"Axe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all to flight with her fierce visage and fierce cries—Freydisa the Terrible, who, in another voyage, persuades her husband to fall on Helgi and Finnbogi, when asleep, and murder them and all their men; and then, when he will not murder the five women too, takes up an axe and slays them all herself, and getting back to Greenland, when the dark and unexplained tale comes out, lives unpunished, but abhorred henceforth. All these folks, I say, are no phantoms, but realities; at least, if I can judge ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Du Page. It was frozen, but not sufficiently so to bear the horses. Our only resource was to cut a way for them through the ice. It was a work of time, for the ice had frozen to several inches in thickness during the last bitter night. Plante went first with an axe, and cut as far as he could reach, then mounted one of the hardy little ponies, and With some difficulty broke the ice before him, until he had opened a ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... chestnuts, and small shrubs. Tufts of tamarinds, myrtles, and mastic-trees, such as are produced in the temperate zone. Generally, there was enough space between the trees to allow him to pass without being obliged to call on fire or the axe. The sea breeze circulated freely amid the higher branches, and here and there great patches of light shone on ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... intended to make our permanent quarters. We had four tents—one to sleep in, fitted with mosquito-bars; one for an eating-tent, with canvas top and sides of netting: in it was a rough table and two benches, hewed out with an axe by one of our men. There was also a tent for storing provisions and for the cook, for we had brought with us a man for this important office. A fourth tent for the Indians, and a cooking-stove with camp-chests and equipage, completed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... two thousand five hundred; and the surplus I give to my companions. I hope they will all live as brothers, and divide it amicably among them. If they cannot agree, and the devil of contention gets among them, it is no fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good strong, sharp axe, and break open my strong box. Let them scramble for what it contains, and the Devil seize the hindmost." The people of Auvergne still recount with admiration the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... which opened to a favourite view of the general's, to which Cecilia knew that all attention must be paid. He came up, and they proceeded through a wood which had been planted by his father, and which seemed destined to stand for ever secure from sacrilegious axe. The road led them next into a village, one of the prettiest of that sort of scattered English villages, where each habitation seems to have been suited to the fancy as well as to the convenience of each proprietor; giving an idea at once of comfort and liberty, such as can be seen only in England. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... captain was Captain Execution; to him were given ten thousand men. His ensign was one Mr. Justice; he also bare the red colours, and his scutcheon was a fruitless tree, with an axe ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... again, and to feel a friend's hand-grip. Oh, there are times, Miss Norah, when I talk to myself—which is bad—or yarn to old Turpentine, my snake, just to hear the sound of words again. However, when these bad fits come upon me I know it's a sign that I must get the axe and go and chop down sufficient trees to make me tired. Then I go to sleep, and wake up quite a cheerful ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... brave old white-faced Swede. He had wandered this way, Heaven knows how, and taken up his acres—I forget how many years ago—all alone, bent double with sciatica, and with six bits in his pocket and an axe upon his shoulder. Long, useless years of seafaring had thus discharged him at the end, penniless and sick. Without doubt he had tried his luck at the diggings, and got no good from that; without doubt he had loved the bottle, ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... moment Abe Horsley joined the group. He called for drinks before adding his bit to the talk. He had an axe to grind and wanted a sympathetic audience. While Rocket, observing his customers with shrewd unfriendly eyes, set out the glasses and the accompanying bottles—he never needed to inquire what these men would take; he knew the tipple of every soul in Barnriff by heart—Abe opened out. He ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... were close at hand, and with a loud double-ring summoned the sleepers. Before he got back to help the first with the engine, one and another and another door opened, and a man darted out, buttoning braces or coat as he ran. Each went into the station, seized his helmet, belt, and axe, from his own peg, and in another moment all were armed cap-a-pie. At the same instant that the engine appeared at the door a pair of horses were trotted up. Two men held them; two others fastened the traces; ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Christians in array, With lance, sword, axe, and wild-fire tost, The assaulted city guard without dismay, And little reck the proud barbarian's boast: Nor when death snatches this or that away, Does any one in fear refuse his post. Into the fosse below the paynim foes Return, amid a storm ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... stand at once partly corrected in this second chapter of Figuier's, on the 'Tige,' French from the Latin 'Tignum,' which 'authorities' say is again from the Sanscrit, and means 'the thing hewn with an axe'; anyhow it is modern French for what we are to call the ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... to the deck-house and told the bos'un what had occurred. He was a level-headed young man, and taking up a carpenter's broad axe, smashed the door of the deck-house. Then he looked at ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... right hand, unless he be a left-handed man." "Ah, my dear," she entreated, "try and do it as my father did." The witless wight raised his left hand to hew the wood, but struck his right-hand thumb instead. Without a word he took the axe and smote her on the head, and she died. His deed was noised about; the woodcutter was seized and stoned for his crime. Therefore, continued the fox, I say unto thee, all women are deceivers and trappers of souls. And let me tell you more ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... hall flaming in the square; the church was now nothing but a stone shell, bristling with flames. The houses of the prosperous villagers had had their doors and windows chopped out by axe-blows. Within them soldiers were moving about methodically. They entered empty-handed and came out loaded with furniture and clothing. Others, in the upper stories, were flinging out various objects; accompanying their trophies with jests and guffaws. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... by! I have divined what axe it was that struck thee to the ground: hail to thee, O Zarathustra, that thou art ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... encircling his neck with their scaly bodies, they tower head and neck above him. He at once strains his hands to tear their knots apart, his fillets spattered with foul black venom; at once raises to heaven awful cries; as when, bellowing, a bull shakes the wavering axe from his neck and runs wounded from the altar. But the two snakes glide away to the high sanctuary and seek the fierce Tritonian's citadel, [227-261]and take shelter under the goddess' feet beneath the circle ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... changes of property to encounter. In the American Revolution, no man sought or wished for more than to defend and enjoy his own. None hoped for plunder or for spoil. Rapacity was unknown to it; the axe was not among the instruments of its accomplishment; and we all know that it could not have lived a single day under any well-founded imputation of possessing a tendency ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... sailing, and a Deers Skin to make us Shooes, to prevent any Thorns running into our feet as we travelled through the Woods; for our greatest Trust under God was to our feet. Our Weapons were, each man a small Axe fastned to a long Staff in our hands, and a good Knife by our sides. Which were sufficient with God's help to defend us from the Assaults of either Tiger or Bear; and as for Elephants there is no standing against them, but the best defence is to ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... time for any reflections unconnected with hard work. The cedar swamp was shrinking before his axe, and yielding its fragrant timbers for the future house. From early morning till late at night the three men never ceased labour except for short meals; having, as their object and reward, the comfort of those dear ones who would arrive in July or ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... edge to so murderous a thought, and wings to the feet of the thinker, a man both tall and broad came striding down the cottage garden. He was swinging a heavy axe as if it were a mere dress cane, and now and then dealing clean slash of a branch, with an air which made Pet shiver worse than any wind. The poor lad saw that in the grasp of such a man he could offer less resistance ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... after this, Hedwig gave Tell a good talking to on the subject of his love for adventure. He was sitting at the door of his house mending an axe. Hedwig, as usual, was washing up. Walter and William were playing with a little cross-bow ...
— William Tell Told Again • P. G. Wodehouse
... Pai Utes almost equalling wheat in the size of its kernel. In the lowlands grows the stolid mesquite tree, more underground than above, whose roots furnish excellent firewood,—albeit they must be broken up with a sledge hammer, for no axe will stand the impact. Near it may be seen huge bunches of grass (or perhaps straw would describe it better), which the white man gathers for hay with a huge hoe. Then there is the ever-present, friendly sage-brush, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... that retired. He even remained for a short space almost alone, with an axe in his hand, labouring like a pioneer amid the storm of balls, many of which were specially aimed against him. The retreat of the party he commanded was not effected without heavy loss, and served as a severe ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Mayenne, it was no outrecuidance brought me here this morning. There is the Bastille. There is the axe. I know that my course has been offensive to you—your nephew proved me that. I know also that you do not care to meddle with me openly. At least, you have not meddled. Whether you will change your method—but I venture to believe not. I am popular just now in Paris. I had more ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... was evident that Ennis was not at home Stefan knocked before pushing his way in. The place was deserted, as he had conjectured. Drawing off his mitt he ascertained that the ashes in the stove were still warm. There was a rough table of axe-hewn boards and he placed the envelope on it, after which he kindled a bit of fire and made himself a cup of hot tea that comforted him greatly. After this it took but a minute to bind on his heavy snowshoes again and he rejoined his waiting dogs, ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... I had finished this operation Billali himself arrived with undignified and unusual haste. I asked him what was the matter, and he answered inconsequently that the Black One, the slayer of Rezu, was at the door "with his axe." ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... once distributed ourselves over our work. Cancut wielded the axe; I the match-box; Iglesias the batterie de cuisine. Ragmuff drifted one troutling and sundry chubby chub down to nip our hooks. We re-roofed our camp with its old covering of hemlock-bark, spreading over a light tent-cover we had provided. The last glow ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... familiar comrade, was the young Prince Gregor. Long marches through the wilderness had stretched his limbs and broadened his back, and made a man of him in stature as well as in spirit. His jacket and cap were of wolf- skin, and on his shoulder he carried an axe, with broad, shining blade. He was a mighty woodsman now, and could make a spray of chips fly around him as he hewed his way through the trunk ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... King Arthur's knights had punched and speared, whacked and chopped at each other with axe and sword long enough, had slain dragons and tamed monsters, and rescued princesses from cruel uncles, and good men from dark dungeons, even the plain people, such as farmers and mechanics, had enough and wanted ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... boyhood, which was crowded with work, he had been content when she told him in general outlines that, during the Peasant War, fierce bands had attacked his father's castle, that one of his own bondmen had slain him with an axe, and that his mother had fled with Wolf to Ratisbon, where her brother lived as provost of the cathedral. He had invited her, at the outbreak of the peasant insurrection, to place herself under ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... it and began chopping. The stone wall across the hollow blazed more fiercely; the sharpshooters diverted their attention from the men and horses higher upon the hill. Agnor swung the axe with steadiness; the chips flew far. The post was cut almost through before his bullet came. In falling he clutched the weakened obstruction, and the two came down together. The gun was free to pass, and it passed, each cannoneer and driver looking once at John Agnor, lying ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... inventions of the white-man intruder. A very short period of time served to turn this ungovernable curiosity into troublesome thieving. Knowing no law but their wild traditionary rules, they wrested from the adventurous pioneer, his rifle, knife, axe, wagon, harness, horse, powder, ball, flint, watch, compass, cooking utensils, and so forth. The result was, sanguinary engagements ensued, which led to bitter hostility between the two races. Doubtless the opinion may be controverted, but it nevertheless shall be hazarded, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a wide berth," shouted the convict, swinging his sharp axe over his head as though in readiness to bring it down upon the skull of the dog if he showed signs of hostility. "Keep clear of the brute," he continued, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... for burying corpses had to be made, the leader of the gang, having ascertained a lucky day from the priest, went to a blacksmith and after closing the door so that no other person might enter, got him to make the axe in his presence without touching any other work until it was completed. A day was then chosen for the consecration of the pickaxe, either Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday; and the ceremony was performed inside a house or tent, so that the shadow of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... in their existence, however, having been once accepted and introduced into the national poetry and art, it became necessary to surround them as far as possible with the appearance of not unnatural beings. Their occupation was hunting and war; their arms the bow, spear, axe, a half shield, nearly in the shape of a crescent, called pelta, and in early art a helmet, the model before the Greek mind having apparently been the goddess Athena. In later art they approach the model of Artemis, wearing ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his charge for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give it a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart but the horse itself moving. If he set to chopping wood, the axe fairly rang like glass, and chips and chunks flew in all directions. And as for strangers, after he had one night caught two thieves and knocked their heads together—knocked them so that there was not the slightest need to take them to the police-station afterwards—every one in the neighbourhood ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... splintering crashes, and finally the head of an axe appeared through the panels of the door. Ah-Fang-Fu tried to drag the woman away, but she clung to Stuart desperately and was immovable. Thereupon the huge quadroon, running across the room, swept them both up into his giant embrace, ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... being off. The pulleys twice stuck in their fastings, bow and stern, and the one axe was passed forward and back (and with it my flashlight) as the entangling mesh of ropes that held us to the sinking Laconia ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... have penetrated into the thoughts of John Ardayre, this is the prayer she would have heard, as he knelt there beside her at the altar rails: "Oh, God, keep the axe from falling yet, give ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... for I saw that he was not joking. He now took the pots, to which strings had been fastened, and secured two or three to each tree by small pegs, which he took out of his pocket. Above each peg he made a deep incision with his stone axe, and almost immediately a milky substance began to ooze out and drop into the pots. Taking some himself, he bade me taste it, assuring me that it was perfectly harmless. Its taste was agreeable,—much like sweetened cream, which it resembled ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... never any mistake about that. Of course the land would require to be re-valued, but "My Lord" wouldn't hear of such a thing being done in his time. The Manor wood wanted thinning very badly. The wood had been a good deal neglected. "My Lord" had never liked to hear the axe going. That was Grumby Green and the boundary of the estate in that direction. The next farm was college property, and was rented five shillings an acre dearer than "My Lord's" land. If Mr. Neville wished it the steward would show him the limit of the ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Lawrence Guff facetiously styled him—was so wrought upon by the dreadful description of the great river, that he manifested a strong desire to draw back; but by the timely addition of a small kettle, an axe, a knife, and a few beads to the gifts already bestowed on him, he ...
— The Pioneers • R.M. Ballantyne
... pieces of wood, and twist ropes of their bark and bind them one with another, and make of them a raft[FN406] which we will launch and load with these fruits: then we will fashion us paddles and embark on the raft after breaking our bonds with the axe. It may be that Almighty Allah will make it the means of our deliverance from this accursed woman and vouchsafe us a fair wind to bring us to the land of Hind, for He over all things is Almighty!" Said they, "Right is thy rede," and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... all personal feeling, that makes the figure of Cromwell the most terrible in our history. He has an absolute faith in the end he is pursuing, and he simply hews his way to it as a woodman hews his way through the forest, axe in hand. ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... the eaves were men of another age and another world, strangely clothed in long garments, and majestic in appearance. One carried a lance, and another a pilgrim's staff, and a third a battle-axe; but the most imposing stood near the door of the hut, and in his hand he held ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... shores of Cape Cod as we look back upon them in that distant November day, and the harbor lies like a great crystal gem on the bosom of a virgin wilderness. The "fir trees, the pine trees, and the bay," rejoice together in freedom, for as yet the axe has spared them; in the noble bay no shipping has found shelter; no voice or sound of civilized man has broken the sweet calm of the forest. The oak leaves, now turned to crimson and maroon by the autumn frosts, reflect themselves ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... men of leather, the leaders of iron or copper, while many in addition wore coats of mail. Each carried a sword, a battle-axe, and a bow and arrows. Some of the swords were short and curled like a scimitar; others were long and straight, and were wielded with both hands. They wore their hair long and hanging down their shoulders, and for the most ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... shouted old Jones as soon as he saw him, "here's a chance for you! here's the Spanish skipper looking as savage as a Yankee meat-axe—Gad! if you don't bear a hand, he'll cut his own throats, for want of some ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... It made things easier, so that he began the practice of piling any light, cumbersome piece of luggage on top. Thus, he was soon able to bend along with a hundred pounds in the straps, fifteen or twenty more lying loosely on top of the pack and against his neck, an axe or a pair of oars in one hand, and in the other the nested cooking-pails of ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... tied on to the back of a camel, and they trudged cheerfully after it. Joseph carried an axe at his waist in order to defend them from attacks, but he only had occasion to try it on the blocks of wood that lay in the road, which he liked to hack at a little if they were good timber. The nearer they approached ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... River, dwelt a man named Hedden, with his wife and three children. His farm stretched further into the wilderness than his neighbors', for his had been one of the first cabins built there, and his axe, ringing merrily through the long days, had hewn down an opening in the forest, afterward famous in that locality as "Neighbor Hedden's Clearing." Here he had planted and gathered his crops year after year, and in ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... as a factor in it. He was alone with Defago in a primitive world: that was all. The canoe, another symbol of man's ascendancy, was now to be left behind. Those small yellow patches, made on the trees by the axe, were the only ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... garden. How many other poor wretches there were whose last agonies have been disclosed to us!—the priest of Isis, who, enveloped in flames and unable to escape into the blazing street, cut through two walls with his axe and yielded his last breath at the foot of the third, where he had fallen with fatigue or struck down by the deluge of ashes, but still clutching his weapon. And the poor dumb brutes, tied so that ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... age—ilex and cypress remaining where they fell at last, one over the other, and all caught, in that early May-time, under a riotous tangle of wild clematis—was to be found a magnificent sanctuary, in which the members of the Arval College assembled themselves on certain days. The axe never touched those trees—Nay! it was forbidden to introduce any iron thing whatsoever within the precincts; not only because the deities of these quiet places hate to be disturbed by the harsh noise of metal, but ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... remember back to Breckenridge; and I can remember hearin' em say 'Hurrah for Buchanan!' I'm just tellin' you to show how fur back I can remember. I used to have a book with a picture of Abraham Lincoln with an axe on his shoulder and a picture of that log cabin, but ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... of the wild pear-tree, and then, shaking him heartily by the hand, exclaimed, "I say again, well met, my trusty friend. Understand that I have not yet got over my astonishment. If any one had told me that I should find you painted red and black like a wild Indian, a battle-axe in your hand, and a fringe of scalp-locks round your loins, I should naturally have declared him mad. But you—born, as it would seem, to tread in the footsteps of your forefathers—to find you on this desolate heath, with thoughts of murder ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... without making any noise. As the sound of the footsteps grew more distinct, he presently observed a huge grizzly bear coming down to the water and swimming for the canoe. The great animal held his head up as if scenting the venison. The captain snatched his axe as the most available means to defend himself in such a scrape, and stood with it uplifted, ready to drive it into the brains of the monster. The bear reached the canoe, and immediately put his fore paws upon the hind end of it, nearly turning it over. The captain struck one of the brute's feet ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... hurl ourselves upon that astonished crew. Black as the place was, tremulous the light, nevertheless the cabined space, the open plateau, was our salvation. I saw figures before me; faces seemed to look into my own; and as a battle-axe of old time, so my rifle's butt would fall upon them. Heaven knows I had the strength of three and I used it with three's agility, now shooting them down, now hitting wildly, thrust here, thrust there, bullets singing about my ears, haunting ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... when I was small, in a book called "Some Heroines of History." She came last in the volume because she was only a countess, and not a queen, but I cried when she said she didn't mind being killed, only being touched by a horrid, common axe, and wanted them to cut off her head with a sword. There are lots of other beautiful things in the church, too, and a nice legend about an oak beam which grew long in the night, and building materials which came down from a hill of their own accord, because one of the builders was Christ himself. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... adversaries, the address with which he soothed the passions and guided the judgments of his colleagues, it is impossible to find a single fault. If he had a fault, says his biographer, it was that of using the razor when he would have done better with the axe. But the axe is not a diplomatic weapon. The simulation of temper may serve an occasional purpose, but temper itself is a mistake; and to Mr. Gallatin's credit be it said, it was a mistake never committed by him in the course of this long and sometimes painful negotiation. ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... was crossing the lake on the ice; it was a cold winter afternoon; he was in a hurry to take some food to his brothers, who were drawing pine-logs in the bush. He had, besides a bag of meal and flour, a new axe on his shoulder. He heard steps as of a dog trotting after him; he turned his head, and there he saw close at his heels, a big, hungry-looking grey wolf; he stopped and faced about, and the big beast stopped and showed his white sharp teeth. My uncle did not feel afraid, but looked ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... clothing, and his father's horse of its saddle blanket; then, straightening out the sick man, he wrapped him in the clothes and blanket, and rode like mad for the nearest ranch-house. The neighbour, a young man, came at once, with a pot to make tea, an axe, and a rope. They found the older Cree conscious but despairing. A fire was made, and hot tea revived him. Then Josh cut two long poles from the nearest timber and made a stretcher, or travois, Indian fashion, the upper ends fast to the saddle of ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sigh to send. Turn from the city, and to country lend A passing thought. All labor is at rest. The plough lies set, point in the mottled breast Of half-tilled field; the flail is laid above The barn's brown wall; the shining sickles move Not from their keep; the woodman's axe is still; The golden sheaf doth not the feeder fill; The huntsman's horn is hung behind the door; The delver's spade stands idle on the floor; The horse and oxen run the open field, Set free to graze; the holloaing drivers wield ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... splendidly furnished rooms, the riding school, and the gardens. I remember, too, that the Lord Dartmouth of the time of which I speak was, like Mr. Gladstone, an amateur woodman. He used to like to go about with axe and saw, and do a little tree felling and branch lopping to please his fancy, and exercise his limbs and muscles. Sandwell Park, as most people know, has now been deserted for many years by its titled owner, and Sandwell ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... such a collection of Indian arms has never before been brought together, not even in India; and it fairly defies description. No man was so poor but that he could present the prince with a bow and arrow or spear or sword or battle-axe, and in fact every one who was brought before the prince gave him a weapon of some sort. The collection thus represents the armorer's art in every province of India, from the rude spears of the Nicobar ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... town? Well, I didn't know, and it was useless to speculate, so I took up the paper, and went to reading again. But the stinging editorials had lost their sting, and the pointed paragraphs, though sharper than a meat-axe, fell on me as harmless as if I had been encased in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the East and clung to with wonderful tenacity. So long as they had boundless territory for their flocks and herds, and could always move on 'to pastures new,' they increased and multiplied, and allowed the sword and the battle-axe to rest, unless when a newly elected chief found it necessary to give his followers 'a hosting'—which means an expedition for plunder. Down to the seventeenth century, after five hundred years' contact with the Teutonic ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... an axe and spade, Bring me a winding-sheet; When I my grave have made, Let winds and tempests beat: Then down I'll lie, as cold as clay: True love ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... well; but he had temperament, climate, and everything that money might give, in his favor. A good many invalids have been helped by Brown-Sequard after other doctors had failed to help them. A sturdy New Hampshire farmer wounded his foot with an axe and was supposed to have split a nerve in it. The wound healed perfectly but he never was able to do a whole day's work afterward. An oarsman in the international regatta of 1869 who was a man of enormous physical strength, deranged his nerves in some way and ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... in their present situation, they must inevitably perish, they determined to search for the hut, and to winter there, if so fortunate as to find it. Himkof, with three others, were selected to make the search. They were provided with a musket, twelve charges of powder, a dozen balls, an axe, a small kettle, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a wooden pipe for each, some tobacco, and a bag with twenty pounds of flour. This was as much as they could carry with safety, as they had to make their way for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... goddess gave Odysseus a large axe and a sharp adze, and led him to the heights of the island, where the largest trees grew. He went to work at once and cut down twenty trees, which he hewed into proper shape, and then tied them together with ropes which he himself made ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... this world's early mists When man began to use his head; He stopped from fighting with his fists And gripped a wooden club instead. But when the rival tribe was slain, The first tribe then to stand alone Had once again to work its brain And made an axe—an axe of stone! The stone-axe tribe would hold first place; And ruled the rest where'er it went. Because then—as to-day—the race Was first that had best armament. But human brain expanding ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... civilization than any of its neighbors, yet they still carve and paint bows, arrows, club handles and paddles. The Indians still cling to other rude implements and take not kindly to metal ones. Rude knives are still used for skinning deer, especially by the old Indians. The axe, of course, is employed for cutting trees and excavating canoes and mortars. It has really taken the place of the stone chisel, yet many old men prefer burning the roots of the tree until it can be made to fall by giving it a few hacks with the rude ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... from twenty feet upward to the tops of the trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber, for now the axe-men were at work cutting down those trees which seemed to be most crowded with nests, and seemed to fell them in such a manner that, in their descent, they might bring down several others, by which means ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... through the journey of life, he literally sets out on the peregrination. His whole family, household furniture, and farming utensils are hoisted into a covered cart; his own and his wife's wardrobe packed up in a firkin; which done, he shoulders his axe, takes his staff in hand, whistles "Yankee doodle," and trudges off to the woods, as confident of the protection of Providence, and relying as cheerfully upon his own resources, as did ever a patriarch of yore, when he journeyed into a strange country of the Gentiles. ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... mental power apace With those of any land, and any time, Save in the golden age, that age of thought sublime; But, what I mean is this: that her own men Do act their parts, they reason or they rhyme Within their bounds, with keen, far-reaching ken, For those who late have left the axe to ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... went, my first task being to descend into the flooded forecastle and grope about for an axe that I knew was kept there somewhere; and I was fortunate enough to find it almost at once. Then, returning to the deck, I lowered away the lug-sail and cut the canvas adrift from the yard, carefully lashing the latter, that it might not roll or be washed overboard. Then I began to cut ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... at their backs, With halberd, bill, and battle-axe: They bore Lord Marmion's lance so strong, And led his sumpter mules along, And ambling palfrey, when at need Him listed ease his battle-steed. The last, and trustiest of the four, On high his forky pennon bore; Like swallow's tail, in shape and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... and severely damaged—the circumstance being merely mentioned to shew the state in which the squadron was equipped; the only means of repairing the damage being by fishing the mast with an anchor-stock taken from the Lautaro, whilst an axe had to be borrowed for the ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... However, even then, the balance was much in our favour, and red feathers continued to preserve their superiority over every other commodity. Some of the natives would not part with a hog, unless they received an axe in exchange; but nails and beads, and other trinkets, which, during our former voyages, had so great a run at this island, were now so much despised, that few would deign so much as to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... were bare, and Caesar now Its fall commanded. But the brawny arms Which swayed the axes trembled, and the men, Awed by the sacred grove's dark majesty, Held back the blow they thought would be returned. This Caesar saw, and swift within his grasp Uprose a ponderous axe, which downward fell Cleaving a mighty oak that towered to heaven, While thus he spake: "Henceforth let no man dread To fell this forest: all the crime is mine. This be your creed." He spake, and all obeyed, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... against his 'brother the ox' by consuming its strength in the labor of the plough; he could sin against the corn by cutting it down and grinding it into flour, or against the precious and beautiful pine-tree by laying his axe to its roots and converting it into mere timber for his house. Further still, no doubt he could sin against elemental nature. This might be more difficult to be certain of, but when the signs of ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... opened; soft the headsman came, Within his hand a mighty axe a-gleam, (A gaunt and hairy man with wolfish eyes,) . . . And as he lay, the ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... quickly below him. A man with an axe on his shoulder could be seen plainly making his way through the underbrush not a hundred yards away. The sheriff instantly clapped his hand upon his captive's mouth, but at a look from his eyes ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... elsewhere in the parish, where I went to visit sundry sick folks. When I went to Uekeritze to see young Tittlewitz, there even befell me as follows:—Claus Pieper the peasant stood in his yard chopping wood, and on seeing me he flung the axe out of his hand so hastily that it stuck in the ground, and he ran towards the pigsty, making the sign of the cross. I motioned him to stop, and asked why he thus ran from me, his confessor? Whether, peradventure, he also believed that my daughter had bewitched her ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... Elizabeth was fond of executions. She loved Essex, of all men, best; and yet the same axe which murdered Anne Bulleyn, was used to revenge herself on him. The bloody task took three strokes, which so enraged the multitude, (who loved Essex) that they would have torn the executioner to pieces, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... spear: Beneath the chin the point was seen to glide, And glitter'd, extant at the further side. As when the mountain-oak, or poplar tall, Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral, Groans to the oft-heaved axe, with many a wound, Then spreads a length of ruin o'er the ground: So sunk proud Asius in that dreadful day, And stretch'd before his much-loved coursers lay. He grinds the dust distain'd with streaming gore, And, fierce ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... except for the marble high relief over the door, showing the grizzly head of the Baptist in the charger, and for the iron cage close by, in which were formerly exposed the heads of criminals; the decapitated, or, as they call him here, decollated, John the Baptist, being apparently the patron of axe and block. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... few fallen shafts, denuded of their bark and tessellated branches, sawn into symmetrical cylinders, lay beside the stumps, and lent themselves to the illusion. But the freshly-cut chips, so damp that they still clung in layers to each other as they had fallen from the axe, and the stumps themselves, still wet and viscous from their drained life-blood, were redolent of an odor of youth ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... a ring of hills slightly higher-the raised bottom of a saucer would be no bad simile. The old Roman road cuts straight across this rise, descends between the shops of the High Street, passes the church, crosses the Axe by a narrow bridge, and climbing again passes the iron gates of Bayfield House, a mile above the river. So straight is it that Dorothea could keep her brothers in view from the gates until they dismounted before their office door, losing sight of them for a minute ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... rocky forehead high into the heavens. Here in these beautiful wild regions you will find lakes over whose waters you may glide in a canoe, whose forest-clad shores seem never to have been marred by the axe of civilization. Here as the sun sinks to repose amid these purple mountains, and the last rays of light on their waters seem like sheets of fluid gold, and the lonely cry of the loon breaks the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... number, the former President[*] of the Ministry, was even thrown into prison. Our deserted capital was occupied, and was turned into a place of execution; a part of the prisoners of war were there consigned to the axe, another part were thrown into dungeons, while the remainder were exposed to fearful sufferings from hunger, and were thus forced to enter the ranks of ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... These gates, closed at night, are guarded by peasants who are unfitted, through age or infirmities, for field labor. They employ themselves, in their tiny wattled lean-tos, in plaiting the low shoes of linden bark, used by both men and women, in making carts, or in some other simple occupation. An axe—a whole armory of tools to the Russian peasant— and an iron bolt are ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... an almost total absence of light. It would at any time require that a party of three at least, with full camp equipment, should traverse about a hundred miles of the Barrier surface in the dark and should, by moonlight, cross over with rope and axe the immense pressure ridges which form a chaos of crevasses at Cape Crozier. These ridges, moreover, which have taken a party as much as two hours of careful work to cross by daylight, must be crossed and re-crossed ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... the young Indian had selected the wood for the fire; searching carefully along by the edge of the river for drift-wood, and rejecting all that contained any sap. He himself had offered to cut down some wood with the axe he carried strapped to his saddle, but Hunting Dog had ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... way to execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old Duke Balmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, with boisterous courage, cried out for the fatal axe to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... passing to the forest, I met with an amusing accident. I was riding a huge sixteen-hand black mare and had heavy swags of blankets strapped before and behind the saddle, in addition to which I carried a new axe, some cooking utensils and a large leg and loin of mutton, which I had called for at the station, fearing that my men were out of meat. Near the forest I had to cross a small stream with steep ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... sees, but dreams not that they are to another the pillars of a temple, whose worshipper is on earth though its divinity is in heaven. I still visit them once or twice each spring, on the anniversaries of these walks; and when the axe lays one low, it seems to me as though it falls upon myself, and carries away a ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... of Sutton says, "The poor inhabitants are supplied with fuel from a magazine of peat, near the Roman road, composed of thousands of fir trees cut down by the Romans, to enable them to pass over a morass. The bodies of the trees are sometimes dug up found, with the marks of the axe upon them." ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... (toute divine) to see her and hear her. She left Selles on Monday at the hour of vespers for Romorantin, the Marshal de Boussac and a great many armed men with her. I saw her mount her horse, all in white armour excepting the head, a little axe in her hand. The great black charger was very restive at her door and would not let her mount. 'Lead him,' she said, 'to the cross which is in front of the church,' and there she mounted, the horse standing still as if he had been ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... it? darn their black skins! there was a dozen here jest now, a blockin' up the fire-side, and stinkin' so no white man could come nearst it, till I got an axe-handle, half an hour or so since, and cleared out the heap of them! Niggers! they'll be here all of them torights, I warrant; where you sees Archer, there's never no scarceness of dogs and niggers. But come, walk in boys! walk in, anyhow—Jem'll be here to rights, and he's worth two niggers any ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Amond or Avon is a simple modification of the present word of the Cymric "Afon," for "river," and we have all from our schooldays known it under its Latin form of "Amnis." The Esk, in its various modifications of Exe, Axe, Uisk, etc., is the present Welsh word, "Uisk," for "water," and possibly the earliest form "asqua," of the Latin noun "aqua." Again, the noun "Dour"—Douro—so common an appellative for rivers in many parts of Europe, is, according to some of our best etymologists, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... supper. There was no use wasting unparliamentary language, so I began foraging in all directions, while H—— busied himself in cutting up wood to make a fire, a process not too easy with an uncommonly blunt axe. My researches into the interior of the dwelling were not encouraging; the fowl was not there, neither was the paprika. At length I discovered some eggs and a chunk of stale bread stowed away in a corner; there were a great many things in that corner, but "they were not ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... runs so desperately high as in the seventeenth century, honour is at an end. Statesmen instead of being, as they should be, at once mild and steady, are at once ferocious and inconsistent. The axe is for ever before their eyes. A popular outcry sometimes unnerves them, and sometimes makes them desperate; it drives them to unworthy compliances, or to measures of vengeance as cruel as those which they have reason to expect. A Minister in our times need not fear either to be firm or to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... trees; but upon all disasters of this kind, causes only his servants to redress, and, set them up again as often as they happen to be overthrown; which he has affirm'd to me, thrives better with them, than with those which he has staked; and that at last they strike root so fast, as nothing but the axe is able to prostrate them. And there is good reason for it in my opinion, whilst these concussions of the roots loosning the mould, not only make room for their more easie insinuations, but likewise open and prepare ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... splendid figures—have been numerous. From the Crusades to the Palisades they have enriched the arts of history and fiction and the trade of historical fiction. But each of them had a prize to win, a goal to kick, an axe to grind, a race to run, a new thrust in tierce to deliver, a name to carve, a crow to pick—so they were not ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... This statue, wrought in black marble, differed from most monumental carved-work, in that its posture was erect and lifelike. Sir Ranulph was represented as sheathed in a complete suit of mail, decorated with his emblazoned and gilded surcoat, his arm leaning upon the pommel of a weighty curtal-axe. The attitude was that of stern repose. A conically-formed helmet rested upon the brow; the beaver was raised, and revealed harsh but commanding features. The golden spur of knighthood was fixed upon the heel; and, at the feet, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that old Enoch Allan on his way to the station. He's ninety if he's a day. You can't kill some folks with a meat axe. His wife died twenty years ago. He'd been married when he was twenty so they'd lived together for fifty years. She was a faithful, hard-working creature and kept him out of the poorhouse, for he was a shiftless soul, not lazy, exactly, but just too fond of sitting. But he weren't grateful. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... than with a great noble, for that in the rivalries between these there might be troubles come upon the land, and maybe even civil strife; that one who might hold his head highest of all one day might on the morrow have it struck off with the executioner's axe, and that at any rate it were best at present to live quietly and see how matters went before taking any step that would bind me to the fortunes of one man ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... Now do I feel like some poor criminal, Who, having closed his eyes, to look no more Upon the world he is about to leave, With curdling blood, and faint and flutt'ring pulse, Waits for the last terrific moment When the sharp axe shall free his trembling soul. So wakes he at the distant shouts of men, Rolling the waves of sound until they dash Against his worn-out sense the glad reprieve. Don Gaspar lives! Oh ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... glade came slow and steady blows like those which a man might make as he lifts his axe and smites into the butt. There was a sort of reverberation, too, as if the tree were hollow. But that might only be the effect of the night, the stillness, and the heavy covert of great woods which lay like a big green blanket all about us, and tossed ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... dream, foretells that what enjoyment you may have will depend on your struggles and energy. To see others using an axe, foretells, your friends will be energetic and lively, making existence a pleasure when ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... severed head. It was for this, then, that the amiable Louis, the majestic Marie Antoinette, the Minerva-like Madame Roland, the Girondins vowed to the utter quest of liberty, the tyrant-quelling Danton, the incorruptible Robespierre himself, had felt the fatal axe; in order that the mimicry of their death agonies might tickle jaded appetites, and help to weave anew the old Circean spells. So it seemed to the few who cared to think of the frightful sacrifices of the past, and to measure them against the seemingly ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... One day, when I was working on a Dakota ranch, the boss, a person by the name of Steve, urged me to take an axe, go forth, and chop a little ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... life had Mr. Lincoln so many to throng about him as in this hour, when he is powerless to do any one a service. For once in history, office-seekers were disinterested, and contractors and hangers-on human. These came, for this time only, to the capital of the republic without an axe to grind or a curiosity to subserve; respect and grief were all their motive. This day was shown that the great public heart beats unselfish and reverent, even after a dynasty ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... there seems a difference of opinion with her master on the subject of the Pope. You will recollect that at the time of his elections the clergy rendered him undoubted good service; I even doubt that he would have been elected without their aid. Now he puts the axe to the root of the whole Catholic Church by destroying the Pope, and he does this without the slightest provocation, and for the benefit of the revolution et ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... and bow, which were the most effective offensive weapons known to antiquity or the Middle Ages. Some of their warriors were clothed in coats of brass equal to the steel or iron cuirass worn by the Mediaeval knights of chivalry. They had the battle-axe, the shield, the sword, the javelin, the metal-headed arrow. One of the early Egyptian kings marched against his enemies with six hundred thousand infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, and twenty-three thousand chariots of war, each drawn by two horses. The saddles and bridles ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... watered at once by means of pieces of gutter from the roof and outhouses of Number 2, and a large and particularly obstinate clump of elder-bushes in the abolished hedge that he had failed to destroy entirely either by axe or by fire, combined to give the gardens under intensive culture a singularly desolate and disorderly appearance. He took steps towards the diversion of our house drain under the influence of the Sewage Utilisation Society; ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... not one single article in the essentials, or circumstances of trade, whereby a country can be a loser, which we do not possess in the highest perfection; somewhat, in every particular, that bears a kind of analogy to William Wood; and now the branches are all cut off, he stands ready with his axe at the root. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... decided. They went to the store and purchased their housekeeping equipment. What a sense of power and prosperity it gave them as they made their selection—two canvas-cots and two pairs of blankets, a lamp and an oil-can and a tiny oil-stove, two water- buckets and an axe and a wash-basin, a camp-stool and a hammock and a box full of groceries! They got a team to carry all this, in addition to their lumber and their trunks. They stopped at a farm-house, and arranged to get ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the rest of Italy. It was natural that it should take the colour, more or less, of the places where it grew. In Romagna, where political assassination is in the blood of the people, a dagger was substituted for the symbolical woodman's axe in the initiatory rites. It was probably only in Romagna that the conventional threat against informers was often carried out. The Romagnols invested Carbonarism with the wild intensity of their own temperament, resolute even to crime, but capable of supreme ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... sir! It is no use to throw the handle after the axe. You make me a proposition, and I show you the difficulties in the way, but I do not say there is no way to extricate you from embarrassment. I must look around. I have known you only a few minutes; but it does not take long to appreciate ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet |
