"Firelock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Ay, faith, we be! Why didn't I stick to England, and true doxology, and leave foreign doxies and their wine alone!... Mate, can ye squeeze another shardful from the cask there, for I feel my time is come!... O that I had but the barrel of that firelock I throwed away, and that wasted powder to prime and load! This bullet I chaw to squench my hunger would do the rest!... Yes, I ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... with calendars, charts, a cross-staff, an astrolabe, with globes and the like, while against the walls stood rows of calivers, musquetoons and fusees, set in racks very orderly. "Aye, shipmate," says he, noting my gaze, "every firelock aboard is either here or in the arm-chests i' the round-house below, and our powder is all stored well aft, by reason that I am a cautious man, d'ye see! Sit ye, Martin! Now as to this black ship—first of all she fouls ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... so dearly, as now in this dark boisterous weather, that causes her very flesh to creep while she listens to its roar. Nobody who could help it would be abroad on Calais sands. "Pas meme un Anglais!" mutters the sentry, ordering his firelock with a ring, and wishing it was time for the Relief. But an Englishman is out nevertheless, wandering aimlessly to and fro on the beach; turning his face to windward against the driving rain; trying to think the wet on his cheek ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... grasp, and he was dead. Adair with a sigh, for the marine had been his servant, let go his hand and sprang on. In vain the British and their allies fired away at every loophole and embrasure where a man's head or firelock was to be seen. The enemy rattled away as rapidly as ever, and no impression seemed to be made on the walls, while numbers of the storming-party were falling one after the other around. Now a poor fellow would spring up into the air shot through the head, and now would fall down with ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... has changed his name in traveling. Boblincoln no more, he is the reedbird now, the much-sought-for tidbit of Pennsylvanian epicures, the rival in unlucky fame of the ortolan! Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop! every rusty firelock in the country is blazing away. He sees his companions falling by thousands around him. Does he take warning and reform? Alas! not he. Again he wings his flight. The rice swamps of the south invite him. He gorges ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... alone in the house which had been hers. One morning in the December under notice the report of a gun had been heard on his premises, and on entering the neighbours found him in a dying state. He had shot himself with an old firelock that he used for scaring birds; and from what he had said the day before, and the arrangements he had made for his decease, there was no doubt that his end had been deliberately planned, as a consequence of the despondency into which he had been thrown ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... breaking out of hostilities the regiment was ordered to embark for America. The recruits were instructed in the use of the firelock, and, from the shortness of the time allowed, were even drilled by candle-light. New arms and accoutrements were supplied to the men, and the Colonel, at his own expense, furnished them with broad ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... and while the blaze of the brand was brightest, his ears were stunned by an explosion bursting like a thunderbolt at his very head, but whether coming from earth or air, from the hands of Heaven or the firelock of a human being, he knew not; and immediately after there sprang a huge dark shadow over his body, and there was heard the crash as of an axe falling upon the flesh of the young Indian who slept on his right ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... the men's hats, the crook-necked squashes, the skeins of thread and yarn hanging in bunches on the wainscot; the sheen of the pewter plates and basins, standing in rows on the shelves of the dresser; the trusty firelock, with powder-horn, bandolier, and bullet-pouch, hanging on the summer-tree, and the bright brass warming-pan behind the bedroom door—all stand more clearly revealed for an instant, showing the provident care for the comfort and ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... a good deal, the drivers succeeded in holding them to their places, and the double column of carriages, three in each rank, preserved its formation. In every vehicle there was a muleteer, with hands free for fighting, bearing something or other in the shape of a firelock, and inspired with what courage there is in desperation. The four flankers, necessarily the most exposed to assault, had each a United States regular, with musket, bayonet, and forty rounds of buck and ball. In front of the phalanx, directly before the wagon which contained ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... from some Parliament man, up yonder at the Castle, with letters for worshipful Master Bridgenorth of Moultrassie Hall; and this be the place, as I think; though why ye be marching up and down at his door, like the sign of a Red Man, with your old firelock there, I cannot ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... before fled, which but for this, they would have considered as impossible. But Ney, rushing in among them, seized one of their muskets, and led them back to action, which he was himself the first to renew; exposing his life like a private soldier, with a firelock in his hand, the same as though he had been neither possessed of wealth, nor power, nor consideration; in short, as if he had still everything to gain, when in fact he had everything to lose. But, ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... the village this hour past, with his grandfather's old firelock on his shoulder," said Rose; "he was running ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the dark shadows hid all from sight; and even then, as my ears caught the challenge of a sentry or the footsteps of some officer in his round, my thoughts were riveted upon them, and a hundred vague fancies as to the future were based upon no stronger foundation than the clink of a firelock or the low-muttered song ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... in the heavens, illumining spaces of water here and there, so that the oncoming Indians were plainly visible to the men behind the parapet, there awaiting, with fast-beating hearts, the signal to fire. At a critical moment, one of the nervous soldiers accidentally struck his firelock against a stone, and the sound being heard by the foe, in an instant came the watchword for silence and caution—"Owish." The canoes in the van halted, and the others coming up, they were soon huddled together right in front of the breastwork. This was the ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... mode of punishment was prescribed, so each soldier inflicted such chastisement as he considered most fitting. They began by rigging him out in an old uniform and a large pair of whiskers, loading him with the heaviest firelock they could find, and forced him to go through the manual exercise for two hours, accompanying their drill with the usual discipline of the cane. They then made him dance and sing for two hours longer, and ended this persecution by compelling the ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... at least despairing to find him, and rightly apprehending that the report of the firelock would alarm the whole house, our heroe now blew out his candle, and gently stole back again to his chamber, and to his bed; whither he would not have been able to have gotten undiscovered, had any other person been on the same staircase, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... emperor of them all. To tell the honest truth, I have learned more about that battle from what I have read than from what I saw, for how much could I see with a comrade on either side, and a great white cloud-bank at the very end of my firelock? It was from books and the talk of others that I learned how the heavy cavalry charged, how they rode over the famous cuirassiers, and how they were cut to pieces before they could get back. From them, too, I learned all about the successive assaults, ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... us! see him start! wave his kerchief like a banner! Lay his left hand on his heart in a proud, insulting manner. Well he knows that distant spot's past our ball, his low scorn flinging. If you cannot feel the shot, you shall hear the firelock's ringing, Jack, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now suspected that the grave roisterers of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... advancing with great rapidity. In far less time than would have been accomplished by men less accustomed to the mountains, they had left the highroad, traversed the narrow path, and approached within pistol-shot of the bothy, at the door of which stood Hamish, fixed like a statue of stone, with his firelock in his band, while his mother, placed behind him, and almost driven to frenzy by the violence of her passions, reproached him in the strongest terms which despair could invent, for his want of resolution ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... revenge the cruelties of the French and their barbarous allies. They are in a uniform: viz., a plain blue frock, nanquin or brown waistcoats and breeches, and plain hats. They are armed each with a light firelock, a brace of pistols, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray |
