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More "Broadsword" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fantastic, flatly palmated or leaflike structure, separating into sharp prongs along the edges, and spreading more than four feet from tip to tip. To compare them with the short, polished crescent of the horns of Last Bull was like comparing a two-handed broadsword to a bowie-knife. And his head, instead of being short, broad, ponderous, and shaggy, like Last Bull's, was long, close-haired, and massively horse-faced, with a projecting ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... him if he met him in the other world with the look he wore on earth. All the etchings and their copies give a characteristic presentation of the spiritual precursor of Luther, who pricked the false image with his rapier which the sturdy monk slashed with his broadsword. What a face it is which Hans Holbein has handed down to us in this wonderful portrait at Longford Castle! How dry it is with scholastic labor, how keen with shrewd scepticism, how worldly-wise, how conscious of its owner's wide-awake sagacity! Erasmus and Rabelais,—Nature used up all her arrows ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... gunpowder, guncotton; mercury fulminate; picrates; pentaerythritol tetranitrate[ISA:chemsub][Chemsub], PETN. high explosive; trinitrotoluene, TNT; dynamite, melinite[obs3], cordite, lyddite, plastic explosive, plastique; pyroxyline[obs3]. [knives and swords: list] sword, saber, broadsword, cutlass, falchion[obs3], scimitar, cimeter[obs3], brand, whinyard, bilbo, glaive[obs3], glave[obs3], rapier, skean, Toledo, Ferrara, tuck, claymore, adaga[obs3], baselard[obs3], Lochaber ax, skean dhu[obs3], creese[obs3], kris, dagger, dirk, banger[obs3], poniard, stiletto, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... thought or aim in life but to win her favor, to gain a position worthy of her; I would have crossed the Channel, and marched into St. James's, and hacked off the Hanoverian's heavy head with my father's broadsword, I verily believe, to have had one smile from her lips. Yet I had to pocket this all, and stand smilingly by and see her wedded to my tent-mate, Tony Cross. I thought the world had come to an end—but it hadn't. ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... the arena six combatants: Niger and his net, matched against Sporus with his shield and his short broadsword; Lydon and Tetraides, naked save by a cincture round the waist, each armed only with a heavy Greek cestus—and two gladiators from Rome, clad in complete steel, and evenly matched with immense bucklers ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... deck Blackbeard was stamping to and fro, bellowing at his crew while he flourished a broadsword by way of emphasis. The hapless company of the Plymouth Adventure shivered at the very sight of him and yet there was something almost ludicrous in the antics of this atrocious pirate, as though he were play-acting upon the stage of a theatre. He had tucked up the tails of his military ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... furniture, such as the best formed saddles I ever rode on, very neatly fabricated; stirrups in the European form, made of silver for the chiefs, and not like those of the Turks; large iron spurs, bits with small chains for reins, to prevent them from being severed by the stroke of an enemy's broadsword; long and double edged broadswords, with the guard frequently made of silver; iron heads for lances, and shields made of the hide of the elephant; to which may be added, that the women ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... crack regiments in the British Army which wear the kilt—the kilt which, as Macaulay says with perfect truth, was regarded by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. The Highland officers carry a silver-hilted version of the old barbarous Gaelic broadsword with a basket-hilt, which split the skulls of so many English soldiers at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. When you have a regiment of men in the British Army carrying ornamental silver shillelaghs you will have done the same thing for Ireland, ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... saddle, with a fall to each side of the horse down to the stirrup, wide enough to cover the thigh and a leg of the horseman, and protect him when riding through the brush. This apron was called the armas. Their offensive arms were the lance, which they managed with great dexterity on horseback, the broadsword, and a short musket, carried in a case. Costanso, who was an officer of the regular army, bears testimony to the unceasing labor of the presidial soldiers of California on this march, and says they were ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... all along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a man, to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear a coat of mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Pope, though he did not hit so hard as Dryden, struck more deftly and probed deeper. He wielded a rapier where the other used a broadsword, and though both used their weapons with the highest skill and the metaphor must not be imagined to impute clumsiness to Dryden, the rapier made the cleaner cut. Both employed a method in satire which their successors (a poor set) in England ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... broadsword With both hands to the height, He rushed against Horatius, 150 And smote with all his might. With shield and blade Horatius Right deftly turned the blow. The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh; It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh: 155 The Tuscans raised ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... said Bucklaw; "however, I can hold my own, both with single rapier, backsword, sword and dagger, broadsword, or case of falchions—and that's as much as any gentleman need ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... however, that the knight was holding him very lightly. Just as he had opened his mouth in expostulation, the knight suddenly released his hold of Robin's legs, and shook him into the running water. Then, laughing heartily, he regained the other bank and his broadsword. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... entitled to the appellation of soldiers. [85] Their encounter was varied, and balanced by the contrast of arms and discipline; of the direct charge, and wheeling evolutions; of the couched lance, and the brandished javelin; of a weighty broadsword, and a crooked sabre; of cumbrous armor, and thin flowing robes; and of the long Tartar bow, and the arbalist or crossbow, a deadly weapon, yet unknown to the Orientals. [86] As long as the horses were fresh, and the quivers full, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... FENCE.—Containing full instruction for fencing and the use of the broadsword; also instruction in archery. Described with twenty-one practical illustrations, giving the best positions ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... one corner, there was a friendly bout at quarterstaff; and—what attracted most interest of all—on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. But, much to the disappointment of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, who had no idea of permitting the majesty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there, make way!" Mr. Bowles was crying, brandishing the antique broadsword that had come down to Wyckholme from the dark ages. "Stand aside for the British Government! Make ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... the tanner, a piece of bread and some wine in his wallet, a good longbow and arrows slung across his shoulder, his stout quarter-staff in his hand, and on his head a cap of trebled raw-hide so tough that it would turn the edge of a broadsword. He lost no time in getting out of the hot sun and into the welcome shade of the forest, where he stalked cautiously about seeking some ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Hebridean took them for a lawless band come to rob his master's house. He therefore, like a faithful guardian, precipitately withdrew and shut the doors, but as most of our houses are without locks, he was reduced to the necessity of fixing his knife over the latch, and then flew upstairs in quest of a broadsword he had brought from Scotland. The Indians, who were Mr. P. R.'s particular friends, guessed at his suspicions and fears; they forcibly lifted the door, and suddenly took possession of the house, got all the bread and meat they wanted, and sat themselves down by the fire. ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... warrant thou knowest better how to draw the bow, than how to draw a bill of charges—canst handle a broadsword ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... second wife, in the church of Allhallows, Barking, near the Tower of London, where there are two handsome brasses to their memory. That of William Thynne represents him in full armour with a tremendous dudgeon dagger and broadsword, most warlike guize for a clerk of the kitchen and editor of Chaucer. The dress of his wife is quite refreshing in its graceful comeliness in these days of revived "farthingales and hoops." These brasses were restored ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... looked sternly on the young soldier; but he had gone too far to be frightened, and he flashed back: "War is better. My broadsword is better. If I could sing, I would sing to your Ares; we call ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... skirmishing, and were far superior to the ordinary irregular troops of Greek warfare. They were about six thousand strong. Besides these, he had several bodies of Greek regular infantry; and he had archers, slingers, and javelin-men, who fought also with broadsword and target. These were principally supplied to him by the highlanders of Illyria and Thracia. The main strength of his cavalry consisted in two chosen corps of cuirassiers, one Macedonian, and one Thessalian each of which was about fifteen hundred strong. They were provided with long ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... me!"—"Come forth, and I'll give thee both at once!" cried the Prince. Then the Dragon wouldn't wait any longer, but stuck out all his six heads and began to wriggle out of the cavern; but the Prince attacked him with his huge broadsword, a full fathom long, which the Lord had given him, and chopped off all the Dragon's six heads, and the rock fell upon the Dragon's body and crushed it to pieces. Then the Prince gathered up the six dragon-heads and laid them on one side, and cut out the six lolling tongues ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... developed. By the law of climax, these are not the unimportant parts. Woman's sovereignty has been long deferred, because of the preparation necessary for it. A John the Baptist must precede the Christ in the wilderness. Fiends robed and sceptred, once reigned over fiends clothed in skins and armed with broadsword and battle axe. To-day a gentleman, or gentlewoman can sit secure on any throne of Christendom. While we congratulate ourselves, let us not deny that the Tamerlanes, the Alarics, the Napoleons have had their share in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... lodged in a building close to the chief's own house, a rude structure of pine-wood, but in his men's eyes a magnificent palace. The clans had proved true to their tryst. Every Cameron who could wield a broadsword was there. From the wild peaks of Corryarrick and Glen Garry, from the dark passes of Glencoe and the storm-beaten islands of the western seas, the men of Macdonald came trooping in. Sir John of Duart brought a strong gathering of ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... blood and battle were now half forgotten by Prince Andras; but often Yanski Varhely, his companion of those days of hardship, the bold soldier who in former times had so often braved the broadsword of the Bohemian cuirassiers of Auersperg's regiment, would recall to him the past with a mournful shake of the head, and repeat, ironically, the bitter refrain of the song ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... noble cavaliers were continually passing and repassing the ancient streets, singly or in groups; then there were their followers, all carefully and strictly armed, in the buff coat plaited with steel, the well-quilted bonnet, the huge broadsword; Highlanders in their peculiar and graceful costume; even the stout farmers, who might also be found amongst this motley assemblage, wearing the iron hauberk and sharp sword beneath their apparently peaceful garb. Friars in their gray frocks and black cowls, and stately ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... unsuccessful—determination had, in the interval of a few hours, become too settled for alteration. Alan, as the challenged, was, according to duelling etiquette, entitled to the choice of weapons and place of meeting. Although the pistol had in a measure superseded the rapier in England, the broadsword remained the favourite weapon in the north when required for the purpose of personal satisfaction. Highlanders had always a preference for the weapon named by Ossian—An Lann tanna—and by the modern bards—Tagha ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... gnaw the meat from the bone so closely, as I am now peeling the morsel which I hold in my hand?" [Footnote: It is said in Highland tradition, that one of the Macdonalds of the Isles, who had suffered his broadsword to remain sheathed for some months after his marriage with a beautiful woman, was stirred to a sudden and furious expedition against the mainland by hearing conversation to the above purpose among ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... step by step along the tunnel towards Jack, he balanced the great broadsword he held by both hands, and poised it ready to strike at the foremost. Though he was greatly out-numbered, yet he held one advantage. The forms of his enemies were clear against the sunlight which poured into the ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... Sumner, who sat writing at his desk, with his head down, and dealt him several severe blows in the back of his head with a stout gutta- percha cane as he would have cut at him right and left with a dragoon's broadsword. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... loved to be out in the open air along with Cerda, the Saxon jarl, one of the King's chief fighting-men, who urged them to learn how to use the broadsword. After setting one of the men to make swords for the boys—not of hard cutting steel, but of good tough ash-wood—and then matching them two against two, he would sit and roar with laughter at the blows they gave ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... the runnel started, as he were wood Out from betwixt his shoulders his own hugh boar-spear stood. He thought to find his quiver or his broadsword true. The traitor for his treason had then ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... appeared at all like the same thing anywhere else. But he stopped to read the playbill at the theatre and surveyed the doorway with a kind of awe, which was not diminished when a sallow gentleman with long dark hair came out, and told a boy to run home to his lodgings and bring down his broadsword. Mr Pinch stood rooted to the spot on hearing this, and might have stood there until dark, but that the old cathedral bell began to ring for vesper service, on ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... drill and fought it out with Peale. They might have been compared to a rapier and a two-handed broadsword. Jack was more than a skilled boxer. He was a cool punishing fighter, one who could give as well as take. Once Peale cornered him, bent evidently on closing and crushing his ribs with a terrific bear hug. It would have been worth a dozen lessons from a boxing master ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... his horse under control, drew his broadsword with his right hand, his pistol with his left,—which held also the rein,—and ordered his men to charge, to fire at the moment of contact, then to cut, slash, and club. So the little troop, the well and ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... most active of the garrison—now firing his musket, now pronging at an Indian who had climbed to the top of the palisade, now using a broadsword which he had secured to his side, all the time shouting out, "Erin go bragh! Down with the spalpeens. Arrah! now you're coming in, are you? Just take that thin, and find out ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... a small village, was just now crowded with visitors, albeit rather of a rough description, being chiefly highland drovers in plaid and kilt, or trowes, with daggers stuck in their belts, carrying, however, long goads or staves in the place of broadsword and targets. There were purchasers also of the cattle they came to dispose of from all parts of the country, mostly as rough in their way as the Scotchmen they came to meet. The accommodation which the inn afforded was suitable to such characters as ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... a red laced coat, and the Laird's wig on his head; and aye as Sir Robert girned wi' pain, the jackanape girned too, like a sheep's-head between a pair of tangs—an ill-faur'd, fearsome couple they were. The Laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin behind him, and his broadsword and his pistols within reach; for he keepit up the auld fashion of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night, just as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, and away after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings of. Some said ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... takes him!' (What am I saying? I love Englishmen, but the spell is upon me!) 'Come on, Macduff!' (The only suitable and familiar challenge my warlike tenant can summon at the moment.) 'I am the son of a Gael! My dagger is in my belt, and with the guid broadsword at my side I can with one blow cut a man in twain! My bow is cut from the wood of the yews of Glenure; the shaft is from the wood of Lochetive, the feathers from the great golden eagles of Locktreigside! My arrowhead was made by the smiths ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... out of the ship, and made me a belt to hang it on also; so that I was now a most formidable fellow to look at when I went abroad, if you add to the former description of myself the particular of two pistols, and a broadsword hanging at my side in a belt, but ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... scholar; no historian. "God," said I, "gentlemen, has made 'many men of many minds;' one for this thing and another for that. But I am morally certain he never made me for a writer. I did indeed once understand something about the use of a broadsword; but as to a pen, gentlemen, that's quite another part of speech. The difference between a broadsword and a pen, gentlemen, is prodigious; and it is not every officer, let me tell you, gentlemen, who can, like Caesar, fight you a great ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... and stern features glared forth from under a blue velvet bonnet, fantastically placed sideways on his head—he had a sound and tough coat of English blue broad-cloth, which, unlike his former vestment, would have stood the tug of all the apprentices in Fleet Street. The buckler and broadsword he wore as the arms of his condition, and a neat silver badge, bearing his lord's arms, announced that he was an appendage of aristocracy. He sat down in the good citizen's buttery, not a little pleased to find his attendance upon ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the saints and the blessed Virgin, mingled the screams of women, of whom there were several, both Spaniard and Indian, in the Christian ranks. One of these, Maria de Estrada, fought as valiantly as any of the warriors, battling staunchly with broadsword and target in the thickest of the fray, and proving herself as valiant ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... their ancestors and those of the Kawars were connected. In Mirzapur the Kaurai Ahirs will take food and water from the Majhwars, and these Ahirs are not improbably derived from the Kawars. [147] Here the Majhwars also hold an oath taken when touching a broadsword as most binding, and the Kawars of the Central Provinces worship a sword as one of their principal deities. [148] Not improbably the Manjhis may include some Kewats, as this caste also use Manjhi for a title; and Manjhi is both a subcaste and title of the Khairwars. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... pieces of complete armour, he was cased in a postillion's leathern jerkin, covered with thin plates of tinned iron. His buckler was a potlid, his lance a hop-pole shod with iron, and a basket-hilt broadsword, like that of Hudibras, depended by a broad buff belt, that girded his middle. His feet were defended by jack-boots, and his hands by the gloves of a trooper. Sir Launcelot would not lose time in examining particulars, as he perceived some ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... forfeited estates of his family and from the clan of which he was head. Success was instantaneous. Within a few weeks Fraser was at the head of some 1500 men. They wore the Highland dress, with a sporran of badger's or otter's skin and carried musket and broadsword; some of them wore a dirk at their own cost. Among the officers were no less than five Simon Frasers,[3] three or four each of Alexander Frasers and John Frasers, and a good many other Frasers, among them a young Ensign, Malcolm Fraser, destined to rule ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... of gold and silver as can possibly be put upon their backs. Mimic jousts and mock combats will be held. Lord DERBY, Lord RIDDELL and Mr. PHILIP KERR will all encounter chosen French champions. Six days will be given to tilting with the lance, two to fights with the broadsword on horseback, two to fighting on foot at the barriers. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... those that listen: "Never, never, anxious maidens, Must ye give the information, That I carried off Kyllikki To my distant home and kindred. If ye do not heed this order, Ye shall badly fare as maidens; I shall sing to war your suitors, Sing them under spear and broadsword, That for months, and years, and ages, Never ye will see their faces, Never hear their merry voices, Never will they tread these uplands, Never will they join these dances, Never will they drive these highways." Sad the wailing of Kyllikki, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... charge of the clans. They received the fire of the regular troops without flinching, reserved their own until they were close at hand, poured in a murderous volley, and then, throwing away their firelocks, attacked the enemy with the broadsword. ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... favourite, Lord Bothwell, to her aid. Years before, when fighting the Earl of Huntly in the far North, she had expressed to Randolph her regret 'that she was not a man to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk on the causeway, with a jack and knapschalle, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword.' And now, as before, her energy swept the field clear of her enemies, and she returned to Edinburgh victorious. Knox may not have known of the formal Band; but he was even more opposed to his Queen than were those who signed ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... prefer to carry on the work of reconnaissance in the usual way. Men believe in the weapons they are skilled to handle. When the rapier was introduced into England in the sixteenth century, it found no friends among the masters of the broadsword; its vogue was gained among young gentlemen educated in France and Italy. To let an aeroplane attempt their work would have seemed to the cavalry like dropping the bone to catch at the shadow. But youth will be served, and in a very few years the shadow cast by Captain Dickson's aeroplane ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... controversy with those accomplished diplomats, Lord Salisbury and Lord Granville, and it must have been among the relaxations of their office to point out tactfully the defects and errors in his dispatches. Nevertheless when he did not misread history or misquote precedents but wielded the broadsword of equity, he often caught the public conscience, and then he was not an opponent ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... was in cavalry dress of tunic and tasseled coif, with pike and bull-hide shield and a light broadsword. He was no ordinary bearer of arms. He walked like a man accustomed to command; he turned a cold eye upon too-familiar wayfarers and startled them into silence by the level blackness of his low brows. Wealth, beauty, age nor rank won servility or superciliousness from him. The Egyptian ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... under which appeared a doublet of dressed leopard's skin reaching within a handbreadth of the knee. The rest of his muscular limbs, both legs and arms, were bare, excepting that he had sandals on his feet, and wore a collar and bracelets of silver. A straight broadsword, with a handle of box-wood and a sheath covered with snakeskin, was suspended from his waist. In his right hand he held a short javelin, with a broad, bright steel head, of a span in length, and in his left he led by a leash of twisted silk and gold ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... became furious of anger. 'We, too,' he interposed, 'colonize. Say you will come under the protection and acknowledged allegiance to our Queen, and yours shall be a scarlet coat, a cocked hat, and a great broadsword wherewith to fight your way in the world.' The chief moved his head doubtingly, as his body vibrated from head to foot. What strange opinions invaded his thoughts! He placed his broad hard hands gently on our heads, drew us lovingly to him, and smiled. In that smile was that ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... does is to brutalise him. There may be skill displayed—I am told there is,—but it is not apparent. The mere fighting is like nothing so much as a broadsword combat at a Richardson's show; the display as a whole a successful attempt to combine the ludicrous with the unpleasant. In aristocratic Bonn, where style is considered, and in Heidelberg, where visitors from other nations are more common, the affair is perhaps more formal. ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... big broadsword, and Nerle carefully prepared his master's horse, so that before an hour had passed they were galloping toward the province of the Red ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... was doomed to a bitter disappointment. My father had given me a lesson now and then, but never enough to test me, and when I came into the hands of a Glasgow master my unfitness was soon manifest. Neither with broadsword nor small sword could I acquire any skill. My short arm lacked reach and vigour, and there seemed to be some stiffness in wrist and elbow and shoulder which compelled me to yield to smaller men. Here was a pretty business, for though ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... weapons and firearms of such ancient design that he wondered what they could have been used for, even in the Middle Ages. Once he ventured inside the little shop. Finding no attendant, he put aside his suddenly formed impulse to purchase a mighty broadsword. From somewhere in the rear of the building came the clanging of steel hammers, the ringing of highly tempered metals; but, although he pounded vigorously with his cane, no one ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... seen from the verandah, and a middle-aged lady and three young ones came rushing down the steps, followed by a tall, strongly built gentleman, who seemed well capable of wielding an axe or a broadsword, as ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... slashed, but not embroidered; and on his breast he wore a jazeran, or mailed cuirass, which was not only lighter than a steel corselet, but was equally proof against poniard or pike. In his broad leather belt were stuck two pairs of pistols, and a long dagger; a heavy broadsword also hung by his side. His black boots came up nearly to the knee—in contravention of the prevailing fashion of that age, when these articles of dress seldom reached above the swell of the leg. A large slouched ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... with one of the prizes, leaving the others at the Marquesas. Nothing of interest occurred during the passage, but the crew were daily exercised at all the arms carried by the ship—with the cannon, the muskets, and the single-sticks. The latter are for training in the use of the broadsword or cutlass, the play with which would be too dangerous for ordinary drills. Porter had a strong disposition to resort to boarding and hand-to-hand fighting, believing that the very surprise of an attack by the weaker party would go far ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... would be required more than twenty days. He estimated the Mormon forces in the disturbed counties at from thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred men, most of them carrying a rifle, a brace of pistols, and a broadsword; "so that," he added, "from their position, and their fanaticism, and their unalterable determination not to be driven, much blood will be spilt and much suffering endured if a blow is at once struck, without the interposition of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... which he got by attempting to run away, though he had a Highlander at his heels. When the French gave themselves up quietly they had no harm done them, but faith! if they tried to outrun a Heelandman they stood but a bad chance, for whash went the broadsword!"—(Related in August, 1828, as stated in the Diary of Volunteer Sergt. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Are the arrangements for boarding and repelling boarders efficient? Note the time required to assemble each division properly armed. Are the boarders and others well trained in the use of the single-stick or broadsword? ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... the Russians, Indian rebels, or what not. In Cupar-Fife, there's a little inn called the "Battle of Waterloo," and what do you think the sign is? (I sketch from memory, to be sure.)* "The Battle of Waterloo" is one broad Scotchman laying about him with a broadsword. Yes, yes, my dear Mac, you are wise, you are good, you are clever, you are handsome, you are brave, you are rich, &c.; but so is Jones over the border. Scotch salmon is good, but there are other good fish in the sea. I once heard a Scotchman lecture on poetry in London. Of course the pieces ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in the house of Count Medole, where, among two or three, there was the ordinary shrugging talk of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to hear. Luciano Romara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to small-sword and broadsword. Both being ireful to boiling point, and mad to strike at something, they attacked one another furiously, though they were dear friends, and the helmet-wires and the padding rattled and smoked to the thumps. For half an hour they held on to it, when, their blood being up, they flashed upon the men ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... faithful heart is my only charm, But my good broadsword is keen, And love for the princess nerves my arm With the strength of ten, I ween. Come weal, come woe, no knight can fail Who goes at Love's behest. Long ere one moon shall wax and wane, I shall be back from my quest. I have only ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... left him but little time. The contest was a close one, and when it was over the winner was led by the city marshal to the royal pavilion, where the queen bestowed upon him a silver arrow, and the king added a purse of money. Then there were several combats with quarterstaff and broadsword between men who had served among the contingents sent by the city to aid the king in his wars. Some good sword-play was shown and many stout blows exchanged, two or three men were badly hurt, and the king and all present were mightily pleased ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... were described carrying a list of objects, the most common of which would usually be a brand. Often used as a joke in {talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here, carrying brand ruby brand brand brand kettle broadsword flamethrower". A brand is a torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons. Prob. influenced by the ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... There was no time for speaking, for Cursecowl, foaming like a mad dog with passion, seized hold of the ell-wand, which he flourished round his head like a Highlander's broadsword, and stamping about, with his stockings drawn up his thighs, threatened every moment ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... in blood-stained vest, To every knight her war-song sung, Upon her head wild weeds were spread, A gory broadsword by her hung. She paced along the heath, She heard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... introduction to Don Teodor, separately. First of all, I had the honor of receiving Monsieur Laramie, a stout, stanch, well-built marine, who professed to be maitre d'armes of our "royal boarding-house," and tendered his services in teaching me the use of rapier and broadsword, at the rate of a franc per week. Next came a burly, beef-eating bully, half sailor, half lubber, who approached with a swinging gait, and was presented as frere Zouche, teacher of single stick, who was ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... am teaching you new tactics." Releasing his sword, the fencing-master ran to the other end of the platform and, seizing a broadsword, cried: ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... Society present me with the most splendid broadsword I ever saw; a beautiful piece of art, and a most noble weapon. Honourable Mr. Stuart (second son of the Earl of Moray), General Graham Stirling, and MacDougal, attended as a committee to present it. This was very kind of my friends the Celts, with whom I have had so many merry meetings. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... passed, leaving Muckhart, Dollar, and, above all, Castle Campbell, the lowland hold of the detested Argyles, heaps of blackened ruins, a march which was to end in the bloody Battle of Kilsyth, that "braw day" when, as the Highlander with grim humour remarked, "at every stroke I gave with my broadsword I cut an ell o' tamn'd Covenanting breeks." When Chambers says[8] that "the Covenanting army marched close upon the track of Montrose down Glendevon, at the distance of about a day's march behind," he, of course, means down the Devon valley, and not down ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... young Irishman, Dick Moran. There was a Fauquier County blacksmith, Billy Hibbs, who reported armed with a huge broadsword which had been the last product of his forge. There were Walter Frankland, Joe Nelson, Frank Williams and George Whitescarver, among the first to join on a permanent basis. And, one day, there was ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper
... even guessed at in the whole course of my life. For the Captain, who was an accomplished swordsman, and Lancelot, who was a promising pupil, were at great pains to teach me the use both of the small sword and the broadsword, at which they exercised me daily upon the deck. Captain Amber had a great regard for Sir William Hope of Balcomie's book, wherein I made my daily study, and he or Lancelot would make me ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Dhu, and we'll give you the broadsword combat some day. It's a great thing, you'd better ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... quote the numerous passages scattered over his writings, both early and late, in which he dwells with, fond affection on the chivalrous character of Invernahyle—the delight with which he heard the veteran describe his broadsword duel with Rob Roy—his campaigns with Mar and Charles Edward—and his long seclusion (as pictured in the story of Bradwardine) within a rocky cave situated not far from his own house, while it was garrisoned by a party of English ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... arose; while the broken-backed chairs and crazy table bore the marks of many a conflict. The characters of the youthful occupants of the room might be detected in every article it contained. Darell's peculiar bent of mind was exemplified in a rusty broadsword, a tall grenadier's cap, a musket without lock or ramrod, a belt and cartouch-box, with other matters evincing a decided military taste. Among his books, Plutarch's Lives, and the Histories of Great Commanders, appeared to have been frequently consulted; but the dust had gathered thickly upon ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Pavilion required a thorough drying. The former was given up to the cleansing of armour, etc., and, in the latter, there were various tilting matches on foot, the combatants being clothed in armour. There was also fencing, both with sticks and broadsword, among the performers being Prince Louis Bonaparte, afterwards Napoleon III. His opponent with the singlesticks was a very young gentleman, Mr. Charteris, and the Prince came off second best in the encounter, as he did, afterwards, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... they loaded from the muzzle by the use of the ramrod; equipped with powder horn, charges made of cane for loading, bullet molds and wadding, but bravely arrayed in home-spun of blue, and belted with cutlass and broadsword by the side, cockade on the hat and courage in the heart, her revolutionary soldiers marched to the music of fife and drum into battle for freedom against the power and might of ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... had sauntered by the veteran's door, beside which you generally, if the evening were fine, or he was not drinking with neighbour Dealtry—or taking his tea with gossip this or master that—or teaching some emulous urchins the broadsword exercise—or snaring trout in the stream—or, in short, otherwise engaged; beside which, I say, you not unfrequently beheld him sitting on a rude bench, and enjoying with half-shut eyes, crossed legs, but still unindulgently erect ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... niche, was a complete corselet of glittering steel, with a closed helmet, and flanked by gantlets and battle-axes. Around were hung trophies and relics of various kinds; a simitar of Tipu Sahib; a Highland broadsword from Flodden field; a pair of Rippon spurs from Bannockburn, and above all, a gun which had belonged to Rob Roy, and bore his initials, R. M. C.,[56] an object of peculiar interest to me at the time, as it was understood Scott was actually engaged in printing a novel founded ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... at close range had mowed them down like grain. The French army, smitten unto death, was reeling back, and the British, seizing the moment, rushed forward with bayonet and drawn sword. The Highlanders, as they charged with the broadsword, uttered a tremendous yell, and Robert saw his own Americans in the front of the rush. He caught one glimpse of the tall figure of Charteris and he saw Colden near him. Then they were all lost in ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in my troop. He lost a hand from his musket bursting three years ago, and now makes his living by helping the boatmen unload at the quays. Then there is Kenneth Munroe. He was invalided after a bad attack of fever in Flanders, and now teaches the broadsword exercise at a fencing master's place at St. Denis. They would both jump at the offer if they only got free lodgings ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... Ardnamurchan, and was ordained an elder in the parish church. But the most eventful part of his life was yet to come. On the tidings of the landing of Prince Charles Edward, he awoke his muse to excite a rising, buckled on his broadsword, and, to complete his duty to his Prince, apostatised to the Catholic religion. In the army of the Prince he bore an officer's commission. At the close of the Rebellion, he at first sought shelter in Borodale and Arisaig; he afterwards proceeded to Edinburgh, with the view ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... race. Each tribe had its own chief, its belted plaid, its warpipes varying with the clan. Their legs were bare; the undressed hide of the deer gave them buskins, a plaid covered the shoulders, and a broadsword, a dagger, a studded targe, ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... "Blind, screaming idiocy. You've gone out of your mind—that's all there is to it. Can't you see what you've done? Aside from selling your colleagues down the river, that is?" He clenched the reprint of Coffin's address in his hand and brandished it like a broadsword. "'Report on a Vaccine for the Treatment and Cure of the Common Cold,' by C. P. Coffin, et al. That's what it says—et al. My idea in the first place. Jake and I both pounding our heads on the wall for eight solid months—and ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... or care for him, foot-sore and travel weary, having eaten perhaps but a piece of dry bread in the last twenty-four hours, he must stand up and kill or be killed. Often he falls beneath the thrust of an assegai or the slashing broadsword of the charging enemy. Then, after the fight is over his comrades turn up the sod where he lies, bundle his poor bones into the shallow pit, and leave him without even a cross to mark his solitary grave. Perhaps he is fortunate and escapes. Yet Tommy ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... either as an exhibition of a certain unexpected capacity or a social eccentricity. It is hardly too much to say that it has become the fashion to write, as it used to be to dance the minuet well, or to use the broadsword, or to stand a gentlemanly mill with a renowned bruiser. Of course one ought not to do this professionally exactly, ought not to prepare for doing it by study and severe discipline, by training for it as for a trade, but simply to toss it off easily, as one makes a call, or pays a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hid their tall slender figures, as the large slouched hats, drawn over their brows, concealed their wild features, dark eyes, and swarthy faces. Two of them carried long fowling-pieces, one wore a broadsword without a sheath, and all had the Highland dirk, though they did not wear that weapon openly or ostentatiously. Behind them followed the train of laden asses, and small carts or tumblers, as they were called in that country, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... the strong temptation to draw his sword and make an example then and there of the contemners of his power and magnificence. But the culprits has shown such an aptitude in the use of arms as to inspire his wholesome respect, and he was very far from sure that they might not make a display of his broadsword an occasion for heaping fresh ridicule upon him. An opportune remembrance ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... young Lochinvar is come out of the West,— Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none,— He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... is come out of the west:— Through all the wide Border his steed was the best, And save his good broadsword he weapons had none; He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... king, His broadsword brandishing, Down the French host did ding, As to o'erwhelm it. And many a deep wound lent His arms with blood besprent. And many a ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... princess, fearing in advance some unfortunate adventure for Bonne—the more so as the constable was as ready to brandish his broadsword as a priest to bestow benedictions—the said queen, as sharp as a dirk, said one day, while coming out from vespers, to her cousin, who was taking the holy ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... and deadly resentment against all who had ever been the foes of his turbulent clan. The stripling seemed to fret at the slow pace of time, and to long for those years in which his arm might have sufficient force to wield his father's broadsword, that he might rush to vengeance. Such had often been his secret thoughts, when he at length reached a period of life which made him able to put the suggestions of his vindictive mind into execution; but a strong and arousing spirit, to which we need not farther ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... but a small village, was just now crowded with visitors, albeit rather of a rough description, being chiefly highland drovers in plaid and kilt, or trowes, with daggers stuck in their belts, carrying, however, long goads or staves in the place of broadsword and targets. There were purchasers also of the cattle they came to dispose of from all parts of the country, mostly as rough in their way as the Scotchmen they came to meet. The accommodation which the inn afforded was suitable to such characters as the visitors who frequented it. ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Scott kept his most valuable papers. Above the cabinet, in a kind of niche, was a complete corslet of glittering steel, with a closed helmet, and flanked by gauntlets and battle-axes. Around were hung trophies and relics of various kinds: a cimeter of Tippoo Saib; a Highland broadsword from Flodden Field; a pair of Rippon spurs from Bannockburn; and above all, a gun which had belonged to Rob Roy, and bore his initials, R.M.G., an object of peculiar interest to me at the time, as it was understood Scott was ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... under control, drew his broadsword with his right hand, his pistol with his left,—which held also the rein,—and ordered his men to charge, to fire at the moment of contact, then to cut, slash, and club. So the little troop, the well and the wounded alike, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... to shape his young body to strength and his hands to skill in arms. The old bowman had served with Lord Falworth's father under the Black Prince both in France and Spain, and in long years of war had gained a practical knowledge of arms that few could surpass. Besides the use of the broadsword, the short sword, the quarter-staff, and the cudgel, he taught Myles to shoot so skilfully with the long-bow and the cross-bow that not a lad in the country-side was his match at the village butts. Attack and defence with the lance, and throwing the ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... come out of the West! Through all the wide Border his steed is the best; And save his good broadsword he weapon had none;— He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the two views you take, you must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed equality. I should not, therefore, apply the word barbaric, as I am using it, to the duels of German officers or even to the broadsword combats that are conventional among the German students. I do not see why a young Prussian should not have scars all over his face if he likes them; nay, they are often the redeeming points of interest on an otherwise somewhat unenlightening countenance. ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... noble king, His broadsword brandishing, Down the French host did ding, As to o'erwhelm it. And many a deep wound lent His arms with blood besprent. And many a ...
— Royal Children of English History • E. Nesbit
... till they gain'd the field beneath, Then we bounded from our covert.—Judge how look'd the Saxons then, When they saw the rugged mountain start to life with armed men! Like a tempest down the ridges swept the hurricane of steel, Rose the slogan of Macdonald—flash'd the broadsword of Lochiel! Vainly sped the withering volley 'mongst the foremost of our band, On we pour'd until we met them, foot to foot, and hand to hand. Horse and man went down like drift-wood, when the floods are black at Yule, And their carcasses are whirling in the Garry's deepest pool. Horse and man ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... all without a sign or murmur, though oftentimes he felt as though his gorge would burst with loathing of the life. Indeed, that was why he had come there at all, who otherwise would have been far away, hewing a road to fame and fortune, or digging out a grave with his broadsword. For here at least he could be near to Margaret, could touch her hand at morn and evening, could watch the light shine in her beauteous eyes, and sometimes, as she bent over him, feel her breath upon his hair. And now his purgatory was at ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... in and out like a tongue of steel, and Brian's skill stood him in good stead that morn. Ax and broadsword crashed at him, and as he wore no armor save a steel cap, he more than once gave himself up for lost. But ever his thin, five-foot steel drove home to the mark, and ever Cathbarr's great ax hammered and clove at his side, so that the fight surged back and forth among the huts, as it was ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... the closet and brought out the Sunday umbrella; but its shiny black silk did not appear to inspire any fluffy maneuvres, so she utilized it in the guise of a broadsword and did something that savored of the Highlands, and seemed to rebel bitterly at the length of her skirt. Aunt Mary writhed around ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... but two companies, and that he did not think the services of these would be required more than twenty days. He estimated the Mormon forces in the disturbed counties at from thirteen hundred to fifteen hundred men, most of them carrying a rifle, a brace of pistols, and a broadsword; "so that," he added, "from their position, and their fanaticism, and their unalterable determination not to be driven, much blood will be spilt and much suffering endured if a blow is at once struck, without the interposition of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... him in the other world with the look he wore on earth. All the etchings and their copies give a characteristic presentation of the spiritual precursor of Luther, who pricked the false image with his rapier which the sturdy monk slashed with his broadsword. What a face it is which Hans Holbein has handed down to us in this wonderful portrait at Longford Castle! How dry it is with scholastic labor, how keen with shrewd scepticism, how worldly-wise, how conscious of its owner's wide-awake sagacity! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... in fact, one from the Schoenhausen district, three miles from us, confided to me yesterday that, when my name is mentioned among them, a regular shudder goes through them from head to foot, as though they should get a couple of "old-Prussian broadsword strokes" laid across their shoulders. As an opponent said recently, at a meeting, "Do you mean to elect Bismarck Schoenhausen, the man 'who, in the countryman's evening prayer, stands hard by the devil'?" (From Grillparzer's Ahnfrau.) ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... of the horse down to the stirrup, wide enough to cover the thigh and a leg of the horseman, and protect him when riding through the brush. This apron was called the armas. Their offensive arms were the lance, which they managed with great dexterity on horseback, the broadsword, and a short musket, carried in a case. Costanso, who was an officer of the regular army, bears testimony to the unceasing labor of the presidial soldiers of California on this march, and says they were men capable of enduring much fatigue, obedient, resolute, ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... courteous Philistines looked sternly on the young soldier; but he had gone too far to be frightened, and he flashed back: "War is better. My broadsword is better. If I could sing, I would sing to your ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... while the Barons of Scotland have been, for one cause or other, perpetually in the field, the education of their children at home must have been much neglected, and that young men of my friend's age know better how to use a broadsword, or to toss a pike, than the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... numerous passages scattered over his writings, both early and late, in which he dwells with, fond affection on the chivalrous character of Invernahyle—the delight with which he heard the veteran describe his broadsword duel with Rob Roy—his campaigns with Mar and Charles Edward—and his long seclusion (as pictured in the story of Bradwardine) within a rocky cave situated not far from his own house, while it was garrisoned by a party of English soldiers, after the battle of Culloden. Here, too, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... fury of the fight. Yours is the power to redress wrong, to defend the weak, to succor the needy, to relieve the suffering, to confound the oppressor. While vigor leaps in great tidal pulses along your veins, you stand in the thickest of the fray, and broadsword and battle-axe come crashing down through helmet and visor. When force has spent itself, you withdraw from the field, your weapons pass into younger hands, you rest under your laurels, and your works do follow you. Your badges are the scars ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... is my only charm, But my good broadsword is keen, And love for the princess nerves my arm With the strength of ten, I ween. Come weal, come woe, no knight can fail Who goes at Love's behest. Long ere one moon shall wax and wane, I shall ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... modern times is a broadsword, double or single-edged, and provided with a basket hilt of form peculiar to Scotland, though the idea was probably derived from Spain. Swords with basket hilts were commonly used by the English cavalry in the reigns of Charles I. and II., but they are always of a different type from the Scotch, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... mirth, as was far from being the case, he must have smiled at the incongruity of the clerk's apparel, who had belted over his black buckram suit a buff baldric, sustaining a broadsword, and a pair of huge horse-pistols; and, instead of the low flat hat, which, coming in place of the city cap, completed the dress of a scrivener, had placed on his greasy locks a rusted steel-cap, which had seen Marston-Moor; across which projected his well-used quill, in the guise of a plume—the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... a very rich young man, is sent to a military academy to make his way without the use of money. A fine picture of life at an up-to-date military academy is given, with target shooting, broadsword exercise, trick riding, sham battles, and all. Dick proves himself a hero in the best ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... shoulders." Ten years later, when a married man, the father of a family, a farmer, and an officer of Excise, we shall find him out fishing in masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted great-coat, and great Highland broadsword. He liked dressing up, in fact, for its own sake. This is the spirit which leads to the extravagant array of Latin Quarter students, and the proverbial velveteen of the English landscape-painter; and, though the pleasure derived is in itself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and courage she displayed had made a lively impression on her wild defenders, who all along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a man, to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear a coat of mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... cried the hunchbacked shoemaker. "The chap thinks because he can manage a sharp needle, he must be able to yield a broadsword; but let me tell you, my brave boy, that a stick with a sword hurts worse than a prick with a needle. It is not only written, 'Shoemaker, stick to your last,' but also, 'Tailor, stick to your needle.' Are we soldiers, that we must fight? No, we are respectable citizens, tailors ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... Woman's sovereignty has been long deferred, because of the preparation necessary for it. A John the Baptist must precede the Christ in the wilderness. Fiends robed and sceptred, once reigned over fiends clothed in skins and armed with broadsword and battle axe. To-day a gentleman, or gentlewoman can sit secure on any throne of Christendom. While we congratulate ourselves, let us not deny that the Tamerlanes, the Alarics, the Napoleons have had their share in the intermediate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... {BartleMUD}s, in which players were described carrying a list of objects, the most common of which would usually be a brand. Often used as a joke in {talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here, carrying brand ruby brand brand brand kettle broadsword flamethrower". A brand is a torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons. Prob. influenced by the famous ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... of blood and battle were now half forgotten by Prince Andras; but often Yanski Varhely, his companion of those days of hardship, the bold soldier who in former times had so often braved the broadsword of the Bohemian cuirassiers of Auersperg's regiment, would recall to him the past with a mournful shake of the head, and repeat, ironically, the bitter refrain of the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... cause that you have come home?" asked Duncan. "Methought you knew that they were here — three gallant kings out of the west they are, and one of them is your own uncle, Earl Roderic of Gigha, whom, when he was but a bairn as high as my girdle, I taught to bend the bow and wield the broadsword. They are but now in the feasting hall with my lord your father; for Sir Oscar and young Allan have gone home to Kilmory, and my lady and Alpin have gone ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... by step along the tunnel towards Jack, he balanced the great broadsword he held by both hands, and poised it ready to strike at the foremost. Though he was greatly out-numbered, yet he held one advantage. The forms of his enemies were clear against the sunlight which poured into the mouth of the outer cave. He could see every movement they made, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... alteration. Alan, as the challenged, was, according to duelling etiquette, entitled to the choice of weapons and place of meeting. Although the pistol had in a measure superseded the rapier in England, the broadsword remained the favourite weapon in the north when required for the purpose of personal satisfaction. Highlanders had always a preference for the weapon named by Ossian—An Lann tanna—and by the modern bards—Tagha nan Arm. Alan decided on ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... terrier-like, by his teeth to an evasive enemy. While he cheated at cards and cogged the dice, she trained dogs and never missed a bear-baiting. He shrank, like the coward that he was, from the exercise of manly sports; she cared not what were the weapons—quarterstaff or broadsword—so long as she vanquished her opponent. She scoured the town in search of insult; he did but exert his cunning when a quarrel was put upon him. Who, then, shall deny her manhood? Who shall whisper that his style was the braver or the ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... Huntly in the far North, she had expressed to Randolph her regret 'that she was not a man to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk on the causeway, with a jack and knapschalle, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword.' And now, as before, her energy swept the field clear of her enemies, and she returned to Edinburgh victorious. Knox may not have known of the formal Band; but he was even more opposed to his Queen ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... silver, I care not for gold, Nor for broad lands, nor fair ladye; But my honour and troth, and my good broadsword, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... indicated—which he as the challenged party had the right to dictate—lend color to the opinion that he regarded the affair in the light of a mere farce. His superior height and length of arm remembered, and the position of the less favored Shields, with broadsword in hand, at the opposite side of the board, and not permitted "upon forfeit of his life" to advance an inch —the picture is indeed ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... and travel weary, having eaten perhaps but a piece of dry bread in the last twenty-four hours, he must stand up and kill or be killed. Often he falls beneath the thrust of an assegai or the slashing broadsword of the charging enemy. Then, after the fight is over his comrades turn up the sod where he lies, bundle his poor bones into the shallow pit, and leave him without even a cross to mark his solitary grave. Perhaps he ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... meanwhile by reveilles on the Drum, an instrument in which I had become a proficient. The Posture Master, finding out afterwards that I was agile and Valiant, not only at Dancing but at Fighting, must needs have me wield the broadsword and the quarterstaff against all comers on a public platform; and, as the Irish Amazon, I achieved great success, and had my Employer not been a thief, should have gained much money. He was in the habit, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... and went into the castle, And he donned his leathern doublet, Buckled on the heavy broadsword, And gave orders to the household: "Quickly get your weapons ready, Keep good watch upon the towers, Raise the drawbridge, and let no one, While I am away, here enter! Master Werner, you may order All the rest. Protect my castle, And my daughter, my chief treasure! Have no fear, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... of horsemen on their road to the little borough-town were preceded by Niel Blane, the town-piper, mounted on his white galloway, armed with his dirk and broadsword, and bearing a chanter streaming with as many ribbons as would deck out six country belles for a fair or preaching. Niel, a clean, tight, well-timbered, long-winded fellow, had gained the official situation of town-piper of—by his merit, with all the emoluments thereof; namely, the Piper's ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sailed for Valparaiso with one of the prizes, leaving the others at the Marquesas. Nothing of interest occurred during the passage, but the crew were daily exercised at all the arms carried by the ship—with the cannon, the muskets, and the single-sticks. The latter are for training in the use of the broadsword or cutlass, the play with which would be too dangerous for ordinary drills. Porter had a strong disposition to resort to boarding and hand-to-hand fighting, believing that the very surprise of an attack by the weaker ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... two-edged sword now bearing the appellation? Is the latter kind of sword peculiar to Scotland? They are frequently to be met with in this part of the country. One was found a few years since plunged up to the hilt in the earth on the Cotswold Hills. It was somewhat longer than the Highland broadsword, but exactly similar to a weapon which I have seen, and which belonged to a Lowland Whig gentleman slain at Bothwell Bridge. If these swords be exclusively Scottish, may they not be relics of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... Major Weir sat opposite to him, in a red laced coat, and the Laird's wig on his head; and aye as Sir Robert girned wi' pain, the jackanape girned too, like a sheep's-head between a pair of tangs—an ill-faur'd, fearsome couple they were. The Laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin behind him, and his broadsword and his pistols within reach; for he keepit up the auld fashion of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night, just as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, and away after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... malignity, and spleen fermenting into venom,—were carelessness of style, inequality, and want of condensation. Compared to the satires of Pope, Churchill's are far less polished, and less pointed. Pope stabs with a silver bodkin—Churchill hews down his opponent with a broadsword. Pope whispers a word in his enemy's ear which withers the heart within him, and he sinks lifeless to the ground; Churchill pours out a torrent of blasting invective which at once kills and buries his foe. Dryden was his favourite model; and although he has written ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... dress of tunic and tasseled coif, with pike and bull-hide shield and a light broadsword. He was no ordinary bearer of arms. He walked like a man accustomed to command; he turned a cold eye upon too-familiar wayfarers and startled them into silence by the level blackness of his low brows. Wealth, beauty, age nor ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... its pleasures. The horses and their riders need training. This getting used to the saddle is no light matter for the civilian spoiled by years of ease and comfort. But the General gives all his officers plenty of horseback discipline. Then there is the broadsword exercise to fill up the idle time. Evening is the festive hour in camp; though I judge, from what I have seen and heard, that our camp has little of the gayety which is commonly associated with the soldier's life. We are too busy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... the sword. Here, alas! I was doomed to a bitter disappointment. My father had given me a lesson now and then, but never enough to test me, and when I came into the hands of a Glasgow master my unfitness was soon manifest. Neither with broadsword nor small sword could I acquire any skill. My short arm lacked reach and vigour, and there seemed to be some stiffness in wrist and elbow and shoulder which compelled me to yield to smaller men. Here was a pretty business, for though ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... palmated or leaflike structure, separating into sharp prongs along the edges, and spreading more than four feet from tip to tip. To compare them with the short, polished crescent of the horns of Last Bull was like comparing a two-handed broadsword to a bowie-knife. And his head, instead of being short, broad, ponderous, and shaggy, like Last Bull's, was long, close-haired, and massively horse-faced, with a projecting upper lip heavy ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... one day after the adjournment, he went up to Mr. Sumner, who sat writing at his desk, with his head down, and dealt him several severe blows in the back of his head with a stout gutta- percha cane as he would have cut at him right and left with a dragoon's broadsword. ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... well-authenticated cases of atrocities committed by Alexander Macdonell: in 1781 he ordered his men to shoot down a prisoner taken near Johnstown, and when the men bungled their task, Macdonell cut the prisoner down with his broadsword. When Colonel Butler returned from Cherry Valley, Sir Frederick Haldimand refused to see him, and wrote to him that 'such indiscriminate vengeance taken even upon the treacherous and cruel enemy they are engaged ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... he now smiled grimly as he realised that they had not dared to deprive him of his formidable weapon; they had caged the lion from the distant desert without having had the courage to clip his claws. The Count drew his broadsword and swung it hissing through the air, measuring its reach with reference to the walls on either hand, then, satisfying himself that he had free play, he took up a position before the door and stood there motionless as the statue of a war-god. "Now, by the Cross I fought for," he muttered to himself, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... myself," said the General, ruefully, "except the Latin the old dominie thrashed into me; and some French which all our set in Scotland used to have, and . . . I can hold my own with the broadsword. When I think of all those young officers know, I wonder we old chaps were ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... where Washington, three years previously, had indited love ditties to his "lowland beauty," was suddenly transformed into a school of arms, as he practised the manual exercise with Adjutant Muse, or took lessons on the broadsword from ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... went up from the black stevedores of the far South when there landed in their midst a mighty band of black infantry, nearly 100,000 strong who, in a few short months had learned the use of powder and shot, of sword and broadsword, of bayonet and bludgeon, of trench knife and battle-ax. Cold steel or blackjack, smooth bore or sawed-off, machine gun or automatic, were all the same to them. It was a great experience for stevedore and infantryman. And the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... and panic among the nursery—maids and children who were but a moment before my fellow-spectators. At the same time I caught the flash of the Guardsman's sabre as he cut down at me after the fashion prescribed in the broadsword exercise. Fortune, however, did not desert me. My antagonist had not enough elbow-room, and his sword-point was shivered against the stone arch overhead, the blade descending flatways and harmlessly upon my well-protected shoulder ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... pentaerythritol tetranitrate[ISA:chemsub][Chemsub], PETN. high explosive; trinitrotoluene, TNT; dynamite, melinite[obs3], cordite, lyddite, plastic explosive, plastique; pyroxyline[obs3]. [knives and swords: list] sword, saber, broadsword, cutlass, falchion[obs3], scimitar, cimeter[obs3], brand, whinyard, bilbo, glaive[obs3], glave[obs3], rapier, skean, Toledo, Ferrara, tuck, claymore, adaga[obs3], baselard[obs3], Lochaber ax, skean dhu[obs3], creese[obs3], kris, dagger, dirk, banger[obs3], poniard, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... yet I must travel far and wide in search of my brothers." Then the old woman said: "What think you? There is a horse and a suit of armour in your father's forbidden meadow,[A] behind twelve gates, and this horse is fastened by twelve chains. On that meadow is also a broadsword and a fine suit ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... galley in which he sailed was lying, yard-arm to yard-arm, alongside of a Turkish galley, with which it was hotly engaged. In the midst of the action, the young Farnese sprang on board of the enemy, and with his stout broadsword hewed down all who opposed him, opening a path into which his comrades poured one after another; and after a short, but murderous contest, he succeeded in carrying the vessel. As Farnese's galley lay just astern of Don John's, the latter could witness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... lifted to be dressed for the same grave. The inheritance left to the orphans may be briefly described: seventeen acres of plough and pasture land, seven milk cows, and seven pet sheep (many old people take delight in odd numbers); and to this may be added seven bonnet-pieces of Scottish gold, and a broadsword and spear, which their ancestor had wielded with such strength and courage in the battle of Dryfe Sands, that the minstrel who sang of that deed of arms ranked him only second ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... with a long spear and a shield; the rest, with a pilum. Each man carried a saw, a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain, and provisions for three days. The Equites (cavalry) wore helmets and cuirasses, like the infantry, having a broadsword at the right side, and in the hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were also furnished with a quiver containing three ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... file and double file, and performed a variety of evolutions; all most admirably. In respect of an air of enjoyable understanding of what they were about, which seems to be forbidden to English soldiers, the boys might have been small French troops. When they were dismissed and the broadsword exercise, limited to a much smaller number, succeeded, the boys who had no part in that new drill, either looked on attentively, or disported themselves in a gymnasium hard by. The steadiness of the broadsword boys on ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... broken-backed chairs and crazy table bore the marks of many a conflict. The characters of the youthful occupants of the room might be detected in every article it contained. Darell's peculiar bent of mind was exemplified in a rusty broadsword, a tall grenadier's cap, a musket without lock or ramrod, a belt and cartouch-box, with other matters evincing a decided military taste. Among his books, Plutarch's Lives, and the Histories of Great ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... mountains, swimming rivers, killing and cooking his own game, noting in his diary soils, minerals, and locations, and making maps which are models of nice and accurate draughtsmanship; the incipient soldier, studying tactics under Adjutant Muse, and taking lessons in broadsword fence from the old soldier of fortune, Jacob Van Braam; the major and adjutant-general of the Virginia frontier forces at nineteen:—we seem to see him yet as here he stood, a model of manly beauty in his youthful ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... mop stick in my hand, went galloping about the deck, belabouring the goat's hinder quarters, very much after the fashion of an Irishman riding a donkey at a race. The Sergeant of Marines, Julian Killock was his name, on seeing the use I made of my weapon, took it into his head to teach me the broadsword exercise, which I very soon learnt. The Jollies now began to contemplate appropriating me to themselves, and thus, as it may be supposed, ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... tossed aside his sable hat and plume, and dropped his cloak, and stood before her in a rich dress of black velvet, trimmed with point lace, a broadsword belted to his waist. He was a man of middle age, of a fine, athletic figure, and handsome face, but there was an indescribable expression in his dark eyes, in the stern lines about his handsome mouth, that affected the gazer with a strange, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... had fairly driven British merchantmen from the seas, and the tars of the "Constitution" found their time hanging heavily on their hands. The captain was an able and considerate officer, and much freedom was allowed the jackies in their amusements. With boxing, broadsword, and single-stick play, drill and skylarking, the hours of daylight were whiled away; and by night the men off duty would gather about the forecastle lantern to play with greasy, well-thumbed cards, or warble tender ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Roderick Dhu, and we'll give you the broadsword combat some day. It's a great thing, you'd better believe," ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... detested Argyles, heaps of blackened ruins, a march which was to end in the bloody Battle of Kilsyth, that "braw day" when, as the Highlander with grim humour remarked, "at every stroke I gave with my broadsword I cut an ell o' tamn'd Covenanting breeks." When Chambers says[8] that "the Covenanting army marched close upon the track of Montrose down Glendevon, at the distance of about a day's march behind," he, of course, means down the Devon valley, and not down Glendevon ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... rock on which he rested awhile. A great cave was under the waterfall, and the river fell over it from the sheer rocks. Grettir climbed into the cave, where he found a great fire flaming, and a giant sitting beside it, huge and horrible to look upon. He smote at the new-comer with a broadsword, but Grettir avoided the blow, and returned such a mighty stroke with his own sword that the giant fell dead at once. The priest on the bank, seeing blood washed down by the swirling waters, and thinking Grettir was killed, fled in alarm and ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... rifles which they loaded from the muzzle by the use of the ramrod; equipped with powder horn, charges made of cane for loading, bullet molds and wadding, but bravely arrayed in home-spun of blue, and belted with cutlass and broadsword by the side, cockade on the hat and courage in the heart, her revolutionary soldiers marched to the music of fife and drum into battle for freedom against the power and ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... his tope or plaid of thick cotton cloth, and throw one end over his left shoulder, while slung from the same shoulder his circular shield would hang upon his back; suspended by a strap over the right shoulder would hang his long two-edged broadsword. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... elaborately forced to be self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and thread, from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from making war to making omelets, was all you ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... weapons. General Linder states that Lincoln said to him that he did not want to kill Shields, and felt sure he could disarm him if they fought with broadswords, while he felt sure Shields would kill him if pistols were the weapons. It seems that Lincoln actually took lessons in broadsword exercise from a Major Duncan; and at the appointed time all parties proceeded to the chosen field, near Alton. But friends appeared on the scene while the preliminaries were being arranged, and succeeded in effecting ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Carlton House. In 1806 he was travelling down every other week to Cambridge, as he states in his Pic Nic (1837), to visit his pupils. He had made Byron's acquaintance at Harrow by teaching him to fence, and in later years had many bouts with him with the foils, single-sticks, and Highland broadsword. His Reminiscences (1830), together with his Pic Nic, contain numerous anecdotes of Byron, to whom he seems to have been sincerely attached. In 1806 he had several rooms in London for the use of his pupils. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... stammered pitifully in a drawing-room, but the next day sought the suffrages of electors with an unembarrassed and fluent eloquence, so proving that his failure came not of folly or cowardice, but from lack of training in a certain school of fence. He needed the open air for the play of his broadsword; and to his hand, apt to another hilt, the foil appeared a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims and national ideals, he moved in a large place oblivious of himself; but in the social arena he tripped ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... show himself on the coast of Lorn; and an army would, in a few days, gather round him. The force which, in favourable circumstances, he could bring into the field, amounted to five thousand fighting, men, devoted to his service accustomed to the use of target and broadsword, not afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open plain, and perhaps superior to regular troops in the qualifications requisite for the defence of wild mountain passes, hidden in mist, and torn by headlong torrents. What such a force, well directed, could effect, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... piece of bread and some wine in his wallet, a good longbow and arrows slung across his shoulder, his stout quarter-staff in his hand, and on his head a cap of trebled raw-hide so tough that it would turn the edge of a broadsword. He lost no time in getting out of the hot sun and into the welcome shade of the forest, where he stalked cautiously about seeking some ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... one arm about his daughter's waist, and was urging her along. But she stopped and looked back to me. I saw she held one broadsword in her hand, as I held ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... the early summer of 1566, many thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen, were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every province, armed with arquebus, javelin, pike and broadsword. For what purpose were these gatherings? Only to hear sermons and to sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such rites. This was the first great popular phase of the Netherland rebellion. Notwithstanding the edicts and the inquisition with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Highlands during the eighteenth century, when many chiefs, and most of the clans, lived far from any town. But these rural smiths did not make sword- blades, which Prince Charles, as late as 1750, bought on the Continent. The Andrea Ferrara-marked broadsword blades of the clans were of foreign manufacture. The Highland smiths did such rough iron work as was needed for rural purposes. Perhaps the Homeric chief may have sometimes been a craftsman like the heroes of the Sagas, great sword-smiths. Odysseus himself, notably an excellent carpenter, may ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... an army. It was natural enough that the cavalry should prefer to carry on the work of reconnaissance in the usual way. Men believe in the weapons they are skilled to handle. When the rapier was introduced into England in the sixteenth century, it found no friends among the masters of the broadsword; its vogue was gained among young gentlemen educated in France and Italy. To let an aeroplane attempt their work would have seemed to the cavalry like dropping the bone to catch at the shadow. But youth will be served, and in a very few years the shadow cast by Captain Dickson's aeroplane spread ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... lost a hand from his musket bursting three years ago, and now makes his living by helping the boatmen unload at the quays. Then there is Kenneth Munroe. He was invalided after a bad attack of fever in Flanders, and now teaches the broadsword exercise at a fencing master's place at St. Denis. They would both jump at the offer if they only got ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... than three or four days agone. The last he could hear of him was that about a week before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the Baillies' Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he found that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... about the market-place; in one corner, there was a friendly bout at quarterstaff; and—what attracted most interest of all—on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. But, much to the disappointment of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, who had no idea of permitting the majesty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of one of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... nor dinner for me!"—"Come forth, and I'll give thee both at once!" cried the Prince. Then the Dragon wouldn't wait any longer, but stuck out all his six heads and began to wriggle out of the cavern; but the Prince attacked him with his huge broadsword, a full fathom long, which the Lord had given him, and chopped off all the Dragon's six heads, and the rock fell upon the Dragon's body and crushed it to pieces. Then the Prince gathered up the six dragon-heads and laid them on ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... Argyle now, his kinsmen to rally? Where, where is the chieftain with timorous soul? On Linnhe's grey waters he crouched in his galley, And saw as a traitor the battle blast roll:— Ungrasped was the hilt of his broadsword, still sleeping, Unheard was his voice in the moment of need; Secure from the rage of fierce foemen, death-sweeping, He sought not by valour, his clansmen to lead. Linnhe, in scornful shame, Hissed out his humbled name, As fast sped his boat on its flight-seeking ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... ordered his men to shoot him down. Several refused; but three, shall I call them men? obeyed the dastardly order, and yet he possibly would have survived his wounds, had not the miscreant in authority cut him down with his own broadsword. The sword was caught in its first descent, and the valiant captain drew it out, cutting the hand ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... you lie, Craigie," said Bucklaw; "however, I can hold my own, both with single rapier, backsword, sword and dagger, broadsword, or case of falchions—and that's as much as any gentleman need know of ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... the still-silent sentry and headed back towards the refinery station. Instead of a club or a dagger he was armed with a well tempered broadsword that he had managed to manufacture under the noses of the guards. They had examined everything he brought from the worksite, since he had been working in the evenings in his room, but ignored everything he manufactured as being beyond their comprehension. This primordial mental ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... lustily. In brawny fist he grasped a rod or angle, With hook wherefrom sad worm did, writhing, dangle. Full well he loved the piscatorial sport, Though he as yet no single fish had caught. Hard by, in easy reach upon the sward, Lay rusty bascinet and good broadsword. Thus patiently the good Knight sat and fished, Yet in his heart most heartily he wished That he, instead of fishing, snug had been Seated within his goodly tower of Shene. And thinking thus, he needs must cast his eye On ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... already risen in the opinion of the army by his conduct in Lincolnshire, and he was dreaded by the Royalists, for he had already shown his ability to command. Stalwart and clumsy in frame, he had an iron constitution, and was a bold and good rider and a perfect master of the broadsword then in use. He had also a deep knowledge of human nature, and selected his troopers almost entirely from the sons of respectable farmers and yeomen, filled with physical daring and religious convictions, while his own religious enthusiasm, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... regiments in the British Army which wear the kilt—the kilt which, as Macaulay says with perfect truth, was regarded by nine Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief. The Highland officers carry a silver-hilted version of the old barbarous Gaelic broadsword with a basket-hilt, which split the skulls of so many English soldiers at Killiecrankie and Prestonpans. When you have a regiment of men in the British Army carrying ornamental silver shillelaghs you ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... occupied in acquiring the rude accomplishments of the age. In the management of the broadsword the ardent and daring boy soon acquired proficiency; his frame was robust and muscular, and his arm of unusual length. At an early age he is said by tradition to have tried his powers in a predatory excursion, of which he was the leader. This was in the year 1691, and it was ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... password of the clan came back to the lad, even as a kris struck him in the leg and drew out again. Once again he called, and suddenly a horseman appeared beside him, who clove through a native's head with a broadsword, and with a pistol fired at the fleeing figures; for Boonda Broke's men who were thus infesting the highway up to Koongat Bridge, and even beyond, up to the Bar of Balmud, hearing the newcomer shout the dreaded name of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... master's house. He therefore, like a faithful guardian, precipitately withdrew and shut the doors, but as most of our houses are without locks, he was reduced to the necessity of fixing his knife over the latch, and then flew upstairs in quest of a broadsword he had brought from Scotland. The Indians, who were Mr. P. R.'s particular friends, guessed at his suspicions and fears; they forcibly lifted the door, and suddenly took possession of the house, got all the bread and meat they wanted, and sat themselves down by the fire. At this instant Andrew, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... ancestors and those of the Kawars were connected. In Mirzapur the Kaurai Ahirs will take food and water from the Majhwars, and these Ahirs are not improbably derived from the Kawars. [147] Here the Majhwars also hold an oath taken when touching a broadsword as most binding, and the Kawars of the Central Provinces worship a sword as one of their principal deities. [148] Not improbably the Manjhis may include some Kewats, as this caste also use Manjhi for a title; and Manjhi is both a subcaste and title of the Khairwars. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... replied, and waved them away. As they stepped back the guard seized the nearest, a woman, and forced her to her knees; while a man, adorned with a necklace of green human teeth and carrying a shining broadsword, prepared to ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... servant-maid reported, "spoke among themselves," that he fell in a rage upon a party of these animals which had assembled in his house at irregular hours, and betwixt his Highland arms of knife, dirk, and broadsword, and his professional weapon of an axe, he made such a dispersion that they were quiet for the night. In consequence of his blows, two witches were said to have died. The case of a third, named Nin-Gilbert, was still more remarkable. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... foster-family in every way; he lived on the plain food of the clansmen, oatmeal porridge and oatcake, milk from the cows, and beef from the herds; he ran and wrestled and hunted with his foster-brothers, and learnt woodcraft and warlike skill, broadsword play and the use of dirk and buckler, from his foster-father. More than all, he won a devoted following in the clan, for a man's foster-parents were almost dearer to him than his own father and mother, and his foster-brethren were bound to fight and die for him, and to regard him more than their ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... and a brown wig, by his side, who sought to remove his hand from the lock. Next appeared a huge stalwart figure, in shabby old tartans, and laid his hand on the head of each. But the wonder widened and grew; for now came a stately Highlander with his broadsword by his side, and an eagle's feather in his bonnet, who laid his hand on the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... rout!— No, by my faith in God's word!' Half rose the ghost, and half drew out The ghost of his old broadsword, Then thrust it slowly back again, And said, with reverent gesture, 'No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain The hem ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... on those bold Romans a smile serene and high; He eyed the flinching Tuscans, and scorn was in his eye. Quoth he, "The she-wolf's litter stand savagely at bay: But will ye dare to follow, if Astur clears the way?" Then, whirling up his broadsword with both hands to the height, He rush'd against Horatius, and smote with all his might. With shield and blade Horatius right deftly turn'd the blow. The blow, though turn'd, came yet too nigh; it miss'd his helm, but gash'd his thigh: The Tuscans raised a joyful cry to see the red ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... rotting tapestries, decaying bones, crumbling stones, and rusted or corroded objects. His indoor work has paled his cheek, and his muscles are not like iron bands. He stands, often, in the contiguity to an ancient broadsword most fitted to demonstrate the fact that he could never use it. He would probably be dismissed his curatorship were he to tell of any dreams which might run in his head—dreams of the time when those tapestries hung upon the walls of barons' banquet-halls, or when those stones ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... and more difficult, for in those days dragoons fought far more on foot than is now the case, although at this epoch they had already ceased to be considered as mounted infantry, and had taken their true place as cavalry. Rupert's broadsword drill lasted but a very short time; upon the drill sergeant asking him if he knew anything of that weapon, he said that he could play at singlestick, but had never practised with the broadsword. His instructor, however, found that a very few lessons were sufficient to enable him ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... the quiet bosom of the water in the dim light of night, ensued a stubbornly contested duel, in which oars took the place of broadsword ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... disrepute. But whichever of the two views you take, you must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed equality. I should not, therefore, apply the word barbaric, as I am using it, to the duels of German officers, or even the broadsword combats that are conventional among the German students. I do not see why a young Prussian should not have scars all over his face if he likes them; nay, they are often the redeeming points of interest on an otherwise somewhat unenlightening ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... an adjective, or an other noun, so as to form a compound word: as, foreman, broadsword, statesman, tradesman; bedside, hillside, seaside; bear-berry, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... there is wanted: "Highly educated man, having extensive business and social connection. Must be fluent correspondent in Arabic, Japanese, and Swedish, and an expert accountant. Knowledge of Russian and the broadsword essential. Acquaintance with the subject of mining engineering expected. Experience in the diplomatic service desired. Gentleman of impressive presence required. Highest credentials demanded. Salary, to begin, seven ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... had ever been the foes of his turbulent clan. The stripling seemed to fret at the slow pace of time, and to long for those years in which his arm might have sufficient force to wield his father's broadsword, that he might rush to vengeance. Such had often been his secret thoughts, when he at length reached a period of life which made him able to put the suggestions of his vindictive mind into execution; but a strong and arousing spirit, to which we need not farther allude, passed over the land, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... above, von Schlichten and his Kragans slithered over floors increasingly greasy with yellow Ullran blood. He had picked up a broadsword at the foot of the first stairway down; a little later, he tossed it aside in favor of another, better balanced and with a better guard. There was a furious battle at the doorways of the Throne Room; finally, climbing over the bodies of ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... merchants. The Sheikh was superbly dressed in the first style of the Touaricks, unlike his venerable uncle the Sultan. He wore a scarlet gold-braided coat, an immense red turban, and a huge black litham, covering the upper and lower part of his face, and nearly all his features. His arms were a dagger, a broadsword, and a ponderous bright iron spear, which on entering my apartment the Sheikh was ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... should pay a Highland chief only twenty-seven shillings and sixpence for beasts that had cost ten pounds each. That was not the way in the good old days when the hardy men of the north descended from the mountains with broadsword and shield, lifted the cattle of the Saxon, and drove them to their ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... them up for introduction to Don Teodor, separately. First of all, I had the honor of receiving Monsieur Laramie, a stout, stanch, well-built marine, who professed to be maitre d'armes of our "royal boarding-house," and tendered his services in teaching me the use of rapier and broadsword, at the rate of a franc per week. Next came a burly, beef-eating bully, half sailor, half lubber, who approached with a swinging gait, and was presented as frere Zouche, teacher of single stick, who was also willing to make me skilful ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a broadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted forms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones, are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the middle of the grim parlour, leaning ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... mother, and then went to a fencing-saloon that was fitted up in the house of Count Medole, where, among two or three, there was the ordinary shrugging talk of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to hear. Luciano Romara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to small-sword and broadsword. Both being ireful to boiling point, and mad to strike at something, they attacked one another furiously, though they were dear friends, and the helmet-wires and the padding rattled and smoked to the thumps. For half an hour they held on to it, when, their blood being up, they ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... when there was a dispute as to whose duty it was to move timbers. There was a great two-handled cross-cut saw lying on the ground, and Stone seized it and began to wave it, like a mighty broadsword, in the face of a little Bohemian miner. "Load them timbers, Hunkie, or I'll carve you into bits!" And as the terrified man shrunk back, he followed, until his victim was flat against a wall, the weapon swinging to and fro under his nose after the ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... polished mountain pebbles, girded his waist, and supported a large purse of some rich fur, with a formidable dirk at the right side, and, at the left, suspended by gilt chains from the girdle, a long, straight, cutting broadsword, with a basket hilt—the genuine claymore, or great sword—to resist the sweep of which Marcellus had been fain, nearly five hundred years before, to double the strength of the Roman casque, and to add a fresh layer of wrought iron to the tough fabric ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
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