"Mettlesome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stroke, boy, and a mettlesome spirit! You struck him swift and hard. 'Twould please me better if ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... said, "though a bit mettlesome and wild; but I'm not saying anything again her. The Lord forbid that I should run down my own flesh and blood! An' she's better than most gels of her age. I wouldn't grudge her a bit of fun while she's got it in her,—Heaven knows it'll be ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... matter to urge them along. A place was found where he appeared to have been thrown by the turbulent Briareus, which he seemed afterwards to have pursued, mounted on the pony, in the vain hope of retaking the mettlesome charger, until persuaded of his inability, or afraid, from the direction in which the animal had fled, of being led back again to the settlement. His track, after abandoning the chase, was as plain as that left by the war-horse, and was followed by the main body of pursuers, while Richard and ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... with a gathering host overflowed, She marked with a look of delight A white-bearded horseman who gallantly rode On a mettlesome steed black as night, And cried, forcing wildly her way through the throng, "Oh! master, thy pupil hath mourned ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... that I have said, thou dost not gather, worthy reader, that Peter Stuyvesant was a tough, sturdy, valiant, weather-beaten, mettlesome, obstinate, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, generous-spirited old governor, either I have written to but little purpose, or thou art very dull at ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and wheelmen were also out in full force, and the presence of so many people set Nan's blood tingling with excitement. She tossed her head back, as the governess uttered her decision, with the impatience of a mettlesome horse. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... the French joined up with the second and third brigades of Canadians, and where the British troops joined up with the Canadians. When about to leave, a friend, Major Maclaren of the 10th Infantry battalion, riding a mettlesome horse, rode up and I got out of the car and held the bridle while we had a long talk about the experiences of the Canadians since we ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... at her horse, beating him with her heels and little fists if his pace did not suit her. She knew no fear, and would have used a whip so readily that the men did not dare to trust her with one, and knew they must not mount her on a steed too mettlesome. By the time she passed her sixth birthday she could ride as well as a grown man, and was as familiar with her father's horses as he himself, though he knew nothing of the matter, it being always contrived that she should be out of ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Master Putnam's efforts—or what seemed so—could not get him headed southward on that road. In truth, burdened as he was, the young man really could not do it, without incurring too much risk to the lady behind him. Those who have ever had such a battle with a wilful, mettlesome horse, know that it often requires the utmost patience and determination on the part of his rider, to come out victorious. The best plan—the writer speaks from some experience—is to pull the animal round in a circle until his brain becomes ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... Having fed our mettlesome steed, the next thing was to water him. The Anakim remembered to have seen a pump with a trough somewhere, and they proposed to reconnoitre while we should "wait by the wagon" their return. No, I said we would drive on to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... so will some other folks. I ain't much of a reader of character, but I sense things like all creation, and I feel that getting the girl in harness as soon as possible is the only plain common-sense method. She's mettlesome, you know, the kind that kicks over the traces, and slams any one happening to be handy. She ain't never done it ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... slope. He loved to sit there and watch his horses graze, but ever he saw that the riders were close at hand, and that the horses did not get out on the slope of sage. He sat back and gloried in the sight. He owned bands of mustangs; near by was a field of them, fine and mettlesome and racy; yet Bostil had eyes only for the blooded favorites. Strange it was that not one of these was a mustang or a broken wild horse, for many of the riders' best mounts had been captured by them or the Indians. And it was Bostil's supreme ambition to own a great wild stallion. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... down at the left, the instant leap and rush of some thirty nimble cannoneers, shouts of "Drive on!" the cracking of whips, the thunder and rumble of wheels, the thud of plunging hoofs. Forty-eight mettlesome horses in teams of two abreast went dancing briskly away to the rear, at sight of which Minor dropped his jaw and the point of his sword and sat gazing blankly after them, over the bowed head of his placid sorrel, wondering what on earth ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... of marching men whom he reviewed with pride, while his great bronze steed pranced tirelessly; and she, a swordless Joan of Arc in a three-cornered hat and smartly-tailored habit, pranced close beside to share all honors from the wide back of her own mettlesome war-horse. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... take this and go out and hold my horse; he's mettlesome as the deuce this cold weather. I want to get warm ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... trotted into the enclosure a span of handsome bay horses with a low phaeton in which were seated two ladies; and directly after them, at full gallop, came two riders on spirited, mettlesome sorrels. ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the dark. He knew that trail almost as well by night as by day. His horse was a mettlesome colt that had not been worked during the harvest, and he plunged down the dim, winding trail as if, indeed, to verify Jerry's fears. Presently the thin, pale line that was the trail disappeared on the burned wheat-ground. Here Kurt was at fault ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... imprisoned in a glittering corset of copper, and having the long, sinewy lines of a cat. Her extraordinary grace is frightening, as, with the sweat of her hot sides rising upwards and her steel muscles stiffening, she puts in motion the immense rose-window of her fine wheels and darts forward, mettlesome, along rapids and floods. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... up and down the beach!" exclaimed a man, stopping a pair of mettlesome horses almost directly in ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... two vigorous and mettlesome horses resounded on the pavement, a gigantic footman opened the emblazoned door, and a young man descended slowly from this brilliant vehicle, and not less slowly mounted the five or ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... got upon thy toes? Hast killed some Tartar and tucked his bow into one, and torn the crescent from the vizier's tent to make the other match it? Hadst thou fallen in thy mettlesome expedition (and it is a mercy and a miracle thou didst not) those sacrilegious ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... settlement of Davenport. We had come down the Mississippi, mightiest of rivers! half a mile wide seventeen hundred miles from its mouth, and were in the far West. Waggons with white tilts, thick-hided oxen with heavy yokes, mettlesome steeds with high peaked saddles, picketed to stumps of trees, lashing away the flies with their tails; emigrants on blue boxes, wondering if this were the El Dorado of their dreams; arms, accoutrements, and baggage surrounded the house or shed where we were to breakfast. Most of our ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... saw their wonder, for the first words he said after they left the ground were, "Pixie, though small, is mettlesome, gentlemen," (here he contrived that Pixie should himself corroborate the assertion, by executing a gambade,)—"he is diminutive, but full of spirit;—indeed, save that I am somewhat too large for an elfin horseman," (the knight was upwards of six ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... roadside is the flawless triumph of art. If you have looked on him who has achieved it you have looked on one of the masters of the artists of all nations and times. You shall not contemplate the flight of the gray gull over the bay or the mettlesome action of the blood horse or the tall leaning of sunflowers on their stalk or the appearance of the sun journeying through heaven or the appearance of the moon afterward with any more satisfaction than you shall contemplate ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to try the speed of his horse, proposed to Richard a gallop towards a clump of trees about a mile off, and the young man assenting, away they started. Master Potts started too, for Flint did not like to be left behind, but the mettlesome pony was soon distanced. For some time the two horses kept so closely together, that it was difficult to say which would arrive at the goal first; but, by-and-by, Robin got a-head. Though at first indifferent ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Hungarian papers, whose tone would counteract it, not being in German, are not read by the rest of Europe. Hungary had always beaten Austria. She had never been defeated save by allies of Austria. But Hungary, which is so mettlesome and restive in her patriotism, whose great son, Kossuth, would never even accept the compromise with the House of Hapsburg, has yet no compunction in dominating inferior races, in grinding Serbs, Croats and Roumanians into her ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... for hunting in Virginia, and for this reason the more experienced riders to hounds prefer the thoroughbred, though half-bred and three-quarter-bred horses are also used to some extent, the thoroughbred often being too mettlesome, when he becomes excited, for any but the best riders. The finest qualities of a horse are brought out in hunting in the Piedmont section, for the pace here is very fast—much faster than in England, though it should be added that in the English hunting country there ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... composure and thinking. He thought of that M. Nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who played beside Clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom we cling in the serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor, appeared in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome, brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the obstacles that ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... forty-mile ride, Mr. Wilder and Nails were ending it. Though forced to ride carefully so long as they were on the mountain trail, when the latter reached the plains they had "cut loose." Both were expert horsemen and the ponies under them were mettlesome. Indeed, Blackhawk had not entirely recovered his temper since his roping and it was he that set the pace. Yet the riders did not allow the ponies to run themselves out in the first few miles, holding them down to a long, steady lope ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... quick; touch on the raw, touch a raw nerve. Adj. sensible, sensitive; impressible, impressionable; susceptive, susceptible; alive to, impassionable^, gushing; warm hearted, tender hearted, soft hearted; tender as a chicken; soft, sentimental, romantic; enthusiastic, highflying^, spirited, mettlesome, vivacious, lively, expressive, mobile, tremblingly alive; excitable &c 825; oversensitive, without skin, thin-skinned; fastidious &c 868. Adv. sensibly &c adj.; to the quick, to the inmost core. Phr. mens aequa in arduis [Lat.]; pour ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... James George Jackson and her guide that the latter gentleman was not only to accompany the lady every foot of the route, but was meantime to cling valiantly to the bridle with both hands. Unfortunately, this arrangement, so deeply satisfying to all, was not ratified by the mettlesome Irish pony; the result being that, after the guide had been swept off his feet by a sudden and unexpected lift of the animal's forelegs, Aunt Nancy and the pony continued the excursion alone. Judging from ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... by a post, shied, backed, and reared up so suddenly that his rider was all but thrown off. Julie cried out, her face grew white, people looked at her curiously, but she saw no one, her eyes were fixed upon the too mettlesome beast. The officer gave the horse a sharp admonitory cut with the whip, and ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... life in those earlier times still preserved its distinctive flavour of isolation and hazard, which has been the making of its men, and the making or marring of its women; and which the northward trend of the "fire-carriage" has almost converted into a thing of the past. But sympathy with her mettlesome spirit, which was of his own bestowing, had outweighed Sir John's anxiety. On the eve of sailing he had despatched her with his blessing and, by way of practical accessory, a handsome revolver, which he had taught her to use as accurately ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... she leaped lightly into the saddle, and soon she was flying over the old familiar road, down across the creek bridge, past the old grist-mill, around the fort and then out on the river bluff. The Indian pony was fiery and mettlesome. He pranced and side-stepped, galloped and trotted by turns. He seemed as glad to get out again into the warm sunshine as was Betty herself. He tore down the road a mile at his best speed. Coming back Betty pulled him into a walk. Presently ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... and down a few times before the spectators. They appeared in perfect training, neither too fat nor too fine, mettlesome as colts, steady as draught-horses, deep-breathed as oxen, disciplined to work together as symmetrically as a single sculler pulls his pair of oars. The fisherman offered to make his quarter fifty cents. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... such a queer little creature to marry her. The consideration of that question led him to the conclusion that perhaps Thalassa had been impelled to his choice by the realization that she was as good-looking a wife as he could afford. Barrant reflected that women resembled horses in value. The mettlesome showy ones were bred to display their paces for rich men only. Serviceable hacks, warranted to work a lifetime, could not be expected to be ornamental as well as useful. So long as they pulled their burdens without jibbing overmuch, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... learned of changes that had happened at home. His brother had been thrown by a young and mettlesome horse, and so badly trampled that he must remain a helpless invalid for the rest of his life. Sir Willoughby Stokes, even before he heard of the death of his nephew Peloti, had made Desmond his heir. Mr. Merriman had bought an estate near his ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... flavour of charcoal and lye. When he had finished his dinner, Lavretzky said that he would like some tea, if.... "This very moment, sir, I will serve it, sir,"—interrupted the old man,—and he kept his promise. A pinch of tea was hunted up, wrapped in a scrap of red paper, a small but very mettlesome and noisy samovar was searched out, also sugar, in very tiny bits, that seemed to have been melted around the edges. Lavretzky drank his tea out of a large cup; he remembered that cup in his childhood: ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... old one, stiffened and jaded by much hard travel, but it had been a mettlesome one in its younger days, with the recollection of many exciting adventures. Now, although it seemed half asleep, dreaming, maybe, of the many jaunts it had taken with other American tourists, or wondering if it ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... will have his hands full, Unless she's used to menfolk and their ways, And past the minding. She'd the quietness That's a kind of pride, and yet, not haughty—held Her head like a young blood-mare, that's mettlesome Without a touch of vice. She'll gan her gait Through this world, and the next. The bit in her teeth, There'll be no holding her, though Jim may tug The snaffle, till he's tewed. I've kenned that look In women's ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... followed him, and caught him in a cave, feeding sumptuously upon the grains of oats which fell one by one from the roof. He looked up, shook his head at the shower of oats, but, with all his care, could discover nothing further. At length he heard overhead the neighing and stamping of some mettlesome horses, and concluded that the oats must have ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... slenderness is deceptive. She's one of the build that aren't so big as they look, nor yet so small as they look. Thoroughbred is the word for her, style and action, as the horse people say, perfect. The poise of her head, her mettlesome manner, her walk, show that she's been bred up like a Derby winner. Her face is the one all the aristocrats are copied from, finely cut nose, chin firm but dainty, lips just delicately full and the reddest ever, and her colour when she has any a rose-pink. I don't ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... was Cranbery. He didn't know how to manage her. His bridle hand warn't good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull critter with no action, don't mate well ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... all that is definitely known of Lewis's family and early life. It is not much; but it suffices to show that he came of fine, fearless stock, mettlesome and reliant,—the sort of stock that brings forth men of action. The invertebrate vanity of blood is kept out of this story, in accord with the democratic belief of the time that a strong man's ancestors are what he himself makes them. ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... the objectivity which we have to expect from this book. Not the soft, flabby, indifferent, contradictory objectivity of the scientific dilettante, of the arch-eunuch: but a mettlesome objectivity which is appropriate in this fighting age, the objectivity of one who honestly attempts to see everything and to know everything; but who, having done so, endeavours to organise his data in accordance with a hypothesis, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... Bell examined Kate carefully; "but a' can tell yir mither's dochter, a weel-faured mettlesome lady as wes ever seen; wae 's me, wae 's me for the wars," at the sight of Carnegie's face; "but ye 'll come in to see Marjorie. A 'll mak her ready," and ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... tail ceased, she half rose; she began to purr, a purr that sounded to me as loud as the roar of a water-fall in a gorge; she took a few steps towards me, then, suddenly, she made a peculiar movement hard to describe, something like the curvetting of a mettlesome colt, but characteristic of a leopard and therefore like the movement of no other animal save a leopard or lion or tiger; she leapt daintily clear of the pavement and struck sideways with her forepaws. The antic perfectly expressed playful delight ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... passions. "I inherited nothing but my body—and living it is consumed." He is proof against the magic of the ring; the only value he knows is love. Alberich, his opponent, says, in speaking of him: "My curse has no sting for the mettlesome hero, for he knows not the worth of the ring; he squanders his prodigal strength, laughing and glowing with love his body is burning away." Half way between Alberich, the inwardly worthless wielder of ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... there, Down to the earth and aloft through the air! Now see the man, as for combat, enter— Where is the peril he fears to adventure? See how the puppets speed on to the race,} Each his own fortune pursues in the chase; } How many the rivals, how narrow the space! } But, hurry and scurry, O mettlesome game! The cars roll in thunder, the wheels rush in flame. How the brave dart onward, and pant and glow! How the craven behind them come creeping slow— Ha! ha! see how Pride gets a terrible fall! See how Prudence, or Cunning, out-races them all! See how at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Subura, that thronged and unsavory Bowery of ancient Rome. Three street urchins were teasing and maltreating a rough coated, muddy little cur. Brinnaria called imperiously to her lictor to interfere. He was too far ahead to hear her. Her coachman had all he could do to control her mettlesome span of Spanish mares. She spoke to the boys and they laughed at her. Before she knew it she had flung open her carriage door, had leapt out, had cuffed soundly the ears of the three dumbfounded gamins, and was back among her cushions, ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... Black Colonel to his beast; "can't you stand still with those mettlesome legs of yours? You may," he went on, more to himself than to the horse, "need them to-night, for our friend, Captain Ian Gordon of his Hanoverian Majesty's forces, is late, and when a man is late it generally bodes trouble; for a woman anyhow, I might ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... accounted too august for such employment. Even so in my later life. Loth to obey, loth to command. Convention (for she too frightens me) has made me accept what servants would do for me by rote. But I would liefer have it ill-done than ask even the least mettlesome of them to do it better, and far liefer, if they would only be off and not do it at all, do it for myself. In Italy—dear Italy, where I have lived much—servants do still regard service somewhat in the old ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... the other knight, proceeded to the stable, from whence, with his own hands, he drew forth one of his best horses, a fine mettlesome sorrel, who had got blood in him, ornamented with rich trappings. In a trice, the two knights, and the other two strangers, who now appeared to be trumpeters, were mounted. Sir Launcelot's armour was lacquered black; and on his shield was represented ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... gone on more recently in the case of the quaggas, is absolute evidence of the North African origin of a horse, and he shows that all the swiftest horses mentioned in history are of that race, while the heavier and less mettlesome horses of Northern origin have been, when pure bred, dun ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... young men proposed a footrace, the course to be around the square—a distance of about one hundred yards. James Cooper was named as one of the runners, and his rival was soon chosen. According to custom, the village boys, girls, men, and women were spectators. Like a mettlesome steed in curb young Cooper looked at the wager,—a basket of fruit,—then at his race-mate, and accepted the challenge, but not on even terms. It was not enough for a sailor simply to outrun a landsman; he could do more. A little girl stood near, ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... avoiding all inquiry into the claims of the rich—a code, in fact, which makes the greasing of the fat pig a work holy unto the Lord. The keen selfishness of my proposal touched a kindred chord in poor Tom's bosom; the mettlesome casting of my sprat upon the waters, in sure hope of finding a mackerel after many days, awoke his admiration; whilst an immediate and prospective advantage to himself stood out through it all. Yet, under this crust of clannishness, cunning, and money-hunger, there lay a fine manhood. I ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... pair of horses that," he said, indicating the mettlesome bays attached to the vehicle, which, in spite of their brisk run, were tossing their heads and fretting ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... him; but, like a mettlesome old horse suddenly pulled up in full career, he stamped and reared and plunged with fury, and foamed and spluttered and stuttered before he could ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... head like a restless horse, blooded, mettlesome, and resumed her pacing up and down, her hands now ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... king was provided with a handsomely decorated carriage, which he entered, and a procession was formed. The king's carriage somewhat resembled a chariot, being drawn by four mettlesome coal-black horses, all gayly caparisoned with gold and silver trimmings ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... he dragged the cumbersome thing all over Russia and played it in recitals with amazing success. In 1903, when Mr. Koussevitzky was twenty-nine (he's sixty-eight now but looks a mettlesome fifty), the Czar decorated him—the only instance in history of a decoration bestowed for ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... man nor the woman curbed the mettlesome Pegasus "Emotion", methinks the colts and fillies would want for hay and oats. * ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... our Lesbia, that Lesbia, the self-same Lesbia whom Catullus more than himself and all his own did worship, now at cross-roads and in alleys husks off the mettlesome descendants ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... other touched his horse deeply with the spur and the mettlesome animal reared and plunged, then, recalled by the sharp voice of the rider, galloped wildly down the road. Susan observed the sudden departure with ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the doorstep for a moment while the carriage, which had been driven a little way down the avenue to quiet the mettlesome horses, returned, and Mr. Thurwell spoke ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... their commandin' position, came in contact wid the neck o' the mare. Quid multis? They pulled an' she pulled, an' she pulled an' they pulled, until at length the mare was compelled to practise the virtue of resignation in the ditch, wid the goats about her neck. She died by suspinsion; but the mettlesome ould crathur, wid a love of justice that did her honor, hanged the goat's in requital; for they departed this vale of tears on the mountain side along wid her, so that they had the satisfaction of dyin' a social death together.—Now, Phadrick, you quadruped, ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... breaking forth of hidden flames. Let two schoolfellows meet after twenty years, the rich man will avoid the poor; he does not recognize him, he is afraid even to glance into the gulf which Fate has set between him and the friend of other years. The one has been borne through life on the mettlesome steed called Fortune, or wafted on the golden clouds of success; the other has been making his way in underground Paris through the sewers, and bears the marks of his career upon him. How many a chum of old days turned aside at the sight of ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... know," said Mr. Ivison, "I am beginning to take quite an interest in that young fellow. He has genuine pluck. You cannot understand, Mrs. Arnot, what an ordeal he has passed through. He is naturally as mettlesome as a young colt, and yet day after day he was subjected to words and actions that were to him like the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... hunting-field in saving Sophia from her too mettlesome horse kept Jones a prisoner for some time in Mr. Western's house, and during those weeks he not only found that he loved Sophia with an unbounded passion, but he plainly saw the tender sentiments she had for him; yet could not this assurance ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L——, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out; and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... 'what are you doing here? This very moment, while you sit dreaming about her beauty, Moufette is in direst peril! See, here is a rose-leaf; I have but to blow upon it and it will become a mettlesome steed.' ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... mettlesome steeplechaser, Drake took a leap in his stride during the preliminary canter before the great race. The wind being foul for the Canaries, he went on to the Cape Verde archipelago and captured Santiago, which had been abandoned in terror on the approach of the English 'Dragon,' that ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... crawled along, still on high gear—that tin car certainly pulled strongly—a horseman emerged from a fold in the hills. He was riding a sweat-covered, mettlesome black with a rolling eye. His own eye was bitter, and likewise the other features of his face. After trying in vain to get the frantic animal within twenty feet of our mitrailleuse, he ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... the German capital, she is said to have had an encounter with the arm of the law. The story is that, mounted on a blood horse, she attended a review held in honour of the King and the Czar; and her steed, being somewhat mettlesome, carried her at full tilt across the parade ground and into the midst of the royal party ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... time for quick judgment. The scout said they could not ride down over the ridge, and the chief decided they must follow along it. The going got to be hard and rough. One by one the men dismounted to lead their horses. Neale, who rode a mettlesome ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... had not forsaken her. He bounded along over the rugged ground on the mettlesome steed, striking fire from the flinty rocks, leaping creeks and rivulets, bursting through bush and brake, mile after mile, until he gained the open prairie, while the black coat of his charger was speckled with foam. Here he drew rein, and trotted hither and thither ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... invitation was joyfully accepted: he lingered but a moment, to give directions by which they might find his camp, and then, wheeling round, and giving the reins to his mettlesome steed, was soon out of sight. The travellers followed, with gladdened hearts, but at a snail's pace; for their poor horses could scarcely drag one leg after the other. Captain Bonneville, however, experienced a sudden and singular change of feeling. Hitherto, the necessity of conducting ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... outburst of amorous rebellion had been uttered not because I was there, but only in pure recklessness of my presence. Of course I ought to have seen that this was a soul only over-rich in woman's love; mettlesome, aspiring, but untrained to renunciation; consciously superior in mind and soul to the throng about her, and caught in some hideous gin of iron-bound—convention-bound—or even law-bound—foul play. But ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... gone to her own. To be sure, she did not know then who he was, and she had stopped coming when she learned; but why had she crossed again that day? Perhaps she too was bantering him, and he was at once angry and drawn to her; for her mettlesome spirit touched his own love of daring, even when his humiliation was most bitter-when she told him he warred on women; when he held out to her the branch of peace and she swept it aside with a ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... and his summer palace, the alcazar of Chapultepec. Turning into the wide, stately boulevard, Driscoll was that moment plunged into an eddying splendor of Europe transplanted, and he blinked his eyes, half humorously. There were mettlesome steeds, and coaches with a high polish, and silver weighted harness, and the insolence of livery, and armorial bearings, and the gilt of coronets on carriage panels. There were silk hats and peaked sombreros, lace mantillas and Parisian bonnets. A lavish use of French ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... round her head; her skirt was short, revealing firm ankles and wooden shoes, and she wore a jersey which fitted her body closely and left her brown neck bare. Her watchful eyes were like those of some shy animal, but her lips had the faculty of repose. Helen had once compared her to a mettlesome young horse and there was about her some quality of the male. She might have been a youth scorning passion ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... doubt, this rather oversized, bareheaded, interrupted-looking convalescent who stands before me, wondering how I should know in what language to address him, is Joseph Frowenfeld, of whom Doctor Keene has had so much to say to me. A good face—unsophisticated, but intelligent, mettlesome and honest. He will make his mark; it will probably be a white one; I will subscribe to ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... to put bridles on their horses when they are running in full speed, but bring them bridled beforehand to the race; so do they use to preoccupy and predispose the minds of those persons with rational considerations to enable them to encounter passion, whom they perceive to be too mettlesome and unmanageable upon the sight ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Falcon leapt away without waiting for the spur, while the carle looked over his shoulder and said, "Yonder they come! they are three; and ever they ride well horsed. Nay, nay! They are four," quoth he, as a shout sounded behind them. "Spur, young lord! spur! And thine horse is a mettlesome beast. Yea, it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... couldn't face that highest rock; the one below had made her feel cold and queer and shaky as she stood on it. Besides, why was she trying, for the first time in her life, to go Nan's pace, which had always been, and was now more than ever before, too hot and mettlesome for her? She didn't know why; only that Nan had been, somehow, all day setting the pace, daring her, as it were, to make it. It was becoming, oddly, a point of honour between them, and ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... saddled, two packed, and the remaining one carried only a blanket. Ladd shortened the stirrups on his mount, and helped Mercedes up into the saddle. From the way she settled herself and took the few restive prances of the mettlesome horse Gale judged that she could ride. Lash urged Gale to take his horse. But this Gale refused ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... your taking a glass of something before you are off.—Patrick!" But before Patrick has even started on my lady's errand Hyacinthe has fetched from the hall a glass of claret-cup, and holds it up to him where he sits on his lithe and mettlesome hunter. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... aspects Bussy does not come far short of the ideal thus pictured. His bravery, versatility, frankness, and readiness of speech are all vividly portrayed, while his mettlesome temper and his arrogance are alike essential to his role, and are true to the record of the historical D'Ambois. But there is a coarseness of fibre in Chapman's creation, an occasional foul-mouthed ribaldry of utterance which robs him of sympathetic ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman |
