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More "Battering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attempted to snatch Chanden Sing's rifle out of his hand, received from him a battering that they were unlikely soon to forget, and after this we were fortunately left alone for the remainder of the day. In the evening, Chanden Sing fired at a black wolf which came close to camp, and I discovered, about one hundred feet above lake-level, imbedded in the mountain side, a stratum ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... superiority was unbearable. Diane's self-control wavered under it and broke. She turned and upbraided him despairingly, alternately pleading and reproaching, battering all her slender forces uselessly ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... this tour was written, all the politicians of the earth were deciding, in their various coffee-houses, what all the monarchs were to do with the Eastern question. Stopford and Napier were better employed, in battering down the fortifications of Acre, and the politicians were soon relieved from their care of the general concerns of Europe. England settled this matter as she had often done before, and by the means which she has always found more natural than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... further, and the gate gave in under the blows of an improvised battering-ram, covered by showers of arrows from short range. Then, like a river breaking down a dam, the thousands stormed in, howling. Smoke rose. There were screams of women. A great tower near the gate, that was half wood, half stone, crackled and ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... party in the house at Charing sat sick at heart within doors, hearing the crowds roaring down the street, singing and shouting in triumph. Every cry tore their hearts; for was it not against Ralph's master and friend that they rejoiced? As they sat at supper a great battering broke out at the door that looked on to the lane; and they sprang up to hear a drunken voice bellowing at them to come out and shout for liberty. Nicholas went crimson with anger; and he made a movement towards the hall, his hand on ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... whale-boat, landed near Prescott's quarters at about midnight, secured the sentinels, entered the house, and ascended to the door of his bedroom in the second story. It was locked. A stout colored man who accompanied Barton, making a battering-ram of his head, burst open the door. The General, in affright, sprang from his bed, but was instantly seized, and without being allowed to dress himself, was conveyed to the boat, and taken quickly across the ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... The last battering engines are philters, amulets, spells, charms, images, and such unlawful means: if they cannot prevail of themselves by the help of bawds, panders, and their adherents, they will fly for succour ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... battering wildly at Mr Pilch's door. That gentleman—a small dealer in herbs, who eked out his livelihood by occasional unauthorised medical practice—happened to be in, and offered, for two shillings, to ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... with himself, and ashamed of having for this one time in his life done anything which could be called underhand. Poor Boldwood had no more skill in finesse than a battering-ram, and he was uneasy with a sense of having made himself to appear stupid and, what was worse, mean. But he had, after all, lighted upon one fact by way of repayment. It was a singularly fresh and fascinating fact, and though not without its sadness ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the men had, as they went, worked down somewhat, there was now about thirty inches between the bed of earth and rubbish, on which he was lying, and the roof. Taking the handle of the axe in both hands, he used the head as a battering ram; but without any success. He then called up the slightest of the three men, and told him to crawl in beside him and, with their united strength, they pounded the stone for some time. Finding that nothing could be done this way, Stanley sent the man back again; ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... tail lifted. Her delight was open and extravagant; her welcome was as enthusiastic as a horse could make it. Gone were her coquetry and her airs; she nosed and nibbled Dave; she rubbed and rooted him with the violence of a battering-ram, and permitted him to hug her and murmur words of love into her velvet ears. She swapped confidence for confidence, too; and then, when he finally walked back toward the house, she followed closely, as if fearful that he might ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German. Dorn saw not the visage of the foe—only the thick-set body, and this he ripped open in one mighty slash. The German's life ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... at least take my word for it, Mr. Curtis, that the chance of such an outcome will be greatly forwarded if you go straight to bed, whereas any design you may have formed as to assaulting and battering Otto Schmidt would, if put into execution, probably defeat the more important object, or, at any rate, cripple its prospects ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... alas! "the things, that made for their peace (as Jesus forewarned them) were hidden from their eyes!" Their hour was come, and the triumphant shouts of the enemy were heard around their stubborn walls, which (massy as they were) dropped to the ground under the subduing power of the battering-rams of war. With these massive engines of destruction, they laid the two first walls in ruin! But the third and last wall it was not in the power of the enemy to gain. The Jews fought with desperation, and by valiant exertions kept the enemy at bay, and for a while seemed to triumph in the ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... Bible to his breast, and seizing the mast of the frigate's jolly-boat, which had been thrown up with the other spars, poised it with both hands on a level with his head, so as to use the foot of it as a battering-ram, and stalked before ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... cavalry: far out you can see, through a good glass, the porpoises at play where of old the sugar-cane shook out its million bannerets; and shark-fins now seam deep water above a site where pigeons used to coo. Men build dikes; but the besieging tides bring up their battering-rams—whole forests of drift—huge trunks of water-oak and weighty cypress. Forever the yellow Mississippi strives to build; forever the sea struggles to destroy;—and amid their eternal strife the islands and the promontories ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... gold or silver chiselled with representations of the labours of Hercules. The poor brought skins of Cordova leather, tanned and untanned, excellent pieces of cloth and linen (poor Ermentrude must have worked hard for the month before the justices came!), boxes, and wax. 'With this battering-ram,' cries the shocked Bishop Theodulf, 'they hope to break down the wall of my soul. But they would not have thought that they could shake me, if they had not so shaken other judges before,' And indeed, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... side of the mount, is the place for the keep. We use the biggest stones for that. The bottom storey of father's keep is partly cut right out of the rock, and the walls are twenty-five or thirty feet thick. Nobody can knock down that wall with a battering-ram! Here we'll make a great arched door, so that the knights can ride right in without dismounting when they're hard pressed by the enemy. Here's the drawbridge—" Roger hastily whittled off a piece of bark—"and this line I've scratched inside the outer wall is for the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... wonderful, as I will show you, Martin. And then I saw the reason of this haste, for the greatest Spanish ship was turning to bring her whole broadside to bear, and so began to shoot off all their cannon, battering our poor ship as you see. Then came Spaniards in boats with fire to burn it, but our men shot so many of these that although they set the ship on fire, yet they did it so hastily because of our shooting that once they were gone, the fire was quickly put out. But the ship ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... who had been at the sacking of many towns. The author had learnt much in a little time, at the siege of Leicester. All the sad elements of war appear, and make us shudder—masses of armed men with their slings and battering-rams—clarions and shouts—wounded and slain, all appear as in a panorama. The mind becomes entranced, and when sober reflection regains her command, we naturally inquire, Can all this have taken place in my heart? Then the armies of Diabolus, with his thousands of Election ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... not know that it would never grow light for me. Again I flung myself against the walls of my prison, battering at them till the blood dripped from my hands. Again and again I flung myself down hopelessly, and then I tried again, clutching at every fragment that protruded into ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... minutes the servants and gillies had gathered, hastily clad; they were met by Logan, who briefly bade some bring hammers, and the caber, or pine-tree trunk that is tossed in Highland sports. It would make a good battering-ram. Donald Macdonald he sent at once to Mr. Macrae. He met Bude and Lady Bude, and rapidly explained that there was no danger of fire. The Countess went back to her rooms, Bude returned with Logan into the observatory. Here they found Donald telegraphing to the conspirators, by the wireless ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... which men could be goaded by "coaching". It was abhorrent—yet also it was fascinating, the spell of it got hold of him. He saw what these men were doing; they were learning to act in masses, to act with paralyzing and terrific force. Whatever it was they did, they did with the smash of a battering-ram. You saw the fire in their eyes, the grim, set look on their faces; you knew that they were not going to war with any hesitations or ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... the battering ram for sieges was originally invented as follows. The Carthaginians pitched their camp for the siege of Cadiz. They captured an outwork and attempted to destroy it. But having no iron implements for its destruction, they took a beam, and, raising it with their hands, and driving the end of ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... ordered all hands to make ready to lower the one boat we had left, and to desert the ship. We had a hard time to get this boat loose from the spanker-stay, and we lowered it with the spanker-tackle. Just while we were doing that, a tremendous wave swept the poop, with a battering-ram of logs that had returned. Luckily, the boat we were lowering escaped being smashed, or we had ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... best foundations must be low: And now the duke has wisely ta'en him To be his architect at Blenheim. But raillery at once apart, If this rule holds in every art; Or if his grace were no more skill'd in The art of battering walls than building, We might expect to see next year A mouse-trap man ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... his mouth to the ground. Even with this extended neck the giraffe's legs are so exceedingly long that he is obliged to spread his front feet when he wishes to reach the ground with his head. The elephant has pursued exactly the reverse plan. Using his tremendous head as a battering ram in fighting, and using his enormous tusks both in battle and in uprooting young trees, a lengthened neck is absolutely out of the question. Furthermore his front teeth have grown so prodigiously that they would interfere with his getting his mouth ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... their sight,—so they all print Aries in the accusative and with a small a—"poneres lunam in arietem,"—which not at all understanding, I have changed the phrase to what it is in the text. Bracciolini by the Ram is referring neither to the male sheep nor the battering instrument of war among the Romans, but the vernal sign: he had evidently read Roger Bacon, and believed with the "Somersetshire Magician," (as the Brother of the Minor Order was styled by his contemporaries), that a man's neck is subject to the power of the Bull, his arms to ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... times, and the blood leaped out over Glaucon's fair skin. Again—the rush of blood was almost blinding. Again—Pytheas screamed with agony—the Athenian's clutch seemed weakening. Again—flesh and blood could not stand such battering long. If Lycon could endure this, there was only one end to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... near and fierce upon them, especially on that side the city where the church stood; and had planted their great guns mischievously against the church; with which constantly in prayer's time, they would not fail to make their hellish disturbance by shooting against and battering the church; insomuch that sometimes a cannon bullet has come in at the windows and bounced about from pillar to pillar (even like some furious fiend or evil spirit) backwards and forwards and all manner of sideways, as it has happened to meet with square or round ...
— The Cathedral Church of York - Bell's Cathedrals: A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief - History of the Archi-Episcopal See • A. Clutton-Brock
... door, a dripping policeman caught her arm. "Down here, Bill," he called to the man battering at the door above; and a minute later two officers were inside, and the door was closed, and a light ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... cries were at last answered. The great bell overhead ceased ringing suddenly,—and its cessation created an effect of silence even amid the noise of the crackling fire and the continued grave music of the organ. Then came a quick tramp of many feet—a hubbub of voices—and loud battering knocks at the chapel door. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... fair progress, when suddenly a savage snarl and a startling yell came out of the gloom in front, followed instantly by the most substantial part of Viushin's body, which struck me with the force of a battering-ram on the top of the head, and caused me, with the liveliest apprehensions of ambuscade and massacre, to back precipitately out. Viushin, with the awkward retrograde movements of a disabled ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... who is beloved by the Christian chief Tancred, goes forth in disguise at night to burn the battering tower of the Christian army. She effects her purpose; but, in retreating from its discoverers, is accidentally shut out of the gate through which she had left the city. She makes her way into the open country, trusting to get in at one of the other gates; but, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... her with muskets. All hands were ordered under cover, and for two days were kept closely confined below. The bullets, which constantly whistled over the deck, did no damage beyond cutting down the flag—which, however was promptly hoisted again—and battering up the officers' rooms on the quarter-deck, which were not iron-clad. Several attempts were made to dislodge the rebels, but, as usual, without success. On the third day, however, a heavy firing up the river, in the direction of Alexandria, ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... and a pounding heart that nearly bore me down, it acted so like a battering ram on the inside, I drew a delicately scented envelope from my mailbox ... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... wounds. Their breath is almost exhausted with the labour of the strife; they hammer away at each other so lustily that every hyacinth and emerald set in their helmets is crushed and smashed. For they give each other such a battering with their pommels upon the helmets that they are quite stunned, as they almost beat out each other's brains. The eyes in their heads gleam like sparks, as, with stout square fists, and strong nerves, and hard bones, they strike each other upon the mouth as long as they ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... every probability that any kind of piles would have been driven slowly. The heads of the first 4 or 5 piles were battered somewhat, but after the pile driver crew became familiar with the method of driving, no further battering resulted and the heads of most of ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... be seen therein, and for a while we stood at fault, Normans and islanders alike, and then went through the house, battering with lusty strokes, that echoed again, every part of wall or wainscot that might ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... downtown at a lunch-counter. And, moreover, I couldn't eat that pie alone. A college student doesn't know how to masticate without an assistant or two. When I think of the hours and hours I have spent traveling around at midnight and battering on the doors of perfectly respectable houses, trying to drag some student out and take him a mile or two away downtown after pie, I am struck with awe. When I came to this town I walked two days for a job and then sat around with my feet on a sofa cushion for three ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... to the "Pelican" alone or with a friend I go, I sigh for men of muscle who could fight a fight like BENDIGO. He didn't fight in feather-beds, or spend his days in chattering, But faced his man, and battered him, or took his foeman's battering. He didn't deal in gas, or waste his time in mere retort at all; But now the "pugs" are interviewed, and journalists report it all. A man may call it what he will, brutality or bravery, I'd rather have the prize-ring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... that all the men were very busy cleaning or sharpening their arms, re-stringing their bows, and polishing their shields. A large party came along the road, with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree; and Cyril felt quite pale, because he knew this was for a battering-ram. ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... them, and screaming for help, stood the tramp; he seemed like a black object set against a sun, so white and intense was the light at his back. That marshal could not be found, and he had the only key. A battering-ram was quickly improvised, and the thunder of its blows upon the door had so encouraging a sound that the spectators broke into wild cheering, and believed the merciful battle won. But it was not so. The timbers were too strong; they did not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that held the plan of the house, and showed them the outer doors. There was first the low oak front door on the north, opening on to the little court; this was immensely strong and would stand battering. Then on the same side farther east, within the stable-court, there was the servants' door, protected by chains, and an oak bolt that ran across. On the extreme east end of the house there was a door opening into the garden from the withdrawing-room, the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... in Amherstburg to hasten the completion of the Detroit, his largest vessel. But, at length, as further delay was dangerous, she had to be launched as she was, in a rough and imperfect condition. In default of other guns, she was armed with long battering pieces taken from the ramparts of the fort. Every calibre of gun was used, and so incomplete was her equipment that her cannon had to be discharged by flashing pistols ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... all the details together in summary fashion, and piles them on one another without enlarging on any. The effect produced is like that of a succession of breakers beating on some lonely rock, or of blows struck by a battering-ram on a fortress. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... threatened again to shoot us; when my comrade raised his gun and would have shot him down, had I not caught his arm and persuaded him not to fire. I told the landlord that we wanted to come in and intended to come in. Then I went to the yard, got a piece of scantling, took it to the door, and, by battering with it a short time, opened it. As soon as the door flew open, a kidnapper shot at us, and the ball lodged in my ankle, bringing me to the ground. But I soon rose, and my comrade then firing on them, they took ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Compton, with a grimace, as he looked at the white fangs and the cruel-looking claws, finishing off that mighty weapon the lion's forearm, capable of battering in a man's ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... still the fighting continued. Apparently, thus far, the Germans had not conceived the idea of battering the house to pieces with their big field guns. Evidently they thought they could ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... those faces he had just seen. They were upon him in mass, striking, tearing like so many wild beasts in the first fierceness of attack. His revolver jammed in its holster, but he struck out with clenched fists, battering at the black figures, his teeth ground together, his every instinct bidding him fight hard till he died. Once they pounded him to his knees, but he struggled up, shaking loose their gripping hands, and hurling them back like so many children. ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... necessary that I should strike and run within the same moment. I wanted a battering-ram, with which to smash the window and the blind. With the bed-key, which was in the closet, I took down the bedstead as quietly as I could. Reserving one side piece for use, I placed the rest against the door, so that it could not be opened. I then ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... Battering rain woke Casey some hours later and drove him to the shelter of the Ford. Thunder and lightning came with the rain, and a bellowing wind that rocked the car and threatened once or twice to overturn it. With some trouble ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... times for any of the mules to keep their feet; each mule seems to think his next neighbor responsible for the jostling and crowding, and the kicking and squealing is continuous along both lines. While battering away at each other, each mule seems to be at the same time keeping a loose eye behind him for the oncoming waves and swells that occasionally curl over the bulwarks and irrigate and irritate them in the rear. Most of the mules seem capable of kicking at their neighbors and at a wave ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... with the representation given of him in Dr. Schliemann's "Mykenae." There was a picture of Agamemnon's mask, but very much battered. He might get a mask made in that pattern, indeed, and the little boys were delighted with the idea of battering it. Agamemnon would like to wear a mask, then he would have no trouble in keeping up his expression. But Elizabeth Eliza objected to the picture in Dr. Schliemann's book; she did not like it for Agamemnon,—it was too slanting in the eyes. So it was decided he should take the part of Nick Bottom, ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... by Prescott? It's a liberal education. Now, there you are, you see. Take Prescott. He's never crocked a man seriously in his life. I don't count being winded. That's absolutely an accident. Well, there you are, then. Prescott weighs thirteen-ten, and he's all muscle, and he goes like a battering-ram. You'll own that. He goes as hard as he jolly well knows how, and yet the worst he has ever done is to lay a man out for a couple of minutes while he gets his wind back. Well, compare him with ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... the room. She enters as from a catapult. She is handicapped by having long hair, which can be used as a convenient handle. Evidently aware of this natural disadvantage, she clutches it herself tightly in one hand, and punches with the other. He opens the door again, and cleverly uses her as a battering-ram against the wall of those without. You can hear the dull crash as her head enters among them, and scatters them. When the victory is complete, he comes back and resumes his seat on the bed. There is no bitterness about him; he ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... lickings, and they don't hurt me much. Therefore, again, I ask you, will you promise, or will you not?" As he spoke, he doubled his fists, and advanced on Blackall, whose face was completely exposed to an attack, while Ellis kept battering away at his head, and grasped ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... would sometimes, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the Under Master, and then, with Sardonic grin, observe to one of his upper boys, "how neat and fresh the twigs looked." While his pale students were battering their brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as that enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at our ease in our little Goshen. We saw a little into the secrets of his discipline, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... with dancing eyes, and with three blows like battering-rams knocked the footman into a cocked hat. Then he sprang on top of Burrows, with one antimacassar in his hand and another in his teeth, and bound him hand and foot almost before he knew clearly that his head had struck the floor. ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... that "it was at Rochecotte, during the month of May, which Thiers spent there with M. de Talleyrand, that he (i.e., Thiers) conceived the plan of those terrific articles in the National, which, every morning, like the battering-rams of ancient warfare, laid in ruins the wretched bulwarks, behind which the tottering monarchy thought ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... stable orderlies. They would open up in a minute. They did, with much blinking of eyes and some demur, but stood abashed when the burly major strode in, big Jim Ennis at his heels. The latter hesitated not one second. His weight went in with the battering ram of that muscular leg and massive foot, and the sergeant's door flew open before them. The room was empty. Fitzroy and Fitzroy's furs were gone. Nor was that all. Snatching a stable lantern from the hand of one of the shaking ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... countenances of the remaining caciques was stamped a look of dismay and hatred which boded no good. It was plain to Kirby that in battering up the man detailed to kill him, he had committed a desecration ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... before the memory of man; but the rest was more modern; the castle having been nearly demolished during the wars of the League. The Marquis dwelt upon this event with great satisfaction, and seemed really to entertain a grateful feeling towards Henry IV., for having thought his paternal mansion worth battering down. He had many stories to tell of the prowess of his ancestors, and several skull-caps, helmets, and cross-bows to show; and divers huge boots and buff jerkins, that had been worn by the Leaguers. Above all, there was a two-handled sword, which he could hardly wield; but which ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... madness in his blood, a thing which he was holding back by sheer force of will. He tried to shut out the vision of a pale face floating in the sea; he fought to keep a grip on the dispassionate calmness which was a part of him. But the ship itself was battering down his stoic resistance. In an hour—since he had heard the scream of the woman—he had come to hate it. He wanted the feel of solid earth under his feet. He wanted, with all his soul, to reach that narrow strip of coast where ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... suddenly breaking off. "They heard you talking that last time, and you have locked the door against them? They are battering it down? Move something heavy, if you can, up against it—the bureau, anything to brace it. We'll be there directly. Come on, Walter. There isn't time to get around Broadway for that fixed post cop. We must do ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... threescore. They had only made a pretence (we learned again) of leaving the town, and had hung on the riverside till they fancied their attempt at seizing Maclachlan was secure from the interference of the townfolk. They were packed in a mass in the close and on the stair, and the foremost were solemnly battering at the night door at the top of the first flight of stairs, crying, "Fuil airson fuil!—blood for blood, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... end of the winter, 1914-15, she was still in the possession of a large portion of Galicia. But the Germans were preparing a battering ram which their generals thought irresistible. Their plan now was to deliver so hard a blow at the Russian that he would be forced to yield a separate peace. Von Mackensen formed his unprecedented phalanx of soldiery and of artillery in Galicia and destroying all the fortifications and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... files of men were battering at the gates; and, in order to demolish the wall at places where the terrace was wanting, the Mercenaries came up in serried cohorts, the first line crawling, the second bending their hams, and the others rising in succession to the last who stood upright; while elsewhere, in order to climb up, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... a great noise in our house,—a thumping and battering and grating. It was my own self dragging my big trunk down from the garret. I did it myself because I wanted it done. If I had said, "Halicarnassus, will you fetch my trunk down?" he would have asked me what trunk? and what did ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... evening his breath came faster but fainter, like the sound of a hunt going furious to the distance and dying away, and he made desperate rushes towards the village; but Leothric still leapt about him, battering his leaden nose. Scarce audible now at all was the sound of his heart: it was like a church bell tolling beyond hills for the death of some one unknown and far away. Then the sun set and flamed in the village windows, and a chill went over the world, and in some small garden a woman ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... crossed to the door, not merely to find it locked, but to discover that it was not the kind of lock that would yield to blows. There was no way out but by battering away one of the panels, and to this he addressed himself without hesitation, assisted by Balbi, who had armed himself with the bodkin, but who trembled fearfully at the noise of Casanova's blows. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... through a chink in the wall, felt so frightened that he did not know what to do. But the Blind Man was very brave (because he couldn't see), and went up to the door and called out: "Who are you, and what do you mean by coming battering at the door in this way ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... when their lives aren't worth a five minutes' purchase—or one day carrying back the wounded through this tortured country, or one day in a Red Cross train. No one can imagine the damnable waste and Christlessness of this battering of human flesh. The only way that this War can be made holy is by making it so thorough that war will be finished for ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... occasion with almost too much care, for I fancy he brought fighting friends from Nottingham and other bruising places to it. The Tory roughs appeared, as on the former occasion. Before we were allowed to enter the room they were charged by means of battering rams with such effect that their entrenchments were destroyed, and they themselves were mostly stunned and carried out one by one. No one was dangerously hurt, but there were many broken heads. Lady Dilke was ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... bravely he could sing?—and she had an irritated feeling he had tried to call her. Her room was on the east and the dawn was still gray. She lay looking at it a minute perhaps after her eyes came open: frightened, that was it, frightened. Things seemed to have been battering at her brain in the night, and all the windows of her mind had been closed, the shutters fast, and they could not get in. But now the light was coming and they kept on battering. And whatever they wanted, she was frightened, too frightened to give herself the panic of thinking it over, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... generations, had modified the transplanted Englishman; and the descendant of the Puritans was never so well pleased as when teaching their duty to other people, whether by pen, voice, or bombshells. The ragged artillerymen, battering the walls of papistical Louisbourg, flattered themselves with the notion that they ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... I say that this occasion is one of the proudest and happiest of my life. I am standing within sound of the guns which for three—long—years have been battering at the bulwarks of civilization. I hear them, as I utter these words, and I look into the faces of a little group of Americans who, day after day, and week after week" (increasing emphasis) "have been facing those guns ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... reproach of advocating the extension of executive authority; on the contrary, the uniform and steady purpose of all such champions has been to limit and restrain it. To this end the spirit of liberty, growing more and more enlightened and more and more vigorous from age to age, has been battering, for centuries, against the solid butments of the feudal system. To this end, all that could be gained from the imprudence, snatched from the weakness, or wrung from the necessities of crowned heads, has been carefully gathered up, secured, and hoarded, as the rich treasures, the very jewels of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... assegai[obs3]; good sword, trusty sword, naked sword; cold steel. club, mace, truncheon, staff, bludgeon, cudgel, life preserver, shillelah, sprig; hand staff, quarter staff; bat, cane, stick, knuckle duster; billy, blackjack, sandbag, waddy[obs3]. gun, piece[Fr]; firearms; artillery, ordnance; siege train, battering train; park, battery; cannon, gun of position, heavy gun, field piece[Fr], mortar, howitzer, carronade[obs3], culverin[obs3], basilisk; falconet, jingal[obs3], swivel, pederero[obs3], bouche a feu[Fr]; petard, torpedo; mitrailleur[Fr], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... haf ever rested on it since it was given into my hand after her death," he said very gently. "But you, my child, you shall read it; you are hurt and unhappy, battering against fate, and believing that those who love you haf served you ill. But we were all bound in different ways. . . . Read the letter, little one, and thou wilt see that I, too, was ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... siege went on slowly, as it had done during the first nine years of the war. The Greeks did not know at that time how to besiege a city, as we saw, by way of digging trenches and building towers, and battering the walls with machines that threw heavy stones. The Trojans had lost courage, and dared not go into the open plain, and they were waiting for the coming up of new armies of allies—the Amazons, who were girl warriors from far away, and an Eastern people called the Khita, ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... you something, MacMorrogh. If you, or your brother Dan, ever find it necessary to go after Ford, don't give him notice by battering down doors. You won't, I know. But about the contract: you haven't ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Higher, but May Fall Lower How Fatalism Sustains Caste Contamination by Touch A Bone Collector's Pride of Rank The "Thief Caste" Caste and the Banyan Tree A Maharaja's Defence of Caste Some Forces That Are Battering Down the System Foreign ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... Seth begin to gleam out, like a splendid frost work of living metal clear-cut against the smooth, black night behind, and never a show of resistance there either. Ay, and by this time Ar-hap's men were battering in our gates with a big beam, and somehow, I do not know how it happened, the palace itself away on the right, where the dry-as-dust library lay, was ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... ever and anon he beat, With doubled fist his cushion'd seat; And though sometimes, each breathless pause between, Astonished Melbourne at his side, His moderating voice applied, Yet still he kept his stern, unalter'd mien, While battering the Whigs and Tories black ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom; and to clamour, mourn, and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer. Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, * * * * * ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Whatever of mechanism or method was known to Greeks or Romans was employed by besiegers and besieged. Stones, fireballs, bunches of arrows, heavy beams were fired into the city by ballista and catapult, and were fired back with equal skill and abundance. The battering-rams breached the wall and found new walls rising just within. The besieged fished with iron hooks from the top of the walls, and hauled the captured Crusaders alive to their death at the summit. Stripped, they were used ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... Take a good look at him while he is quiet for ten seconds hand running. Everything about him is tremendous—except his size. He is built to withstand banter, ridicule and jollying; his sturdy nature is guaranteed proof against the battering assaults of unholy mirth from other scouts; his round face and curly hair are the delight of the girls of Bridgeboro; his loyalty is as the mighty rock of Gibraltar. A bully little scout he is—a sort of ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... massive doors failing, four sailors were sent on a run for some form of battering ram. They returned with half of a telegraph pole that had been cut in two by ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... shelter beneath a tree at a time like this?" but the instinct of self-preservation drove them there to escape the terrible battering of the rain and ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... ideal. The boy's mother is one of his ideals. He believes her to be the best woman alive, and it were a sorry fact if he did not. Hence, when her good qualities are assailed his spirit explodes and commands his right arm to become a battering-ram. The kindness of the mother has caused the boy's spirit to react a thousand times, and his reaction in defending her name from calumny was but another evidence of ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... on all sides with irresistible and unremitting fury. Wherever the battering-rams had beat down any part of the wall, and the bridges were thrown out, instantly the argyraspides mounted the breach with the utmost valor, being led on by Admetus, one of the bravest officers in the army, who was killed by ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... in a paralytic manner, battering his brains for a reply to her polite commonplaces. Inwardly he was furious. He felt that he had been duped, tricked, infamously cheated of his legitimate desire; and he hated the woman as if she, poor soul, had ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... rush like battering-rams, even against infantry, men and horses ought to be watered and fresh (Ponsomby's cavalry at Waterloo). If there is ever contact between cavalry, the shock is so weakened by the hands of the men, the rearing of the horses, the swinging ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... back to the cliff and holding to the rough stone, Ross got to his feet, trying to see through the welter of foam and water. Not only the sea poured here; now a torrential rain fell into the bargain, streaming down about him, battering his head and shoulders. A chill rain which made ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... themselves in vain on the gate. On its iron-bound and iron-studded framework their axes made no impression. A dozen men charged it, using a ladder as a battering ram. "Aisy with that, ye blind ijjits!" yelled an Irish sergeant. "Ye'll be needin' them ladders prisintly!" Our three privates found themselves in the crowd surging towards the breastwork to the right of the gate. "Nip on my shoulders, Teddy ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... a screw boat of 400 tons, most unprepossessing in appearance, slow, but sure, and capable of bearing an infinite amount of battering. It is jokingly said that her keel has rasped off the branch coral round all the islands. Though there are many inter-island schooners, she is the only sure mode of reaching the windward islands in less than a week; and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... dozen of the horsemen were posted around the house; but the remainder, dismounted, had gone to the edge of the woods, and were felling a well-grown sapling, with the evident intention of using it as a battering-ram to break down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? so you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head: an you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and ensconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.—But I pray, sir, why am ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... stout London whalers as prizes, having made a sweeping cruise in the Pacific. From Commodore Porter he received the alarming intelligence that the British frigate Phoebe, with a store-ship mounted with battering pieces, calculated to attack forts, had arrived at Rio Janeiro, where she had been joined by the sloops of war Cherub and Raccoon, and that they had all sailed in company on the 6th of July for the Pacific, bound, as it was ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... infamy. But the mind of Messalina, like that of Nero afterwards, was so corrupted by wickedness that not even such poor nobility was left in her as is implied in the courage of despair. While she wasted the time in tears and lamentations, a noise was heard of battering at the doors, and the tribune stood by her in stern silence, the freedman with slavish vituperation. First she took the dagger in her irresolute hand, and after she had twice stabbed herself in vain, the tribune drove home the ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... right. A yell went up from the saloon, and a dozen men rushed out, firing as they came. Six others carried a heavy beam, evidently torn from the interior of the Idle Hour. It was their intention to use this as a battering-ram to smash in the door of ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... without a large baggage train was next to impossible; and indeed if the Christians were to arrive before that city, they could effect nothing without the aid of the heavy machines necessary for battering the ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... My first thought was that they were fighting out there, that rescuers had come. Then, as I listened, I learned better. Despairing of kicking down the door, they were tearing out a piece of stair-rail for a battering-ram. It would not long stand ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... and fro, and a clang of many voices, and the clatter of much crockery, and a lifting, and balancing, and battering against walls and curving around corners, and sundry contusions, and a great waste of expletives, and a loading of wagons, and a driving of patient oxen back and forth with me generally on the top of the load, steadying a basket of eggs with one foot, keeping a tin can of something from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... with a last spurt, then died out, as Ba'tiste, seizing the smallest of the men, lifted him bodily and swinging him much after the fashion of a sack of meal, literally used him as a battering ram against the rest of the attacking forces. For a last time, Houston hit a skirmisher and was hit in return. Then Ba'tiste threw his human weapon from him, straight into the mass of men whom he had driven back for a second, tumbling them all in a scrambling, writhing ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... are really relieved to find their impressions boldly put into form for them by him. Not one of them has understood anything. Walther's unprecedented leaping to his feet in the heat of inspiration has given offence to this one; the other terms his singing "empty battering at the ear-drums." They are about to subscribe unanimously to Beckmesser's verdict that he has lost his case, when Sachs's voice breaks in upon the confusion. He has listened to Walther in complete self-forgetful absorption. The absence ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... there ought to be siege-cannon got straightway; and, still more immediate, the right posts and battering-places should be ready against its coming.—"Let the Young Dessauer with that Rearguard, or Reserve of 10,000, which is now at Crossen, come up and assist here," orders Friedrich; "and let him be swift, for the hours are pregnant!" On farther reflection, perhaps on new rumors from Breslau, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the face of a husband strolling on forbidden grounds, nor from the spying eyes of a jealous wife. Life is mine again, and I will enjoy it; yes I enjoy it. I will enjoy it like fragrant wine pressed to our lips in a golden goblet, sparkling with diamonds. Ah, how they are hammering and battering in the anteroom! Every stroke of theirs is a note of the glorious song of my liberty. The furniture of my household is gone; the pictures and looking-glasses are all gone—gone. The past and every ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... mountains hold a vast wealth of gold, In the quartz ledge and placer bar; Where the hills resound with the constant sound Of the stamp mill's battering jar; Where the waters dash with the rhythmic splash Of the cascade and mountain rill, As they laugh and flow to the lands below, ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... favourable specimen of the aristocrat of the day. And this is what he did in Asia. He was going to besiege Leucae, and having seen two pieces of timber at Elaea, sent for the larger of them to make a battering ram. The builder, who was the chief magistrate of the town, sent him the smaller piece as being the most suitable, and Crassus had him stripped and scourged. Next year he was surprised by the enemy near Leucae. Apparently he could have got ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... golden garlands, with fine white tusks long and thick as plough-shafts, worthy of carrying kings on their backs, capable of bearing every kind of noise on the field of battle, with huge bodies, capable of battering down the walls of hostile towns, of the colour of new-formed clouds, and each possessing eight she-elephants. With this wealth, O king, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... a little stern. Stone walls had to be broken down. That was the use of being strong. One was not frightened; one just got a battering-ram, and forced a passage through. He would tell her soon, but not out here. ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... the men had no muskets, and almost all were without bayonets. Heavy cannon, for battering the British fortifications, were much wanted. There was but a small quantity of powder and ball, few tools to build entrenchments with, and a great deficiency of provisions and clothes for the soldiers. Yet, in spite of these perplexing difficulties, the eyes of the whole people ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... suspicion that at that very moment the hacienda of San Carlos was being attacked by the garrison of Del Valle, and that the noise he heard was the report of the howitzer battering in the gates ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... a blow of the shoulder that was as violent as a blow from a battering-ram, he dashed open the door. Then the horror-stricken accent of the man who had been peering through the shutters was explained. The room presented such a spectacle that all the agents, and even Gevrol himself, remained for a moment rooted to the threshold, shuddering ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... a great sheet of ice came gaily floating on the swift current, caught against the corner of the house, and stuck there, banging, grinding, and jarring with the movements of the swirling water, and threatening to beat the house down like a battering ram. At the same moment they heard a cry for help from inside the house, and the woman on the far bank shouted and gesticulated more wildly than before, while the whole structure groaned and shivered like ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... crowded floor. He was big and clumsy, of course. To-night it seemed to Sally that the whole world was big and clumsy. "It's a swell place. I come from up-state myself. We got nothing like this where I come from." He cleared a space before him, using Sally as a battering-ram, and Sally, though she had not enjoyed her recent excursion with Mr. Cracknell, now began to look back to it almost with wistfulness. This man was undoubtedly the worst dancer ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... rockward, till one wheel-edge grazed. The chariot tript and flew, and all was mazed In turmoil. Up went wheel-box with a din, Where the rock jagged, and nave and axle-pin. And there—the long reins round him—there was he Dragging, entangled irretrievably. A dear head battering at the chariot side, Sharp rocks, and rippled flesh, and a voice that cried: "Stay, stay, O ye who fattened at my stalls, Dash me not into nothing!—O thou false Curse of my Father!—Help! Help, whoso can, An innocent, innocent and stainless man!" ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... is still my mother!" gasped the lovely trembler in my arms. A moment more, and the old lady was battering at the door. I had locked it within. Her voice, husky but subdued, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... after another took up the chant, the solemn enthusiasm rose and deepened, and all present, whether ecclesiastics or laymen, fell into the procession and joined in the anthem. Amid the wild uproar, the din and clatter of axes, the thunders of heavy battering-implements on the stone walls and portals, came this long-drawn solemn wave of sound, rising and falling,—now drowned in the savage clamors of the mob, and now bursting out clear and full like the voices of God's chosen amid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... attacks became less frequent. The schooners manoeuvring in the river poured broadsides into the Indian villages, battering down the flimsy wigwams. Pontiac moved his camp from the mouth of Parent's Creek to a position nearer Lake St Clair, out of range of their guns, and turned his thoughts to contrive some means of destroying the troublesome vessels. He had learned from the French ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... two. Large cakes and masses of ice came floating down the current, which, though not very violent, hurried along at a much swifter pace than the ordinary one of our sluggish river-god. These ice-masses, when they struck the barrier of ice above mentioned, acted upon it like a battering-ram, and were themselves forced high out of the water, or sometimes carried beneath the main sheet of ice. At last, down the stream came an immense mass of ice, and, striking the barrier about at its centre, it gave way, and the whole was swept onward together, leaving the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... end of the lines. The men are set in eight long ranks. This is the normal "phalanx"[] order. Only those in front can actually lunge and strike at the enemy. The men in the rear will add to the battering force of the charge, and crowding in closely, wedge themselves promptly to the front, when any of the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... for breakwaters, you've got them all round you, only they're hidden. Ahead and to starboard is the West Hohenhrn, curling round to the sou'-west for all the world like a stone pier. You can hear the surf battering on its outside over to the north. That's where I was nearly wrecked that day, and the little channel I stumbled into must be quite near us somewhere. Half a mile away—to port there—is the East Hohenhrn, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... one of increasing difficulty for the Tories. Peel's followers began to suspect more and more strongly that he was not sound on the question of the corn taxes; outside Parliament, Cobden and Bright were battering Protection at their great monthly meetings in Covent Garden Theatre. The troubles in Ireland were growing acute, and the arrest of O'Connell and the Repeal leaders made matters worse. The Government had been forced to abandon their Bill ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... later I went to look for him in the garden, I found him panting with the exertion of having laid my nice, thick, fresh green crop of mustard and cress flat with the back of the coal-shovel, which he could barely lift, but with which he was still battering my salad-bed, chanting triumphantly at every stroke, "I had my bat, and I hit him as he lay on the mat." He was quite out of breath, and I had not much difficulty in pummelling him as ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... for instance, that in respect of these institutions anything may be done by means of honesty and good and new ideas to abolish the tenacious and antiquated customs now extant? In this quarter, it seems to me, the battering-rams of an attacking party will have to meet with no solid wall, but with the most fatal of stolid and slippery principles. The leader of the assault has no visible and tangible opponent to crush, but rather a creature in disguise that can transform ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... bullets on several premises. Shrapnel has no battering force. Its object is to kill or disable men. It can do no harm to walls. Its employment in this instance was a wanton act intended to inspire terror and doubtless augmented the loss of life ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... the fire). Oh! dear! what a confounded smoke!—There now, there's our fire all bright and burning, thank the gods! Now, why not first put down our loads here, then take a vine-branch, light it at the brazier and hurl it at the gate by way of battering-ram? If they don't answer our summons by pulling back the bolts, then we set fire to the woodwork, and the smoke will choke 'em. Ye gods! what a smoke! Pfaugh! Is there never a Samos general will help me unload my burden?[415]—Ah! it shall not gall my shoulder any more. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... that, for long voyages, a blue-water sailor and all it means; but battering back and forward round the Horn with my deck cluttered up by prospectors and shore crews the mates would have to slam into the rigging—!" His exclamation refused every face of such a possibility. She understood his necessity completely; and the brief account of ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... caution, slipping on my clothes, I rushed on deck. The schooner's masts had gone by the board, and she lay helpless on the foaming ocean. The crew were shouting and swearing as they endeavoured to cut away the masts, which were battering against her sides, while ever and anon a heavy sea striking her, swept over her deck, and from the shrieks which came up out of the waters a short distance away to leeward, I had little doubt that several of the people had been washed overboard. Fearing that such might be my fate ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... to-day. Now Mr. Moore is an outspoken defender of the few crumbling privileges of man at a time when the "ladies" are claiming the earth and adjacent planets. Yet I don't believe he wrote Mildred Lawson (in the volume entitled Celibates) with malice prepense. Too great an artist to use as a dialectic battering-ram one of his characters, for all that he makes Mildred very "modern." She doesn't despise men, nor does she care much for the ideas of her dowdy friend the "advanced" Mrs. Fargus; on the contrary, she makes fun of her clothes and ideas, though secretly regretting that she hadn't ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the sea had mounted; the Bay was going to be true to its name. Captain Price went to his chart-house at midnight, to sleep on a settle; but by his orders the Burdock was kept to her course and her gait, battering away at the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... left the two together while we returned for Rayburn. And as we lifted the stretcher our hearts bounded, for at that instant there was a tremendous crash at the grating; whereby we knew that those without had brought to bear against it some sort of a battering-ram that they might ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... besiegers been provided with cannon, the defence could not have lasted long, for the walls would not have resisted battering by shot; but cannon, in those times, were rare, and were too clumsy and heavy to accompany an expedition requiring to move with speed. For a time, the men-at-arms alone garrisoned the wall; the farmers and their men being occupied in pumping water ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... to the Sailor's Rest, and should have come on with it this morning. Instead of doing so, he tells the landlord—a most unreliable man—to send it on. And my precious mummy—the mummy that has cost nine hundred pounds," cried Braddock, working furiously, and battering the chisel as though it were Bolton's head, "is left to be stolen by any scientific thief that comes along." While the Professor, assisted by Cockatoo, loosened the lid of the packing case, a mild voice was heard at the door. Lucy turned, as did ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Every one was howling, and yelling; and in the midst of them was an old woman, whose shouts and shrill cries made her conspicuous in the scene. She was encouraging and stimulating a number of men who were carrying a beam to the house, which they evidently purposed to use as a battering-ram, so as to ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... time to change armor during a battle, would I? One suit is enough for me. By George, they look worse than football suits, don't they? One couldn't drive a javelin through this chunk of stuff with a battering ram." ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... the picket-gate was banged in their faces and the bolt shot in the staples, and the Knights of the Rose were left shouting and battering with their cudgels ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... he might have said was forestalled by a heavy battering at the outer door. These deep vibrations seemed on the sudden to stir Peggy out of her sleep. She sat upright, digging fists ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... had the slightest effect on the woods-boss. Crouched low and with his arms wrapped around his head, Rondeau still came on unfalteringly, and Bryce was forced to give way before him; to save his hands, he avoided the risk of battering Rondeau's hard ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... discharged flights of darts and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... wife near crazy with ear- ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing hell's tattoo, like a TUTTI of battering rams, on our sheet- iron roof; the wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us full, so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Now, there you are, you see. Take Prescott. He's never crocked a man seriously in his life. I don't count being winded. That's absolutely an accident. Well, there you are, then. Prescott weighs thirteen-ten, and he's all muscle, and he goes like a battering-ram. You'll own that. He goes as hard as he jolly well knows how, and yet the worst he has ever done is to lay a man out for a couple of minutes while he gets his wind back. Well, compare him with this Bargee man. The Bargee weighs a stone less and isn't nearly ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... warriors of the Emperor Tiberius could then have foreseen the future, Titus was to quarter his famous legions on that vantage point; and from its elevation he was to hurl himself as a resistless battering ram against the Holy City. But, on this autumn day, when these chronicles begin, no blare of trumpets was summoning the Roman soldiery to arms; only the feet of the camp sentinels, as they walked their appointed rounds, broke the quiet ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... really a fine thing, but the important thing was that some of the rescued men had been exposed to the battering of the sea so long that they needed medical attention, and so we drove for home—and cracked our foremast-head doing it. That delayed us almost a week, for the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot might depend on it, same as the rest ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion," said George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.— Look up, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead of beating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the evening, with ranjows stuck round the outer defence. It was excellently situated for battering Balidah; but Balidah, I fear, is too loosely constructed to be battered to the best advantage. During the day the Sow and Singe Dyaks joined, to the amount of about 150 men, and other tribes have been gradually dropping in; so that altogether there are not fewer ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... sees, no sister-charioteer. Desperate of flight, nor daring to advance, Aghast, and shuddering at the lifted lance, He falters. Then AEneas poised at last His spear, and hurled it, as he marked his chance. Less loud the stone from battering engine cast, Less loud through ether bursts the levin-bolt's ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... his right arm towards Westerfelt's face so quickly that the spectators scarcely saw it leave his side, but it was not quicker than Westerfelt's left, which skilfully parried the thrust. Then, before Toot could shield himself, Westerfelt struck him with the force of a battering-ram squarely in ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... good, for the doors were soon forced open by the enraged rioters, who proceeded in a much more systematic operation, using long heavy pieces of timber which were carried on the shoulders of several men, and driven with the force of battering-rams—which, in fact, they ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... castle is built, each party uses its best efforts for the demolition of the other, but no one is allowed to make use of his hands in the demolition of either castle or fort; battering-rams may alone be employed. In ancient times, battering-rams were large beams, hooped and shod with iron; but the moderns do things better, and the way in which it may be done is as follows:—A boy who volunteers to be battering-ram ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... could sing?—and she had an irritated feeling he had tried to call her. Her room was on the east and the dawn was still gray. She lay looking at it a minute perhaps after her eyes came open: frightened, that was it, frightened. Things seemed to have been battering at her brain in the night, and all the windows of her mind had been closed, the shutters fast, and they could not get in. But now the light was coming and they kept on battering. And whatever they wanted, she was frightened, too frightened to give herself the panic of thinking it ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of Hercules. The poor brought skins of Cordova leather, tanned and untanned, excellent pieces of cloth and linen (poor Ermentrude must have worked hard for the month before the justices came!), boxes, and wax. 'With this battering-ram,' cries the shocked Bishop Theodulf, 'they hope to break down the wall of my soul. But they would not have thought that they could shake me, if they had not so shaken other judges before,' And indeed, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... had roused the two stable orderlies. They would open up in a minute. They did, with much blinking of eyes and some demur, but stood abashed when the burly major strode in, big Jim Ennis at his heels. The latter hesitated not one second. His weight went in with the battering ram of that muscular leg and massive foot, and the sergeant's door flew open before them. The room was empty. Fitzroy and Fitzroy's furs were gone. Nor was that all. Snatching a stable lantern from the hand of one of the shaking ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... tossing hands. It was a sea that heaved before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead, presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it ecstasy. Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of worship ten thousand voices hailed ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... by way of encouraging the youngster, Finn would lower himself to the ground, head well out, and, covering his eyes and muzzle with his two fore legs, would allow Jan to plunge like a little battering-ram upon the top of his head, furiously digging into the wolfhound's wiry coat in futile pursuit of flesh-hold for his teeth, and still exhausting fifty per cent. of his energies in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... And yet, battering at that instinctive feeling, came the knowledge that she was to start for New York the next day. She felt suddenly that she could not. "I can't! I can't!" she cried dumbly. "I can't, even ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... about that date, were as strange a lot of men as ever were paid by a great empire to fight its battles. It was the darkest hour of the land struggle, when the one side came out with crow-bar and battering-ram by day, and the other with mask and with shot-gun by night. Men driven from their homes and potato-patches found their way even into the service of the Government, to which it seemed to them that they owed their troubles, and now and then they did wild things before they came. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mandarin lurches and rolls awfully, making it extremely difficult at times for any of the mules to keep their feet; each mule seems to think his next neighbor responsible for the jostling and crowding, and the kicking and squealing is continuous along both lines. While battering away at each other, each mule seems to be at the same time keeping a loose eye behind him for the oncoming waves and swells that occasionally curl over the bulwarks and irrigate and irritate them in the rear. Most of the mules seem capable of kicking at their neighbors ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the attacks became less frequent. The schooners manoeuvring in the river poured broadsides into the Indian villages, battering down the flimsy wigwams. Pontiac moved his camp from the mouth of Parent's Creek to a position nearer Lake St Clair, out of range of their guns, and turned his thoughts to contrive some means of destroying the troublesome vessels. He had learned from the French of the attempt ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... the circumstance, was unable to satisfy her with sixty blows of a large sledge hammer. He afterwards used the same weapon, with the same degree of strength, for the sake of experiment, and succeeded in battering a hole in a stone wall at the twenty-fifth stroke. Another woman, named Sonnet, laid herself down on a red-hot brazier without flinching, and acquired for herself the nickname of the salamander; while others, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... of July, in the minds of some persons purely political, would prove to be a moral revolution. The social class to which she belonged, not being able, during its unhoped-for triumph in the fifteen years of the Restoration to reconstruct itself, was about to go to pieces, bit by bit, under the battering-ram of the bourgeoisie. She heard the famous words of Monsieur Laine: 'Kings are departing!' This conviction, I believe was not without its influence on her conduct. She took an intellectual part ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... commanders, Saint Ruth obliged himself to no certain place, but rode constantly from one side to another to give the necessary orders where he saw occasion. Ginkell being now come up at so near a distance that his guns and other battering engines might do execution, he ordered them to be discharged, and as he had a vast number of them he made them play incessantly on the Irish army, hoping by that means to force them from the hill, which was of great advantage. But the Irish, encouraged by the presence and ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... their church into a fort at a few minutes' notice. The walls were nearly three feet thick; the seven windows were barred with iron, and so high up that, if the Indians wanted to peep, they had to climb on each other's shoulders. As for the doors, they could hardly be knocked in with a battering ram; so you had no excuse to stop at home on Sunday, even in "Indian Summer." Of course we went to see the grave where all that is mortal of Washington Irving lies in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery; and the famous bridge—or, rather, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... his kin, and full like is he to be a noble man that is their leader and governor. He meant it by Sir Launcelot du Lake. So when Sir Tristram had beholden them long he thought shame to see two hundred knights battering upon twenty knights. Then Sir Tristram rode unto the King with the Hundred Knights and said: Sir, leave your fighting with those twenty knights, for ye win no worship of them, ye be so many and they so few; and wit ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Still the little boat steamed slowly and steadily on towards Soochow. Along the banks of the canal the rebels, in clusters, were marching towards safety. On them the Hyson opened fire, puffing and steaming after them, and battering them with ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... the militia-men proceeded in a body to the gaol, and demanded their comrade; and compliance with the demand being refused, they seized a long piece of timber that lay in the street, near the prison, and this they used as a battering-ram against the door of the gaol, which they soon forced off its hinges. I was sitting in the back dining-room at my house, No. 1, Lady Mead, and I witnessed the transaction myself. About the third effort with the battering-ram, each of which ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... burst out laughing. The thing was too absurd. Under cover of our animated talk the landlord must have bolted us in. The bars made the window no use. A skilled burglar might have beaten those bolts, and a battering-ram would, no doubt, have smashed the door; we ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... inhibited self of Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German. Dorn saw not the visage of the foe—only the thick-set body, and this he ripped open in one mighty slash. The German's life spilled ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... no monitors, nor fire-arms. Large swords, daggers, slings, the catapulta and battering-ram, were ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... his blood, a thing which he was holding back by sheer force of will. He tried to shut out the vision of a pale face floating in the sea; he fought to keep a grip on the dispassionate calmness which was a part of him. But the ship itself was battering down his stoic resistance. In an hour—since he had heard the scream of the woman—he had come to hate it. He wanted the feel of solid earth under his feet. He wanted, with all his soul, to reach that narrow strip of coast where Mary ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... and Pollux near the Basilica Julia. They are the only prominent objects on the south-west side of the Forum, and at once arrest the eye by their matchless symmetry and grace. Time has dealt very hardly with them, battering their shapely columns and rich Corinthian capitals, and discolouring their pure white Pentelic marble. But it has not succeeded in destroying their wonderful beauty; and the russet hues with which they have been stained by the long lapse ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Crossing the frontier, Count Thurn boldly entered Austria and, meeting no foe capable of retarding his steps, he pushed vigorously on even to the very gates of Vienna. As he had no heavy artillery capable of battering down the walls, and as he knew that he had many partisans within the walls of the city, he took possession of the suburbs, blockaded the town, and waited for the slow operation of a siege, hoping ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... fell, on receiving a Jacob's shell; it was hit again twice, and lost a large amount of blood; and yet it sprang up, and charged a native, who, by great agility, had just time to climb a tree, before the maddened beast struck it, battering- ram fashion, hard enough almost to have split both head and tree. It paused a few seconds—drew back several paces—glared up at the man—and then dashed at the tree again and again, as if determined to shake ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... world shaking off Rome. It was the prognostication of the philosopher who sees human thought, volatilized by the press, evaporating from the theocratic recipient. It was the terror of the soldier who examines the brazen battering ram, and says:—"The tower will crumble." It signified that one power was about to succeed another power. It meant, "The press will ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... his Bible to his breast, and seizing the mast of the frigate's jolly-boat, which had been thrown up with the other spars, poised it with both hands on a level with his head, so as to use the foot of it as a battering-ram, and stalked ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the nimble mind and quick fancy of youth, turning over from the thing that is half done to a further task beyond. How would we fare in Brittany and Normandy while my young paladin with his lances and his bowmen was besieging Ascalon or battering at Jerusalem?" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reason of imminent peril. Do not think this a meaningless or uncertain sign; fear, arising from the things they foresee, has changed their custom." Why say more? He inflamed the hearts of his soldiers to attack Aquileia again. Constructing battering rams and bringing to bear all manner of engines of war, they quickly forced their way into the city, laid it waste, divided the spoil and so cruelly devastated it as scarcely to leave a trace to be seen. Then growing bolder 222 and still thirsting for Roman blood, the ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... evident that the barricade was no longer tenable, for the heavy pieces of furniture they had heaped up to oppose entrance, were completely hammered to fragments by poles brought up by the assailants, and used as battering-rams. The retreat was sounded; they all hastened to the other story, where the ladies were already placed, and the galley-slaves were soon in possession of the first floor— exasperated by the defence, mad with wine ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... his age and his lifetime of battering about the world, Captain Cy had a sentimental streak in his makeup; his rejuvenation of the old home proved that. Betsy's letter interested him. He had made guarded inquiries concerning Mary Thayer, now Mary Thomas, of others besides ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and grass-grown stone urns, and furnished with the light foliage of untended creeping plants. Down the short broad walk leading to this sombre entrance, my eye constantly wandered; but no impatient rattle on the latch, no battering at the gate, indicated the presence of a visited, and the lazy bell hung ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... run hastily up the stairway and were battering at the door of Vanringham's chamber. "Locked!" said the Colonel. "Oh, the unutterable cur! Open, open, I tell you, Vanringham! By God, I'll have your blood for this if you have hurt ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... so that the Royal Family had scarcely finished lunch when they were startled by news that the people were once more advancing en masse up the road to the Palace, and would soon be battering at ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... of the city was free of defenders, save the isolated steam gunners left behind upon the walls. Ragged Men, drunk with success, ran through its ways, slashing at the walls, battering at the light-panels, pounding upon the doorways of the towers. Tommy saw them hacking at the great doorway of a tower. It gave. They rushed within. Almost instantly thereafter the opening spouted them forth ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... fish's offspring. For a long time his favourite pastime, whenever his mother's back was turned, was to build walls and houses of herrings; and he would also play at soldiers on the marble slab, arranging the red gurnets in confronting lines, pushing them against each other, and battering their heads, while imitating the sound of drum and trumpet with his lips; after which he would throw them all into a heap again, and exclaim that they were dead. When he grew older he would prowl about his aunt Claire's stall to get hold of the bladders of the carp and pike which ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... listening to the sound of blows battering the outer door. "They'll have it down in another minute. We've got to burn the wind seven ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... immediately!" he cried imperiously, kicking and battering again upon the door in furious rage, which was stilled the instant he heard her ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... negligence in the persons charged with the execution of these orders the battering artillery was not accompanied with suitable ammunition, and the necessary entrenching tools were not brought. These omissions were supplied the next day, but it was then too ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... of this institution was not in its architecture or lands, but in that part which could not be seen by the bodily eyes. For, spiritually speaking, Oneida Institute was an immense battering-ram, behind which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Beriah Green were constantly at work, pounding away to destroy the walls which slavery had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... was beaten to his knees. Struggling up, he tried to clinch, only to be met by another smashing blow in the face. He turned to escape, but the dancing figure with the battering fists was ever in front ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... its long yellow teeth and worried him as a terrier does a rat—the poor old wretch was still able to make a bleating sound at that—dropped him, trampled and kicked him as he tried to crawl away, and went on trampling and battering him until he was no more than a bloody inhuman bundle of clothes and mire. For more than half an hour this continued, and then its animal rage was exhausted and it desisted, and went and grazed at a little distance from this misshapen, hoof-marked, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... Ormiston had begun to speak, and he, too, turned his attention to the platform. He liked this old woman's invincible quality, the way she had turned to and made a battering-ram of her own meagre middle-aged body to level the walls of authority; and she reminded him of his mother. There was no physical likeness, but plainly this woman also was one of those tragically serious ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... cries, "Silence, in the King's name!" to no purpose, it would be an easier task to hale apart old beavers than one of these. But when Lucifer's veterans dashed into their midst, the growls, and blows, and battering lessened. "Silence in Lucifer's name!" roared the devil a second time. "What is this," demanded the King, "and who are these?" "Nothing, sire, but that in the general confusion, the drovers came across the cuckolds, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... into the finest powder, until not a bit of stubborn self-conceit remains. And then the contrite become the humble! Our gracious Lord has sometimes to use heavy hammers in the destruction of this hard and stony pride: the shock of calamity, the battering of disappointment and defeat! Our pride must be ground to powder. Then He will come in ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Far better War's battering breeze than the Peace that barters the Past, Better the fear of our fathers' God than friendship false with their foe: And better anointed Death than the Nation's damnation at last, And the crawling of craven limbs in life and the curse ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... retorted Wright, kicking the bar with his foot, "nine feet of it, by Master Percy's computation, and, I warrant, as many years will be required to see the further side. Try it, good Catesby, 'tis a nut a giant could scarce crack, though he wield a battering ram." ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... to observe Belgium's neutrality, and at that very moment her guns were battering the little nation to bits. Was that just a European affair, or did it amount to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Olympius took council of the veteran captain, and they rapidly decided to allow all the women to depart at once and to divide the men into two parties-one to be sent to fight on the roof, and the other to defend the wall where the Roman battering-ram was by this time almost ready ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The battering at the door was resumed with renewed vigor. A cry of triumph announced to the crowd that the barrier was down, and a portion of the infuriated mob ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... erected upon a commanding position, about a mile and a half from the entrance to the bay. Its walls are substantially constructed of burnt brick, and are of sufficient thickness and strength to resist heavy battering. There are nine or ten embrasures. Like everything else in the country belonging to the public, the fort is fast falling into ruins. There has been no garrison here for several years; the guns are dismounted, and ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... Lisbon itself, challenged the governor, or any other of equal rank, to single combat: but this romantic proposal was prudently declined; and though the city was known to be weakly guarded, the total want of battering cannon in the English army precluded the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... taking much water over the lee rail. Cases of all descriptions began to break loose on the upper deck, the principal trouble being caused by the loose coal bags, which were lifted bodily by the seas and swung against the lashed cases. These bags acted like battering rams, no lashings could possibly have withstood them, and so the only remedy was to set to work and heave coal sacks overboard and re-lash the cases. During this difficult and dangerous task seas continually ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Amherstburgh. Deprived of the means of transport, the shallow bed of the Miami aiding them but little, it was a matter of no mean difficulty with the Americans to convey through several hundred miles of forest, the heavy guns they required for battering, and as it was only at intervals this could be effected; the most patient endurance and unrelaxing perseverance being necessary to the end. From the inactivity of this force, or rather the confinement of its operations to objects ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... he knew he would reach very soon, a solid wall! Rock and shale and earth were packed as if by battering rams. For a few moments he fought to control himself before facing Joanne. Over him swept the grim realization that his last fight must be for her. He steadied himself, and wiped the dust and grime from his face with his handkerchief. For the last time he swallowed hard. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... had selected him, much against his will, as her partner, was footing it away very composedly and becomingly, when a tremendous blow was inflicted on a certain part of the hinder portion of his body, which being as irresistible as if it had come from a battering-ram of the Romans, laid him prostrate on the floor, to the infinite delight of all the fashionables of the court, particularly the female part, who testified their joy by the utterance of the loudest laughs and clapping their hands in an extacy of mirth. In fact, the travellers entered ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... with trembling hands and a pounding heart that nearly bore me down, it acted so like a battering ram on the inside, I drew a delicately scented envelope from my mailbox ... addressed in ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... A more sorrowful, heart-rending sight mortal eyes have seldom seen. The father, the mother, the saint-like sister, the innocent and helpless children, had found but a momentary refuge from cannibals, who were roaring like wolves around the hall, and battering at the doors to break in and slake their vengeance with blood. It was seriously apprehended that the mob would make a rush, and sprinkle the blood of the royal family upon the very floor of the sanctuary where they had ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... edifice incurred the most imminent danger, and would probably have been destroyed in 1356, had not the timely arrival of the French troops caused the invading army to raise the siege of the city. A battering ram, used upon that occasion, was still shewed in Coutances, in the beginning of the last century. The king of France bestowed upon the chapter, in 1372, a sum of six hundred livres, in gold, for the express purpose of repairing the church, "bellis attrita et imminuta." At ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... you it? so you would leaue battering, I had rather haue it a head, and you vse these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and Insconce it to, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders, but I pray sir, why am I beaten? Ant. Dost thou not know? S.Dro. Nothing sir, but ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... an involuntary disposition on the part of both the Major and Mr Dombey to look after them, that they both turned at the same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow, was toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the inch as before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the same supreme disregard ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... would-be lover would return stronger than before. As she did not want him or any man for husband she made great preparations for an attack, gathering a large body of warriors and having a wall of great strength and the finest workmanship built round the town. It was so high and thick that no battering ram could shake it, while water-cisterns were built into it to put out the fire if any one sought to burn it. From this we may judge that the wall was of wood. This done, Torborg made merry with her court, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... The sounds of battering had ceased, and as he passed the oak door he laid his ear to it: some one was in the place! the lid of the bureau shut with a loud bang, and he heard a lock turned. The wall could not be half down yet: the earl must have entered the moment he could ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... of Carlyle seems to me to be one of the most terrible and convincing documents in the world in proof of what I have been saying. The old man was so bent on battering and bumping people into righteousness, so in love with spluttering and vituperating and thundering all over the place, that he missed the truest and sweetest ministry of love. He broke his wife's heart, and it is idle to pretend he did not. Mrs. Carlyle was a sharp-edged woman ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... plain, right-handed, battering-ram punch to the neck that ended things, and Hassan Ah lay coughing on the sand with bulging eyes while Joe ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... room, barricaded behind the table, the landlord's wife and daughter crouched in terror of their lives. The gas, turned full on, blazed high enough to blacken the ceiling, and showed the heavy bolts shot at the top and bottom of the solid door. Nothing less than a battering-ram could have burst that door in from the outer side; an hour's work with the file would have failed to break a passage through the bars over the window. "How did she get there?" the sergeant asked. "Run downstairs, and bolted herself in, while the missus and the young 'un ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... fire peeps up and crackles as it should. Now why not first slide off our backs these weary loads of wood And dip a vine-branch in the brazier till it glows, then straight Hurl it at the battering-ram against the stubborn gate? If they refuse to draw the bolts in immediate compliance, We'll set fire to the wood, and smoke will ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... few seconds the enemy, astounded by the occurrence, ceased firing, but the English gave them no respite, and both parties immediately again set to work, battering away at each other. Shot after shot struck the Tudor, but the crew kept up their fire with unabated vigour. Murray had forgotten all about his forebodings of the previous evening; no sooner had the schooner blown up, than he saw that the chain being left unprotected ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... delusion as to our powers. We can't push Sher Singh back; we can only hold him back by fear for the city. We can't hope to conquer him, but we may make it impossible for him to move until a British brigade with battering guns ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... feudal militia amounting, according to the Spanish historians, to thirty thousand men. With these ample forces, his lieutenant-general, the duke of Savoy, closely invested Perpignan; and, as he was provided with a numerous train of battering artillery, instantly opened a heavy fire on the inhabitants. John, thus exposed to the double fire of the fortress and the besiegers, was in a very critical situation. Far from being disheartened, however, he was seen, armed cap-a-pie, on horseback from dawn till evening, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... cure. He nevertheless continued his journey without abatement of speed, and on the afternoon of the fourth day arrived on the summit of the hills that overlook Bilboa. The suburbs were occupied by the Carlists, whose slender battering train kept up a fire that was vigorously replied to by the forty or fifty cannon bristling the fortifications. Entering the faubourg known as the Barrio de Bolueta, he approached a group of soldiers lounging in front of their quarters, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... diminishing. He struggled once more to his feet, with Nicholas, and they exchanged battering blows, dealt necessarily at random. Sometimes his arm swept violently through mere space, at others his fist landed with a satisfying shock on the body of his antagonist. The dark was occasionally crossed by flashes before Woolfolk's smitten eyes, but no actual ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... my Lord of Alanmere, especially when there is sterner work in hand," interrupted Natasha, with a laugh. "What are you going to do with those two cruisers that are battering each other to pieces down there? Sink them both, or leave them ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... crumbling privileges of man at a time when the "ladies" are claiming the earth and adjacent planets. Yet I don't believe he wrote Mildred Lawson (in the volume entitled Celibates) with malice prepense. Too great an artist to use as a dialectic battering-ram one of his characters, for all that he makes Mildred very "modern." She doesn't despise men, nor does she care much for the ideas of her dowdy friend the "advanced" Mrs. Fargus; on the contrary, she makes fun of her clothes and ideas, though secretly regretting that she hadn't been sent by ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... his face in his hands. Bridge rolled another smoke. The sound of a shot came from the front room of the jail, immediately followed by a roar of rage from the mob and a deafening hammering upon the jail door. A moment later this turned to the heavy booming of a battering ram and the splintering of wood. The frail structure ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with their shoulders. It seemed impossible it should stand, yet stand it did. Then one, Galors, cried suddenly out, "Fetch a hatchet!" and another ran helter-skelter down the corridor. The rest seemed to be waiting for him; the battering ceased. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... siege and field guns of the Germans—which had been used with such telling effect upon Liege, Brussels, Antwerp and Ostend, battering the fortifications there to bits in practically no time at all—while immense in their power of destruction, were still not a match for the longer range guns mounted by the British battleships. Consequently, long-range artillery duels in the north had been ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... got into you? What business have you got with me, old fellow? What are you pounding me for? What are you jerking me along for? What do you mean by battering me? ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... heard continued cries and groans. He had now and then been dully aware of a change in the noises. Now it would seem as if all else was swallowed up in the sound of tremendous blows, as if the car were being struck again and again by a mighty battering-ram. Then a chorus of shouting went roaring up, as if an army cried. Noise and physical sensation were too intimately blended to be separated; his brain struggled in confusion, emerging now and then for a moment of consecutive thought ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... trembling, stood by as if he had been paralysed. But the brewer bent his round head like a furious bull, and charged, using his skull as a battering ram, right into the middle of the scrimmage. Now there were two against ten. The odds were still far too great; and the brewer also was soon on the floor. The fighters made a tremendous noise, but whereas usually at the least sound a corporal would come running up ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... at more than that distance, Sire, but for battering down walls they are used at shorter distances. The ships are, as you say, floating castles, and will carry hundreds of men, with provisions and stores for many months, besides merchandise and goods. These castles are armed with weapons such as you speak of, some of them carrying twenty ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... dreamy nature, felt in the quiet dusk the power to do all things. He had the poetic temperament which sometimes leads on to great things, and the man so gifted who does not feel himself capable, at that hour of the day of rest, of battering down Gibraltar or of upbuilding the whole human race, must ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... the stable from the nearer end, the opposite gable fell out with a great splash, letting in the wide level vision of turbidly raging waters, fading into the obscurity of the wind-driven rain. While he stared aghast, a great tree struck the wall like a battering-ram, so that the stable shook. The horses, which had been for some time moving uneasily, were now quite scared. There was not a moment to be lost. Duff shouted for his men; one or two came running; and in less than a minute ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... live here now; she has moved away. If monsieur had told me he was going to her apartment I would have spared him the trouble of battering down the door." ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... oblique but immovable loopholes of the curtain, or even through the sloping crenelets of the higher towers. On this the besiegers brought up mangonels, and set them hurling huge stones at these woodworks and battering them to pieces. Contemporaneously they built a triangular wooden tower as high as the curtain, and kept it ready for use, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... screw boat of 400 tons, most unprepossessing in appearance, slow, but sure, and capable of bearing an infinite amount of battering. It is jokingly said that her keel has rasped off the branch coral round all the islands. Though there are many inter-island schooners, she is the only sure mode of reaching the windward islands in less than ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Imagine, dear reader, a huge mass, composed of blocks of ice, large stones, and drift timber, occupying the centre of the river, and extending back for a great distance; the top on a level with the roofs of the houses. The inhabitants of the town had everything to dread from such a gigantic battering-ram applied to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Whitner, the commander, and either capturing or wounding nearly all the commissioned officers. Before we knew it, or even expected it, the enemy was in our front, advancing in line of battle. The men hadn't time to raise a gun before the bullets came whizzing over our heads, or battering against the stone wall. We noticed away to our right the lines give way. Still Kershaw's Brigade held their position, and beat back the enemy in our front. But in the woods on our left some troops who were stationed there, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Atkins want? He had broken in on a moment that was as private as a dream. There was nothing he could do. Baker was dying. He knew he was dying. There was no medicine that could heal the battering his body had taken. He had been slipping away into peace and release of pain. He had no desire to ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... is a long-winged hawk for the heron. The Hyppe is the berye of the sweet bryer or eglantine. Nowell meaneth more than Christmas. Porpherye is a peculiar marble, not marble in common. Sendale, a sylke stuffe. The trepegett is not the battering-ram, but an engine to cast stones. Wiuer or Wyvern, a serpent like unto a dragon. Autenticke meaneth a thing of auctoritye, not of antiquitye. Abandone is not liberty though Hollyband sayeth so. Of the Vernacle. Master ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... ever was a morning calculated to inspire good-will and heartiness in a human being it was that morning. The dawn came swiftly, battering through a fleece of clouds and painting the Blue Mesa in all the gorgeous and utterly indescribable colors of an Arizona sunrise. The air was crisp and so clear that it seemed to sparkle, like water. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... The long bronze guns which threw the smaller stone shot of from six to eleven inches, would command a far more extensive range than the interval of the heights which dominate Lefkosia; and even should battering have been ineffective at that distance against walls of masonry, the plunging fire would have destroyed the town and ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... these trees was cut down some years ago by a party of men, who, I think, should have been sent to prison for the deed. It took five men twenty-five days to cut it through with augers and saws, and then they were obliged to use a great wedge and a battering-ram to make ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... garlands, with fine white tusks long and thick as plough-shafts, worthy of carrying kings on their backs, capable of bearing every kind of noise on the field of battle, with huge bodies, capable of battering down the walls of hostile towns, of the colour of new-formed clouds, and each possessing eight she-elephants. With this wealth, O king, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... pursued him with her army, and overtook him at the summit; finding no place to hide himself, he attempted in desperation both to wreak vengeance upon his enemies and to end his own life by beating his head violently against the cane of the Heavenly Bamboo which grew there. By his mad battering he at last succeeded in knocking down the towering trunk of the tree, and as he did so its top tore great rents in the canopy of the sky, through which poured great floods of water, inundating the whole earth and drowning all the inhabitants except the victorious Queen and ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... you as noisy as a magpie. If you're not whistling, you're singing some damned rake of an Irish song and if you're not singing, you're at the piano battering out a scrap-heap ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... little. It had been taken by the Germans in the autumn of 1914, after their retreat from the Marne, and they had held it until about a year ago, when it was retaken by the English and the Chasseurs d'Alpins. They had been able to reduce it and to drive the Germans out, only by battering it down with artillery; ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... after it. But he did not sigh. He puffed away at his pipe as if entirely satisfied with his lot. He was still watching the brougham when a surface-car came gliding swiftly around a curve. There was a smash of splintering wood and breaking glass. The car had struck the brougham a battering-ram blow, crushing a rear wheel and snapping the steel ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... deeply into my trousers-pocket, as if feeling for the price of a "liquor," and the man having involuntarily allowed me a little swing for this, I suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran at him as if my head were a battering-ram, and his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleaguered city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, and dodging the leg he had put out to trip me, I ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him, Edward eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness they were to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons; while Algernon vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British adjectives in superlative. He as much as hinted, under instigation, that he was entitled to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly allowed by Edward, and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and need not fear him, he exhibited ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... swirls round some steadfast rock. A posse of police from the back fought their way steadily towards him, and charged up the heights of the platform steps, only to be sent tumbling backwards, as their leader was hurled at them like a battering-ram. Upon the top of the heap he fell, surmounting the strata of policemen. But others clambered upon them, escalading the platform. A moment more and Mortlake would have been taken. Then ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... be sufficiently accurate in saying that the corresponding period in the fifth century (namely, from about 404 to 420 A. D.) first witnessed those uproars of ruin in Egypt and Alexandria—fire racing along the old carious timbers, battering- rams thundering against the ancient walls of the most horrid temples— which rang so searchingly in the ears of Zosimus, extorting, at every blow, a howl of Pagan sympathy from that ignorant calumniator of Christianity. So far from the fact being, according to the general prejudice, as though Constantine ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... The system of warfare and defence pursued by these people, is undoubtedly excellent for the peculiarities of the country. Their stockades are usually built of any thick teak timber, or rather squared trees, which are much too strong to be penetrated by any other than battering cannon, and, in consequence, were invariably carried by escalade. Some of them are built of bamboos, running from a foot to two feet in diameter. These are equally strong, with the peculiarity that if you fire ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... A battering-ram broke down the prison-door. There stood Wallace and his men, their weapons and armour covered with blood. De Valence, evading the clutch of Kirkpatrick, thrust his dagger into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
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