"Axeman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Army of Northern Virginia was fortunate when he had his flour, meat, sugar, and coffee all at the same time and in proper quantity. Having these, the most skillful axeman of the mess hewed down a fine hickory or oak, and cut it into "lengths." All hands helped to "tote" it to the fire. When wood was convenient, the fire was large, the red coals abundant, ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... indiscreet in his charities that his wife and children were often driven to vain protest against the excesses of his almsgiving. The old Puritan fanaticism was rampant in him; and when he sailed for Louisbourg, he took with him an axe, intended, as he said, to hew down the altars of Antichrist and demolish his idols. [Footnote: Moody found sympathizers in his iconoclastic zeal. Deacon John Gray of Biddeford wrote to Pepperrell: "Oh that I could be with you and dear Parson ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... leaves, and he wasn't so busy that he couldn't see them moving about among the trees. He was very much astonished. He wondered where so many of the Lion family came from, and what they were doing there, but he didn't stop to ask any questions. He dropped his axe and climbed ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... home a bundle of wood, and as they were resting their burdens on the ground, the old man hearing a strange noise, looked about, and saw a tiger running off with his wife in his mouth. He ran after them, and struck the tiger on the back with a small axe: the tiger dropt the wife, who was soon after brought to me. One of her breasts was almost entirely taken away, and the other much lacerated: she had also several deep wounds in the back of her neck, by which I imagine the tiger struck at her with his two fore paws; ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... will be my ruin! Thou must cut it down."—"Nay!" said he, "how can I cut down the fairest ornament of my garden?"—"Down it must come, and down it shall come!" replied the Tsarivna. Then they sent for an axe and made ready to cut it down, but the damsel came running up, and said, "Oh, darling little cherry-tree, darling little cherry-tree, so fair thou art! From a horse hast thou sprung, and now they will fell ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... was out of the barrel; and the captain took a lighted stick out of the fire to blow himself and me up, because there was a vessel then in sight coming in, which he supposed was a Spaniard, and he was afraid of falling into their hands. Seeing this I got an axe, unnoticed by him, and placed myself between him and the powder, having resolved in myself as soon as he attempted to put the fire in the barrel to chop him down that instant. I was more than an hour in this situation; during which he struck ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... at one place in the ceiling bursting a hole, and cutting a narrow joist almost in two. Then he opened a drawer, got an ax and a saw out, and tried to wade to the bed; but the water now took him off his feet, and he had to swim to it instead; he got on it, and with his axe and his saw he contrived to paddle the floating bed under the hole in the ceiling, and then with a few swift and powerful blows of his ax soon enlarged that aperture sufficiently; but at that moment the water carried the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... of Brissotins and Girondins. The Comit de Salut Public decreed forced loans and the leve en masse. Foreigners were expelled from the Convention and imprisoned throughout France. Mayor Bailly, Mme. Roland, Manuel, and their friends, passed under the axe. The same fate befell the Girondins, a party of phrase-makers who have enjoyed a posthumous sentimental reputation, but who, when living, had not the energy and active courage to back their fine speeches. The reductio ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... 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. Looking ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... feeling Can e'er exist 'twixt ye and me? Go on, your souls in vices steeling; The lyre's sweet voice is dumb to ye: Go! foul as reek of charnel-slime, In every age, in every clime, Ye aye have felt, and yet ye feel, Scourge, dungeon, halter, axe, and wheel. Go, hearts of sin and heads of trifling, From your vile streets, so foul and stifling, They sweep the dirt—no useless trade! But when, their robes with ordure staining, Altar and sacrifice disdaining, Did e'er your priests ply broom and spade? 'Twas not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... passed the corner of the camp, two men with great axe-headed spear things performed curious evolutions with their cumbersome weapons, finally laying the business ends of them on the ground as the gentleman ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... exclaimed to Edric, Earl of Northumberland: 'Then let him receive his deserts, that he may not betray us as he betrayed Ethelred and Edmund!' upon which the ready Norwegian disposed of all fear on that score by cutting down the boaster with his axe, and throwing his body into ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the office, and spent the day in reading proofs, superintending the execution of orders, and looking after the affairs of the printing-house. He said not a word to David. While youth bears a child's heart, it is capable of sublime reticence. Perhaps, too, Lucien began to dread the Phocion's axe which David could wield when he chose, perhaps he was afraid to meet those clear-sighted eyes that read the depths of his soul. But when he read Chenier's poems with David, his secret rose from his heart to his ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... gentleman coming near the axe, the King said, "Take heed of the axe, pray take heed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... many farm purposes. Having carefully saved the cedar, the rancher will fire his clearing, thus getting rid of a large share of the logger's waste with practically no labor. To the task of disposing of the remaining logs and stumps he will bring modern tools and methods into action. The axe and shovel and hand lever have given place to gunpowder, the donkey engine, derrick and winch. Stump powder puts all the big stumps into pieces easily. The modern stump-puller lifts out the smaller stumps with ease. The donkey engine and derrick pull together and pile ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... knees, advanced towards us. He was a good-looking youngish man, though his face, naturally fair, was bronzed by summer suns and winter blasts. He was dressed in a blue blanket coat trimmed with red, a cloth cap of the same colour, with a broad peak, and ornamented moccasins. An axe and long knife were stuck in his belt; he had a serviceable-looking rifle in his hand, and behind his shoulders was strapped a pack, containing his buffalo robe and blanket, some provisions apparently; and several other requisite articles. He put out his ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... very fierce. He developed an unsuspected genius for the arts of a wild and hunted existence. He learned to creep into villages without betraying his presence by anything more than an occasional faint jingle. He broke into outhouses with an axe he managed to purloin in a wood-cutters' camp. In the deserted tracts of country he lived on wild berries and hunted for honey. His clothing dropped off him gradually. His naked tawny figure glimpsed vaguely through the bushes ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... from the River Gate, where I was, I believe, the first to applaud one of the Patres Conscripti (commanding the Axe-and-Crowbar Volunteers), who set a fine example by actually starting on the demolition of the bridge himself. Already you could see the Tuscan hordes in the swarthy dust that shrouded the Western horizon. I was myself in a position to pick out ASTUR, who was girt with the brand which ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... when he paid his enthusiastic tribute to the Grand Republic, now kept recurring to him, and in this moment the paradox seemed cruel. The Grand Republic, what did it care for such as he? A pair of brawny arms fit to wield the pick-axe and to steer the plow it received with an eager welcome; for a child-like, loving heart and a generously fantastic brain, it had but the stern greeting of ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... more the rifle came up to place and, waiting for a heartbeat, to press the trigger, he paused an instant. Flame shot again in the gray morning light from the hot muzzle. The rifle fell away from the shoulder. The black speck running toward the ranch-house stumbled, as if stricken by an axe, and sprawled headlong on the trail. Throwing the lever again like lightning, de Spain held the rifle back to ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... the army, happened at this place. A big strapping fellow by the name of Tennessee Thompson, always carried bigger burdens than any other five men in the army. For example, he carried two quilts, three blankets, one gum oil cloth, one overcoat, one axe, one hatchet, one camp-kettle, one oven and lid, one coffee pot, besides his knapsack, haversack, canteen, gun, cartridge- box, and three days' rations. He was a rare bird, anyhow. Tennessee usually had his hair cut short on one side and ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... with the axe in the woodshed but it was so long that the handle dragged on the ground and he could sit on it. He had likewise pinned a Harding and Coolidge button on his sleeve and pretended it was a signalling ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... floor. Bound round and round, twisted and intertangled, and finally tied with a special and secret knot (the ends being concealed), the thong of leather secured the contents of the chest from prying eyes or thievish hands. With axe or knife, of course, the knot might easily have been severed, but no one could obtain access to the room except the retainers of the house, and which of them, even if unfaithful, would dare to employ such means in view of the certain punishment ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... streets of Tewkesbury, heaped with corpses of the panic-struck Welshmen whom the townsmen slaughtered without pity; and there was no attack as the little force fell back through the darkness and big thunder-drops in despair upon Kenilworth. "I may hang up my axe," are the bitter words which a poet attributes to their leader, "for feebly have I gone"; and once within the castle he gave way to a wild sorrow, day after day tasting neither meat ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... and his party pioneered their way to the patent, in the best manner they could. This party consisted of Nick, who went in the capacity of hunter, an office of a good deal of dignity, and of the last importance, to a set of adventurers on an expedition of this nature. Then there were eight axe-men, a house- carpenter, a mason, and a mill-wright. These, with Captain Willoughby, and an invalid sergeant, of the name of Joyce, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... thee I call on, mankind maid, That at thy birth mad'st the poor smith afraid. Who with his axe ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... ship, and I had grave doubts of my ability to cover safely the distance between. Finally I attempted it, and, aside from the slight incidents of blacking one eye in an unexpected diversion to the rail, and subsequently being hurled violently against the back of an axe nailed to the wall, I made the passage in safety. Aunt Nancy was not in her cabin, but a hollow groan from the upper berth betrayed the fact that her room-mate was. From this lady I was unfortunately unable to extract ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... cloaks, hats, red cans, Spanish blankets, axe heads, hammers, short pieces of iron, slight bells, low priced gloves, leather bags, and any other ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... The ornamented part, on a larger scale. 3. A cap ornamented with feathers, and girt with a sligg. 4. A comb. 5. A becket, or piece of cord made of cocoa-nut bark, used in throwing their lances. 6 and 7. Different clubs. 8. A pick-axe used in cultivating the ground. 9. ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... vengeance on the ropes around him, and severed them with his sharp teeth as completely and smoothly as if they had been cut with a knife. But when his head was nearly cut off, and his skull beat in by the cook's axe and handspikes, the shark, finding further resistance impossible as well as useless, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... from Philosophy man learn'd to tame The soil, by plenty to intemperance fed. Lo! from the echoing axe and thundering flame, Poison and plague and yelling rage are fled. The waters, bursting from their slimy bed, Bring health and melody to every vale: And, from the breezy main, and mountain's head, Ceres and Flora, to the sunny dale, To fan their glowing ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... frost, and brought them in by the fire to see their vital forces set going again by the heat. I have brought in the grubs of borers and the big fat grubs of beetles, turned out of their winter beds in old logs by my axe and frozen like ice-cream, and have seen the spark of life rekindle ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... hoof-beating on the dry, hard earth. He seemed to see, as through a veil, scores of Indians, Indians afoot and on horseback, naked Indians and Indians in soldier clothes. Once he thought he saw a white face gleam just as he got to his feet, but at that moment the big chief stood before him, his battle-axe uplifted. The engineer's head was whirling. Instinctively he tried to use the strong right arm, but it had lost its cunning. The roar of battle grew apace, the axe descended, the left arm went up and took the blow of the ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... Verdun, what chance was there for Paris? Those few weeks of warning and preparation saved France, and left Germany as she now is, like a weary and furious bull, tethered fast in the place of trespass and waiting for the inevitable pole-axe. ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rag from the shattered jaw; a shriek, and the crowd laugh, and the axe descends amidst the shout of the countless thousands, and blackness rushes on thy soul, Maximilien Robespierre! So ended the Reign ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... running out in mortal fear: "The seneschal," she said, "was in my house, Had ordered her to get a bath prepared, And thereupon had taken unseemly freedoms, From which she rid herself and flew to me." Armed as I was I sought him, and my axe Has given his ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... him mad and he went crazy. He came at me with the axe and I threw him over my shoulder. He fell on the blade and cut an artery. Slim bled to death on ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... Patty to herself, "not so worse, Miss Fairfield, not so worse! The axe is laid at the root ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... from the windows. Some stood along outside the houses, others climbed upon their shoulders, on these again others took their places, and so on until living ladders were formed, up which a score of men climbed the roofs. These set to work with axe and hatchet, tearing off the tiles and hacking down rafters, while their comrades in the houses hewed away at floors and staircases. In less than a quarter of an hour four houses on either side of those in flames were completely ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... from the floor,' said the Health Officer. The man, who informed us that his name was William McNamara, 'from Innis, in the County Clare, siventeen miles beyand Limerick,' readily complied, and taking an axe dug up a board without much trouble, as the boards were decayed, and right underneath we found the top of the brick drain, in a bad state of repair, the fecal matter oozing up with a rank stench. Every one stooped down to look at this proof of sanitary disregard, and while ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... curious interest. Like all the ancient cities of the South, she fell into the hands of many a wild and alien foe, and at length in 737, Charles Martel arrived at her gates. Grossly ignorant of art, no thing of beauty that stood in his path escaped fire and axe; and smoke-marks along the arena walls show to-day how narrowly they escaped the irreparable destruction which had wiped out the Forum, the Capitol, the Temple, the Baths, and all the magnificence of Roman Narbonne. To both the early and the later Middle Ages, Roman remains had scarcely ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... Raises the voice which gives the cheer, First in the track of wolf or bear. His master voice drives them along To Hel—a destined, trembling throng; And Nokve's ship, with glancing sides, Must fly to the wild ocean's tides.— Must fly before the king who leads Norse axe-men ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... gave us a year more each, by way of compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64, strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,—a mighty wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... soon entered the cottage, with his axe in his hand; he listened to his wife's lamentations, while the two Children told the story of their adventures over again and asked him what he had ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... privateer or pirate," sung out another voice. This was followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when the spike of a butcher's axe is driven through a bullock's forehead deep ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... eyes, he could not at first remember what he was awakened for, nor how he came to be upon the floor. 'Come,' said Mazzuolo, 'come, she's fast asleep; I have just been to her room to look at her. You must step down now to the carriage and bring up the axe ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... Fisher, has fallen from the grasp of the "bottled" chieftain, whether from an invincible repugnance to warlike deeds, like that which pervaded the valiant soul of the renowned Falstaff, or because an axe on the public grindstone is a more congenial weapon in the itching palm of a Knight of Spoons, has not yet been determined with ...
— The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons • James Fairfax McLaughlin
... said she. (He had his visor down, and a battle-axe in his mailed hands.) "I like to imagine that he may have been my twentieth great-grandfather. I come and sit here, and gaze at him and shiver. Think what a terrible time it must have been to live in—when men wore things like that! It ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... so noble a tree. I loved it,—I reverenced it. I associated with it the idea of strength and protection. Had I seen the woodman's axe touch its bark, I should have felt as if blood would stream from its venerable trunk. A circular bench with a back formed of boughs woven in checker-work surrounded it, and at twilight the soft sofas in the drawing-room were left vacant for ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Axe in hand, he set to work. He had learned the first lesson of manual labor—that a man cannot swing his arms and breathe deeply if his body is swaddled in clothes. His coat came off and his vest and his hat, all slung across a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... whom he receives his pay, is not likely to be trusted by us. I know your character, that is sufficient. Now, although the government make no difference between one party or the other, with the exception that some may be honoured with the axe instead of the gibbet, you will observe what we do: and as our lives are already forfeited by attainder, we make no scruple of putting out of the way any one whom we may even suspect of betraying us. Nay, more; we can ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... who trust in Him; yea, He provideth for us occasions of striving, to the end that we may win the victory. If we look upon our progress in religion as a progress only in outward observances and forms, our devoutness will soon come to an end. But let us lay the axe to the very root of our life, that, being cleansed from affections, we may possess our ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... my hurry and excitement I forgot the key to the underground storeroom where I had put the explosive. I knew there was no time to get another, so I took a chance and burst in the door with an axe I found in ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... for a moment and give, and then I was jabbing down through the bars, amidst squeals from the darkness, and Cavor had snapped off the other spear, and was leaping and flourishing it beside me, and making inefficient jabs. Clang, clang, came up through the grating, and then an axe hurtled through the air and whacked against the rocks beyond, to remind me of the fleshers at the ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... great brawny Swazi, who had been working for me at Pilgrims' Rest, laughed, rose, and stretched himself, then calling to Jim-Jim to bring the axe and a reim, started off in the moonlight towards a clump of sugar-bush where we cut our fuel from some dead trees. He was a fine fellow in his way, was Pharaoh, and I think that he had been named Pharaoh ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... suggestive equipment of an American railway carriage is the axe and crowbar suspended on the wall for use in an accident. This makes one reflect that there are only two doors in an American car containing sixty people, whereas the same number of passengers in Europe ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Lord North divided the real power under the nominal lead of the Duke of Portland. Members saw Lord North squeezed up on the Treasury bench between two men who had a year before been daily menacing him with the axe and the block; and it was not North whom they blamed, but Burke and Fox. Burke had returned to the Pay-Office. His first act there was unfortunate. He restored to their position two clerks who had been suspended for malversation, and against whom proceedings were then pending. ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the coming foe, Who in their vengeance were not slow. Stones showered from the assailing crew, In pieces every window flew, Then, with a loud and savage yell They rushed to storm the citadel! A gun-barrel through a broken pane Made the invaders pause again, A sharp axe sticking through another, Their thirst for slaughter seemed to smother; A battle council then took place, And very soon there was no trace, Of conflict or of bloody fray Round where the Sleavin's stood at bay! Thus ended By-town's first old Fair, A Donnybrook ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... cheeks upon the man whom she deemed some mighty wizard, strong in sorcery and the black art. These were mystic Rhunes he had recited, and magic characters he had traced in the air. Not for the glancing axe or the well-sharpened knife, if he had brandished these before her eyes, would they have blinked, or would she have winced; but she winced now when he made the sign of the cross upon her brow and bosom, and she stood now like a tame bird, her head ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only a few years since was practised in enlightened England:—a convicted traitor, perhaps a man found guilty of honesty, patriotism, and suchlike heinous crimes, had his head lopped off with a huge axe, his bowels dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body, carved into four quarters, was with his head exposed upon pikes, and permitted to rot and fester among the ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the hole with a net-float. Happily he had a knife in his pocket. He then joined strong lines together until he thought he had length enough, secured the last end to a bar of the grate, and knocked out both sashes of the window with an axe. A passage thus cleared, he floated out first a chair, then a creepie, and one thing after another, to learn from what point to start the barrel. Seeing and recognizing them from above, Mistress Mac Pholp raised a terrible outcry. In the very presence of her drowning husband, such a ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... that his report was true, Mr. Gordon ran towards the place where the Commodore and his people were at work, and being fresh and in breath easily out stripped the Gloucester's man, and got before him to the Commodore, who, on hearing this happy and unexpected news, threw down his axe with which he was then at work, and by his joy broke through for the first time the equable and unvaried character which he had hitherto preserved. The others who were with him instantly ran down to the seaside in a kind of frenzy, ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... of them, intimate friends of Morus retained their former opinion. Partly he admits that there may latterly have been such repudiations, but not till there was danger in being thought the author. Any criminal will deny his crime in sight of the axe; and, apart from the punishment which Morus had reason to expect when he knew that Milton's reply to the Regii Sanguinis Clamor was forthcoming, what had not the author of that book to dread after the Peace between the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... there is game afoot which it may need such bold hunters as thyself to follow. Come with us and take a firkin of canary, and we will find better work for that glaive of thine than getting its owner into broil and bloodshed; for, by my troth! Milan or no Milan, if my curtel axe do but ring against that morion of thine it will be an ill day ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be some disloyal Catholics, And many heretics loyal; heretic throats Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane, But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord. To take the lives of others that are loyal, And by the churchman's pitiless doom of fire, Were but a thankless policy in the crown, Ay, and against itself; ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... terrible. His mouth was open, and it was eight inches from jaw to jaw; his lips were drawn up until his white teeth and his red gums were bared; muscles stood out like cords on his nostrils, and between his eyes was a furrow like the cleft made by an axe in the trunk of a pine. His eyes shone with the glare of red garnets, their greenish-black pupils almost obliterated by the ferocious fire that was in them. Man, facing Thor in this moment, would have known that only one ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... had gone to speak with Mrs. Drane, Mike repaired to the woodshed, where, picking up an axe, he stood for some moments regarding a short, knotty log on end in front of ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... in which last lived the text-writers and rosary-makers. The mercers lived mainly in Cheapside, the drapers in Lombard Street (they were mostly Italians, as the name shows), the furriers in Saint Mary Axe, the fishmongers in Knightriders' Street, the brewers by the Thames, the butchers in Eastcheap, and the goldsmiths ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... sphere I saw a platform hung with black. On it I seemed to see myself staring at a sea of hateful faces. One with a mask stood by my side who carried an axe. I have ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... tree, he saw a huge baboon with two young cubs in her arms. He supposed they must belong to the lioness, as she lay down like a cat, and seemed to be watching them very anxiously. The man being afraid to climb the tree, decided to cut it down, and having his axe with him, he at once set to work, the lioness, meantime, watching to see what he was doing. When the tree fell, she sprang upon the baboon, and after tearing her in pieces, she turned round and fawned round the man, rubbing her head against him in great fondness, and ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... the Cherokee Indian nation, that government within a government. Outside that limited space of ground it was null and void. He was a free man under the laws of his own government. Yet that act, of his own creation, somehow seemed to stand over him like a Frankenstein with an uplifted axe. ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... morning advanced, the mellow sound of chimes floated out on the stillness, calling Dinwiddians to worship, as it had called their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers before them. The Sabbath calm, so heavy that an axe could hardly have dispelled it, filled the curving streets and the square gardens like an invisible fog—a fog that dulled the brain and weighed down the eyelids and made the grim walls of the Treadwell tobacco factory look as if they were rising out ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... inheritance of tradition is greater than that of any other people, for we trace back not alone to King John signing the Magna Charta in that little stone hut by the riverside, but to Brutus standing beside the slain Caesar, to Charles Martel with his battle-axe raised against the advancing horde of an old-world civilization, to Martin Luther declaring his square-jawed policy of religious liberty, to Columbus in the prow of his boat crying to his disheartened crew, "Sail on, ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... steel Circular saw plates Automobile steel Coal auger steel Awl steel Coal mining pick or cutter steel Axe and hatchet steel Coal wedge steel Band knife steel Cone steel Band saw steel Crucible cast steel Butcher saw steel Crucible machinery steel Chisel steel Cutlery steel Chrome-nickel steel ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... long silence; then a ringing sound, sudden and sharp, and Ebie Farrish fell inexplicably from the axe-chipped hag-clog, which he had rolled up to sit upon. Ebie had been wondering for more than an hour what would happen if he put his arm round Jess Kissock's waist. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... an admirer shows the earth around the guillotine heaped with heads, and at last the over-weary executioner, failing to find further victims, decides to execute himself! He is therefore seen lying under the axe, his head ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... always something delightful to me in this idea. We are apt to think that this earth is made for man, but, after many ages, there are still some parts of his domain unconquered, some fair lands where the axe, the fire, and the plough are ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... quite so nicely made as a verandah. One day my uncle 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 steadily ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... lioness-mothers of the Western jungles who had been used like men to fight with rifle, knife, and axe—now sat silent in the doorways of their rough cabins, wrinkled, scarred, fierce, silent, scornful of all advancing luxury and refinement. Flitting gaily past them, on their way to the dry goods stores—supplied by trains of pack-horses from over the Alleghanies, or by ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... Considerin' how she later corrals that Laredo divorce an' sells up my cattle at public vandoo for costs an' al'mony, if when I troops to the altar with that lady whom I makes Missis Thompson, my gyardian angel had gone at me with a axe, that faithful sperit would have been doin' no more than its simple ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and Kuilemberg had followed their example. Mansfeld had seceded, the brothers Van Battenburg awaited in prison an ignomonious fate, while Thoulouse alone had found an honorable death on the field of battle. Those of the confederates who had escaped the sword of the enemy and the axe of the executioner had saved nothing but their lives, and thus the title which they had assumed for show became at last ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... mile away at the right other wood-cutters were at work. When the wind was the right way he could now and then hear the strokes of their axes and a shout. Often as he worked alone, swinging his axe steadily with his breath in a white cloud before his face, he amused himself miserably—as one might with a bitter ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... well."—"I know it not; he has some reason for keeping it secret, I suppose; but his deeds will not shame it, be it what it may. I can bear witness to more than one foeman falling beneath his battle-axe." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... still stand firm, and dispute their lives to the last. The boy performs prodigies of valour; he is worthy to be the son of Edward himself; but he is at last struck down, while his frantic father deals with his battle-axe blows which appal the stoutest heart. No one dares to approach the lion at bay: they hem him in; they call to and entreat him to lay down his arms; he is blinded with the blood which flows from two deep wounds in his face; and, faint and staggering, he gazes ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... please to give them the quality of your goods is likely to deteriorate. Salt of the poorest grade, gaudy fabrics that neither "wear" nor "wash," bars of coarse soap (the native is continually washing his single strip of cloth), and axe-heads made of iron, are what Leopold thinks are a fair exchange for the ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... an axe with him. With this he cut some long, straight poles which, he explained, were intended for pike poles such as woodsmen use to roll logs. This done, he began industriously chopping at the tree after deciding upon the exact position in which he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... There was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of Iron heard In the house, while it was in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... very beginning of his reign, which forewarned him of his approaching fate. In every town through which he passed in his way from Spain to Rome, victims were slain on the right and left of the roads; and one of these, which was a bull, being maddened with the stroke of the axe, broke the rope with which it was tied, and running straight against his chariot, with his fore-feet elevated, bespattered him with blood. Likewise, as he was alighting, one of the guard, being pushed forward by the crowd, had very nearly wounded him with his lance. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... The year previous to his emigration, his daughter, Polly, was married, at Danbury, to the late Elisha Whittlesey, who removed at once to Canfield, Ohio. Mr. Whittlesey, his son-in-law, took the contract to clear a piece of ground for Mr. Mygatt, laboring on the job with his axe and team. ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... His life, and did the axe Extinguish CHARLES'S hopes of boodle And all the wrongs of bad days feudal For this—that CARTER, the old noodle, With t's all crossed and dot-bepeppered i's, Should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... garden tool was a hoe, made of clam shells or of a moose's shoulder-blade fastened to a wooden handle. He also had a rude axe or hatchet made of a piece of stone, sharpened by being scraped on another stone, and tied to a wooden handle. His arrows and spears were tipped with bone or with triangular pieces of flint. These were all home-made, for Philip, like other Indians, was obliged to make ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... fool rushing on his ruin. He may take Tyre, Damascus, Babylon, Egypt itself, and cast their gods into the fire, for they are no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; but let him once try his strength against the real living God; let the axe once begin to boast itself against Him that hews therewith; and he will find out that there is one stronger than he, one who has been using him as a 'tool, and who will crush him like a moth the moment he rebels. His father destroyed Samaria and her idols, but he shall not ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... made what haste her nervousness would allow, and they soon sat down to tea. Jack, the eldest son, was sulky, and his father muttered something about knocking the sulks out of him with an axe. ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... disused gallery of communication, seized hold of these agitated minds, and this afforded a vent to the pent-up sympathy and distress. New energy supplanted stupor; and through the deep hush of the fire could be distinguished the blows of axe and hammer, wielded lustily by stalwart and devoted arms, eager to clear a way of life and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... writings to defame him, should be published after his death; concluding, "I have a long journey to go, and therefore will take my leave." Then having put off his gown and doublet, he called to the executioner to shew him the axe, which not being presently done; he said, "I pray thee let me see it; don't thou think I am afraid of it;" and having it in his hands he felt along the edge of it, and smiling, said to the sheriff; "This is a sharp ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... an' lef de po' Woodpecker er lyin' dar; an' by'mby Miss Robin come erlong; an' wen she seed de Woodpecker, she axt 'im 'wat's he doin' down dar on de groun'?' an' atter he up an' tol' her, an' tol' her how de Jay Bird wuz er grin'in' his axe fur ter chop offn his head, den de Robin she sot to an' try ter lif' de stick offn him. She straint an' she straint, but her strengt' wan't 'nuff fur ter move hit den; an' so she sez, 'Mr. Woodpecker,' sez she, 's'posin' I cotch holt yer feet, an' try ter pull yer back dis way?' ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... work on "Man and Nature," in which he treats largely of forestry in Europe, says that "when a forest old enough to have witnessed the mysteries of the Druids is felled, trees of other species spring up in its place; and when they, in their turn, fall before the axe, sometimes even as soon as they have spread their protecting shade over the surface, the germs which their predecessors had shed, perhaps centuries before, sprout up, and in due time, if not choked ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... windows broken, the stoves and ovens wrecked, and all the ironwork carried off. Scarcely a door remained on its hinges, and the furniture of the rooms disappeared. The church was violated, its pictures soiled, and its statues smashed; Christ's wounds should be wounds indeed, hard voices cried, as axe and hammer rung over their pitiless work. The library was emptied of its books. Walls and roofs and floors were all that the monks found when they ventured back. Ellenbog, however, fared better than many. A friendly brother had ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... Mr Dugald Strong's aid, had partly dragged into the well of the cutter, now crawled out from his retreat; and keeping over well to leeward on the other side of the boom, proceeded to the locker in the stern-sheets, from whence he took out a small axe and handed ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Ivizan corsairs, fire-bottles, which, as they burst upon the enemy's decks, set it ablaze, begin to fall upon "the Pope's" vessel. The rigging begins to burn, the upper works shiver, and like demons Riquer and his men spring aboard among the flames, pistol in one hand, boarding axe in the other. The deck flows with blood, the corpses roll into the sea with broken heads. They find "the Pope" hiding, half dead with fear, in a locker in ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to tell you the tale of the youth of Umslopogaas, holder of the iron Chieftainess, the axe Groan-maker, who was named Bulalio the Slaughterer, and of his love for Nada, the most beautiful of Zulu women. It is long; but you are here for many nights, and, if I live to tell it, it shall be told. Strengthen your heart, my father, for ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... pleasure of anticipation. The Swindon of the line was reached, and there, sure enough, was a table spread with food. After the first bite of the first dish X. realized sadly that he had been done, since it would have been impossible to make any impression on that meat with aught less forcible than an axe. Thus, with reluctance, his portion, albeit paid for in advance, was relinquished, to be again paid for probably and again to flatter and deceive some other passing and hungry stranger. The remainder of the journey proved agreeable, thanks to the companionship of a young ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... differed so widely from the rest of the New Hollanders." Before he disappeared he gave the boat's crew an exhibition of his climbing powers, for they pointed to a tree, making signs that they wished to see him climb it. This he quickly did, first cutting a notch with the axe and continuing thus to make footholds until he nimbly reached the top—the tree being without branches to a height of 40 feet. About this time there appeared a small party of woodmen who had been sent to cut ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... stoves. He and his comrade finished all the chopping which one householder had; then they sought other work, but found none; his comrade had parted from him, and for two weeks he himself had been struggling along; he had spent all his money, he had no saw, and no axe, and no money to buy anything. I gave him money for a saw, and told him of a place where he could find work. I had already made arrangements with Piotr and Semyon, that they should take an assistant, and they looked ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... desperation flew from end to end of the deck, as a vivid gleam of lightning sped by us, and a tearing noise, like that of a tree whose trunk, nearly severed by the axe, is rent in two by the weight of its branches, and falls to the ground. I thought the mast was struck and ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... man had dashed up to the roof by the side of Joel. "You better go down and hand water," he said, "an' bring the axe, we may have to cut away th' ruf." Joel, knowing it was worse than useless to disobey, slid down, and got the axe first, to have it ready—oh, dreadful thought!—to cut the little brown house with; and then the two buckets, ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... cherished in bitterness of spirit through many a lonely watch, flashed into malicious action with that hoped-for opportunity, the coming of the gang. John Gray, carpenter of a merchant ship, in a moment of anger threatened to cut the skipper down with an axe. This happened under a West-Indian sun. Months afterwards, as the ship swung lazily into Bristol river and the gang came aboard, the skipper found his opportunity. Beckoning to the impress officer, he pointed to John Gray and said: ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... water. A moment more and he had his pack and his rifle on one shoulder and was climbing the fence at the wood-pile. There he stopped once more with a sudden thought, and wrenching loose a short axe from the face of a hickory log, staggered under the weight of his weapons up the mountain. The sun was yet an hour high and, on the spur, he leaned his rifle against the big poplar and set to work with his axe on a sapling close by—talking frankly ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... language since I have been in this Territory, and Kinney hardly ever swears.—But sometimes human nature gets the better of him. On the second day we started to go by land to the lower camp, a distance of three miles, over the mountains, each carrying an axe. I don't think we got lost exactly, but we wandered four hours over the steepest, rockiest and most dangerous piece of country in the world. I couldn't keep from laughing at Kinney's distress, so I kept behind, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... among the shivering groves where she has lingered and scatters the sear leaves upon the tempest. When that cry is heard, the people wrap themselves in cloaks and shake their heads disconsolately, saying, "Winter is at hand." Then the axe of the woodcutter echoes sharp and diligently in the forest; then the coal-merchants rejoice because each shriek of Nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton; then the peat-smoke ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Until then, the salt of the sea, the water of the springs, the grass of the fields, and the trees of the forests are to him as if they were not. The sea, without the fisherman and his line, supplies no fish. The forest, without the wood-cutter and his axe, furnishes neither fuel nor timber. The meadow, without the mower, yields neither hay nor aftermath. Nature is a vast mass of material to be cultivated and converted into products; but Nature produces nothing for herself: in ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... in innumerable ways; for seventeen years she will be the joy of her family, its 'white soul,' as Lamartine says, and suddenly she will become its scourge. When HE comes and takes her from us, his love from the very beginning is like an axe laid to the root of all the old affection in our darling's heart, and all the ties that bound her to her family are severed. But yesterday our little daughter thought of no one but her mother and father, as we had no thought that was not for her; by to-morrow she will ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... behind the scenes see that the last days of the Terror are at hand. If Robespierre is beaten in the approaching struggle, you are saved—for the new reign must be a Reign of Mercy. If he conquers, I have only put off the date of your death and your sister's, and have laid my own neck under the axe. Those are your chances—this ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... not allowed to complete his sentence. A violent blow from an axe felled him to the ground, his skull, fractured. They trampled his body under foot, then one of the assassins applied a burning torch to the floor. The flames rose, licking each portion of the building with their fiery tongues. Then ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... person and a despiser of the gods. On one occasion he presumed to violate with the axe a grove sacred to Ceres. There stood in this grove a venerable oak so large that it seemed a wood in itself, its ancient trunk towering aloft, whereon votive garlands were often hung and inscriptions ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... blunder in military tactics. Even when he and his division were being charged by the Prince of Wales at full gallop, at the head of two thousand lances, the men all flushed with victory, John made his own men dismount, and himself did the same, fighting with his axe like a common soldier; whilst his little son Philip crouched behind him, narrowly watching his assailants, and crying out words of warning to his father as he saw blows dealt at ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... said not stab, but bring him to the block: Let God's eye be upon the multitude, Theirs on the scaffold, the attesting sun Shine on the bare axe and th' uncover'd head. It is no coward act, lest he might sin; For he hath sinn'd, until our very ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... into the foaming waves. At last so great became the strain upon the vessel, that the crew were set to work with axes to cut away the foremast. Balancing themselves upon the tossing, slippery deck, holding fast to a rope with one hand, while with the other they swung the axe, the gallant fellows finally cut so deep into the heart of the stout spar, that a heavy roll of the ship made it snap off short, and it fell alongside, where it hung by the cordage. The wreck was soon cleared away; and as this seemed to ease the ship somewhat, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... fellow?" he remarked. "Wait a minute, and I will get him over here. If you ever want to put a real character into one of your stories you will only need to take his photograph. In actual life he is as dull as a rusty meat axe, but for literary purposes he ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... provisions grew scarce, life ceased to be agreeable. Such was the discouragement that succeeded that several men of note deserted the army of the cross, among them Robert, duke of Normandy, William, viscount of Melun, called the Carpenter, from his mighty battle-axe, and Peter the Hermit himself. Their flight caused the greatest indignation. Tancred, one of the leaders, hurried after and overtook them, and brought them back to the camp, where they, overcome by ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... been brought up if thou's niver heerd tell o' Ash-Riddling Day? What a thing it is to wed a foreigner! If thou'd been bred and born in Wharfedale thou'd have no need to axe about Ash-Riddling Day.' ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... Nature, she is entirely opposed to continuance of paths through her forest. She covers them with fallen leaves, and hides them with thick bushes. She drops great trees across them, and blots then out with windfalls. But the blazed line—a succession of broad axe-marks on the trunks of the trees, just high enough to catch the eye on a level—cannot be so easily obliterated, and this, after all, is the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... keep the peace after the ancient assize, that is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years." Further, he enlarged the armoury of the militiaman by including among his weapons the axe and ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... was, like a true African, acquainted. The dinner-table was a marble slab, which still remained cramped to the wall, as when it had been covered with plate, or with ladies' work-boxes. The seats were benches, hewn by Bellair's axe. On the shelves and dresser of unpainted wood were ranged together porcelain dishes from Dresden, and calabashes from the garden; wooden spoons, and knives with enamelled handles. A harp, with its strings broken, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... watched him with bated breath, dimly seeing through tears that he spoke to the executioner as he ran his finger along the edge of the axe, and then he laid his head upon the block. The axe fell once, twice, and again, yet there ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... for the purpose of ascertaining the truth, from whence, after a short prayer of the chorus, we hear the cries of the murdered. A servant rushes out, and to warn Clytemnestra gives the alarm at the door of the women's apartment. She hears it, comes forward, and calls for an axe to defend herself; but as Orestes instantaneously rushes on her with the bloody sword, her courage fails her, and, most affectingly, she holds up to him the breast at which she had suckled him. Hesitating in his purpose, he asks the counsel of Pylades, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... new and highly interesting spectacle. One sees agriculture flourishing, while nature alone defrays almost all the expense. The fortunate inhabitants of Madagascar need not moisten the earth with their sweat; they turn it up slightly with a pick-axe, and this labor alone is sufficient. They make holes in the ground at a little distance from each other and throw into them a few grains of rice, over which they spread the mold with their feet. And what proves the great fertility ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... admirable expression, "he breathed an atmosphere of suspended insurrection," and he was fixed and firm in his purpose to deprive all rebelliously disposed people of their leaders, or of those to whom they would naturally look for lead and direction. The axe was kept continually striking upon noble necks, and the cord was as continually stretched by ignoble bodies, because the King was bent upon making insurrection a failing business at the best. Men and women, patrician and plebeian, might play at rebellion, if they liked it, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hearts endure, That part which kings or laws[11] can cause or cure. Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find[12]; With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestick joy: The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel, Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel, To men remote from power, but rarely known, Leave reason, faith, and conscience, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... smoke from the smouldering interior of the heaped up houses of Johnstown. Every now and then the gleam of an axe and a group of stooping forms tell that another ghastly find has been made, and a whisper goes round among the hundreds of watchers that other bodies are being brought ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the housewife was endeavouring to rise to her feet and to get under the clothes beside him. And when he was come in she had risen upon the edge of the bed. Then took he her by the hands and laid a pole-axe upon her breast. Thorstein, Eirik's son, died near nightfall. Thorstein, the franklin, begged Gudrid to lie down and sleep, saying that he would watch over the body during the night. So she did, and when ...
— Eirik the Red's Saga • Anonymous
... do a thing to yourself one of these fine days.' remarked the horseman with evident relish, 'if you don't quit carrying that sort of life-saver. Come over to the ranch and I'll swap you a hand-axe for it.' ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... root of a tree, and I had been tryin' an hour to git it out, without success. The tree was hard, and I was just tacklin' that root with my knife—I'd have cut through it in about an hour, I reckon—when 'long comes that feller Handsome that I had saved from the hole in the rocks. He had an axe on his shoulder, and when he spied me he stopped, and laughed, and laughed ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... each art to be strictly limited to certain modes of expression, which are only overstepped at the cost of coherency. In the appendix to his Laocooen, he quotes Plutarch as saying that one should not chop wood with a key, or open the door with an axe. He who should do so would not only be spoiling both those utensils, but would also be depriving himself of the utility of both. He believed that ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... 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. Having buried himself in the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... his victory all afternoon. When he advised Alfred that they would soon start home and that he could ride behind him on Black Fan, Alfred slid down and requested a neighboring farmer to permit him to ride home in his dead axe wagon. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... wedge or spike of iron, Gainest, readiest, Gar, cause, Gart, compelled, Gentily, like a gentleman, Gerfalcon, a fine hawk, Germane, closely allied, Gest, deed, story, Gisarm, halberd, battle-axe, Glaive, sword, Glasting, barking, Glatisant, barking, yelping, Gobbets, lumps, Graithed, made ready, Gree, degree, superiority, Greed, pp., pleased, content, Grescs, steps, Grimly, ugly, Grovelling, on his face, Guerdonless, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Winkle. There is also a Chinese Rip Van Winkle, a tale of a man who, wandering one day in the mountains, came upon two boys playing checkers; and after watching them for some time, and eating some dates they gave him, he discovered that the handle of an axe he was carrying had mouldered into dust. Returning home, he found, as the ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... tinder. There were men in the back room, fighting, yelling, crowding. Neale could see only dim, burly forms and the flashes of guns. Smoke floated thickly there. Some one, on the inside or outside, was beating out the door with an axe. ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... him after death.—"And now I have a long journey to go, and must take my leave." "He embraced all the lords and other friends with such courtly compliments, as if he had met them at some feast," says a letter-writer. Having taken off his gown, he called to the headsman to show him the axe, which not being instantly done, he repeated, "I prithee let me see it, dost thou think that I am afraid of it?" He passed the edge lightly over his finger, and smiling, observed to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases," and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... hope, and that his principal action was in accordance with it. "Repent," said he, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."[1] He announced a "great wrath," that is to say, terrible calamities which should come to pass,[2] and declared that the axe was already laid at the root of the tree, and that the tree would soon be cast into the fire. He represented the Messiah with a fan in his hand, collecting the good wheat and burning the chaff. Repentance, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... was to be found in all his advice. Add to this that he had no personal profit to seek, no political axe to grind, and was always transparent as a child. More and more Verden recognized him as the one most conspicuous figure in the state dedicated to uncompromising war against the foes of ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... some woods and in the direction of the Wootuppocut, on whose banks the clearing was being made. As they approached, they could hear, more and more distinctly, the measured strokes of an axe, followed soon by the crash of a falling tree. Then, as they came still nearer, a rustling could be distinguished among the leaves and the sound of the cutting off of limbs. And now they heard the bark of a dog, and a man's voice ordering him to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... characters that told the whole story, and by means of these acquainted Procne with her sufferings. Thereon Procne found her sister, and slew Itys, her own son, whose body she cooked, and served up to Tereus in a banquet. Thereafter Procne and her sister fled together, and Tereus seized an axe and followed after them. They were overtaken at Daulia in Phocis, and prayed to the gods that they might be turned into birds. So Procne became the nightingale, and Philomela the swallow, while Tereus was changed into a hoopoe."(2) ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... I felt must be obeyed for fear of the dire results that might follow, I at length managed to fall asleep, for I was very weary. After a while I woke up to a state of semi-consciousness, and found myself tugging and pulling at what I thought in my dreamy condition was the end of an axe handle. The vague impression on my mind was, that some careless Indian had left his axe just behind my head, and in the night the handle had fallen across my face, and I had now got hold of the end of it. Fortunately for me, I very quickly after this woke fully up, and then found out that ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... rose last market day"; or "I will ask him his name". 'Afeard', used by Spenser, is the regular participle of the old verb to 'affear', still existing as a law term, as 'afraid' is of to 'affray', and just as good English{140}; 'ris' or 'risse' is an old praeterite of 'to rise'; to 'axe' is not a mispronunciation of 'to ask', but a genuine English form of the word, the form which in the earlier English it constantly assumed; in Wiclif's Bible almost without exception; and indeed 'axe' occurs continually, I know not whether invariably, ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... or being slain might incidentally result from the action of the moment, but the possession of the Holy Sepulchre was the true object for which each warrior who had taken the cross, drew his sword or swung his battle-axe. ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... But the axe had been laid to the root thereof. The later witch prosecutions were not to be compared for extent and atrocity to the mediaeval ones; and first, as it would seem, in France, and gradually in other European countries, the old contempt of women ...
— Women and Politics • Charles Kingsley
... up axe). I say, mother, is it true you want me to marry? As I reckon, that's quite unnecessary. Besides, I've got ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al |
