"Battering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... large yellow pine, hoping that it might protect me from at least the smaller outbounding boulders. For a minute or two the shocks became more and more violent—flashing horizontal thrusts mixed with a few twists and battering, explosive, upheaving jolts,—as if Nature were wrecking her Yosemite temple, and getting ready to ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... the army rendered further delay necessary, and obliged the king to undertake the siege of Pultowa, in order to gain a firm footing in the country, and to secure the supplies which the place contained. The Swedish battering-train was weak, the powder not only bad from having been frequently injured by the wet and dried again, but very scarce besides. Still, courage and energy were making progress, when, June 27th, on his very birthday, Charles, in repulsing a sally, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... ways, to use divination; he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver. At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering-rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort. And it shall be unto them as false divination in their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but he will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... of hair, fibre, or strips of leather. The different sorts were called 'balistae' and 'catapultae.' The former were used to impel stones; the latter, darts and arrows. In sieges, the 'Aries,' or 'battering ram,' which received its name from having an iron head resembling that of a ram, was employed in destroying the lower part of the wall, while the 'balista' was overthrowing the battlements, and the 'catapulta' was ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to the floor on bandaged feet, a shrill scream burst out in the ruddy darkness—unearthly, horrible; and there came a thunderous battering from the barn. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... awake again—another change: the battering-ram at work now against the walls. Swinging back, the solid thickness of the wind came forward—crush! as the iron-shod ram's head hanging from its chains rushed to the tower. Crush! It sucked back again as if there had been ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... howl of mingled pain and rage, Farrington endeavoured to free himself from this human wild-cat. He struggled and fought, and at length succeeded in tearing away that writhing, battering form. With one hand he held him at arm's length and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. Dan struggled, squirmed and bit, but all in vain; he was held as in a vice. Not satisfied with shaking the lad, Farrington reached ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... to speak, and he, too, turned his attention to the platform. He liked this old woman's invincible quality, the way she had turned to and made a battering-ram of her own meagre middle-aged body to level the walls of authority; and she reminded him of his mother. There was no physical likeness, but plainly this woman also was one of those tragically serious mothers in whose souls perpetual ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... attack on Charleston was planned, but was carried no farther than a severe battering of Fort Sumter. In August, 1864, Admiral Farragut led his fleet past Forts Morgan and Gaines, that guarded the entrance of Mobile Bay, captured the Confederate fleet and took the forts. Mobile, however, was not taken till April, 1865, just as the Confederacy ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... fine thing, but the important thing was that some of the rescued men had been exposed to the battering of the sea so long that they needed medical attention, and so we drove for home—and cracked our foremast-head doing it. That delayed us almost a week, for the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot might depend on it, same ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... advanced (and we in their rear); ere long the uproar falls upon their ears; a fiendish bellower cries, "Silence, in the King's name!" to no purpose, it would be an easier task to hale apart old beavers than one of these. But when Lucifer's veterans dashed into their midst, the growls, and blows, and battering lessened. "Silence in Lucifer's name!" roared the devil a second time. "What is this," demanded the King, "and who are these?" "Nothing, sire, but that in the general confusion, the drovers came across the cuckolds, and set a-butting ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... and even the French officers, prisoners on board, infidels as they were, listened with respect, and could not help believing that there must be a God who had given us the victory. Hard work we had to get our ships and prizes fit for sea again after the battering they had got; as it was, we had to burn four of our prizes, as it would have taken too long to refit them; and then at last away we sailed with the larger part of the fleet ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... not have undertaken it; but Jarley, in common with most men of dreamy nature, felt in the quiet dusk the power to do all things. He had the poetic temperament which sometimes leads on to great things, and the man so gifted who does not feel himself capable, at that hour of the day of rest, of battering down Gibraltar or of upbuilding the whole human race, must account himself ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... played drive against my uncle, who was standing abaft, and wheeled him like a butterfly, side foremost, against a table with a heap of flowers on it, where, in trying to kep himself, he drove his head, like a battering-ram, through a looking-glass, and bleached back on his hands and feet on ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... defenses fell instantly before the golden battering-ram of Madame Berthe Louison's direct onslaught. "I was busied in the bazaars, buying jewels," he expostulated, when Jules Victor led him into Madame Louison's boudoir. Even then Major Hawke was curiously noting the dismantled condition of the reception-room, where ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... you like, ma'am," said Stump, lifting his cap awkwardly. He went at the noisy mob like a battering-ram. "Sheer off, you black-an'- tan mongrels!" he roared at them. "Go an' ax some one to play on you with a hose-pipe. Jow, you soors! D'ye think the lady likes ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the features might once have shown of honour, worth, or kindly semblance had disappeared beyond all tracing in a blurred distortion. The lids of one eye were discoloured and swollen almost together; other traces of a recent battering were not lacking, nor was cosmetic evidence of a heroic struggle, on the part of some valet of infinite pains, to efface them. The nose lost outline in the discolorations of the puffed cheeks; the chin, tufted with a small imperial, ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... Constantine, we shall be sufficiently accurate in saying that the corresponding period in the fifth century (namely, from about 404 to 420 A. D.) first witnessed those uproars of ruin in Egypt and Alexandria—fire racing along the old carious timbers, battering- rams thundering against the ancient walls of the most horrid temples— which rang so searchingly in the ears of Zosimus, extorting, at every blow, a howl of Pagan sympathy from that ignorant calumniator of Christianity. So far from the fact being, according to the general prejudice, as though ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... countenances, I mark, Congeal to dazed surprise at my straight motion— Why, passes sane conjecture. It may be That, with a haughty and unwavering faith In their own battering-rams of argument, They deemed our buoyance whelmed, and sapped, and sunk To our hope's sheer bottom, whence a miracle Was all could friend and float us; or, maybe, They are amazed at our rude disrespect In making mockery of ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... difficulties which he cannot endure. This is what we understand by effeminacy, because a thing is said to be "soft" if it readily yields to the touch. Now a thing is not declared to be soft through yielding to a heavy blow, for walls yield to the battering-ram. Wherefore a man is not said to be effeminate if he yields to heavy blows. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. vii, 7) that "it is no wonder, if a person is overcome by strong and overwhelming pleasures or sorrows; but he is to be pardoned if he struggles against them." ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... two and one-half feet thick, at the top. It was the best that could be done by six, tired, and hungry fellows, all young boys, working with two picks and three shovels through a short night. Such as it was, we fought behind it, all through the Spottsylvania battles, and it stood some heavy battering. This gem of engineering skill,—by reason of the pretty constant courtesies we felt it polite to pay to the unceasing attentions of our friends, the enemy, for the next six days, in the shape of shells and bullets, ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... get straight in my mind the fearful five minutes that followed, the battering at the door, the oaths, the scuffle outside, the crash as the sofa, bureau, table, and chairs all yielded at once - and my relief when I saw the square-set, honest face of O'Connor and half a dozen plain-clothes men holding the yeggs who would certainly have murdered us ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... sudden gust. The nor'wester came howling over the dark tree-tops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden buildings—house, stable, barn—in' squalls and-wicked whirlwinds that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek of the foe, were almost as sensible of the terrors of the storm ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... dampening sand, her dress clinging about her and retarding progress, I dared to slip one arm about her waist to help in bearing her along. She accepted this timely aid in the spirit with which it was offered, without so much as a word of protest; and the wind, battering at our backs, pushed ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... resemblance. They twisted his arm till it broke. Then they kept on battering at him with their fists till he fell to the floor. While he lay on the floor they kicked him, and ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... by the French Government in order to keep M. Radisson powerless—Lord Preston, the English ambassador, complaining against us on the one hand, and battering our doors down on the other, with spies offering M. Radisson safe ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... were suddenly a little stern. Stone walls had to be broken down. That was the use of being strong. One was not frightened; one just got a battering-ram, and forced a passage through. He would tell her soon, but not ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... and archers on the several sides of the engines, and thereby beat off those that brought the fire to them. He also thereby repelled those that shot stones or darts from the towers, and then set the engines to work in good earnest; yet did not the wall yield to these blows, excepting where the battering ram of the Fifteenth legion moved the corner of a tower, while the wall itself continued unhurt, for the wall was not presently in the same danger with the tower, which was extant far above it; nor could the fall of that part of the tower easily break down any part ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... gaps between each division from end to end of the lines. The men are set in eight long ranks. This is the normal "phalanx"[] order. Only those in front can actually lunge and strike at the enemy. The men in the rear will add to the battering force of the charge, and crowding in closely, wedge themselves promptly to the front, when any of the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... two stable orderlies. They would open up in a minute. They did, with much blinking of eyes and some demur, but stood abashed when the burly major strode in, big Jim Ennis at his heels. The latter hesitated not one second. His weight went in with the battering ram of that muscular leg and massive foot, and the sergeant's door flew open before them. The room was empty. Fitzroy and Fitzroy's furs were gone. Nor was that all. Snatching a stable lantern from the hand of one of the shaking grooms, Ennis swung it high aloft. Two empty stalls ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... better, if more halting, talk. "Mr. Black was telling me to-day about Mr. White's being appointed to —— what do you call that office?" implored the dignified matron. "Just call it anything, Mrs. Gray, a bandersnatch, or a buttonhook, or a battering-ram," impertinently suggested the glib undergraduate who had been applying these words to everybody and everything, and who continued to do so until she had found a new catchword as the main substance of her conversation. The infirmities of age, as well ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... battering of the rain was mitigated. Giant neo-palm leaves formed a roof that shut out not only most of the weak daylight, but also the fury of the downpour. The water collected in cataracts, ran down the boles of the trees, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... tree, and dashing across swung it like a battering ram against the door—half a dozen blows, and the oak and iron yielded before it. The door was burst in and the party entered Lanark. The sentry on the wall had fled at once to arouse the garrison. Instantly the three ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... have maintained a bombardment all round General Herr's lines on February 21, 1916, but this general battering was done with a thousand pieces of field artillery. The grand masses of heavy howitzers were used in a different way. At a quarter past seven in the morning they concentrated on the small sector of advanced intrenchments ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... the little force of intrepid Americans rushed for the door of this last remaining stronghold. The door was of course locked, but when half a dozen vigorous young Americans charged it like so many battering rams, it gave way, and the soldiers surged forward into a large hallway. A wide staircase led upward from one side of this hall, and from an upper landing a spiteful rain of bullets zipped about the ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... stones and bushes he hammered up the slope of Lookout Point and disappeared in a cloud of dirt, but as Hardy drifted around the bend and floated toward the whirlpool there was a crash of brush from down the river and Creede came battering through the trees to the shore. Taking down his reata as he rode he leapt quickly off his horse and ran out on the big flat rock from which they had often fished together. At his feet the turbid current ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... a mob. Get in front—that's right—and I'll bring up in the rear." Laughing to himself, he brought his big frame up against the little man's back and surged forward. Sure enough, they went "through the mob," but the duke was the volley end of the battering ram. Never in all his life had he made such hurried and seemingly unnecessary progress through a blockading crowd of roisterers. When they finally went lunging into the half-deserted Rue de la Madeleine, his silk hat ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... that Edward had accepted Mrs. Lovell's invitation. Half in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him, Edward eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness they were to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons; while Algernon vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British adjectives in superlative. He as much as hinted, under instigation, that he was entitled to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly allowed by Edward, and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and need ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... When the knife was applied, it showed that it still possessed some sparks of life, by lashing out its tail, and opening its enormous jaws, sending the crowd of bystanders flying in all directions. It is extraordinary how tenacious the creature is of life, and what a prodigious amount of battering it may ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... office, that the S.S. Fingal left for that outer isle at five in the morning. He accordingly gave serious instructions to the "boots" of his hotel to rap him up at 4.30 A.M., and to show him no mercy. At six o'clock, the tourist was awakened by a noise like that of a battering-ram at his door, and a stentorian voice sternly enquiring: "Are you the gentleman that's going with the early boat?" "Yes, yes, I am," said the tourist, leaping to his feet. "Well, she's away," said the boots. (This is a story that grows ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... which the great rollers dashed with a bull-like roar. The wind drove us straight upon this bar. A moment of deadly peril and it had us fast, holding us for the waves to beat our life out. The boat listed, then rested, quivering through all its length. The waves pounded against its side, each watery battering-ram dissolving in foam and spray but to give place to another, and yet it held together, and yet we lived. How long it would hold we could not tell; we only knew it could not be for long. The inclination ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... But, alas! "the things, that made for their peace (as Jesus forewarned them) were hidden from their eyes!" Their hour was come, and the triumphant shouts of the enemy were heard around their stubborn walls, which (massy as they were) dropped to the ground under the subduing power of the battering-rams of war. With these massive engines of destruction, they laid the two first walls in ruin! But the third and last wall it was not in the power of the enemy to gain. The Jews fought with desperation, and by valiant exertions kept the enemy at bay, and for a while seemed to triumph in ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... the battering rams began their thundering work, and at length a corner tower came down, yet the walls stood firm, for there was no breach. Suddenly the besieged sallied forth and set fire to the engines. Titus came up with his horsemen and slew twelve Jews ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the spying eyes of a jealous wife. Life is mine again, and I will enjoy it; yes I enjoy it. I will enjoy it like fragrant wine pressed to our lips in a golden goblet, sparkling with diamonds. Ah, how they are hammering and battering in the anteroom! Every stroke of theirs is a note of the glorious song of my liberty. The furniture of my household is gone; the pictures and looking-glasses are all gone—gone. The past and every thing reminding me thereof shall ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... with cannon, the defence could not have lasted long, for the walls would not have resisted battering by shot; but cannon, in those times, were rare, and were too clumsy and heavy to accompany an expedition requiring to move with speed. For a time, the men-at-arms alone garrisoned the wall; the farmers and their men being occupied in pumping ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... and his lifetime of battering about the world, Captain Cy had a sentimental streak in his makeup; his rejuvenation of the old home proved that. Betsy's letter interested him. He had made guarded inquiries concerning Mary Thayer, now Mary Thomas, of others besides Asaph, and the answers had been satisfactory so far ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... clash with each other like powerful battering rams, and for what? Perhaps for undisputed possession of a city or two, a matter they must be ashamed of did they but call to mind what they have received from God. They would be constrained to exclaim: "What are we doing that we injure one ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... to the sound of blows battering the outer door. "They'll have it down in another minute. We've got to burn the wind ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... proposed to render the children she had sometimes performed for himself, with results for which he could not be grateful enough, and yet it was not with unalloyed anticipation that he softly followed her up the stair. Mrs. Burton went into the chamber and found the boys playing battering-ram, each with a pillow ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... of the means of transport, the shallow bed of the Miami aiding them but little, it was a matter of no mean difficulty with the Americans to convey through several hundred miles of forest, the heavy guns they required for battering, and as it was only at intervals this could be effected; the most patient endurance and unrelaxing perseverance being necessary to the end. From the inactivity of this force, or rather the confinement of its operations to objects of defence, the English garrison had calculated on undisturbed ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... with the use of cannon. Amurath II had employed them when he besieged Constantinople in 1422; but Mahomet now resolved on forming a more powerful battering-train than had previously existed. Neither the Greeks nor Turks possessed the art of casting large guns. Both were obliged to employ foreigners. An experienced artilleryman and founder named Urban, by birth a Wallachian, carried into execution the Sultan's wishes. He had passed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... you oughtn't to keep on trying! I do wish you wouldn't! No! Don't say any more about it!" she pleaded in weak anguish. "You oughtn't to go on battering against the little bit of common sense I've ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... the courtyard, Dickie proudly led the way and stooped to examine the stones near the ruined arch that had been the chapel door. Alas! there was not a sign of the inscription which Dickie had scratched on the stone when the Roundheads were battering at the gates of ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... return, from the hut. One of the men carrying the beam fell, as did an officer who was leading them; but instantly another caught up the end of the timber, and in a moment a crowd were clustered round the door. Several caught hold of the beam, and swung it as though they meant to use it as a battering ram. ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... who was the first to speak. "So this is Sir Reginald's old Keep! A fine old fortalice—would stand at least a fortnight's siege. Ha! Is not yonder a weak point? I would undertake to scale that tower, so the battering-rams made a diversion on ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the isthmus alone of six thousand five hundred cannon-balls and one thousand one hundred bombs every twenty-four hours. So approached the great closing scene of September 13. At seven A.M. of that day the ten battering-ships unmoored from the head of the bay and stood down to their station. Between nine and ten they anchored, and the general fire at once began. The besieged replied with equal fury. The battering-ships seem in the main, and for some hours, to have justified the hopes formed of them; ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... men and grown boys in the fort; and as many women and children. Led by the white savage, the Indians charged the gate with battering-ram logs; the log-carriers fell, but a hundred warriors stormed the palisade and tore with their knives and tomahawks and fingers ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... had no intention of being devoured in this summary fashion. They resumed their tireless, whirlwind attack like giants refreshed, and so harried their Yale foemen that they were forced to their utmost to ward off another touchdown. This incessant battering dulled the edges of their offensive tactics, and they seemed unable to set in motion a consistent series of advances. But the joy of Princeton was tempered by the knowledge that this, her dearest enemy, was not beaten until the last play ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... the 'Triumph' contain the different parts, originally separated by pillars, of a long and splendid procession. There are trumpeters and standard bearers, the statues of the gods borne aloft, battering-rams and heaps of glittering armour, trophies of conquest in huge vases filled with coin, garlanded oxen, and elephants. The second last of the series, presents the ranks of captives forming part of the show, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... century at least. Everybody outside the machinery of party was profoundly dissatisfied with the parliamentary system and with all its doings and undoings; and this general dissatisfaction was being quaintly expressed by a refusal to let Parliament rise. The Women Chartists were battering at its closed doors; and from peep-holes and other points of vantage within, smiling and indifferent legislators saw those bruised bodies, those strangely obsessed minds, those indomitable spirits carried off to magisterial lack of judgment ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... store of supplies; and the big bateau, with its thousand feet of inch and a half manila line coiled for instant use, whose thick, flaring sides and floor of selected timber were built to override the shock and battering of a thousand pitching logs—were carried to the bank ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... happened, only that my arms were going like windmills, that I was battering Courtenay, and that he was battering me; that we were down, and then up, and then down again, over and over, and fighting fiercely as ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... came swinging up the street. Three men jumped out and added their strength to those who were battering down ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... he crossed to the door, not merely to find it locked, but to discover that it was not the kind of lock that would yield to blows. There was no way out but by battering away one of the panels, and to this he addressed himself without hesitation, assisted by Balbi, who had armed himself with the bodkin, but who trembled fearfully at the noise of Casanova's blows. There was danger in this, but the danger must be braved, for time was slipping away. In half an ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... this tour was written, all the politicians of the earth were deciding, in their various coffee-houses, what all the monarchs were to do with the Eastern question. Stopford and Napier were better employed, in battering down the fortifications of Acre, and the politicians were soon relieved from their care of the general concerns of Europe. England settled this matter as she had often done before, and by the means which she has always ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... was buried, the siege went on slowly, as it had done during the first nine years of the war. The Greeks did not know at that time how to besiege a city, as we saw, by way of digging trenches and building towers, and battering the walls with machines that threw heavy stones. The Trojans had lost courage, and dared not go into the open plain, and they were waiting for the coming up of new armies of allies—the Amazons, who were girl warriors from far away, ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... heaven, and the Thing was now but a mere intricate device of metal whirling to destruction. It drove along in a straight line, incapable of guidance. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, smashing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have done, swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tremendous force into the river out of ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... maintained the city for their master, the caliph of Egypt, resisted with determined obstinacy. At length, after a confession of sins by the whole army, and a penitential procession around the walls, a simultaneous attack was made with battering-rains, mangonels, and all manner of besieging engines. At one quarter a huge wooden tower was wheeled close to the walls, a movable bridge was let down, and, bounding across it, a soldier named Lutold was the first man to stand upon the battlements. Godfrey of Bouillon and a number ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... both friend and foe; And ever and anon he beat, With doubled fist his cushion'd seat; And though sometimes, each breathless pause between, Astonished Melbourne at his side, His moderating voice applied, Yet still he kept his stern, unalter'd mien, While battering the Whigs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... 13, we heard firing at the gates of the city, and knew that our deliverers were near. The next day, scaling the walls or battering down the gates, they forced their way into the city and effected our rescue. The day following, the Roman Catholic Cathedral was relieved,—the defence of which forms the brightest page in the history of the siege, and in the afternoon we held ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... stream towards its sources among the pine-crested Black Hills, there were many places where the busy beavers had dammed its flow. The Indians, bent on trapping these wary creatures, had listened in the stillness of the solitudes to the battering of those wonderful tails upon the mud walls of their dams and forts, and had named the little river after its most marked characteristic, the constant "chug, chug" of ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... in northern China, just south of the Mongolian frontier, is a range of mountains inhabited by bands of wild sheep. They are wonderful animals, these sheep, with horns like battering-rams. But the mountains are also populated by brigands and the two do not form an agreeable combination from the ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... imagined that it was on my account that the service of his Majesty was not carried out, I went on shore, which I gained, inflicting great losses on the enemy, and I placed my last trenches a hundred paces from the enemy's fortification. I landed five heavy pieces for battering, and in ten days of bombarding, knocked to pieces a large part of a bastion where all the enemy's force was concentrated. In these days all the powder in the fleet was spent, without a grain being left with which its artillery could be loaded even once, ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... the father and the two sons, tried to open the door, but it resisted their efforts. From the empty cow-stall they took a beam to serve as a battering-ram and hurled it against the door with all their might. The wood gave way and the boards flew into splinters. Then the house was shaken by a loud voice, and inside, behind the side board which was overturned, they saw ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... belief, the world shaking off Rome. It was the prognostication of the philosopher who sees human thought, volatilized by the press, evaporating from the theocratic recipient. It was the terror of the soldier who examines the brazen battering ram, and says:—"The tower will crumble." It signified that one power was about to succeed another power. It meant, "The press will ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... young men and women, all shouting at the tops of their voices, dragging a carriage in which was sitting an old priest casting blessings right and left. A little farther on he found some French soldiers battering down the doors of a church with axes, and there were men attacking them with chairs. He saw that the French did still believe in something—though he could not understand in what. He was told that the State and the Church were separated after a century of living together, and that as the ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... His companion is much better, though he has a strong 'tocco di tedesco'. They both spoke well of you, and so far I liked them both. How go you on with the amiable little Blot? Does she listen to your Battering tale? Are you numbered among the list of her admirers? Is Madame———your Madame de Lursay? Does she sometimes knot, and are you her Meilcour? They say she has softness, sense, and engaging manners; in such an apprenticeship ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... shook all over the world before. Notwithstanding the amount of water in the country, I must have carried away from Trondhjem about a quarter of a pound of the native soil. Between the contortions of body and limb acquired by a brief residence in Paris, the battering out of several hats against my knee in the process of bowing throughout the cities of Germany, and the shaking of various boys' hands on my trip through Norway, I consider that my politeness now qualifies ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... picture of the siege. Whatever of mechanism or method was known to Greeks or Romans was employed by besiegers and besieged. Stones, fireballs, bunches of arrows, heavy beams were fired into the city by ballista and catapult, and were fired back with equal skill and abundance. The battering-rams breached the wall and found new walls rising just within. The besieged fished with iron hooks from the top of the walls, and hauled the captured Crusaders alive to their death at the summit. Stripped, they were used as stones for catapults, and stark ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... not want spiritual support to help us to bear up under our particular parts of suffering. I do not say that thou shalt be comforted all the while; but I say he will be to thee so faithful as to comfort thee under those thodes,48 gusts, blasts, or battering storms that beat against ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... attacks became less frequent. The schooners manoeuvring in the river poured broadsides into the Indian villages, battering down the flimsy wigwams. Pontiac moved his camp from the mouth of Parent's Creek to a position nearer Lake St Clair, out of range of their guns, and turned his thoughts to contrive some means of destroying the troublesome vessels. He had learned from the French of the attempt with fire-ships ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... the defences. The new towers, which had replaced the burnt ones, were brought up close to the walls, and plied the new machines which Cyprian and Phoenician engineers had constructed for their new master.[14399] The battering of the wall began. Engines moreover of a large size were placed on horse-transports furnished by Sidon, and on the heavier and clumsier of the triremes, and with these attacks were made upon the town in various places, all round the circuit of the walls, which, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... eastern United States has a similar coast, so serrated, indented, and rugged, as has this shore line of the Gulf of Maine. Here the battering by the forces of nature has resulted in making thousands of safe harbors and havens for the navigator. All along shore are strewn hundreds of islands, a characteristic feature of the region and one noted ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... dived deeply into my trousers-pocket, as if feeling for the price of a "liquor," and the man having involuntarily allowed me a little swing for this, I suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran at him as if my head were a battering-ram, and his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleaguered city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, and dodging the leg he had put out to trip me, I fled blindly ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of the general consent to his proposals, said, "If we really wish to carry out what we have set ourselves, we must prepare battering-rams and siege engines, and get together mechanics and builders for our own castles." [21] Thereupon Cyaxares at once undertook to provide an engine at his own expense, Gadatas and Gobryas made themselves responsible for a second, Tigranes for a third, and ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... should understand the saying of Keats—to wit, that in a great many cases the happiest conjunction of music and the soul occurs during what the profane call silence; the very fact of music haunting our mind, while every other sort of sound may be battering our ear, showing our highest receptivity. And, as a fact, we do not know that real musicians, real Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha and Abt Voglers, not written ones, require organs neither of glass nor of metal; but build their palaces of sound on a plain deal table with a paper covered with little ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... rush like battering-rams, even against infantry, men and horses ought to be watered and fresh (Ponsomby's cavalry at Waterloo). If there is ever contact between cavalry, the shock is so weakened by the hands of the men, ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... depicted. It was said to be 120 feet long, and dwelt upon the banks of the River Bagrada, where it used to devour the Roman soldiers as they went to fetch water. It had such tough scales that they were obliged to attack it with their engines meant for battering city walls, and only succeeded with ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... longer, and was flying to the door to open it, when, all of a sudden, and close upon us, the great organ pealed out so loud and thundering, it fairly made me tremble; and all the more, when I remembered me that, even in the stillness of that dead-cold weather, I had heard no sound of little battering hands upon the windowglass, although the phantom child had seemed to put forth all its force; and, although I had seen it wail and cry, no faintest touch of sound had fallen upon my ears. Whether I remembered all this at the very moment, I do not know; the great organ sound had ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you'd have cursed mine, I'm telling you, and he a man never gave peace to any, saving when he'd get two months or three, or be locked in the asylums for battering peelers or assaulting men (with depression) the way it was a bitter life he led me till I did up a ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... suddenly rushed upon the first of the four or five negro quarters. Knowing that the door of this house would be barricaded, he had instructed some of the negroes to bring a pole with them which might be used as a battering ram. With a rush but without any hurrah,—for Duncan had ordered quiet as a part of his plan of campaign,—the negroes carried the great pole forward and instantly crushed in the door. Within ten ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... morrow to their mobilisation centres. The country was on the eve of war. He was to go back through London to Surrey. His first feeling, he records, was one of extreme relief that his days of 'hopeless battering at the underside of civilisation' were at an end. Here was something definite to do, something definitely provided for. But his relief was greatly modified when he found that the mobilisation arrangements had been made so hastily and carelessly that for nearly ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... at the advancing phalanx of death, Paris alone tranquil, erect and steadfast in the midst of all their thunderbolts, polis ut regina micans omnes super urbes, a queenly city resplendent above all towns. The second attack begins with redoubled fury. After battering the walls of the north tower, monstrous machines on sixteen wheels are advanced and the besiegers strive to fill the fosse. Trees, shrubs, slaughtered cattle, wounded horses, the very captives slain before the eyes of the besieged, are cast in to fill the void. Bishop ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... and when swelled by the spring thaws and rains, the two flanking channels divided at the foundations of the house, and rustled away through the narrow paths of the small bridges to the rapids. You could stand at any window in the House and watch the ugly, rushing current, gorged with logs, come battering at the wall, jostle between the piers, and race on to the rocks and the dam and the slide beyond. You stepped from the front door upon the wall, which was a road between the bridges, and from the back door into the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... grounds had been torn down and used as fagots to fire the foundry, which was blazing merrily in a dozen places. Everywhere about the blazing building parties of men like hounds on the trail were hunting down strike-breakers and, on finding them, were brutally battering ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... customers; and with the autumn comes the vintage, and all its classic revelries. A happy folk—under a happy clime; which yet has its drawbacks, like all climes on earth. Terrible thunderstorms sweep over it, hail-laden, killing, battering, drowning, destroying in an hour the labours of the year; and there are ugly mistral winds likewise, of which it may be fairly said, that he who can face an eight days' mistral, without finding his life a burden, must ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... moment Mrs Bedford appeared at the door, and stepped out, but stopped as Shanter uttered a fierce yell and gesticulated, imitating the throwing of a spear and battering of ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... passions of this crowded assemblage. Peter had the picture of himself being exposed and denounced; he wasn't sure yet that it mightn't happen to him. And here was this meeting—thousands of workingmen, horny handed blacksmiths, longshoremen with shoulders like barns and truckmen with fists like battering rams, long-haired radicals of a hundred dangerous varieties, women who waved red handkerchiefs and shrieked until to Peter they seemed like gorgons with snakes ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... wind now, but there was not an ounce of fat over the stomach that he hammered so repeatedly, and it seemed as if he were battering hard rubber. He was fast losing his own wind, for his life had not been so healthy as had that of the man from the Northern forests. Hiram's punishing fists were finding their target more frequently now, for the truck man's defense was failing him. ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... HEAVEN, to evacuate its streets, to disperse its population, to lay aside its employments, to burn its wealth, to renounce its vanities and pomp; and for what?—that he may enter in as the King of Glory; or after enforcing his threat with the battering-ram of logic, the grape-shot of rhetoric, and the crossfire of his double vision, reduce the British metropolis to a Scottish heath, with a few miserable hovels upon it, where they may worship God according to the root of the matter, and an old man with a blue bonnet, a fair-haired ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... or if it was thought unadvisable to attempt it, the plan most commonly adopted was to try the effect of the battering-ram. [PLATE CX., Fig. 3.] The Assyrian armies were abundantly supplied with these engines, of which we see as many as seven engaged in a single siege. They were variously designed and arranged. Some had a head shaped like the point of a spear; others, one more resembling ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... five of the sealmen had left the third compartment, to join the swarm constantly swimming around and over the submarine outside. The five remaining were the crew for the battering ram. With measured and deliberate movements they ranged their lithe bodies beside the torpoon, lifted it and bore it smoothly back to the far end of the compartment. There they poised for a minute, while from the men watching sounded a pathetic sigh ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... the dreadful presence of "red-handed war." The last thing I remember ere the drowsy god "MURPHY" sent his fairies to weave their cobwebs about my eyelids, was "OLD CONNECTICUT." She didn't look like the battering-ram that she was. She had taken that chignon for a pillow, and fastened it to the back of the seat. Her head was thrown back; her chin had fallen, and at the extreme tip of her thin red nose a solitary tear glistened like a dew-drop ...
— Punchinello, Volume 2, No. 37, December 10, 1870 • Various
... then, spent and bodiless, the storm crept down the other side of the mountain and into the next parish, whither the affrighted quack-doctor had betaken himself. After, a perfect calm, a shining sun, and a sweet smell over all the land, which had thirstily drunk the battering showers. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... recklessly forward across the open space, pressing upon each other in headlong desire to be first, yelling like fiends, guns brandished in air, or spitting fire, animated by but one purpose—the battering of a way into that cabin. I know not who led them—all I saw was a mass of half-naked bodies bounding toward me, long hair streaming, copper faces aglow, weapons glittering in the light. Yes, I saw more—the meaning of that fierce rush; the instrument of destruction they brought with ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... stake, they would make a bolder resistance: and that the burning or destroying of a few houses, would be a small return for their labor, and the loss that they might sustain. This prudent advice had the desired effect, and they contented themselves with lightening the French vessel, and battering down several houses of the town, to show their ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... steps with axes, while two followed dragging the hose after them. The men with the axes had given one knock to the door when Billy saw what they were up to, and as he had often used his head as a battering-ram, he ran up the steps, and before the men knew he was there, he gave the door a mighty butt with his head which made it crash in and the men and goat ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... order had been evolved out of chaos, and our vessel once more rode the sea in safety. The pumps were then manned, when it was found that although much water was in the hold, it was easily gained upon, from which we concluded that no leak had sprung in our timbers, notwithstanding the battering they had received. Jury-masts were then rigged, upon which sufficient sail was set to give the ship steering way, when we hoped to make a harbour where we might ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... gods! The fire peeps up and crackles as it should. Now why not first slide off our backs these weary loads of wood And dip a vine-branch in the brazier till it glows, then straight Hurl it at the battering-ram against the stubborn gate? If they refuse to draw the bolts in immediate compliance, We'll set fire to the wood, and smoke will ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... thousand marks of violences committed upon it, by fire, sledges, battering rams, &c. which its great solidity and strength ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... all the blind, fighting spirit which, in gridiron days, had driven him with clinched teeth into the thick of the battering melee. He sprang into a crouching posture, face turned toward the taunting sound, every muscle taut, every nerve tingling, and with but one thought surging through his brain—the desire to charge back ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... the house. At any moment a fire might be opened on them. Finding, however, that they were allowed to remain with impunity in front of the house, a party of them rushed up to the door and began battering away with their clubs, hoping to break it open. In addition to the bars, the girls had placed the dining-room table and the heaviest articles of furniture they could find ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Sapor were more than once destroyed by the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed their approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram, and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to escape through the opposite gate, were involved by ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... came just then unexpectedly from another quarter—there was a sudden battering sound. Something went past them through the branches with a crashing noise. It was terrific, the way it smashed and clattered overhead, making a clapping rattle that died away into the distance with strange swiftness. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... distance; the ballista discharged flights of darts and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... trees was cut down some years ago by a party of men, who, I think, should have been sent to prison for the deed. It took five men twenty-five days to cut it through with augers and saws, and then they were obliged to use a great wedge and a battering-ram ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... sob shook her as she prayed the prayer of the weak. How much easier is it to stand at the window, with the police battering at the door, and, stimulated by its morbid interest, blow out our brains before the gaping crowd—which will, by the way, take exactly the same morbid interest in the shooting of a horse in the street—than to retire into the silence of the prison-cell ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... stones and earth, where we could not easily get at them because of the showers of spears which were rained at anyone who showed himself, they began to undermine it, levering out the bottom stones with stakes and battering them with poles. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... shrapnel bullets on several premises. Shrapnel has no battering force. Its object is to kill or disable men. It can do no harm to walls. Its employment in this instance was a wanton act intended to inspire terror and doubtless augmented the loss of life among ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... iron rail and used it as a battering ram against the lobby doors. Sheriff McLendon tried to stop them, and some one of the mob knocked him down with a chair. Still he counseled moderation and would not order his deputies and the police to disperse the crowd by force. The pacific policy of the sheriff impressed ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... the face of the earth, and for the sake of whose destruction nature was being churned up into such a ferment; but, judging from the unceasing malignant roar, someone was getting it very hot. A victorious force was in full chase over the fields, storming in the forest and on the church roof, battering spitefully with its fists upon the windows, raging and tearing, while something vanquished was howling and wailing.... A plaintive lament sobbed at the window, on the roof, or in the stove. It ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... had, if possible, a still greater love for a beating. Carre de Montgeron, who relates the circumstance, was unable to satisfy her with sixty blows of a large sledge hammer. He afterwards used the same weapon, with the same degree of strength, for the sake of experiment, and succeeded in battering a hole in a stone wall at the twenty-fifth stroke. Another woman, named Sonnet, laid herself down on a red-hot brazier without flinching, and acquired for herself the nickname of the salamander; while others, desirous of a more illustrious martyrdom, attempted to crucify themselves. M. Deleuze, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... self-seeking. "Ho! all ye that desire the freedom of the slave, who would labor for liberty, follow me and I will show you the only true way," was the tone which the editor of the Liberator held to men, who were battering with might and main to breach the walls of the Southern Bastile. They were plainly not against the slave, although opposed to Mr. Garrison, narrowly, unjustly opposed to him, without doubt, but working strenuously according to their lights for the destruction of a common enemy and tyrant. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... in combat, The uplifted arm, the clatter of blows on the helmeted head, The death-howl, the limpsy tumbling body, the rush of friend and foe thither, The siege of revolted lieges determin'd for liberty, The summons to surrender, the battering at castle gates, the truce and parley, The sack of an old city in its time, The bursting in of mercenaries and bigots tumultuously and disorderly, Roar, flames, blood, drunkenness, madness, Goods freely rifled from ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... and town he throws an anxious glance. No car he sees, no sister-charioteer. Desperate of flight, nor daring to advance, Aghast, and shuddering at the lifted lance, He falters. Then AEneas poised at last His spear, and hurled it, as he marked his chance. Less loud the stone from battering engine cast, Less loud through ether bursts the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil |
