit; decayed &c (deteriorated) 659; incurable &c (hopeless) 859; in declining health; cranky; in a bad way, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget |
