Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Tussle   /tˈəsəl/   Listen
Tussle

noun
1.
Disorderly fighting.  Synonyms: dogfight, hassle, rough-and-tumble, scuffle.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Tussle" Quotes from Famous Books



... ebb," said the man, as he put the bond in his pocket. "I shall stay on board; we have a moonlight night, and if we had not, I could find my way out in a yellow fog. Please to get your boats all ready, manned and armed, for there may be a sharp tussle." ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to record that Dante carried himself valiantly; not, indeed, that I saw him at all till the tussle was over and such of our enemies as were left taking to their heels as nimbly as might be. But I had it on the word of Messer Guido, who could see as well as do, and who told me the tale, that our friend bore himself most honorably ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... calibre of these combatants, there occurs a phenomenon very like that which takes place among the lower classes, during the terrible tussle called "the savante," which is fought with the feet, as the name implies. Victory depends on a false movement, on some error of the calculation, rapid as lightning, which must be made and followed almost ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac

... somewhat under Mahan's sharp reproof. But he now struggled afresh to get at his vanished quarry. And again the Sergeant had a tussle to hold him. ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... she possessed courage, and was not afraid for herself. Most girls, keenly though they might desire to save their friend, would have destroyed the note and left the rest to Providence; but Nell's spirit had been trained in the bracing air of Shorne Mills, and her views tempered by many a tussle with tide and wind in the Annie Laurie; and the pluck which lay dormant in the slight figure rose now to the struggle for her friend's safety. She had grown to love the woman who had confided her heart's sorrow to her that night, and she meant to save her. But how? Sir Archie ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... and looked affectionately at her good friend; but her lips closed tightly together. Ellen knew all that Vera did; but the nurse loved her still! The child was to have many a tussle with the hard mistress whose chains she had worn all her short life, but Truth had spoken, and she had heard; and Love was coming to ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... excursions the settlers took care to be well armed, for they met with savage wild boars, with which they often had a tussle. They also, during this season, made fierce war against the jaguars. Gideon Spilett had vowed a special hatred against them, and his pupil Herbert seconded him well. Armed as they were, they no longer feared to meet one of those beasts. Herbert's courage was superb, and the reporter's ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... were drawn up like an ordinary phalanx four deep, the barbarians presenting a narrow front of twelve or thereabouts, and a very disproportionate depth. There was a moment's pause, and then the barbarians, taking the initiative, charged. There was a hand-to-hand tussle, in which any Hellene who succeeded in striking his man shivered his lance with the blow, while the Persian troopers, armed with cornel-wood javelins, speedily despatched a dozen men and a couple of horses. (11) At this point the Hellenic cavalry turned ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... ending by one going down, to be stamped on, beaten, and kicked by her opponent until rescued by the spectators, who wished only to prolong the contest. But the last round ended more disastrously; locked in a close tussle, 'Liza exerted her whole strength to lift her antagonist from the ground and hurl her down, and succeeded, falling heavily on her, then quickly disengaging herself she jumped on her as if with the object of trampling her life out, when once more the spectators rushed in and dragged her off, still ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... sufficiently understood that the learning of Latin and Greek and the forming of expensive habits at others' cost are a positive disability and handicap in the rough-and-tumble tussle of the great city, where greed and unscrupulous resolution rule, and where there are few prizes for feats of memory or taste in words. When the graduate wins in life he wins as a rule in spite of his so-called education ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... and had been in many a hand to-hand tussle before; but there was something in the character of the danger which would have made it more pleasant for him to hesitate awhile until he could learn its precise dimensions; but time was too precious, and the next moment, he had dropped directly ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... fighting; quarterstaff, single stick; gladiatorship^, gymnastics; jiujitsu, jujutsu, kooshti^, sumo; athletics, athletic sports; games of skill &c 840. shindy^; fracas &c (discord) 713; clash of arms; tussle, scuffle, broil, fray; affray, affrayment^; velitation^; colluctation^, luctation^; brabble^, brigue^, scramble, melee, scrimmage, stramash^, bushfighting^. free fight, stand up fight, hand to hand, running fight. conflict, skirmish; rencounter^, encounter; rencontre^, collision, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... physical difficulty that Mr. Smith managed to give his nephew a chance to escape into the house, for Georgie was hard and quick, and, in such matters, remarkably intense; but the minister, after a grotesque tussle, got him separated from his opponent, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington

... still lack hearers for the message which he daily grew a little more doubtful of his ability to deliver. A native streak of stubbornness kept him studying the language along with his daily tussle with the axe and saw. But the rate of his progress was such that he pessimistically calculated that it would take him at least two years before he could preach with any degree of understanding in ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... possible we got lights and examined the gentry lying about on the deck. One of them was still unconscious, the rest were pretty badly mauled about in the tussle; and Mani suggested that we had better drop them overboard to save further trouble. Her blood was up, and she was full of fight; but Hannah merely laughed, and told her not to be such a pun fia ai ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... a secluded spot far up the Yazoo River. Work on the ram was being pushed with the greatest energy; and the Union sailors, in their ships on the Mississippi, listened daily to the stories of escaping negroes, and wondered when the big ship would come down and give them a tussle. The crew of the ram were no less impatient for the fray; for they were tired of being hidden away up a little river, plagued by mosquitoes and gnats. The dark shades of the heavy forests were seldom brightened by a ray of sun. The stream was full of alligators, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... very foolish, in what she said! She, Anna Bauer, had often noticed it. Still, averse as she was from the thought, the old German woman was ruefully aware that she would have to accept Mr. Hegner's invitation. When it came to a tussle of will between the two, herself and her mistress, Mrs. Otway generally won, partly because she was, after all, Anna's employer, and also because she always knew exactly what it was she wanted Anna to do. Anna was emotional, easily touched, highly excitable; ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... food, such as it was. Field did not walk two miles during those five days, but seemed to be fattening fast. I sometimes thought he might be just a little lazy, but I never told him so, for I realized that he had recently had a severe tussle with death. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... broke the strap, sprung on the warder, and tore his rifle out of his hands. Jim-the-ladder has been a prize-fighter in his day, and there was a tussle. He leaped back on B 2001 with a howl, and the blows fell like rain-drops. There was a fearful clamor, the convicts ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... then began a tussle. He tried to wrench her hands apart, and she exerted all her strength to keep them closed. Suddenly, with a triumphant cry from Teddy, as Nancy's fingers were beginning to yield, the button was liberated with such force that it flew violently out, and splash into ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre

... yourself," said the policeman, not caring to have a single-handed tussle with the human savage, whose strength and ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... Abe." Jack Armstrong was, according to the testimony of all who remember him, a "powerful twister," "square built and strong as an ox," "the best-made man that ever lived;" and everybody knew the contest would be close. Lincoln did not like to "tussle and scuffle," he objected to "woolling and pulling;" but Offutt had gone so far that it became necessary to yield. The match was held on the ground near the grocery. Clary's Grove and New Salem turned out generally to witness the bout, ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... prancers) Came on the deck astonished, By that wild squall admonished, And wondering cried, "Potztausend, Wie ist der Stuerm jetzt brausend?" And looked at Captain Lewis, Who calmly stood and blew his Cigar in all the hustle, And scorned the tempest's tussle, And oft we've thought thereafter How he beat the storm to laughter; For well he knew his vessel With that vain wind could wrestle; And when a wreck we thought her, And doomed ourselves to slaughter, How gayly he fought ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and Sargon took and garrisoned, Samaria; but even ignorant hopes and empty promises of help cause constant unrest. Therefore Sennacherib, after drastic chastisement of the southern states in 701 (both Tyre and Jerusalem, however, kept him outside their walls), and a long tussle with Chaldaean Babylon, was impelled to set out in the last year, or last but one, of his reign for Egypt. In southern Palestine he was as successful as before, but, thereafter, some signal disaster befell him. Probably an epidemic pestilence overtook his army when not far ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... the tent when he heard his chum give utterance to a shout. He backed out again, and turning, looked hastily, half expecting to see Bob engaged in a tussle with the ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... by such violence that policemen were detailed to guard every car leaving the barns. In Chicago the freight handlers struck, and some 60,000 workmen stopped work in sympathy. On the 3d of May, at the McCormick Harvester Works, several strikers were wounded in a tussle with the police. On the following day a mass meeting held in Haymarket Square, Chicago, was harangued by a number of anarchists. When the police attempted to disperse the mob, guns were fired at the officers of the law and ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth

... friendly. In course, there is plenty of b'ars, but unless you happen to have a thundering good chance it is just as well to leave the b'ars alone, for what with the chances of getting badly mauled, and what with the weight of the skin, it don't pay even when you come right side up out of a tussle." ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... hunting one day for deer when we discovered two cougars in the grass, and we could not make out what it meant. Finally one made a spring, and it seemed to us that he jumped at least twenty feet, and he landed on a deer, and for a minute or two there was a tussle. While this was going on Jonnie and I were getting closer to them, and when they had the deer killed we were within gunshot of them, and they didn't eat much before we killed them both. We skinned the deer, and also the cougars, and took them to camp, and when we ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan

... war-horse that snuffs the fray. This time Franklin Marmion seemed to recognise the implied challenge, for he looked round the crowded theatre with a curious smile, which seemed to say: "Yes, gentlemen, I see that some of you are getting ready for a tussle. I am in hopes of ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith

... I called upon my beloved by name, I gave myself up completely and regardlessly to all the absurd folly of a love-sick lunatic, until at last the extravagant noise I made awoke my uncle. But his loud call, "Cousin, I believe you have gone cranky, or else you're having another tussle with a wolf. Be off to bed with you if you will be so very kind"—these words compelled me to enter his room, where I got into bed with the fixed resolve ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... barred—just the kind of fight Rondeau likes. Nevertheless old Duncan floored him. While he's been away somebody taught him the hammer-lock and the crotch-hold and a few more fancy ones, and he got to work on Rondeau in a hurry. In fact, he had to, for if the tussle had gone over five minutes, Rondeau's youth would ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... people. They are beginning to think that perhaps Christ was right after all in saying 'All things are possible to him that believeth,' and that it is not such a blunder after all to make faith the first step to all holiness and purity, and the secret of victory in life's tussle. Leaving out of view for the moment the supernatural effects of faith, which Christianity alleges are its constant consequences, it is clear that its natural effects are all in the direction of increasing the force of the trusting man. It calms, it heartens for all work, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... by that?" he demanded. Strong, to whom nothing would have given more joy than a tussle, bent down and peered into the ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... wheel at the beginning, and after being dragged along for some distance he let go the beast and made a grab at the wagon. The driver hit him with his whip, but he managed to get in, and after a vigorous tussle overcame his man, and disposed of him by getting him down and sitting on him. This left his hands free for the reins. By degrees he got the horse under control, and drove the wagon round to the station-house, still sitting on his victim. "I ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... no weepun but my knife; I hed let go o' my rifle when I slid from the mar's back, an' it hed gone to the bottom long since. I wan't in any condition to stand a tussle with the painter nohow; so I 'wur determined to let him alone ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... I saw the bundle of bank-notes in his hands, the sweep! I would have let him kill me sooner.... Oh, we had a sharp tussle, ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc

... would put him high enough in the water to scramble on to the ledge, and then it would have to be a tussle of physical strength, if necessary, for he meant to save Mary somehow, whether she would let him ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... Northwest River, where Mr. McLaren, the factor of the Hudson Bay Company's posts showed them every kindness till a boat was procured to take them to Rigolette. A storm and rain, catching them on a lee shore and giving the already exhausted men one more tussle with fortune to get their small vessel into a position of safety, made a ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... the next, the bulldog in the master's eye was a terror to evil-doers. At the close of school on the second day Bud was heard to give it as his opinion that "the master wouldn't be much in a tussle, but he had a heap of thunder and ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... stay over night. In the afternoon he had a stroll with Lashmar, but they did not much enjoy each other's society; Dyce took no interest whatever in sports or games, and the athletic lawyer understood by politics a recurring tussle between two parties, neither of which had it in its power to do much good or harm to the country; of philosophy and science (other than that of boxing) he knew about as much as the woman who swept his office. Privately, Mr. Kerchever ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... entertainments and deliberative proceedings of grave moment arranged for the elder portion of the great congregation. While groups of blushing lads and lasses are hunting the handkerchief in the hustle and tussle of the ring under the great, solemn elms, a scene may be witnessed on the lawn nearer the mansion that ought to have been painted long ago. Two or three double-horse wagons are ranged end to end in the shade, and planks are placed along from one end to the other, making ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... comrades, were able to pass. Just as we came up, two of these copper-coloured Dons had squeezed themselves through, without their muskets, but with their short sabres in their hands. They are active dangerous fellows those Spaniards in a hand-to-hand tussle. One of them sprang at me, and if it had not been for my hunting-knife, I was done for, for I had no room to swing my axe; but as he came on I hit him a blow with my fist, which knocked him down, and then ran my knife into him, and jumping over his body snatched a musket out of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... there stated, convey no shadow of an idea to the unlearned mind. What a tussle poor Bart had with them! How often he turned them over, and bit at and hammered them, before they could be made ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle

... He wur in the shanty when it felled. So were I m'self; but I wa'n't there long arter. I creeped out some'rs about the door; an' jest then I seed the cap, hand to hand wi' an Injun in a stan'-up tussle: but it didn't last long. The cap gi'n him a sockdolloger some'rs about the ribs, an' the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... like that," said the owner of the deep, boyish voice, and sounds of scuffling feet, the creaking of the bed, and bursts of laughter proclaimed a tussle. ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett

... that one also, I should have him in the trap. But this would be placing myself in an awkward situation. I should be in the trap as well as he, and he no nearer destruction than ever, unless I finished him by a hand-to-hand tussle. Of course, I knew I could conquer and kill the rat. My superior strength would enable me to squeeze him to death between my hands, but not without getting a good many severe bites, and the one I had got ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... the cattle-guards. A patrol was at hand to nip in the bud any interference with the work which might be contemplated. If the Boers did interfere, so much the better; interference would involve a fight, and from a friendly tussle in the sun the patrol was not averse. On the south and west sides the enemy still laboured at their fortifications. We knew not what to make of this; it nonplussed us. We had ceased ascribing it to want of knowledge: for we had, reluctantly, let it down on ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... the officers of the law knew the voice habituated to command, and answered two words of his: 'Right, my lord,' smelling my lord in the unerring manner of those days. My lord's party were escorted to the gates, not a little jeered; though they by no means had the worst of the tussle. But the puffing indignation of Sir Meesan Corby over his battered hat and torn frill and buttons plucked from his coat, and his threat of the magistrates, excited the crowd to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... latter lay down like tired animals to sleep the night through, while Barrett and his comrades watched and waited anxiously. The stormers came with the dawn, and were over the stockade before the Whites could rouse the sleepers. Then, however, after a desperate tussle—one of those sturdy hand-to-hand combats in which the Maori fighter shone—the assailants were cut down or driven headlong out. With heavy loss the astonished Waikatos recoiled in disgust, and their retreat did not cease till ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... remorselessly against us his war of surprises and massacres, I cannot tell. The alliance, however, was a fact. Defeated in his attempt to check our advance from the sea, he retreated with his usual swiftness, and preparing for another hard and hazardous tussle, began by sending his wife with the little girl across the Pequena range of mountains, on ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... his case, embalming for posterity the knowledge that Grandma Milledge was able to be out again these sunny days after a hard tussle with her old enemy sciatica. But before passing to the next item he took Gideon's choice cigar from the upper waistcoat pocket, crumpled it, rubbed it to fine bits between the palms of his hands, and filled ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... quietly watching the fun while one after another of the boys fell victim to the pony's powers. Finally, when the little animal's triumph seemed complete, Grant stepped into the ring and sprang upon his back. A tremendous tussle for the mastery immediately ensued, but though he reared and shied and kicked, the tricky little beast was utterly unable to throw its fearless young rider, and amid the shouts of the audience the clown at last stopped the contest and ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... was a tussle with lessons not glanced at since Friday night.—Besides, Laura seldom forestalled events by thinking over them, choosing rather to trust for inspiration to the spur ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson

... primaries of the older birds. It is when the young go out of the nest on their first foraging that the parents, full of a crass and simple pride, make their indescribable chucklings of gobbling, gluttonous delight. The little ones would be amusing as they tug and tussle, if one could forget what it is they ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... uproar, Dona Rita put her fingers in her ears and then suddenly changed her mind and clapped her hands over my ears. Instinctively I disengaged my head but she persisted. We had a short tussle without moving from the spot, and suddenly I had my head free, and there was complete silence. He had screamed himself out of breath, but Dona Rita muttering; "Too late, too late," got her hands away from my grip and slipping ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad

... them down without pity. Then the drums beat out a bravery, and the pirates rushed the town in the face of a smart fire. The Spaniards fought in the streets, while some fired from the roofs and upper windows. So hot was the tussle that the pirates had to fight from house to house. The townsmen did not cease their fire, till the pirates were gathering wood to burn the town, in despair ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield

... resent it; she could resent nothing Hallam ever did save that morbid talk of his. She had been fighting with this spirit ever since she could remember, and their brief "tussle" over, she crept closer to him along the ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... big bob-tailed Kitten appeared and looked innocently at him. His gun went up, as usual, but the Kitten merely cocked its head on one side and fearlessly surveyed him. Then a second one that he had not noticed before began to play with the first, pawing at its tail and inviting its brother to tussle. ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... his foot. "Take tent o' yoursel'!" he cried threateningly. "When I was tracking Stroke I fell in with one of his men, and we had a tussle. He pinked me in the hand, but 'tis only a scratch, bah! He was carrying treasure, and I took it ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... went out and roped Hatrack, and after a tussle that lasted several strenuous minutes, brought him into camp. Hatrack certainly ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... too, theaw craddinly carl!" cried Ashbead, doubling his horny fists. "Odds flesh! whey didna yo ha' a tussle wi' him? Mey honts are itchen for a bowt wi' t' heretic robbers. Walladey! walladey! that we should live to see t' oly feythers driven loike hummobees owt o' t' owd neest. Whey they sayn ot King Harry hon decreet ot we're to ha' naw more monks or friars i' aw Englondshiar. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the laugh had subsided, and Peggy had replaced the shell pins from her tumbled braids after a tussle with "the Jinx," who took all political allusions ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... Pharaoh to let my people go. But don't suppose he will consent. That wouldn't suit my plans at all. I have decided to set you two playing at the little game of 'pull Moses, pull Pharaoh,' and I shall harden his heart against your demands so that there may be a fierce tussle. But don't be afraid. I am on your side, and just at the end of the game I'll join in and pull Pharaoh clean over. And mind you tell him all along that it is my power and not yours which works all the wonders I mean you to perform, for you ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... that wild squall admonished, And wondering cried, "Potztausend! Wie ist der Sturm jetzt brausend!" And looked at Captain Lewis, Who calmly stood and blew his Cigar in all the bustle, And scorned the tempest's tussle. And oft we've thought thereafter How he beat the storm to laughter; For well he knew his vessel With that vain wind could wrestle; And when a wreck we thought her And doomed ourselves to slaughter, How gaily ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... and replied in person. His crew was good for another tussle, he said, and his train was still in readiness. He would start west at once, or the moment the despatcher could clear for him, and would be at Silver Switch as soon as the intervening miles ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... soldiers in Mafeking were disposed to grumble at the small part they seemed to be playing in the great tussle in which England was engaged, the authorities were satisfied that for so small a town to have kept occupied during the first critical month of the war 10,000—and at later stages never less than 2,000—Boers, was in itself no small ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... She'd had some hand-to-hand tussle meanwhile, Mrs. Pedders had; but she'd stuck it out noble. At the start about nine out of ten of her neighbors and kind friends was dead sure she knew where that bunch of securities was stowed, and some of 'em didn't make any bones of sayin' she ought to be in jail along with Pedders. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... Valdes, and in the fight that followed put a bullet in his leg," replied the sheriff. "It was in the tussle that Jan got his ankle sprained, but your guide landed his man. Sometimes Jan may seem slow, but in a rumpus he's a terror for speed, decision, and grit. We were heading up the White Trail, hoping to head you off, when we ran ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge

... trigger—and the steel capped ball bored a hole through the old hog big as an alarm clock. The fight was over, I feel with bruin I wakened five days later in a lath and plastered room with my son and both partners working over me. I was much surprised when they told me I had enjoyed the tussle five days before. I could not talk my tongue was fastened up so it might heal, I was all bandages and plaster paris I layed here seven weeks, then the boys carried me back to camp where I gave orders and gradually recuperated. I never recovered from the blow on my hip it will ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis

... in the hands of men, with men for principals and men to teach the higher classes. She began in 1887 by publishing a pamphlet that made a great sensation, because it demanded, what after a mighty tussle was conceded, women teachers for the higher classes in girls' schools, and for these women an academic education. In 1890 she founded, together with Auguste Schmidt and Marie Loeper-Housselle, the Allgemeine deutsche Lehrerinnen-Verein, which now has 80 branches ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... They were so badly mauled and cut up that it was necessary to withdraw them from the line to refit, and infantry from an "Old Contemptible" Division took their place. Bourlon Wood became so saturated with gas that, after a great tussle, neither side was able to tenant it any longer, and so withdrew, leaving a screen of outposts to ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... overtakes so many of the conquering race, who are proud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea—and I was young—and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour—of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad

... cruiser "Defence," a fourteen-gun brig, heard the sound of distant cannonading coming faintly over the water. All sail was crowded upon the brig, and she made all possible speed to the scene of conflict. About nightfall, she fell in with four American schooners that had just been having a tussle with two heavy British transports. Three of the American vessels were privateers, the fourth was the little cruiser "Lee" in which Capt. John Manly had done such brilliant service. The four schooners had found the transports too powerful for them, and had therefore drawn off, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... stomach as he sees the real players do over at the ball grounds. Then all of a sudden, before I knew it, I just did the same thing, and we slid to the flower pot we use as a base together, each on his own stomach. And what did Billy do but begin right there on the grass the kind of a tussle we always have in the big rocking-chair on the porch! Over and over we rolled, Billy chuckling and squealing while I laughed myself all out of breath. I'm glad I always would wear delicious petticoats, for there, looking right over my front fence, I discovered Judge Benton ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess

... his father's arm and holding his father's finger, as if he felt that justice was tempered with mercy, and had gone to sleep a sadder and wiser baby. So held, John had waited with a womanly patience till the little hand relaxed its hold, and while waiting had fallen asleep, more tired by that tussle with his son than with his whole ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... by way of answer, I will tell you the circumstance I alluded to, which was this: Last night, as I was crossing about town drumming up friends to attend the meeting tomorrow, seeing we are expecting a hard tussle, I met a man that I could have sworn was John Peters, if I had not known the fellow was close in Northampton jail; and as it was, I could swear it was his exact shape and appearance. Well, knowing it could not be him ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... through many a tight corner with credit utterly deserted us, we were washed-out things; with noses to the cold earth, like rats in a trap we waited for the next moment which might land us into eternity. The excitement of a bayonet charge, the mad tussle with death on the blood-stained field, which for some reason is called the field of honour was denied us; we had to wait and lie in the trench, which looked so like a grave, and sink slowly into the depths ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... admit the caller had the usual tussle with the door, while grandma reiterated uncomplimentary remarks about the "blessed feller" who should some time since have effected repairs, and Danby upon entering wore an extremely grave face, looked neither at Dawn nor Carry, but addressed himself ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... always went out at the same time of day. Thereafter I made it my business to pass the lady on the bridle path day after day. I pride myself on few things, but my horsemanship is one of them. Many a hard tussle and bleeding nose I got riding Brumbies across the wild tracks of Australia. I also learned a trick or two among my Tuareg friends which I exhibited for the lady's benefit on various occasions. I did not hope to gain an introduction, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... complied, and everybody gazed spellbound at the tussle for supremacy between brute force and occult science. Slowly, very slowly, science triumphed, being interrupted several times by the blood-curdling threats of Bill, as they floated down the companion-way. Then the mate suddenly lurched forward, ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... the Exchequer has a card up his sleeve intended to win this game. It would be rash to predict stubborn resistance on the part of a body that has so often proved itself open to conviction as has the House of Commons. But I should say that to secure this end it would need a tussle quite as prolonged and as violent as has raged round Home Rule. Lowering and widening the suffrage has done much to alter the personal standard of the House of Commons. Nothing achieved through these sixty years would in its modifying effect equal the potency of the change wrought ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... painful tussle in which his necktie was torn to shreds and he surrendered a certain amount of hair, but at the end of which, Miss Tootsie, tied hand and foot to a chair, was propped up against a pillar, while her conqueror proceeded to roll up his handkerchief ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... To this they strenuously objected. They were well armed, and although we outnumbered them five to three (not counting Tom), still, if they could get the first bead on us the chances were about equal. They were desperate, and not disposed to surrender their boat without a tussle. The general and I stepped into their boat, and ordered the spokesman and leader to go forward. He hesitated a moment, and two revolvers looked him in the face. Sullenly he obeyed our orders. The general said, "Wilson, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... wants to come," declared Ned. "You'd have a hard tussle trying to carry one of these fellows away ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton

... heart. If you don't, you'll not need to go to old Lagonda's pool. By the holy saints, I'll take you there myself and plunge you in just to rid the world of such a fool. You hear me! Now, go on! And remember in your tussle that that big S cut over the old Sunrise door out there stands for Service. That's what will make your name ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter

... serene and lovely mornings that sometimes succeed a storm. The birds sung loud and cheerily, the yellow corn uplifted itself in the broad fields, and waved proudly after its sharp tussle with the tempest, which had done its best to beat down the heavy ears with cruel wind and driving rain half the night through. The vine-leaves clustering round Robert's window fluttered with a joyous rustling, shaking the rain-drops in diamond ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... here—though not at all in hymeneal garb just now. Whatever my whole heart is set upon, I do, and overcome all obstacles. Remember that, and hold fast, darling. However, I had now to overcome the sea, which is worse than any tide in the affairs of men. A long and hard tussle it was, I assure you, to fight against the indraught, and to drag my frame through the long hillocky gorge. At last, however, I managed it; and to see the open waves again put strength into my limbs, and vigor into my knocked-about brain. I suppose that ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... long after Zombo's tussle with the crocodile, Disco's canoe, which chanced to be in advance, suddenly ran almost into the midst of a herd of elephants which were busy feeding on palm-nuts, of which they are very fond. Instantly the whole troop scattered and fled. Disco, taken completely by surprise, omitted his wonted ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... up and down, And watched the tawny boats go out, and heard the roaring crews? Oh, would you sit with pipe and bowl, and dream upon some sunny quay, Or would you walk the windy heath and drink the cooler air; Oh, would you seek a cradled cove and tussle with the topaz sea!— Pack up your kit to-morrow, ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service

... I was out after the horses!" He sat down, the shining spiked wheel lying in the palm of his hand, his brows drawn heavily. "While I was out there ... it happened. Some jasper came in here, there was some sort of a tussle ... and she didn't say a ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... with their sticks, regardless of all the blows aimed at them by their opponents, and drove it back again into the middle of the ground. Then on they flew to drive it back still farther. Both parties met in the centre. There was a fierce tussle. The hockey-sticks kept striking each other, but none struck the ball. Blackall had gone farther back to catch the ball, should it be driven past the front rank of his party. Ernest had retired behind his friends for the same purpose. His eye, however, never left the ball. He saw a stick ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... the Queen's Park in one of the ties, and a determined tussle it turned out to be. The "boys" bore a wild look that afternoon as they emerged from the pavilion at Hampden Park. You could read the anxious and determined character of their mission on every face. They had fully made up their minds to fight hard for the Cup, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... of his chest, he applied the turnkeys and pulled away for dear life. Unfortunately, he had got hold of the wrong tooth, and the poor man screamed as loud as he could; but it was to no purpose, for Sam had him fast, and after a pretty severe tussle out came the sound grinder. The young doctor now saw his mistake, but consoled himself with the thought that as the wrong tooth was out of the way, there was more room to ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... be two sets of War Aims kept in mind; we ought to know what we mean to do in the event of victory so complete that we can dictate what terms we choose, and we ought to know what, in the event of a not altogether conclusive tussle, are the minimum terms that we should consider justified us in a discontinuance of the tussle. Now, unless our leading statesmen are humbugs and unless we are prepared to quarrel with America in the interests of the monarchist institutions of Europe, ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... clutch the stick often whirled around and around like the sails of a windmill, so that if Barney chanced to come within the circle it described, he got as hard knocks from her feeble arm as he could have had in a tussle with big Nick Gregory. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... thirsty bludgeon, but surreptitiously steals the inevitable sausages. Exit clown. Punch, already irritated at having missed clown, misses sausages, and exit in high dudgeon. Re-enter Judy, followed by sausaged clown, who comforts her. (Oh, Judy!) Re-enter Punch. Justifiable tussle. Punch sees sausages and begins to find his length. Clown sees stars and exit. Punch knocks out Judy with a left hook. To him, gloating, enter constable. It seems Judy's knock-out more serious than usual. Constable ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... respects, a warm friend, an excellent magistrate, a kind landlord, good all round. I can scarcely believe it yet. A burglar, of course. I suppose he entered the house for the purpose of robbery, when your father awoke and jumped out of bed, there was a tussle, and the scoundrel killed him; at least, that is what I gather from the story that the ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... of athletic sports, chief of which is the favourite khoosthee or wrestling. There is generally some wary old veteran, who has won his spurs, or laurels, or belt, or whatever you choose to call it, in many a hard fought and well contested tussle for the championship of his little world; he is 'up to every dodge,' and knows every feint and guard, every wile and tactic of the wrestling ground. It is generally in some shady grove, secluded and cool; here of an evening when the labours of the day are over, the most stalwart sons ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... him as she could, and on the click of the door they had darted apart as quickly as possible, covered with confusion. Frau von Kerich had pretended to see nothing. Minna was almost sorry. She would have liked a tussle with her mother; it would have ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... the sort, if no less violent, had certainly become fewer. The moment therefore that symptoms of an approaching fit showed themselves, he used his spiked heels with vigour. Upon this occasion he had a stiff tussle with her, but as usual gained the victory, and was riding slowly along the Row, Kelpie tossing up now her head now her heels in indignant protest against obedience in general and enforced obedience in particular, when a lady on horseback, who had come galloping from the ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... goes on, 'she's too fine, too high—I wasn't her breed. An' I ought to have seen it.' Yere he has a tussle to hang on. ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... old priest, who looked from his peaceful haven with dreamy eyes upon the sweat and tussle of the world's battle. Had he instead been in the thick of the fight, it might have been harder for him to believe that his enemies ever had right upon ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle

... He had hands of steel and velvet, and fear was an unknown quantity to him. Ann watched the ensuing tussle between man and beast with unequivocal admiration. The mare, a big raking bay, with black points and a white blaze, sulkily obeyed her rider's curbing hands upon the bridle whilst they rode through the lanes, but when they emerged ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... famous, and he had a very poor opinion of their fighting qualities. He was a tall, spare man with a hollow-cheeked, ugly face, and a disagreeable manner. He had a great opinion of himself, and boasted to such purpose that the Americans believed him to be a military genius. And in this first tussle with the British in the south he did so well that their belief in him seemed justified. He seemed to the people a hero and a genius rolled in one. In all the war after he did nothing to uphold the fame he gained ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... changes of prospect. Cheetham in the last dog watch was running the ship through sludgy new ice, making with all sail set four or five knots. Bruce, in the first, took over as we got into heavy ice again; but after a severe tussle got through into better conditions. The ice of yesterday loose with sludgy thin floes between. The middle watch found us making for an open lead, the ice around hard and heavy. We got through, and by sticking to the open water and then ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... housemaids and pageboys whenever there is a jolt in the machinery has landed them in expensive disasters, time out of mind. And then, it hopelessly cuts off all margin of income for every other purpose. It is all rather discouraging for the hero of this petty, yet gigantic tussle, for he works, so to speak, in a hostile camp, with no sympathy from his entirely unconscious spouse, whom popular sentiment nevertheless regards as the gallant protector ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... kiss, it would make you brave. You have to go cold into a battle that needs warmth, out into the muddle that you have made yourself; and your mother and all your friends will despise you, oh, my darling, and rightly, if it is ever right to despise. George still dark, all the tussle and the misery without a word from him. Am I justified?" Into his own eyes tears came. "Yes, for we fight for more than Love or Pleasure; there is Truth. Truth ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... to come out then, and did so, both much disheveled by the late tussle, for Sancho's cap was all over one eye, and Betty's hood was anywhere but on her head. She made her courtesy prettily, however; her fellow-actor bowed with as much dignity as a short night-gown permitted, and they retired ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... it gives me joy to record one good thing on the part of the mate. He saw the fray, and its beginning; and rushing forward, told Max that he would harm the boys at his peril; while he cheered them on, as if rejoiced at their giving the fellow such a tussle. At last Max, sorely scratched, bit, pinched, and every way aggravated, though of course without a serious bruise, cried out "enough!" and the assailants were ordered to quit him; but though the three O'Briens obeyed, the three O'Regans hung on to him like leeches, and ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... circumstances. Spanish troops had taken up a position east of the Sabine River, on what was American soil; and only an overt act was needed to precipitate war. Every frontiersman was preparing for a tussle with the hated Spaniard. In the event of war Burr knew well enough that an expedition against Mexico would be countenanced by the government at Washington. Whether or no war with Spain would occur depended upon the cooperation of General Wilkinson, for he had been charged by the Secretary ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... and they began to curse and swear at each other; Crass accusing Sawkins of intending to take the things to the marine stores and sell them. Sawkins seized hold of the bundle with the object of replacing it on the cart, but Crass got hold of it as well and they had a tussle for it—a kind of tug of war—reeling and struggling all over the shop. cursing and swearing horribly all the time. Finally, Sawkins—being the better man of the two—succeeded in wrenching the bundle away and put it on the cart again, and then Crass hurriedly put on his coat and said he ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... in height and of massive proportions. He would have been an ugly customer in a tussle where the conditions were equal, and Ashman could not forbear the thought that he was one of the contestants in the frightful sport he had witnessed near the village. If so, there was little doubt that he was hailed the champion. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... I saw a tussle between two drunken harlots for the possession of a headless dummy taken from a draper's shop, and noted a youngster go up to the very steps of the Provisional Government House of the New Republic of Ireland and amuse the armed rebels ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard

... you, my Lord, a polish'd gentleman, A bookman, flying from the heat and tussle, You lived among your vines and oranges, In your soft Italy yonder! You were sent for. You were appeal'd to, but you still preferr'd Your learned leisure. As for what I did I suffer'd and repented. ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... on end and my teeth chattering. But I responded, I suppose, to some little pulse of manly obstinacy that beat somewhere in me. I would not be beaten by the Creature. Even in the middle of it I realised that this was the hardest tussle of my life and worth fighting. I know too that some thought of Nikitin came to me as though, in some way, my failure would damage him. I remembered that night of the Retreat when he had helped me and, as though he were appealing visibly to me there in the room, I responded; I seemed to feel ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole

... believe they grow there! But I'll have 'em out! Whack! there goes the general. Come out, I say!" He wrestled fiercely with an enormous Britisher, disguised as a stalk of pig-weed, and, after a breathless tussle, dragged him bodily out of the ground, and flung his headless corpse on the neighbouring pile ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... and for the first time in the game a cry began to arise for a touchdown, that only students hungry for a touchdown can emit. Louder and more insistent it grew in volume as the players began to settle back again for a renewal of the desperate tussle. Even many Marshall fellows took part in the demand, for, as they loudly proclaimed, it would make the game much more interesting if their team had a handicap in the start to fight against, since they always did their best work when forced ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... peasant, short, thick-set and muscular, but assuredly no Sancho: a quiet quick-eyed man, with a curious neat grace in his movements. Our tussle had not heated him in the least. His right fist rested on my back, and I knew he had a knife in it; and while I gasped for breath he watched me, his left hand hovering in front of my mouth to stop the first outcry. Through his spread ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... youth. Think also of the collecting mania, which among primitives was less strong than is ordinarily supposed, but which in early boyhood reaches forth its hands, industriously, if not always wisely, after concrete, tactual knowledge and proprietorship. So also with the impulse to tussle and to revel in the excitement of a contest; inhibited, it explodes; neglected, it degenerates; but directed it goes far toward the making of a man. Evidence of this intensity, zest, and pressure of young life is never wanting. Disorder "rough-house," ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... he said, "and Taylor is pushing their left smartly. They will make one more tussle to recover their line of retreat; but we shall smash them from end to end ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... encounter was a tussle between two-score warriors, who all in a mass, writhed like the limbs in Sebastioni's painting of Hades. After obscuring themselves in a cloud of dust, these combatants, uninjured, but hugely blowing, drew off; and separately going among the spectators, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... the first time the announcement had been made from the ring. Mr. Sparling had given his consent, even though he had not seen the act. He had, however, observed Teddy engaged in a tussle with the beast that afternoon, and could readily understand that what Teddy told him about January's contrariness was ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... and wild and lonesome." On the right hand, scrub firs, their spirits quite unbroken by long years of tussle with the gulf winds, grew thickly. On the left were the steep red sandstone cliffs, so near the track in places that a mare of less steadiness than the sorrel might have tried the nerves of the people behind her. Down at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandy ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... ranks in 1811, fought against Wellington; and who, in 1815, rallied to the English standard, fought against Napoleon. The loss in officers was considerable. Lord Uxbridge, who had his leg buried on the following day, had his knee shattered. If, on the French side, in that tussle of the cuirassiers, Delort, l'Heritier, Colbert, Dnop, Travers, and Blancard were disabled, on the side of the English there was Alten wounded, Barne wounded, Delancey killed, Van Meeren killed, Ompteda killed, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Then followed a mighty tussle in Cleopatra's heart. The influence the elder daughter had always exercised over the mother's mind now presented itself as a temptation, as a weapon she might use in a threatened struggle. But it must not be ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... hand plunged through the dark, seized the sentry, and dragged him from the gate. The sentry drew his sword and shouted, "To arms!" A band of Frenchmen sallied from the gates with swords and muskets. In the tussle the sentry was rescued, and gifts were sent out in the morning to pacify the wounded Mohawks. Fortunately the besieged had plenty of food inside the stockades; but the Iroquois knew there could be no escape till the ice ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... his evening paper, imparting occasional choice bits to his wife and his eldest daughter, Julia, who were dealing with a heap of mending. The two younger children were playing lotto, while Ned was having a hand-to-hand tussle with his Cicero, a foeman likely to prove worthy ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller

... were greatly damaged, and in some momentary confusion from this cause the Tom seized an opportunity of pouring in her boarders, while the Bona redoubled her fire, both of great guns and musketry, to cover their attack. After a fierce tussle the Americans were driven back to their own ship; but this success was won by the loss of four of Captain Cock's best hands, who received disabling wounds in the fight. Thereupon both privateers resumed the cannonade, maintaining the positions which they had taken up at the commencement ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... he placed the buck at the foot of the pole, covered it with an armful of reeds, took a long look around, and started off once more. He was resolved to keep straight on, path or no path, but after a tussle with the serried ranks of reeds, with their razor- like leaves, he soon gave up that idea as hopeless, and took again to the paths—going very slowly, and taking his direction at intervals. But, try as he would, there were the kinks and twists in the paths which ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville

... went to the open window. The tussle between them had come. It would need all his strength to keep himself free from this man's toils. However generous in appearance, Christopher knew they were toils for him, ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... the wish; in fact you have injured him seriously, and we must do all in our power to alleviate his pain. I will go in the morning and see Dr. Green. I shall, of course, tell him that the boy was hurt in a tussle with you, and that you are very sorry about it. The fact that he is some two years older, as you say, and ever so much stronger and bigger, is in itself a proof that you were not likely to have wantonly provoked a fight ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... I did not, he attacked again, and, though I managed to give him several telling blows, he closed with me before I could avoid him, and in the tussle which followed I went down heavily, my head coming in ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... is another thing we must bear in mind," said Clif, who had been doing some quick thinking. "I'd like nothing better than to give them a lively tussle. But here are these important dispatches. They must not fall into Spanish hands. The New York will soon be due. If we ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... author had made a hero of Thomas Alva Edison, and called him by his name, that I could not accomplish more than two chapters. Later I was again informed that "L'Eve Future" was a really fine novel, and I had another brief tussle with it, and was vanquished by its dullness. I received a third warning, and started yet again, and disliked the book rather less, and then I completely lost it in a removal. After months or years it mysteriously ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett

... a tussle, as you shall live to see; My shoes are not quite ready yet,—don't think you're rid of me! Old Parr was in his lusty prime when he was older far, And where will you be if I live to beat ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... whaler BLENNERDALE, running into the lagoon for repair, had been cut off with all hands. In similar fashion had the crew of the GASKET, a sandalwood trader, perished. There was a big French bark, the TOULON, becalmed off the atoll, which the islanders boarded after a sharp tussle and wrecked in the Lipau Passage, the captain and a handful of sailors escaping in the longboat. Then there were the Spanish pieces, which told of the loss of one of the early explorers. All this, of the vessels named, is a matter of history, and is to be found in the SOUTH PACIFIC ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... to trust your judgment, Dick. Besides, I've got other fish to fry. I'm going east to-night to have one more tussle with the steel mills. We must have quicker deliveries and more of them. When I get back, we'll organize the track-layers and begin to make ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... either," returned Lester. "I was so worked up over that tussle with the shark that I didn't have time to think of anything else. But now I'm hungry enough to ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport

... while we were sitting at table. I had a tussle with my melancholy madman—because I couldn't help thinking of the little Jorgen. God knows, I told myself, no little Jorgen has come to carry on your name, and the boy's a weakling, and you've no one else to build on! It's all very well ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... with word of their weakness, though they plant a fatal bullet neatly in the back of one poor loyalist. If they had advanced promptly on the 4th, as planned, they might have given Sir Francis Bond Head and Fitzgibbons a stiff tussle for possession of the city, for Toronto's defenders at this time numbered scarcely three hundred; but during the days MacKenzie's followers delayed north of Yonge Street, Allan McNab came up from Hamilton with more troops. By Wednesday, the 6th, there were twelve hundred ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... on those terms. I damned him to his face and he tried to shut the door on me. We were talking at the front door all this while, I may mention. I got my foot in the way, and as I was always a bit stronger than Simon, I had that door open after a tussle and then I followed him into ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston

... of a tussle; you see I'd bruised and sprained myself so badly; but I got out after a bit, and—and—made an old man who was passing down the main road with a horse and cart hear me. The rest was ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... the Devil. "We will have a tussle. I'll give you land enough; and by means of that land I will ...
— What Men Live By and Other Tales • Leo Tolstoy

... another, and at last he came back, wet and dripping from his tussle with the river, and cursing the very ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... not pleasant to put it on record that Wort did rebel. He refused to hold out his hand, and when Sid seized him he resisted. Then a tussle set in, and it was doubtful whether the teacher would floor the scholar, or the scholar floor the teacher. But they drew off and scowled at one ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand

... tussle between Mr. Matheson and Mr. Anderson was carried to the 18th green, where the latter ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various

... last chapter of "The Brokenhearted Bride," also received a nod, and returned it apathetically. Pete Hamilton, however, got a flabby handshake, a wheezy laugh, and the announcement that he was down from Shoshone for a good, gamy tussle with that four-pounder he had lost ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... Crimie took the situation into his own hands, slipped his cable, grabbed the book as he went and rolled over a couple of yards with a delighted giggle. Billy Bob, seeing his treasure captured, instantly followed and there forthwith ensued a tussle that was the height of delight to the two ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... a good look-out; he intends to fight, I'll answer for it. We must not surrender up millions to these French scoundrels without a tussle." ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Mr. Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, made a professional reputation for himself in the committee-rooms of the Houses of Parliament, he had many a sharp tussle with one of those venal witnesses who, during the period of excitement that terminated in the disastrous railway panic, were ready to give scientific evidence on engineering questions, with less regard to truth than to the interests of the persons who paid for their ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... by looks, captain," replied the youth quickly,—"especially the looks of a man who has just had a hand-to-hand tussle with a savage. But, to tell the plain truth, Captain Gascoyne, I would indeed rather have had to thank your worthy man John Bumpus than yourself for coming to my aid; for although I owe you no grudge, and do not count you an enemy, I ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne



Words linked to "Tussle" :   scrap, struggle, contend, scuffle, fight, disarrange, fighting, combat, muss



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org