"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The heavy butt of a Winchester rifle descended on my head and I fell to the ground. Rough hands seized me and angry men bore me away, and ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... overhead it shortens, and again lengthens after it has passed, somewhat like the spoke of a wheel. In the second of its presence a red handkerchief a woman wears on the ricks stands out, the brass on the engine glows, the water in the butt gleams, men's faces brighten, the cart-horse's coat looks glossy, the straw a pleasant yellow. It is gone, and lights up the backs of the sheep yonder as it runs up the hill swifter than a hare. Swish! The north wind darkens the sky, and the ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... one another, and all bearing wicker shields, made of white oxhide, shaggy, and shaped like an ivy leaf; in the right hand they brandished a javelin about six cubits long, with a lance in front, and rounded like a ball at the butt end of the shaft. ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... below. No movement. The third throw, a great lunge and splash, and the next moment the lithe rod bent double, and the gut collar spun along, cutting through the water like mad. Up goes the great fish twice into the air, Tom giving him the point; then up stream again, Tom giving him the butt, and beginning to reel up gently. Down goes the great fish into the swaying weeds, working with his tail like a twelve-horse screw. "If I can only get my nose to ground," thinks he. So thinks Tom, and trusts to his tackle, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Arab who kept the Bordj, roused by my beating upon the door with the butt end of my revolver, came with D'oud to ask what was the matter. The door had to be broken in. This took some time. Long before I could escape, the light of the sun, entering through the little arched windows, had illumined the nude corpse of the Spahi, the gaping red wound in his throat, ...
— The Desert Drum - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... pursuit Prince Murat disarmed the man who had shot the stag, for he was leveling his gun at another huntsman; but before the gun was wrenched from his hands he had struck Prince d'Essling, Prince Murat's uncle, across the face with the butt. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... her 'valet de chambre' to bring her billiard cue into her closet, and ordered me to open the box that contained it. I took out the cue, broken in two. It was of ivory, and formed of one single elephant's tooth; the butt was of gold and very tastefully wrought. "There," said she, "that is the way M. de Vaudreuil has treated a thing I valued highly. I had laid it upon the couch while I was talking to the Duchess in the salon; he ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... eyes, too, as they rose above the strong lower face, were emphasised, looking truly as though, if tongue and pen failed to make a way, the shoulders could push one, and, if worse came to worst, the head would butt one. Next to Luther was a head of Christ; then in the same line, with nothing in the position or quality of the pictures to indicate that the subjects were any less esteemed, a row of royal personages, whose military trappings were made ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... sticks for the shafts the Cave-men made gifts to the wood-gods, and asked for the straightest and toughest branches that grew on the trees. Then they cut the branches carefully and carried them home to the cave. There they peeled them from butt to tip and smoothed them with stone scrapers. Sometimes they rubbed them with fat and laid them away to dry. It was hard work to make a crooked stick straight. But the Cave-men tried many ways and at last they learned ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... upon our anger; but as to God Almighty a thousand years are as one day, so, in direct opposition, one day to the covetous man is as a thousand years, tam brevi fortis jaculatur aevo multa, so far he shoots beyond his butt. One would think he were of the opinion of the Millenaries, and hoped for so long a reign upon earth. The patriarchs before the flood, who enjoyed almost such a life, made, we are sure, less stores for the maintaining of it; they who lived nine hundred years ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... incautiously turned his back. Denman saw the protruding butt of his pistol in Jenkins' pocket, and, without any formulated plan for the future, only seeing a momentary advantage in the possession of the weapon, pounced on his shoulders, and endeavored ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... every week, on the Wednesday and we had much pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that butt of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... verdict upon actions which may be carelessly misrepresented, or words, if not intentionally, yet heedlessly misquoted, without affording an opportunity to the condemned individual to speak for himself, is unjust in the extreme. But how many excellent persons are made the butt of ridicule, or tossed about as the playthings of a gossipping spirit, which, incapable of a direct charge, gratifies its malignity by infusing calumnies into the too listening ear of prejudice. An idle report ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... openly watching him. The garb proclaimed the figure to be that of a woman, and for a moment he was utterly startled. Then, acting on impulse, he started to walk towards the watcher, his unmittened hand on the butt of the pistol ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... in the act of cocking the pistol when a slight blow upon his arm, near the elbow, with the butt of a stock-whip, made him drop it as suddenly as though his limb had been paralyzed from ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... by the Mayor of Tiverton and kindly Mr. Oliver Peard. After a year under Hudson, young Cosway entered Shipley's Academy, already mentioned. Probably he was a somewhat puny, insignificant-looking lad, and was therefore made the butt and fag of the robuster students, compelled to attend upon them and obey their behests, even to performing menial offices, just as younger boys do in other academies—for might is right in the world of school—and thus Mr. Smith's errand-boy story may have originated. ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... at me, and they'll sneer at me, and they'll call me a whiskey soak; ("Have a drink? Well, thankee kindly, sir, I don't mind if I do.") A drivelling, dirty, gin-joint fiend, the butt of the bar-room joke; Sunk and sodden and hopeless — "Another? Well, here's ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... No-tail?" And she and her sons and their sister came up to him and fell to examining the back parts of Abdullah of the Land, and saying, "Yea, by Allah, he is tailless!"; and they laughed at him. So he said to the Merman, "O my brother, hast thou brought me hither to make me a butt and a laughing-stock for thy children and thy consort?"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... for anthropological measurements, but I could not always find willing subjects. Everything depends on the humour of the crowd; if they make fun of the first victim, the case is lost, as no second man is willing to be the butt of the innumerable gibes showered on the person under the instruments. Things are more favourable if it is only fear of some dangerous enchantment that holds them back, for then persuasion and liberal gifts of tobacco ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... creeks ran half a mile from their heads. The country is rent with deep chasms, made still deeper by vast torrents that pour down them during times of heavy rains." There were found petrified trees. One of them was 210 feet long and another was over five feet across the butt, this in a land where not a tree or bush was found growing. Holmes fervently observed, "However, I do not know whether it makes any difference whether the country is barren or fruitful, if the Lord has a work to do in it," in this especially referring to the Indians, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... together?" called the officious neighbor. "Mose, you ought of asked her—when you see her coming up the street if she wasn't looking for you." "Maybe," said Mose, "but then I didn't know, and I don't want to butt into other folks business" "Huh," snorted the woman, "spose I hadn't butted in. Where'd you be. You wouldn't have found her and she wouldn't have found you!" Both Mose and the interviewer wore forced to admit that she was right—but ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from being stoned to death—as he richly deserved to be; what business had he to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation? ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... with a cup at the butt and a cork at the muzzle. Skate off now, like an angel, and get it. Bring Fanny, too. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... cried lustily into the twilight our coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The snapping ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... of family pride.] — And I the son of a strong farmer (with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... how to fight against thee "with the sword of his mouth," and to make thee a butt for his arrows; and this is a dispensation most dreadful (Rev 2:16; Job ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it triumphantly. He set the butt-end on one of his shoulders and, stretching his arms up, grasped the trunk and held the tree straight in the air, so that it seemed to be growing out of his big shoulder as out of a ledge of rock. Then he turned to her and laughed out in his strength and youth. She laughed joyously ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... Kirstie and the credit of the Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the day over for her old-world tales and local gossip, bidding farewell to her last link with life and brightness and love; and behind and beyond, she saw but the blank butt-end where she must crawl to die. Had she then come to the lees? she, so great, so beautiful, with a heart as fresh as a girl's and strong as womanhood? It could not be, and yet it was so; and for a moment her bed was horrible to her as the sides of the grave. And she looked ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when the visitors are there. Should you talk to them of charming people, they will describe to you the people they know, people whom you really would fall violently in love with—only there is no chance of you ever meeting them, because they have just gone to Jamaica. They "butt" their "but" into all your little pleasures, and even when you really are enjoying yourself, and the "but" would have to be a bomb to upset your equanimity, they will throw cold water upon your ardour by gently hinting that you had better enjoy yourself ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... ball. No—I was convinced that I had not been intoxicated, but on this occasion I resolved to exercise special caution, and to be strictly temperate, in the event of the disguised perpetrator of pranks again attempting to make the German stranger the butt of his impudence. This time he should meet his match; I would keep my head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered with my pleasure very considerably. I was in a too observant ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... tent, where they killed his secretary and many of his guards. It was even reported; and generally believed, that Farnese himself had been in imminent danger, that Schenk had fired his pistol at him unsuccessfully, and had then struck him on the head with its butt-end, and that the Prince had only saved his life by leaping from his horse, and scrambling through a ditch. But these seem to have been fables. The alarm at last became general, the dawn of a summer's day was fast approaching; the drums ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the quality, or to have no money, but contrive to substitute the pitcher of water in its stead, which the wine- seller generally snatches up in anger, and pours the contents back, as he thinks, into the butt - but it is not wine but water which he pours. With respect to the donkey, which APPEARED to be cut in pieces, but which afterwards, being pricked in the tail, got up and ran home, I have little to say, but that I have myself ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... Sphinxes are all upon the spree; and where you have as little concern for what is real as you have in that hemisphere of the great globe of Moliere—that has Scapin and Sganarelle for its breed-bates, and Pourceaugnac for its butt, and Pancrace and Marphurius for its scientific men, and Lelie and Agnes for its incarnations of love and beauty. That the creator of such a world as this should have aspired to the Academy's spare arm-chair—that one above all others but just vacated by the respectable M. de Sacy—was ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... I, who am, probably, as absurd a bigot on the other side, see nothing in the paper you have sent me, but a confirmation of Richard's innocence of the death of Clarence. As the Duke of Buckingham was appointed to superintend the execution, it is incredible that he should have been drowned in a butt of malmsey, and that Richard should have been the executioner. When a seneschal of England, or as we call it, a lord high steward, is appointed for a trial, at least for execution, with all his officers, it looks very much as if, even in that age, proceedings ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... sufficient strength to clutch the bottle, and even to crawl over to his friend's side. Hugh saw him coming and shut his teeth. Arthur was too feeble to prize them open with his hands, but he had no difficulty in knocking out a couple with the butt end of the bottle, and with a faint groan of triumph he succeeded in pouring the contents down the cavity just before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... excitement, and the new horror of all-night sittings became familiar to the House of Commons. Throughout the struggle Parnell showed equal audacity and coolness, and acquired a masterly knowledge of parliamentary forms. Mr. Butt, the Irish leader, disapproved of this development of the active or obstructive policy, but his influence quickly gave way before Parnell's, and in May, 1879, he died. The year before, Parnell had been elected president of the English Home Rule Association. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... it, in spite of you, and I know to whom to apply. Do you think you can play fast and loose with me and my love? No, no! I used to believe in you; I turned, a deaf ear to your traducers. My mad passion for you became known; I was the jest and the butt of the town. But you have opened my eyes, and at last I see clearly on whom my vengeance ought to fall. He was formerly my friend, and I would believe nothing against him; although I was often warned, I took no notice. But now I will seek him out, and say to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... served them butt, she's served them ben, Intill a gown of green, But her e'e was ay on Brown Robin, That stood ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Nicholas Barney, Acting Master Samuel Barron, Jr., and others; of the Virginia, Lieutenant Catesby Roger Jones, Lieutenant Hunter Davidson, Lieutenant John Taylor Wood, Lieutenant Walter Raleigh Butt, and others. Commander E. Farrand was the ranking and commanding officer present, having been sent down from Richmond ...
— Life of Rear Admiral John Randolph Tucker • James Henry Rochelle
... the need which all creatures feel to exercise their natural powers, just as the calf will butt before his horns protrude. Men began to apply different sounds to denote different things, just as brute beasts will do to express different passions, as any one must have noticed in the cases of dogs and horses and birds. No one man set out ...
— Progress and History • Various
... was drawn toward her. For one brief moment it was laid across her lap upon the paper-covered book she had been reading. Then its butt found its way to a resting place against her soft shoulder. Not for an instant had her gaze been diverted from the moving object. Now, however, her head inclined forward, and her warm cheek was laid against the cool butt. The sights of the weapon were brought up into line. The pressure ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... at him and he added reassuringly: "Oh, don't mistake me. I don't want to butt into your set—not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of 'em in a business way, would you fix it up for me—AFTER ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... already been requited—by some two hours mouthing of my sword-hilt; with a very unceremonious ricochet into a corner; together with a love-tap received over the shoulders of one of my men, by so gentle an instrument as the butt of a musket! Damme, sir, but I think an ungrateful man only a ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Custom-House, on the corner, one of the number, who knew of the assault on the apprentice-boy, said, "Here is the soldier who did it," when they gathered round the sentinel. The barber's boy now came up and said, "This is the soldier who knocked me down with the butt-end of his musket." Some now said, "Kill him! knock him down!" The sentinel moved back up the steps of the Custom-House, and loaded his gun. Missiles were thrown at him, when he presented his musket, warned the party to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... tent and a moment later reappeared with a blanket, which he spread close against the butt of a big spruce within half a dozen feet of the fire. When he turned toward her, the colonel's wife had thrown off her coat and turban and stood before him, a slim and girlish figure, bewitchingly pretty ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... only those who compose his following—as a person of extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the salons made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies. According to the Memoires authentiques pour servir a l'histoire du Comte de Cagliostro, Saint-Germain was the "Grand Master of Freemasonry,"[446] ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... by which the men had dressed down had been lifted from their supports, the cod livers dumped into the gurry-butt, and the tables removed from the rails. The two men on the first watch were sharpening the splitting knives on a tiny grindstone and walking forward occasionally to see that the anchor and trawl buoy lights ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... returned to the fallen tree. There he picked up one of the long branches in his mouth, grasping it near the butt, twisted it over his shoulder and started to drag it to the canal. When he reached the latter he entered the water and began swimming, still dragging the branch in the same way. Once more Old Mother Nature stopped him. "You've shown us how you cut trees and move them, so ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... time the fire was lighted, and when Shad brought up a kettle of water from the river Bob had already cut a stiff pole about five feet in length. The butt end of this he sharpened, and, jamming it into the ground, inclined it in such manner that the kettle, which he took from Shad and hung by its bail upon the other end of the pole, was suspended directly ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... instant Manton returned, breathing hard as though his pursuit of the missing Wagnalls had been very determined. The butt in Kennedy's fingers attracted his ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... have been bad enough had it been delivered in the ordinary way. The cowboy, however, had gasped the quirt by the small end and was preparing to use the loaded butt on the head of the boy who had been ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... the dupe of Fashion. Her fashionable follies are paraded in every public print; her dry-goods propensities are talked of in every circle where she is not truly respected, and in many where she is; her Parisian proclivities are made the butt of very general ridicule, and the dignity of her character is not a little lowered by her too great intimacy with fashion plates and dandy shops. Though, perhaps, man is as much to blame for this as woman—for she seeks to please him, ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... looked down on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical endurance which the old battalion, since ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... want you to get me right, Commander," Tolson pleaded. "I went up to one of the boys to show him how to hold his gun and he banged me with the butt of it!" ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... on the flanks of the ship had been of a much more serious character; a long portion of the inside boarding had been burned away, and the very ribs of the vessel were con- siderably damaged; the oakum caulkings had all started away from the butt-ends and seams; so much so that it was little short of a miracle that the whole ship had not long since ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... upon the head and, balancing it there, to walk away merrily under their burthen. And it is surprising how heavy a load they will thus carry. But they could not manage to take our tusks in that fashion. They carried them on their shoulders, four men to a tusk, three near to the thick or butt end, and one near the point. In this way we brought all our ivory to Behar, and the tusks were so perfect and exceptional in size that we could obtain almost any equivalent we pleased for them. And in fact of such marvellous size and beauty were most of the gems that we got in exchange that ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... mix into their social game," Charlie drawled. "Or at least, I don't propose to make any tentative advances. The women put on lots of side, they say. If they want to hunt us up and cultivate you, all right. But I've got too much to do to butt into society. Anyway, I didn't want to run up against any critical females looking like I do ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... into a vast hall between two long rows of Galla spearmen, between whose lines I had to pass. They were large, half-naked savages, standing like statues with fierce, movable eyes, each one holding, with its butt end on the ground, a huge spear, with a head the size of a shovel. I purposely sauntered down them coolly with a swagger, with my eyes fixed upon their dangerous-looking faces. I had a six-shooter concealed in my waist-belt, and determined, at the first show of excitement, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... behind him struck him a heavy blow on the head with the butt of a revolver. With a last furious effort he turned upon his foes, and dashed the man he held by the throat full into their faces; fell forward upon the body and, with a great sob, ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... tick," said he. "Now, Challenger, it's up to you to tell us where we are. We ain't nervous folk, as you know well; but when it comes to makin' a week-end visit and finding you've run full butt into the Day of Judgment, it wants a bit of explainin'. What's the danger, and how much of it is there, and what are we goin' to do to ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spoke in that low voice he raised his hunting rifle quickly, bringing the butt to his ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... with common thankes, on leaving youres, and Mr. B.'s hospitabel house, because of thatt there affaire, which I neede not mention! and truly am ashamed to mention, as I have been to looke you in the face ever since it happen'd. I don't knowe how itt came aboute, butt I thought butt att first of joking a littel, or soe; and seeing Polley heard me with more attentiveness than I expected, I was encouraged to proceede; and soe, now I recollecte, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... ship's company were many men and women of prominence in the arts, the professions, and in business. Colonel John Jacob Astor and his bride, who was Miss Madeleine Force, were among them; also Major Archibald Butt, military aide to President Taft; Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad, with his family; William T. Stead, of the London Review of Reviews; Benjamin Guggenheim, of the celebrated mining family; G. D. Widener, of Philadelphia; F. D. Millet, the noted artist; ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... an inner room. My removal there was more abrupt than dignified. I was hustled to the door. Then a German soldier, by an adroit movement of his rifle which he held reversed, pricked my leg with the bayonet and at the same time brought the butt against my head with a resounding thwack! Simultaneously he let drive with his heavily-booted foot in the small of my back. I discovered afterwards, from actual experience, that this is a very favourite movement ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... the ground—not carelessly, nor even in any hurry; but as a sportsman makes all snug, when for a time he leaves off casting. For instance, the end fly was fixed in the lowest ring of the butt, and the slack of the line reeled up so that the collar lay close to the rod itself. Moreover, in such a rocky place, a bed to receive the spike could not have been found without some searching. For a moment I was reassured. Most likely George himself was near—perhaps ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... butt and kick, and all the while I'll think they kick for me; they shall fell timber On both sides, and then logwood ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... all gwine to fight, Cyd ain't gwine to be out ob de fashion, for sartin. I's don't know much about de guns, but Cyd kin split a two-inch plank a buttin agin it. I's can't shoot, but I can butt," grinned Cyd. "You kin bet your life dis chile ain't no ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... of the house!" indignantly echoed the farmer, to Lyon's great astonishment. "Don't you go to say that; for if you do, devil burn me if I don't knock you down with the butt end of ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of pride! look out!" cried Maikar, rendering the adoption of his own advice impossible by thrusting the butt of his staff against the scout's nose, and thereby filling his eyes with water. At the next moment he rendered him still more helpless by bestowing a whack on his crown which laid him flat ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... young man was waiting for him, and as soon as the Dragon had taken the Princess by the hand to carry her off he spread the salve upon his back, pressed him against the wall, and set his dogs upon him. At the same time he belaboured him with the butt-end of his musket, till the Dragon was quite exhausted and began to beg off, promising to give a written agreement never again to molest the Princess. When he had written the paper in his own blood and signed it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... graylegs. When they saw that a new house had been built near by, they wanted to become acquainted with their neighbors. One of them made up an errand and went into the new house and asked for a light for his pipe. But as soon as he got inside the door the sheep gave him such a butt that he fell head foremost into the hearth. Then the pig began to bite him, and the goose to nip and peck him, and the cock upon the roost to crow and chatter, and as for the hare, he was so frightened that he ran about aloft and on the floor and scratched ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... Brown stayed on for a day or so to clean up odd jobs neglected during the haying season. He was a gentle, timid little chap, the butt of the entire valley, of course, and particularly of John Spencer. Douglas often wondered why old Johnny consented to work each year at this season for his father. This wonderment was solved the day after Doug's and Jude's conversation on the load of hay and in a manner ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... his companions became in turn his butt. Malone had a stock of jokes at their service, which he was accustomed to serve out regularly on convivial occasions like the present, seldom varying his wit; for which, indeed, there was no necessity, as he never appeared to consider himself monotonous, and did not at all care what others thought. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... of the little company of Irish Home Rulers that had appeared in Parliament in the early '70's was Isaac Butt. His repeated attempts to have the subject considered were as often rejected with derision. In his own party he was opposed by an element which desired to resort to aggressive measures to compel the English to heed Ireland's demand for local self-government. Prominent ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... "I have woke up. I must have been out of my mind. I showed you my nature when I first met you, Captain Mayo, and I reckon you found it was helpful and enterprising. I'll be the same from now on, even if you order me to play goat and try to butt the bottom out of her with my head." "Me, too!" ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... all the damsels. They amused themselves in their privacy with pelting blossoms at one another, running races down the smooth broad alleys, mounting the silken swings that hung between the orange trees, embracing one another, and at times trying to push the butt of the party into the fishpond. Perhaps the liveliest of all was the lady Chandraprabha, who on account of her rank could pelt and push all the others, without fear of being pelted ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... The "Scuttle Butt Navigators," or, as the "Yankee" boys called them, the Rumor Committee, were very busy that bright day in May. According to them we were to sail seaward and discover Cervera's fleet, the whereabouts of which was then unknown. We were to ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... reconnoiter. Holdfast sprung forward, and Edward, looking in the direction, perceived Corbould partly hidden behind a tree, with his gun leveled at him. He heard the trigger pulled, and snap of the lock, but the gun did not go off; and then Corbould made his appearance, striking at Holdfast with the butt-end of his gun. Edward advanced to him and desired him to desist, or it would ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... of the explosion had cleared away I saw Lieverle lying outstretched at the foot of the rock, and the woman fainting in the arms of the young man. Sperver, pale with concentrated rage and excitement, and eyeing the young baron darkly, dropped the butt of his gun to the ground, his features discomposed, and his eyes ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... to increase the wrath of the man of law. He looked at Miss Vernon with such an air of spite and resentment, as laid me under a strong temptation to knock him off his horse with the butt-end of my whip, which I only suppressed in consideration ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... household ought to offer, and did present in miniature, the elements of a complete society. Among the inmates there was, as in the world at large, one poor discouraged creature—a butt on whom mocking pleasantries were rained. This patient sufferer was the old vermicelli maker, Goriot. Six years before, he had come to live at the Maison Vauquer, having, so he said, retired from business. He dressed handsomely, wore a gold watch, with thick ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... Atwater, resting on his left side as he brought his gun back after discharging it; taking out his cartridge; then turning on his back, holding the piece with both hands and placing the butt between his feet; and in that position, with the barrel over his breast, charging cartridge, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... you see?" asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy's knuckles with the butt end ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... or on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was afforded a more thrilling spectacle than when these two paladins rushed to the onset and met in mid-career. Each gave a yell and dug his heels into his charger, and whacked her with the butt end of his lance, and forced her into a ponderous gallop for the meeting. It matters not now what was the precise intent of either jouster, which of them aimed at gorget or head-piece, or at shield, for—either because ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... should have been apparent at once from the wheel-tracks parallel with the curb, but for a minute or two Constans did not realize their true nature. The ordinary vehicle in use among the House People was a springless cart, whose wheels were simply sections of an elm-tree butt, and these primitive constructions creaked horribly upon their axles, unless liberally greased, and left a track six inches or more in width. It is not surprising, then, that Constans was momentarily puzzled by the narrow, delicately ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... But he was in such a study he heard not what Gouvernail said. So Gouvernail came again and told Sir Tristram he slept, or else he was mad. Go thou again, said Sir Tristram, and bid him arise, and tell him that I am here, his mortal foe. So Gouvernail rode again and put upon him the butt of his spear, and said: Sir Palamides, make thee ready, for wit ye well Sir Tristram hoveth yonder, and sendeth thee word he is thy mortal foe. And therewithal Sir Palamides arose stilly, without words, and gat his horse, and saddled him and bridled ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... was not much more auspicious for the Slovenes, Istrians and Dalmatians. The Slavs seem to have been the Habsburgs' nightmare. Why the million and a quarter of Slovenes—people who do not approach the Basques, for instance, in pugnacity—should be the butt of everlasting coercion and repression may seem inexplicable. When the German-Austrians of Triest, even after the Italians in Italy had begun to claim the town, allied themselves with the Triest Italians ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... of which they crawled, crouching down. And now they had arrived at the rear of the house, and stood in shadow opposite a back passage window. Randolph crept silently up and squeezed himself behind a huge water-butt, where he was perfectly concealed, and could overhear part of the conversation now hurriedly held between the two burglars, if such ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... say, in the witty words of one of Cibber's comedies, "There is no arguing with Johnson, for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... A butt of sack, delivered without fee or gratuity, with an order for returning the cask for the use of the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one (p. 017) occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown round those ancient mountains, nothing had ever ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... then they came to a second fence. No buckboard was in sight. Beyond the wire the pitch of the ravine showed steeper yet, as it mounted to a sharp turn. Leaning against a post stood Soda-Water Sam, smoking a cigarette, his gun holster hitched forward, the butt of the weapon close to one hand. Jordan and his men leaped out as the car stopped, Mormon following ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... work, who "never wrote a line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought," who believes that after his death he will be among the English poets, and that if he only has time now, he will make himself remembered—that such a one should be merely the butt and laughing-stock of his readers! It is an unendurable position. Not that Keats attaches undue importance to popular applause. "Praise or blame," he says, "has but a momentary effect upon the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... himself, chewing the butt of his cigar and keeping well ahead of the shadowing native. Always keep a "shadow" moving until you're ready to deal with him is one of Cocker's very ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... several seconds gazing at one another, and then the stranger dropped the butt of his weapon and called out sharply. Wyllard, who failed to understand him, did not move, and he spoke again. What he said was still unintelligible, but Wyllard, who had fallen in with a few Germans from Minnesota on the prairie, fancied that he ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... now up, and thinking that he might as well show, from the very first, that he was not to be bullied, or made a butt with impunity, he walked straight to the stove, and looking full at Jones (who had inspired him already with strong disgust), he said, "You called me a coward just now; I'm not a coward, though I don't like fighting for nothing. I'm not a bit afraid of you, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... warlike than the rest, suggested that as we had some Enfields on board, we should make "a little bit of a fight," or at least "make one butt at a gunboat." I was relieved to find that these insane proposals were not received with any enthusiasm ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... are whipped unmercifully for the smallest offences, and that before their mothers. A large proportion of the blacks have their shoulders, backs, and arms all scarred up, and not a few of them have had their heads laid open with clubs, stones, and brick-bats, and with the butt-end of whips and canes—some have had their jaws broken, others their teeth knocked in or out; while others have had their ears cropped and the sides of their cheeks gashed out. Some of the poor creatures have lost the sight ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... parallels with John Gilpin, and only anxious to be in time to help me out at the halting-place; but more than once only coming in when the beefsteaks were losing their first charm, and then good-humouredly serving as the general butt for his noble horsemanship. Did any one fully comprehend how much pleasanter our journey was through the presence of one person entirely at the service of the others? For my own part, it made an immense difference to have one pair of strong arms and dextrous well-accustomed hands always at ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... audience, but his audience had fled. From beneath one of the life-boats protruded the riding-boots of Colonel Beamish, the tall form of Lighthouse Harry was doubled behind a water butt. A shell splashed to port, a shell splashed to starboard. For an instant David stood staring wide-eyed at the greyhound of a boat that ate up the distance between them, at the jets of smoke and stabs of flame that sprang from ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... Lord Rolie, the butt of the Opposition, who had attacked him in the famous satire, 'The Rolliad,' so popular that it went through twenty-two editions in twenty-seven years, accused Sheridan of inflammatory speeches among the operatives of the northern counties on the cotton question. Sheridan ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... to which it is now held furnishes the best appliance. Modern science possesses an internal vis medicatrix which prevents its suffering seriously from excesses or irregularities. When it ventures to touch the shield of the Unknowable, it is only with the butt of its lance, and the inevitable overthrow is accepted with the least ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... died natural deaths. Then it was sought to prosecute me on the charge of corruption, for which I had once already been prosecuted, condemned, and punished. Confidently I demanded my release, and Philip must have ground his teeth in rage to see his prey escaping him, to see himself the butt of scorn and contempt for the wrongs that it became clear he had ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... we treed three coons in a big hollow oak. They started to cut down the trees an' put me at the butt with a fire bran'. When the tree fell the coons'd come out an' I was supposed to drive 'em back with the fire, jest lettin' out one at a time so's the dogs could kill 'em. I was about half scared uv 'em and when one big feller ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... children, had for many years vegetated on one corner of an hundred-and-sixty acres of woods, having made but a small clearing, and managed in some unknown way to live on it. His feeble condition exposed him to imposition, and he was the butt for the unthinking, and victim of the unscrupulous and unruly. For some years his land, a valuable tract, had been coveted by several greedy men, and especially by one Sam Ward. Failing to induce ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... on the man's part, and I saw the butt of a big revolver, and called out in warning: 'Take care!' I might have saved my breath. The tall guard stood moveless until the weapon was actually in sight, and then the arm in the blue coat shot out, strong, swift, straight from the shoulder, and the pistol-arm dropped, ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... Crossing the Butt-close, to the alley on the right, we pass the Presbyterian, or GREAT MEETING HOUSE, built, as appears by a date on the walls, 1708; the congregation of which was first established in 1680. The seats are calculated to accommodate eight hundred persons. ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... by the look of them. If the queen doesn't join, the bees break up, of course, and go back to the butt. But I've brought a couple of queens ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on. I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers. Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols. Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more room. The ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... idea, Miss Dimpleton burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, so loud, that a fat man, who was walking before her, carrying a dog under his arm, turned round quite angrily, believing himself to be the butt. Miss Dimpleton, resuming her composure, made a half-courtesy to the stout person, and pointing to the animal under his arm, said: "Is your dog ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him in the malmsey-butt in ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... away and with the butt of his left hand Crawford struck the acceleration lever. He could make more time now when less of his attention was drawn to the ups and ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... believed all of them were Selover's men. He threw the cigarette butt into the sea and ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... good. The dog still barked and jumped up trying to get hold of his master's legs; the man scolded the animal repeatedly, but all in vain. The dog barked louder and louder. At last, the man struck him with the butt-end of the whip harder than he intended; for he only ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... the dreary monotone of a chronic sour temper he related that some Confederates, about a year before, had come here impressing horses, and their officer, on being called by him "no gentleman," had struck him behind the ear with the butt of a carbine. I asked what punishment the officer received, and I noticed the plural pronoun as he icily replied, "We didn't enter ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... two girls came in sight of a field. Already a devoted effort was being made to prepare the ground for an early spring plowing. Stray bits of shell, the half of a battered helmet, the butt of a broken gun had been laid in a neat pile, the larger stones had been placed ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... multitude of counsellors as to the proportions of ingredients and the process of mixing may be productive of the reverse of safety. But somehow a man with a specialty is always forthcoming, and that specialty is pudding-making. Most likely he has been the butt of the room—a quiet, quaint, retiring, awkward fellow who seemed as if he never could do anything right. But he has lit upon his vocation at last—he is a born pudding-maker. He rises with the occasion, and ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... maun send the Queen a stag, And grouse for her propine, And we'll send her a cask o' the usquebaugh, And a butt ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... cried Pierre Noir, slamming down the butt of his musket. "The word of a snake, say rather! Jean Breboeuf, harken you to what our leaders have agreed! We are to go as prisoners of the Iroquois! Mary, Mother of God, what folly! And there is madame, and la pauvre petite, that infant so young. By God! Were ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... hour shall end thy life-days and the war Here on this earth." Such words as these from witless Liger stray, But nought in bandying of words the man of Troy would play; Rather his mighty battle-shaft he hurled against the foe, While Lucagus his horses drives with spear-butt, bending low Over the lash, and setteth forth his left foot for the fight. Beneath the bright shield's nether rim the spear-shaft takes its flight, Piercing his groin upon the left: then shaken from his wain, He tumbleth down and rolleth o'er ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... scraper and an old lady ran up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... Your Majesty!" and if such a jest, with a king for the butt, seems incredible, let one remember that already Louis had been refused his cour pleniere and the Queen lampooned and hissed ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... that a slip, or how explainable? I think he is betrayed into the description by reason of his interest in such strategic matters. The expression is intelligible enough to any one who knows about engines, just as we might speak of the butt or the stanchion, or whatever ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... no longer any God for us! God's Laws are become a Greatest-Happiness Principle, a Parliamentary Expediency: the Heavens overarch us only as an Astronomical Time-keeper; a butt for Herschel-telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot sentimentalities at:—in our and old Jonson's dialect, man has lost the soul out of him; and now, after the due period,—begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot; centre ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... asking other men how they expect to meet their obligations a year from now, do you? Then why should you think you've got a right to butt in on my private business, I'd like to know? Put my plane in your cow shed and go to work for you! Huh! I've caused you trouble and expense enough, I should think, without saddling myself on you like that. I appreciate all you have done—but I absolutely will not get under your wing and ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... perceiving a disposition on the part of the crowd to gather close about the entrance, and so exclude what little light and air might otherwise make its way in, took an assagai from the hand of an astonished native, and, holding it by the blade, waved the press back with the butt end of the weapon. Then, still waving the butt end, he described on the ground the arc of a circle of some twelve feet radius from the hut entrance, and, returning the weapon to its owner, pointed to the mark ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... men who leaped at him went down under the impact of that fist. A third received a scalp wound from the butt of the revolver. Any court would have exonerated the sailorman for killing his assailants, but Dave's messenger was much too good-natured to kill while there was another ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... split-cane; the former is less expensive, the latter is more durable; it is entirely a matter of taste which a man uses, but the split-cane rod is now rather more in favour, and for salmon-fishing it is in England usually built with a core of steel running from butt to tip and known as a "steel centre." How long the rod shall be is also a matter on which anglers differ, but from 16 ft. to 17 ft. 6 in. represents the limits within which most rods are preferred. The tendency is to reduce rather than to increase the length of the rod, which may be accounted ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... and tea. Nanny was the most affectionate of animals; and the moment Edith appeared on deck in the morning would come bounding up to her, and seemed delighted at being fondled, though she would butt at any one else who touched her. She, however, made friends with Harry, and when Edith was below would come up to him and wait to be caressed; but no sooner did she see her mistress, than she would hasten to her—looking at Harry, as much as to say, "I like ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... where the wounded man had dragged himself up the trail, finally staggering to his feet, and with a caution which he had not exercised a few hours before Howland continued slowly between the thick forest walls, one hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... oath the fellow endeavored to throw Ree after it. For a second they both balanced on the window sill at the very verge of falling. Then John seized the robber's hair, and dealt him a blow with the butt of his pistol. He raised the weapon to strike again, but Ree had now secured his release from the villain's grasp and fired at him just as the fellow plunged to the ground, leaving a bunch of his black hair quivering in ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... man by the mule. Cavalry saddle on the stud, two Colt pistols belted high and butt forward, and that military cord on his hat—army boots, too. The liveryman knew the signs. This was not the first veteran to drift into Tubacca; he wouldn't be the last either. Seems like half of both them ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... a ghost," put in Bart "When we were fighting in that house I saw you knock down one of the rioters with the butt of your gun. I was busy myself then with a husky roughneck, but I tumbled him over and looked around for you and couldn't ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... no vessel of earth and sky is too large for the air-colour to fill. Thirty, forty, and more miles of eye-sweep, and beyond that the limitless expanse over the sea—the thought of the eye knows no butt, shooting on with stellar penetration into the unknown. In a small space there seems a vacuum, and nothing between you and the hedge opposite, or even across the valley; in a great space the void is filled, and the wind ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... little thing my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point of that huge spear, a spear forty ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... recovered from my confusion, when I saw a knight galloping towards me. All in black was he, and he rode a black horse. Not a word we spoke, but we dashed against each other, and at the first encounter I was unhorsed. Still not a word spoke the Black Knight, but passing the butt-end of his lance through my horse's reins, rode away, leaving me shamed and on foot. So I made my way back to the castle, and there I was entertained again that night right hospitably, none questioning me as to my adventure. The next morning, when I rose, there ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... the ship made so much water that she could not be freed by four pumps assisted by bailing. On the 9th the wind became calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship, in rolling, opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt ends of her planks, and the greatest part of her top-timbers, the bolts being drawn by the violence of the roll. In this condition, with additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating westward to the 12th, when ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr |
