"Clout" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was about eleven o'clock at the time, I thought I had better hurry in case there was another Flushing-bound train. So I scuttled towards the door only to receive another heavy clout from the sentry's rifle. What the interpreter really said was "Ah! No, you can't go!" As I rubbed my bruised head I treated that interpreter to a candid opinion of his English speaking qualifications, but he did not ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... to meet the test just then, however, for just at that moment a courier in breech-clout and sandals dashed up the gallery and burst into the room, bearing in his right hand ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... to his feet, knocking over a bottle. He looked stupidly at the bottle, set it upright too late to save much of the alcohol, and then stared fixedly at the boy. "See what you made me do, you little bastard?" he growled, and fetched the boy a clout on his bleeding head that sent him spinning against the wall of the hut. The boy got up slowly and silently—there seemed to be something wrong with his left ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... Indians sat gravely smoking and blinking at the scene—no doubt belonging to our corps of runners, scouts, and guides, for all were shaved, oiled, and painted for war, and, under their loosened blankets, I could see their lean and supple bodies, stark naked, except for clout and ankle moccasin. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the palace On a white and downy bed, And some are in the garret With a clout beneath their head, And some are on the cold hard earth, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... line from the bottom. Change breech-clout. It's a word that you love and I abominate. I would take that and ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... shouted the populace, more interested in a known person than in a stranger. 'In the clout!—in the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... insulted, ducked in horse-ponds. At Caltanisetta the golden wings of St. Michael the Archangel were torn from his shoulders and replaced with wings of pasteboard; his purple mantle was taken away and a clout wrapt about him instead. At Licata the patron saint, St. Angelo, fared even worse, for he was left without any garments at all; he was reviled, he was put in irons, he was threatened with drowning or hanging. "Rain or the rope!" roared the angry people ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... clout! you have hit the very white," said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... who seemed to draw exhilaration from the memory of his sorrows, arose and fetched him a clout on the back. "Don't talk of confidence, as if you were a reporter," he said. "What about that House? If we're to see it before the dark comes we'd ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... heel of the evening; but some o' the little boys had no more manners than if they were Dublin jackeens, and put out their tongues at Tom's club and Tom's goat-skin. He didn't like that at all, and it would be mean to give one of them a clout. At last, what should come through the town but a kind of a bellman, only it's a big bugle he had, and a huntsman's cap on his head, and a kind of a painted shirt. So this—he wasn't a bellman, and I don't know what to call him—bugleman, maybe, proclaimed that the King of ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... a brown figure in clout and drab turban watched the young man. When he saw the elephant with the hunting howdah he knew that he had the information for which his master had detailed him to follow, night and day, the young banker Ramabai. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... humble coin to buy for him in Thomas. With changeless pagan eyes staring a moment at me on my sack of grain, and a grunt when his purchase was set in his hands, each black-haired desert figure turned away, the bare feet moving silent, and the copper body, stark naked except the breech-clout, receding to dimness in the thorn-bush. But I lay incurious at this new vision of what our wide continent holds in fee under the single title United States, until breakfast came. This helped me, and I livened somewhat at finding the driver ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... And where am I to get bread for him? What claim has he? Am I a millionaire to feed every drunkard that passes? They are half-blind with spite. . . . They have no cross on them, the devils . . . . They'll give you a clout on the ear and not think twice about it: 'Give us bread!' Well, one gives it. . . . One is not going to fight with them, the idols! Some of them are two yards across the shoulders, and a great fist as big as your boot, and you see the ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... side lane. He wore a wide-eaved hat and his smock was new-washed and speckless; but that which drew and held my eyes, that which brought me to a sudden stand, was the bundle he bore wrapped in a fair, white clout. So, with my gaze on this I stood leaning on my knotted, untrimmed staff, waiting him. Suddenly, chancing to turn his head, he espied me, halted in his stride, then eyeing me askance, advanced again. A small man he was, with rosy ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... for the Assizes, about some case, I think. Oh, I remember—the 'Stowmarket Mystery'—and he stayed at the hotel where Flossie was engaged. How she ever came to take notice of him, I can't imagine. She was a queer sort of girl—used to wear bloomers, and get off her bike to clout the small boys who ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... castaway clout, She is quite shut out! She might call and shout, But no one about Would ever call back, "Who's there?" There is never a hut, Not a door to shut, Not a footpath or rut, Long road or short cut, ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... fifteen miles on the road, an Apache Indian appeared, and so suddenly that it seemed as if he must have sprung up from the ground. He was in full war dress—that is, no dress at all except the breech clout and moccasins—and his face and whole naked body were stained in many colors in the most hideous manner. In his scalp lock was fastened a number of eagle feathers, and of course he wore two or three necklaces of beads and wampum. There was ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... A staggering clout from a heavy hand hurled him against a side wall like a battering-ram. The breath was driven out of his lungs. Dizzily he plunged forward to his hands and knees among the debris ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... and nephews are not so likely to be seen together as uncles and nieces," said his lordship, smiling toward the rector. "But just come with me one instant, Gascoigne, will you? I want to speak a word about the clout-shooting." ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the man has discovered that I have entered, and is showing off his poverty in order to make fun of me. Shall I kill him, or is the poor devil talking in his sleep? [He takes a look.] But see! This thing wrapped in a ragged bath-clout, now that I inspect it by the light of my candle, is in truth a jewel-casket Suppose I take it. But no! It is hardly proper to rob a man of good birth, who is as poor as ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... gloated, while she performed that dreadful, menial task. 'A trifle balky at times, Professor, a trifle balky; but a clout alongside the jaw makes her as meek ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... present." Francis Meres (Palladis Tamia, 1598) mentions him in conjunction with many great names among "the most passionate, among us, to bewail and bemoan the perplexities of love." Spenser, in "Colin Clout's come home again," calls him with a spice of raillery "old Palaemon" who "sung so long until quite hoarse he grew." His writings, with the exception of his contributions to the Mirror for Magistrates, are chiefly autobiographical in character ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... but rather the half relaxed or gently restrained moods of human creatures. It gives also our idiosyncrasies. It is gossip in extremis. It is apt to chronicle our petty little skirmishes, rather than our feuds. In it Colin Clout ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... wi' a braw burn trout, An' speer'd how acquaintance were greeing; He brought it frae Peebles, tied up in a clout, An' said it wad just be a preeing, a preeing, An' said it ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... first invoked the favor of the gods, and offered sacrifices when victorious. The palestra was on a lawn by the sea, and in formal contests district champions met those of other districts, and islands competed for supremacy with other islands. The maona wore a breech-clout and a coat of cocoanut oil freshly laid on, but not sand, as in the Olympiads. When one was thrown, the victor's friends shouted in triumph and sang and danced about him to the music of tom-toms, while the backers of the loser met the demonstrations with ridicule. This was much like the organized ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... confidences, under the name of Colin Clout, a name borrowed from Skelton, a satirical poet of Henry VIII.'s time, which Spenser kept throughout his poetical career. Harvey reappears in one of Spenser's latest writings, a return to the early pastoral, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Flora, he proceeded, with some difficulty, to rouse the savages, and supply them with food and drink. They proved to be, as Leslie had said, a pair of fine, well-made men, naked, save for a kind of breech-clout round their loins, of sturdy physique, and apparently but little the worse for their adventure. Nor were they especially unprepossessing in appearance, although there was a certain character of ruthlessness ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a snout that's bent, And if again I tap it, Oh, with a clout I'll bend that snout With force enough to ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... bold eyes, the slight smile, the coarse face of Haze Ruff. She had forgotten him. But he now returned. And with memory of him flashed a revelation as to his meaning in her life. He had appeared merely a clout, a ruffian, an animal with man's shape and intelligence. But he was the embodiment of the raw, crude violence of the West. He was the eyes of the natural primitive man, believing what he saw. He had seen in Carley Burch the paraded charm, the ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... brown, curling locks of his hair downward droop to his bare, brawny shoulders, And his face wears a smile debonair, as he tightens his red sash around him; But stripped to the moccasins bare, save the belt and the breech-clout of buckskin, Stands the haughty Tamdka aware that the eyes of the warriors admire him; For his arms are the arms of a bear and his legs are the legs ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... him up and carried him off to The British Oak on his own back, and threw him down in his own kitchen between his own two girls like a dead dog. They do say that the little one Agnes flew at her father like a raging cat until he knocked her senseless with a clout over ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... touching allusions. Amid references to the tints of the Jungfrau, the blue rifts of the glaciers, and the noble Niesen towering over the Lake of Thun, we come upon the charming little scrap which I have elsewhere quoted: 'Clout-nail making goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop and anything relating to smithery. My father was a smith.' This is from his journal; but he is unconsciously speaking ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... replaced the buffalo robe upon mine; my boots were cast aside, and my legs encased in the scalp-fringed leggings; my hips were swathed in the leathern "breech-clout;" and my feet thrust into the foot-gear of the Comanche, which, by good fortune, fitted ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... road-agents to speak of, for sums of money large enough to tempt gentry of that ilk seldom passed over those isolated trails; but here and there stray parties of Stonies and Blackfeet, young bucks in war-paint and breech-clout, hot on the trail of their first medicine, skulked warily among the coulee-scarred ridges, keeping in touch with the drifting buffalo-herds and alert for a chance to ambush a straggling white man and ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... greater part of the Peninsular Campaign, he acquired the knowledge of how to sit the saddle and ride like a dragoon, likewise the complete management of his horse; nor was the sabre (the favorite weapon of the old soldier) forgotten, and many a clout and bruise did the youth receive before he could satisfy his instructor as to his efficiency. Being of an obliging disposition, the game keepers took a great deal of trouble to make him a first rate ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... a leap towards her. "You jist say that again, Lizzie Gordon, and I'll give you a clout over the head that'll ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... cloak it was a very good cloak, It hath been always true to the wear, But now it is not worth a groat; I have had it four and forty year: Sometime it was of cloth in grain, 'Tis now but a sigh-clout, as you may see, It will neither hold out wind nor rain; And I'll have ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... fish. But the others made a grimace, as they banged down their irons. None of them liked fish; it was not a bit satisfying; and besides that it was full of bones. Squint-eyed Augustine, having dared to observe that she liked skate, Clemence shut her mouth for her with a good sound clout. At length the mistress thought of stewed pig's back and potatoes, which restored the smiles to every countenance. Then Virginie entered like a puff of wind, with a strange ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... him. After these words, in the London Magazine, came "by Lord Brooke." Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, wrote Sidney's Life, published in 1652. After Sidney's death appeared many elegies upon him, eight of which were printed at the end of Spenser's Colin Clout's Come Home Again, in 1595. That which Lamb quotes is by Matthew Roydon, Stanzas 15 to 18 and 26 and 27. The poem beginning "Silence augmenteth grief" is attributed to Brooke, chiefly on Lamb's authority, in Ward's English Poets. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... high road, and having had his supper, and given his wife a clout in the head, he sauntered down to the alehouse. After he had taken three quarts of beer, he mentioned the curious incident of the white handkerchief in the woods to his mates, who congratulated him on his sense in refraining from going near it, as most likely it was one ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... me the good red gold, And some they give me the white money, And some they give me a clout o' meal, For they be people o' ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... night, Michael Byrne (raising her voice); and let you make haste now, or herself will be coming with the porter. MICHAEL — defiantly, raising his voice.* Let me make haste? I'll be making haste maybe to hit you a great clout; for I'm think- ing on the day I got you above at Rathvanna, and the way you began crying out and say- ing, "I'll go back to my ma," and I'm thinking on the way I came behind you that time, and hit you a great clout in the lug, ...
— The Tinker's Wedding • J. M. Synge
... a hail and whirlwind of stones and glaur. Then the drums were heard beating to arms, and the soldiers were seen flying to their rendezvous. I stood composedly at the dining-room window, and was very thankful that I wasna provost in such a hurricane, when I saw poor Mr Keg, as pale as a dish clout, running to and fro bareheaded, with the town-officers and their halberts at his heels, exhorting and crying till he was as hoarse as a crow, to the angry multitude, that was raging and tossing like a sea in the market-place. Then it ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... way to go to Bursley Station, that is," said Amy, observing that Constance was descending King Street instead of crossing it into Wedgwood Street. And she caught Spot 'a fair clout on the head,' to indicate to him that she had him alone in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... hands, and is put in a way to stand upon his own legs; and then it comes out, with a great many grieving aggravations to a parent to find himself tricked and defeated in the expectations of his son's marrying handsomely, and to his advantage; instead of which, he is obliged to receive a dish-clout for a daughter-in-law, and see his family propagated by a race of beggars, and yet perhaps as haughty, as insolent, and as expensive, as if she had blessed the family with a lady of fortune, and brought a fund with her to have supported ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... lively a manner, setting forth the cruel murder of the feeble old king, with the destruction of his people and city by fire, and the mad grief of the old queen, running barefoot up and down the palace, with a poor clout upon that head where a crown had been, and with nothing but a blanket upon her loins, snatched up in haste, where she had worn a royal robe; that not only it drew tears from all that stood by, who thought ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... water, the Rocket ran out By jumping the railings and kicking a clout Of rotten white woodwork to startle the trout. When Charles cleared the water, the grass stretcht before And the glory of going burned in to ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... later, being once more restored to favour, speaks of 'that nearness to her Majesty which I still enjoy,' and directly contradicts the rumour of his disgrace. This, however, is not in accordance with the statement made by Spenser in his poem of Colin Clout's come home again, in which he says that all Raleigh's speech at ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... ears fell off. Wherat all the people wondred greatly, and laughed me to scorne: but I beeing strucken in a cold sweat, crept between their legs for shame and escaped away. So I disfigured returned home againe, and covered the losse of myne ears with my long hair, and glewed this clout to my face to hide my shame. As soon as Bellephoron had told his tale, they which sate at the table replenished with wine, laughed heartily. And while they drank one to another, Byrrhena spake to me and said, from the first foundation of this city we have a custome to celebrate ...
— The Golden Asse • Lucius Apuleius
... Seckerstone), and in 1595 were published the beautiful Amoretti or love sonnets, and the still more beautiful Epithalamion describing his courtship and marriage, with the interesting poem of Colin Clout's Come Home Again; while in the same year (old style; in January 1596, new style) the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of The Faerie Queene were entered for publication and soon appeared. The supposed ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... at home, spends, sooner or later, 40,000 pounds on Virginia, writes charming court-poetry with Oxford, Buckhurst, and Paget, brings over Spenser from Ireland and introduces Colin Clout to Gloriana, who loves—as who would not have loved?—that most beautiful of faces and of souls; helps poor puritan Udall out of his scrape as far as he can; begs for Captain Spring, begs for many more, whose names are only known by being connected with some good deed of his. 'When, ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... in the empress Mercilla, the avowed types of the graces and virtues of her majesty; and she herself had discernment sufficient to distinguish between the brazen trump of vulgar flattery with which her ear was sated, and the pastoral reed of antique frame tuned sweetly to her praise by Colin Clout. Spenser was interred with great solemnity in Westminster abbey by the side of Chaucer; the generous Essex defraying the cost of the funeral and walking himself as a mourner. That ostentatious but munificent woman Anne countess of Dorset, Pembroke, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Rough clout upon his patient head, The stately camel round doth go, With gentle hesitating tread; And yoked, and blind with frontlets, made Of black Nile mud, the buffalo Plies with him ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... see them in their full regulation uniform. They had been furnished a regular cavalry uniform and on this parade some of them had their heavy overcoats on, others their large black hats, with all the brass accoutrements attached; some of them were minus pantaloons and only wore a breech clout. Others wore regulation pantaloons but no shirts on and were bareheaded; others again had the seat of the pantaloons cut out, leaving only leggins; some of them wore brass spurs, but had no boots or moccasins on. They seemed to understand the drill remarkably well for Indians. The commands, of ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... censures the dancing of his parish. [His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill-husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. His feet never stink so unbecomingly as when he trots after a lawyer in Westminster-hall, and even ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... feaces were white as onny clout, An' they said niver a word, T'hey couldn't tell what the ghost was like, Whether 'twas a beast ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... not, good folks, but a true-born Englishman, and a good hater of all Frenchmen and Spaniards. So let me go forward peaceably. As for the clout I gave Master Peter, here is a groat to mend it. I have but a round dozen, or I would ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... who was keeper of the sun, undertook to deprive the people of it, because of some slight, Kana waded across the sea and forced that king to behave himself instanter; then, having seen the light properly placed in the sky, he spread his breech-clout over a few acres of volcano to dry, and took a nap on a mile or so of lava bed. This deity had the power of compressing himself into a small space, and likewise of pulling himself out to any desired length, like ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... pronounced light o' love; Toinon answers to the name of Olympia or Imperia; Thomasse-la-Maraude is called Mme. de Saint Alphonse. The caterpillar was real, the butterfly is false; that is the only change. Clout has ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and succeed, but that every bricklayer should survive and succeed. It sought to rebuild the ruins of any bricklayer, and to give any faded whitewasher a new white coat. It was the whole aim of the Guilds to cobble their cobblers like their shoes and clout their clothiers with their clothes; to strengthen the weakest link, or go after the hundredth sheep; in short to keep the row of little shops unbroken like a ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... ells. Tom's a good boy, Jacob, but not steady, as they say you are. His mother spoils him, and I can't bear to be cross to him neither; for his heart's in the right place, after all. There's the old woman shaking her dish-clout at us as a signal. I wish I had gone on shore myself, but I can't step into these paper-built little boats without my timber toes ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... tribute of sincere admiration. It may not be an undesigned coincidence that the inconsolable widower of the "Daphnaida" is named Alcyon, while Chaucer's poem begins with a reference to the myth of Ceyx and Alcyone. Sir Arthur Gorges re-appears in Alcyon in "Colin Clout's come home again."); but it is the first passage in Chaucer's writings revealing, one would have thought unmistakeably, the dramatic power which was among his most characteristic gifts. The charm of this poem, notwithstanding all the artificialities with which it is overlaid, lies in its simplicity ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... had passed, and I could again see clearly, the warrior was standing upon the Stone of Sacrifice—naked save for his breech-clout, and armed with a round shield and a maccahuitl of hardened gold. The monk still wore his flowing habit, whence the hood had fallen back, so that his head was bare; in one hand he held his crucifix, and with the other he was motioning away the ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... naturedly; for all were now gathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and miry, and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallen upon my head, which is of uncommon substance); nevertheless John Fry was laughing, so that I longed to clout his ears for him; "Not at all bad work, my boy; we may teach you to ride by-and-by, I see; I thought not to see you stick ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... reverenced as his rightful king, in a hut as big as, and no cleaner than, a pig-stye, haggard and worn with hardship and hunger. 'His shirt,' as Dougal Graham, the servant, was quick to observe, 'was as dingy as a dish-clout.' That last little detail of misery appealed strongly to the womanly heart of Lady Clanranald, who immediately sent six ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... have heard of the politique snout, Or a tale of a tub with the bottom out, But scarce of a Parliament in a dirty clout, ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... are put into the like o' sic trust, can do nae gude ava. They are feared for this, and they are scrupulous about that, and they arena free to tell a lie, though it may be for the benefit of the city; and they dinna like to be out at irregular hours, and in a dark cauld night, and they like a clout ower the crown far waur; and sae between the fear o' God, and the fear o' man, and the fear o' getting a sair throat, or sair banes, there's a dozen o' our city-folk, baith waiters, and officers, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... gentleman," said I, standing up and taking off MacMuir's coat, "and call me a lubberly clout like yourself, and we will see which is the better clout." I put off the longsleeved jacket, and faced him with my fists doubled, crying: "I'll teach you, you spawn of a dunghill, to speak ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the party, though he had very little notion where they were going. Reaching a boat, they were made to tumble in, some resisting and endeavouring to get away; but a gentle prick from the point of a cutlass, or a clout on the head, made them more reasonable, and most of them sat down resigned to their fate. One of them, however, a stout fellow, when the boat had got some distance from the shore, striking out right and left at the men nearest him, sprang overboard, ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... Tomi a prison, and the descendants of the earlier English settlers had degenerated as much as the Mix-Hellenes who disgusted the Latin poet. Spenser himself looked on his life in Ireland as a banishment. In his "Colm Clout's come Home again" he tells us that Sir Walter Raleigh, who visited him in 1589, and heard what was then finished of ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... stood by aimed a blow at it with a stick, yelling, "Death to the witch's brat!" but a big man, whom Emlyn recognized as one of old Sir John's tenants, caught the falling stick from his hand and dealt him such a clout with it that he fell like a stone, and went for the rest of his life with but one eye and the nose flattened on the side of his face. Thenceforward no one tried to harm the babe, who, as all know, because of what befell him on this day, went ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... church, and politics. His Daphnaida was also published about the same time. On his return to Ireland he gave a charming picture of life at Kilcolman Castle, with an account of his visit to the court, in Colin Clout's Come Home Again. The story of the long and desperate courtship of his second love, Elizabeth, whom he wedded in 1594, is told in the Amoretti, a sonnet sequence full of passion and tenderness. His rapturous wedding ode, the Epithalamion, ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... which turned and winded very crooked. In some places it would be pretty good Travelling, and but few Bushes and Thorns, and in others a great many. So that our Shoulders and Arms were all of a Gore, being grievously torn and scratched. For we had nothing on us but a clout about our Middles, and our Victuals on our Shoulders, and in our hands ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... He's lifted all: But, if you cop him, I'll give you half, although 'Twill scarcely leave enough to bury us With decency, when we have starved to death, Your mother and I. Run, lad: there's fifty-sovereign! And mind you clout and clapperclaw the cull: Spanghew his jacket, when you've riped his ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... thing that hath been much cried up, and coveted in all ages, especially in this last century of years, by people of all sorts, though never so mean and mechanical; every man strains his fortune to keep his children at school; the cobbler will clout it till midnight, the porter will carry burdens till his bones crack again, the ploughman will pinch both back and belly to give his son learning, and I find that this ambition reigns no where so much as in this island. But, under ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... go on! We've seen the like of you before! There's a lot like you tramping the high road! As to being a donkey, you wait till I've given you a clout on the ear and you'll howl worse than the wind. Donkey yourself! Fool! ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... who it was she had named the apple for, Wes. Rinehart, or 'Lonzo Curl, or whoever. And you'd be standing there by the stove, kind of grinning and not thinking of anything in particular when somebody would hit you a clout on your back that just about broke you in two, and would tell you "to pass it on," and you'd pass it on, and the next thing was you'd think the house was coming down. Such a chasing around and over benches, and ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... as ever were Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Not the most despised of the habits or the feeblest of the three-year-olds had been left behind to give a hint of their course; but the hoof-marks showed black on a marshy down-grade of grass, and with an angry clout of her crop on Pilot's unaccustomed ribs, she set off again. A narrow road cut across the hills at the end of the field. The latter was divided from it by a low, thin wall of sharp slaty stones, and on the further side there was a wide and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... said anything," said Betto, hunting for the frying-pan, and beginning to prepare the ham and eggs for supper. "But where's that Robin?" she added; "a clout or two with the frying-pan would not ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... accumulate until almost everything known as property in Indian life will be ventured. It sometimes takes several days to arrange these preliminaries. A pleasant afternoon is selected, and the contestants appear. They are usually very nearly naked, having on only moccasins, a breech-clout and a head-dress; the two latter articles, being susceptible of ornamentation, are usually adorned with eagle feathers, foxtails, or a string of sleigh-bells about the player's waist. The men are painted in the most grotesque ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... not be sendin' me to choppin' poles wid a head on me like a lobster-pot?" he whispered. "Sure, skipper, me poor head feels that desperate bad, what wid the liquor an' the clout ye give me, I couldn't heave it up from the pillow if Saint Peter himself ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... Romeo for Paris indicates the bias of the hierarchy in favour of Essex—"a lovely gentleman"—rather than of the ultra-Protestant policy of Burghley, who doubtless in the eyes of courtiers and churchmen was "a dish-clout to him." ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the dust before the door of a first-class carriage was a solemn brown man, in turban and clout, exhibiting performing parrots. It was Rajah's turn. He fired a cannon, turned somersaults through a little steel-hoop, opened a tiny chest, took out a four-anna piece, carried it to his master, and in exchange received some seed. Thereupon he waddled resentfully back to the iron-cage, ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... something of the placid serenity of the white-haired stranger. He regarded the man more closely, saw there was an alien look about him that marked him as different and apart from the men of Earth. His sole garment was a wide breech clout of silvery stuff that glinted with changing colors—hues foreign to nature on Earth. His was a superhuman perfection of muscular development, and there was an indescribable mingling of gentleness and sternness in his demeanor. ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... from the most skilled housewife in all the three Ridings. But, somehow, she managed to keep her tongue quiet from telling him, as she would have done any woman, and any other man, to mind his own business, or she would pin a dish-clout to his tail. She even checked Sylvia when the latter proposed, as much for fun as for anything else, that his ignorant directions should be followed, and the consequences brought before ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... story of Florimel and the Witch's son; the Gardens of Adonis, and the Bower of Bliss; the Mask of Cupid; and Colin Clout's vision, in the last book. But some people will say that all this may be very fine, but that they cannot understand it on account of the allegory. They are afraid of the allegory, as if they thought it would bite them: they look at it as a child looks at a painted dragon, and ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... knew The valor of the gen'ral and his troops; And seeing this affair must end in blood, I brought a clout, to wipe ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... will, went in. And there, for God's sake and by the grace of Mary Mother, let us leave him; for the truth of it is that his strength was all in his lungs, and himself a poor, weak, clout-faced, wizen-bellied, pin-shanked bloke anyway, who at Trinity Hall had spent the most of his time in reading Hume (that was Satan's lackey) and after taking his degree did a little in the way of Imperial Finance. ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... breezy fashion of his ancestors. Bill attends the war dance an' shines. Also, bein' praised by the medicine men an' older bucks for quittin' his paleface duds; an' findin' likewise the old-time blanket an' breech-clout healthful an' saloobrious—which Bill forgets their feel in his four years at that sem'nary—he adheres to 'em. This lapse into aboriginal ways brews trouble for Bill; he gets up ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... on entering the ward, to the bedside of his puzzling patient, who still lay limp as a dish-clout and drowsy as a sloth. He tested—as he had done almost daily—his nervous and respiratory powers with the exact instruments adapted for the purpose, and then, still unenlightened, he questioned him closely about his sensations. ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... or more dogs. He was losing speed, but likewise his pursuers were dropping off steadily. Only the sturdy Eskimo dog held to his even gait, and behind him in the frail travois leaned forward the little Matohinshda, nude save a breech clout, his left hand holding fast the convenient tail of his dog, the right grasping firmly one of the poles of the travois. His black eyes were bulging almost out of their sockets; his long hair flowed out behind like a ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the world. In a word, I am curious to know how steadily you can draw the cord and lay your bodies to the bow. Yonder are the butts, and here the staves and the draw line. It is but a poor one hundred paces to the nearest clout; and as that will be too beggarly a distance for you, my lords, you shall use the second. The first has been placed for the fair dames who are to shoot ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... their gaunt waists: the heroic youthful sinew of the old border folk. One among them, larger and handsomer than the others, had pleased his fancy by donning more nearly the Indian dress. His breech-clout was of dappled fawn-skin; his long thigh boots of thin deer-hide were open at the hips, leaving exposed the clear whiteness of his flesh; below the knees they were ornamented by a scarlet fringe tipped with the hoofs of fawns and the spurs of ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... which he resigned to settle in England, where he now resides. Early in his career he became an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, and published the attractive books entitled 'Science in Arcady,' 'Vignettes from Nature,' 'The Evolutionist at Large,' and 'Colin Clout's Calendar.' In his preface to 'Vignettes from Nature,' he says that the "essays are written from an easy-going, half-scientific half-aesthetic standpoint." In this spirit he rambles in the woods, in the meadows, at the seaside, or upon the heather-carpeted ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Below the breech-clout the iron limbs were encased in leggings and the small feet were covered with moccasins, now faded and worn by hard usage. The Panther paused, with his left foot in advance, his right hand grasping the hilt of his knife at his waist, ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... was devilish cold. His wretched body was beginning to cry out with discomfort. A loop of his hat was broken and the loose flap was a conduit for the rain down his back. His old ridingcoat was like a dish-clout, and he felt icy about the middle. Separate streams of water entered the tops of his ridingboots—they were a borrowed pair and too big for him—and his feet were in puddles. It was only by degrees that he realised this misery. Then in the boggy track his horse began to stumble. The fourth or ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... barefoot up and down, threatening the flames; A clout upon that head Where late the diadem stood; and, for a robe, A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up; Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd, 'Gainst fortune's state ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... characterized as "an attempt to navigate a sardine dish with Great Eastern machinery"; and it suggested also the Indian chief humorously mentioned by Irving as generously "decked out in cocked hat and military coat, in contrast with his breech clout and leathern leggins, being grand officer at top and ragged Indian at bottom." [Footnote: Bonneville, p. 34.] Whatever may be said by credulous and enthusiastic authors to decorate this Indian pueblo, its houses and its breech-cloth people, cannot conceal the "ragged Indian" therein by dressing ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... boots sticking out behind her. At one side of her was a pail full of steaming brown water, and in her red coarse little hands, which did not seem to belong to those gracile arms, she held a dripping clout. In front of her, on a half-dried space of clean, shining floor, stood Mrs. Lessways, her head wrapped in a flannel petticoat. Nearer to the child stretched a small semi-circle of liquid mud; to the rear was the untouched dirty floor. Florrie was looking up at her mistress with respectful, strained ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... (ecouvillon), "a wispe, or dish-clowt; a maukin, or drag, to cleanse, or sweepe an oven." Ecouvillon is a derivative of Lat. scopa, broom. Now another French word, which means both "kitchen servant" and "dish-clout," is souillon, from souiller, to soil. What share each of these words has in Eng. scullion is hard to say. The only thing certain is that scullion is not originally related to scullery, Old Fr. escuelerie, a collective from Old Fr. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... the breech-clout was nearly universal with men, and the cincture or short petticoat with women. Even in Mexico and Mayan sculptures the gods are arrayed in gorgeous breech-clouts. The foot-gear in the tropics was the sandal, and, passing northward, the moccasin, becoming the long ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... are in the palace, On a white and downy bed; And some are in the garret, With a clout beneath their head; And some are on the cold, hard earth, Whose ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... of clothes." He grinned again. "We'll want a breech clout, at least. I propose that we get the sheerest silk gauze we can find, and cut an eighth-inch square apiece to tie about our middles after ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... saf that thei worschipen an ox for here god. And also everyche of hem berethe an ox of gold or of sylver in his forhed, in tokene that thei loven wel here god. And thei gon alle naked, saf a litylle clout, that thei coveren with here knees and hire membres. Thei ben grete folk and wel fyghtynge; and thei han a gret targe, that coverethe alle the body, and a spere in here hond to fighte with. And zif thei taken ony man in bataylle, anon thei eten him. The kyng of that yle is fulle riche and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... seen here and there. Pools of standing water, where horses and cattle stood cooling themselves, were frequent. The people whom we met wore little clothing. Men frequently had nothing but the breech-clout and hat. Women wore a skirt, but no upper garment. Children up to ten and twelve years of age ran naked. Reaching San Mateo at twelve o'clock, we found the village excited at our non-appearance. Our carretero had arrived long before with our luggage. He had told the presidente ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... would see things as they were—or as, in his sullen disgust, they seemed to be—and call them all by their right names with a resentful emphasis. He achieved the naked sincerity of a Hottentot—nay, he even went beyond it in rejecting the feeble compromise of the breech-clout. Not only would he be naked and not ashamed, but everybody else should be so with a blush of conscious exposure, and human nature should be stripped of the hypocritical fig-leaves that betrayed by attempting to hide its identity with the brutes that perish. His sincerity was ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... "Ha i' the clout, good fellow, for Folly in fetters is Folly in need, and Folly in need is Folly indeed! But, leaving folly awhile, who art thou and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... a damn to gie the daashed scoon'rel a fair clout wi' it," he said. "The daashed thing micht ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... My friendly laugh; the innocent conceits That like a needless eyeglass or black patch Give those who wear them harmless happiness; The twists and cracks in our poor earthenware, That touch me to more conscious fellowship (I am not myself the finest Parian) With my coevals. So poor Colin Clout, To whom raw onions give prospective zest, Consoling hours of dampest wintry work, Could hardly fancy any regal joys Quite unimpregnate with the onion's scent: Perhaps his highest hopes are not all clear Of waftings from that energetic bulb: 'Tis well that onion is not ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... somewhat flat and broad, created a favourable impression at first; upon closer scrutiny, however, the eyes modified that impression. They were small, and their look piercing rather than bright. His costume was limited to a tattered breech-clout of buckskin. A collar of small white shells encircled the neck, and from this necklace dangled a triangular piece of alabaster, flat, and with a carving on it suggesting the shape of a dragon-fly. His hair streamed loose over the left ear, where there was fastened to the black coarse strands ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the great Thames valley, and furnished forth abundant food for man as well as the wild beasts, when they could capture him. His skin, though, was not counted of much worth. Its short hair afforded little warmth in cloak or breech-clout, and the tanned pelt became hard and uncomfortable when it dried after a wetting. Still, there were various uses for this horse's hide. It made fine strings and thongs, and the beast's flesh, as has been said, was a staple of ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... you that he had times of peace, when the agony forsook him, and left him limp like a wet clout. Then he would sweat and quake with terror of the pains that would return; and so pitiful was his condition that he could not even listen with a proper patience to the reading of Scripture or the singing of David's psalms. You will see from ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... out the close, and some o' the dirty jaups splashed about his shins. But was I to blame for that?—ye maun walk wide o' a whalebone besom if ye dinna want to be splashed. Afore I kenned where I was, he up wi' a dirty washing-clout and slashed me in the face wi't! I hit him a thud in the ear—as wha wadna? Out come his mither like a fury, skirling about her hoose, and her servants, and her weans. 'Your servant!' says I—'your servant! You're a nice-looking trollop to ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... of heroic proportions; he was clad in but a breech-clout, and was so broad as to appear squat in stature. He carried a short club, and appeared almost as dumbfounded as the two Americans. A moment he regarded them, then, with a ferocious snarl of rage, he hurled himself upon the startled Ward and half clubbed, half pushed ...
— The Heads of Apex • Francis Flagg
... arose a sound that was neither wind nor running water—confused, increasing, nearing! Then a shriek broke within the fort palisades,—"The enemy! the Iroquois!" and the courtyard was in an uproar indescribable. Painted redskins, naked but for the breech clout, were dashing across the cornfields to scale the palisades or force the hastily slammed gates. Father Daniel rushed from church to wigwams rallying the Huron warriors, while the women and children, the aged and the feeble, ran a terrified rabble to the shelter of the chapel. Before the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... jolly dame, as plump as a partridge. She has a well-furnished house, a brisk trade, and a good deal of the ready. I may have her for the asking. She told a friend of mine, a brother footman, that she would take me out of a stinking clout. But I refused to give my final answer, till I knew your opinion of the matter." I congratulated Monsieur d'Estrapes upon his conquest, and approved of the scheme, provided he could be assured of those ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... by the way Weeping for sorrow, I saw a simple man me by, Upon the plow hanging. His coat was of a clout That cary[8] was called; His hood was full of holes, And his hair out; With his knopped[9] shoon Clouted full thick; His toes totedun[10] out As he the land treaded; His hosen overhung his hockshins On every side, All beslomered in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... probable that it may have occurred as narrated. When Gipsies were hung and transported merely for being Gipsies, it is not unlikely that a persecution to death may have originated in even such a trifle as the alleged theft of a dish-clout. ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... presently left alone. Now he looks aside, and sees something bright-hued lying under a big stone where the last rays of the sun just caught some corner of it. So he goes thither, deeming that mayhappen one of the company had dropped something, pouch or clout, or what not, in his haste and hurry. He got off his horse to pick it up, and when he had laid hand on it found it to be a hands-breadth of fine green cloth embroidered with flowers. He held it in his hand a while wondering where he could have seen such like stuff before, that it should ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... boat shoves off from the ship, the Kroomen, entirely naked with exception of breech-clout, strike up a song, and pulling grandly to its rhythmic time, soon reach the edge of the surf, and lie on their oars. All eyes are now cast seaward, looking for a big roller, on the top of which we shall be carried on shore, and there is a general feeling ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... said Merlin, 'See ye nought That young man, that hath shoon bought, And strong leather to do hem clout [patch], And grease to smear hem all about? He weeneth to live hem to wear: But, by my soul, I dare well swear, His wretched life he shall for-let [lose], Ere he come to his own gate.'" ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders, and commentators. Every thing unintelligible was prophetical, and every thing insignificant was typical. A blunder would have served for a prophecy; and a dish-clout for a type. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... doors, and give me room to chafe in Mine own room, and my liberty: why Maid there, Open I say, and do not anger me, I am subject to much fury: when, ye Dish-clout? When do ye come? asleep ye lazie Hell-hound? Nothing intended, but your ease, and eating? No body here? why Wife, why Wife? why Jewel? No tongue to answer me? pre'thee, good Pupil, Dispense a little with thy careful study, And step ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... fourth day they checked their speed, and a lithe young Indian whom Henry heard called Thraintonto, which means in Wyandot The Fox, stripped himself of his breech clout, gave his long and defiant scalp lock a somewhat fiercer curl, and darted ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pin, and lies crying in the mother's lap, but cannot show its mother where the pin is; but there is pity enough in the mother to supply this defect of the child; wherefore she undresses it, opens it, searches every clout from head to the foot of the child, and so finds where the pin is. Thus will thy lawyer do; he will search and find out thy difficulties, and where Satan seeketh an advantage of thee, accordingly will provide ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hesitation then on Hawkeye's part. Toddles, equipped for another excursion through the train with a stack of magazines and books that almost hid him, received a sudden and vicious clout on ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... soles, which greatly increased their durability, and were often ornamented over the instep or toes with a three-pronged figure, worked in porcupine quills or beads, the three prongs representing, it is said, the three divisions or tribes of the nation. The men wore a shirt, breech-clout, leggings which reached to the thighs, and moccasins. In winter both men and women wore a robe of tanned buffalo skin, and sometimes of beaver. In summer a lighter robe was worn, made of cowskin or buckskin, from which the hair had been removed. Both sexes ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... Spenser's eclogue, Colin Clout's Come Home Again, is Lady Carey, wife of Sir George Carey (afterwards Lord Hunsdon, 1596). Lady Carey was Elizabeth, the second of the six daughters of Sir John Spenser, of Althorpe, ancestor of the noble ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... goodness! My heart turns to water at the nude recollection of such an unparalleled predicament, for the now unrestrained bicycle vires acquirit eundo, and in seven-league boots! While I, wet as a clout with anxiety and perspiration, did grasp the handles like the horns of a dilemma, calling out in agonised accents to the bystanders,—"Help! I am running away with myself! Half a rupee for ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... Indians, whose chief dress was a breach clout and deerskin leggings, formidable in their war-paint and war plumes, with scalping-knives and tomahawks, were only partially held in hand by Chief Brant, conspicuous by his height, his wampum fillet and eagle plumes, and his King George's medal ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... long hair braided behind, and banged and plastered with clay in front so that it stood upright, and he dressed in blanket, breech clout, leggings and moccasins, and the lower joints of several of his fingers were cut off in accordance with the Indian custom of mutilating themselves at the burial of a friend. His first appearance to a new teacher ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... dungeon. He felt among the inner folds of his ragged blanket, withdrew a small object and thrust it into his mouth. A second later the blanket was snatched from his body leaving him clad only in a breech clout, and he was given a push into the lane as a hint that his time for ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... starch, they were liable. 'If AEolus with his blasts, or Neptune with his storms, chance to hit upon the crazy barque of their bruised ruffs, then they goeth flip-flap in the wind, like rags that flew abroad, lying upon their shoulders like the dish-clout of a slut.' Having thus, with great exultation, described these reproofs to human pride, he mentions how 'the devil, as he, in the fulness of his malice, first invented these great ruffs, so hath he now found out also two great pillars to bear up and maintain this ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... meanly, like ants; tho the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... been furnished a regular cavalry uniform and on this parade some of them had their heavy overcoats on, others their large black hats, with all the brass accoutrements attached; some of them were minus pantaloons and only wore a breech-clout. Others wore regulation pantaloons but no shirts, and were bareheaded; others again had the seat of their pantaloons cut out, leaving only leggings; some of them wore brass spurs, though without ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... next was freed and at once set to work to perform a similar task for Captain Folsom, who meantime had regained his senses and apparently was injured no more severely than Jack, having like him received a clout on the side of the head. Tom explained the situation while untying him. Fortunately, the bonds in all cases had ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... of forests, became the pilot of our voyage up Lake Moosetocmaguntic. We shoved off in a bateau, while Joseph Bourgogne, sad at losing us, stood among the stumps, waving adieux with a dish-clout. We had solaced his soul with meed of praise. And now, alas! we left him to the rude jokes and half-sympathies of the lumbermen. The artist-cook saw his appreciators vanish away, and his proud dish-clout drooped like a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... interrupted, and a crowded audience of at least twenty-five pounds kept waiting, because the actors had hid away the breeches of Rosalind, and have known Hamlet stalk solemnly on to deliver his soliloquy, with a dish-clout pinned to his skirts. Such are the baleful consequences of a manager's getting a character for ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... and so solved the mystery. Her first thought was to snatch the kettle out of the blaze, but remembering who had put it there, she dared not. She sidled toward the hearth instead, and saying craftily, "Ay, here it is; it's a clout among the peats," softly laid the kettle on the earthen floor. It was still red with sparks, however, when the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... chapter xii 21 BIOGRAPHICAL > Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... kindness. I've been drying them for you, and now you complain about the holes—and you swear, too! Right in front of me! If I hadn't been a Christian—which you ain't, you young ruffian—I would give you a clout on the head.... Go away!" Men in couples or threes stood pensive or moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of a homeward passage was sinking into the dull peace of resumed routine. Aft, on the high poop, Mr. Baker ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... of the thousand and one agreeable diversions with which the life of a modern girl is diversified. On the other hand, the ladies of the house had their needlework to attend to, they had to "stitch in a clout," as it was called; they had to attend to the duties of a housekeeper, and, when the sun shone, they tended the garden. Perhaps they rode or drove, in a stately fashion. But through long hours they sat over their embroidery frames ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... China may be uncivilised and may yearn for the missionaries, but there was refined etiquette in China, and an interchange of many of the pleasantest courtesies of modern civilisation, when we noble Britons were grubbing in the forest, painted savages with a clout. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... its manufactured state, a piece of silver in both states, a piece of copper in both states, a piece of brass in both states, a piece of iron in both states, a piece of steel in both states, a piece of tinfoil, a piece of solder, a screw, a clasp nail, a clout nail, a hob nail, a spike nail, a sparable, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... young heifer, how dar you say such a thing to me? [Teresa retorts furiously: the men interfere: and the solo becomes a quartet, fortissimo.] I've a good mind to clout your ears for you to teach you manners. Be ashamed of yourself, do; and learn to know who you're speaking to. That I maytn't sin! but I don't know what the good God was thinking about when he made the like of you. Let me not see you casting sheep's eyes at my son again. There never was ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... appeared to have any article of dress, and that was a ragged breech-clout. The others were naked as the wild beasts around them, naked from ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... me. A man who knows the Swiss intimately, and who has written a book upon 'The Drink Traffic: The Example of Switzerland', tells me they certainly were not laughing at me; at any rate, I thought they were, and moved by a sudden anger I let go the reins, gave the horse a great clout, and set him off careering and galloping like a whirlwind down the road from which he had come, with the bit in his teeth and all the storms of heaven in his four feet. Instantly, as you may imagine, all the scoffers came tumbling ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... treachery and in spite of the warnings of Antoine, offering no obstruction to their approach, has allowed them to enter the camp. What madness! They have divested themselves of their buffalo-robes, and appear naked to the breech-clout and armed with bows and arrows, tomahawks, and scalping knives. Six or seven only come in at first, but others quickly follow, dropping in by twos and threes until a score or more are collected around ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Jaipur Residency. But was there really such a thing as choice? The fact was, he had simply obeyed an irresistible impulse,—and to-morrow he would be glad of it. To-night, after that interminable journey, his head ached atrociously. He felt limp as a wet dish-clout; his nerves all out of gear ... Perhaps those confounded doctors were not such fools as they seemed. He cursed himself for a spineless ineffectual—messing about with nerves when he had been lucky enough ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... sirrah, Of fear and too much eloquence! Rail on her husband, his misusing her, And make that serve thee as an argument, That she may sooner yield to do him wrong. Were it my case, my love and I to plead, I have't at fingers' ends: who could miss the clout, Having so fair a white, such steady aim. This is the upshot: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... finest productions of his brain owe their birth to the "savage soyle" of Ireland; his descriptions of the country, his dialogue on Irish affairs, his "Amoretti" and "Colin Clout's come home again," belong confessedly to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... 'August 2, 1841.—Clout nailmaking goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop and anything relating to smithery. My ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... the blanket, for I dassn't peep out, I sings out to the Injun an' asks him what in creation he's kickin' me for; an' if he couldn't wake me without killin' me. Old-pot-head's son yells back that he hasn't touched me. Then you bet I was scared; for the thing hauls off agen an' gives me a clout that knocks the wind plum' ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... but his face was pale. He could cheat with his words, but I saw his face bleacht like a linen clout behind his laugh, and I swear at that time he loved me, though he loved advancement better. "You are bright and early, young woman! Are you for the garden, to get you a stomach for breakfast? Well, so-so! and pray for poor Presto as you go; for in honour and conscience, ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... had stopped his descent ten or fifteen feet below. As soon as the splicing was secure, the first man drew something from the belt of his breech-clout and ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet |
