"Flail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... There is one sun, there is one shower, to evil and to just, And health, and strength, and length of days, and to all the common dust: But as the snake throws off its skin, the soul throws off its clay, And soars, till purpled are its wings with everlasting day; God, having winnow'd with his flail the chaff from out the wheat, When those, who seem'd alike when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... as thick as harvests beneath hail, Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle, Proving that trite old truth, that Life's as frail As any other boon for which men stickle. The Turkish batteries thrashed them like a flail, Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle Putting the very bravest, who were knocked Upon the head ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... discovery of the plank, made the first rush up and was immediately knocked from his perch by Tod, whose pole swung around his head like a flail. Then Scootsy tried it, crawling up, protecting his head by ducking it under his elbows, holding meanwhile by his hand. Tod's blows fell about his back, but the boy struggled on until Archie reached over the gunwale, and with a twist of his wrist, using ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Streaming, gleaming, I will goad them to my glory and my fame. Bring me gnarly limbs of live-oak, aid me in my frenzied fight; Strips of iron-wood, scaly blue-gum, writhing redly in my hold; With my lunge of lurid lances, with my whips that flail the night, They will burgeon into beauty, they will foliate in gold. Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas; Roaming wind and roaring darkness! seek no mercy at my hands; I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies, I will flaunt my deathless ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... that, so handicapped, she could never reach them, and with shaking, fumbling fingers she set herself to unfasten the straps that bound the skis. It took her a long, long time—all the longer for her fevered haste. And still that awful, flail-like sound went on and on, though all sound ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... writing on women farmers, quotes the tribute of HUTTON, the historian, to a Derbyshire lady who died at Matlock in 1854: "She undertakes any kind of manual labour, as holding the plough, driving the team, thatching the barn, using the flail; but her chief avocation is breaking horses at a guinea per week. She is fond of Pope and Shakespeare, is a self-taught and capable instrumentalist, and supports the bass ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... for show seemed neither resentful nor distressed, ready enough most times to exhibit his merits, anxious only for the chance of a good master and the momentary avoidance of the lictor's flail. At the praefect's bidding he cracked his knuckles or showed his teeth, strained the muscles of his arm to make them stand up like cords, turned a somersault, jumped, danced or stood on his head ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... flail of the monks,' he said abstractedly. 'They would have burned me and thousands more ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... the member held high in air, bewildered by what seemed to him such a gratuitous attack. Then his twinkling little eyes began to blaze, and he trumpeted shrilly with anger. The next moment, reaching over the fence, he brought down the trunk on Last Bull's hump with such a terrible flail-like blow that the great buffalo stumbled forward ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... whaler, 1688; Dr. Henry Sacheverel in full canonicals, carved in ivory, 1710; a boat, a horse's hind leg, Punch, and another character in the same Drama, to wit: his Satanic majesty; a countryman with a flail; a milkmaid; an emblem of Priopus; Hope and Anchor; the Marquis of Granby; a greyhound's head and neck; a paviour's rammer; Lord Nelson; the Duke of Wellington; and Bonaparte. The tobacco-stopper was carried in the pocket ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Rob and Brazier fired together, and as the smoke cleared away another cloud of something seemed to be playing about on the ground, but a solid cloud, before which everything gave way, while some great flail-like object rapidly beat ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... adventures of Arthegal mainly preserve the memory of Lord Grey's terrible exploits against wrong and rebellion in Ireland. These exploits are represented in the doings of the iron man Talus, his squire, with his destroying flail, swift, irresistible, inexorable; a figure, borrowed and altered, after Spenser's wont, from a Greek legend. His overthrow of insolent giants, his annihilation of swarming "rascal routs," idealize and glorify that unrelenting ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... she came—the first horse she ever rode, she said. He was a quiet little old roan, with a bright eye and legs like gate-posts, but he never fell down with us boys, for all that. If we fell off he stopped still and began to feed, so that he suited us all to pieces. We soon got sharp enough to flail him along with a quince stick, and we used to bring up the milkers, I expect, a good deal faster than was good for them. After a bit we could milk, leg-rope, and bail up for ourselves, and help dad brand the calves, which ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if it were a flail. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... beasts are half-starved. Their "kitchen" is a meagre ration of bruised beans, and their daily bread consists of the dry leaves of thorn trees, beaten down by the Makhbat, a flail-like staff, and caught in a large circle of matting (El-Khasaf). In Sinai the vegetation fares even worse: the branches are rudely lopped off to feed the flocks; only "holy trees" escape this mutilation. With the greatest difficulty we prevented the Arabs tethering their ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... head's like the island folks tell on, Which nothing but monkeys can dwell on; Her heart's like a lemon—so nice She carves for each lover a slice; In truth she's to me, Like the wind, like the sea, Whose raging will hearken to no man; Like a mill, like a pill, Like a flail, like a whale, Like an ass, like a glass Whose image is constant to no man; Like a shower, like a flower, Like a fly, like a pie, Like a pea, like a flea, Like a thief, like—in brief, She's like ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... implements in use showed little of that mechanical ingenuity which is now characteristic of the American people. The plough was still a clumsy affair with heavy beam and handles, and wooden mould-board. The scythe, the sickle, and the flail were the same as their forbears ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... "I 'll fight Beelzebub if he be aught I can hit; but these same boggarts, they say, a blow falls on 'em like rain-drops on a mist, or like beating the wind with a corn-flail. I cannot fight ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... two furious wings, Each one upon each shoulder; With a sting in his tail as long as a flail, Which made him bolder and bolder. He had long claws, and in his jaws Four and forty teeth of iron; With a hide as tough as any buff, Which ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... provincial theatres, the arcades at Birmingham. And a blue straw hat that he had bought for her long ago; and at last her name. Kitty Messenger, and her mother, a golden-haired actress with a tongue like a flail in one temper, like the honey-seeking proboscis of a ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... compelled to follow in preposterous, giant strides, barely touching the ground with the point of his toe, pounded the creature's ribs with such blows as Zoe had never dreamed possible. They sounded like flail on wooden floor, and each blow was accompanied with a loud jubilant shout. Presently, being a five's player, and ambidexter, he shifted his hand, and the tremendous whacks resounded on the bull's left side. The bull, thus belabored, and resounding like the big drum, made a circuit ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... right glad to meet you here, Christmas comes but once a year, But when it comes it brings good cheer, And when it's gone it's no longer near. May luck attend the milking-pail, Yule logs and cakes in plenty be, May each blow of the thrashing-flail Produce good frumenty. And let the Wassail Cup abound, Whene'er ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... if nothing whatever had happened. Each day was filled to the brim with hard work. With the help of the Twins, Mother Van Hove kept the garden free of weeds and took care of the stock. She even threshed the wheat herself with her husband's flail, and stored the grain away in sacks ready for the mill. Each evening, when the work was done, the three went down the village street together. One evening, just at dusk, they found nearly the whole village gathered in front of the priest's house next to the church. ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... the eye, And perhaps produced the very faintest sigh For such-like beauties on a larger scale, Where sweeping meadows meet the azure sky, And florid milk-maids bear their bounteous pail, And breezes waft the sound of winnow and of flail. ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... could take effect, had got its back to the wall. He had made the same mistake again—the mistake of brainless breeding all the world over. It mattered not whether he approached from front, or right, or left, the same whirling flail of fore-paws was ready for him. He leapt clean over its head, and was flung back—by the brickwork. Whichever way he tried he had only half a foe to aim at. Still he never flinched, happy in the ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... yo'd be mad as soin as yo heard, Abaat that oud kaa at belonged to Blue Beard, For I like as I saw yo just hod of its tail, And braying it rump wi th' end o' yor flail; For I wisht monny a time at yo'd been here, For swallowing th' plan yo'd a geen it ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... his cutlass and made an arc of blue flame. The weapon became in his hands a flail, terrible to look upon, making lightnings and whistling in the air, but in reality not so deadly as it seemed. The fury of his onslaught would have beaten down the guard of any mere swordsman, but that I was not. A man, knowing his weakness and insufficiency in many and many a thing, may yet know ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... so tame as to carry their provision no further, for truly they intended to be assailants upon fair occasion, and had for that end recommended also to them a certain pocket weapon, which for its design and efficacy had the honour to be called a protestant flail. It was for street and crowd work; and the engine lurking perdue in a coat pocket, might readily sally out to execution, and so, by clearing a great hall, or piazza or so, carry an election by a choice ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... their terrible foe. Two Spaniards lost their lives and two thousand Netherlanders. It was natural that these consummate warriors should despise such easily slaughtered victims. A single stroke of the iron flail, and the chaff was scattered to the four winds; a single sweep of the disciplined scythe, and countless acres were in an instant mown. Nevertheless, although beaten constantly, the Netherlanders were not conquered. Holland and Zealand had read the foe a lesson which he ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... were already busy at it. There were twelve threshing-floors, and the twelve men were at work on six of them—two on each. Hans must thresh by himself all that was lying upon the other six floors. He went out to the barn and got hold of a flail. Then he looked to see how the others did it and did the same, but at hte first stroke he smashed the flail in pieces. There were several flails hanging there, and Hans took the one after the other, but ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... greeted his expressed opinion did not in any least degree avail to make him one of the pro-slavery faction. The concession of 1850 was one which he would not have made, and it must be the last. Welcome to him the iron flail of war, whose tribulation saved the immortal wheat of justice and purged away the chaff of wrong ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... his misery. There would come into his great eyes a look of such pitiful melancholy that one might almost fancy tears rolling out. Then he would be roused by an exasperated driver, who jerked cruelly on the lines and used his whip as if it had been a flail. ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... a pickle of straw," said the Lad, "lie still and don't grin, like a good bairn." But the little Imp of out of bed, and said, "Go east, Donald, and when ye come to the big brae (or brow of the hill), rap three times, and when they come, say ye are seeking Johnnie's flail." Donald did so, and out came a little fairy man, and gave him a flail. Then Johnnie took the flail, thrashed away at the straw, finished it, sent the flail back, and went to bed again. When the parents came back, Donald told ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... and last day of the trial, was ushered in by a tempest of wind and rain, that drove the blinding sheets of sleet against the court-house windows with the insistence of an icy flail; while now and then with spasmodic bursts of fury the gale heightened, rattled the sash, moaned hysterically, like invisible fiends tearing at the obstacles that barred entrance. So dense was the gloom pervading ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the customers appeared to have discovered urgent engagements elsewhere. There was little for the Mongol to collide with except empty tables and chairs. But he did manage to swipe one of the lumpy-faced men on the side of the head with one flail of his arms. The lumpy-faced man said "Yoop!" and went staggering away into Petkoff, who spun him around and threw him away in the general direction of the bandstand. The diversion provided Malone with just enough ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... afloat till the morning, and then build a raft, or perchance a sail might heave in sight and rescue them. Few, however, were able to labour efficiently. It seemed a wonder to Stephen that his own strength had been kept up, when he saw stout fellows, accustomed to wield the scythe and flail, reduced to mere skeletons. The morning came, the Surge still floated, but to build a raft seemed beyond the power of those on board. They wanted both strength and skill. Stephen urged them to try, however. Collecting all the spars and planks ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... off the moor above. And then another, and another. My friends may trust it; for the clod of these parts delights in the chase like any bare-legged Paddy, and casts away flail and fork wildly, to run, shout, assist, and interfere in all possible ways, out of pure love. The descendant of many generations of broom-squires and deer-stealers, the instinct of sport is strong within him still, though no more of the king's deer are to be shot in the winter turnip-fields, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... all the armies rose up along with him. "Stop here, Men of the World," he said, "for it is not you but myself that has to go and ask satisfaction for the bodies of my brothers." So he went on shore; and it is the way he was, with a strong iron flail in his hand having seven balls of pure iron on it, and fifty iron chains, and fifty apples on every chain, and fifty deadly thorns on every apple. And he made a rush through the Fianna to break them up entirely and to tear them into strings, and they gave ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... towards the rocks when they, like ourselves, heard the sound of thrashing in a barn, which started an argument between them on their relative abilities in the handling of the flail. As they could not settle the matter by words, they resolved to do so by blows; so they made their way to the farm and requested the farmer to allow them to try their hand at thrashing corn, and to judge which of them shaped the better. The farmer ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... three Frenchmen nearest me. The force of the blow made my arm tingle to the elbow, but it swept the Frenchmen down as though it had been a scythe, and caused those behind to recoil in terror. Another flail-like sweep proved equally effective, the cutlasses raised to guard the blows being as useless as so many wands, and when I followed it up with a third it proved too much for the Frenchmen, who, seeing their comrades go down before me like ninepins, gave ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... to fire, no time even to speak. The revolver flew out of his hand at one blow from the flail-like arms of the concierge. Behind him somewhere was coming, Nikky knew, a detachment of cavalry. But he had outdistanced them, riding frenziedly, had leaped hedges and ditches across the Park. He must hold ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... brandy hain't no friend to my kind. Dey killed my p[o]' daddy, an' dey troubled my mind. Sometime he drunk whisky, sometime he drunk ale; Sometime he kotch de rawhide, an' sometime de flail. ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... of Limbo lake; We do not show of warlike fight, as sword and shield to shake: We speak not of the powers divine, ne yet of furious sprites; We do not seek high hills to climb, nor talk of love's delights. We do not here present to you the thresher with his flail, Ne do we here present to you the milkmaid with her pail: We show not you of country toil, as hedger with his bill; We do not bring the husbandman to lop and top with skill: We play not here the gardener's part, to plant, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... Threshing Machine, 19th Century. USNM 46812; 1906. The frame of this wooden model is 7-1/2 inches high and 5 by 6 inches, rectangular. The levers, 14 inches long, project from the frame and strike the floor much as a flail would. Pins set in the shaft of a hand crank act as cams, raising the flails which then fall to the ground by gravity. Gift of United States Department of ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker
... would be realized, the king adopted, in addition to the simple costume of the old chiefs, the long or short petticoat, the jackal's tail, the turned-up sandals, and the insignia of the supreme gods,—the ankh, the crook, the flail, and the sceptre tipped with the head of a jerboa or a hare, which we misname the cucupha-headed sceptre.* He put on the many-coloured diadems of the gods, the head-dresses covered with feathers, the white and the red crowns either separately or combined ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... almost unknown to Europeans, even those who live in Lima, is canihua, a kind of pigweed. It was being harvested at the time of our visit in April. The threshing floor for canihua is a large blanket laid on the ground. On top of this the stalks are placed and the flail applied, the blanket serving to prevent the small grayish seeds from escaping. The entire process uses nothing of European origin and has probably not ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... act, summoned up two hundred persons in the town of Aylesham, whom he compelled to kneel to the cross at Pentecost, and inflicted other punishments. He struck a poor man for a trifling word, with a flail, which proved fatal to the unoffending object. He also gave a woman named Alice Oxes, so heavy a blow with his fist, as she met him entering the hall when he was in an ill-humour, that she died with the violence. This priest was rich, and possessed great authority; he ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... long arm like a flail and, with his open hand, smote the German on the side of the head. It was a terrific blow; under it the German fell to the earth with a thud. McFarquhar waited a few moments while the German rose, slowly spitting out ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor
... could the freedman's son but wield his flail In London, there are those might shrink and pale As did DOMITIAN'S minion. PARIS lives yet, pander and parasite Still flaunt in bold impunity, despite A ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... thick as harvests beneath hail, Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle, Proving that trite old truth, that life 's as frail As any other boon for which men stickle. The Turkish batteries thrash'd them like a flail, Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle Putting the very bravest, who were knock'd Upon the head, before their ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and holding by the chair, he stood trembling and quivering with gladness, while, summoned by the dog's bark, Patience, pail in hand, appeared on one side, and Ben, tall and slight, with his flail, ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was himself the herald of his own return. His humble equipage attracted no attention. His first care being to lodge his family, he sought the house of Dame Humphreys. The streets of the village were silent and deserted. Neither the loom, the flail, nor the anvil were heard; not a child was to be seen at play; every thing looked as if this was a portion of that city where progressive action is suspended, and the sun hangs level over the ocean without power of sinking. Dr. ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... a state of siege. The trainbands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for barricading the great thoroughfares. Patrols marched up and down the streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to brain the Popish assassins. The corpse of the murdered magistrate was exhibited during several days to the gaze of great multitudes, and was then committed to the grave with strange and terrible ceremonies, which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... it's niver no good a threshin' other folks' corn; ye allays gits the flail agin' i' ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... trivial matter? But it happened so long ago while I was courting your mother, to be exact. My father-in-law, rest his soul, was an atrocity at table. The viands, my son, scattered from his knife over the board, like chaff before the flail. Yet, will you believe it? Any time he chose to speak his mouth was always full. I watched him, watched him with wonder—or was it horror?—I cannot remember which. And I resolved to go, to go anywhere, but never to do likewise. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... your places and get down,' said the officer quietly, and the men crawled back and crouched low again. For a full hour the line lay under the flail of the big shells that roared and shrieked overhead and thundered crashing along the trenches. For a full hour the men barely moved, except to shift along from a spot where the shaken and crumbling parapet gave insufficient cover from the hailing shrapnel that poured down at intervals, ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... their hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to strike a girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat, but he always cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the rescue with arms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he went away; nor ever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather when the gentleman in black came for the boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as he gave the child his blessing, scowled over his shoulder at the strange ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... believe the condition of farm-hands has been markedly improved of late years. They have now a shorter day, higher wages, better food, and superior house accommodation. Mechanical appliances have made farm-work lighter and more agreeable. The drudgery of the threshing flail is now unknown; the hook and the scythe have given way to the reaping-machine: in every way hand labour has been lightened. But it is precisely this machinery that lessens the need for large numbers of agricultural labourers. It is also notorious that shoemakers, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... drudging Goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn That ten ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... as much as I could do. I am sure strength must have been granted me for the task. For a long while, or what seemed to me a long while, nobody heard. Seth was making a great noise with his flail, and if my shout reached his ears he only thought it child's play; but when it kept on and on, so shrill and so full of distress, he dropped his flail at ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... the heart and the viscerae of the dead should not be removed far from her body. A beautiful microscopic hawk, which would have made a lovely watch-charm, was attached by a thread to a necklace of small plates of blue glass, to which was hung also a sort of amulet in the shape of a flail, made of turquoise-blue enamel. Some of the plates had become semi-opaque, no doubt owing to the heat of the boiling bitumen which had been poured over them, and then ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... she fell, her arm she brak, A compound fracture as could be; Nae leech the cure wad undertak, Whate'er was the gratuity. It 's cured! she handles 't like a flail, It does as weel in bits as hale; But I 'm a broken man mysel' Wi' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... left no hours for play! Gait, dress, domicile, furniture, throughout all his poetry, are Scottish as their dialect; and sometimes, in the pride of his heart, he rejoices by such nationality to provoke some alien's smile. The sickle, the scythe, and the flail, the spade, the mattock, and the hoe, have been taken up more cheerfully by many a toil-worn cottar, because of the poetry with which Burns has invested the very implements of labour. Now and then, too, here and there peals forth the clangour of the war-trumpet. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... steel and blood, Announces an army rolls along as a flood, Which I follow, to harry the clamorous ranks, Sharp-goading the laggards and pressing the flanks, Till, a thresher 'mid ripest of corn, up I stand With an oak for a flail ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... with its plaintive whistle, And pecks by the witch-hazel, whilst aloud From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings, And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke, Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... his shoulders, was seen making his way through the press to where Sigmund towered above the host of those who came against him. Soon he confronted Sigmund, and his flashing weapon whirled like a flail ere it descended. The Volsung king lifted his magic sword to ward off the blow, but it fell with terrific force upon the blade and broke it in two pieces. From that moment the fortune of the battle turned against the Volsungs, and they fell fast around their king. But Sigmund ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... his tools, which are identical with those used by his earliest forefathers. His plough is unchanged; he carries the seed in his apron; mows with the historical scythe, and threshes with the time-honored flail. But we know that all this can be done by machinery. The agrarian question is only a question of machinery. America must conquer Europe, in the same way as large landed possessions absorb small ones. The peasant is consequently a type which is in course of extinction. Whenever he is artificially ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... can pierce a suit of armor through and through, and at a hundred steps he will not miss a dove. Czechowie (Bohemians) cut dreadfully with axes. For the big two-handed sword the German is the best. The Swiss is glad to strike the helmets with an iron flail, but the greatest knights are those who come from France. These will fight on horseback and on foot, and in the meanwhile they will speak very brave words, which however you will not understand, because it is such a strange language. They are pious people. They criticise us through ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... intent; I haunted meetings, Used zealous greetings, Crept full of devotion; Smectymnuus won me first, then holy Nye prevail, (111) Then Captain Kiffin (112) slops me with John of Leyden's tail, Then Fox and Naylor bangs me with Jacob Beamond's flail. ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... flash. Like lightning his right wing came round with a terrific flail-stroke, and hit Pig Head in the face at the precise instant that the surgical instrument he carried as his beak sank deep into one of Pig Head's calves. The Chieftain was upside-down at the moment, and his legs ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the high and narrow bridge over the Almond river, and defended himself bravely with his sword. A peasant who was thrashing in a neighboring barn came out upon the noise, and, whether moved by compassion or by natural gallantry, took the weaker side, and laid about with his flail so effectually as to disperse the assailants, well thrashed, even according to the letter. He then conducted the King into his barn, where his guest requested a basin and a towel, to remove the stains of the broil. This being procured ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... go alone, for his men leapt after him like hounds. But he fought his way in the lead with a clubbed rifle, and stood over Kagig's body working the weapon like a flail. That was all I saw of that encounter, for Mahmoud decided to attempt escape by the upper way again, and it was I who captured him. I landed on him through the darkness with my clenched fist under the low hung ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... his with his usual savageness and activity. It whirled round his adversary's head with frightful rapidity. Now it carried away a feather of his plume; now it shore off a leaf of his coronet. The flail of the thrasher does not fall more swiftly upon the corn. For many minutes it was the Unknown's only task to defend himself from the tremendous ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hauled at the heavy sail: "God be our help!" he only cried, As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a flail, Smote the boat on its starboard side. The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, The strife and torment ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the upright shafts of whose tall elms We may discern the thresher at his task, Thump after thump resounds the constant flail That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaff, The rustling straw sends up a fragrant mist Of atoms, sparkling in ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... harvested with a sickle, and you may wake up some morning to see the field opposite your house invaded by some twenty to thirty reapers, men and women, boys and girls, patiently sawing their way through the wheat or barley, or whatever it is. The corn is threshed out with the flail, or trodden out by the oxen—all operations fair to look upon. Forms of cultivation interesting to watch are the very primitive ploughing, the hoeing of the maize, and all those connected with the culture of the vines and the orange and other fruit trees, and especially the irrigation, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... fiddles, flutes, harps, trumpets, guitars, harpsichords, and many other instruments of music, unknown to us in Europe. I observed, here and there, many in the habit of servants, with a blown bladder, fastened like a flail to the end of a stick, which they carried in their hands. In each bladder was a small quantity of dried peas, or little pebbles, as I was afterwards informed. With these bladders, they now and then flapped the mouths ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... She's at it yet, Her knee-joints flail-like go: Unthinking man! it is to let Her mother kiss ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... the park at Weston Underwood, the prospect from the hilltop, touches upon his privilege in having a key of the gate, describes the avenues of trees, the wilderness, the grove, and the sound of the thresher's flail then suggests to him that all live by energy, best ease is after toil. He compares the luxury of art with wholesomeness of Nature free to all, that brings health to the sick, joy to the returned seafarer. Spleen vexes votaries of artificial life. True gaiety is for the innocent. So thought flows ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... feet with that throat grip. He whirled him like a flail, and smashed him down upon the deck, and let him go. And there Yankee Swope lay, sprawled, and still, his head bent back at a fatal angle. A broken neck, as a glance at the lolling head would inform; and, as we discovered later, a broken back as well. It was death that Newman's ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... intelligence, and, under pretence of serving another company in the next room, went out to the barn, where, arming himself with a flail, he repaired to a lane through which the curate was under a necessity of passing in his way home. There he lay in ambush with fell intent; and when the supposed author of his shame arrived, greeted him in the dark with such a salutation as forced him to stagger backward ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and geese, the boy was in due course promoted to the rank of team-leader, and was also set to assist his father in the threshing barn. "John," his father used to say, "was weak but willing," and the good man made his son a flail proportioned to his strength. Exposure in the ill-drained fields round Helpstone brought on an attack of tertiary ague, from which the boy had scarcely rallied when he was again sent into the fields. Favourable weather having set in, he recovered ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... thoughtful eye Savitri watched her dear and fated lord, Flail of grief was in her bosom but her pale lips shaped ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... this corn, Colonel Crawford saw the Newars [Picture: Flail] using a kind of flail, an implement which I have never observed in India. Three pieces of Bamboo, about eighteen inches long, were fastened together in a parallel manner, at about a finger’s breadth asunder, and then fixed to a peg, which passed through a hole in the ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... turned away on his heel and was so frightened, his mother said, he could hardly get home from fear, and he had three whole miles to go. Next day he was thrashing corn in the barn and something upset him and pitched him head foremost across the flail. He rose, and three times he was pitched like that across the flail, so he gave up and went home. His mother asked him: 'Johnny, what is the matter with you? You do look very bad!' So he up and told her what had happened to him in the ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... by the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun bicker in his gloamin route frae the faulde!—Be thou a brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose—Be thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy laughing ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hoe! A pickaxe or a bill! A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, A flail, or what ye will— And here's a ready hand To ply the needful tool, And skill'd enough, by lessons rough, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that she went mad altogether. Faith, I thought she was into the river with me three times! 'Twas hardly I got her down the quays; and the first o' thim alecthric thrams she seen! Look at me hands, sir! She had me swingin' on the rope the way ye'd swing a flail. I tell you, Masther Freddy, ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... on the edge of the rock, in such sort that, leaning over the parapet of the open cloister, Desiderius might have dropped a pebble sheer down to the plain below. A single path wound up the rock to the gate, so narrow and steep that one sturdy lay-brother might have held the way with a thresher's flail against a score ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... powerless and dead they denied Him and fell back to their natural instinct of self-defence, and the first Church died with the death of Christ. It was like the green corn in the field smitten by a flail to the very root. The owner of the corn walks in the field and looks with despair on his perished corn. But it happens often that after a few days the field begins under the sunshine to flourish anew, and the corn grows beautifully and ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... machine was first introduced in Ohio, it was stubbornly opposed by all farm laborers. "They claimed it," says Bateman, "as a right to thresh with a flail, and regarded the introduction of machinery to effect the same object in a few days which would require their individual exertion during the whole winter, not only as an invasion of a time-honored ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... were sitting in a tank of steaming vapour. The oppression of the atmosphere was like a physical weight. And ever the rain beat down, rattling, incessant, upon the tin roof above her head. She thought of Nemesis again, Nemesis wielding an iron flail that never missed its mark. There was something terrible to her in this perpetual beating of rain. She had never ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... to a lonely barn on the tymor's estate, where his business was to thresh out grain with a flail. One day while he was at this labor the tymor came to the barn. He was in a very bad humor, and when he saw Smith he began to offer him every insult. This made the young soldier very angry. He looked around him. No one was in sight, and he had in his hands his heavy flail. At last ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... again: spoke with a passion that seemed almost as destructive as the short-lived chair he had been swinging flail-like, though the panting exertion made his voice come in disjointed and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... mummified; wears head-dress of Amen Ra; his right hand uplifted, holding a flail. The god of productiveness and generation. Chief deity ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... and there was a man up there threshing, and he knocked me down with his flail." That was the ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the swale; and listening to the swindle of the flail, as it sounds dub-a-dub on the corn, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... head grain found how treat dead staid ground town beast stead waif hound growl bleat tread rail mound clown preach dread flail pound frown speak thread quail round crown streak sweat ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Goldsmith's knees Were often thrust—so runs the tale— 'Twas here the Doctor took his ease And wielded speech that like a flail Threshed out the golden truth. All hail, Great souls! that met on nights like these Till morning made the candles pale, And revellers ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... so cold, That scarce a creature can be found To prance with me his statue round. The public safety, I foresee, Henceforth depends alone on me; And while this vital breath I blow, Or from above or from below, I'll sputter, swagger, curse, and rail, The Tories' terror, scourge, and flail. M. Tim, you mistake the matter quite; The Tories! you are their delight; And should you act a different part, Be grave and wise, 'twould break their heart. Why, Tim, you have a taste you know, And often see a puppet-show: Observe the audience is in pain, While Punch is hid behind the scene: But, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... most celebrated European ministers to him seems to us as unjust as it would be to compare the best baker in London with Robinson Crusoe, who, before he could bake a single loaf, had to make his plough and his harrow, his fences and his scarecrows, his sickle and his flail, his mill ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attention, and must be fed morning and night. The great barn filled with grain had to be threshed, for the cattle needed the straw, and the grain had to be got out for the market. So day after day he and his men hammered away with the flail, or spread the sheaves on the barn floor to be trampled out by horses. Threshing machines were unknown then, as were all the labour-saving machines now so extensively used by the farmer. His muscular arm was the only machine he then had to ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... drizzling rain whitened the distant hills, that seemed to blanch in their helplessness as the wind smote them like a flail; and it wove a grayish veil over the leafless boughs of bending, shivering elms, on the long, dim avenue. The wintry afternoon closed swiftly, and, in its dusky dreariness, Salome listened to the tattoo of the rain on the roof, and to the miserere that wailed ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... over, except to die. I had no sense of fear; no thought but to kill and be killed. I felt within me strength—desperate, insane strength. The rifle butt splintered in my hands, but the bent and shapeless barrel rose and fell like a flail. I saw it crush against skulls; I jabbed it straight into red faces; I brought it down with all my force on clutching arms. For an instant Tim was beside me. He had lost his gun and was fighting with a knife. It was only a glimpse I had of him through red mist—the next instant ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... East to Wast, An' the rein catched the grey mear's tail, An' her heels to save her hin'er en' Gaed lashin' like a flail. An' the haill apotheck lay in spails, As the grey mear warsled free; An' when auld Jock Smairt saw the fashion o' his cairt: "Wha's ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... wide universe. Here were men whose faith had embodied itself in the form of a potato; and others whose long beards had a deep spiritual significance. Here was the abolitionist, brandishing his one idea like an iron flail. In a word, there were a thousand shapes of good and evil, faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense, ...
— The Hall of Fantasy (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skilful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us. We enjoy now, not an oriental, but a boreal leisure, around warm stoves and fireplaces, and watch the shadow of ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... in cuffing a comrade who may have fallen into disgrace, not with an old shoe, but with an iron-heeled one. Others proposed the "anguille," another kind of recreation, in which a handkerchief is filled with sand, pebbles, and two-sous pieces, when they have them, which the wretches beat like a flail over the head and shoulders of the unhappy sufferer. "Let us horsewhip the fine gentleman!" ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sir, You are not like a thresher that doth stand With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn, And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain, But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs; Nor like the merchant, who hath fill'd his vaults With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines, Yet drinks the lees ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... with conjectural speculations, should find means of persuading the peer to inspect his steward's accounts, or repair the rural mansion of his ancestors; who could replace the tradesman behind his counter, and send back the farmer to the mattock and the flail. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... drudging goblin swet, To earn the cream-bowl, duly set; When, in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn, That ten day-lab'rers could not end; Then lies him down the lubbar fiend, And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength; And, crop-full, out of doors he flings, E'er the first cock his ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... easily the best man in it, but among the lesser lights there was a great display of energy, much of it misplaced. The worst offender was Bray. To watch him play was to witness a gladiatorial display of frightfulness. His fists flew about like a flail, his legs were everywhere. On the whole he did more damage to his own side than to his opponents. And the amount of energy he wasted every game in hacking the bodies of any who got in his way must have been exhausting. Gordon had to speak to him almost ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, nor to ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... together. It has been the entering point for all hostilities from Canada; and, to symbolize its position, it has been the anvil on which all the grand weapons of our Indian scath have been hammered. Its old French and American families have been threshed by the flail of war, like grain on a floor. And it is no wonder that the people are tired of waiting for sovereignty, and think of taking the remedy into their own hands. On the 9th of September, the Legislative ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... a table spread with rich fruits and viands. Passing by him toward an open door are certain figures which represent opportunities; they come to invite the young man to nobleness, to manliness, to usefulness, to worth. First is a rugged, sun-browned form, carrying a flail. This is labor. He invites the youth to toil. He has already passed far by unheeded. Next is a philosopher, with open book, inviting the young man to thought and study, that he may master the secrets in the mystic volume. But this opportunity, ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... by piles of white hickory shavings, are whittling out with keen Barlow jack-knives implements for home use: ox-bows and bow-pins, axe-helves, rakestales, forkstales, handles for spades and billhooks, wooden shovels, flail staff and swingle, swingling knives, or pokes and hog yokes for unruly cattle and swine. The more ingenious, perhaps, are fashioning buckets or powdering tubs, or weaving skeps, baskets or snowshoes. Some, it may be, sit astride the wooden shovel, ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... dribbling stern-gland, there came a sudden thump and a grinding shock. The turning shaft shook and chattered before my eyes, the propeller outside caught in something, shuddered, broke clear and beat like a flail. Then the ship lifted bodily and fell, bump, bump, bump. I stood there transfixed. What could it be? I looked along the dark tunnel to where the lights of the engine-room showed in a pale glint and I could have sworn I saw the whole bag of tricks move slowly up and subside as the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... silence for a time. Cadillac scowled and beat his palm upon his knee as a flail beats grain, and I knew he needed no words of mine. I thought that he was going over his defenses in his mind, and I began to calculate how many rounds of shot I had in my canoes, and to hope that my men would ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... winds. What wind temperatures tell. The missing yak herd. Mystery of the turning water wheel. The mill and workshop. Their home. "Baby" learning civilized ways. The noise in the night. The return of the yaks. The need for keeping correct time. Shoe leather necessary. Threshing out barley. The flail. The grindstone. Making flour. Baking bread. How the bread was raised. What yeast does in bread. Temperature required. The "Baby" and the honey pot. The bread with large holes in it. George's trip to the cliffs. A ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... the Volsung banners, and on went Sigmund before, And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the wheat-thrashing floor, And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his head: But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? White went his hair on the wind like the ragged drift of the cloud, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... pistols, which were placed nevertheless, at no great distance from his chair. One offensive implement, indeed, he thought it prudent to keep on the table beside his huge Coke upon Lyttleton. This was a sort of pocket flail, consisting of a piece of strong ash, about eighteen inches long, to which was attached a swinging club of lignum-vitae, nearly twice as long as the handle, but jointed so as to be easily folded up. This instrument, which ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... covetous eyes ranged from the treasure in his hand to the threatening east. A puff of wind caught the sail and sent the boom athwartships, like a mighty flail. Both men ducked instinctively, to ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Muse! and let the record stand, That, when Bellona ravaged half the land, When even these groves, from bloody fields afar, Oft shook and shuddered at the sounds of war, When the drum drowned the music of the flail, And midnight marches broke the peace of Yale, Then gathered here amid these vacant bowers A band of scholars, men of various powers, Various in motion, but with one desire, Through wreck and war to watch the sacred fire, The authentic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is treated in this way in South America. The Sulphur Tyrant-bird picks up a young snake by the tail, and, flying to a branch or stone, uses it like a flail until its life is ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... needful, stamping a sufficient space of ground, and enclosing it in boards 14 inches wide, set on edge. Into this bed the partially dried peat is thrown, and, as it cracks on the surface by drying, it is compressed by blows with a heavy mallet or flail, or by treading it with flat boards, attached to the feet, somewhat like snow shoes. By this treatment the mass is reduced to a continuous sheet of less than one-half its first thickness, and becomes so firm, that a man's step gives ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... strokes are necessary to complete the sketch. This strong young ploughman, who feared no competitor with the flail, suffered like a fine lady from sleeplessness and vapours; he would fall into the blackest melancholies, and be filled with remorse for the past and terror for the future. He was still not perhaps devoted to religion, but haunted by it; and at a touch of sickness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could o'er the Queen prevail; The proverb says, No fence against a flail; >From threshing corn, he turns to thresh his brains, For which her Majesty allow him grains; Though 'tis confest, that those who ever saw His poems, think them all not worth a straw. Thrice happy Duck! employ'd in threshing stubble, Thy toil is ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... inside, like the beating of a flail, continued. Amy craned her head around the door ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... the ruddy wheat, The thumping of the flail, The winnowing within the barn By whirling ...
— Old Times at Otterbourne • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is shown a short-handled flail, which is about 2-1/2 ft. long with a dark handle of wood, studded with brass or steel nails. A steel band is placed around the handle near the top. The imitation of the steel band is made by gluing a piece of tinfoil on a strip of cardboard and tacking it to the handle. A large ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... he knew it would not. He realized it would have been a very different tale, and the sequent questions that would not down, were, "Will this bread cast on the waters return after many days?" "Is there a God of justice and retribution?" "On whom will the flail of vengeance ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it's niver no good a threshin' other folk's corn; ye allays gits the flail agin i' yer ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... a flash, not all of steel, Where the rolling caissons wheel, Brought a rumble and a roar Rolling down that velvet floor, And like blows of autumn flail Sharply threshed ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... bore the two soldiers beside me to the floor beneath his body. With wide sweep of my gun I struck him, shattering the stock into fragments, and swung back to meet the others, the hot barrel falling to right and left like a flail. They were through and on me! Wild as any sea-rover of the north I fought, crazed with blood, unconscious of injury, animated solely by desire to strike and slay! Back I had to go; back—I trod on dead bodies, on wounded shrieking in pain, yet no man who came within sweep of that iron bar lived. ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish |
