"Skirmish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... revolver in hand, I had to keep guard at the side of the ambulance carts, to keep the marauders away from the wounded. Once I had a narrow escape from being captured by the Bavarians. It was at a skirmish of artillery. A couple of French and a couple of German pieces were in position. The French were quickly disabled by the Germans, and even the head gunner was severely wounded. I took him on my shoulders, and got him out of the line of fire. The Bavarians sent another shrapnell shell ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... banks were occupied by between six and seven thousand warriors, extending up and down the river for a distance of six miles. There was nothing for the Spaniards to do but to press forward. To turn back, in sight of their foes, was not to be thought of. After a pretty sharp skirmish, in which the Spaniards attacked their opponents, the natives sprang into their canoes, and some by swimming crossed the river and joined the main body of the Indians ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... fill the gap in the line—Hill followed Longstreet—and then the world beheld the singular spectacle of an army extended in a long skirmish line over a hundred miles, with another army massed not daring ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Jack grumbled. "Somehow everything has gone wrong with us. If we ride back in the night we'll probably have a skirmish." ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... ain't Boyd's idea of a returnin' hero, am I?" he agreed with her unspoken comment. "Also, we Rebs don't use sabers; they ain't worth much in a real skirmish." ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... no doubt brought arms for those escaped recruits. Now, if we try to outmarch them, they will catch us in the woods and shoot every one of us before we can get to Ernee. We must argue, as you call it, with cartridges. During the skirmish, which will last more time than you think for, some of us ought to go back and fetch the National Guard ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... fire without seeing them. They immediately retreated whilst we reloaded. They entered the thicket again and as soon as they came near enough we fired. Again they retreated and again they rushed into the thicket and fired. We returned their fire and a skirmish ensued between two of their men and one of ours, who was killed by having his throat cut. This was the only man we lost, the enemy having had ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... replied the Captain, with a sigh that was next of kin to a groan; "you must please yourself and your friends, I suppose; your poor old father is a secondary consideration." And then, timeously mindful of the skirmish he had just had with his daughter, Captain Paget made haste to assure her of ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... was written, the young man was sent for. He and his company had captured a number of men in a skirmish. ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... appropriate anecdotes. He might be quoted as a case in point by those who would explain all poetical imagination by the power of associating ideas. He is the poet of association. A proper name acts upon him like a charm. It calls up the past days, the heroes of the '41, or the skirmish of Drumclog, or the old Covenanting times, by a spontaneous and inexplicable magic. When the barest natural object is taken into his imagination, all manner of past fancies and legends crystallise around ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Napoleon wished the troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—almost as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino—the bridge had been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre had been present at ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... had only reached the Calumet, on the borders of Indiana, when they were overtaken by three hundred British and Indians! They were forced to surrender, though not without a fight, for men of that stamp were not to be intimidated by numbers. They lost in the skirmish one fourth of their number: the survivors were carried away to Canada, whence Brady, the leader, escaped, and returned to Cahokia the same winter. The twelve remained prisoners ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... bazaar at Peshawur, and sent it home to me just as he was starting on one of those little frontier wars the accounts of which they keep out of the English papers. And he was killed, poor dear old boy, in some footy little skirmish. And this is all I've got ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... open to me the gates of war. The occasion was this. He had resented, with a shower of stones, an affront offered to us by an individual boy, belonging to a cotton factory: for more than two years afterwards this became the teterrima causa of a skirmish or a battle as often as we passed the factory; and, unfortunately, that was twice a day on every day except Sunday. Our situation in respect to the enemy was as follows: Greenhay, a country house newly built by my father, at that time was a clear mile from the outskirts of Manchester; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... still lingered outside the town on the road to Jaro, and General Miller marched his troops, in battle array, against them. A couple of miles out of the town, in the neighbourhood of La Paz, the entrenched enemy was routed after a slight skirmish. The booming of cannon was heard in Yloilo for some hours as the American troops continued their march to Jaro, only molested by a few occasional shots from the enemy in ambush. The rebel chief Fulion and another, Quintin Salas, held out for a short while, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... went to work; but William fought bravely, and the young master, finding he was getting the better of him, undertook to tie his hands behind him. He failed in that likewise. By dint of kicking and fisting, William came out of the skirmish none the ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... fourscore years; and of his gallant son, Prince Rhys, who, after wrenching his patrimony from the invaders, died of a broken heart a few months after his wife, the Princess Gwenllian, had fallen in a skirmish at Kidwelly. No doubt he heard, though he makes but sparing allusion to them, of the loves and adventures of his grandmother, the Princess Nesta, the daughter and sister of a prince, the wife of an adventurer, the concubine of a king, ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... preliminary skirmish he was charged with a violation of the statutory laws of the United States relating to Reconstruction and ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew 55 So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, 60 And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such a harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and his companions had had to defend themselves against hostile mountaineers, who rushed suddenly upon them out of the woods. When they were about two days' journey still from the end of their march, they had a bloody skirmish with a roving band of men that seemed to belong to a larger ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... encounter between Moor and Christian; for Ferdinand's cold and sober policy, warned by the loss he had sustained in the ambush of Muza, was now bent on preserving rigorous restraint upon the fiery spirits he commanded. He forbade all parties of skirmish, in which the Moors, indeed, had usually gained the advantage, and contented himself with occupying all the passes through which provisions could arrive at the besieged city. He commenced strong fortifications around his camp; ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stopped; 'twas only a skirmish. Our men ought to be safe by now. Winthrop had only a few ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect of a spark applied to a train of gunpowder. Commines and the Venetian 'proveditori' each tried in vain to arrest the combat an either side. Light troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual fashion of those days, prompted only by that personal courage which led them on to danger, had already come to blows, rushing down into the plain as though it were an amphitheatre where they might ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... which you came! If you had been awake—and cooking—or singing—or making any sort of noise they must have heard you! Instead, they turned down toward the plain a little short distance too soon—and my men met them—and there was a skirmish—and I rallied my other men, and attacked them suddenly. We accounted for two of the tin-plate men, and so many of the thing they call a regiment that the others took to flight. Jannam! (My soul!) But you are ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... taking a view of the works of the enemy, 4000 Moors, 200 of whom were horse, were seen sporting on the plain, it being Friday, which is the sabbath of the Mahometans. On this occasion, a detachment of the Portuguese made a sudden attack on the Moors, and after a hot skirmish drove them for shelter to their works, having slain above an hundred of the enemy, with the loss of one officer and one private, and several wounded. Having resolved to take possession of a strong fort which the enemy had erected near Goa for the protection of their camp, Albuquerque caused ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan soldiers who had heard Glaucon ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the paper in silence and sadness, for the thought of having her noble boy exposed to the perils of the camp and the march, the skirmish and the battle, was terrible, and nothing but the most exalted patriotism could induce a mother to give ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... skirmish only three of our men were hurt, namely, Mr Glascock, Mr Tindal, and our master.[281] The first had two wounds, one of which was very deep in the back. When they commenced the attack, Mr Tindal had no weapon in his hand, and one of them aimed to stab him ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... much relieved, for he wanted to be pulling in the fish rather than doing the drudgery. "I'll look after these two holes, Jack, and you skirmish around the others. And by jinks! if I haven't got ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... was a bright fellow too, and may have developed into a man of business, a reporter, or even an editor. "Another great battle!" was his constant cry. But the purchaser of his paper would commonly read of nothing but a skirmish or some fresh account of a battle fought several days before—perhaps not even this. On one occasion an officer in uniform, finding nothing in his paper to justify the cry, turned upon ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... concerned were up in arms; neighbourhood and police began to assert themselves. One night the trembling Dora waited hour after hour for her father. About midnight he staggered in, maddened with drink and fresh from a skirmish with the police. Finding her there waiting for him, pale and silent, he did what he had never done before under any stress of trouble—struck and swore at her. Dora sank down with a groan, and in another minute Lomax was dashing his head against the wall, vowing that he would beat his brains ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... took place, an important event occurred in the death of Roger Mortimer, the Lollard Earl of March, whom the King had proclaimed heir presumptive of England. He was Viceroy of Ireland, and was killed in a skirmish by the "wild Irish." March, who was only 24 years of age, left four children, of whom we shall hear more anon, to be educated by their mother, Archbishop Arundel's niece, in her own Popish views. He is described ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... me, Mr. Walter did not share my views. A man who had written a great poem or a great play did not rank in his esteem with a man who had won a skirmish against a handful of unarmed savages, or one who had stolen a piece of land from some barbarians and annexed it to the Empire. In his heart he held the view of the English landed aristocracy, that the ordinary successful general or admiral or statesman ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... said that in a skirmish the whites had killed thirteen Shawnees, two Mingos, and one Delaware (this may or may not mean the massacres by Cresap and Greathouse; see, post, chapter on Lord ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... The men on that skirmish line have at last found it advisable to lie down at full length on the ground, though it is so wet, and place their heads against the trees in front. They cannot advance and they cannot retire without, in either case, exposing themselves to almost certain death. They ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... the midst of the gay skirmish and while she yielded Greenleaf her chief attention, Hilary observed ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Pertell said he wanted to begin that skirmish scene at eleven exactly, and it's ten minutes to that now. We can just about make it. The sun will be in just the right position for making the film. It's in a thicket you know, and the light isn't any too good. That's the scene you girls are ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... begun to suspect the error of his ways—a brutal sixty miles' journey it was, that left his hips and legs one mass of raw soreness and soldered all his bones together. A week later, after his first skirmish against the rebels, he understood every rule of the game. Luis Cervantes would have taken up a crucifix and solemnly sworn that as soon as the soldiers, gun in hand, stood ready to shoot, some profoundly eloquent ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... purpose was diverted to a mad crusade against the Moors, his plans were carried out in 1579 by the landing of a few soldiers under the brother of the Earl of Desmond, James Fitzmaurice, on the coast of Kerry. The Irish however held aloof, and Fitzmaurice fell in a skirmish; but the revolt of the Earl of Desmond gave fresh hope of success, and the rising was backed by the arrival in 1580 of two thousand Papal soldiers "in five great ships." These mercenaries were headed by an Italian captain, San ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... Amid this skirmish Jonathan greatly distinguished himself. Drawing his hanger he rode amongst the crowd, trampled upon those most in advance, and made an attempt to seize their leader, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... O this is not our son's writing, yet his name is signed; O a strange hand writes for our dear son—O stricken mother's soul! All swims before her eyes—flashes with black—she catches the main words only; Sentences broken—"gun-shot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital, At present low, but ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... aspect and stately form, with white beard flowing on his bosom, appeared among them and took command with an air of authority which none could gainsay. He bade them charge on the screeching rabble, and after a short sharp skirmish the tawny foe was put to flight. When the pursuers came together again, after the excitement of the rout, their deliverer was not to be found. In their wonder, as they knew not whence he came or whither he had gone, many were heard ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... Tecumseh's next skirmish with Kenton was in 1793. He was hunting in the Scioto valley with a few followers and their families. Shortly before dawn, when it was supposed that the Indians would not be on their guard, Kenton's men surrounded the camp and cautiously closed in upon it. The ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... necessary who feels pleasure when the others, to enliven many an indifferent moment, point the arrows of their wit at him. If he is not merely a stuffed Saracen, like those on whom the knights used to practise their lances in mock battles, but understands himself how to skirmish, to rally, and to challenge, how to wound lightly, and recover himself again, and, while he seems to expose himself, to give others a thrust home, nothing more agreeable can be found. Such a man we possessed ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... it the skirmish of an outpost!" said the gruff veteran, as he smoked away, in thorough contempt for the enthusiasm of the other. "I have served under Kleber, Hoche, and Moreau, and I believe they are ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... example, for, as a matter of fact, that sword was used in that fashion by me, and I saw in my sleep the death of its owner, who perished in a brisk skirmish, which I have been unable to identify, but which occurred at the time of the wars of the Frondists. If you think of it, some of our popular observances show that the fact has already been recognized by our ancestors, although we, in our ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... continued Dan, regardless of this despairing remark, "that a good while ago the Nor'-westers took him prisoner, when he was wounded after a skirmish with them, and carried him to Canada—treating him with great barbarity on the way. There he was put in jail, but, as nothing could be proved against him, he was liberated, and then tried to return ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... deferentially, and submits. But, if, unhappily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably into reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him that may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism, he would have intrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable points. But coming down to base reasons he lets in light, and one sees where ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... exercise will give me just the life I need to talk real business to Dave when he comes," she mused, punctuating her conjecture with a gasp or two as she fought against a gust of wind that forced her almost to a standstill. Winning this skirmish with the storm, she pressed forward again, when suddenly another gasp was forced from her by an entirely different cause. She almost stumbled over an object directly in her way, and as she recovered her equilibrium she recognized before her the form of a small ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... this his slender share With smiles partook a moment there, To force of cheer a greater show, And seem above both wounds and woe;— And then he said—"Of all our band, Though firm of heart and strong of hand, In skirmish, march, or forage, none Can less have said or more have done 100 Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth So fit a pair had never birth, Since Alexander's days till now, As thy Bucephalus and thou: All Scythia's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... seeing a new anxiety on Molly's face. "The raiders by this time have seen our signals, and have found out we're up and doing, and more than a match for them; so don't fret,—don't fret, any of you," turning to his wife and Mrs. Elliston. "I don't think there'll be so much as a skirmish." ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... eventually overtaken and surrounded in a deep kloof. Here six of them were brought to bay, among whom were Faber, with his wife, his son—a lad of fourteen years,—and John Bezuidenhout. These, retiring behind the wagons, a skirmish began, which was not concluded until one of the soldiers was killed, another wounded, Bezuidenhout shot, and Faber and his wife and son severely wounded. Then the party were ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... Wingfield! When we chatted over the future at school we never dreamed of such a life as this, though some of us did talk of entering the army; but even then an occasional skirmish with Indians was the limit of ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... carried to London; Loyalty of the Parliament Reception of Monmouth at Taunton He takes the Title of King His Reception at Bridgewater Preparations of the Government to oppose him His Design on Bristol He relinquishes that Design Skirmish at Philip's Norton; Despondence of Monmouth He returns to Bridgewater; The Royal Army encamps at Sedgemoor Battle of Sedgemoor Pursuit of the Rebels Military Executions; Flight of Monmouth His Capture His Letter to the King; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... noblest recompense of a deserving subject; and the authority which Julian derived from his personal merit, enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had lost their honor and one of their standards: and he distinguished with obsidional crowns the valor of the foremost soldiers, who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha. After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was exercised by the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... him. He was not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service. But 'he was,' says Lord Clarendon, 'second to none but the General himself in the observance and application of all men.' On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued. In the first charge, Hampden was struck in the shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone, and lodged in his body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross the bridge, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... coming up with a fair wind. The flotilla then retreated two miles up the creek, formed there across it in line abreast, and awaited attack. The enemy's vessels could not follow; but their boats did, and a skirmish ensued which ended in the British retiring. Later in the day the attempt was renewed with no better success; and Barney claimed that, having followed the boats in their retreat, he had seriously disabled one of the large schooners anchored ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... boys inhabiting the Cross-causeway, Bristo-Street, the Potterrow—in short, the neighboring suburbs. These last were chiefly of the lower rank, but hardy loons, who threw stones to a hair's-breadth, and were very rugged antagonists at close quarters. The skirmish sometimes lasted for a whole evening, until one party or the other was victorious, when, if ours were successful, we drove the enemy to their quarters, and were usually chased back by the reinforcement of bigger lads who came to their assistance. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... and if any devised a sport, warriors, joyous in strife, welcomed it straightway. So were the knights proven before the guests, and they of Gunther's land won glory. The wounded also came forth to take part with their comrades, to skirmish with the buckler, and to shoot the shaft, and waxed strong ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... skirmish line which pivoted on the launcher. Only Kemp remained at work. His torch flared, slicing through the thorium as he prepared ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... from the shot, and these foure hauing some wounds were dressed by the surgion of the shippe. One of them was the Corrigidor himselfe, who is gouernour of a hundred Townes and Cities in Spaine, his liuing by his office being better then sixe hundred pound yerely. This skirmish happened in the euening about sixe of the clocke, after they had laden twenty Tunne of goods and better out of the sayd ship: which goods were deliuered by two of the same ship, whose names were Iohn Burrell and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... in the least angry, and was not annoyed with me at that instant: she simply never gave me a thought. The blow was a final one. My last hopes were shattered with a crash, just as a block of ice, thawed by the sunshine of spring, suddenly falls into tiny morsels. I was utterly defeated at the first skirmish, and, like the Prussians at Jena, lost everything at once in one day. No, she was not angry ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's songs, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed, You ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... above us and miserable work among us; and we couriers had leave to dismount and crawl nearer the ground. General Henningsen gained respect from us by sitting his horse alone. He was a soldier, it is said, from a boy, in European wars,—where this were a feeble skirmish; yet he wore his life here, perhaps, more loosely than in many a noisier battle. However, he seemed calm and easy enough,—never moving his head, even slightly, when the shot whizzed nearest him. General Walker, though a brave man, and cool in battle, will nevertheless dodge when a bullet hisses ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Some stragglers skirmish round their columns still. Some stragglers skirmish round the columns ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... are two of us. If one of us was lost, grandmother and aunty could hold out the other one as a pattern, and say, 'I want a match for this,'" said Sylvia laughing, and a little eager to prevent the impending skirmish between Ralph and Molly. ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... of burgesses of Amiens a-horseback, who were riding by the king's commandment to Paris. They were quickly assailed and they defended themselves valiantly, for they were a great number and well armed: there were four knights of Amiens their captains. This skirmish dured long: at the first meeting many were overthrown on both parts; but finally the burgesses were taken and nigh all slain, and the Englishmen took all their carriages and harness. They were well stuffed, for they were going to ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... want him to change the masther's mind upon the subject. Faith and you're just in luck after this mornin's skirmish—skirmish! no bedad, but a field day itself; the masther could refuse him nothing. Will I say what you ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... still, and we soon had our hands full with a preliminary skirmish. Morgan’s line advanced warily. Davidson, the detective, seemed disgusted at Morgan’s tactics, openly abused the caretaker, and ran ahead of his column, revolver in hand, bearing down upon Larry, who held ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... volunteered to go with them—Mr. Tradition, Mr. Human Wisdom, and Mr. Man's Invention.' They were allowed to join, and were placed in positions of trust, the captains of the covenant being apparently wanting in discernment. They were taken prisoners in the first skirmish, and immediately changed sides and went over to Diabolus. More battles follow. The roof of the Lord Mayor's house is beaten in. The law is not wholly ineffectual. Six of the Aldermen, the grosser moral sins—Swearing, Stand to Lies, Drunkenness, Cheating, and others—are overcome and killed. ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... really interested in the history of this region you should certainly have a talk with old Mr. Kent. He's our leading antiquarian, and knows more about the Stour Valley than any one else. He says there was a skirmish fought here in 1645 that all the books have overlooked. The Battle of Wolverhampton, he calls it. He wrote a little pamphlet about ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... ammunition. With courage which must be commended at the expense of their discretion, they resolved to engage the enemy, and, after a combat of an hour and a half or more, retired, having inflicted heavy loss upon the enemy, and suffering but little themselves. This first skirmish between the Federal troops and the Missouri militia inspired confidence in their fellow-citizens, and checked the contemptuous terms in which the militia had been spoken of by the enemy. Governor Jackson, ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... and skirmish and fierce assault the winter passed away, and grew to spring again; and so well and vigilantly did this boy leader defend the borders of his principality against the forays of Glendower's troops, that we find ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... but many others can see this clearly. Everywhere the Socialists have wormed themselves into places of trust. They are to be met with in every rank of life, under every form of disguise. The post-office strike has already shown us what deplorable disasters even a skirmish can bring about. To-day the railway strike has paralyzed France. To-day our country lies absolutely at the mercy of any invader. As it happens, none is, for the moment, prepared. Who can tell how ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... not remain there. He sprang to his feet, and renewed the attack. But he had lost his confidence. He was bewildered, and, to confess the truth, panic-stricken, and the second skirmish was briefer ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... is just to send him word and he will have them sent back, or others as good in their places. Oh, you do not know how dreadful to be at feud with a man like Fergus Mac-Ivor. I was only a girl of ten when my father and his servants had a skirmish with a party of them, near our home-farm—so near, indeed, that some of the windows of the house were broken by the bullets, and three of the Highland raiders were killed. I remember seeing them brought in and laid on the floor in the hall, each wrapped in his plaid. And next ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Mrs Micawber,' interrupted Teddy, with a gurgling sob. Tom immediately rolled him off the step into the wet grass below; and by the time this slight skirmish was over, the jingle of teaspoons suggested refreshments of a more agreeable sort. In former times the little girls waited on the boys, to save confusion; now the young men flew to serve the ladies, young and old; and ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Mecca. They go part of the way in English steamers, and the ten or twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They take with them a quantity of food, and when the commissary department fails they "skirmish," as Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From the time they leave till they get home again, they never wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone from five to seven months, and as they do not change their clothes during all that time, they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... into a party, received rifles, and were exceedingly useful. By the 4th of the month, General Mooers collected about 700 militia, and advanced seven miles on the Beekmantown road, to watch the motions of the enemy, and to skirmish with him as he advanced; also to obstruct the roads with fallen trees, and to break ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... women one, a tall and dignified matron in mourning robes, was a conspicuous figure. This was Berenice, the mother of the young heathen who had been ridden down and wounded in the skirmish near the Prefect's house, and whose eyes Eusebius had afterwards closed. She had come to the Serapeum expressly to avenge her son's death and then to perish with the fall of the gods for whom he had sacrificed his young life. But the mad turmoil ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... substitutes and can swallow the most staring incongruities. The chair he has just been besieging as a castle, or valiantly cutting to the ground as a dragon, is taken away for the accommodation of a morning visitor, and he is nothing abashed; he can skirmish by the hour with a stationary coal-scuttle; in the midst of the enchanted pleasance, he can see, without sensible shock, the gardener soberly digging potatoes for the day's dinner. He can make abstraction of whatever does not fit into his fable; and he puts ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or iron strong, But each a glaive had pendant by his side, Their bows and quivers at their shoulders hung, Their horses well inured to chase and ride, In diet spare, untired with labor long; Ready to charge, and to retire at will, Though broken, scattered, fled, they skirmish still; ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... The first skirmish between the two doughty champions of the hostile forces took place over the misdated writ. Judgment was signed for want of appearance; and then came a summons to set it aside. The Judge set it aside, and the Divisional Court set aside the Judge, and the Court of Appeal ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... this lady; who insinuated that she had so many lovers that she herself could not tell who was the father of her child; but the lumps of gold had a language of their own. The disbanded army espoused the young priest's cause; there was a skirmish, Macrin was killed, and ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... "There was a brisk skirmish then, the Hessians retreating toward their main body, firing as they went from behind the houses, while the Americans pursued ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... emperor as an insult, which it was incumbent on his dignity to resent. The disgrace and exile of Promotus were signified by a peremptory order, to repair, without delay, to a military station on the banks of the Danube; and the death of that general (though he was slain in a skirmish with the Barbarians) was imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus. [5] The sacrifice of a hero gratified his revenge; the honors of the consulship elated his vanity; but his power was still imperfect and precarious, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... the defile at the head of the artillery, had been prepared to find a lively skirmish in progress between his own comrades and the handful of Afghans who were luring them on. But when, on emerging on to the plain, he found himself and the guns more than half surrounded by the enemy, and no sign anywhere of Atherton, he felt that the "brush" was likely ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... improve the harmony that subsisted between them; and the destruction of Crassus, who had conducted the war against the Parthians with so little prudence, that he suffered them to get the advantage of him in almost every skirmish; when, incapable of extricating himself, he fell a sacrifice to his own rashness in trusting himself to a ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... looking to their accoutrements, testing the powder in their flasks, repolishing the locks and barrels of their muskets. "To be sure La Corne and his militiamen had disappeared, but there was still room for a skirmish between this and Lake St. Louis; if he had posted himself on the bank below, he might prove annoying. The rapids were bad enough without the addition of being fired upon during the descent, when a man had work enough to hold tight by the gunwale ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rode forward, and one hundred and fifty followed them, bursting from their tepees like an explosion, and rushing along quickly in skirmish-line. Two Whistles rode beside his speeding prophet, and saw the red sword waving near his face, and the sun in the great still sky, and the swimming, fleeting earth. His superstition and the fierce ride put him in ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... minutes. Of a sudden the sun was blotted out. When I lifted my eyes from the road I saw birds circling high in the sky. The cattle in adjacent fields lifted their heads and moved uneasily as if some instinct sounded a warning in their dull brains. Above the trees I saw the skirmish ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... British troops, under the command of Major-General Sir John Maxwell, were assigned for the protection of the Canal. About the end of October it was reported that 2,000 Bedouins were marching on the Canal, and on November 21st a skirmish took place between this force and some of the English troops in which the Bedouins were repelled. Nothing more was heard for more than two months, but on January 28, 1915, a small advance party from the Turkish army was beaten back ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... covered territory belonging to them. Clayborne, a member of the Jamestown council, was especially obstinate in the matter. He had already established two trading posts in Maryland, which he prepared to defend by force of arms. A bloody skirmish ensued, in which his party was beaten. He, himself, had fled to Virginia, on the eve of battle, but being accused of treason, was sent to England for trial. He was, however, acquitted of this charge. Ten ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... Crusaders under Saint Louis. To this end he made peace with the natives of Aleppo, and returned to Jerusalem in order to make the necessary preparations for defence. The pilgrims, however, succeeded in landing, for Emir Fakhr ed-Din, the Egyptian commander, had taken to flight after a short skirmish, and the fortress was allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy (June, 1249). Ayyub now established a firm footing in the town of Cairo—which his father had founded—in a district intersected by canals, and harassed the Christian ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... to see you killed, but you'd better get away from here as fast as you can, and drop this witch man business for good and all. Here's two shillings. They'll get you something to eat when you get to Pennsylvania, but you'd better skirmish along in the woods the best you can till then, or you'll be jerked ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... unscrupulous follower of the latter, lay not far distant. Both were in the dress of the men-at-arms composing the Duke's guard, a disguise probably assumed to execute the fatal commission of the Secret Tribunal. It is supposed that a party of the traitor Campo-Basso's men had been engaged in the skirmish in which the Duke fell, for six or seven of them, and about the same number of the Duke's guards, were found near ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... one young man in twenty knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or the bee-orchis; still fewer can tell the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, or the place where the last skirmish was fought in the Civil War, or where the parish butts stood. Nor is this ignorance confined to the unlearned rustics; it is shared by many educated people, who have travelled abroad and studied the history of Rome or ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... is just, sided with the Parliament in the Civil War, and the family estate suffered curtailment in consequence. To make amends, however, his son, resolving not to commit the error of his father, joined the Pretender, and with his brother was engaged in that unfortunate adventure which ended in a skirmish and captivity at Preston, in 1715. It was the fashion of those times for all persons of the rank of gentlemen to wear scarlet waistcoats—a ball had struck one of the brothers, and carried a part of this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... tussle, scuffle, broil, fray; affray, affrayment|; velitation|; colluctation|, luctation[obs3]; brabble[obs3], brigue|, scramble, melee, scrimmage, stramash[obs3], bushfighting[obs3]. free fight, stand up fight, hand to hand, running fight. conflict, skirmish; rencounter[obs3], encounter; rencontre[obs3], collision, affair, brush, fight; battle, battle royal; combat, action, engagement, joust, tournament; tilt, tilting [medieval times]; tournay[obs3], list; pitched battle. death ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... said I; and truly, we did, being well-nigh enveloped and ridden down by the fringe of light-horse deploying to pioneer the way. When we had sheered off to let this skirmish cloud blow by, Dick struck a spark into his tinder-box to have a sight of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... blithesome as a bird. No, I had not forgotten; only the magic of three years has made of you a woman. Again and again have I questioned in Montreal and Quebec, but no one seemed to know. At the convent they said your father fell in Indian skirmish." ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Anderson, the father of wood-engraving in this country, died in Jersey City, in 1870, a few weeks before his ninety-fifth birthday. He was born in New York two days after the skirmish at Lexington, and had vivid recollections of some of the closing incidents of the Revolution in that city. From his lips the writer heard many narratives of those stirring scenes. One of them was an account of the last battle of the Revolution, of which young ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... with which the mightiest highland in wild Donegal, land of mountains, was an anthill. Dear Gartan Lough was as a drop of water in their eyes, their snipe-haunted marshes as a potato garden, when they saw the gigantic scale of Indian scenery. Henry had fought well in many a skirmish and had escaped without a wound. Malcolm had used his surgical skill pretty often, generally with good effect. He was beloved by officers and men for his kindness of heart. Was there a letter to be written for any poor fellow—a last message to be sent ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... he had used every term of reproach in every dictionary, I would not be tempted to a prosecution. I am highly flattered. It proves that I have succeeded in making the old man uncomfortable, and satisfies me. Just write a humorous sketch on the little skirmish, but don't give any names. The town will understand who is the principal character if you manage your article dexterously and with humour. Bring it to me to touch up when the sketch ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... fight by Muelhausen was little more than a skirmish. One and a half enemy corps had invaded Upper Alsace before our troops could be collected and placed on a war-footing. In spite of their numerical inferiority they attacked the enemy without hesitation and hurled him back in the direction ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... a pity," said his lordship. "I should have liked another skirmish with Mother Duke. At least, Joseph," he added, with the air of a man who finds consolation in disappointment, "we'll trim the laburnum this time. At all events, we'll make a fight for it, Joseph—we'll make a fight for it." Here he took the billhook and the saw from his assistant, ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... in concise epigrammatic clauses, to skirmish with his light troops, and drive in the enemy's outposts. It is only on fitting occasions, when great principles are to be vindicated, and solemn truths told, when some moral or political Waterloo or Solferino is to be fought, that ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... these fellows had threatened to rob her shop. We had been such defenders of the sex, that we could not think of deserting this woman, and we swore we would stand by her, too. We should have had a skirmish here, I do believe, had not one or two rifle officers hove in sight, when the whole party made sail from us. We turned the woman over to these gentlemen, who said, "ay, there are some of our vagabonds, ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many Nightingales: and far and near In wood and thicket over the wide grove They answer and provoke each other's songs— With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug And one low piping sound more sweet than all— Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... a wish that when she grew strong enough to leave her bedroom, she would join him at dinner, which she heard was served in one end of the great Hall, but she decided that the first skirmish should take place in a situation of her own choosing. And so after dusk, the moon coming out, she went again upon the terrace where she leaned upon the wall of the bastion and looked down with an air of self-sought seclusion, upon the mists ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... of the Moravian towns, and was still advancing: The prisoners taken at the Cowpens were saved by a hair's-breadth accident, and Greene was retreating. His force, two thousand regulars, and no militia; Cornwallis, three thousand. General Davidson was killed in a skirmish. Arnold lies still at Portsmouth with fifteen hundred men. A French sixty-four gun ship and two frigates, of thirty-six each, arrived in our bay three days ago. They would suffice to destroy the British shipping here (a forty, four frigates, and a twenty), ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... boys a few cows. It's one of the laws of life, that often we can do for others what we can't do for ourselves. That sounds like preaching, but it isn't. Actually, I'm ashamed of myself, that I didn't get you double the number of cattle. What we did skirmish together was merely the flotsam of the trail, the crumbs that fall from the supper table, and all obligations to me are overpaid. If I could have had just a few tears on tap, with that hospital talk, and you boys being poor and orphans—shucks! I ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... they keep distance, and attend my state.— Parent to her, whose eyes my soul enthral, [To ABEN. Whom I, in hope, already father call, Abenamar, thy youth these sports has known, Of which thy age is now spectator grown; Judge-like thou sit'st, to praise, or to arraign The flying skirmish of the darted cane: But, when fierce bulls run loose upon the place, And our bold Moors their loves with danger grace, Then heat new-bends thy slacken'd nerves again, And a short youth runs warm through ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... begin to rub two fingers together; that means 'We are friends.' We thought that meant 'We are going to rub against you and are hostile.' I therefore said: 'Boom-boom!' and pointed to the warship. At all events, I set up my machine guns and made preparations for a skirmish. But, thank God! one of the Arabs understood the word 'Germans'; ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... conduct in passing and repassing through their neighborhood, without giving them a blanket or any other article of goods, merely because they had no furs to barter in exchange, and he alluded, with menaces of vengeance, to the death of the Indian killed by the whites in the skirmish at the falls. ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... his progress checked. The bridge there had been destroyed, and Tecumseh with his warriors disputed the passage. Harrison, thinking he was opposed by the whole British force, marshalled his army and brought up his artillery. After a slight skirmish, in which Tecumseh was wounded in the arm, the Indians were forced to fall back. A second bridge was similarly contested, with a like result. Then Tecumseh and his Indians retreated and joined Procter's forces near Moraviantown, while the Americans pushed eagerly forward. Drifting ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... cautious Howe shrank from a frontal attack across a marsh. After a delay of six days, he again embarked his army, landed a few miles above Throg's Neck in the hope of cutting off Washington from retreat northward, only to find Washington still north of him at White Plains. A sharp skirmish followed in which Howe lost over two hundred men and Washington only one hundred and forty. Washington, masterly in retreat, then withdrew still farther north ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... were better than a perpetual skirmish; but, notwithstanding all her gossip and friendliness, I continued to have a profound distrust and even terror ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... be made without delay against that which must follow before they could abandon themselves fully to the enjoyment of their victory. This, after all, was no more than a preliminary skirmish, although it was one that afforded them the key to the situation. It remained to dispose so that the utmost profit might be drawn from it. Those dispositions occupied some very considerable portion of the night. But, at least, they were complete before the sun peeped over the shoulder ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... gowne of silke, and a cheine of gold. But king Henrie staied six daies, and sixtene too, without hearing any word of the gouernors comming. Then the winter beginning to wax cold, and foule weather still increasing, caused the king to breake vp his siege, and so returned without battell or skirmish offered. ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... the damsel overturned the frying-pan and went out by the way she had come, and the wall closed up again as before. Presently the cookmaid came to herself and seeing the four fish burnt black as coal, said, 'My arms are broken in my first skirmish!' And fell down again in a swoon. Whilst she was in this state, in came the Vizier, to seek the fish, and found her insensible, not knowing Saturday from Thursday. So he stirred her with his foot and she came to herself and wept and told him what had passed. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... An Account of the Discovery of several Islands, and an Interview and Skirmish with the Inhabitants upon one of them. The Arrival of the Ship at Tanna, and the Reception ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... Nestor, in the rear, (Their fellows routed,) toss the distant spear, And skirmish wide: so Nestor gave command, When from the ships he sent the Pylian band. The youthful brothers thus for fame contend, Nor knew the fortune of Achilles' friend; In thought they view'd him still, with martial joy, Glorious in arms, and dealing death ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... bayonets in one's very bedroom, continue. One evening, 21st July, 1738, glorious news from the seat of War—not TILL evening, as the Imperial Majesty was out hunting—enters Vienna; blowing trumpets; shaking flags: "Grand Victory over the Turks!" so we call some poor skirmish there has been; and Vienna bursting all into three-times-three, the populace get very high. Populace rush to the Kohlmarkt: break the Seckendorf windows; intent to massacre the Seckendorf; had not fresh military come, who were ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... Sissinghurst and Cranbrook for many years, and found there frequent subjects of rustic study. The Sissinghurst ruins are fragmentary, excepting the grand entrance, which is well preserved. Baker's Cross survives to mark the spot where the Anabaptists had a skirmish with their great enemy; and the legend is that he was killed there, though history asserts that this theological warrior died in his bed peaceably some time afterwards ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... established in 1658 by Gov. Peter Stuyvesant in the northeastern part of Manhattan Island. It existed for 200 years but is now lost under modern Harlem, which centers about 125th St. In this neighborhood to the west occurred the battle of Harlem Heights—a lively skirmish fought Sept. 16, 1776, opposite the west front of the present Columbia University, and resulting in a victory for the forces of Gen. Washington, who up to that time had suffered a number of reverses on Long Island and elsewhere. The battle was directed by Washington ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... at the beginning, I followed Patterson till convinced that his chief impulse was to get away from the enemy. I then hastened to Washington only to learn that McDowell had already had a heavy skirmish which was not particularly to our advantage. This was Saturday morning, and the impression was that a general engagement would be fought almost immediately. The fact that our army had met little opposition thus far created a false confidence. I did not care to risk my pet ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... execution of his own stratagem, which inclined the long-disputed balance in favor of the Saracens. Supplying by activity and artifice the deficiency of numbers, a part of their forces lay concealed in their tents, while the remainder prolonged an irregular skirmish with the enemy till the sun was high in the heavens. On both sides they retired with fainting steps: their horses were unbridled, their armor was laid aside, and the hostile nations prepared, or seemed to prepare, for the refreshment of the evening, and the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... of Greek chieftains were gathered together in the palace. The intriguing Palli, the accomplished Karazza, the warlike Ypsilanti, were among the principal. They talked of the events of the day; the skirmish at noon; the diminished numbers of the Infidels; their defeat and flight: they contemplated, after a short interval of time, the capture of the Golden City. They endeavoured to picture forth what would then happen, and spoke in lofty terms of the prosperity of Greece, when Constantinople should become ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... manner, as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious — they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and, when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... learned, was the young officer, George Washington, who had commanded the Virginians in the first skirmish with the French and ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a slight skirmish between a detachment of Bouille's cavalry and the national guard of Varennes, Louis was started back for Paris, surrounded by armed contingents from all the near-by villages. The whole course of the ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... very obstinate, and the slaughter great, considering the small number of the combatants. A hundred and sixty of the Romans were left dead upon the spot, and more than two hundred of their enemies. But the honour of this skirmish fell to the Romans; the Numidians having retired and left them the field of battle. This first action was interpreted as an omen(740) of the fate of the whole war, and seemed to promise success to the Romans, but which, at the same time, would be ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... seconds, and then his rifle cracked; and a yell of astonishment and rage broke from the Indians, as one of their chiefs, conspicuous from an old dragoon helmet, taken probably in some skirmish with the soldiers, fell ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... in that quarter of the federal territory." Wilkinson's detachment had reached the village near daybreak. The advance columns of the Kentuckians charged impetuously into the town just as the Indians were crossing the Wabash, and a brief skirmish ensued from the opposite shores, during which several Indian warriors were killed and two Americans wounded. Many of the inhabitants of Kethtipecanunck were French traders and lived in a state of semi-civilization. "By the books, letters, and other ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... scarcely begun, we answer; one must be blind not to see it. What is ended, is only the first skirmish. As to the war, it will be as long, believe me, as the life of the two principles which are struggling in America. Let Mr. Lincoln assure himself, and let the European adversaries of slavery remember ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... city of Mexico with the victorious army, but on the subsequent day, being engaged in a street skirmish with the leperos, or liberated convicts, he fell mortally wounded by a copper bullet, and he was now dying by inches at his quarters ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... order to fortify himself in the church, a stone building. He arrived there at eleven o'clock in the morning. The Chinese, in number one thousand five hundred, arrived at the same place at the same time, bent on the same purpose. An hour's skirmish took place between the two sides, as to which one would gain the monastery. Captain Gaspar Perez came up with the reenforcement of the men left at Minondoc. The enemy retired to his fort, with a loss of five hundred men. Gaspar Perez returned to his post, where Pedro de Arzeo ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... have just passed through one of the forest villages, which, but a few days since, must have been loveliness itself.—Vineyards, gardens, a bright stream, a rustic chapel on a hill—every thing shaped for the delight of the eye! But a desperate skirmish had occurred there between the retreating Republicans and their pursuers, and all that man could ruin was ruined. The cottages were all in ashes, the gardens trampled, the vineyards cut down for the fires of the bivouac, the chapel ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... haste, and we so rode that, about six hours after noon, on the Eve of the Nativity of our Blessed Lady, we reached the gates of the town. Here we found great press of folk, men coming and going, some carrying the wounded, for there had been a skirmish that day, at one of the Paris gates, whence came the sound of cannon and culverins, and we had won ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... had arrived, and before Sigel could form had passed around to his front, at the same time enveloping his flanks. By the skilful disposition of his detachment, and the admirable conduct of the men, Sigel was able to resume and continue his march, an unbroken skirmish, rising at times into engagement, from half-past ten o'clock till half-past three, when he was joined by reinforcements which General Curtis had hurried back to him. The line was formed, facing to the south, on the crest of the bluffs overlooking ...
— From Fort Henry to Corinth • Manning Ferguson Force
... defensive, the stadholder entered Flanders and by a forced march attempted to seize Bruges. His effort, however, was foiled, as was a later attempt to capture Hulst, when Frederick Henry and the States sustained a great loss in the death of the gallant Henry Casimir of Nassau, who was killed in a chance skirmish at the age of 29 years. This regrettable event caused a vacancy in the stadholderates of Friesland and Groningen with Drente. A number of zealous adherents of the House of Orange were now anxious that Frederick Henry should fill the vacant posts to the exclusion of his ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... which supplies its own explanation at any cost to propriety or respect. I have courted my own doom. I am the victim of my own mistake. But," he continued, with a flash of his old fire which made him a dignified figure again, "I'm not going to cringe because I have lost ground in the first skirmish. I come of fighting blood. Oliver's reputation shall not suffer long, whatever I may have done in my parental confidence to endanger it. I have not spent ten years at the bar, and fifteen on the bench ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... true. What had at first promised to be only a skirmish between the outposts of the two entrenched armies, now developed into a general engagement covering a space of half a mile along the line. A reconnoitering force of Federal cavalry had ridden too close to the rifle pits ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... no move was made until the late autumn, when two American generals in succession—Van Rensselaer and Smyth—tried to lead a motley array of militia and regulars across the river. Brock met the first detachment and was killed in a skirmish, but his men were able to annihilate the main attack, on the brink of the river, while several thousand American militia, {222} refusing, on constitutional grounds, to serve outside the jurisdiction ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith |
