"Thrashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up on its silly little wheels, with its broken propeller still pointing straight up at the sky. Its tail was broken too—and served it right for thrashing around ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... and definitely as follows: To break Caballuco's head without loss of time; then to take leave of his aunt in severe but polite words which should reach her soul; to bid a cold adieu to the canon and give an embrace to the inoffensive Don Cayetano; to administer a thrashing to Uncle Licurgo, by way of winding up the entertainment, and leave Orbajosa that very night, shaking the dust from his ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... me treacherously, did you?" said he, with a derisive chuckle as if to slacken the speed of his horses. "You know short reckonings make good friends. Oh! what a fine thrashing you are going to receive, my friend! Take care! if you try to bite my hand, I'll choke you with my two fingers, do you hear! Now, then, take this for the green toad; this, for my horses' sake; ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Sunday schools. They are numerously attended, and well supervised. Adults have a room to themselves on a Sunday, and they go through the processes of instruction patiently, benignly, and without thrashing. At one time there was a school connected with the church in Wellfield-road; but when St. Mark's was erected the building and the scholars were transferred to its care. Viewing everything right round, it may be said ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... complete them. With the rest of the song, which in desperation he sings without stopping, he lamentably fails before the female form at the window who shakes her head violently in disapproval, and, to add to his own misfortune, he receives a thrashing at the hands of the apprentices and journeymen whom the noise has roused from slumber. The following day, deeply dejected, he asks Sachs for one of his own songs. Sachs gives him one of the young nobleman's poems, pretending not to know ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... the wrong. It needed correction, and that of a severe kind. That spirit he felt must be broken, or there would be trouble ahead in after years for Robert Sinclair. Mr. Clapper was determined to do his duty, and he believed that Robert in later life would probably feel grateful for this thrashing. He thrashed the boy soundly and severely upon the most sensitive parts of his body, so that the pain would help to break his spirit. He saw no indignity heaped upon a high-spirited, sensitive soul. It was all for the boy's own good, and so the blows fell thick and ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... back, but a bold front and a lying tongue, to maintain his position in the estimation of the flock, until such time as the truth WOULD make itself known—a thing which, eventually, always happens. That night Ned Hinkley dreamed of nothing but of shooting Stevens and his comrade and of thrashing his uncle. What did ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... They beg for the privilege of pulling the forelock to the bearers of the titles of the men who took their lands from them and turn them to the uses of cattle. The Saxon English had, no doubt, a heavier thrashing than any people allowed to subsist ever received: you see it to this day; the crick of the neck at the name of a lord is now concealed and denied, but they have it and betray the effects; and it's patent in their Journals, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Quakers, however, had to rejoice over broken windows, for the mob smashed them, one unfortunate Friend having to provide 115 squares of glass before his lights were perfect again. We were loyal in those days, and when we heard of our gallant boys thrashing their opponents, up went our caps, caring not on whose heads lay "the blood-guiltiness," and so there was shouting and ringing of bells on May 20, 1792, in honour of Admiral Rodney and his victory. The next great day of rejoicing, however, was for the Peace of Amiens in 1802, and it was notable ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... boy, who had swallowed a good deal of salt water, but was otherwise quite unhurt. "How do you expect I am going home in these trousers? Perhaps your mother'll pay me for a new pair, eh? And give you a jolly good thrashing for tumbling in? Here's half a crown for you, you young ruffian! and if I catch you on these rocks again, I'll throw you in and let you swim for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... you? Come here, my boy. Jack, you've given me many a thrashing, and I deserved 'em; and I'll not see you made a fool of now. George Austin is a damned villain, and Dorothy Musgrave is no girl for you to marry: God help me that I should have to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Porter and His Classmates." Jasniff was gone, but Link Merwell and Nat Poole remained, and both did what they could to dim Dave's popularity. Link Merwell was particularly obnoxious, and in the end Dave took matters in his own hands and gave the bully the thrashing he richly deserved. Then some of the fellow's wrongdoings reached the ears of the master of the school, and he was ordered to pack his trunk and leave, which he ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... rooms upstairs! The most terrible racket is going on in there. I—Oh, there you are!" She caught sight of her lodgers. "Arrest them, Anderson! Lock them up at once. They're dangerous people. They oughtn't to be running at large. Oh, that awful thing! It sounds like it was twenty feet long, and it's thrashing all over the room. Oh, my God! What a scare I've had! Oh, you needn't look at me innocent like that, you two. You're in for it, or my name ain't Jennie Bloomer. Call a posse, Anderson, and surround the hotel. Thank Heaven, ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... flock; and, in the same way, tariffs are 'forts,' whence the artisan may hope successfully to defend himself against the attacks of his powerful and unscrupulous enemy, capital; or they may even be considered as a pistol, which a little fellow points at a big bully who threatens him with a thrashing." ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... blew the whole sail out; the bowsprit reeled and quivered under me; I danced off it with incredible despatch, shouting to the men to hoist away. The head of the staysail mounted in thunder, and the slatting of its folds and the thrashing of its sheet was like the rattling of heavy field-pieces whisked at full ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Apollo would break the neck of every one of these wooers of yours, some inside the house and some out; and I wish they might all be as limp as Irus is over yonder in the gate of the outer court. See how he nods his head like a drunken man; he has had such a thrashing that he cannot stand on his feet nor get back to his home, wherever that may be, for he has no strength left ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... in the grove came a thrashing of branches and a frightened neigh. "And that," he continued, "is Joshua, I presume. If there are more Old Testament patriarchs in the vicinity, I don't know where they are, and I don't care. You may hunt for them yourself. I'm going to follow your advice and ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... must have been thrashing about—absolutely thrashing about, like a dashed salmon on a dashed hook. He must have had a paroxysm of some kind—some kind of a dashed fit. A doctor could give you the name for it. It's a well-known form of insanity. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... "I knew you did. Now I want to know if Master Jem Bottles has passed this way to-day. A shilling for the truth and a thrashing for a lie." ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... which one has to keep a sharp look out. And that's not easy without a trustworthy man, and Grigory was a most trustworthy man. Many times in the course of his life Fyodor Pavlovitch had only just escaped a sound thrashing through Grigory's intervention, and on each occasion the old servant gave him a good lecture. But it wasn't only thrashings that Fyodor Pavlovitch was afraid of. There were graver occasions, and very subtle ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... revived, 'twas only to find himself he knew not where, while the Bolognese monk entered the tomb, gibbering horribly, and armed with a rod, wherewith, having laid hold of Ferondo, he gave him a severe thrashing. Blubbering and bellowing for pain, Ferondo could only ejaculate:—"Where am I?" "In purgatory," replied the monk. "How?" returned Ferondo, "am I dead then?" and the monk assuring him that 'twas even so, he fell a bewailing his own and his lady's and his son's fate, after the most ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Swear they were with the Swedes at Bender, And listing troops for the Pretender. But Dick can f—t, and dance, and frisk, No other monkey half so brisk; Now has the speaker by his ears, Next moment in the House of Peers; Now scolding at my Lady Eustace, Or thrashing Baby in her new stays.[1] Presto! begone; with t'other hop He's powdering in a barber's shop; Now at the antichamber thrusting His nose, to get the circle just in; And damns his blood that in the rear He sees a single Tory there: Then woe be to my lord-lieutenant, Again he'll tell ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... house with the company of 'the Good Lady', and had seen him naked and covered him up, 'How, then, did you get in when all the doors were locked?' 'We can get in,' she said, 'even if the doors are locked.' Then the priest took her into the chancel of the church, locked the door, and gave her a sound thrashing with the pastoral staff, calling out 'Out with you, lady witch.' But as she could not, he sent her home, saying 'See now how foolish you are to believe in such ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... cock-pit—they have just finished taking up the arteries of his right arm, which has been amputated; and the Scotch surgeon's assistant, who for many months bewailed the want of practice, and who, for having openly expressed his wishes on that subject, had received a sound thrashing from the exasperated midshipmen, is now complimenting the fainting man upon the excellent stump that they have made for him: while fifty others, dying or wounded, with as much variety as Homer's ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to do, especially as Jermyn and his sister would then walk home with her. What the doctor would say if he saw Mergwain, she did not venture to ask: she knew he would tell any number of stories to get her out of a scrape, while Cosmo would only do or endure anything, from thrashing her ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... didn't sit up the greater part of last night thrashing my weary brains for nothing! But I am going to the British Museum to-day, to confirm a certain suspicion." He turned to Weymouth. "Did Burke ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... set up before him as the paragon of human excellence. I have always suspected that little Erasmus inherited his frivolous disposition from his uncle (his mother's brother), Lemuel Fothergill, who at the early age of nineteen ran away from the farm in Maine to travel with a thrashing machine, and who subsequently achieved somewhat of a local reputation as a singer of comic songs in the Barnabee Concert Troupe on the Connecticut ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... two heavy horses came around the corner of the house, softly churning the new snow before its runners. A man clad in a burly sheepskin coat and fur cap, his feet in enormous rubber shoes, stood on the sled, slowly thrashing his ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... of the three players had forgotten their troubles. The third was trying to find the knob on the back door, and could not because of the buzzing in his head and the blood in his eyes. Irish had welts and two broken knuckles and a clear conscience, and he was so mad he almost wound up by thrashing Rusty, who had stayed behind the bar and taken no hand in the fight. Rusty complained because of the damage to his property, and Irish, being the only one present in a condition to listen, took the complaint as a ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... perform the additional task I have in mind and I believe you are. Peterson, if you want a steady job skippering for the Blue Star Navigation Company you've got to earn it, and to earn it you've got to give this fellow Peasley a good sound thrashing for the good of his immortal soul. The very moment you step aboard the Retriever let him ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... that ends well. Roberts has come up in time, and has completely defeated the enemy; still, it would have been more satisfactory had we retrieved Maiwand, by thrashing ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... mighty glad of it! Hark ye—never mention that I said that! You have been guilty of a great crime; and don't ever be guilty of it again on this boat, but—lay for him ashore! Give him a good, sound thrashing, do you hear? ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... which filled his heart. At times he clenched his hands and ground his teeth together as he pictured Dick Farrington standing in the Hall, hurling forth his taunting remarks. Then he longed for daylight to come that he might go to his house, call him forth, and give him the thrashing he so well deserved. He would drive that impudent, sarcastic smile from his face, and make him take back his words. A voice seemed to say to him, "Do it. You must do it if you consider yourself a man. He insulted you to your face, and people will call ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... hastily round; there was no chance of escape, a double ring enclosed him. To accept or refuse seemed about equally risky; he ran a good chance of a thrashing whichever way he decided. Although his heart beat loudly, no trace of emotion appeared on his pallid cheek; an unforeseen danger would have made him shriek, but he had had time to collect himself, time to shelter behind hypocrisy. As soon as he could ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... fine traits, too. Big ones. His word is his bond. He has business foresight and integrity, but somehow it is his little meannesses. I remember once in my father's house he took a thrashing for something outrageous he was not guilty of, because he had promised some youngster across the way he would shield him, come what might, and somehow I thought it pretty fine of him. But another time he let ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... you'd caught one glimpse of Mrs. L." called back Chester, as the Imp responded somewhat erratically to Macauley's unaccustomed touch. But all the answer they got was, an emphatic "Don't change gears as if you were running a thrashing machine, Mac." ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... characters, and their fox-like actions proved the case against them. So I crawled forward believing fully that I should be in danger if they once found out that I had uncovered their lurking-place. I carefully kept from making any thrashing or swishing of boughs, any crackling of twigs, or from walking with a heavy footfall; and I wondered more and more as I neared what I knew must be the other end of the grove, why they had not left the water and made ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... steamer—men who had been fit to lie down and die, stood up, flushed, excited, and ready to help bear the sick and wounded towards the river; while, to make matters better, the Malays had had such a thrashing in this last engagement that they made no fresh attack. The consequence was that half-a-dozen weak men under Major Sandars made a show in the rear, and all the strong devoted themselves to helping to carry the invalids to ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... the west rode our friend Colonel Tarleton, still smarting from the sound thrashing he had received from old Dan Morgan at Cowpens. He was trying to break up the State Assembly, and capture Thomas ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... destroy the right of inheritance, take up your knives,' that's all, and God knows what it means. I tell you, I almost got caught with this five-line leaflet. The officers in the regiment gave me a thrashing, but, bless them for it, let me go. And last year I was almost caught when I passed off French counterfeit notes for fifty roubles on Korovayev, but, thank God, Korovayev fell into the pond when he was drunk, and was drowned in the nick of time, and they didn't succeed ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was no light, but they could hear the eldest son thrashing restlessly about in his bed, and they knew ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... some nice little affair between our militia in Opelousas and the Yankees from New Orleans, in which we gave them a good thrashing, besides capturing arms, prisoners, and ammunition. "It never rains but it pours" is George's favorite proverb. With it comes the "rumor" that the Yankees are preparing to evacuate the city. If it could ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... chanced to be looking at the moment, and saw it all. He is a bad un, he is, by what they say up at the Hall. I heard one of the grooms talking last night down at the 'Ship,' and a nice character he gave him. This thrashing may do him some good; and look you, Master Walsham, if he makes a complaint to the squire, and it's likely enough he will get up a fine story of how it came about—the groom said he could lie like King Pharaoh—you just send word to me, and me and ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... commits them to the saint's safe-keeping. No sooner is he gone, however, than thieves steal in silently and remove the booty. Presently the barbarian returns, discovers his loss, charges the image with faithlessness, and, snatching up a whip, threatens it with a thrashing if the treasure is not brought back. He withdraws, presumably, after this, to give St. Nicholas an opportunity to amend matters. Whereupon one representing the real celestial St. Nicholas suddenly appears, perhaps from behind a curtain at the rear of the image, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... I should have got a worse thrashing," said Dick stoutly; it would be unkind to scrutinise too closely the ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... were terrible. The children were complaining for water, and the babies, hoarse from much crying, went on crying. Robert Carr, another wounded man, lay about ten feet from mother and me. He was out of his head, and kept thrashing his arms about and calling for water. And some of the women were almost as bad, and kept raving against the Mormons and Indians. Some of the women prayed a great deal, and the three grown Demdike sisters, with their mother, sang gospel hymns. Other women got ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Germany, or any other belligerent, will do after the war is usually of little value, as conditions after the war depend upon what is done during the war. The amount of freedom which the German people attain in the next few years is in direct proportion to the amount of thrashing administered to their country by the Allies. Perhaps they will have something to say about the frontier regulations of Germany; but assuming that the training of centuries will prevent their hastily casting aside their docility, it is extremely ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... going to give Tim Daly a sound thrashing for his impertinence yesterday, you stopped me and bade me forgive my enemies," says Terence, calmly, questioningly. "Why ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... waves; and then of a sudden—come and gone ere I could fix it, with a swallow's swiftness—one glimpse of what we had come so far and paid so dear to see: the masts and rigging of a brig pencilled on heaven, with an ensign streaming at the main, and the ragged ribbons of a topsail thrashing from the yard. Again and again, with toilful searching, I recalled that apparition. There was no sign of any land; the wreck stood between sea and sky, a thing the most isolated I had ever viewed; but as we drew nearer, I perceived ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... the truth at once," said the boy: "it may be blamed, but, as the copy says, it never can be shamed. But don't look so down, Miss: never mind a bit of a thrashing! Father gives me many a ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... again!" said the fellow, with an oath, as he doubled up his fist, and menaced the unfortunate coxswain with a thrashing. ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... bad as that," he said. "You wait until we've given Grant a big thrashing and have cleared their boats out of the river. Then you'll see our ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... perils, and soundly thrashed so many unprincipled varlets, that even Melissa's narratives became weak and puerile when put up against the tales he told to his pop-eyed brothers and sisters. He did not mention the sound thrashing that he sustained at the hands of Mrs. Bingle, however, nor did he attempt to account for the bitter howls that began to issue from behind the closed library doors almost simultaneously with his return to Seawood. These howls, it may be added, had a great deal to do with the decline of enthusiasm ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... knoll was defying him, was challenging him. At this time of year his blood was hot and quick for any challenge. He gave vent to a short, harsh, explosive cry, more like a grumbling bleat than a bellow, and as unlike the buffalo's challenge as could well be imagined. Then he fell to thrashing the nearest bushes violently with his antlers. This, for some reason unknown to the mere human chronicler, seemed to be taken by Last Bull as a crowning insolence. His long, tasselled tail went stiffly up into the air, and he charged wrathfully down the ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... young violinist against him! No, she never would do that! But the young beast looked just the sort that might take advantage of her smiles. If only he WOULD do something that was not respectful, how splendid it would be to ask him to come for a walk in the woods, and, having told him why, give him a thrashing. Afterwards, he would not tell her, he would not try to gain credit by it. He would keep away till she wanted him back. But suddenly the thought of what he would feel if she really meant to take this ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I meant that day of the thrashing?" he said, turning suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... came tearing up. He could hear the swish of the waters, white at her foot; he could see the wet sail, the bucketing bows, the fore-deck awash. She would pass bang beneath his feet. He could see no man at the helm—only the jumping bowsprit, the thrashing foot, and that huge lug-sail, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... of threshers, men and women—two rows of them facing each other like dancers; the figures bending and straightening in unison, and all the. flails whirling together in the air. They had spread a large cloth upon the ground, and were thrashing ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... relationship (mowai), apparently her paternal aunts. She is blackened all over with charcoal and wears a long petticoat reaching below her knees. During her seclusion the married women of the village often assemble in the forest and dance, and the girl's aunts relieve the tedium of the proceedings by thrashing her from time to time as a useful preparation for matrimony. At the end of a month the whole party go into the sea, and the charcoal is washed off the girl. After that she is decorated, her body blackened again, her hair reddened with ochre, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... audible or palpable form. If this spectral company becomes too much for me I must loudly command them, even shout at them, "begone," and if that does no good I must wish for a whip - which forthwith appears - and give them a sound thrashing. And I assure you, and you will yourself experience it if you test my statements by personal observation, that one never awakens more refreshed, never does there follow a happier, serener and freer morning than after such a successful struggle with the demons. Yet, it was this sort of fighting ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... better on the stage—on the stage, I mean, of another theater than the theater of this world—it is far better to wear a fine coat and to talk fine language, than to walk the boards shod with a pair of old shoes, or to get one's backbone gently caressed by a sound thrashing with a stick. In one word, you have been a prodigal with money, you have ordered and been obeyed—have been steeped to the lips in enjoyment; while I have dragged my tether after me, have been commanded and have obeyed, and have drudged ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... for some time, and I noticed even at dinner that his face was pale and drawn. In the theatre he seemed worse and I thought that the sudden appearance of his nephew had annoyed him. The young man whispered something to his companion and left his seat. The orchestra was still thrashing its way through its tune and there seemed no immediate prospect of the curtain ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... the rostrum, trembling. She had never caned a boy before, and she loathed violence. And yet she gave those three lads a sound thrashing. When the last stroke was given, she tottered and fell back upon ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... his people should believe the words of Christ, he once said, "Do you imagine these people will ever believe by your merely talking to them? I can make them do nothing except by thrashing them; and if you like, I shall call my head men, and with our litupa (whips of rhinoceros hide) we will soon make them all believe together." The idea of using entreaty and persuasion to subjects to become Christians—whose opinion on no other matter would he condescend to ask—was ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... them, and Fairmead was certainly very dirty, though it probably differed but little from most bachelors' quarters in that region. The stove-baked clods of the previous ploughing still littered the floor; the dust that was thick everywhere doubtless came in with our last thrashing; and the dishes I had used during the last few weeks reposed unwashed among it. But Aline was clearly a woman ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... content with getting yourself into trouble, you have stirred up the wrath of the gods against me {and I will make you smart for it."} She then led me, unresisting, back into the priestess's room, pushed me down upon the bed, snatched a cane that hung upon the door, and gave me another thrashing: I remained silent and, had the cane not splintered at the first stroke, thereby diminishing the force of the blow, she might easily have broken my arms or my head. I groaned dismally, and especially when she manipulated my member and, shedding a flood of tears, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... tongue, Archie," said Abel sternly. "It's my farm, I reckon, and I manage it. I'm sorry, Mr. Jonathan," he added, "that you started the trouble, but we aren't people to sit down tamely and take a thrashing from you just because you happen to own Jordan's Journey. I'll stand by Archie because he's right, though if he were not right, I'd still stand by him because he's my brother. The best we can do is to keep clear of each other. We don't ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... has in like manner acquired several of the attributes of Freyr and Thor. [63] His lightning-spear, which is borrowed from Thor, appears by a comical metamorphosis as a wish-rod which will administer a sound thrashing to the enemies of its possessor. Having cut a hazel stick, you have only to lay down an old coat, name your intended victim, wish he was there, and whack away: he will howl with pain at every blow. This wonderful cudgel ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Dick's warning visit; and how he had seen in the lad's eye that there was a thrashing in the wind, and had escaped through pity only - so the Editor put it - 'through pity only sir. And oh, sir,' he went on, 'if you had seen him speaking up for you, I am sure you would have been proud of your son. I know I admired the ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no. She'd dance all right—all right. McTeague was not an imaginative man by nature, but he would lie awake nights, his clumsy wits galloping and frisking under the lash of the alcohol, and fancy himself thrashing his wife, till a sudden frenzy of rage would overcome him, and he would shake all over, rolling upon the bed and biting ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... tumbled off. The sin of losing the race never seemed to strike him. All he knew was that Whalley had "called" him, that the "call" was a warning; and, were he cut in two for it, he would never get up again. His nerve had gone altogether, and he only asked his master to give him a good thrashing, and let him go. He was fit for nothing, he said. He got his dismissal, and crept up to the paddock, white as chalk, with blue lips, his knees giving way under him. People said nasty things in the paddock; ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... gave the girl the red dress and who afterward sent her to the devil in Stockholm. First I gave him, on your account, all the thrashing he could take, and then I told him that the next time he showed his face around here he'd get just as big a dose of ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... clear, but Jimmie was afraid that the flounderings of the serpent might break it. The horror was certain to do some thrashing about when he felt the keen edge ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... brother. Those of Pedro were full of a wistful misery. With all his heart he admired this man whom he had yesterday tried to kill, who had to-day saved his life, and in the next breath promised him a thrashing. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... hence with speed, A place of torment this indeed! A precious life, thyself to bore, And some few youngsters evermore! Leave that to neighbor Paunch! Withdraw? Why wilt thou plague thyself with thrashing straw? The very best that thou dost know Thou dar'st not to the striplings show. One in the passage ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of these he sought to secure himself until the storm should abate sufficiently to permit him to climb to the deck, but even as he reached for one that swung near him the ship was caught in a renewed burst of the storm's fury, the thrashing cordage whipped and snapped to the lunging of the great craft and one of the heavy metal hooks, lashing through the air, struck the Jed of Gathol fair between ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... naturally a jolly, light-hearted fellow," said Harold, "and when his immediate and more pressing troubles are removed he accommodates himself to circumstances, and sings, as you hear. If these fellows were to annoy their masters and get a thrashing, you'd hear them sing in another key. The evils of most things don't show on the surface. You must get behind the scenes to understand them. You and I have already had one or two peeps ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... his youth? Lissoy was no doubt a poor enough Irish village; and perhaps the farms were not too well cultivated; and perhaps the village preacher, who was so dear to all the country round, had to administer many a thrashing to a certain graceless son of his; and perhaps Paddy Byrne was something of a pedant; and no doubt pigs ran over the "nicely sanded floor" of the inn; and no doubt the village statesmen occasionally indulged in a free fight. But do you think that was the Lissoy that Goldsmith thought ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... grieves To feel the thrashing winds of March On the young May leaves— The cold dry dust winds of March On the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Westport. Any port at all would have been delightful after the terrible thrashing I got in the fierce sou'west rip, and to find myself among old schoolmates now was charming. It was the 13th of the month, and 13 is my lucky number—a fact registered long before Dr. Nansen sailed in search of the north pole with his crew of thirteen. Perhaps ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... one stormy night when wind and rain drove the bloodhound within the shelter of the guard tent and, thrashing through the branches of the oaks and flapping the canvas of the big tent, drowned out to all ears but his own the rasp of a file on steel. Next day the continued rain made road work impossible, and as he hobbled back and forth to feed the mules, ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... things. Don't mind expense. Give her a pretty room, and I think you'd better hunt up some young person to look after her. Until the girl comes Jane must sleep in the room with her, and don't bother me unless it is necessary; I feel quite used up, and as if I had been through a thrashing-machine. I am not used to children, and this one is—well, to say ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... their gills into lungs, and they have become frogs. Of course they are further along than the sleek, comfortable fishes who sail up and down the stream waving their tails and despising the poor damaged things thrashing around on the bank. He—the lecturer—did not say anything about men, but it is easy enough to think of us poor devils on the dry bank, struggling without enough to live on, while the comfortable fellows sail along in the water with all they want and despise us because we thrash about." ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... that while he was muttering his charms stones would fall and strike the windows. Finally the Joshi brought the chief, who had been living in a separate room, and tried to exorcise the spirit. The patient began to be very violent, but the Joshi and his people spared no pains in thrashing him until they had rendered him quite docile. A sacrificial fire-pit was made and a lemon placed between it and the chief. The Joshi commanded the Bhut to enter the lime. The possessed, however, said, 'Who are you; if one of your Deos (gods) were to come, I would not quit ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... titular governor, official preceptor, and absolute master of this child, the cobbler Simon, malignant, foul-mouthed, mean in every way, forcing him to become intoxicated, starving him, preventing him from sleeping, thrashing him, and who, obeying orders, instinctively visits on him all his brutality and corruption that he may pervert, degrade and deprave him.[41154]—In the Palais de Justice, midway between the tower of the Temple and the prison in the rue de Sevres, an almost similar contrast, transposing the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in the world was even a grain of corn produced, and what people sowed failed to come up from a drought so great that for three years there was not a drop of rain or dew. For one year more people managed to live somehow or other, thrashing up what old corn there was; the rich made money, for corn rose very high. Autumn came. Where anybody had or purchased old seed, they sowed it; and entreated the Lord, hoped in the love of God, if God would give fertility, "if God would forgive our sins." ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... his grief should be so overwhelming; but they could understand that they had been deceived, and even the gentle-spirited Bert was indignant over it. The impulsive Don could scarcely restrain himself. He walked angrily up and down the floor, thrashing his boots with his riding-whip and cracking it in the air so viciously that the ponies danced about in ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... the morning the train slowed down, and finally came to a thrashing halt, waking the sleepers uncomfortably and making them conscious of crunching feet in the cinders outside, and consulting voices of trainmen busy with a hammer underneath the car somewhere. Then they drowsed off to sleep again and the voices and hammering blended comfortably into ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... true and really artistic sense of the term. The scene of Candida's choice between Eugene and Morell crowns the edifice of Candida as nothing else could. Given the characters and their respective attitudes towards life, this sententious thrashing-out of the situation was inevitable. So, too, in Mrs. Warren's Profession, the great scene of the second act between Vivie and her mother is a superb example of a scene imposed by the logic of the theme. On the other hand, in Mr. Henry Arthur Jones's finely conceived, though unequal, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... he could not control himself. He was ashamed to think of it. He had seized George by the shoulders and shaken him, shaken him as though he were a rat; and it was with difficulty that he prevented himself from thrashing ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... exhausted with fatigue (with the way)." Essnousee then had her carried on the back of a camel to the village, and afterwards she continued riding to Tripoli. I was just in the humour for giving this miscreant slave-driver a thrashing, and taking on him satisfaction (but a millionth part indeed), for the torments he had, during forty days inflicted upon these wretched slaves, and should have done so had he attempted to beat the poor exhausted ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... in scolding or thrashing a fellow who is all broken up, anyway, over an accident, as you are," the doctor said, kindly. "Of course, it is a pretty costly accident for me, but I think I know where I can get a heifer—one of Brindle's own calves, that I sold to a farmer ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... meritorious author, and sent by him shortly before to Liszt.] reconciles me with the "newspaper geese." It will, without plagiarism, win its laurels on the stage. The dialogue and action are full of humor and wit...and the final catastrophe of the thrashing must make ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... in reply, indicated his passion. "Sheep! Dog! Have I had you all these years that you should need a thrashing for impertinence! What rascal has been here to ogle at this wretched girl?" He might have thundered his commands to Artemisia, who was sobbing in evident distress; but his anger was concentrated on Sesostris. ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... he said firmly and angrily: "I would have given that peasant such a thrashing! I would have broken his head!" And he showed the receiver ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... Commons. He was a Minister at the time of that war. He was reminding me of a severe onslaught which I had made upon him and Lord Palmerston for attending a dinner at the Reform Club when Sir Charles Napier was appointed to the command of the Baltic fleet; and he remarked, 'What a severe thrashing' I had given them in the House of Commons! I said, 'Sir James, tell me candidly, did you not deserve it?' He said, 'Well, you were entirely right about that war; we were entirely wrong, and we never should have gone into it.' And this is exactly what everybody will say, if you go into a ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... which lunged forward gamely. He felt the pony rear and drop away beneath him, pawing and scrambling, and instinctively kicked his feet free from the stirrups, striving to throw himself out of the saddle and clear of the thrashing hoofs. It seemed that he turned over in the air before something smote him and he lay still, his gaunt, dark face upturned to the rain, while about him ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... now stood face to face, and I almost trembled to think of the thrashing that was probably in store for me. He gave the first blow, which struck me soundly on the side of the head and knocked my cap off. I buttoned my jacket tight and closed with my adversary, yet with small success. The fight was for a few moments ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... to a bed in the corner of a large apartment, whose beautiful painted ceiling and cornice, and fine chimney-piece with caryatides of white marble, ill accorded with the heaps of oats and corn, the thrashing cloth and flail, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... adventure to naught. From the West he has borrowed all our material achievement and passed our ethical achievement by. Our engines of production and destruction he has made his. What was once solely ours he now duplicates, rivalling our merchants in the commerce of the East, thrashing the Russian on sea and land. A marvellous imitator truly, but imitating us only in things material. Things spiritual cannot be imitated; they must be felt and lived, woven into the very fabric of life, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London |
