"Dirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bright silk dress, and a velvet bonnet with a long rich feather across it. There were two children with her, a girl of Meg's age, and a boy about as big as Robin, dressed like a little Highlander, with a kilt of many colours, and a silver-mounted pouch, and a dirk, which he was brandishing about before his mother, who looked on, laughing fondly and proudly at her boy. Meg gazed, too, until she heard Robin sob, and turning quickly to him, she saw the tears rolling quickly down his sorrowful ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... coroner's jury, who were called to examine the body, found on it thirteen deep stabs, made as if by a sharp dirk or poniard, and the appearance of a heavy blow on the left temple, which had fractured the skull, but not broken the skin. The body was cold, and appeared to have ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... has measured our wit for his portrait, Even he has grown shyer of using his tongue than he once was. Have you not heard the tale? Tintoretto was told Aretino Meant to make him the subject of one of his merry effusions; And with his naked dirk he went carefully over his person, Promising, if the poet made free with him in his verses, He would immortalize my satirical friend with that pencil. Doubtless the tale is not true. Aretino says nothing about it; Always speaks, in fact, with the highest respect of Robusti. True or not, 'tis ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... was, Mister—very nigh," replied Svorenssen. "There was only three of us—besides you and Billy—that escaped; and that was me, Dirk here, and a chap named Flemin'—Pete, we used to call 'im. When the ship struck we was all washed overboard by the first sea as broke aboard; and nat'rally those of us as could swim struck out as soon as our heads ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... sinister analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically remind us that thousands of these swarthy criminals have found refuge in the dark alleys of our cities. Even in America the Sicilian carries a dirk, and the "death sign" in a court room has silenced many a witness. The north Italians readily identify themselves with American life. Among them are found bakers, barbers, and marble cutters, as well ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... after supper was over, "you're getting a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the rest of us. You're old enough to strap a dirk ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... man and woman, who walk side by side without word or look passing between them. The man is tall and handsome, armed in the close-knit ring-mail shirt of the Dane, with gemmed sword hilt and golden mountings to scabbard and dirk, and his steel helm and iron-gray hair seem the same colour in the shadowless light of the dull sky overhead. One would set his ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... schule that standis dirk Halds the light from your Parroche Kirk, Your forestairs makis your houses mirk Like na country but here at hame Think ye not shame, Sa little policie to work In hurt and ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... True, the boy's dirk still flashed in the other's hand; but the lad had his jack-knife; and his eyes dwelt on the place where he could plant it home and home in that black back—there by the seam, where it was a ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... said Jehu, looking very uncomfortable, as he saw Peter flourishing a short dirk, and the doctor holding him back and remonstrating with him. "That man of Satan I never saw before yesterday, when I entered his house, where there was fiddling and dancing, and serving the devil. Truly my head became dizzy ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... said the middy, presenting his cocked hat to the captain, "I did draw my dirk to kill him, but you ran away so fast ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... paltry collection of wine-shops, here dignified with the name of village, we saw a number of Greeks waiting the return of Otho: each wore a gaily coloured kerchief on the head; an embroidered jacket; a shawl encircling the waist; red greaves; a dirk; and a long gun, ornamented with gold, slung over the shoulder. Their wild fearless demeanour struck me as more characteristic of the freebooter, than the soldier of a regular government. Yet seldom have I seen more elegant graceful figures than were possessed by ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... insulted. Away with the braggart!" the Laconians were clamouring. The Athenians answered in kind. Already a dark sailor was drawing a dirk. Everything promised broken heads, and perhaps blood, when Leonidas and his friend,—by laying about them with their staves,—won their way to the front. The king dashed his staff upon the shoulder of a strapping Laconian who was just hurling ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... uniform; then she darted into the drawing-room, on hearing Uncle Roger's voice, and conjured him not to forget to give a little note to Alex, containing these words, "Willy must wear his cap without a peak. Bring Roger's dirk, and above all, beg, borrow, or steal, Uncle Roger's fishing boots." Her next descent was upon Aunt Mary, in her own room: "Aunt, would you do me a great favour, and ask no questions, nor tell Henrietta? Do just lend ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went off to Holland, and there he encountered Dirk Hammerhand, from whom to take a buffet was never to need another, and bought from him his famous mare Swallow, the price agreed on being the half of what Hereward had offered and a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to Dunn, took the handcuffs from him and attempted to put them on Manuel's wrists. The poor fellow struggled and begged for more than ten minutes, and was wellnigh overpowering them, when Dusenberry drew a long dirk-knife from his bosom, and holding it in a threatening attitude at his breast, uttered one of those fierce yells such as are common to slave-hunters, whose business it is to hunt and run down runaway niggers with bloodhounds. "Submit, you black villain, or I'll have your ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... suit to meet them. The eagle's feather in his Glengary gave to his great stature the last grace. The tartan and philibeg, the garters at his knee, the silver buckles at his shoulder, belt, and shoon, the jewelled mull and dirk, had all to these poor fellows in this last hour a proud and sad significance. As he stood on the steps to welcome them, the wind colored his handsome face and blew out the long black hair which fell ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... swords: list] sword, saber, broadsword, cutlass, falchion^, scimitar, cimeter^, brand, whinyard, bilbo, glaive^, glave^, rapier, skean, Toledo, Ferrara, tuck, claymore, adaga^, baselard^, Lochaber ax, skean dhu^, creese^, kris, dagger, dirk, banger^, poniard, stiletto, stylet^, dudgeon, bayonet; sword-bayonet, sword-stick; side arms, foil, blade, steel; ax, bill; pole-ax, battle-ax; gisarme^, halberd, partisan, tomahawk, bowie knife^; ataghan^, attaghan^, yataghan^; yatacban^; assagai, assegai^; good ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... into the boat, while the rest of the crew, by this time spoiling for a fight, seized their stretchers, jumped ashore, and began laying on right and left. Farragut, so far from restraining, went with them, waving his dirk and cheering them on. The victorious seamen fought their way up to Market Square, where the police interfered, arresting all parties, and the little officer was formally bound over ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... he had not taken it. He would have no more scruple in assassinating his opponent than in brushing a fly off the table. Instead of gathering an army and fighting him through the Highlands and Lowlands, just one stroke of a dirk or a pistol bullet and William is secure on his throne. "Jock may be right for once," said Claverhouse to himself, "and, by heaven! if I am to fall, I had rather be shot in front than behind." He wrote an order to the commander of the cavalry, and in fifteen minutes the two troopers were standing ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... hand over to Belgium wings now at Berlin belonging to the altar piece of the 'Adoration of the Lamb,' by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, the center of which is now in the church of St. Bavo at Ghent, and the wings now at Berlin and Munich, of the altar piece of 'Last Supper,' by Dirk Bouts, the center of which belongs to the church of St. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... of the contest was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. 'Mong Dieu,' cried ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... an' a dirk, An' a beard like besom bristles, He was an elder o' the kirk And he hated kists o' whistles! Hech mon! The pawky duke! An' doon on kists o' whistles! They're a' reid-heidit fowk up North Wi' ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... Donald's outfit on this occasion, differ from that adopted on ordinary occasions. On the present, he equipped himself in the full costume of his country—kilt, plaid, bonnet and feather, sword, dirk, and pistols; and thus arrayed, his appearance was altogether very striking, as he was both a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... the American ships. They are divided into three (I think) probationary classes of "volunteers," instead of being at once advanced to a warrant. Nor will you fail to remark, when you see an English cutter officered by one of those volunteers, that the boy does not so strut and slap his dirk-hilt with a Bobadil air, and anticipatingly feel of the place where his warlike whiskers are going to be, and sputter out oaths so at the men, as is too often the case with the little boys wearing best-bower anchors on their lapels in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... was a peon. From somewhere on his person, he produced a dirk and slashed vigorously. Okada evaded the blow, and ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... and approached him, paper in hand. I think for a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say, there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... about turning back when two other men suddenly appeared through a door at the left, and the three surrounded him, one leveling a revolver at his head, another at his breast, and the third pointing a dirk at his side, all indulging in an indiscriminate volley of oaths and threats. Said his grey-haired guide (who afterwards proved to be John P. Chester, Elsie's master, the same who had enacted to me the role of the sympathetic physician), "If you stir or speak ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... a lilac bush. Robin learned that if you laid a leaf flat on the seat of a bench you could prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's greenness. Donal had—in his rolled down stocking—a little dirk. He did the decoration with the point of this while Robin looked ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to the theatre. Bill had given Rodney a dirk, which he carried in his bosom. They went up into the third tier of boxes, which was filled with the most wicked and debased men and women. While the rest were laughing, and talking, and cursing, Rodney sat down on the front seat to see the play; but they ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... Headlong fall'n break through, and lie With their prey in piteous wise, And no film on their dead eyes. Matted branches grind and crash, Into darkness dives the flash, Stabs, a dread gold dirk of fire, Loads the lift with splinters dire. Then a pause i' the deadly feud— ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... trimmed with rich ermine, and clasped close about the throat with checks of gold. His silken hose, and velvet shoes faced with silver thread, set off his fine limbs to perfection. A light, graceful dirk hung at his silver girdle, finishing a costume of great simplicity and beauty. On his right arm there now leans the peerless figure of a countess, with whom he promenades and chats in his gay and spirited ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... stick of green birch in his hands, and something wet and warm trickling from his forehead into his left eye. Three men were at him. Bill McKay was one of them and Pierre Benoist another. McKay fought with a clubbed musket, and the French sailor held a dirk in one hand and an empty pistol in the other. The third prodded about in the background with a cutlass. He seemed to be of a ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... was complete. It was only when he saw the finished costume, with the vivid hues of the tartan seemingly modified into comparative sobriety by the multitude of silver fittings, the cairngorm brooches, the philibeg, dirk and sporran that he was fully and absolutely satisfied with his choice. At first he had thought of the Royal Stuart dress tartan, but abandoned it on the MacCallum pointing out that if he should happen to be in the neighbourhood of ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... distractedly. He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the ...
— Options • O. Henry
... resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone's throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be shouting with ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... "Beautiful, beautiful! they are all beautiful together! There is Bana beautiful! his box is beautiful! and his medicine beautiful!"—and, saying this, led us in to see his women, who at my request were grouped in war apparel—viz., a dirk fastened to the waist by many strings of coloured beads. There were from fifty to sixty women present, all very lady-like, but none of them pretty. Kaggao then informed me the king had told all his ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... young man, of low stature, the ample folds of whose plaid added to the appearance of strength which his person exhibited. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs; the goatskin purse, flanked by the usual defences, a dirk and steel-wrought pistol, hung before him; his bonnet had a short feather, which indicated his claim to be treated as a duinhe-wassel, or sort of gentleman; a broadsword dangled by his side, a target hung upon his shoulder, and a long Spanish fowling-piece ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... recognize and to honor talent, made the dreaming story-teller a surveyor in the custom-house, thus opening to him a new range of experience. From the society of phantoms he stepped upon Long Wharf and plumply confronted Captain Cuttle and Dirk Hatteraick. It was no less romance to our author. There is no greater error of those who are called "practical men" than the supposition that life is, or can be, other than a dream to a dreamer. Shut him up in a counting-room, barricade him with bales of merchandise, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Levin Dennis sat, stupefied by the scene. A brick in the pier was loose, and Milburn stepped towards it. In this small interval the hardy stranger had recovered himself and staggered to his feet, and had drawn a dirk-knife. ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... had visited his home. He was surrounded by the comforts which wealth can give. He was preparing, as he had long hoped to do, for sea, with the expectation of being placed as a midshipman on the quarter-deck. His uniform with brass buttons, his dirk and gold-laced hat, lay on a table before him, with a bright quadrant and spy-glass; and there was his sea-chest ready to be filled with his new wardrobe, and all sorts of little comforts which a fond ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... were dark, they had regular features and brilliant eyes, and finely formed hands. There is spirit, also, in this class, for one of them has since been pointed out to me in the streets, as having drawn a dirk upon a young officer who presumed upon ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in his boots, saw him to-day looking in ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... the Baby Racer just as an engineer understands his locomotive. Daylight or dirk, once aloft the young aviator did not doubt his own powers. The moment the Racer left the ground, however, with a switch of her flapping tail, Dave knew that he was to ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... were two schools of Dortrecht. Jacob Geritee Cuyp (1575); Albert Cuyp (1605), Ferdinand Bol (1611), Nicolas Maas (1632), and Schalken (1643) belonged to the former; Arend de Gelder, Arnold Houbraken, Dirk Stoop, and Ary Scheffer are of the latter. Sunshine and glow were the characteristics of the first school, grayness and sobriety of the second. But there are few good pictures at Dort now, and some of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... small, compact wedge of men wearing those same red buttons; and the prow of the wedge was Fighting Dave Dancy, the official bad man of a bad county, a man who packed a gun on each hip and carried a dirk knife down the back of his neck; a man who would shoot you at the drop of a hat and provide the hat himself—or at least so it ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... Dirk, the Hottentot, had brought his flock home already, and stood at the kraal door with his ragged yellow trousers. The fat old Boer put his stick across the door, and let Jannita's goats jump over, one by one. He counted them. When the last jumped over: "Have you ...
— Dream Life and Real Life • Olive Schreiner
... she knew Agricola's power, and to seem to consent was her one chance with him. He might thus be beguiled into withdrawing his own consent. That failing, she had Mademoiselle's promise to come to the rescue, which she could use at the last moment; and that failing, there was a dirk in her bosom, for which a certain hard breast was not too hard. Another element of safety, of which she knew nothing, was a letter from the Cannes Brulee. The word had reached there that love had conquered—that, despite all hard words, and rancor, and positive injury, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... waited for him to pass, but I think his instinct must have told him I had paused, for he began to turn over the shells with his ugly nose, as if searching for something. My single weapon was a small dirk, as ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... come near me at first. Because I was an American they thought I carried a revolver and a dirk-knife, and was dangerous. That is their idea of American boys. When they found I was tame, and carried no deadly weapons, they ventured to speak with me, and after that we ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and two gentlemen, who, as I afterwards learned, were officers belonging to a Spanish vessel then in port, fell into a dispute and got into a fight, during which one of them stabbed the other with a dirk-knife, ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... idle and as Halloway straightened and wheeled, he met the cyclonic lunge of a snarling adversary with a lifted and wickedly gleaming dirk. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... a baby there, too, because I 'm so little and so young. But I 'll grow. And—I love you," he went on abruptly and determinedly, choking down his sobs and swallowing his tears, while fingering the handle of his dirk, and furtively rubbing his eyes with his other hand. "Oh, madam, if you would only wait until I got a frigate! Won't you? But no! You don't treat me like a man," he exclaimed bitterly, stamping his ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... it be a girl she shall wear a wedding-ring, And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king, With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue, He ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... truth and trust Hid crafty Observation; And secret hung, with poison'd crust, The dirk of Defamation: A mask that like the gorget show'd, Dye-varying on the pigeon; And for a mantle large and broad, He wrapt him in religion. ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... incorporated city of Holland and Zeeland that ever existed was Middelburg, which received its charter from Count William I. of Holland and Countess Joan of Flanders; in the year 1217. The first Count that had any legal recognized authority was Dirk the First to whom Charles the Simple presented the territory of Holland, by letters-patent, in 922. Yet the States-General, in a solemn and eloquent document, gravely dated their own existence from the year 787, and claimed the regular possession and habitual delegation ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... kill her if she said a single word," said Gerty, undauntedly. "I showed her Pa De Marsan's old dirk-knife and told her I'd stick it into her if she didn't hush. She was just such a 'fraid-cat she believed me. She might have known I didn't mean nothin'. Now she can have 'em and be a lady. She was always tallkin' about bein' a lady, and that put it ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to the witnesses who came forward to swear to the unruliness of the Strathlachlan men, and the jury talked heedlessly with one another in a fashion scandalous to see. The man who had been stabbed—it was but a jag at the shoulder, where the dirk had gone through from front to back with only some lose of blood—was averse from being hard on the panels. He was a jocular fellow with the right heart for a duello, and in his nipped burgh Gaelic he made light of ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... was exhibiting to a number of gentlemen, who happened to be collected together in a druggist's store, some weapons which he claimed to have taken from Captain Pate in Kansas. Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight inches long, and he remarked that if he had a lot of those things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a capital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas.... When he came to make the contract, he wrote it to have malleable ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... aye be carrying that?" said I; for he looked so wild and lawless that it was not in me to be believing that he trusted to aught save his dirk. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... our old Scottish proverb?—'Better kind fremit, than fremit kindred.' ['Better kind strangers than estranged kindred.' The motto is engraved on a dirk, belonging to a person who had but too much reason to choose such a device. It was left by him to my father. The weapon is now in my possession. S.] I will find out that man, which, methinks, should be no difficult task, since he is so wealthy as mine ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... revels in my bosom; and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. My best compliments ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... laid one hand upon his dirk, and strutted up to Ram, looking "as big as a small ossifer," as Dirty Dick said afterwards; and gave him a smart slap on the shoulder as he was going ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... myself—why they did not frighten me, but they did not. Suddenly I seemed to know that they were brave men and had been doing some brave, hard thing. Here and there among them I caught sight of a broken and stained sword, or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all pale, but their wild faces were joyous and triumphant. I saw ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... she had just heard at the door, Cecily did not the less tranquilly continue her undressing; she drew from her corsage, where it was placed like a busk, a dirk, five or six inches long, in a case of black shagreen, with a handle of black ebony fastened with silver, a very simple handle, but perfectly handy, not a weapon ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... happened that in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day. The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... unknown to the garments of the low country, and, while perfectly decent, yet look ancient exceedingly. On Sundays, however, he made the best of himself, and came out like a belated and aged butterfly—with his father's sporran, or tasselled goatskin purse, in front of him, his grandfather's dirk at his side, his great grandfather's skene dhu, or little black hafted knife, stuck in the stocking of his right leg, and a huge round brooch of brass—nearly half a foot in diameter, and, Mr Graham ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... at the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the extreme north we find the Gulf of Carpentaria, and to the extreme south the island which used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not altogether to be wondered at that almost to the middle of this century ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... fearing in advance some unfortunate adventure for Bonne—the more so as the constable was as ready to brandish his broadsword as a priest to bestow benedictions—the said queen, as sharp as a dirk, said one day, while coming out from vespers, to her cousin, who was taking the holy water ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... his glee repressed: "Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest! For who, through all this western wild, Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled! 220 In Holy-Rood a knight he slew; I saw, when back the dirk he drew, Courtiers give place before the stride Of the undaunted homicide; And since, though outlawed, hath his hand 225 Full sternly kept his mountain land. Who else dared give—ah! woe the day, That I such hated truth should say— The Douglas, like a stricken ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... for Fort Good Hope, with the avowed intention of plundering the establishment, and carrying off all the women they could find. On arriving at the post they rushed in, their naked bodies blackened and painted after the manner of warriors bent on shedding blood; each carrying a gun and dirk in his hands. ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... which was partially displayed a handsome vest and ruffled shirt. About his waist passed a broad wampum belt, in which were confined a brace of silver mounted pistols, another pair of less finish and value, a silver handled dirk, a scalping knife and tomahawk, on whose blades could be seen traces of blood. Around his neck was a neatly tied cravat, and dangling in front of his vest a gold chain, which connected with a watch hid in a pocket of his breeches, whence depended a larger chain of steel, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... when the old cock is out of sorts, you know, we never come down," added a young gentleman of nine years, with a dirk nearly as long as himself, who had been introduced to me as Mr. Briggs. "By the way, Pills," he continued, "how did you come to omit giving the captain a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... female existence, when the heart within a damsel's bosom, like its emblem, the miniature which hangs without, is apt to be engrossed by a single image, a new visitor began to make his appearance under the roof of Wolfert Webber. This was Dirk Waldron, the only son of a poor widow, but who could boast of more fathers than any lad in the province; for his mother had had four husbands, and this only child, so that though born in her last wedlock, he might fairly claim to be the tardy fruit of a long course of cultivation. This son of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of securing that peace was really Kutuzov's; this Chichagov was the first to meet Kutuzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed Kutuzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was expressed in the highest degree by the behavior ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... high altar, the kaishaku crouching on his left hand side. One of the three attendant officers then came forward, bearing a stand of the kind used in the temple for offerings, on which, wrapped in paper, lay the wakizashi, the short sword or dirk of the Japanese, nine inches and a half in length, with a point and an edge as sharp as a razor's. This he handed, prostrating himself, to the condemned man, who received it reverently, raising it to his head with both hands, and placed ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... as at grasshoppers trusting in the strength of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... a corner in the small hours of the morning, I came suddenly upon a gang of drunken roughs ripe for mischief. The leader had a long dirk-knife with which he playfully jabbed me in the ribs, insolently demanding what I thought of it. I seized him by the wrist with as calm a pretence of considering the knife as I could summon up, but really to prevent his cutting me. I felt the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... vases, and silver pitchers thickly encrusted with precious stones; horse trappings and velvet hangings worked stiff with pearls, gold and silver thread, bits of coral, and jewels; three emeralds as large as small hen's eggs, forming the handle of a dirk; and in a large glass case magnificent ornaments for the turban. There must have been thousands of diamonds in these head-pieces, besides some of the largest pearls I have ever seen; a ruby three-quarters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... still carried his great cleaver and Blodgett unobtrusively had drawn and opened a big dirk knife; but Neddie Benson, Davie, and I had no weapons of any kind, and Roger's pistol ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... mother a Genevese; studied and practised medicine, came to Paris as horse-leech to Count d'Artois; became infected with the revolutionary fever, and had one fixed idea: "Give me," he said, "two hundred Naples bravoes, armed each with a good dirk, and a muff on his left arm by way of shield, and with them I will traverse France and accomplish the Revolution," that is, by wholesale massacre of the aristocrats; he had more than once to flee for his life, and one time found shelter in the sewers of Paris, contracting thereby a loathsome skin ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... for when the interpreter commenced his office, the language which he made use of being pedantic and affected, Soto interrupted him thus, while a scowl sat upon his brow that terrified the man of words: "I don't understand you, man; speak Spanish like others, and I'll listen to you." When the dirk that belonged to Mr. Robertson, the trunk and clothes taken from Mr. Gibson, and the pocket book containing the ill-fated captain's handwriting were placed before him, and proved to have been found in his room, and when the maid servant of ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... stunned by the blow, but the sight of his brother triumphantly splashing through the shallows aroused him. He arose, and seizing the first stone that came to hand hurled it after Laurence, swearing fraternally that he would smite him in the brisket with a dirk as soon as he caught him for that dastard blow. The first stone flew wide, though the splash caused the mule to shy into deeper water, to the damping of his rider's legs. But the second, being better aimed, took the animal ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... we landed. They didn't know where to run except into the huts, an' those our round-shot plowed through like so much grass—which was what they was, mostly. Then old Johnny Buck piped the longboat overside and on shore we went, firin' all the time. Cap'n Vane himself, with a dirk in his teeth and sword an' pistol out, goes swearin' up the roadway an' we behind him, our feet stickin' in blood. A few come out shootin' their little arrers at us, but we herded 'em an' drove 'em, yellin' all ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... best wines, and made her servants attend upon them with unusual deference and ceremony. Their appearance was altogether horrible, they wore leather aprons, which were sprinkled all over with blood, they had large horse pistols in their belts, and a dirk and sabre by their sides. Their looks were full of ferocity, and they spoke a harsh dissonant patois language. Over their cups, they talked about the bloody business of that day's occupation, in the course of which they drew out their ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... the man who works with his hands if they know what they're talking about. But most of them don't. They get the thing second hand. They're chock full of loyalty to superiors and systems and governments, just from habit... I've worked with my hands, and I've fought for a half loaf of bread with a dirk knife, and I know all the dirty, rotten things of life by direct contact. So when I disagree with the demands of the men who build my vessels I know why I'm disagreeing. And I usually do disagree ... because if they've ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... he crept, dragging his provisions along with him. A little way from the mouth of the cave the roof became elevated, but on advancing, an obstacle obstructed his progress. He soon perceived that, whatever it might be, the object was a living one, but unwilling to strike at a venture with his dirk, he stooped down, and discovered a goat and her kid lying on the ground. The animal was evidently in great pain, and feeling her body and limbs, he ascertained that one of her legs had been fractured. He bound it up with ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... circumstances, if not actual poverty. Close by the divine's plate lay a Bible and Prayer-book, with some proof sheets, as they are technically called, seemingly fresh from the press. There was also within the reach of his hand a dirk, or Scottish poniard, a powder-horn, and a musketoon, or blunderbuss, with a pair of handsome pocket-pistols. In the midst of this miscellaneous collection, the Doctor sat eating his breakfast with great appetite, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... Spectator, of verrezene Socrates. Uit het Engelsch vertaald door A.G. & R.G. (some volumes by P. le Clercq) t'Amsterdam, by Dirk Sligtenhorst, Boekverkooper, 1743, ix. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 63, January 11, 1851 • Various
... was, however, unavailing to prevent assaults. The most serious instance of this kind was the act of an Irish ruffian, who so far forgot the traditions and sufferings of his own people as to cast himself upon Drayton with a huge dirk and cut off a piece of his ear.[6] For a few moments all the horrors incident to riot and bloodshed were in evidence. The air was filled with the screams of terrorized women and children and the curses and threats ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves, they are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go among them with dirk and pistol—concealed, but ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... coat and shirt open from the neck to the elbow to enable me, if possible, to check the hemorrhage that I thought might take place from the subclavian artery or some other blood vessel. This was done with a dirk knife, but no wound was found there. I lifted his eyelids and saw evidence of a brain injury. I quickly passed the separated fingers of both hands through his blood matted hair to examine his head, and I discovered his mortal wound. The President had ...
— Lincoln's Last Hours • Charles A. Leale
... have been made even more effective weapons by what is called a spring dagger, which consists of a short, strong knife or dirk let into the handle, and is readily brought into play by a sudden jerk, or by touching a spring. This may be all very well for travellers in the out-of-the-way regions of Spain, Sicily, or Italy, ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... suddenly, so unexpectedly, so swiftly, that Tom Chist had hardly time to realize what it all meant before it was over. As the negro passed him the white man arose suddenly and silently erect, and Tom Chist saw the white moonlight glint upon the blade of a great dirk-knife which he now held in his hand. He took one, two silent, catlike steps behind the unsuspecting negro. Then there was a sweeping flash of the blade in the pallid light, and a blow, the thump of which Tom could distinctly hear even from where he lay stretched out upon ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... defend himself, when he was struck on the back of the head with a bludgeon and rendered insensible. He did not return to consciousness until the next morning, when he found himself by the side of the road, bleeding from a terrible wound in his side from a dirk-knife. He had strength to attract the attention of a man passing with a team, and was taken to his hotel. A surgeon was called, who pronounced the wound mortal. Mr. Ansart objected to that view of the case, and sent for another, and with skilful ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... about were noticed. The excitement engendered at the sight of the bones was enough temporarily to blind them to the numerous things found scattered about. Here was a dirk, the edges entirely worn away, and whitened. There were the metal ribs of what seemed to be a case, or a receptacle of some kind. Lying at one side was an ancient type of firearm, long, heavy, and with an immense bore. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... mountains, Far frae a' that 's dear to dwall, Mak's my e'en twa gushin' fountains, Dings a dirk in my puir saul. Braes o' breckan, hills o' heather, Howms whare rows the gowden wave, Blissful scenes, fareweel for ever! I maun seek an ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and from the lights afforded by his journal, a very exact and curious map was made of all these new countries. But his voyage was never published entire; and it is very probable that the East India Company never intended it should be published at all. However, Dirk Rembrantz, moved by the excellency and accuracy of the work, published in Low Dutch an extract of Captain Tasman's Journal, which has been ever since considered as a very great curiosity; and, as such, has been translated ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... discovered "a jealous disposition" and "an ungovernable temper." When he returned from his various voyages she "did not receive him kindly;" but, contrariwise, sometimes received him on the side of "a poker," on the end of "a dirk" or at the muzzle of "pistol." Moreover—and this is dolefully comic—"she repeatedly left this deponent imprisoned in the house for hours under lock and key!" What a situation for a foaming mariner, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... all. She was chatting vivaciously with Jimmy and Jimmy had been laughing as raucously as a jackal—and so they had passed him by. The event which had spelled tragedy for him; robbed him of sleep and withered his robust appetite had not even lingered overnight in her memory. The dirk was in Stuart Farquaharson's breast, but it was yet to be twisted. Pride forbade his shaking Johnny Reb into a wild pace until he was out of sight. The funereal grandeur of his measured tread must not be broken, and so ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... in a somewhat worn dress of Kennedy's, with the belt and dirk he had carried under his scholar's garb now without, and a steel cap that his cousin had procured for him on his head. With a parcel in his arms of Kennedy's gear, he might pass for a servant sent from home to meet him; and so soon as this disguise ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of fifteen he entered a counting-room, when his quick mercurial temperament soon rendered him expert at its minor functions. Three years had hardly elapsed when, in a moment of passion, he drew his dirk, (a weapon he always carried) and, in making a plunge at his antagonist, inflicted a wound in the breast of a near friend. The wound was deep, and proved fatal. For this he was arraigned before a jury, tried for his life. He proved the accident by an existing friendship-he ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... us and the bright blue sky, to the long clear note of the boatswain's whistle, which soon ending in a short chirrup, told that it now rested on the thwarts of the boat alongside. We pulled ashore, and it was a slight perchance to move a woman, to see the poor little fellow's hat and bit of a dirk lying on his coffin, whilst the body was carried by four ships boys, the eldest scarcely fourteen. I noticed the tears stand in Anson's eyes as the coffin was lowered into the grave,—the boy had been wounded close to him,—and when we heard the hollow ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... and glad to make our escape. How these men could have endured many long years of labor in this vast refrigerator, and retain any degree of health, is a problem. Faith and zeal doubtless kept the blood moving through their veins. It is said that a knife, or dirk, and a pair of scissors of very ancient origin, which we were shown, were found by Mr. Marble in a fissure of this solid rock. That they were left there by pirates, years on years ago, no sane man can for a moment ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... you down, old friend; Your pipe I'll serve, your bottle I'll attend. 'Tis many a year since you and I have known Society more pleasant than our own In our brief respites from excessive work— I pointing out the hearts for you to dirk. What have you done since lately at this board We canvassed the deserts of all the horde And chose what names would please the people best, Engraved on coffin-plates—what bounding breast Would give more satisfaction if at rest? But never mind—the record cannot fail: The loftiest ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... recorder, Jan Wendal, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Claes Ripse, David Schuyler, Albert Ryckman, aldermen, Killian Van Rensselaer, justice, Captain Marte Gerritse, justice, Captain Gerrit Teunisse, Dirk Teunisse, justices, Lieutenant Robert Saunders, John Cuyler, Gerrit ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... crew of the old "Essex" was represented, but that I found them to be the best swordsmen on board. They had been so thoroughly trained as boarders, that every man was prepared for such an emergency, with his cutlass as sharp as a razor, a dirk made by the ship's armorer out of a file, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... fortunate voyage of forty days, the Uranie cast anchor at the entrance of the Bay of Sharks on the 12th September. A party was at once despatched to Dirk Hartog, in order to determine the latitude and longitude of Cape Levaillant, and to bring on board the corvette a certain metal plate which had been left there by the Dutch at a remote period, and had been seen by Freycinet in 1801. Whilst this party were away, the two alembics were ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... New Amsterdam were cleared of the shanties and pig-pens which obstructed them. In 1648, every Monday was declared a market-day. In 1650, Dirk Van Schellyne, the first lawyer, "put up his shingle" in New Amsterdam. In 1652, a wall or palisade was erected along the upper boundary of the city, in apprehension of an invasion by the English. This defence ran from river to river, and to it Wall street, which occupies its site east of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... in the Analecta. In the department of second-sight, for instance, restricted, with due observance to geographical propriety, within the Highland line, a guest disturbs a convivial meeting at Blair-Athol by exclaiming that he beholds a dirk sticking in the breast of their entertainer. That night he is stabbed to the heart; and even while the seer beheld the visionary dagger, a bare-legged gilly was watching outside to execute a long-cherished Highland vengeance. The Marquess of Argyle, who ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... thrusting his hand into the inner breast-pocket, dragged out a roll of MSS., matted closely together and stained by the winter's rains. A further search eventuated in finding a roll of small gold coin, a set of derringer pistols, a rusted double-edged dirk, and a pair of silver-mounted spectacles. Hastily covering over the body with leaves and branches cut from the embowering shrubs, we shudderingly left ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes |
