"Two-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had hanging along his back one of those huge two-handed swords, the blade of which measured five feet, and which were wielded with both hands. These were almost universally used by the Swiss; for, besides the impression which such weapons were calculated to make upon the array of the German men-at-arms, whose armour was impenetrable to lighter ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... time in even scale The battle hung; till Satan, who that day Prodigious power had shown, and met in arms No equal, ranging through the dire attack Of fighting Seraphim confused, at length Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and felled Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway Brandished aloft, the horrid edge came down Wide-wasting; such destruction to withstand He hasted, and opposed the rocky orb Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield, A vast circumference. At his approach The great Arch-Angel from his ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... fully accoutred for battle, with a chamfron or plaited head-piece upon his head, having a short spike projecting from the front. On one side of the saddle hung a short battle-axe, richly inlaid with Damascene carving; on the other the rider's plumed head-piece and hood of mail, with a long two-handed sword, used by the chivalry of the period. A second squire held aloft his master's lance, from the extremity of which fluttered a small banderole, or streamer, bearing a cross of the same form with that embroidered upon his cloak. He also carried his small ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... me that near our house, a little farther up the mountain, he has discovered a fencing-gallery: that till nightfall he had been engaged in a fencing-bout against Japanese, who fought with two-handed swords, springing like cats, as is the custom of their country. With his French method of fencing, he had given them a good drubbing. Upon which, with many a low bow, they had shown him their admiration by bringing him a quantity of nice little iced things to drink. All this combined had thrown ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... Vall made a two-handed gesture to his Assassins, as though gripping a submachine-gun; they nodded, went into another room, and returned carrying light automatic weapons in their hands and pouches of spare drums slung over their shoulders. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... and happy in the knowledge that no amount of bruises could do him any harm, except physically, came on with the evident intention of making a hurricane fight of it. He had very little science as a boxer. Heavy two-handed slogging was his forte, and, as the majority of his opponents up to the present had not had sufficient skill to discount his strength, he had found this a very successful line of action. Kennedy and he had never had the gloves on together. In the competition of the previous year both had entered ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... knight Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield, The sword two-handed and the shining shield Suspended in the hall, and full in sight, While secret longings for the lost delight Of tourney or adventure in the field Came over him, and tears but half concealed Trembled and fell upon his beard of white, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... thou art, nor what things dwell with thee. Whence art thou born? Thou know'st not; and unknown, On quick and dead, on all that were thine own, Thou hast wrought hate. For that across thy path Rising, a mother's and a father's wrath, Two-handed, shod with fire, from the haunts of men Shall scourge thee, in thine eyes now light, but then Darkness. Aye, shriek! What harbour of the sea, What wild Kithairon shall not cry to thee In answer, when thou hear'st what bridal song, What wind among ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... stand at attention each behind the meal she has prepared. The sergeants and capitas distribute the rations among the soldiers and paddlers, and at an order of the Chief, the whole crowd disappears into the huts. Then we eat our dinner, consisting of the usual chicken and eggs, have a game of two-handed ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... to natural ease, As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. Nor yet all sweetness: not in vain he wore, Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled By velvet courtesy or caution cold, That sword of honest anger prized of old, But, with two-handed wrath, If baseness or pretension crossed his path, Struck once nor needed to strike ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... oak-tree; on which Saint Anthony, redoubling his efforts, smote him so fiercely, that he sunk down on his knees, unable to fly further. Still undaunted, the Giant drew a dagger twice the size of any ordinary two-handed sword. With this he struck right and left so rapidly that the Knight had hard work indeed to escape its blows, and still greater to discover a spot in his huge body in which he might plant a deadly ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... as they, while the fool gaped at her. In another moment she reappeared, carrying with her that which contrasted strangely enough with her sex, her beauty, and her youth. She bore in her strong hands, and bore with ease, a great two-handed sword—the two-handed sword of the executioner, her father—the two-handed sword that was the symbol of the stroke of justice in the eyes of all the world. With an air of pride the girl carried the great weapon, the pride of a child with its doll, of a mother with ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door, Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more. Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low, where ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... wild North Sea he has come. Record observes him, one of a small, fierce group, standing on the sands of desolate Northumbria, staring landward, his worldly wealth upon his back. This consists of a two-handed battle-axe, value perhaps some forty stycas in the currency of the time. A careful man, with business capabilities, may, however, manipulate a small capital to great advantage. In what would appear, to those accustomed to our slow modern methods, an ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... constantly to Parnell, and what he had clone for "those Irish fellows." The only way to make Labour formidable in the House was to learn the lesson of Unionism and of Parnellism, to act together and strike together, to make of the party a "two-handed engine," ready to smite Tory and Liberal impartially. To this end a separate organisation, separate place in the House, separate Whips—they were ready, nay clamorous, for them all. And they were equally determined on Harry Wharton as a leader. They spoke ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Fountain dropped to the ground, sky-lined his man on the crest of a little hillock he had to cross, and took a careful two-handed aim which enabled Rio Grande ranchers thereafter to sleep easier ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the songs of Spain. Mounted upon an immense steed, and himself of colossal strength, he was seen charging alone upon the assailants, and scattering numbers to the ground with the sweep of his enormous two-handed falchion. With a loud voice, he called on Muza to oppose him; but the Moor, fatigued with slaughter, and scarcely recovered from the shock of his encounter with De Suzon, reserved so formidable a foe for a ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... can be described here in a few lines because of their guileless simplicity. They consisted of conical explosive bombs on the ends of broom handles! A strong man could whirl one of them round his head, like a two-handed sword or battle-axe, and, when the momentum was sufficient, hurl it over the water for about seventy-five feet. On nose-diving into the sea and hitting the hull of a submarine in the act of rising or plunging, the little bomb, containing ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... more drinks, an' heel ourselves with a deck of cards an' a couple bottles of cactus juice, an' hunt us up a place where we'll be ondisturbed by the riotorious carryin's-on of the frivolous-minded, an' we'll have us a two-handed poker game which no matter who wins we can't lose, like I was tellin' you, 'cause they can't no outside parties horn in on the profits. But first-off we'll hunt up a feed barn so Ace of Spades can load up on oats an' hay while we're havin' ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... which Richard wore, and he stood before Saladin in the close dress which showed to advantage the strength and symmetry of his person, while it bore a strong contrast to the flowing robes which disguised the thin frame of the Eastern monarch. It was Richard's two-handed sword that chiefly attracted the attention of the Saracen—a broad straight blade, the seemingly unwieldy length of which extended wellnigh from the shoulder to the heel ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle. Claught, clutched, seized. Claughtin, clutching, grasping. Claut, a clutch, a handful. Claut, to scrape. Claver, clover. Clavers, gossip, nonsense. Claw, a scratch, a blow. Claw, to scratch, to strike. Clay-cauld, clay-cold. Claymore, a two-handed Highland sword. Cleckin, a brood. Cleed, to clothe. Cleek, to snatch. Cleekit, linked arms. Cleg, gadfly. Clink, a sharp stroke; jingle. Clink, money, coin. Clink, to chink. Clink, to rhyme. Clinkin, with a smart motion. Clinkum, clinkumbell, the beadle, the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... considerably. Then, in the middle of a symphony orchestra concert from Mallorysport Opera House, he wriggled loose, dropped to the floor and caught up his wood chisel, swinging it back over his shoulder like a two-handed sword. ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... some old mediaeval knight Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield— The sword two-handed and the shining shield Suspended in the hall and full in sight, While secret longings for the lost delight Of tourney or adventure in the field Came over him, and tears but half concealed Trembled and fell upon his beard of white; So I behold ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... "that's all I ask of you. If you think I'm wrong you're welcome to vote against me; but believe me, this is no Sunday-school job. There's a big fight coming on, I can feel it in my bones, and the best two-handed scrapper wins. Old W. H. Stoddard, when he had me in jail and was hoping I was going to be sent up, he tried to buy me out of this mine. He started at nothing and went up to twenty million, so you can ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... my brother felt the most unbounded love for him. So then, off dashed the four brave lads, and came up with the guard of the Bargello-upwards of fifty constables, counting pikes, arquebuses, and two-handed-swords. After a few words they drew their weapons, and the four boys so harried the guard, that if Captain Cattivanza had but shown his face, without so much as drawing, they would certainly have put the whole pack to flight. But delay spoiled all; for Bertino ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... sleep, in spite of the rain and the midges; a double layer of boards, standing at a very acute angle, would keep off the former, while the mingled refuse hay and muck beneath would nurse a smoke that would prove a thorough protection against the latter. And then, when Jim, the two-handed, mounting the trunk of a prostrate maple near by, had severed it thrice with easy and familiar stroke, and, rolling the logs in front of the shanty, had kindled a fire, which, getting the better of the dampness, soon cast a bright glow over all, shedding warmth and ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... that chieftain, we had a beautiful view of the whole of Leven Vale to Loch Lomond, Ben Lomond and the Highlands, and on the other hand, the Clyde and the Isle of Bute. In the soft and still balminess of the morning, it was a lovely picture. In the armory, I lifted the sword of Wallace, a two-handed weapon, five feet in length. We were also shown a Lochaber battle-axe, from Bannockburn, and ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... perfectly certain that he was the best little two-handed general operator of an all-around character that any gentleman could secure when that gentleman wanted a job done and did not care to give explicit instructions as ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Duke thoughtfully took his way to Edward's apartments. In the anteroom were many monks and many knights; but conspicuous amongst them all was a tall and stately veteran, leaning on a great two-handed sword, and whose dress and fashion of beard were those of the last generation, the men who had fought with Canute the Great or Edmund Ironsides. So grand was the old man's aspect, and so did he contrast in appearance the narrow garb ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... being involved in a duel because of his quixotic championship of a woman whom he barely knew, and disliked, and whose absent husband he did not know at all. And more than once I looked for a Japanese to draw his two-handed ancestral sword when Dick bluntly demanded a reconciliation of his yea of yesterday with his nay of today. Nine months passed and we never heard the whistle of bullet or shell. Dick called himself a "cherry-blossom correspondent," and when our ship left ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... Hindoostan, While the blade of a Turkish yataghan Made a waving streak of vitreous white Upon the wall, in the firelight. Foils with buttons broken or lost Lay heaped on a chair, among them tossed The boarding-pike of a privateer. Against the chimney leaned a queer Two-handed weapon, with edges dull As though from hacking on a skull. The rusted blood corroded it still. My host took up a paper spill From a heap which lay in an earthen bowl, And lighted it at a burning coal. At either end of the table, tall Wax candles were placed, each in a small, And ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... rid of a couple of thousand shares, the proceeds of which not only enabled us to discharge the deposit loan, but left us a material surplus. Under these circumstances, a two-handed banquet was proposed and unanimously carried, the commencement of which I distinctly remember, but am rather dubious as to the end. So many stories have lately been circulated to the prejudice of railway directors, that I think it my duty to state that this entertainment was scrupulously ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... of a king with a belief that he encountered no earthly foe. Fortunately, perhaps, for Ferdinand and Spain, the contest did not last long. Twenty horsemen spurred into the melee to the rescue of the plumed diadem: Tendilla arrived the first; with a stroke of his two-handed sword, the white banner was cleft from its staff, and fell to the earth. At that sight the Moors round broke forth in a wild and despairing cry: that cry spread from rank to rank, from horse to foot; the ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... like flame. Look at those grooves contrived for the blood to run along, those teeth set backward so as to tear out the entrails in withdrawing the weapon. It is a fine character of ferocious arm, and will look well in your collection. This two-handed sword is very beautiful. It is the work of Josepe de la Hera; and this colichemarde with its fenestrated guard—what a superb specimen ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier
... with the tuning fork fiddled again with some adjustment on the thick portion of its stem, and presently whirling it around his head as the old-time warriors used two-handed swords, he brought it down on one of a circle of small anvils that were arranged around him like the ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... being tried or condemned by the churchmen in his own absence. A full account of his labours during these days of despondency has been given by Knox, who got from him, it is said, the first rudiments of Greek, and who—having rendered his first service to the cause of the Reformation by bearing the two-handed sword for his protection—was dismissed on the night of his betrayal with the significant words, "One is sufficient for one sacrifice," showing what fate he now anticipated ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... fallen to the side of the travellers (for the bravest troops must yield to numbers) had not Susan the chambermaid come luckily to support her mistress. This Susan was as two-handed a wench (according to the phrase) as any in the country, and would, I believe, have beat the famed Thalestris herself, or any of her subject Amazons; for her form was robust and man-like, and every way made for such encounters. As her hands and arms were formed to give blows with great ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... how consolatory must be the vision of that muffled figure, with the two-handed engine, always following close! And to Heine himself the consolation came with especial grace. He had been virulently assailed by the leaders of the party to which he regarded himself as naturally belonging—the party for whose sake he endured the charming exile of Paris, then ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... also possible to strike the jack and to drive it nearer to where the balls of your side are lying. When all the players have bowled, the two balls nearest the jack each count a point for the side owning it. The game if played by sides is somewhat different from a two-handed contest. The main point first is to deliver the ball as near to the jack as possible and then to form a barrier or "guard" behind it with succeeding balls to block those of your adversaries. Sometimes the Jack is placed in the middle of the green and the teams ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... have. A plain slab of brass, on which has been elaborately engraved the figure of a soldier in full chain mail, with his six-foot lance and its fringed pennon, his long prick-spurs, and his great two-handed sword, it has lain in an English church for nearly six centuries and a-half. The Lombardic lettering which runs round the brass is half illegible, but the form of the old inscription, perfect in its simple dignity, is ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Quarterly Review. We have critics now, quieter, more reposeful souls, taking their ease on Zion, who have entered upon a world ready to welcome them, whose keen rapiers may cut velvet better than did the two-handed broadsword of Carlyle, and whose later date may enable them to discern what their forerunner failed to perceive; but when the critics of this century come to be criticized by the critics of the next, an honourable, if not the ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... huge den of vice, where he could not legally be without a warrant, where Palura could kill him and escape once more on the specious plea of self-defence. Terabon saw the grin of perfect hate on Palura's face as both his hands came up with automatics in them—a two-handed gunman ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... clothes. The entrance-hall is very spacious, and the floor is tessellated or somehow inlaid with marble. There was statuary in marble on the floor, and in niches stood several figures in antique armor, of various dates; some with lances, and others with battle-axes and swords. There was a two-handed sword, as much as six feet long; but not nearly so ponderous as I have supposed this kind of weapon to be, from reading of it. I could easily ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one hand, and the same is true of potassium. Each atom of oxygen has two hands; so that one oxygen atom can hold two hydrogen atoms in the chemical compound called water (H-O-H or H20). Other elements having two-handed atoms are magnesium and calcium. Strange to say, the sulfur atom has six hands but sometimes uses only two, the others seemingly being clasped together in pairs. I will write it out for ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... the courtyard to the walled-in stables, and up a ladder to the room where the serving man slept. It was a queer place, and filled with an extraordinary collection of odds and ends; the skins of birds, otters, and wolves; weapons of different makes, notably a very large two-handed sword, plain and old-fashioned, but of excellent steel; bits of harness and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... way to pass the long hours of convalescence, is by playing games with your patient. I am sure no training school for nurses has added the study of cribbage, pinochle, bezique, chess, checkers, backgammon, or dominos to its curriculum. All these are two-handed games, the playing of which will help the convalescent to forget himself and his past illness and present weakness. The nurse, if she knows only one game that is unfamiliar to the patient, gives ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... In a jiffy dishes and temporary tables disappeared in that big back kitchen, and the youngsters began their games. By-and-by a fiddle was heard, and I am afraid there was dancing. We had a happy evening. Two-handed cracks, stories, jokes, songs, made the time pass too quickly. It was a novelty to me that all the guests were either Irish or English; fine people, intelligent, wide-awake as to the necessity of advancing and making improvements. ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... once broken, every thing went on as smoothly as ye like; so, in the long run, we went like lightning from two-handed cracks on the stair-head, to stown walks, after work-hours, out by ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... to check the number stamped on the short one's scratched chestplate. Alec Diger had been his only close friend during those thirteen boring years at Orange Sea Camp. A good chess player and a whiz at Two-handed Handball, they had spent all their off time together. They shook hands, with the extra ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... summit of the mountain-chain, the Spaniards traversed the province of Quarequa, of which the ruler, who bears the same name, came to meet them; as is customary in that country, he was armed with bows and arrows, and heavy, two-handed swords of wood. They also carry sticks with burnt points, which they throw with great skill. Quarequa's reception was haughty and hostile, his disposition being to oppose the advance of such a numerous army. He asked where the Spaniards were going and what they wanted, and in reply ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... St. Louis House, so that it was John Barleycorn who led him to the sandspit in quest of his old shirt. Few words started the fray. He locked with Nelson in the cockpit of the Reindeer, and in the mix-up barely escaped being brained by an iron bar wielded by irate French Frank—irate because a two-handed man had attacked a one-handed man. (If the Reindeer still floats, the dent of the iron bar remains in the hard-wood rail ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... down to the river together. The cattle had tramped out his peg, so after setting a new one, and pow-wowing around, I told him good-by and said to him, 'Bob, old man, when I hit Dodge, I'll take a drink and think of you back here on the trail, and regret that you are not with me, so as to make it two-handed.' We said our 'so-longs' to each other, and I gave the gray his head and he took the water like a duck. He could outswim any horse I ever saw, but I drowned him in the Washita two weeks later. Yes, tangled his feet in ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... whom Don Juan had manned his vessel, hesitated. Only one stepped mutely and resolutely to his side, flinging over his shoulder the two-handed sword, whose hilt nearly reached to the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... front of it, where the live coals tumble down, and a pair of gigantic brass andirons. The brasses are burnished, and shine cheerfully in the firelight, and on either side stand tall shovel and tongs, like sentries, mounted in brass. The tongs, like the two-handed sword of Bruce, cannot be wielded by puny people. We burn in it hickory wood, cut long. We like the smell of this aromatic forest timber, and its clear flame. The birch is also a sweet wood for the hearth, with a sort ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... frind Biv'ridge iv Injyanny," said Mr. Dooley. "An' I'm f'r him f'r leader iv th' party. He's wan iv th' best two-handed orators in th' sinit or annywhere. He has a wondherful left an' his repartee with th' right is said to be very stingin'. He's inthrajooced th' sthrangle holt be means iv which th' debate can be suddenly cut off. He's me ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... really haven't," said the doctor, arching his painful brows. "It's not easy to hack a neck through even clumsily, and this was a very clean cut. It could be done with a battle-axe or an old headsman's axe, or an old two-handed sword." ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... flattering title the Pope also sent the King a costly two-handed sword, intended to represent Henry's zeal in smiting the enemies of Rome. But it was destined by fate to become to tsymbol of the King's final separation from the power that bestowed ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... taken a mouthful, which set him coughing and choking, with the tears running down his cheeks. Further on he met a sturdy black-bearded man, mounted on a brown horse, with a rosary in his right hand and a long two-handed sword jangling against his stirrup-iron. By his black robe and the eight-pointed cross upon his sleeve, Alleyne recognized him as one of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose presbytery was at Baddesley. He held ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'em hot, boys!" "That's your sort!" "Bravo, old Waterproof!" this last cheer being for Macintosh, who shot a chief who was leading on his tribesmen, brandishing a huge two-handed sword. ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... led by a trumpeter sounding for onset; then follow chariots loaded with myrrh and garlands; and then a black bull; then come the young men of free birth carrying libations of wine and milk in large two-handed vessels, and jars of oil and precious ointments, none of servile condition being permitted to have any hand in this ministration, because the men died in defense of freedom; after all comes the chief magistrate of Plataea (for whom it is unlawful at ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... and then for the knots, The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child, The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill, The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold, The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread, The conductor beats time for the band and all the ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... your second when he comes up to say, that the gentleman with the loaded detonator opposite won't fire, that he feels he's in the wrong. Any or all of these together, very effective and powerful though they be, are light in the balance when compared with the two-handed compression you receive from the gentleman that expects you to marry one of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the sighs which exhaled from my bosom while scouring the rust from my long, two-handed sword, my uncle, magnifying glass in hand, was engaged in the examination of a lot of medals which he had purchased that morning. Suddenly he raised his head; five ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... writer, philosopher, and politician of the age, Edmund Burke, provoked a rejoinder, which must have put any man to the torture. Burke's pamphlet in defence of his pension, was much less a defence than an assault. He broke into the enemy's camp at once, and "swept all there with huge two-handed sway." He traced the history of the Bedford opulence up to its origin, which he loftily pronounced to be personal sycophancy and public spoil—the plunder of the Abbeys, obtained by subserviency to a Tyrant. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... more to keep them busy, Billy got the cards and asked Miss Bridger if she could play coon-can—which was the only game he knew that was rigidly "two-handed." She did not know the game and he insisted upon teaching her, though the Pilgrim glowered and hinted strongly at seven-up or something else which they ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... if thou dost, Rose," said Eveline; "yet credit me, girl, we will be at the Red Pool, and thus far on our way home again, ere thy father has donned his best doublet, girded on his two-handed sword, and accoutred his strong Flanderkin elephant of a horse, which he judiciously names Sloth—nay, frown not, and lose not, in justifying thy father, the time that may be better ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... as though answering some objection which Enoch could not hear. The candles were lighted and in another moment the door was opened again, revealing a tall, raw-boned Scot with a shock of red hair and beard. He grasped a bared sword, almost as big as a two-handed claymore, and he looked sternly upon the boy ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... with the legend of S. John, show a remarkable advance; and they are luckily in better preservation. A soldier lifting his two-handed sword to strike off the Baptist's head is a vigorous figure, full of Florentine realism. Also in the Baptism in Jordan we are reminded of Masaccio by an excellent group of bathers—one man taking off his hose, another putting them on again, a third standing naked with his back turned, and a fourth ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... structure, separating into sharp prongs along the edges, and spreading more than four feet from tip to tip. To compare them with the short, polished crescent of the horns of Last Bull was like comparing a two-handed broadsword to a bowie-knife. And his head, instead of being short, broad, ponderous, and shaggy, like Last Bull's, was long, close-haired, and massively horse-faced, with a projecting upper lip heavy ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... religion, but the teaching and example of Wishart seem first to have brought to him the clear consciousness of his mission. Knox identified himself with Wishart with all the impetuosity of his character, and was in the habit, he tells us, of carrying a two-handed sword before the preacher. When Wishart was seized by the emissaries of Cardinal Beaton, Knox would willingly have attended him to the last; but Wishart, who knew the fate in store for him, rejected the offer. "Return to your ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... two-handed they are not close-fisted fellows. They despise science, but are fond of practical knowledge. When the sun is over the foreyard, they know the time of day as well as the captain, and call for their grog, and when they lay back their heads, and turn up ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... like some kings, in hobby grooms, Knights of the manger, curry-combs, and brooms, Lost to all glory, Charles did not delight— Nor joked by day with pages, servant-maids, Large, red-polled, blowzy, hard two-handed jades: Indeed I know not what Charles did ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... were horses clad in all the panoply of the fourteenth century, on the backs of which sat knights in shining armor, with long lances, and great two-handed swords for their weapons, and waving plumes dangling from their helmets. Men with bare legs and all manner of weird apparel were attacking the castle, using clubs, rocks, and queer arrangements for casting missiles; some of them were climbing ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... stupidity are so atrocious that the owners do well in employing asses to draw them: no man of feeling or spirit could endure the horse-laughs they must extort from any animal of tolerable sagacity. To see a stout, two-handed man coming home with his donkey-load of fuel from a distant shrubbery, half a day of the two having been spent in getting as much as would make one good kitchen-fire, is enough to try ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... Garcia de Paredes was a distinguished knight of the city of Trujillo in Estremadura, a most gallant soldier, and of such bodily strength that with one finger he stopped a mill-wheel in full motion; and posted with a two-handed sword at the foot of a bridge he kept the whole of an immense army from passing over it, and achieved such other exploits that if, instead of his relating them himself with the modesty of a knight and of one writing his own history, some free and unbiassed writer had recorded them, they ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... said Robin, "thou art the strongest man here—bring a sword straightway, and cut this box open, if thou canst." Then up rose Will Scarlet and left them, coming back in a short time, bearing a great two-handed sword. Thrice he smote that strong, ironbound box, and at the third blow it burst open and a great heap of gold came rolling forth, gleaming red in the light of the torches. At this sight a murmur went all around among the band, like the sound ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... of a wooden shed, each kneeling, as their custom is, in a three-sided box, and leaning forward over the washboard that sloped down into the water. As they washed they held the linen in one hand, and rubbed it with the other; then heaped it into a mass upon the board and beat it with great two-handed blows of a stick. They sang, meanwhile, one of those plaintive airs of which the Italian peasants are fond, and which rose in indescribable pathos, pulsing with their blows, and rhythmic with the graceful movement of their ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... was a wild melee. A company of City Guards—pikemen, musketeers, and horsemen with two-handed swords dashed into the Piazza from one street, the Pope's troops from another. They charged the crowd. The soldiers of the revolting captain, revolting in their turn, wheeled round and drove back their followers. There was a babel of groans and shrieks and ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... at him defiantly. "Two-handed euchre! We have played, as nearly as I can estimate, fifteen hundred games, in which he has held both bowers and the ace of trumps—or something equally victorious—I should say fourteen hundred times. Oh!" she cried, with an expression of loathing, "may I never, never, never see a card again as ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... apart in order to make even walls. The protruding ends of the logs may be allowed to stick out as they happen to come, no matter how irregular they may be, until the cabin is erected; then with a two-handed saw and a boy at each end they can be trimmed off evenly, thus giving a neat finish ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... hope for many years to come that human beings generally will be as well cared for as horses. Mr. Carlyle long ago remarked that the four-footed worker has already got all that this two-handed one is clamouring for: "There are not many horses in England, able and willing to work, which have not due food and lodging and go about sleek coated, satisfied in heart." You say it is impossible; but, said Carlyle, "The human brain, looking at these ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the pike, played with the two-handed sword, with the backsword, with the Spanish tuck, the dagger, poniard, armed, unarmed, with a buckler, with a cloak, with a target. Then would he hunt the hart, the roebuck, the bear, the fallow deer, the wild boar, the hare, the pheasant, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... my bare chest still smarted from the blow of his wooden fencing sword. If it had been the real two-handed Lunarian dueling sword, with its terrible mass behind a curved razor edge, the blow would have produced a cut deep into the bone. It was always the same, ever since Garth and I had fenced as boys with crooked laths. Back to back, we could beat the whole school, but I never had ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... as far as possible, the penetration of the extreme cold through the ship's sides; and upon large nails, driven through these and into the planks, were hung various trophies of weapons, such as long two-handed swords, small shields or targets, maces with heavy iron-spiked heads, short-handled battle-axes, spears, unstrung bows, and quivers of arrows. But it was not these objects, interesting as they were, which first riveted the attention of the intruders; ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the captain, smiling, "experience has taught that this is a more dangerous weapon than the great heavy two-handed swords men used to ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... at this time does not shrink from dating his notarial act as in such a year 'of the pontificate of our most holy Father and Lord in Christ, the Lord Paul, Pope by the Providence of God.' Only three years later, in 1546, he was carrying a two-handed sword before Wishart, then in danger of arrest and condemnation to the stake at the hands of the same Archbishop Beaton under whom Knox held his orders. And in the following year, 1547, Knox is standing in the Church ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... the bow) resolved to attempt at the point of the pike, the weapon answering to our modern bayonet. The first rush which he headed was so impetuous as to effect an entry. The weight of the numbers behind urged on the foremost, and Hilyard had not sufficient space for the sweep of the two-handed sword which had done good work that day. While here the conflict became fierce and doubtful, the right wing led by D'Eyncourt had pierced the wood, and, surprised to discover no ambush, fell upon the archers in the rear. The scene was ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... decapitation was performed with an axe; but in France, it was carried out usually by means of a two-handed sword or glave of justice, which was furnished to the executioner for that purpose (Fig. 346). We find it recorded that in 1476, sixty sous parisis were paid to the executioner of Paris "for having bought a large espee a feuille," used for beheading the condemned, and "for having the old sword ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... championship between England and Ireland was played in 1904. Badminton may be played by daylight or by artificial light, either with two players on each side (the four-handed or double game) or with one player on each side (the two-handed or single game). The game consists entirely of volleying and is extremely fast, a single at Badminton being admitted to require more staying power than a single at lawn tennis. There is much scope for judgment and skill, e.g. in "dropping" (hitting the shuttle gently ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... him four troopers of the body-guard, he was galloping along the main road, when, shortly after crossing the river, he was suddenly attacked by an Affghan, who, rushing from behind a wall, made a desperate cut at him with a large two-handed knife. He dexterously avoided the blow by spurring his horse on one side; but, passing onwards, he was fired upon by about fifty men, who, having seen his approach, ran out from the Lahore gate of the city to intercept ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... grandson, creator, guide, and guardian of modern civilization, paced with restless, ever-present steps, around the borders of that small world of light which he had built up, half blindly, in the overwhelming dark, and with two-handed blows beat back, with the iron mace of Germany, the savage assaults of Saracen and Sclave, of black Dane and brutal Wendt, and smote on till he died smiting, for order, and law, and faith, and so saved Europe, and, let us humbly hope, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... under their feet, either. The very minute the Hen struck the town—coming on after Santa Fe, same as I've said, and him waiting for her when she got there—they went at their monkey-shining, finishing two-handed what the Hen had started as a lone-hand game. Right along from then on they kept things moving spirited, one way and another, without much of a let-up. And they ended off—the day the two of 'em, owing to circumstances, lit out together—by setting up on all of us what I reckon was the ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... and I were upon him, but though we lifted him clear off the ground we could not loosen that two-handed strangling grip. At we were struggling there a light hand touched my ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... saw the hardy burghers there March arm'd, on foot, with faces bare, For vizor they wore none, Nor waving plume, nor crest of knight; But burnish'd were their corslets bright, 40 Their brigantines, and gorgets light, Like very silver shone. Long pikes they had for standing fight, Two-handed swords they wore, And many wielded mace of weight, 45 And ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... drew Whitefire and raised his shield. Atli the Earl rushed at him and smote a great two-handed blow. Eric caught it on his shield and suffered no harm; but ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... most interesting place of all is the armoury, a vast hall at right angles to the picture gallery, in which are weapons and arms of all sizes, workmanship, and ages; from the light rapier and fencing helmet for friendly practice, to the two-handed sword and iron casque of thirty pounds weight, for the more deadly strife. Some highly interesting relics are here, too, the original document whereby Charles V. tendered the island to the Knights—a consumptive looking cannon with very large touch-holes and very small bores—stone shot, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... he then also separated the lemur from the true ape, and rejected the sloth. Later zoologists divided the order of Primates. First the Gottingen anatomist, Blumenbach, founded a special order for man, which he called Bimana ("two-handed"); in a second order he united the apes and lemurs under the name of Quadrumana ("four-handed"); and a third order was formed of the distantly-related Chiroptera (bats, etc.). The separation of the Bimana and Quadrumana was retained by Cuvier and ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... Rome "with privy paw daily devours apace, and nothing said!" The stern resolve of the people to demand justice on their tyrants spoke in his threat of the axe. Strafford and Laud, and Charles himself, had yet to reckon with "that two-handed engine at the door" which stood "ready to smite once, and smite no more." But stern as was the general resolve, there was no need for immediate action, for the difficulties which were gathering in the north were certain to bring a strain on the Government ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... a Colt's revolver in the other, an adventurer at the head of a bunch of dogs as desperate as himself fought his way across the reeking decks of a Chinese junk, to close in single combat with a gigantic one-eyed pirate who stood by the helm with a ring of dead men about him and a great two-handed sword upheaved.... This ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... footing, and, retreating into the ranks of his army, directs their resistance to the foe. The battle now rages with such fury that the heavens resound. Many deeds of eternal fame are wrought, for Satan proves almost equal to Michael, who with his two-handed sword strikes down whole squadrons at one blow. But wounds inflicted on angels, even when fallen, are no sooner made than healed, so those who sink down disabled are soon back in the thick of the night ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... person of importance, a castle had a character and ways of its own. A church bell had a word to say in the matter. Like a true child, he almost ignored the distinction between the animate and inanimate. A two-handed sword might be carried only by a menial in a procession, but it was something important and immeasurably ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... The sword is sharpened to the finest degree, and the blade is protected for about six inches above the cross-hilt with thick string, bound tightly round so as to afford a grip for the right hand, while the left grips the hilt in the usual manner. This converts the ordinary blade into a two-handed sword, a blow from which will sever a naked man into two halves if delivered at the waist. It may be imagined that a quick cut from such a formidable weapon will at once divide the hamstring of any animal. The usual method of attacking the ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... RIDDLE.—Why was the win of the Gladstonian Party at Newcastle like the triumph of a single-fisted pugilist over his two-handed opponent? Because the victory was achieved with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... David, sit ye down here, and let us have a two-handed crack," said she. "For I have much to tell you, and it appears besides that I have been grossly unjust to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... swinging ball and worked with the dumb-bells for an hour every morning and evening, and boxed twice a day with Ted Barton in the gymnasium, gaining as much profit as could be got from a rushing, two-handed slogger. Barton was full of admiration for his cleverness and quickness, but doubtful about his strength. Hard hitting was the feature of his own style, and he exacted ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was noteworthy. It was a single-handed weapon of iron, made in Egypt, to suit the size and strength of its owner, and was large enough to have served as a two-handed sword for ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... leg-cut is a prime favourite with the Eastern Sworder, and a heavy two-handed blade easily severs a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the grim wolf, with privy paw, Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... Covered with shield and sword, one, leaping, sped Now here now there, and thus himself defended, Lest a two-handed mace upon his head Should fall, with which the giant still offended: — On the field lay his horse, already dead. Rogero paused, and to the strife attended: And straight his wishes leant towards the knight, Whom he would fain ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... triggers and the shots rattled out as if fired from an automatic. Beside him, Sam's gun barked. Each fired three times, Sandy shooting two-handed, flinging six bullets with instinctive aim while the bed of the creek echoed to the roar of the guns and the air hung heavy with the reek of exploded gases. Then they rushed for the top of the bank, wriggling behind the cover ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Beside what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said. But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.' Return, Alpheues, the dread voice is past, That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells, and flowerets of a thousand ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... away by Shinto hands. The second shrine is void as the first. Nevertheless, in a building to the left of the temple, strange relics are exhibited. Feudal armour; suits of plate and chain-mail; helmets with visors which are demoniac masks of iron; helmets crested with dragons of gold; two-handed swords worthy of giants; and enormous arrows, more than five feet long, with shafts nearly an inch in diameter. One has a crescent head about nine inches from horn to horn, the interior edge of the crescent being sharp as a knife. Such a ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... a gay prancing of the horses underneath them and a marvellous flourishing of spears above them, but they learned more wisdom in their half hour's communion with the German than the Emir, in a long life of counselling, had been able to bestow upon them. The two-handed sword they now met for the first time, and the acquaintance brought little joy to them. Count Herbert, the leader of the invaders, did no shouting, but reserved his breath for other purposes. He spurred his horse among them, and his foes went down around him as a thicket melts away ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... and a lever is thus obtained, by means of which the bow is drawn to its proper extent. It seems to me that this is the description of bow of which your correspondent has furnished a drawing. Another mode, and which appears to have been applied to the ancient bows, was by a sort of two-handed windlass, with ropes and pulleys, called a "moulinet," which was temporarily attached to the butt-end of the Cross-bow; of this a drawing is given in the illustrations of Froissart's Chronicles, particularly in that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 541, Saturday, April 7, 1832 • Various
... art yet ordained for greater things. There is another, too, a kept mistress, a brave strapping jade, a two-handed whore! ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... hindrance from its sheath. He knew that the new bad man wore two guns, each adjusted in a similar manner; but it was always Bill Watson's contention (while he was alive) that a man with one gun was as good as a man with two. Sheriff Watson made no claim to being a two-handed shot. He was a simple, unpretentious man; not a heroic figure as he stood, his weight resting on the sides of his feet, looking out of the window down the long and ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... were driven back, the two-handed keen-edged swords of the assailants making havoc in their ranks. The crew made what defence they could, but the sudden and unlooked-for assault had put them at disadvantage, and before the adjoining ships could come to their aid the junk was ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... nodding greeting to many an old acquaintance as they shouldered through it, Wulf and he, straight for the heart of the throng; Ulf still carrying in one hand his unbent sea-bow, and Wulf, the long, straight, two-handed sword of his father, as well as his own keen axe —of ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... girl, no tricks in him— No bastard he! when all was lost, he yell'd, And bit his shield, and dash'd it on the ground, And swaying his two-handed sword about him, Two deaths at every swing, ran in upon us And died so, and I loved him as I hate This liar who made me liar. If Hate can kill, And Loathing wield a ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw, Daily devours apace, and nothing sed; But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... neatness and skill. The polishing of this formidable weapon he deferred to a period of greater leisure. Having completed this piece of work, Erling next turned to another corner of the forge and took up the huge two-handed sword which he had made for his ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... Fixing the hands 28 Use of both bridles at once 30 Shortening the reins when held one in each hand, system of taught, and of untaught horsemen 30 Use of the whip 34 Horses swerve and turn only to the left 34 Fault in "the great untaught," two-handed, English ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... drew his two-handed sword and laid about him in such wise that twelve of the Sheriff's men lay dead before him. Then Robin found himself face to face with the Sheriff, and gave him a fierce blow; but his sword broke on the Sheriff's head, and he had shot away all ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... vast mass of colour. Never in my life have I seen such a wonderful panorama—such a brilliant blaze in such rude and barbaric surroundings. There were jackets and tunics of every colour; trouserings of blood red embroidered with black dragons; great two-handed swords in some hands; men armed with bows and arrows mixing with Tung Fu-hsian's Kansu horsemen, who had the most modern carbines slung across their backs. There were blue banners, yellow banners embroidered with black, white and red flags, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... than that of the English. Where the weapons on either side are unlike, battles are decided by the momentum—that is to say, by the combined weight and speed of the weapons employed. The English fought on foot mostly with two-handed axes; the Normans fought not only on horseback with lances, but also with infantry, some of them being archers. A horse, the principal weapon of a horseman, has more momentum than an armed footman, whilst an arrow can reach the ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... listening to the prayers. He showed her too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armour up above—how this had been a helmet, and that a shield, and that a gauntlet—and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords, and beaten men down, with yonder iron mace. All that he told the child she treasured in her mind; and sometimes, when she awoke at night from dreams of those old times, and rising from her bed looked out at the ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread: Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: —But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... was clearly at the head of affairs the voice of Sir de Jacquelin Barras. To do him justice he fought with extreme bravery, and when almost all his followers were cut down or beaten overboard, he resisted stanchly and well. With a heavy two-handed sword he cleaved a space at the end of the boat, and kept the whole of Cuthbert's party ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... Diabolus. Next to him there was one Captain Secure slain; this Secure used to say that the blind and lame in Mansoul were able to keep the gates of the town against Emmanuel's army (2 Sam 5:6). This Captain Secure did Captain Conviction cleave down the head with a two-handed sword, when he received himself three wounds in his mouth. Besides these, there was one Captain Bragman, a very desperate fellow, and he was captain over a band of those that threw fire-brands, arrows, and death; he also received, by the hand of Captain Good-hope ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Scott, the absence of lightness of touch, of delicacy in the small sword-play of conversation. In fencing, all should be done, the masters tell us, with the fingers. Scott works not even with the wrist, but with the whole arm. The two-handed sword, the old claymore, are his weapons, not the rapier. This was plain enough in the word-combats of Queen Mary and her lady gaoler in Loch Leven. Much more conspicuous is the "swashing blow" in the repartee of "St. Ronan's." The insults lavished on Lady Binks are violent and cruel; ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott |
