"Gauntlet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the millions of sad-faced women and children whose lives are blasted and crushed beneath the wheels of this cruel Car of juggernaut; betrayed by false friends, imprisoned by the courts, and manacled; no martyr of old ever ran the gauntlet of hotter persecution, yet like Banquo's Ghost and the Man of Galilee she will not down. Denounce her as you may, she is such an one as heroines and world-wide characters are made of. Every one will want a copy of her "Life," forthcoming publication. The ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... until their captive's face was torn and bleeding from the lashing of the branches; they staked him down at night so that he could not move hand or foot, and when they reached their town, the whole population turned out to make him run the gauntlet. The Indians formed in a double line, about six feet apart, each armed with a heavy club, and Kenton was forced to run between them. He had not gone far when he saw ahead of him an Indian with drawn knife, prepared to plunge it into him as he passed. By a mighty effort, he broke through the line, ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... not compel them to fly, and may yet stretch out a dreadful paw! Much so they pressed for a nearer sight of its walnut visage, and shrank in the act. Perhaps I shared some of their sensations. I cannot tell: my sensations were tranced. There was no warmth to revive me in the gauntlet I clasped. I looked up at the sky, thinking that it had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were sentenced to hard labor and to penal military service, with a preliminary "punishment by Spiessruten through five hundred men." [1] A like number were sentenced to be deported to Siberia; the rest were either acquitted or had fled from justice. Many of those who ran the gauntlet died under the strokes, and are remembered by the Jewish ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... bravado than of sound military policy in attacking this fort at all, since the English fleet might easily have run the gauntlet of it, as was done a few years later. But Fort Moultrie was destined to be to the navy what Bunker Hill had been to the army. It was in consequence of excess of scorn for his enemy, that Sir Peter Parker, disdaining to leave such a place in his rear, resolved on its total demolition. He had no ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... still smoking his foolish little pipe, wearing the familiar old coonskin cap and coat that looked as though the moths had made many a Roman holiday of their generously deforested pelt. He took the pipe out of his mouth as he stepped over to me, and pulled off his heavy old gauntlet ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... their seats under the gallery, and the king was followed by the peers, and the knights of the Garter, Bath, Thistle, and St. Patrick, all in their robes. After every one had taken his seat, the Champion, on his horse, both in full armour, rode up the hall, and threw down a gauntlet before the king, while the heralds proclaimed that he was ready to do battle with any one who denied that George the Fourth was the liege lord of these realms. Then various persons presented offerings ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... up the Mississippi and along the Pacific would be of immense benefit to all species, and more particularly to those unfortunate ones which are forced to migrate down along the shore and back by the middle of the continent, thus running the deadly gauntlet both by land ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... wherever they happened to be. In order to understand the problems of no small complexity confronting the statesmen at home and the generals who in the field had to carry out the will of the nation by taking up the gauntlet so thrown down, it is necessary, first, that the characteristics of the vast area which was about to become the scene of operations should be realised; secondly, that the strength of the forces on which the challenger relied for making good his words should be estimated; and, thirdly, that ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... she stepped up. He swung her to the saddle behind him, and the great warhorse sprang forward so suddenly, with such long, swift strides, that she swayed precariously for a moment and was glad to catch the guerilla's belt—to seize, too, with an agitated clutch, his right gauntlet that he held backward against his side. His fingers promptly closed with a reassuring grasp on hers, and thus skimming the red sunset-tide they left behind them the staring group about the blacksmith shop, which ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the hills and here they picked up a weary youth, dodging about among the trees. It was St. Clair. He had run the gauntlet, but he had been pursued so hotly that he had been forced to lie hidden in the forest a long time. He had made his uniform look as spruce as possible and he held himself with dignity when the horsemen approached, but he could not conceal the fact ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the right moment to run the gauntlet for the tickets; and had it been otherwise, would have seen nothing remarkable in her charge being accosted by a nice-looking ladylike girl. So on they rushed upon their way, Gillian's spirits rising in a curious sense of liberty ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... agitation had been so great that his memory had failed him. I directed the way, and desired every man to put the animals upon their utmost speed until we were safely out of the willows, which order was complied with. While thus running the gauntlet, the balls and arrows whizzed around us as fast as our hidden enemies could send them. Not a man was scratched, however, though two of our horses were wounded, my horse having received an arrow in the neck, and another being wounded near the hip, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... I was wakened about 6.30, long past my usual hour, by a benevolent passer-by. My turtle lay on the verandah at my door, and the man woke me to tell me it was dead, as it had been when we put it on board the day before. All morning I ran the gauntlet of men and women coming up to me: 'Mr. Stevenson, your turtle is dead.' I gave half of it to the hotel keeper, so that his cook should cut it up; and we got a damaged shell, and two splendid meals, beefsteak one day and soup the next. The horses came for us about ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... choice. Her beauty, her position, her accomplishments, her father's wealth, all made her eminently desirable. But, on the other hand, the same things rendered her more difficult to reach, and harder to please. To get access to her heart, too, it was necessary to run the gauntlet of her parents, which, until she had reached the age of twenty-three, no one had succeeded in doing safely. Many had called, but ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... last threw down the gauntlet, and published a reply to the active condemnation which had been pronounced against him in default of appearance before the Blood Council. It would, he said, be both death and degradation to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the infamous "Council of Blood," and he scorned to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... absently retying the ribbon on the hair at her neck. When it was adjusted to her satisfaction she passed a hat-pin through her sombrero, touched the bright, thick hair above her forehead, straightened out, stretching her legs in the stirrups. Then she drew off her right gauntlet, and very discreetly stifled the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... interests of the whole country. The broad and noble spirit of patriotism shown in their resolves is worthy of no less credit than the bold action of the colonies which, under the stimulus of direct aggression, first threw down the gauntlet to George III. ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... little Virginia fling down the gauntlet to Great Britain. It was a daring deed, and one not likely to go unheeded by the watchful Cromwell. Yet two years and more passed. Then British ships appeared off Jamestown. At once the Virginians made ready to resist; cannon ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... the Danube with three hundred thousand men, and advancing to Mohatz, encamped for several days upon the plain, with all possible display or Oriental pomp and magnificence. Thus proudly he threw down the gauntlet of defiance. But there was no champion there to take it up. Striking his tents, and spreading his banners to the breeze, in unimpeded march he ascended the Danube two hundred miles from Belgrade to the city of Pest. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... knotted under his chin, leather "chaps," bright spurs, a sombrero on his head. His face was grave, excited, wistful. At sight of Joan, he moved forward, the pony trailing after him at the full length of its reins; and, stopping before her, Pierre took off the sombrero, slowly stripped the gauntlet from his right hand, and, pressing both hat and glove against his hip with the left hand, held out the free, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... indeed, throwing the gauntlet down to the old expounders of erratic phenomena upon the principle of floods, freshets, and floating ice. Many well-known geologists were present at the meeting, among them Leopold von Buch, who could hardly contain his indignation, mingled with contempt, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... he had a curious sense of relief, as though he had at last thrown down the gauntlet to the thing in ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... that have become historical. He was present in the House of Commons at the first grand debate on the German war after the Great Commoner's retirement from office—"the pitched battle," as Sterne calls it, "wherein Mr. P. was to have entered and thrown down the gauntlet" in defence of his military ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... Short View was immense. The nation was on the side of Collier. But it could not be doubted that, in the great host which he had defied, some champion would be found to lift the gauntlet. The general belief was that Dryden would take the field; and all the wits anticipated a sharp contest between two well-paired combatants. The great poet had been singled out in the most marked manner. It was well known ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a moment before had beat audibly to my own ear, sank like a stone in my breast, and I sat for a time holding the letter mutely, uncertain how to proceed. Should I return it unread, and thus hurl the gauntlet in the traitor's face, or be governed by expedience (word ever so despised by me of old), and trace the venom of the viper, by his trail, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... world at astounding prices. Thousands of pairs of stockings from the most reliable manufacturers of the universe at sensational reductions. Finally the question recurred, but flung now like a challenging gauntlet in the ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block. The champion acted his part admirably, and dashed down his gauntlet with proud defiance. His associates, Lord Effingham, Lord Talbot, and the Duke of Bedford, were woful: Lord Talbot piqued himself on his horse backing down the hall, and not turning its rump towards the King; but he had taken such pains to dress it to that duty, that it entered backwards, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... members of the Wednesday Club, some of whom conceived the thought that it was time for the women of Rochester in some way to recognize Miss Anthony's ability, energy and labors in behalf of her sex.... Reformers, as a rule, are not popular in their day, and Miss Anthony ran the gauntlet of derision and abuse years ago, but today the magnificent services she has rendered ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... flies. Just as it trembled on the rise; Not lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake's level brim; And when Lord Marmion reached his band, He halts, and turns with clenched hand, And shout of loud defiance pours, And shook his gauntlet at the towers, "Horse! horse!" the Douglas cried, "and chase!" But soon he reined his fury's pace: "A royal messenger he came, Though ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... well regained his old dashing cavalier aspect. He had somehow obtained a fresh hat and feathers, and, as he stood at the foot of Fred's straw bed, with one hand resting upon the hilt of his long sword, the other carelessly beating a pair of leather gauntlet gloves against his leg, he looked, in his smart scarlet and gold uniform, the beau ideal of a ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... one other thing necessary, and then you may consider yourself safe as a schoolboy with the seat of his trousers full of the dormitory towels: and that is either a stout elastic ring round your wrist—a ring as thick as your thumb—or a good long gauntlet. I rather recommend the ring as interfering less with the freedom of your hand, and as protecting more effectually that weak spot in your wrist where the big veins are. If a blow catches you squarely across this ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... succeed in hitting a player, a goose egg is placed in the hole of that player. The one to whom is awarded the goose egg is the next to roll the ball from the dead line in the endeavor to get it into a hole. Any player getting three goose eggs has to run the gauntlet, which is the name given to running between two lines of players while they slap at his back. The faster he runs the lighter the slaps. No player is allowed to ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... challenge to the bold, It flings its gauntlet down And bids us, if we seek for gold And glory and renown, To come and take them from its store, It will not meekly hand ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... rather than a gain of power. Yet this was one of the dozen prizes thought the best worth striving for in our politics. Is it a wonder that our government and office-holding is left to the foreign element? That the native American should prefer any other work, rather than run the gauntlet of public opinion and press, with loss of income and peace, that he may hold some difficult office ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... date of 1285. The papacy which, in the person of Gregory VII., successfully opposed the Emperor of Germany; the papacy which, vanquished in matters temporal by Henry IV., yet vanquished him morally. This papacy was slapped by a simple Sabine gentleman, and the steel gauntlet of Colonna reddened the cheek of Boniface VIII. But the King of France, whose hand had really dealt this blow, what happened to him under ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... observation from the enemy lines, the Hun had the exact position of these bridges, and, what was more disconcerting, he also had the exact range. So he "dusted" them at irregular intervals with various calibres, and trips across resembled the noble game of running the gauntlet. This portion of night reliefs was naturally particularly exciting. The late Lt.-Col. Marshall, V.C., when second in command to the 6th L.F's., provided an amusing story for the division one day when a couple of officers failed to salute him in the ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... knew the danger and hazard of their mission. In a big push the enemy planes would be out in great number, determined to sweep the air free of resistance. To harass troops, McGee knew, they must fly low. In so doing they would run a constant gauntlet of machine gun and rifle fire, in addition to frequently traversing the line of flight of high angle heavy artillery. It was not pleasant to think of meeting up with one of those big G.I. cans loaded with enough high explosive to demolish a building. Just get in the way ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... that night the sound of a stringed orchestra floated out on the breeze as the door of the gymnasium swung back and forth to admit disguised sophomores, who each whispered the countersign to the doorkeeper, after running the gauntlet of the waiting ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... as seventy degrees of longitude, when she was out of the range of West India cruisers. Jack afterwards heard an account of her from a friend on the African station. She had then really become a pirate. She used to watch for the slavers after they had run the gauntlet of the British cruisers, and would then capture them, take their slaves out, and give them her cargo of coloured cottons in exchange. When she did not manage to fall in with slavers she occasionally took a run in on her own account, and her captain being well ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... to, the Senora was dismounted, and regaining her feet, made an exit with more speed than grace, and the performance was announced—concluded. But upon taking a peep, after the audience had retired, I saw one of the ponies, mounted by a Manilla man, running the gauntlet of four long whips around the ring, and felt certain his rider could not have enjoyed much pleasure from the act, for every now and then he caught a lash intended for the horse, and if the other naughty pony had to come in for a like portion, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... flatter," Polly stoutly maintained. "She's got as pretty shape as ever I see,—all our people's got good shapes from old Missis down. I reckon this chile's got her back from her pa's fambly." When Polly said this, Mammy felt that the gauntlet had been flung down, and, at once, with an eloquence all her own, so defended the "shapes" of her "fambly" that Polly was fairly beaten in the war of words, and was forced to admit, with many apologies, that Miss Caroline's back was as ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... less fighting than usual, and I lost fewer men. My night's experiences were almost humdrum! Leaving my ruin at 9.15 p.m., accompanied by my bugler and clad in my old waterproof, I sallied out and ran the gauntlet of some snipers from the German lines, then dived into my ditch, floundered up it in mud for about a quarter of a mile, perhaps more, secured some Engineers I have at last got hold of to improve the place, went on, saw Major Wright and Capt. Tee, both ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... which should have arrived here last Monday afternoon, did not get in until Tuesday. The Apaches attacked it at Dragoon Pass and the driver went back fifteen miles to Sulphur Springs; and on the second trial ran the gauntlet in safety. ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... him from the stake, and allowed him some little repose, in preparation for their principal amusement in the morning, of having their prisoner run the gauntlet. Three hundred Indians of all ages and both sexes were assembled for the savage festival. The Indians were ranged in two parallel lines, about six feet apart, all armed with sticks, hickory rods, whips, and other means of inflicting torture. Between these lines, for more than half a mile ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... The gauntlet had been thrown down and accepted. The combatants had taken their stations, and the contest was to be renewed, which was to be decided soon on the great theatre of the nation. The committee by the very act of their institution had pronounced the Slave ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... one can get into trouble, but it is not always so easy for any one to get out again. Abe knew both ways,—the way in and the way out,—and many a time he had to run the gauntlet, and save himself as best ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... left me to my fate. After seeking comfort in the arms of my sorrowing sweetheart, and attempting to nerve myself for the morrow's battle, which did not seem likely to end in a victorious symphony, I returned next morning to the hotel. I found I could only reach my rooms by running the gauntlet between long rows of men and women in double file, who had all been specially invited thither for the settlement of their respective affairs. Reserving the right to select individuals from among my visitors for separate interview, I first of all led in the second trumpeter of the orchestra, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the issue is hard to tell, had not the Yankee passenger already referred to, Jonathan Stubbs, come forward and taken up the gauntlet. ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... which he received. "Our first and fundamental maxim," said Jefferson, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs." At the same time that America thus flung down her gauntlet to Europe, Canning, on behalf of the British Ministry, proposed to inform the allied Cabinets of England's intention to accredit envoys to the South American republics. Assured of the support of the United States, and ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... you have been unfairly beguiled on board, and that you were ignorant that I had thrown down the gauntlet to your admiral at Toulon. If you desire it, you may go on board your ship and try to escape if you have ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... suggested Biddlecomb, as if he were proposing a testimonial, "we make him run the gauntlet. Grim won't come out and catch us. I saw him go out for a drive an hour ago." And the idea ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... properties we ascribe to objects exist only in our sensations, others exist in the things themselves, being such as can not possibly be copies of any impression upon the senses; and they ask, from what sensations our notions of extension and figure have been derived? The gauntlet thrown down by Reid was taken up by Brown, who, applying greater powers of analysis than had previously been applied to the notions of extension and figure, pointed out that the sensations from which those notions are derived, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... town was metamorphosed into a scene of riot and clamor, and fandangos, at which Bacchus rather than Terpsichore presided, often welcomed the new-born day. The few Americans[A] in San Antonio viewed with darkened brows the insolent cavaliers. The gauntlet was flung down—there was no retraction, no retreat. They knew that it was so, and girded ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... had built it for her. That was her room where the light was shining out from the black bulk of the house about it like a star. And beyond the house he saw his five great mountains, the knuckles of the giant hand, with its gauntlet of iron that lay shut and clenched in the face of the sea that swept up whimpering before it. Clay felt a boyish, foolish pride rise in his breast as he looked toward the great mines he had discovered and opened, at the iron mountains that were ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... soldier with jack and morion, sword at haunch, spur at heel, and a name for bravado never a home-biding laird in our parish had, burgh or landward. I would sit on my horse so, the chest well out, the back curved, the knees straight, one gauntlet off to let my white hand wave a salute when needed, and none of all the pretty ones would be able to say Elrigmore thought another one the sweetest Oh! I tell you we learnt many arts in the Lowland wars, more than they teach Master of Art ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... "do not imagine for a moment that I am inclined to blame you; the only thing that I could not help feeling rather amused at, was your throwing down the gauntlet to the gentleman opposite, when I recollected a certain lecture on prudence, with which I was victimised ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... her head. "No woman could keep him in leading-strings, your Majesty. There is something domineering, savage, crushing, in his hand. Look at it, on the table there. Is it not mighty as an iron gauntlet? What other man at the board has such a brutal hand? The strength in it makes me shudder. Will she not bend to ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... remember, the law of wager by battle was unrepealed, and the rascally murderous, and worse than murderous, clown, Abraham Thornton, put on his gauntlet in open court and defied the appellant to lift the other which he threw down. It was not until the reign of George II. that the statutes against witchcraft were repealed. As for the English Court of Chancery, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... vocation by fire. Now came the moment when this defiance to an ordeal was answered.[1] A Franciscan of Apulia offered to meet him in the flames and see whether he were of God or not. Fra Domenico, Savonarola's devoted friend, took up the gauntlet and proposed himself as champion. The furnace was prepared: both monks stood ready to enter it: all Florence was assembled in the Piazza to witness what should happen. Various obstacles, however, arose; and after waiting a whole day for the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... hammer, the emblem of the thunderbolts, was generally red-hot, the god had an iron gauntlet called Iarn-greiper, which enabled him to grasp it firmly. He could hurl Mioelnir a great distance, and his strength, which was always remarkable, was doubled when he wore his magic belt ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... Shelby ran a gauntlet of chaff to his law office that afternoon, and found Bowers awaiting him in bilious mood. He was hazing the rooms with gusts of tobacco smoke, a sign of nervousness in so deliberate a smoker. They nodded curtly without words, and ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... prohibitory laws resembled somewhat the teaching of religion with letters during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thousands of Negroes like Edward Patterson and Nat Turner learned to read and write in Sabbath-schools. White men who diffused such information ran the gauntlet of mobs, but like a Baptist preacher of South Carolina who was threatened with expulsion from his church, if he did not desist, they worked on and overcame the local prejudice. When preachers themselves ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... Scotland. They retained a means of putting pressure on England, the threat of having a separate king; they had made and were making military preparations (drill once a-month!), and England took up the gauntlet. The menacing attitude of Scotland was debated on with much heat in the English Upper House (November 29), and a Bill passed by the Commons declared the retaliatory measures which England was ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... he dreamt he was on leave and walking through the City. At every doorway he had to run the gauntlet of lithe and implacable managing directors, all ready to pounce on him, drag him within and chain him permanently to a stool—with the complete approval of the Army Council. In another he was appearing before a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... who could thus tell the Roman senate and people that all that they held sacred was unspeakably and hideously wicked could expect but one fate. Justin threw down the gauntlet, and the constituted authorities very quietly took it up, with a result which, as the human power was all with them, it was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... There was no other choice. McMurray threw water on the gowns of his wife and Mrs. Dalton until they were drenched; then wrapping the baby in a blanket and enveloping their heads in shawls, the whole party abandoned their house to destruction, and ran the gauntlet of the flames. They passed the spot of ordeal in safety, reached the canoe and embarking pushed off into the lake. From this point of security they caught glimpses of the element as it crept steadily on its way towards the cabin. Through the rifts in the smoke they ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Enough the feast has pleased, enough the power Of heavenly song has crown'd the genial hour! Incessant in the games your strength display, Contest, ye brave the honours of the day! That pleased the admiring stranger may proclaim In distant regions the Phaeacian fame: None wield the gauntlet with so dire a sway, Or swifter in the race devour the way; None in the leap spring with so strong a bound, Or firmer, in the ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... in a grove He seemed to walk and speak of love; She listened with a blush and sigh, His suit was warm, his hopes were high. He sought her yielded hand to clasp, And a cold gauntlet met his grasp: The phantom's sex was changed and gone, Upon its head a helmet shone; Slowly enlarged to giant size, With darkened cheek and threatening eyes, The grisly visage, stern and hoar, To Ellen still a likeness bore.— He woke, and, panting with affright, Recalled the vision ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... for 't is not now A manly mood to dream of Love, When each bold champion knits his brow, And for War's gauntlet doffs ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the gardens, and the stone seat at an angle of the wall, not a dozen yards from the casa. The moon shone full upon it. There, indeed, lay the little gray-feathered fan. But beside it, also, lay the crumpled black gold-embroidered riding-gauntlet that Enriquez ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... administration, who stands foremost, the principal object of national suspicion. He surely will not decline this inquiry, it is his own proposition; he has frequently, in the name of the whole administration, thrown down his gauntlet here; has desired your inquiries, and has rested his fate on your justice. The nation accepts the challenge, they join issue with him, they are now desirous to bring this great cause in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... were guided and at times aided by things printed in the very papers that worked the hardest to run them down. Once they ventured as far as the outer entrance of the great, new uptown terminal, and turned away, too far gone and sick with fear to dare run the gauntlet of the waiting room and the train-shed. Once—because they saw a made-up Central Office man in every lounging long-shoreman, and were not so far wrong either—they halted at the street end of one of the smaller ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... but when it was brought to his lips from the nearby stream he was dead. His body was carried to my outpost headquarters, thence later by ambulance to Reynolds' headquarters at camp. Washington's name or initials were on his gauntlet cuffs and upon a napkin in his haversack; these served to identify him. He was richly dressed for a soldier, and for weapons had heavy pistols and a large knife in his belt. He also had a powder-flask, field-glass, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... good-nature—a mass of London people together, of sorts and sorts, but who mainly knew each other and who, in their way, did, no doubt, confess to curiosity. It had gone round that she was there; questions about her would be passing; the easiest thing was to run the gauntlet with him—just as the easiest thing was in fact to trust him generally. Couldn't she know for herself, passively, how little harm they meant her?—to that extent that it made no difference whether or not he introduced them. The strangest thing of all for ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... the Confederate works on our charge, I saw lying on the ground, inside, a dead Confederate lieutenant-colonel. He was on his back, his broad-brimmed hat pulled over his face, and a pair of large gauntlet gloves tucked in his belt. His sword was detached from the belt, in the scabbard, and was lying transversely across his body. As I ran by him I stooped down and with my left hand picked up the sword, and carried it along. I brought it ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... gauntlet for a bold play, for a coup d'etat in flattery. "Pshaw!" he cried, waving aside the players in a princely fashion. "When Nell plays, we have no time to munch oranges. Let the wench bawl in ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... had run the doctor's gauntlet, I was conducted from the south wing of the cell-house to the north wing. Here I met for the first time Mr. Elliott, who has charge of this building during the daytime. It is a part of this highly efficient ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... his social self-exile, so to speak. The letter which follows gives a specific instance of the kind of experience which disgusted the idealist with the imperfect world. He had been living against society, had foregathered with outcasts and had thrown down the gauntlet generally to organised society, for some years, but he still from time to time worked at some job or other. An incident happening some years after the meeting with Marie, which is still to be described, is sufficiently typical of what finally threw him entirely out from society to be truthfully ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... ranch was in her harness, having at once assumed her neglected duties. She came to welcome her caller in a short khaki riding-suit; her feet were encased in tan boots; she wore a mannish felt hat and gauntlet gloves, showing that she had spent the morning in the saddle. Dave thought she looked exceedingly capable and business-like, and not less beautiful in these clothes; he feasted ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... which will considerably hasten his march. Silence! and be on the qui vive. Listen! Hear you not the distant crash in the bushes?" Two fresh shots were now fired, but nearer. "Said I not so? he is running the gauntlet—one more shot. Hush again! there he is, tearing along. Hark! not a whisper; your eye on the open, your ear to the wind, and your finger on the trigger!" But it was not the boar; for at the moment ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... any measure which interferes with or restricts the privileges of organized wealth. A two-thirds majority under such circumstances is practically impossible. And when we remember that any proposed amendment to the Constitution must twice run the gauntlet of representative assemblies, receiving first a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and later a majority in both houses of the legislature or in conventions in three-fourths of the states, we readily ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year—they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it had been endorsed by the National Democratic platform, successfully ran the gauntlet but not so our Federal Suffrage Amendment. It is with keen regret your committee reports that it has not had action in either the Senate or ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... of Columbus, was exposed, and the Missouri divisions under Pope quickly seized New Madrid. The adjoining river defences of Island No. 10 in the Mississippi proved more formidable. Foote's gunboats could, and did, run the gauntlet, but a canal had to be cut right round the batteries for the transports, before the land forces could cross the river and attack the works in rear; when this was accomplished, by the skill and energy of all concerned, the place with its garrison ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... perhaps, at the bottom of this same curiosity. The look of pride and defiance which Margaret Cooper had betrayed, when the bold youth rode back to steal a second glance at her matchless person, was equivalent to an equally bold challenge; and his vanity hastily picked up the gauntlet which hers had thrown down. He wished to see the damsel again—to see if she WAS so beautiful—if she did, indeed, possess that intellectual strength and vivacity which flashed out so suddenly and with so much splendor from beneath ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... quadrangle, and, mounting the steps down which Fortemani had dashed to meet the Count, they passed into the banqueting-hall, which opened directly upon the south side of the courtyard. The Count, following in her wake, ran the gauntlet of scowls of the assembled mercenaries. He stalked past them unmoved, taking their measure as he went, and estimating their true value with the unerring eye of the practised condottiero who has had to do with the enrolling ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... Middlesex, will find the story graphically told in Mr. Dent's "Canadian Rebellion," Vol. I., chap. 6. The authors take the liberty of appending Mr. Dent's closing paragraph: "But though Captain Matthews," says the historian, "had been cleared by the Legislature, he had still to run the gauntlet of the military inquisition. They could not compel his attendance during the existence of the Parliament then in being, but they possessed an effectual means of reducing him to ultimate submission. This power they exercised; his pension was stopped—a ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... day when they Their first bold venture made, Scorning to cry for aid. They dared to stand to fight alone, Took up the gauntlet life had thrown, Charged full-front to the fray, Mastered their fear of self, and then Learned that our great men ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... rather a curious mode of challenge. The parties cut a quantity of straw, each taking a half, and then retire to the Dempster Gardens to test their strength. Forms of challenge vary much. There is the gentlemanly way of throwing down one's glove or gauntlet, the biting of one's thumb as in Romeo and Juliet, and boys have their modes as well as their elders. We remember a common one in Inverness some twenty-five years ago, was to count an opponent's buttons, those of his waistcoat, and then slap him in the face. Another mode was, if any two were egged ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... a challenge, Miss Bluebell? Must take up the gauntlet? Good gracious, my dear child, you are not really annoyed? Well, we will be sensible, as you call it. Only you must begin; I ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... exclaimed Olas! and his right vantbrace was torn off, but the lance was not broken. The German encountered Quinones in the front of his helmet, breaking his lance two palms from the iron. In the third course Quinones encountered the German in the guard of his left gauntlet, and passed through it, and the head of the lance stuck in the rim without breaking, and the German failed to encounter. In the fourth course Quinones encountered the German in the armor of his left arm without breaking his lance, and the German failed to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... figure I never saw on a horse!—all on one side, like the handle of a teapot, bumping when she trots and wobbling when she canters, with braiding all over her habit, and a white feather in her hat, and gauntlet gloves (of course one may wear gauntlet gloves for hunting, but that's not London), and her sallow face. People call her interesting, but I call her bilious. And a wretched long-legged Rosinante, with round reins and tassels, and a netting over its ears, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... business to it. The most ignorant are generally the most critically audacious; and men knowing no more about the peculiarities of creeds than of the capillary action of woolly horses are often the first to run the gauntlet of opinionism concerning them. The fact of the matter is, the Preston Presbyterians are no more and no less, in doctrine, than Calvinists. In discipline and doctrine they are on a par with the members of the Free Church of Scotland; but they are not connected with that church, and ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... suitors who had sigh'd Their amorous orisons before her shrine, And with the flutter of a doublet vied To win the smile they toasted o'er their wine; There were full many who with blinded pride, Deem'd that a title could the scale incline, And flung their lordships, gauntlet-fashion, down, Daring a Caesar to ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... truth to tell, e'en here, not much have done. That which at nothing the gauntlet has hurled, This, what's its name? this clumsy world, So far as I have undertaken, I have to own, remains unshaken By wave, storm, earthquake, fiery brand. Calm, after all, remain both sea and land. And the damn'd ...
— Faust • Goethe
... the Father, as feudal seigneur, absorbs the Trinity, and, what is more significant, absorbs or excludes also the Virgin, who is not mentioned in the prayer. To this seigneur, Roland in dying, proffered (puroffrit) his right-hand gauntlet. Death was an act of homage. God sent down his Archangel Gabriel as his representative to accept the homage and receive the glove. To Duke William and his barons nothing could seem more natural and correct. God was not ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... German, picking up the gauntlet; "there have been a good many things said here to-night which sound well but won't stand fire. It is precisely for following conventions in art that we ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... that until the late Revolution of 1688, this kind of punishment was unknown here and elsewhere, save in Holland; and though I have seen soldiers run the gauntlet, ride the mare, and beaten by the martinets, I shall never, oh, no! never forget the sensation of horror with which this (to me) new punishment of the poor Frenchman inspired me; and, sure I am, that our great Duke of Marlborough could in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... cross-bows; the Free-lance shook his iron gauntlet at the Syndic, and galloped down the ridge unharmed. The Syndic forgot his gout in his wrath, and bade the hill-men hold their own till their roofs ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... enemies he conquered and added their lands and sovereignties to hers, until of all the kings in those parts, none had such power and dominions as the Princess Joceliande. Many ladies, you may believe, cast fond eyes on him, and dropped their gauntlet that he might bend to them upon his knee and pick it up, but his heart they could not bend, strive how they might, and to each and all he showed the same courtesy and gentleness. For he had seen the maiden Solita, and of ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... an injury to the left hand may disable the horseman, we would recommend the newly-invented piece of armour called the gauntlet, which protects the shoulder, arm, and elbow, with the hand engaged in holding the reins, being so constructed as to extend and contract; in addition to which it covers the gap left by the corselet under the armpit. The case is different with the right hand, which the horseman must needs raise ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... his thought, after he had partly regained his composure. "I shall have to stay in here altogether or run the gauntlet every ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... in this coterie of illustrious women must be mentioned—Charlotte Bronte—a lady who feels the true dignity and intellect of her sex with a force akin to manliness. Modest and retiring, she would yet pick up the gauntlet like any knight against the man who should say of a work of literary merit, "that it could never have ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... tree, our Hughie," said James. "If he comes at you, Will, mind that trick of swerving that he hath. Aim at his right gauntlet, and you ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... alas! are we to escape from discipline,—but I am glad that you got through, though by running a gauntlet that we shivered to read of. But you did get through, and got home, having accomplished what you went for. Any way, you did us so much good that it paid, on the great scale of disinterested [321] benevolence, for a great deal of trouble on ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... make a disturbance," said his commander. "We do not want to run the gauntlet of the castle's guns as we go out of the harbor. The wind is hardly lively ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... There was a busy stir in the camp of the besiegers. They were crowding to the river-banks. As far as the eye could see, the stream was lined. The daring ships had a gauntlet of fire to run. Their attempt seemed hopeless, indeed. The river was low. The channel which they would have to follow ran near the left bank, where numerous batteries had been planted. They surely would never succeed. Yet still they came, and still ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to seize him, suffered for their temerity. He still cried out, "Where is my cousin, the prince of Wales?" and seemed unwilling to become prisoner to any person of inferior rank. But being told that the prince was at a distance on the field, he threw down his gauntlet, and yielded himself to Dennis de Morbec, a knight of Arras, who had been obliged to fly his country for murder. His son ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... journey occupied, from the St. Lawrence to its termination at a palisaded town on the banks of the Mohawk. On Lake Champlain they had met a war-party of Iroquois, and the prisoners, for their delight, had been compelled to run the gauntlet between a double line of braves armed with clubs and thorny sticks. When Jogues fell drenched in blood and half-dead, he was recalled to consciousness by fire applied to his body. Couture's experience illustrates a singular trait of the ferocious Iroquois. ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... reckless philippics denouncing the tyrannical British power, the Act of Union—the very measure he was supposed to have battled for—responsible government, and, above all, those of his own race who supported the new order. LaFontaine took up the gauntlet. His retort was as obvious as it was crushing. If the French Canadians had refused to come in under the Act of Union, they would have been depriving themselves of any share whatever in the government of their country. If they ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... of the carriage, looking sunward, shading his eyes with his big doe-skin gauntlet as he looked. Those two days on the road, the fresh autumn air, the generous diet, the variety and movement of the journey, had made a new man of him. Lean and gaunt he must needs be for some ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... harbour, shipping, islands, ocean and city. By its possession and fortification of this island of Hongkong, England to-day so completely controls the gateway to South China that the Chinese cannot get access to Canton, the largest city in the Empire, without running the gauntlet of British guns and mines which could easily sink any ships that the Peking Government could send against it, and the whole of the vast and populous basin of the Pearl or West River is at the mercy ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... panelled walls were ornamented with stands of Indian arms and armour, conical helmets, once worn by Eastern chiefs, with pendent curtains, and suits of chain mail. Bloodthirsty daggers, curved scimitars, spears, clumsy matchlocks, and long straight swords, whose hilt was an iron gauntlet, in which the warrior's fingers were laced as they grasped a handle placed at right angles to the blade, after the fashion of a spade. There were shields, too, and bows and arrows, and tulwars and ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... very iron of the horse's shoes began to melt, but Petru gave no heed. The sweat ran down his face, but he dried it with his gauntlet. What heat could be he never knew before, and on the way, not a stone's throw from the road, lay the most delicious valleys, full of shady trees and bubbling streams. When Petru looked at them his heart burned within him, and his mouth grew parched. ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... solid-shot, shell and musketry, human endurance failed and even the madness of intoxication grew useless. The hurricane of metal was too deadly for mortal man to withstand. No efforts could urge them further forward; and finding it impossible to run to the end that gauntlet of iron and lead, they once more wavered and broke, faced about and sought the shelter of the woods, leaving Carter's Field burdened with its second terrible harvest of death for that day—the dead in actual heaps and winrows, and the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... proposed armistice, and swore by the pipe of St. Nicholas, which, like the sacred fire, was never extinguished, that unless the fort were surrendered in ten minutes, he would incontinently storm the works, make all the garrison run the gauntlet, and split their scoundrel of a commander like a pickled shad. To give this menace the greater effect, he drew forth his trusty sword, and shook it at them with such a fierce and vigorous motion that ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... hover in the shop bored to death with his business and his home and Miriam, and yet afraid to go out because of his inflamed and magnified dislike and dread of these neighbours. He could not bring himself to go out and run the gauntlet of the observant windows and ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... help smiling in return, "not at all, John. Emily will not require to be brought out, nor paraded through the debasing formalities of fashion. She shall not be excluded from fashion, certainly; but neither shall I suffer her to run the vulgar gauntlet of heartless dissipation, which too often hardens, debases, and corrupts. But a truce to this; the subject is painful to me; let ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... cxirkauxligi. Garter sxtrumpligilo. Gas gaso. Gaseous gasa. Gash trancxadi. Gasometer gasometro. Gasp spiregi. Gastric stomaka. Gate pordego. Gather kolekti. Gather together kolekti. Gathering kolekto. Gaudy luksema. Gauge mezuri. Gaunt malgrasa. Gauntlet ferganto. Gauze gazo. Gawky mallerta. Gay, to be gaji. Gay gaja. Gaze rigardegi. Gazelle gazelo. Gazette gazeto. Gear (machinery) ilaro. Gehenna Geheno. Gelatine gelateno. Gem ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... which had wrapped the whole man in a mantle of reserve, disappeared, leaving him the reckless wayward being we have more than once described. Even the men, whose vigilance had needed no quickening in running the gauntlet of the cruisers which were known to swarm in the narrower seas, appeared to breathe a freer air, and sounds of merriment and thoughtless gaiety were once more heard in a place over which the gloom of distrust had been so ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... dreaming of any such thing, he suddenly became the target for a fusillade from Sioux rifles that were waiting to receive young Starr, and therefore were not fully prepared for him. By desperate work and good fortune he and his pony ran the gauntlet unscathed, and continued their flight southward. The whinny of his friend's pony, he supposed, came from one of the horses of his enemies, and therefore he galloped on without ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... and Lancaster!" said the herald, flinging a steel gauntlet on the floor with a ringing clash, "there lieth my lord of Percy's gage! thus doth ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... Grenville on 2nd May, that the French declaration of war had come in the nick of time to furnish the Hapsburgs with the opportunity of throwing the odium of the war upon France.[68] Other proofs might be cited; and it seems certain that, if France had not thrown down the gauntlet, both the German Powers would have attacked her in the early summer of 1792. Pitt and Grenville, looking on at these conflicting schemes, formed the perfectly correct surmise that both sides were bent on war, and that little or nothing could be ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... We had to trust alone to the fleetness of our heels. We might have a prospect of distancing the two boats which had gone up the bay, and which were on our larboard-hand, but we must inevitably run the gauntlet between the other two. The question was, whether we could pass through them before they closed in on us. We made the strong ash sticks bend again as we sent the boat flying through the bubbling water. We sung out in our eagerness, encouraging each other. Every moment the space between the two ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... glorious fight, but it was not war; no, it was not war. We really had no more chance of ultimate success amid that multitude of enemies than a prisoner running the gauntlet in a crowd of ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... to knock over the first wild boar that ran the gauntlet of the cordon, when the Count's gun had missed fire from the cap having become damp. Our next position was in an open piece of forest, where luck planted me in a notched cork tree, standing on a wooded knoll, at which several avenues ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester |
