"Dirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... huts, an' those our round-shot plowed through like so much grass—which was what they was, mostly. Then old Johnny Buck piped the longboat overside and on shore we went, firin' all the time. Cap'n Vane himself, with a dirk in his teeth and sword an' pistol out, goes swearin' up the roadway an' we behind him, our feet stickin' in blood. A few come out shootin' their little arrers at us, but we herded 'em an' drove 'em, yellin' ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... hypotheses explains the unfinished state of that narrative. My explanation is that the story has a foundation in fact, and that Poe himself never learned more than a foundation for the portion which he wrote. Its leading character next to Pym is one Dirk Peters, a sailor, mutineer, etc. It is my theory that Pym and Peters existed in fact, but that Poe never met either of them, though he did meet sailors who had known Dirk Peters, and that he heard from them the first part of the story, in the form in which it grew to be repeated by seafaring ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in his boots, saw him to-day looking in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... next twenty years various Dutch vessels, while sailing to the settlements in the East Indies, met with the coast of Australia. In 1616 Dirk Hartog landed on the island in Shark Bay which is now called after him. Two years later Captain Zaachen is said to have sailed along the north coast, which he called Arnhem Land. Next year (1619) another captain, called Edel, surveyed the ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... left, stooping slightly forward, and darting his eyes about as if selecting a victim for his weapon. A stranger touched Richling from behind, spoke a hurried word in Italian, and handed him a huge dirk. But in that same moment the affair was over. There stood Ristofalo, gentle, self-contained, with just a perceptible smile turned upon the crowd, no knife in his hand, and beside him the slender, sinewy, form, and keen gray eye ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... century; and, as we looked out upon the river in the morning sunlight, we could almost fancy that the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and that we, English yeomen's sons in homespun cloth, with dirk at belt, were waiting there to witness the writing of that stupendous page of history, the meaning whereof was to be translated to the common people some four hundred and odd years later by one Oliver Cromwell, who had deeply ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... her to take something bright from her girdle, which apprehension converted into a stiletto or dirk, and such is the force of self-preservation, that I was on the point of tripping her up and throwing her on her back. But thrusting the supposed dirk against the wall—presto—open sesame—the wall gave way, and she drew me through ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... I saw too, stealing out from the rear of the stage, a small, compact wedge of men wearing those same red buttons; and the prow of the wedge was Fighting Dave Dancy, the official bad man of a bad county, a man who packed a gun on each hip and carried a dirk knife down the back of his neck; a man who would shoot you at the drop of a hat and provide the hat himself—or at least so ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... came by his end. He was a daft dog! Oh, an' he could ha' handen' off the smugglers! Ye see, sir, there was a king's sloop down in Wigton Bay, and Frank Kennedy, he behoved to have her up to chase Dirk Hatteraick's lugger. He was a daring cheild, and fought his ship till she blew up like peelings ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... the theatre. Bill had given Rodney a dirk, which he carried in his bosom. They went up into the third tier of boxes, which was filled with the most wicked and debased men and women. While the rest were laughing, and talking, and cursing, Rodney sat down on the front seat to ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... writing than hack engineering. And unlike the other English realists of his generation who have cultivated a cheap flippancy, McFee finds no exhilaration in easy sneers at middle-class morality. He has a dirk up his sleeve for Gentility (how delightfully he flays it in Aliens) but he loves the middle classes for just what they are: the great fly-wheel of the world. His attitude toward his creations is that ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... crazy enough to try anything like that," Commander Dirk Prinsloo, of the Aldebaran, declared. "He'd get away with it for just twelve months—the time it would take to get the news to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here. And then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... anything of the kind," said Maternus gently, "just drive your dirk good and far into him and be done with him. I'll be on the lookout for any hanky-panky from Hedulio. If I see the wrong look in his eye or the wrong expression on his face I'll make a quick end of him. I'll tolerate no treachery after oath ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... woman, who walk side by side without word or look passing between them. The man is tall and handsome, armed in the close-knit ring-mail shirt of the Dane, with gemmed sword hilt and golden mountings to scabbard and dirk, and his steel helm and iron-gray hair seem the same colour in the shadowless light of the dull sky overhead. One would set his ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... substances now lying about were noticed. The excitement engendered at the sight of the bones was enough temporarily to blind them to the numerous things found scattered about. Here was a dirk, the edges entirely worn away, and whitened. There were the metal ribs of what seemed to be a case, or a receptacle of some kind. Lying at one side was an ancient type of firearm, long, heavy, and with an immense bore. Another and another were found—a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... to be their only chance; and the impetuous Terence had already unsheathed his midshipman's dirk, with the design of burying it in the body ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... is the dirk and claymore. But the young lady seems revived now. Do you take supper? I'll send the ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... of the luckless torches that Dirk had lighted in a circle about the mound, and began to examine the ground. "What is there to eat? Stay! By Heaven, I have it! The bushes are filled with fluttering game. There, see that! and that, and ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Lord, an' health be yours, Unskaithed by hunger'd Highland boors; Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar, Wi' dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger, May twin auld Scotland o' a life She likes—as butchers ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... and twists; and that is all. They have no weapons capable of contending with the assassin's dagger. I should like to see the huntress grappling with an imposing adversary, one as crafty as herself, an expert layer of ambushes and, like her, bearing a poisoned dirk. I should like to see the bandit armed with her stiletto confronted by another bandit equally familiar with the use of that weapon. Is such a duel possible? Yes, it is quite possible and even quite common. On the one hand we have the Pompili, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... unfortunate foreign people, it has always been accompanied with a particular and positive interest in their most foreign customs and their most foreign externals. The man who made a romance of the Scotch High-lander made a romance of his kilt and even of his dirk; the friend of the Red Indians was interested in picture writing and had some tendency to be interested in scalping. To take a more serious example, such nations as Serbia had been largely commended to international consideration by ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... Arminians) came upon the scene towards the end of the sixteenth century. Dirk Vorlkertsz Coornhert had written a very able refutation of the dogma of predestination. The Town Council of Amsterdam ordered Jacob Arminius to Write a book against Coornhert's work. But behold! when Arminius settled down to the task, and read Coornhert's argument carefully, he came ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... roifle," and was as cheerful as if a wedding was in progress. Finally, Timotheus got the fowling piece and the Squire looked to the priming of his pistols. Mr. Nash, of course, had both revolver and dirk knife concealed somewhere about his person. Then Mr. Errol conducted family prayers, the children were sent to bed, the ladies briefly informed of the situation, and the garrison bidden a more than usually ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... magnificent spectacle. The yellow leather of the doublets worn by Junker von Warmond, Colonel Mulder, and Captain Allertssohn, the colored silk scarfs that adorned them, and the scarlet coat of brave Dirk Smaling contrasted admirably with the deep black robes of Pastor Verstroot, the burgomaster, the city clerk, and their associates! The violet of the commissioner's dress and the dark hues of the fur-bordered surcoats worn by the elder Herr Van der Does and Herr Van Montfort blended ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thoughts fixed upon the coming battle, or perhaps wandering back to the green fields and pleasant homes they had so recently left, perhaps forever. The gray old yeoman of the frigate, with his mates, walked from gun to gun, silently placing a well-sharpened cutlass, a dirk, and a heavy leather boarding-cap at each man's side. The marines were drawn up in a line amidships; their erect, soldierly air and rigid alignment contrasting with the careless slouchiness of the sailors. Butts for the sailors' ridicule as ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Jehu, looking very uncomfortable, as he saw Peter flourishing a short dirk, and the doctor holding him back and remonstrating with him. "That man of Satan I never saw before yesterday, when I entered his house, where there was fiddling and dancing, and serving the devil. Truly my head became dizzy at the sight, my heart sunk within me at beholding such wickedness, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... historic things to see, in every direction, if we had had time for all: traces of the Attecott Picts; Pict forts and tombs, castles of the Middle Ages; robber caves; Convenanters' monuments; and at Balcarry, near Auchencairn, the landing-place of the smuggler Yawkins, who was Scott's "Dirk Hatteraick." But we had only five days for everything before the Great Day—which will be coming so soon now. From Auchencairn we turned inland to a rolling country where the Gray Dragon would be down one ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... led into their realm, and went boldly down. There in the Underworld he found the child, and thus the robbers were forced to take their own again instead. In a more detailed narrative from Islay, the father arms himself with a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, and having found the hill where the "Good People" had their abode open, and filled with the lights and sounds of festival, he approached and stuck the dirk into the threshold. ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... not look suspicious for one who planned much walking on the caked Lowland ooze. But those fat soles were cleverly fashioned to hide a long, keen knife-blade, like a dirk. I could lift a foot and get the knife out of its hidden compartment with fair speed. This I had in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... fifth floor of a house in the Rue des Dames, and for a couple of hundred francs bought at a second-hand dealer's enough furniture to make it habitable. I arranged with the concierge to make my coffee in the morning and to keep the place clean. Then I went to see my friend Dirk Stroeve. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... latter that a speedy and terrible revenge followed. The stalwart sons of the MacNab, urged by their wrathful sire, whose hint in the words—"The night is the night if lads were but lads," almost amounted to a command, equipped themselves with dirk, pistol, and claymore, raised a boat on their shoulders, and carrying it by night all the way from Loch Tay across the hills by Glentarken, launched it stealthily on Loch Earn, and taking the Neishes by surprise are said to have killed them all, except one boy, ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... must to it herself," said Duncan quietly, and, with the lips compressed of calm decision, turned towards the door, to get his dirk from the next room. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... a party of men came rushing down Eighth Avenue, opposite Lamartine Hall, cheering and shouting, led by a man waving a sword cane. As he swung it above his head it parted, disclosing a long dirk. The police immediately advanced and swept the street. Eighth Avenue was cleared from Thirtieth Street to Twenty-eighth Street, and the police formed several deep, leaving only room enough for the cars ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... deck of a galleon stout, Hurray for the life on the sea, Hurray! for the cutlass; the dirk; an' th' pike; Wild rovers ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... (All. Cunn. in Hook. Herb.); fruticosa, ramulis fastigiatis foliisque parvis linearibus dentato-scrratis glabris, capsulis globosotriangularibus laevibus glabris.—Collected by Allan Cunningham in Dirk Hartog's island.] ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... which he finally completed with the aid of Miss Lucy Larcom. We got down from the shelf Longfellow's "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and looked it over together. "Annie of Tharaw" was a great favorite of his, and the poem by Dirk Smit, on "The Death of an Infant," found his ready appreciation. Whittier easily fell from these into talk of Burns, who was his master and ideal. "He lives, next to Shakespeare," he said, "in the heart ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... shall not be lawful for any Negro or person of color to own, use, or keep any bowie knife, dirk, sword or fire arms or ammunition of any kind" without license, to be granted only upon the recommendation of two "respectable" white men. For violating this law the Negro was to stand in the pillory for one hour and then be whipped with thirty-nine lashes on the bare back.[3] South Carolina, always ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... front and laced across with pink ribbon, a showy scarf tied about the head, the ends falling on the shoulders; the neck and arms ornamented with brilliant jewelry; a morocco belt encircles the waist, to which is attached a small dirk. The two card-players are looking at their cards, countenances expressing deep thought. The one who stands facing the audience looks to the floor. The one that is asleep should lie in a position so that the countenance can be seen, the ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... works, yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk, I vow that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he died loving me and me only." The young girl made a gesture of rage. "I understand you, Fernand; you would be revenged on him because I do not love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that answer? To lose you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that friendship changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... robe of seeming truth and trust Hid crafty Observation; And secret hung, with poison'd crust, The dirk of Defamation: A mask that like the gorget show'd, Dye-varying on the pigeon; And for a mantle large and broad, He wrapt him in religion. HYPOCRISY ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take the dirk, and, striking the head of your enemy with it a second time, to dispel your hatred ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... easily to be eaten. Carving is here a very laborious employment, for the knives are never whetted. Table knives are not of long subsistence in the highlands: every man, while arms were a regular part of dress, had his knife and fork appendant to his dirk. Knives they now lay upon the table, but the handles are apt to show that they have been in other hands, and the blades have neither ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... street-merchant with large tray of water-melons, sweetmeats, raisins, sherbet, and the bear-shewer, and the Barbary organ, and the night-watchman who evermore cried 'Fire!' with his long lantern, two pistols, dirk, and wooden javelin. Strange how all that old life has come back to my fancy now, pretty vividly, and for the first time, though I have been here several times lately. I have gone out to those plains beyond the walls with their view of rather barren mountain-peaks, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... shelter, I have shed a man's blood in a fray; Oh swear that you will not betray me, By your dirk, by the dear light of day!" And the prayer in his kindness he answered, But aghast heard the voices that cried; "Your cousin lies slain! Can a stranger Have passed by the steep ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... 25th of October arrived here the ship 'Endraght', of Amsterdam; first supercargo Gilles Miebas Van Luck; Captain Dirk Hartog, of Amsterdam. She set sail again on the 27th of the same month. Bantum was ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... shot near this place by The connivance of the late HENDRIK DIRK UYS A Minister of God Who thrice took the oath of neutrality And Piet ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... to Holland, and there he encountered Dirk Hammerhand, from whom to take a buffet was never to need another, and bought from him his famous mare Swallow, the price agreed on being the half of what Hereward had offered and a box on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... traitor," interrupted Bizco, "his guts'll be ripped out." And to lend force to his declaration he drew out his dirk and plunged ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... green birch in his hands, and something wet and warm trickling from his forehead into his left eye. Three men were at him. Bill McKay was one of them and Pierre Benoist another. McKay fought with a clubbed musket, and the French sailor held a dirk in one hand and an empty pistol in the other. The third prodded about in the background with a cutlass. He seemed to ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... one of the great foci of secular and ecclesiastical culture. Sluter, the great sculptor, went to Burgundy, took service with the dukes, and bequeathed no specimen of his art to the land of his birth. Dirk Bouts, the artist of Haarlem, removed to Louvain, where his best work is preserved; what was left at Haarlem has perished. At Haarlem, too, and earlier, perhaps, than anywhere else, obscure experiments were being made in that great art, craving to be brought forth, which was ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... tries to resist, he is sure to feel the force of his adversary's claws and teeth with redoubled vengeance. Many years ago, Colonel Duff, in India, was laid low by the stroke of a Bengal tiger. On coming to himself, he found the animal standing over him. Recollecting that he had his dirk by his side, he drew it out of the case, in the most cautious manner possible, and by one happy thrust quite through the heart, he laid the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... cartridge-pouches that I examined were completely filled, showing that their possessors had not fired a single round; others had but one cartridge missing. There were fragments of clothing, hair, blankets, murderous bowie and dirk knives, spurs, flasks, caps, and plumes, dropped all the way through the thicket, and the trees on every hand were riddled with balls. I came upon a squirrel, unwittingly shot during the fight. Not those alone ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... time indulging their convivial propensities. Much noise and confusion prevailed; and two gentlemen, who, as I afterwards learned, were officers belonging to a Spanish vessel then in port, fell into a dispute and got into a fight, during which one of them stabbed the other with a dirk-knife, inflicting ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... to throw the napkin in his face: at the twelfth he hoped some great calamity would befall him: at the fifteenth, he would not be able to restrain himself from stabbing him several times with a dirk. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... broadsword, cutlass, falchion^, scimitar, cimeter^, brand, whinyard, bilbo, glaive^, glave^, rapier, skean, Toledo, Ferrara, tuck, claymore, adaga^, baselard^, Lochaber ax, skean dhu^, creese^, kris, dagger, dirk, banger^, poniard, stiletto, stylet^, dudgeon, bayonet; sword-bayonet, sword-stick; side arms, foil, blade, steel; ax, bill; pole-ax, battle-ax; gisarme^, halberd, partisan, tomahawk, bowie knife^; ataghan^, attaghan^, yataghan^; yatacban^; assagai, assegai^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... looks at the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the extreme north we find the Gulf of Carpentaria, and to the extreme south the island which used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not altogether to be wondered ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... which was partially displayed a handsome vest and ruffled shirt. About his waist passed a broad wampum belt, in which were confined a brace of silver mounted pistols, another pair of less finish and value, a silver handled dirk, a scalping knife and tomahawk, on whose blades could be seen traces of blood. Around his neck was a neatly tied cravat, and dangling in front of his vest a gold chain, which connected with a watch hid in a pocket of his breeches, whence depended a larger chain of ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... eyes, a position rectified by Walckenaer as above and by Kirby in his Bridgewater Treatise where he gives a copy of the French figure of this singular spider—Two Crustacea, one (Ocypode convexus) from Dirk Hatterick's and the other (Pagurus clibanarius) from Shark Bay, are all the Annulose animals described or figured as coming from New Holland, from the pitiable circumstance above ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... Isaac's hand. The cut was not serious, but Isaac would not allow it to be properly treated, and subsequently died from an attack of brain fever. The War Chief was sorely grieved at the result of his hasty action, and fretted about it until the end of his days. He is said to have hung the dirk up in his room and to have often wept as he gazed upon it. The other source of trouble to Brant was the revolt against his rule of a small minority among the tribes. This movement was led by Brant's old adversary, Red Jacket, and ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... of Golden Cyrcle! Why in the devil don't one dirk all? Where now's your chivalrie?' 'Goode sir,' quod he, 'twas ne for fight I hied me out ilk murkie ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the army officer with new respect. He had always been inclined to think of the Frontier Guards as a gang of scientifically illiterate dirk-and-pistol bravos. He fiddled for a while with instruments on the panel; an automatic computer figured the distance to the planet, the boat's velocity, and the time ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... skulk!" cried Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul," he ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spirit too. They were Bavarians—all new troops, and nearly all young fellows. Their accouterments were bright and their uniforms almost unsoiled, and I saw that each man carried in his right boot top the long, ugly-looking dirk-knife that the Bavarian foot-soldier fancies. The Germans always showed heat when they found a big service clasp-knife hung about a captured Englishman's neck on a lanyard, calling it a barbarous weapon ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... And the sound of my own name pricked me up to listen sharply with my one good ear. You must bear in mind, Rector, that I could not see them, and durst not get up to peep over the quarter-rail, for fear of scaring them. But I was wearing a short hanger, like a middy's dirk—the one I always carry in ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... has taken up dirk from table. She puts it down again. MORAG sees the action and pushes dirk away so that it rolls off the table and drops to the floor. She hides her face ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... knocking at the gate; and opening it, he saw a stranger, with torn clothing and kilt besmeared with blood, who, in a breathless voice, begged for asylum. He went on to say that he had killed a man in a fray, and that the pursuers were at his heels. Campbell promised to shelter him. 'Swear on your dirk!' said the stranger; and Campbell swore. He then led him to a secret recess in the depths ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... has measured our wit for his portrait, Even he has grown shyer of using his tongue than he once was. Have you not heard the tale? Tintoretto was told Aretino Meant to make him the subject of one of his merry effusions; And with his naked dirk he went carefully over his person, Promising, if the poet made free with him in his verses, He would immortalize my satirical friend with that pencil. Doubtless the tale is not true. Aretino says nothing about it; Always speaks, in fact, with the highest respect ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... on a hundred curtained execution grounds, with the dirk of the suicide firmly grasped and about to shed their own life-blood, have sung the martyrs who died willingly for their faith in their idea of Yamato Damashii.[19] In untold instances in the national history, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... stained as if with hard travel and fight. I did not know—or even ask myself—why they did not frighten me, but they did not. Suddenly I seemed to know that they were brave men and had been doing some brave, hard thing. Here and there among them I caught sight of a broken and stained sword, or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all pale, but their wild faces were joyous and triumphant. I saw ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... article used in Japan. The wearing of the sword was confined to persons of a certain rank, and different classes wore different kinds of swords. About the sixteenth century the custom of wearing two swords, one large, the other about the size of a dirk, came into fashion. The two-handed sword was essentially a war sword. The colour of the scabbard was almost invariably black with a tinge of red or green, and it was in most instances beautifully lacquered. The possessor of a sword gave full ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... of which he was head. Success was instantaneous. Within a few weeks Fraser was at the head of some 1500 men. They wore the Highland dress, with a sporran of badger's or otter's skin and carried musket and broadsword; some of them wore a dirk at their own cost. Among the officers were no less than five Simon Frasers,[3] three or four each of Alexander Frasers and John Frasers, and a good many other Frasers, among them a young Ensign, Malcolm Fraser, destined to rule one of the seigniories at Malbaie ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... Dirk Hartog, in command of the Endragt, while on his way from Holland to the East Indies, put into what Dampier afterwards called Sharks' Bay, and on an island, which now bears his name, deposited a tin plate with an inscription recording his arrival, and dated October 25th, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... he, after supper was over, "you're getting a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the rest of us. You're old enough to strap a dirk to ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ancient bard her glee repressed: 'Ill hast thou chosen theme for jest! For who, through all this western wild, Named Black Sir Roderick e'er, and smiled? In Holy-Rood a knight he slew; I saw, when back the dirk he drew, Courtiers give place before the stride Of the undaunted homicide; And since, though outlawed, hath his hand Full sternly ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... a dirk which he usually carried with him, and in the excitement of the moment inflicted a slight wound on Isaac's hand. The cut was not serious, but Isaac would not allow it to be properly treated, and subsequently ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... A clever politician, Dirk Kanter by name, a gentleman by birth, a scholar and philosopher by pursuit and education, and a demagogue by profession, saw an opportunity of taking an advantage of this state of things. More than twenty years before he had been burgomaster of the city, and had much enjoyed himself in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... forward and stabbed him in the back with a bayonte: turning round, at a blow he laid the fellow at his feet; the next instant he knocked down another, and rushing on ——, like a child laid him on his back, and seizing his dirk from his belt brandished it over his head; the next instant it would have been buried in him, had I not with both hands seized his arm; he shook me off in an instant, while I measured my length on the ice; Mr. —— then ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... climb the high sides of the Tryal and carry, in hand-to-hand conflict, the barricades of water-casks and bales of matting which the slaves had built across the deck. There was no hanging back, and even a mite of a midshipman from Boston pranced into it with his dirk. The negroes were well armed and fought ferociously. The mate was seriously wounded, four seamen were stabbed, the Spanish first mate had two musket balls in him, and a passenger was killed ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... soon ending in a short chirrup, told that it now rested on the thwarts of the boat alongside. We pulled ashore, and it was a slight perchance to move a woman, to see the poor little fellow's hat and bit of a dirk lying on his coffin, whilst the body was carried by four ships boys, the eldest scarcely fourteen. I noticed the tears stand in Anson's eyes as the coffin was lowered into the grave,—the boy had been wounded close to him,—and when we heard ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Caesar and struck him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow straight from the shoulder with his left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed up against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... break off his evil courses. But this only made him angry. To get rid of her reproofs, he left her and went to one of the Western States. There, while he was engaged at a public house, with some of his wicked companions, talking politics, one of them called him a liar, and he drew out his dirk and stabbed him to the heart. He ran away from the place, but the image of the murdered man haunted him day and night, and made him wretched. He gave himself up to intoxication, and at the age of twenty-three years, fell into a drunkard's grave, some time after his ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... desperation of terror or the fluttering agitation that seemed likely to make outcry. In her hand she held a kitchen knife which had been sharpened and re-sharpened on the grindstone until its point was as taperingly keen as that of a dirk. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... which she had just heard at the door, Cecily did not the less tranquilly continue her undressing; she drew from her corsage, where it was placed like a busk, a dirk, five or six inches long, in a case of black shagreen, with a handle of black ebony fastened with silver, a very simple handle, but perfectly handy, not a weapon of ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Mr. Bartoline Saddle-tree and his prudent helpmate, and Porteous swinging in the wind, and Madge Wildfire, full of finery and madness, and her ghastly mother.—Again, there is Meg Merrilies, standing on her rock, stretched on her bier with "her head to the east," and Dirk Hatterick (equal to Shakspeare's Master Barnardine), and Glossin, the soul of an attorney, and Dandy Dinmont, with his terrier-pack and his pony Dumple, and the fiery Colonel Mannering, and the modish old counsellor Pleydell, and Dominie Sampson,[138] ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... in 1616 the Eendragt stumbled on Australia opposite Shark's Bay. Her captain, Dirk Hartog, landed on the long island which lies as a natural breakwater between the bay and the ocean, and erected a metal plate to record his visit; and Dirk Hartog Island is the name it bears to this day. The plate remained till 1697, when another Dutchman, Vlaming, substituted ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... about with the guilty look of plotters in their worried eyes. If one of them fails to slip something in without paying duty on it she will be disappointed for life. All women are natural enemies to all excise men. Dirk, the Smuggler, was the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... represented, but that I found them to be the best swordsmen on board. They had been so thoroughly trained as boarders, that every man was prepared for such an emergency, with his cutlass as sharp as a razor, a dirk made by the ship's armorer out of a ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... contemplative and scornful. But there were other matters besides luxury of couch and toilet. Slung against the wall appeared a fine carbine, the pistols and sword of Ian's father, and a wonderful long, twisted, and damascened knife or dirk—creese, Ian called it—that had come in some trading-ship of his uncle's. And he had books in a small closet room, and a picture that ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Boston, prompt to recognize and to honor talent, made the dreaming story-teller a surveyor in the custom-house, thus opening to him a new range of experience. From the society of phantoms he stepped upon Long Wharf and plumply confronted Captain Cuttle and Dirk Hatteraick. It was no less romance to our author. There is no greater error of those who are called "practical men" than the supposition that life is, or can be, other than a dream to a dreamer. Shut him up in a counting-room, barricade him with bales of merchandise, and limit his library to the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... to boast of; but as soon as I could bear the weight of a cockade and a dirk, uncle got me a berth as midshipman on board his own ship. So there I was, Mr. Bellophron Box. I didn't like the sea or the service, being continually disgusted at the partiality shown towards me, for in less ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... up, laid one hand upon his dirk, and strutted up to Ram, looking "as big as a small ossifer," as Dirty Dick said afterwards; and gave him a smart slap on the shoulder as he was ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... weel, man," answered James, "I mind it weel, and good reason why—it was when you unclasped the fause traitor Ruthven's fangs from about our royal throat, and drove your dirk into him like a true subject. We did then, as you remind us, (whilk was unnecessary,) being partly beside ourselves with joy at our liberation, promise we would grant you a free boon every year; whilk promise, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Poe being absent, Arthur Pym being dead, I had only one thing to do; to find the man who had been the fellow-traveller of Arthur Pym, that Dirk Peters who had followed him to the very verge of the high latitudes, and whence they had both returned—how? This is not known. Did they come back in company? The narrative does not say, and there are obscure points in ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... teasing, obtained from him the loan of his Deputy-Lieutenant's uniform; then she darted into the drawing-room, on hearing Uncle Roger's voice, and conjured him not to forget to give a little note to Alex, containing these words, "Willy must wear his cap without a peak. Bring Roger's dirk, and above all, beg, borrow, or steal, Uncle Roger's fishing boots." Her next descent was upon Aunt Mary, in her own room: "Aunt, would you do me a great favour, and ask no questions, nor tell Henrietta? Do just lend me ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... description of Highland butter). On one occasion a certain Ronald of Aberardair was a guest in Donald's house, and Donald's wife said, "Though I put butter on the table for you tonight, it will just be dirtied". "I will go with you to the butter-keg," said Ronald, "with my dirk in my hand, and hold my bonnet over the keg, and he will not dirty it this night." So the two went together to fetch the butter, but it was dirtied ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... in his temple nimbly leading the cake-walk, leaning as far back as ever Dixey did when exploiting that dance. In the matter of carving, Ward McAllister couldn't hold a candle to him: he used no knife nor fork, but slashed his Christmas turkey in pieces with his dirk, ate it and called for the next course. His wife never got any of the white meat—the drum-sticks were good enough for her. He was more than a two-bottle man: this is made plain in the reliefs by the number of "empties" that are stacked upon his table, and also by the fact ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... and was to be separated from his wife and four children. Husband and wife pleaded not to be separated but the reply was that the buyer desired only the man. Later, however, the master indicated that some other arrangement might be arrived at but the man was suspicious and armed himself with a dirk. His suspicions were further aroused when he was told to come to the woods where some trees were to be chopped and when he noticed that the master had a stout rope under his coat. The slave kept at a distance from the master until the latter ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... James's experience to supply a case" about thirlage. No, no, my good friend, I have lived by the law, and in the law, all my life; and when you seek the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer story or two of estates that have ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... having at once recognized him, he clapped his hands, and exclaimed, 'Alas! is this the case?' Finding that there was now a discovery, Malcolm asked, 'What's to be done?' 'Swear him to secrecy,' answered Prince Charles. Upon which Malcolm drew his dirk, and on the naked blade, made him take a solemn oath, that he would say nothing of his having seen the Wanderer, till his escape ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... meet him on a certain day the week after; and there was no post-office in those parts. And so she did meet him, and told him all about it. And Allister said nothing much then. But next day he came striding up to the cottage, at dinner-time, with his claymore (gladius major) at one side, his dirk at the other, and his little skene dubh (black knife) in his stocking. And he was grand to see—such a big strong gentleman I And he came striding up to the cottage where the shepherd ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... they know not as yet whether running, swimming or flying,—headlong into the New Era. With clangour and terror: from above, Broglie the war-god impends, preternatural, with his redhot cannon-balls; and from below, a preternatural Brigand-world menaces with dirk and firebrand: madness ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the detective said, as he gathered up two revolvers, an ugly looking dirk-knife and a ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... prick beautiful patterns on the leaf's greenness—dots and circles, and borders and tiny triangles of a most decorative order. Neither Donal nor Robin had a pin but Donal had, in his rolled down stocking, a little dirk the point of which could apparently be used for any interesting purpose. It was really he who did the decoration, but Robin leaned against the bench and looked on enthralled. She had never been happy before in the entire course ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... voyage from the West Coast of America to India, between the Indian or Malay Islands, and the great continent to the south, hence we have Torres Straits. The first authentic voyager, however, to our actual shores was Theodoric Hertoge, subsequently known as Dirk Hartog—bound from Holland to India. He arrived at the western coast between the years 1610 and 1616. An island on the west coast bears his name: there he left a tin plate nailed to a tree with the date ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... whiskers, and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged himself out, more majorum, in the full Highland costume. I never saw Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered from head to foot, with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu, and at least a hundred-weight of cairngorums cast a prismatic glory around his person. I felt quite abashed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... horse your father has bought of Dirk Odendaal,' says Piet, in a tone which suggests that his new paper collar, purchased for the ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... word She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board. If any ask her of her drift, Forsooth, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... probationary classes of "volunteers," instead of being at once advanced to a warrant. Nor will you fail to remark, when you see an English cutter officered by one of those volunteers, that the boy does not so strut and slap his dirk-hilt with a Bobadil air, and anticipatingly feel of the place where his warlike whiskers are going to be, and sputter out oaths so at the men, as is too often the case with the little boys wearing best-bower anchors on their lapels in the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... near Bowmore, there was a prostrate column, rudely sculptured; and, among others, two grave-stones, one with the figure of a warrior, habited in a sort of tunic reaching to the knees, and a conical head-dress. His hand holds a sword, and by his side is a dirk. The decoration of the other is a large sword, surrounded by a wreath of leaves; and at one end the figures of three animals. This column has been removed from its resting-place, and set up in the centre of a battery erected near Islay ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... of Raasay, and became known as Gillecallum Garbh MacGillechallum. Macleod of Gairloch's sons, by Hector Roy's sister, were all murdered. Roderick took his own nephew to the room where, walking with his brutal relative, he heard one of his half-brothers cry on being stabbed by the assassin's dirk, and saying "Yon's my brother's cry." "Hold your peace," Rory replied, "yonder cry is to make you laird of Gairloch; he is the son of one of Mackenzie's daughters." The boy, fearing that his own life might ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... hiding-place. A faithful servant conducted him to the mouth of a cave and gave him an abundant store of food. The fugitive crept in at a low opening, dragging his stores along. When he reached a wider and higher place, he found some obstacle before him. He drew his dirk, but unwilling to strike, lest he might take the life of a companion in hiding, he stooped down, and found a goat with her kid stretched on the ground. He soon saw that the animal was in great pain, and feeling her body and limbs, ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... "Beautiful, beautiful! they are all beautiful together! There is Bana beautiful! his box is beautiful! and his medicine beautiful!"—and, saying this, led us in to see his women, who at my request were grouped in war apparel—viz., a dirk fastened to the waist by many strings of coloured beads. There were from fifty to sixty women present, all very lady-like, but none of them pretty. Kaggao then informed me the king had told all his Wakungu he would keep me as his guest four ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... loose boots, of the thickest untanned leather, that reached considerably above his knees, and from frequent immersion in the tide had assumed a deep brown hue. His hat was conical, and only distinguished by a small dirk glittering in the band, which he carried there as a place of safety from contact with ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... jokes of her companion, her blushes were hidden by the silken mask which, in common with the rest of the guests, she wore upon the upper part of her face, and which concealed all but the brilliancy of her eyes. Cheek by jowl with a haughty Spanish hidalgo stood a plaided Highlander, with his dirk and claymore. Athenian orators, Roman tribunes, Knights of the Round Table, Scandinavian Vikings and Peruvian Incas jostled one another against the rich velvet and tapestry which hung from ceiling to floor. Truly, a motley assemblage, and one well calculated to impress ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... murders committed are the result of quarrels or personal rancour. Jealousy of a favoured rival, a gambling or a political dispute ends in a defiance, mutual and deadly, the ever-ready dirk affords present means; or, if the interposition of the bystanders prevents this, one of the party shoots down the other on the road or at his own door; when, if the slain man has friends, the feud ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... discovered, and the equipment was complete. It was only when he saw the finished costume, with the vivid hues of the tartan seemingly modified into comparative sobriety by the multitude of silver fittings, the cairngorm brooches, the philibeg, dirk and sporran that he was fully and absolutely satisfied with his choice. At first he had thought of the Royal Stuart dress tartan, but abandoned it on the MacCallum pointing out that if he should happen to be in the neighbourhood of Balmoral it might lead to complications. The MacCallum, ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... belted-plaid that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed in the bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun over his shoulder, the claymore was swinging by his side with its usual appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the SPORRAN MOLLACH. [The goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round their waist.] Ere yet her eye had scanned all these particulars, the light step of the traveller was hastened, his arm was waved in token of recognition—a moment more, and Elspat held in her ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... scoundrels, carried the young lady off by force, very much as Rob Roy's wild son did with the girl of whom he was enamoured, married her against her will by force, with the aid of a suborned priest, actually, so the story goes, cutting the clothes off her body with his dirk, while his pipers, in obedience to his orders, drowned the poor creature's cries with their music. Now, in the eightieth year of his age, he had come to his grim end. He had broken most of the laws of earth and of heaven; he had ever tried to be in with both ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... age, and upon which grew a profusion of the plant: many charms and legends were considered to be connected with the tree, and the duration of the family of Hay was said to be united with its existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a sure charm against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard in the day of battle. A spray gathered in the same manner was placed in the cradle of infants, and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... at first. Because I was an American they thought I carried a revolver and a dirk-knife, and was dangerous. That is their idea of American boys. When they found I was tame, and carried no deadly weapons, they ventured to speak with me, and after that ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... on their road to the little borough-town were preceded by Niel Blane, the town-piper, mounted on his white galloway, armed with his dirk and broadsword, and bearing a chanter streaming with as many ribbons as would deck out six country belles for a fair or preaching. Niel, a clean, tight, well-timbered, long-winded fellow, had gained the official situation ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... (Grk. lagows, a hare, and strophos, a band or zone.) Its colour is a greyish-brown, with black and white bands, its distinguishing characteristic. It is sometimes called the Banded-Kangaroo, and is found at Dirk Hartog's Island, and on one or two islands in Shark's Bay, and in West Australia. For its interesting ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... a peon. From somewhere on his person, he produced a dirk and slashed vigorously. Okada evaded the blow, and ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... paltry collection of wine-shops, here dignified with the name of village, we saw a number of Greeks waiting the return of Otho: each wore a gaily coloured kerchief on the head; an embroidered jacket; a shawl encircling the waist; red greaves; a dirk; and a long gun, ornamented with gold, slung over the shoulder. Their wild fearless demeanour struck me as more characteristic of the freebooter, than the soldier of a regular government. Yet seldom have I seen more elegant graceful figures than were possessed by these mountain ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... shame it is that we should only carry a beggarly little dirk," said Bob Roberts to himself, as he tried to look sneeringly at the young ensign before him; for the latter came across the deck with rather a swaggering stride, and stood before ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... her if she said a single word," said Gerty, undauntedly. "I showed her Pa De Marsan's old dirk-knife and told her I'd stick it into her if she didn't hush. She was just such a 'fraid-cat she believed me. She might have known I didn't mean nothin'. Now she can have 'em and be a lady. She ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... them the natives of Britain or Ireland, and this was their general rule of conduct;—they would forcibly board our vessels, and the boarding-officer, who was commonly a lieutenant, completely armed with sword, dirk, and loaded pistols, would muster the crew, and examine the persons of the sailors, as a planter examines a lot of negroes exposed for sale; and all the thin, puny, or sickly men, he allowed to be Americans—but all the stout, hearty, red cheeked, iron fisted, chestnut colored, ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Freycinet took advantage of his position on the west coast to pull down and appropriate for the French Academy of Inscriptions the oldest memorial of European presence in Australia. That is to say, he took the plate put up by the Dutchman Vlaming in 1697, in place of that erected in 1616 by Dirk Haticks on the island bearing the name of "Dirk Hartog," to commemorate his visit in the ship Eendraght of Amsterdam.* (* Ibid 1 449.) Freycinet had desired to take the plate when he was an officer on Le Naturaliste in July 1801, but Captain Hamelin, the commander, would not permit it ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... for Fort Good Hope, with the avowed intention of plundering the establishment, and carrying off all the women they could find. On arriving at the post they rushed in, their naked bodies blackened and painted after the manner of warriors bent on shedding blood; each carrying a gun and dirk in his hands. ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... living in Leyden a young man of four or five and twenty, named Dirk van Goorl, a distant cousin of her own. Dirk was a native of the little town of Alkmaar, and the second son of one of its leading citizens, a brass founder by trade. As in the natural course of events the Alkmaar business would descend to his elder brother, their father appointed him to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... with Field. We came to a barricade. A very pretty girl guarded it with a sword. She sternly demanded the parole or countersign. I caught hold of her and kissed her, and showed my pistols. She laughed. As I was armed with dirk and pistols, wore a sash, and was unmistakably a Latin Quarter etudiant, as shown by long hair, rakish cap on one side, red neck-tie, and single eyeglass, I was everywhere treated as a man and brother, friend and equal, warrior, and—by the girls—almost like a first-cousin. Field shared the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... howled out Merode, twisting round in the darkness and reaching blindly for the haft of his dirk. "Nom de ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... to a number of gentlemen, who happened to be collected together in a druggist's store, some weapons which he claimed to have taken from Captain Pate in Kansas. Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight inches long, and he remarked that if he had a lot of those things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a capital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas.... When he came to make the contract, he wrote it to have malleable ferrules, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... please," said the middy, presenting his cocked hat to the captain, "I did draw my dirk to kill him, but you ran away so fast that ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... sir?" he pleaded. "I tell yer it's all up with me, and the Teapots can't hurt me worse than what I've got now. Arn't got your dirk, have you?" ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... in wait for vessels between Cape Breton and Prince Edward Isle, and took several prizes. In one of these he placed all the crew in sacks and threw them into the sea. Maria, too, took her part in these affairs, and once stabbed to the heart, with her own little dirk, the captain of a Liverpool brig, the Lion, and on another occasion, to indulge her whim, a captain and his two mates were tied up to the windlass while Maria shot them with her pistol. Maria always wore ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... the star county of the star district, the autocrat, like Caesar, had a fainting fit and left the Democrats, explaining for the rest of the campaign that Republican eyes had seen a big dirk under his coat; and Jason never rested until with his own eyes he had seen the man who had begun to possess his brain like an evil dream. And he did see him and heard him defend his law as better than the old one, and declare that never again could the Democrats steal ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... room, and regaled them with her best wines, and made her servants attend upon them with unusual deference and ceremony. Their appearance was altogether horrible, they wore leather aprons, which were sprinkled all over with blood, they had large horse pistols in their belts, and a dirk and sabre by their sides. Their looks were full of ferocity, and they spoke a harsh dissonant patois language. Over their cups, they talked about the bloody business of that day's occupation, in the course of which they drew out their dirks, and wiped from their handles, ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... it but faced the skilled fencer, blazing defiance though fully expectant of the unsheathed dirk. But no dirk was unsheathed. Lucian, forgetting his feebleness, sprang for the cane and had dropped to one knee to snatch it up when ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... the contest was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. 'Mong Dieu,' cried ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... and as Jones came up again Means dealt him one crushing blow that sent him full length upon the ground. Nothing but the leaves saved him from a most terrible fall. Jones sprang to his feet more angry than ever at being whipped by one whom he regarded as a boy, and drew a long dirk-knife. But he was blind with rage, and Bud dodged the knife, and this time gave Pete a blow on the nose which marred the homeliness of that feature and doubled the fellow up against a ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... eagerly I rushed up-stairs with him to help him to put it on! What a fine fellow I thought he looked; how proud I felt of him, as I walked round and round him, admiring the gold lace and the white patches worn by midshipmen in those days, and the dirk by his side, and the glossy belt, and the crown and anchor on his buttons and in his cap, and more than all, when I felt that he was really and truly an officer in the navy! Still more delighted was I when I accompanied him down-stairs, and heard the commendations of all the family on his appearance. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... in a Christian land." Rob replies in a sentence that is worthy of being put alongside the remark of old Earl Douglas in the poem of Marmion: "Hamish can bring down a blackcock on the wing with a single bullet, and Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board." These quotations adequately explain the almost complete absence of prose remains in the literature of the Gael. Bards there were in plenty, but they could neither read ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... that there is a deficiency in the outfit of goods, they are not permitted quietly to bring out their surplus furs, and sell them to whom they please. He says that he saw a remarkable instance of this at Point au Pins, on his way out, where young Holiday drew a dirk on an Indian on refusing to let him take a pack of furs from his canoe. He said, on speaking of this subject, "I wish my father to take away the sword that hangs over us, and let us bring down our furs, and sell ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Kirkpatrick; "I'll mak sicker"—or sure: and, so saying, hurried back into the church, and slew not only the wounded man, but his uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, who tried to defend him. The "bloody dirk" and the words "mak sicker" were adopted as crest and motto by the Kirkpatrick family. Strange instance of barbarism, that the dastardly, sacrilegious murder of a helpless man on the steps of the altar should be regarded as an achievement ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... political value, but it revives as in a magic mirror somewhat dim, certain scenes of actual human life. Now and again the mist breaks, and real passionate faces, gestures of living men and women, are beheld in the clear- obscure. We see Lochgarry throw his dirk after his son, and pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the sullen rage of Lord Hyndford, baffled ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... named Henry; his left eye out, some scars from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... into chaos. Almighty love still reigns and revels in my bosom; and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. My best compliments ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... high Headlong fall'n break through, and lie With their prey in piteous wise, And no film on their dead eyes. Matted branches grind and crash, Into darkness dives the flash, Stabs, a dread gold dirk of fire, Loads the lift with splinters dire. Then a pause i' the deadly feud— And ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... engine had been replaced by an expensive electric drive. There had been much interest manifested in the installation of the modern motor, and Quin, with his natural love of machinery, had rejoiced that his duties as shipping clerk required him to be present at the unpacking. He and Dirk, the foreman, never tired of discussing the perfection of each particular feature. But a few days after the departure of the installation foreman, the new motor burnt out, necessitating the shutting down of the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... of which he carefully excluded from among the contents of the little portmanteau which readily comprised the residue. His travelling-dress was quickly adjusted; and not omitting a fine pair of pistols and a dirk, which, at that period, were held in the south and southwest legitimate companions, he found few other cares for arrangement. One token alone of Edith—a small miniature linked with his own, taken a few ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... "I don't know. Dirk; but they'll want all their discipline when they come to meet our men. For anything we know we may be the two last white men left in India; but when the news gets to England there will be such a cry throughout the land that, if it needed ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... was, Mister—very nigh," replied Svorenssen. "There was only three of us—besides you and Billy—that escaped; and that was me, Dirk here, and a chap named Flemin'—Pete, we used to call 'im. When the ship struck we was all washed overboard by the first sea as broke aboard; and nat'rally those of us as could swim struck out as soon as our heads rose above ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... to put out a shaking hand in protest. Already a fool of a servant had presented his dirk to her. In a twinkling—before we could stop her—Fiammetta had pried ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of female existence, when the heart within a damsel's bosom, like its emblem, the miniature which hangs without, is apt to be engrossed by a single image, a new visitor began to make his appearance under the roof of Wolfert Webber. This was Dirk Waldron, the only son of a poor widow, but who could boast of more fathers than any lad in the province; for his mother had had four husbands, and this only child, so that though born in her last wedlock, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... he is not a bit altered since I first went to sea, when I was so proud of that,' said Harry, taking up his midshipman's dirk, which formed a ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... interrupted with some sharpness, for I was still nettled, "when you have confided your language to the dirk, or let it speak in ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... Indians were skilled in cutting out bullets, arrow heads, and other missiles with which warriors were wounded. I myself have done much of this, using a common dirk or ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the Cygnet hoy, sends me word that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font he'd hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... our old Scottish proverb?—'Better kind fremit, than fremit kindred.' ['Better kind strangers than estranged kindred.' The motto is engraved on a dirk, belonging to a person who had but too much reason to choose such a device. It was left by him to my father. The weapon is now in my possession. S.] I will find out that man, which, methinks, should be no difficult task, since he is so wealthy as mine host bespeaks him. He will ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott |
