"Blunderbuss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... striven with me ere now, and proved me to be their master—they knew, I say, that without great change, I would never accept that contumely. But I took little heed of them, looking in dull wonderment at John Fry, and Smiler, and the blunderbuss, and Peggy. John Fry was scratching his head, I could see, and getting blue in the face, by the light from Cop's parlour-window, and going to and fro upon Smiler, as if he were hard set with it. And all the time he was looking briskly from my eyes to the fist I was clenching, and methought he ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... for?" inquired Wallace, pointing to a long, rusty, wire-wrapped, double-barreled blunderbuss of a shotgun, stuck in the holster ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the trigger of his blunderbuss, aimed into the very centre of the boat. Shrieks, curses and plashings, as of bodies falling in the water succeeded; and in the confusion occasioned by the murderous fire, the first ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... and Latin, Mr. Griffith," retorted the commander of the Ariel; "but if you mean that those seven brass playthings won't throw a round-shot as far as any gun of their size and height above the water, or won't scatter grape and canister with any blunderbuss in your ship, you may possibly find an opportunity that will convince you to the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... burying them, pacifying the confiding British officer in charge of the district by handing in rusty and obsolete Martini-Henris or a venerable blunderbuss which nobody had used since ancestral Boer shot lions with it in the mediaeval days of the first great trek. The buried Mausers ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... arise from the grave—'implora pace'. I hope, whoever may survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think of 'pickling, and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall'. I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... to Poole to try and get a ship bound for Newfoundland. I wanted some companions on my journey, so I told them not to go to Poole, as the press-gang was about, and, when I had been there myself a few days before, had fired a blunderbuss at me, but I happened to pop round the corner and so had escaped. The boys did not seem fit for soldiers, or sailors either, for they looked as if they had lain in the sun for some time, and one of them was warped. When they heard my ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... centinels, ran away, and Harry's voice after them. Down came I, and with a posse of chairmen and watchmen found the third fellow in the area of Mr. Freeman's house. Mayhap you have seen all this in the papers, little thinking who commanded the detachment. Harry fetched a blunderbuss to invite the thief up. One of the chairmen, who was drunk, cried, "Give me the blunderbuss, I'll shoot him!" But as the general's head was a little cooler, he prevented military execution, and took the prisoner without bloodshed, intending to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... but another bumpin' at the door. So up he jumps, and, takin' down a big blunderbuss that hung over his bed, opened the door, an' seized a Naygur be the hair o' ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... in, every shot taking effect and raking her from end to end. Morillo was standing aft by the taffrail, and as we passed near enough to hear the wash of the water about the pirate vessel's rudder, he suddenly snatched up a blunderbuss, and, singling me out, fired point-blank at me, one bullet knocking my cap off, while another lodged in my left shoulder, a third killing the man at our wheel, close behind me. The Guerrilla immediately ported her helm, while I, springing to our wheel, put it hard a-starboard, thus passing a second ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... no great respect for him, though, perhaps, he did not mean all he said in his famous criticism of Lord Bolingbroke's philosophy, which Mallet published after the author's death. "Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward—a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had no resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to fire it off after his death." It has been disputed whether Mallet, or Thomson of the "Seasons," ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... survive me, and shall see me put in the foreigners' burying-ground at the Lido, within the fortress by the Adriatic, will see those two words, and no more, put over me. I trust they won't think of "pickling, and bringing me home to clod or Blunderbuss Hall." I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... the trampled grassplots was a crowd of pitmen, surging hither and thither, some armed with pickaxes, some with hedge-stakes, some with nothing but nature's weapons. One fellow was in the act of loading an old blunderbuss. Reared against the wall of the house were two or three ladders, one smashed in the middle. The lower windows had been barricaded with boards, but the mob had wrenched away the protection at one point, and men were climbing in with great shouts ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... and a coward; a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half-a-crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... wilfully mistaking the purpose of their disturbance, "if you do not instantly quit the house I will fire my blunderbuss through ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... good old days, when a man wanted a scrap with his neighbour, he put a double charge of powder into his blunderbuss, crammed in on top of it two horse-shoes, his latch-key, an old watch-chain, and a magnet, and then started on the trail. It was very effective, but of course some busy-body "improved" on it. Nowadays our gunners ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... harps, but horns When I chased the unicorns— Magic tubes with pistons greasy, Slides that pushed and pulled out easy, Cylinders of snaky brass Where the fingers like to fuss, Polished like a looking-glass, Ending in a blunderbuss. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... knowledge, for rich food does not harm the stomach that is used to it, but it is hellebore to the ill-fed. Education is an arm, for knowledge is power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... 1751, and in 1754 his philosophical works were posthumously given to the world by David Mallet, Dr. Johnson's beggarly Scotchman, to whom Bolingbroke had left half-a-crown in his will, for firing off a blunderbuss which he was afraid to fire off himself. The world of letters had been keenly excited about Bolingbroke. His busy and chequered career, his friendship with the great wits of the previous generation, his splendid style, his bold opinions, made him a dazzling ...
— Burke • John Morley
... challenge was a discharge from the blunderbuss of the guard, which brought one of the ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... later, he came rushing back from the hall, exclaiming: "There! See, what a blunderbuss I am! I forgot to thank you, which I do, with all ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... answer for the consequences; whereupon he resigned his authority. While this was passing, about 200 men, well armed, took up a position upon a neighbouring eminence, and assumed a hostile attitude. At the same time a carabineer, severely wounded from the discharge of a blunderbuss, was brought up, so that there was nothing left for M. Prim but to withdraw his force immediately out of the town, leaving the smugglers and their goods to themselves, since neither the alcaldes nor national guards of the town, though demanded in the name of the law, the regent, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... ten pearls from his own necklace, pearls as large and round as bullets of a blunderbuss. The merchant's wife quickly took them on his behalf and hung them around his neck; and the merchant crossed his arms like the ogres and spoke his thanks. Then the great king went off again, flying away like lightning ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... All the theatres on this season, day or night alike, burst forth into joy. The war was the universal subject. Cannon, fighting, soldiers, gunpowder, saltpetre, sulphur, fury, explosions, wounds, bombardments, grenadiers, artillery, drum, gun, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder! Just at that time the piece which was having the greatest run was THE VICTORY ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... opposite across the street, A friend or foe could always meet A man deserving hero's title, Uncompromising Watson Litle! A stern upholder of the law Who ne'er in justice found a flaw, With well charged blunderbuss in hand He asked not order or command, But sallied forth semper paratus To aid the Posse Comitatus! "Peace to his ashes!" many a score Of heads he smashed in days of yore! Where is the marble slab to show Where Watson Litle's dust ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... for this apparition we must cross the garden, to the summer-house, where Myra and Clem had hidden themselves away from the heat with a book, and, for the twentieth time perhaps, were lost in the adventures of Jack the Tinker and the Giant Blunderbuss. As a rule Myra would read a portion of the story, and the pair then fell to acting it over together. In this way Clem had slain, in the course of his young life, many scores of giants, wizards, dragons, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... be regarded with the same caution as a loaded blunderbuss, which may unexpectedly go off ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... Protestants; and the miserable bigot Charles IX. stationed during the massacre at the window of a house then belonging to the Constable of Bourbon, fired with his own hands upon the Huguenots with a long blunderbuss, whilst they were trying to escape ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes |
