"Skirmish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but a skirmish. The date of the beginning of the real contest was Sept. 12, 1786, when, it was voted "to build a new meeting-house in the centre of the town, or in the nearest convenient place to the centre." It was thus agreed ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... after noon, on the Eve of the Nativity of our Blessed Lady, we reached the gates of the town. Here we found great press of folk, men coming and going, some carrying the wounded, for there had been a skirmish that day, at one of the Paris gates, whence came the sound of cannon and culverins, and we had ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... George. Proposed Incursion of Levis. Perplexities of Montcalm. His Plan of Defence. Camp of Abercromby. His Character. Lord Howe, His Popularity. Embarkation of Abercromby. Advance down Lake George. Landing. Forest Skirmish. Death of Howe. Its Effects. Position of the French. The Lines of Ticonderoga. Blunders of Abercromby. The Assault. A Frightful Scene. Incidents of the Battle. British Repulse. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... plaintiff; and the defendant's ingenious plea struck off the record; and Hardie v. Hardie became the leading case. But in law one party often wins the skirmish and the other the battle. The grand fight, as I have already said, was to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... for her turn in a fever of impatience. She caught the opening strains of the orchestra as it swung into the favorite melody of the day; she could hear the thud of dancing feet overhead. She was like a stoker shut up in the hold of the vessel while a lively skirmish ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... willing as mine, And I sole leader of this array, I would give Prince Otto battle this day. Dost thou call thy followers men of war? Oh, Dagobert! thou whose ancestor On the neck of the Caesar's offspring trod, Who was justly surnamed "The Scourge of God". Yet in flight lies safety. Skirmish and run To forest and fastness, Teuton and Hun, From the banks of the Rhine to the Danube's shore, And back to the banks of the Rhine once more; Retreat from the face of an armed foe, Robbing garden and hen-roost where'er you go. Let the short alliance betwixt us cease, I and my Norsemen will go ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Tradition, Mr. Human Wisdom, and Mr. Man's Invention.' They were allowed to join, and were placed in positions of trust, the captains of the covenant being apparently wanting in discernment. They were taken prisoners in the first skirmish, and immediately changed sides and went over to Diabolus. More battles follow. The roof of the Lord Mayor's house is beaten in. The law is not wholly ineffectual. Six of the Aldermen, the grosser moral sins—Swearing, Stand to Lies, Drunkenness, Cheating, and others—are ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... bear's carcass to the custody of our ancient and well-tried friend, the Anglo-Norwegian, who promised to preserve the skin for us till our return, (and who, by the way, was the first to meet us and thank his pagods for our safe issue out of the skirmish,) and having made a trifling present to our host, we packed up our pots and pans, and, seating ourselves in the gig, were again ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... tells us a romantic story of Wallace, founded on this circumstance. The hero's little band had been joined by an Irishman named Fawdon, or Fadzean, a dark, savage, and suspicious character. After a sharp skirmish at Black Erneside, Wallace was forced to retreat with only sixteen followers. The English pursued with a border sleuth-bratch, or bloodhound. In the retreat, Fawdon, tired, or affecting to be so, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... away, the southern outskirts of the great Indian metropolis that stretched away for miles to the north. God of battles! was this a position, was this a force to be assailed by one regiment? Why linger over it?—the half-hearted advance of the dismounted skirmish line; the hesitating rally; then the volley from the willows; the flanking warriors on the west; the sudden consciousness of their pitiful numbers as against the hordes now swarming upon them; the mad rush for the bluffs, with the yelling Indians ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... there was an outsider present, there was sure to be a skirmish. Such a life must have been wearisome, and of course she must have longed for a home of her own. Besides, there was her age to be considered; there was no time left to pick and choose; it was a case of marrying anybody, even a Greek master. And, indeed, most of our young ladies don't mind ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... army lay at Plataea that news came which might have shaken Glaucon's purpose, had that purpose been shakable. Euboulus the Corinthian had been slain in a skirmish shortly after the forcing of Thermopylae. The tidings meant that no one lived who could tell in Athens that on the day of testing the outlaw had cast in his lot with Hellas. Leonidas was dead. The Spartan soldiers who ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Saturdays, my father allers throws a skirmish line of niggers across the road, with orders to capture my grandfather as he comes romancin' along. An' them faithful servitors never fails. They swarms down on my grandfather, searches him out of the saddle an' packs him ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of the command was to advance in marching column toward a knoll where the highway entered and traversed the wood. Some time before reaching it Taylor was to deploy the Eighth to the right, throw out a strong skirmish line and open fire on the enemy's centre and left, supported by the battery of Parrotts, and, if pushed, by five companies of cavalry. The remaining troops would reach the knoll, file to the left under cover of the forest, skirt it for a mile as rapidly as possible, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... have been well rubbed in some skirmish, may yet, all wounded and bloody as they are, be brought on again the next day to charge; but such as have once conceived a good sound fear of the enemy, will never be made so much as to look him in the face. Such as are in immediate fear of a losing ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... queen's permission, with his uncle Leicester to the Low Countries, then struggling, with Elizabeth's assistance, against Philip of Spain. There he was made governor of Flushing—the key to the navigation of the North Seas—with the rank of general of horse. In a skirmish near Zutphen (South Fen) he served as a volunteer; and, as he was going into action fully armed, seeing his old friend Sir William Pelham without cuishes upon his thighs, prompted by mistaken but chivalrous ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... and as far as the eye could reach lay on its shores the Russian army, their weapons flashing to the sinking sun. The hum of multitudes of men, the neighing of horses, the discordant clamours of a camp, filled the air. Advancing, Kosciuszko with his little troop had a skirmish with the Cossacks. The general and Niemcewicz were twice surrounded, and narrowly escaped with their lives. Then with the evening the Polish army ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... for their task. Of course, I spent most of my leisure at the old house, though my heart ached more there than elsewhere; and I tried, with but poor success, I fear, to maintain a cheerful, confident manner, cracking my little jokes as of old, and even essaying to skirmish with Miss Oman. But this last experiment was a dead failure; and when she had suddenly broken down in a stream of brilliant repartee to weep hysterically on my breast, I abandoned the attempt and did not ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... return to the bare pastures of the upland veldt. They carried out of Natal a heavy sense of injury, which has helped to poison our relations with them ever since. It was, in a way, a momentous episode, this little skirmish of soldiers and emigrants, for it was the heading off of the Boer from the sea and the confinement of his ambition to the land. Had it gone the other way, a new and possibly formidable flag would have been added to the ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... temperance pledge. It reads, 'We promise to abstain from all liquors—as a beverage.' We had found in many instances in reform work that pledging to abstain from liquor 'as a beverage,' and leaving the victim to the unlimited use of it in physicians' prescriptions, was simply a skirmish with the devil's outposts, that the conflict, based upon these grounds, was short, and defeat almost sure; and the great fact remained that the innermost recesses of evil force and power were by this pledge still left unassailed. ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... in the morning light, and crowned with smoke and fire, while the air hummed about our ears as if swarming with angry bees, and this one and that one fell, there was scarcely one who, as he pulled his cap close down and pushed ahead in the skirmish-line, was not thinking of duty. They were boys from farm and factory, not greatly better, to say the most, than their fellows anywhere; and we may be sure that thought of duty has always much to do with the going forward of weaponed men ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... December 1641 the king made him lieutenant of the Tower of London, but in consequence of the persistent demand of the House of Commons he was removed from this position at his own request early in 1642. At the opening of the Civil War Byron joined Charles at York. He was present at the skirmish at Powick Bridge; he commanded his own regiment of horse at Edgehill and at Roundway Down, where he was largely responsible for the royalist victory; and at the first battle of Newbury Falkland placed himself under his orders. In October 1643 he was created Baron Byron of Rochdale, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... purpose, as the natives always defended themselves so valiantly, that their enemies could never subdue them. On the present occasion, mistaking the English for Spaniards, these brave and desperate Araucans gave Candish a hostile welcome. After this skirmish, Candish went with his ships under the lee of the west side of St Mary's island, where he found good anchorage in six fathoms. This island, in lat. 37 deg. S. abounds in hogs, poultry, and various kinds of fruit; but the inhabitants are held under such ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... men-at-arms composing the Duke's guard, a disguise probably assumed to execute the fatal commission of the Secret Tribunal. It is supposed that a party of the traitor Campo-Basso's men had been engaged in the skirmish in which the Duke fell, for six or seven of them, and about the same number of the Duke's guards, were found near ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... will give me just the life I need to talk real business to Dave when he comes," she mused, punctuating her conjecture with a gasp or two as she fought against a gust of wind that forced her almost to a standstill. Winning this skirmish with the storm, she pressed forward again, when suddenly another gasp was forced from her by an entirely different cause. She almost stumbled over an object directly in her way, and as she recovered her equilibrium she ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... without delay against that which must follow before they could abandon themselves fully to the enjoyment of their victory. This, after all, was no more than a preliminary skirmish, although it was one that afforded them the key to the situation. It remained to dispose so that the utmost profit might be drawn from it. Those dispositions occupied some very considerable portion of the night. But, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... in our first skirmish. Keep it for the nucleus of what we hope to get later. If we put all to the test in our first fight against forces that have been in power for all the years and lose, then the cause gets a setback which may discourage ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... taken place. Half-way back near the poppy-patch, one glorious riot of red summer flowers, they met their regiment returning. They had done their work, the Turks had ceased attacking and the weary regiment which had been kept busy the long, hot days in this outpost skirmish had been relieved. The tired troopers trailed homewards, carelessly tramping the dewy wild poppy heads on their way. A bathe and a drink, and then a ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... extraordinary rapidity of his flight had put him considerably ahead of his pursuers. But he was not yet to escape. The cavalry of Horry, and the riflemen of M'Cottry, galled him at every step in flank and rear. When he reached Sampit bridge a last skirmish took place, which might have terminated in the complete defeat of the enemy, but for the cowardice of a Lieut. Scott, of Horry's detachment. Watson was attacked fiercely in the flank and rear by the whole force of Marion. His ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... the Wall, which Vernole would patiently put up, and pass on; so that he could never be provok'd to fight by Day-light, how solitary soever the Place was where they met: but if they chanc'd to meet at Night, they were certain of a Skirmish, in which he would have no part himself; so that Rinaldo was often like to be assassinated, but still came off with some slight Wound. This continu'd so long, and made so great a Noise in the Town, that the two old Gentlemen were mightily alarm'd by it; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... a holiday licensed some riot and irregularity, a skirmish with these veterans was a favourite recreation with the rabble of Edinburgh. These pages may perhaps see the light when many have in fresh recollection such onsets as we allude to. But the venerable corps, with whom the contention was held, may now be considered as totally extinct. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... was shot down in a skirmish three days ago—back of Edmonton, and he's laying at the house of a friend ten miles ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... now Fort William. The governor of the fort detached a party of three hundred men to lay waste Lochiel's possessions and cut down his trees; by in a sudden and desperate attack made upon them by the chieftain with very inferior numbers, they were almost all cut to pieces. The skirmish is detailed in a curious memoir of Sir Ewan's life, printed in the Appendix of Pennant's Scottish Tour (vol. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... was that d'Artagnan had lost his letter in the skirmish. A gentleman, in his opinion—and according to d'Artagnan's portrait of him, the stranger must be a gentleman—would be incapable of the baseness of stealing ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seized the Custom House boat at Dover and coolly employed her for their own purposes in running tea. The Custom officers deemed matters to be in such a state that they begged that a man-of-war might be stationed on that coast to prevent smuggling. Similarly in January of 1743-44, during a skirmish near Arundel between the preventive men assisted by some dragoons against a band of smugglers, the latter had wounded three of the soldiers and carried off an officer and two other dragoons on board the smugglers' cutter. This was no unique occurrence, for sometimes the contraband runners, ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... Indian prince, Pizarro now resumed his march. It was interrupted for a few hours by a party of the natives, who lay in wait for him in the neighboring sierra. A sharp skirmish ensued, in which the Indians behaved with great spirit, and inflicted some little injury on the Spaniards; but the latter, at length, shaking them off, made good their passage through the defile, and the enemy did not care to follow them into the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... a man of rare ability, candour, and wit, for whom I entertained a great liking and no less respect. I rejoice to think now of the (then) Bishop's cordial hail the first time we met after our little skirmish, "Well, is it to be peace or war?" I replied, "A little of both." But there was only peace when we parted, and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... days past, some of the heaviest showers I remember to have seen, and in going to and from the ship, we have generally been wet through; nevertheless some of our friends ventured on board to-day to dine with us, among the rest Colonel and Mrs. Macgregor; they were a little late, owing to a skirmish between the Portuguese and Brazilians, that occurred close to their house, just as they were setting off. Apparently it had not been premeditated, for the parties were fighting with sticks and stones, ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... knew also that it is the part of France to be the experimental ground in human progress, and that all new ideas need to be watered with her blood before they can come to flower. For his own part, he refused to take part in the skirmish. While the civilized nations were cutting each other's throats he was fain to repeat the device of Antigone: "I am made for love, and not for hate."—For love and for understanding, which is another form of love. His fondness for Christophe was enough to ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... of defense had been pushed out in a bulge at the northwest corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude breast-work of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery, packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging pot-shots with ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... as the object of his laughter." It may have been so, but it is not to be seen in any serious journal of that time. He seems to have confounded coarse caricaturists with refined and thoughtful journalists, even as, in the account of that inshore skirmish, he turns a gun-brig into a British frigate. However, such matters are too large ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... shores may it be found; and with a pleasant feeling of excitement I wondered if he would also bring back news of—her; some sign, a thin line of smoke above the trees! It was not the excitement of battle, or a skirmish; no, it was the approaching reality of a dream that had gripped me with soft fingers since the moment I entered this forest. Since my eyes had rested on that pool, my heart had called afresh for her. The arms of ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... | You are respectfully requested to enlist in a | | Military Skirmish | | On Friday Evening February twenty-second | | At the Barrack, seven forty-six First Street. | | Assembly call By order of | | Eight o'clock Mrs. John Smith | | sharp ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... on facts, for which I am indebted to personal communications from the Countess Ahlefeldt. Theodore Korner fell in the first year of the war of liberation, before the decisive battle of Leipsic, on the 26th of August, 1813, in a skirmish which the corps of Major von Lutzow had with the French near Gadebusch. Only an hour prior to his death, while lying in ambush, he wrote his immortal "Song of the Sword" in his note-book. The statement of Mr. Alison, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... "am I to write vaudevilles when I feel within me the courage and strength for joining the actors on the stage of real life?" Alas! for him the end was to be swift and tragic. Not long after inditing an ode to his sword, he fell in a skirmish near Hamburg. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... speaks of the lower anamiles as though we just has it on 'em completely in the matter of intelligence, but for myse'f I ain't so shore. The biggest fool of a mule-eared deer savvys enough to go feedin' up the wind, makin' so to speak a skirmish line of its nose to feel out ambushes. Any old bull elk possesses s'fficient wisdom to walk in a half-mile circle, as a concloodin' act before reetirin' for the night, so that with him asleep in the center, even if the wind does shift, his nose'll still ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... insistence the storm broke. Sally Carrol felt a film of flakes melt quickly on her eyelashes, and Harry reached over a furry arm and drew down her complicated flannel cap. Then the small flakes came in skirmish-line, and the horse bent his neck patiently as a transparency of white appeared ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... education. He had already read many books on the hillside. In his fourteenth year, he became a shepherd and tended his first flock at Boghead, parish of Auchinleck, Ayrshire, in the immediate vicinity of Airsmoss, the scene of the skirmish, in 1680, between a body of the soldiers of Charles II. and a small party of Covenanters, when their minister, the famous Richard Cameron, was slain. The traditions which still floated among the peasantry around the tombstone of this indomitable pastor of the persecuted ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... neighbourhood of Courtrai, on the Franco-Belgian frontier. He made his way there with considerable difficulty and received a cordial welcome. The very first night that he was there a squadron of Uhlans galloped into the town, there was a slight skirmish, and they galloped out again. The correspondent, who was a sound sleeper, did not wake up until it was all over. Then he learned that the Uhlans had ridden under ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... up to Lepanto. The Venetians had collected their scattered fleet, and had been reinforced by their allies of France and Rhodes; it was clear they were bent on revenge. The Turks hugged the land, dropped anchor at night, and kept a sharp look-out. It was a perpetual skirmish all the way. The Venetians tried to surprise the enemy at their moorings, but they were already at sea, and squally weather upset Grimani's strategy and he had the mortification of seeing his six fire-ships burning innocuously ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... that in a skirmish the whites had killed thirteen Shawnees, two Mingos, and one Delaware (this may or may not mean the massacres by Cresap and Greathouse; see, post, chapter on ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... revolver in hand, I had to keep guard at the side of the ambulance carts, to keep the marauders away from the wounded. Once I had a narrow escape from being captured by the Bavarians. It was at a skirmish of artillery. A couple of French and a couple of German pieces were in position. The French were quickly disabled by the Germans, and even the head gunner was severely wounded. I took him on my shoulders, and got him out of ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... the most serious period in the history of the Covenanters. Hitherto we have been on the skirmish line. All we have yet reviewed has been leading up to the desperate and sanguinary struggle, which lasted twenty-eight years, costing treasures of blood and indescribable suffering, yet finally resulting in the wealthy ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... needless. The boy had other feuds on hand. His gang had been feeding fat an ancient grudge against the boys in the next block or the block beyond, waiting for the first storm to wipe it out in snow, and the day opened with a brisk skirmish between the opposing hosts. In the school the plans for the campaign were perfected, and when it was out they met in the White Garden, known to the directory as Tompkins Square, the traditional duelling-ground of the lower East Side; and there ensued such a ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... Providence, she insisted on accompanying him, and was with the regiment during its entire term of service, in all its long marches sharing its privations and enduring its hardships. At the battle of Bull Run she was on the skirmish line with her husband, who was at the time a sergeant. She wore a uniform somewhat similar to that of the regiment, and was proficient in the use of a revolver and a short, straight sword, that she always wore ...
— History of Company F, 1st Regiment, R.I. Volunteers, during the Spring and Summer of 1861 • Charles H. Clarke
... Donald. I can't return to the ballroom with my eyes red. You will never know how a woman on the stage has to fight to earn her bread. And that part is only a skirmish compared to the ceaseless war men wage against her. She has only the fortifications of her wit and her presence of mind. Was I not abducted in the heart of Paris? And but for the cowardice of the man, who knows what might have happened? If I have beauty, God gave it to me to ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... second day, the negotiations having failed, Joseph notified Rawn that he should go into the valley the next morning in spite of all opposition. Accordingly at daylight, firing was heard on the skirmish line, and it was supposed that the Indians would at once assault the main line. Stray shots continued for some time, and, as all the attention of officers and men was concentrated on the front, a man called attention of Lieutenant Coolidge to the fact that he had seen the heads of a few ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... church, eight young Indians burned a few houses in the village of Swansea, the nearest town to the Wampanoag headquarters at Mount Hope. The whites immediately raised a few troops, marched after the Indians, and had a little skirmish with them. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... human nature is very strange. Thousands of people started to leave Manhattan, but there were other thousands during that first skirmish who did their best to try and get to the neighborhood of Patton Place to see what was going on. They added greatly to the confusion. Traffic soon was stalled everywhere. Traffic officers, confused, frightened ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... an actor; and if I ever had a private character, I have forgotten it. I am no more a genuine brigand than I am a genuine courier. I am only a bundle of masks, and you can't fight a duel with that." And he laughed with boyish pleasure and fell into his old straddling attitude, with his back to the skirmish up ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... end of the day the rebel army broke and began to roll back through Liskeard and towards the passes of the Tamar, and Mark followed with his troops to Saltash, into Devonshire, and as far as Chagford, where he rode by Mr. Sydney Godolphin in the skirmish which gave that valiant young gentleman his mortal wound. Soon after the whole of the King's forces retired upon Tavistock, where a truce was patched up between the opposing factions in the West. But this did not release Mark, who was kept at duty on the border until ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... It's well for you to joke about the poor! You may skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is not a joy or sorrow, not an ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... suffering and all enjoyment are of necessity personal. Suffering is not increased by extending it over a million instances. There was not more pain because a larger number happened to be be killed in the European war than are killed in a borderland skirmish. There were a larger number of people involved in the one case than in the other, but that is all. Multiplying the number of cases makes a greater appeal to a sluggish imagination, but it adds nothing substantial to the fact. ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... celebrate, While they keep distance, and attend my state.— Parent to her, whose eyes my soul enthral, [To ABEN. Whom I, in hope, already father call, Abenamar, thy youth these sports has known, Of which thy age is now spectator grown; Judge-like thou sit'st, to praise, or to arraign The flying skirmish of the darted cane: But, when fierce bulls run loose upon the place, And our bold Moors their loves with danger grace, Then heat new-bends thy slacken'd nerves again, And a short youth runs ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... debts, stealing of arms, and finally cruel war, as if lying and robbing, in the long run, could upset free and honest industry. After the loss of California and the Pacific coast, the struggle for the Territories was but a, preliminary skirmish of the war for the conquest and desolation of the Union. The people had waged the battle of liberty with the gigantic agencies of material prosperity for forty years, and the aristocracy was completely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... glory by delaying the advance for several hours, giving Washington ample time to withdraw his army across the Assunpink and post it in a strong defensive position, had retired in good order beyond the American line. In the skirmish Lieutenant Von Grothausen, he who had galloped away with the dragoons at Trenton and had been under suspicion of cowardice ever since, had somewhat redeemed his reputation in that he had boldly ridden down upon the riflemen, and had been killed. It was late in the evening when the advance parties ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... After a preliminary skirmish with Carlstadt, resulting in the latter's banishment from Saxony, there was a long and bitter war of pens between Wittenberg and the Swiss Reformers. Once the battle was joined it was sure to be acrimonious because of the self-consciousness ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the skirmish was hot. The British fought doggedly, as many believed what Dunmore had told them, that if captured the Virginians would scalp them. Rodney received a light flesh wound, but most of the Americans escaped uninjured, while several ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... skirmish made a prodigious noise in its day, and was much heralded in France. The French declared that Jumonville, the leader, who fell at the first fire, was foully assassinated, and that he and his party were ambassadors and sacred characters. ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... at the little passage—the traveller's importation of one or two Britishisms had been the subject of skirmish before—but silence fell among them for a moment afterward. They all had in the blood the remembrance of what Lorne ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... hour later, the rafters of the ranch having by this time tumbled in and turned the interior into a glowing furnace, there came riding from the west a slender skirmish line of horsemen in the worn campaign dress of the regular cavalry. With the advance there were not more than six or eight, a tall, slender lieutenant leading them on and signalling his instructions. With carbines ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... assailants with a vicious side blow at the merchant, and throwing himself upon the sergeant's horse, regardless of a bullet from the latter's revolver, he galloped away, and was speedily out of range. As to Williams, from the beginning of the skirmish he had lain face downwards upon the ground, twisting his thin limbs about in an agony of ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... accept thine offer. I would not willingly perish in some obscure skirmish when the gates of Jerusalem are as the gates of heaven before me, and I shall present my preserver to my father. Are you ill ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... just passed through one of the forest villages, which, but a few days since, must have been loveliness itself.—Vineyards, gardens, a bright stream, a rustic chapel on a hill—every thing shaped for the delight of the eye! But a desperate skirmish had occurred there between the retreating Republicans and their pursuers, and all that man could ruin was ruined. The cottages were all in ashes, the gardens trampled, the vineyards cut down for the fires of the bivouac, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... girls in bright-colored shawls, whose rollicking role seemed to be that of snatching away from the young men the stalks of green corn, squash, and gourds they had brought up from the fields below. The scene ended in a merry skirmish ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... to get many men together—of the kind we want," admitted Lefever. "You'll have to skirmish some between now and midnight. What do ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... of Nestor, in the rear, (Their fellows routed,) toss the distant spear, And skirmish wide: so Nestor gave command, When from the ships he sent the Pylian band. The youthful brothers thus for fame contend, Nor knew the fortune of Achilles' friend; In thought they view'd him still, with martial joy, Glorious in arms, and dealing death ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... after mentioning Lord Orford's (Horace Walpole) History of His Own Time, continues:—'The Memoirs of our Scots Sir George Mackenzie are of the same class—both immersed in little political detail, and the struggling skirmish of party, seem to have lost sight of the great progressive movements of human affairs.' Lockhart's Scott ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... clung to their knees. With some difficulty the major stopped the slaughter and had the four terrified girls locked up in a room under the care of two soldiers, and then he organized the pursuit of the fugitive as carefully as if he were about to engage in a skirmish, feeling quite sure ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... this little skirmish might have proceeded we cannot tell, for it was brought to an abrupt close by the sudden appearance of a black bear. It was on turning a cliff which bordered the edge of a stream that they came upon the monster—so close to it that they had ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... that of the Royalists, were yet unable to withstand the impetuosity with which the latter always attacked, the men seeming, indeed, to be seized with a veritable panic at the sight of the gay plumes of Rupert's gentlemen. In a fierce skirmish between Harry's troop and a party of Parliament horse of about equal strength, the latter were defeated, and Harry, returning with the main body, found a Puritan officer dismounted, with his back against a tree, defending himself from the attacks of three of his men. Harry ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... in mud huts thatched with straw. They had no currency and no ventilation,—no drafts, in other words. Their boats were made of wicker-work plastered with clay. Their swords were made of tin alloyed with copper, and after a brief skirmish, the entire army had to fall ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... Spanish and German envoys, produced on the whole army the effect of a spark applied to a train of gunpowder. Commines and the Venetian 'proveditori' each tried in vain to arrest the combat an either side. Light troops, eager for a skirmish, and, in the usual fashion of those days, prompted only by that personal courage which led them on to danger, had already come to blows, rushing down into the plain as though it were an amphitheatre where they might make a fine display of arms. Far a moment the young king, drawn on by example, was ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... palazzos, and all those other architectural features so characteristic of the City of the Doges. There is no questioning what these Istrian coast-towns were or are. They are as Italian to-day as when, a thousand years ago, they formed a part of Venice's far-flung skirmish line. But penetrate even a single mile into the interior of the peninsula and you find a wholly different race from these Latins of the littoral, a different architecture (if architecture can be applied to square huts built of sun-dried bricks) and a different ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell
... The hostess intervened promptly with anecdotes of her own cynical daring as a Bazaar-seller, Miss Sharsper offered fragments of a reminiscence about signing one of her own books for a Bookstall, Blenker told a well-known Bazaar anecdote brightly and well, and the impending skirmish ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... fail; by which means he was spared many an exhibition of hateful passions and ruffian violence, which annoyed his guests and friends. But now all things had changed: deep silence reigned in the pantry; the kitchen rang no more with martial alarums; and the hall was unvexed with skirmish or pursuit. Yet it may be readily supposed that to Kant, at the age of seventy-eight, changes, even for the better, were not welcome: so intense had been the uniformity of his life and habits, that the least innovation ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... hopefully a few moments longer, and then returned to their bargaining. Inside the big damp stone-walled corridor Constance drew a deep breath and smiled upon the jailoress; the jailoress smiled back. Then as a preliminary skirmish, Constance presented the two-franc piece; and the jailoress ...
— Jerry • Jean Webster
... laws could not be executed. Neville, a revolutionary veteran of tried valor, was able to obtain the help of an officer and eleven soldiers from Fort Pitt, but the mob was too numerous and too well-armed to be withstood by so weak a force. After a skirmish in which the mob fired the buildings and the place became untenable, the troops had to surrender. Soon after this affair, a convention of delegates from the four western counties of Pennsylvania was called to ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... girl, gentle and timid, and was pre-destined for misfortune. She was found dead in the Pere Lachaise cemetery after the skirmish between the Communists and the Versailles troop. A stray bullet struck her in the back of the neck as she was praying at the grave of her little sister, who had died two days before from small-pox. I had taken her with me to St. Germain, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... dashing up the defile at the head of the artillery, had been prepared to find a lively skirmish in progress between his own comrades and the handful of Afghans who were luring them on. But when, on emerging on to the plain, he found himself and the guns more than half surrounded by the enemy, and no sign anywhere of Atherton, he felt that the "brush" was likely ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... We had a skirmish about mutton, but the last Pole sent is good—in fact, excellent. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... Hunter baby were only too well founded. The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way under the treatment, but the first baby's first cold is always a thing of grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... had won the opening skirmish in the railroad regulation controversy. Incidentally it had come out in the open squarely for the Wright bill. From that moment the machine Senators labored openly for the passage of the measure. ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... mountaineer replied "an' that was how the little trouble we had begun. At least, it had a good deal to do with it. Isaac an' I had never got along, an' jes' befo' the war, we had some words about the Kentucky State Guards. But I wasn't bearin' any grudge, an' I never supposed Isaac was. However, in a skirmish near Cumberland Gap, I saw that he was jes' achin' to get me, an' the way he tried was jes' about the meanes' thing I ever heard o' any ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... if them was not an enemy within a hundred miles. After the line deployed, he "dressed" it, commanded "Front!" and "Begin, firing!" his attention was called another way for an instant, and when he looked back again, there was not a man of his nicely formed skirmish line visible. The logs and stones had evidently been put there for the use of skirmishers, the boys thought, and in an instant they ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... in the ribs with remarks about the "old man's millions," etc. Once or twice it boiled over and I was threatened with summary arrest. When I got home, I slept on the counter with the edition for my pillow, in order to be up with the first gleam of daylight to skirmish for newsboys. I gathered them in from street and avenue, compelled them to come in if they were not willing, and made such inducements for them that shortly South Brooklyn resounded with the cry of "News" from sunrise to sunset on Saturday. The politicians who ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... went slap into one of those mounds. I further remember that I was not the only Sixty-firster that imprecated in strong Saxon. But there we were, and there we lay till sunrise. We learned that the day before a lively skirmish had been fought here, in which one of ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... her flight, George was thankful that the girl had disappeared. He perceived that he had too quickly eliminated Percy from the list of the Things That Matter. Engrossed with his own affairs, and having regarded their late skirmish as a decisive battle from which there would be no rallying, he had overlooked the possibility of this annoying and unnecessary person following them in another cab—a task which, in the congested, slow-moving traffic, must have been a perfectly simple ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... on that skirmish line have at last found it advisable to lie down at full length on the ground, though it is so wet, and place their heads against the trees in front. They cannot advance and they cannot retire without, in either case, exposing themselves to almost certain death. They are waiting ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... policy and fear each told me that it would be safer to attack Betty and her father separately. The odds of two against one, in this case, I feared would be too great for me to overcome. So I led Betty to her parlor,—rather she led me,—and after a preliminary skirmish, I told her I had come to see her on a most ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... Alleghanies during the whole war—that my story must begin. I was then serving as Major in the —th Massachusetts Regiment—the old —th, as we used to call it—and a bloody time the boys had of it too. About 2 p. m. we had been sent out to skirmish along the edge of the wood in which, as our generals suspected, the Rebs lay massing for a charge across the slope, upon the crest of which our army was posted. We had barely entered the underbrush when we met the ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... his companions had had to defend themselves against hostile mountaineers, who rushed suddenly upon them out of the woods. When they were about two days' journey still from the end of their march, they had a bloody skirmish with a roving band of men that seemed to belong to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on the 21st, the day of the great battle, the other fell,—both bearers of historic names, both upholding the cause of their State with as unclouded a conscience as any saint in the martyrology ever wore; and from that day to the end, great battle and outpost skirmish brought me, week by week, a personal loss in men ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... rather animated than terrified by the blow, he immediately beat his antagonist to the ground, and so encouraged his troops by the example, that they put the French to total rout, and had very nearly taken their king prisoner. The dignity of the persons engaged in this skirmish rendered it the most memorable action of the war; for, in other respects, it was not of great importance. There were nine hundred horsemen, who fought on both sides; yet were there only two persons slain. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... reverend aspect and stately form, with white beard flowing on his bosom, appeared among them and took command with an air of authority which none could gainsay. He bade them charge on the screeching rabble, and after a short sharp skirmish the tawny foe was put to flight. When the pursuers came together again, after the excitement of the rout, their deliverer was not to be found. In their wonder, as they knew not whence he came or ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... to possess the government property, or entrench themselves strongly in their new quarters,—the general, with characteristic promptness, ordered an advance upon Booneville. The rebel force was stationed above Rockport, but retreated, after a skirmish which did not assume the proportions of a battle; and the Union army, two thousand strong, entered the town, where the national colors and the welcomes of the inhabitants testified ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... man as it was dishonourable in the prince; in which his frivolous nature found and took vengeance for the gravity and burthen of the afternoon. He chuckled as he thought of it: and Greisengesang heard him with wonder, and attributed his lively spirits to the skirmish of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... skirmish, not to be heard of in history, but opening the way for the besiegers to the walls of Bristol, and preventing any of the supplies from reaching the garrison, or any of the intended reinforcements, except some of the eager Cavaliers, who galloped on ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... played no idle game in the previous skirmish, was the first who rushed to the attack. Crying out, with all the theatrical air of a Frenchman, which never deserts him, even in the agony of grief, "Mes braves compagnons, vous serez venges!" he flew at McDermot, the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... never be content in any of the deserts; where, still clothed in armour, cap-a-pie, he endeavoured in vain to forget his belligerent propensities, for, every now and then, when he heard of a siege toward, he would suddenly sally forth, and having assisted in the skirmish, again seized with a fit of repentant devotion, would hurry back to some desolate retreat, and endeavour, by penitence and fasts, to obliterate ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... hammering it into shape, and sends it charging back against Ukiukiu around the western side of the mountain. And all the while, above and below the main battle-field, high up the slopes toward the sea, Ukiukiu and Naulu are continually sending out little wisps of cloud, in ragged skirmish line, that creep and crawl over the ground, among the trees and through the canyons, and that spring upon and capture one another in sudden ambuscades and sorties. And sometimes Ukiukiu or Naulu, abruptly sending ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... woman with a very sharp tongue was sent to talk to the minister's wife. The war-cloud thickened, the pickets were driven in, and then a skirmish, and after a while all the batteries were opened, and each side said that the other side lied, and the minister dropped his pocket-handkerchief and showed his claws as long as those of Nebuchadnezzar ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... moving on in silence, Save for rattling iron and steel, And a skirmish echoing round us, Showering faintly, peal ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... old colonel, who recollected that I had helped him out of the skirmish at Montereau by giving him my horse, and he had offered me bed and board at his house. I knew that the year before he had married a castle and no few farms, so that I might become permanent coat-brusher to a millionaire, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Electoral Prince come on, we are ready to receive him. There will be a hard struggle, but I have been victorious over all my enemies for twenty years, and shall probably conquer the little Electoral Prince too! Now a hurried toilet, and then to the Elector, to open the skirmish in his neighborhood! Ah, we shall see, my young Prince! For you shouts the rabble of Berlin, for me speaks the Elector! We shall see which of us two has built upon ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... passed within half a mile, following along the track by which you came! If you had been awake—and cooking—or singing—or making any sort of noise they must have heard you! Instead, they turned down toward the plain a little short distance too soon—and my men met them—and there was a skirmish—and I rallied my other men, and attacked them suddenly. We accounted for two of the tin-plate men, and so many of the thing they call a regiment that the others took to flight. Jannam! (My soul!) But you ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... miles. The forces engaged numbered about 1,500,000 men. Thus this battle far exceeds in magnitude the battle of Mukden, previously considered the greatest battle of modern times; while the great battle of Waterloo was an insignificant skirmish in comparison. It is of further interest to learn that Allied success was largely the result of the use of flying machines for scouting purposes, which enabled General Joffre to take instant advantage of tactical mistakes of General Von Kluck. The results were commensurate with the immensity of the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... After midnight, they went out "de shoppis suis" and danced and sang in the streets. A clerk, irritated by the noise, attacked them with a drawn sword, wounded one of them, and was himself mortally wounded in the skirmish. Of twenty-nine coroners' inquests which have been preserved for the period 1297-1322, thirteen are murders committed by scholars. Attacks on townsmen were not mere undergraduate follies, but were ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait
... "After the sharp skirmish on the second line of defense of the Spaniards, and after Greene's brigade moved through Malate, meeting a shuffling foe, the open space at the luneta, just south of the walled city, was reached about 1 p. m. A white flag ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... exorbitaut terms. Laudonniere himself throughout would have adopted moderate and conciliatory measures, but his men at length became impatient and seized one of the principal Indian chiefs as a hostage for the good behavior of his countrymen. A skirmish ensued, in which the French were victorious. It was clear, however, that the settlement could not continue to depend on supplies extorted from the Indians at the point of the sword. The settlers felt that they were ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... busy day with Mrs. McKinstry, or it is doubtful whether she would have allowed even this close to the skirmish, for she had a taste for such encounters. Blair however heard the dripping and swashing of water in the rear of the house as he went up the narrow stairway. The wide cap-border of Mrs. McKinstry was fanning backwards and forwards, as she ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Noir entered the city of Mexico with the victorious army, but on the subsequent day, being engaged in a street skirmish with the leperos, or liberated convicts, he fell mortally wounded by a copper bullet, and he was now dying by inches at his quarters ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the month our cavalry relieved the infantry on the line of the Rapidan, and on the nineteenth, in a sharp skirmish between Stuart's and Bayard's forces, Captain Charles Walters, of the Harris Light Cavalry, was killed. This officer was very popular in the regiment, and his death cast a gloom over all. Wrapped in a soldier's ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... inquietude Than courtiers at a banquet would. And Charles of this his slender share With smiles partook a moment there, To force of cheer a greater show, And seem above both wounds and woe;— And then he said—"Of all our band, Though firm of heart and strong of hand, In skirmish, march, or forage, none Can less have said or more have done 100 Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth So fit a pair had never birth, Since Alexander's days till now, As thy Bucephalus and thou: All Scythia's fame to thine should ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... take it, but the missionary spoke kindly to him, and after a little, as he had been out of the stuff for days, his fingers closed on it; and then the missionary knew that he had conquered in the first skirmish. Tobacco among these Indians is like salt among the Arabs. Knowing this, the missionary, who never used it himself, adopted this plan to make ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the two professors was very popular, beloved by all, passing for a sage, a great poet, and a man of advanced ideas. One day when he accompanied the collegians on their walk, he had a dispute with some cadets, which resulted in a skirmish and a challenge. No doubt recalling his brilliant youth, the professor preached a crusade and promised good marks to all who during the promenade on the following Sunday would take part in the fray. The week was a lively one—there were ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... exponent of Jeanne d'Albret and the valorous general of the Reformers. He travelled at the rear of the conspirators as far as Vendome, intending to support them in case of their success. When the first uprising ended by a brief skirmish, in which the flower of the nobility beguiled by Calvin perished, the prince arrived, with fifty noblemen, at the chateau of Amboise on the very day after that fight, which the politic Guises termed "the Tumult of Amboise." As soon as the duke and cardinal heard of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac |
