"Dirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wessels, recorder, Jan Wendal, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Claes Ripse, David Schuyler, Albert Ryckman, aldermen, Killian Van Rensselaer, justice, Captain Marte Gerritse, justice, Captain Gerrit Teunisse, Dirk Teunisse, justices, Lieutenant Robert Saunders, John Cuyler, Gerrit Ryerse, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... noise which she had just heard at the door, Cecily did not the less tranquilly continue her undressing; she drew from her corsage, where it was placed like a busk, a dirk, five or six inches long, in a case of black shagreen, with a handle of black ebony fastened with silver, a very simple handle, but perfectly handy, not a weapon ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... stealing out from the rear of the stage, a small, compact wedge of men wearing those same red buttons; and the prow of the wedge was Fighting Dave Dancy, the official bad man of a bad county, a man who packed a gun on each hip and carried a dirk knife down the back of his neck; a man who would shoot you at the drop of a hat and provide the hat himself—or at least so it was said ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... is not a bit altered since I first went to sea, when I was so proud of that,' said Harry, taking up his midshipman's dirk, which formed a trophy on ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you do as I do. I mean to get hold of a cutlass and pistols. I'm not going to risk my valuable life with nothing to preserve it but a ridiculous dirk. Don't you be downhearted and think that the expedition is coming ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Pew. "Dirk was a fool and a coward from the first—you wouldn't mind him. They must be close by; they can't be far; you have your hands on it. Scatter and look for them, dogs! Oh, shiver my soul," he cried, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... drew a dirk which he usually carried with him, and in the excitement of the moment inflicted a slight wound on Isaac's hand. The cut was not serious, but Isaac would not allow it to be properly treated, and subsequently died from an attack ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... The crews manning vessels like these are for the most part villains of all nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless ports of the Spanish Main, and among the savages of the islands. Like galley-slaves, they are only to be governed by scourges and chains. Their officers go among them with dirk and pistol—concealed, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... wise princess, fearing in advance some unfortunate adventure for Bonne—the more so as the constable was as ready to brandish his broadsword as a priest to bestow benedictions—the said queen, as sharp as a dirk, said one day, while coming out from vespers, to her cousin, who was taking the holy ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... near me at first. Because I was an American they thought I carried a revolver and a dirk-knife, and was dangerous. That is their idea of American boys. When they found I was tame, and carried no deadly weapons, they ventured to speak with me, and after that we ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the direction of the stairs, to await the first who happened to descend: but scarcely had he assumed his post of death, before the large oaken door was thrust rudely open and two strapping young fellows, armed with a revolver and a dirk each, rushed into the apartment, and alarmed all the party up stairs by calling aloud for a light, the gleam from the ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say, there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if the mistrust went ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... you might as well ask my son James's experience to supply a case" about thirlage. No, no, my good friend, I have lived by the law, and in the law, all my life; and when you seek the impulses that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions, it is not to a man like me you should come. I could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps, and a queer story or two of estates that have been lost ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... even more effective weapons by what is called a spring dagger, which consists of a short, strong knife or dirk let into the handle, and is readily brought into play by a sudden jerk, or by touching a spring. This may be all very well for travellers in the out-of-the-way regions of Spain, Sicily, or Italy, but I don't like these dangerous accessories ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... mighty war-bow and the full quiver of heavy arrows—full-feathered and pointed with savagely barbed, tearing heads of forged steel—and slipped into their sheaths the long and heavy razor-sharp sword and the double-edged dirk, which he had made and ground long since for he knew not what emergency, and whose bell-shaped hilts of steel further protected his hands and wrists. Thus equipped, he had approximately his normal earthly weight; a fact which ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... forest, in search of that freedom, denied them in their native country,—submitting herself gladly to all the hardships and fearful anxieties of a fugitive slave. What to her were horsemen, armed with dirk and rifle! What though the trained and inhuman blood-hound bayed upon their track! Was not he who had sworn a life-long allegiance to her by her side! Should he be killed or retaken, what could she desire, but to be his companion still! Slavery even, bitter as was ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... irresistibly drawn to one of the great foci of secular and ecclesiastical culture. Sluter, the great sculptor, went to Burgundy, took service with the dukes, and bequeathed no specimen of his art to the land of his birth. Dirk Bouts, the artist of Haarlem, removed to Louvain, where his best work is preserved; what was left at Haarlem has perished. At Haarlem, too, and earlier, perhaps, than anywhere else, obscure experiments ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Headlong fall'n break through, and lie With their prey in piteous wise, And no film on their dead eyes. Matted branches grind and crash, Into darkness dives the flash, Stabs, a dread gold dirk of fire, Loads the lift with splinters dire. Then a pause i' the deadly feud— And a sick ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... me shelter, I have shed a man's blood in a fray; Oh swear that you will not betray me, By your dirk, by the dear light of day!" And the prayer in his kindness he answered, But aghast heard the voices that cried; "Your cousin lies slain! Can a stranger Have passed by ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... young midshipman, whom I had observed going off with Mr Webb, standing at the entrance-port singing out for the boat; he had forgotten his dirk, he said, and had come back to fetch it. The boat, however, had got some distance off, and he was left behind. Poor fellow, it was a fatal piece of ...
— The Loss of the Royal George • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the equipment was complete. It was only when he saw the finished costume, with the vivid hues of the tartan seemingly modified into comparative sobriety by the multitude of silver fittings, the cairngorm brooches, the philibeg, dirk and sporran that he was fully and absolutely satisfied with his choice. At first he had thought of the Royal Stuart dress tartan, but abandoned it on the MacCallum pointing out that if he should happen to be in the neighbourhood of Balmoral it might lead to complications. ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... was exhibiting to a number of gentlemen, who happened to be collected together in a druggist's store, some weapons which he claimed to have taken from Captain Pate in Kansas. Among them was a two-edged dirk, with a blade about eight inches long, and he remarked that if he had a lot of those things to attach to poles about six feet long, they would be a capital weapon of defense for the settlers of Kansas.... When he came to make the contract, he wrote it to have malleable ferrules, cast solid, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... in that tongue-play. But since Messer Robusti has measured our wit for his portrait, Even he has grown shyer of using his tongue than he once was. Have you not heard the tale? Tintoretto was told Aretino Meant to make him the subject of one of his merry effusions; And with his naked dirk he went carefully over his person, Promising, if the poet made free with him in his verses, He would immortalize my satirical friend with that pencil. Doubtless the tale is not true. Aretino says nothing ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... revels in my bosom; and I am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the Sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My Highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. My best compliments to ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... laid one hand upon his dirk, and strutted up to Ram, looking "as big as a small ossifer," as Dirty Dick said afterwards; and gave him a smart slap on the shoulder as he ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... his belt, disclosing in this movement, which opened his doublet a little, the fine rings of a coat of mail, destined to protect him from the first dagger-thrust of an assassin. After which he took a Scotch dirk in his left hand, and then turning to Athos, "Are ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was himself unmasked, and wore a rich Grecian head-dress, a tunic of dark velvet, trimmed with rich ermine, and clasped close about the throat with checks of gold. His silken hose, and velvet shoes faced with silver thread, set off his fine limbs to perfection. A light, graceful dirk hung at his silver girdle, finishing a costume of great simplicity and beauty. On his right arm there now leans the peerless figure of a countess, with whom he promenades and chats in his gay and spirited way, while she is evidently much captivated ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... hundred curtained execution grounds, with the dirk of the suicide firmly grasped and about to shed their own life-blood, have sung the martyrs who died willingly for their faith in their idea of Yamato Damashii.[19] In untold instances in the national ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... enormous brawny Celt, with superhuman whiskers, and a shock of the fieriest hair, had figged himself out, more majorum, in the full Highland costume. I never saw Rob Roy on the stage look half so dignified or ferocious. He glittered from head to foot, with dirk, pistol, and skean-dhu, and at least a hundred-weight of cairngorums cast a prismatic glory around his person. I felt quite abashed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... This is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary. Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl's eyes went through and through me a while ago like a two-edged dirk." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... shoot, is common in the bush, and milk, honey, and rice, are to be had in most of the negro villages, this being quite the dairy country of Africa. But then there are mosquitoes, that madden the best-tempered folk, and holy men with their eyes on the Koran, ready to dirk you for the slightest subject of difference, and it is curious to see the strangest characters of this sort well received and admitted to a familiarity at government house, because they have ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Edisto, in this district, (Barnwell,) on Saturday morning last. He came to his death by his own recklessness. He refused to be taken alive; and said that other attempts to take him had been made, and he was determined that he would not be taken. When taken he was nearly naked—had a large dirk or knife and a heavy club. He was at first, (when those who were in pursuit of him found it absolutely necessary,) shot at with small shot, with the intention of merely crippling him. He was shot at ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... which had answered the call of Jane's horn eight months before: twenty-nine in all, ranging from children of eight to a woman of thirty-five. Nor were their characteristics less diverse. The tobacco-chewing, profane boy was there, with a stolen dirk thrust into his trousers' band, suggesting a turbulent future; and the girl, with the narrow forehead and close, deep-set eyes, was there, pathologically indicating tendencies to kleptomania. But far outweighing these were the straight, courageous bearing and the tender faces of ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... begged for his son in law's "swate-lukin' roifle," and was as cheerful as if a wedding was in progress. Finally, Timotheus got the fowling piece and the Squire looked to the priming of his pistols. Mr. Nash, of course, had both revolver and dirk knife concealed somewhere about his person. Then Mr. Errol conducted family prayers, the children were sent to bed, the ladies briefly informed of the situation, and the garrison bidden a more than ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... as Octavio Baldi, deposits his long rapier at the door of his majesty's chamber. Wotton, in Florence, was warned of a plot to murder James VI. The duke gave him 'such Italian antidotes against poison as the Scots till then had been strangers to': indeed, there is no antidote for a dirk, and the Scots were not poisoners. Introduced by Lindsay as 'Octavio Baldi,' Wotton found his nervous majesty accompanied by four Scottish nobles. He spoke in Italian; then, drawing near, hastily whispered that he was an Englishman, and prayed for a private interview. ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... triumph on his trackless plains The haughty Moro Sultan loved to reign, With shacks proportioned to his native sky, Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye, He roamed with uncovered feet, his sun-illumined zone. The dirk, the bolo, and the spear his own; Or lead the combat wild without a plan An artless savage, but a fearless man. But his 'sun' of triumph, has set to rise no more O'er the quiet waters ...
— The Battle of Bayan and Other Battles • James Edgar Allen
... furtive glance upon the man he was to slay, and thrusting one hand in his bosom, another in his skirt pocket, drew forth simultaneously his deadly weapons. His right palm grasped a Derringer pistol, his left a dirk. ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... the bare back. The latter punishment was reserved expressly for the negro. It was provided further that it "shall not be lawful for any negro, mulatto, or person of color to own, use, or keep and bowie-knife, dirk, sword, fire-arms, or ammunition of any kind, unless he first obtain a license to do so from the judge of probate for the county in which he is a resident." The judge could issue the license to him only upon recommendation of two respectable white men. ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... arrayed himself in a somewhat worn dress of Kennedy's, with the belt and dirk he had carried under his scholar's garb now without, and a steel cap that his cousin had procured for him on his head. With a parcel in his arms of Kennedy's gear, he might pass for a servant sent from home ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his cane. At the railroad stations in the Cibao I have sometimes observed everyone congregated about the station wearing a revolver more or less visible, except two or three, evidently the poorest farm-laborers, who could not afford anything more than a dirk and who gazed at the others with envious eyes. Beautiful pearl-handled revolvers were proudly exhibited to the public eye, and on one occasion I saw a little boy not over ten years old with a revolver that reached to his knee. The habit was all the more indefensible ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... of wine-shops, here dignified with the name of village, we saw a number of Greeks waiting the return of Otho: each wore a gaily coloured kerchief on the head; an embroidered jacket; a shawl encircling the waist; red greaves; a dirk; and a long gun, ornamented with gold, slung over the shoulder. Their wild fearless demeanour struck me as more characteristic of the freebooter, than the soldier of a regular government. Yet seldom have I seen more elegant graceful ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... murders committed are the result of quarrels or personal rancour. Jealousy of a favoured rival, a gambling or a political dispute ends in a defiance, mutual and deadly, the ever-ready dirk affords present means; or, if the interposition of the bystanders prevents this, one of the party shoots down the other on the road or at his own door; when, if the slain man has friends, the feud is adopted by them, and the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... made her servants attend upon them with unusual deference and ceremony. Their appearance was altogether horrible, they wore leather aprons, which were sprinkled all over with blood, they had large horse pistols in their belts, and a dirk and sabre by their sides. Their looks were full of ferocity, and they spoke a harsh dissonant patois language. Over their cups, they talked about the bloody business of that day's occupation, in the course of which they drew out their dirks, and wiped from ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... your staves and switches For men of gentle birth? Your mask and dirk for riches? Your chains ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... lieutenant had left the city. He came almost to believe that the officer had spoken the truth, when distrust again assailed him on finding in the barracks a second document almost identical with the first, except that it contained the words, "Second warning," and the dirk had been driven half its length into the lid of the desk. At first he thought it was the same parchment and dagger, but the different wording showed him that at least the former was not the same. He called Gottlieb, and demanded to know who had been allowed to pass the guards and enter that room. ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... officer with new respect. He had always been inclined to think of the Frontier Guards as a gang of scientifically illiterate dirk-and-pistol bravos. He fiddled for a while with instruments on the panel; an automatic computer figured the distance to the planet, the boat's velocity, and the time needed for ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... date there was living in Leyden a young man of four or five and twenty, named Dirk van Goorl, a distant cousin of her own. Dirk was a native of the little town of Alkmaar, and the second son of one of its leading citizens, a brass founder by trade. As in the natural course of events the Alkmaar business would descend to his elder brother, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... suspect him of anything of the kind," said Maternus gently, "just drive your dirk good and far into him and be done with him. I'll be on the lookout for any hanky-panky from Hedulio. If I see the wrong look in his eye or the wrong expression on his face I'll make a quick end of him. I'll tolerate no treachery after ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... that standis dirk Halds the light from your Parroche Kirk, Your forestairs makis your houses mirk Like na country but here at hame Think ye not shame, Sa little policie to work In hurt and ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... smiles knowingly. "Tony Dirk put the triple-whammy on him. Gimmicked up the random-choice selector in the Regent's office. Herr von James is discoursing on the subjects of Medicine, Astronomy, and Psychology—that is ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... Edinburgh, lest the influence of the Castle be too strong for the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone's throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be shouting with ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the old "Essex" was represented, but that I found them to be the best swordsmen on board. They had been so thoroughly trained as boarders, that every man was prepared for such an emergency, with his cutlass as sharp as a razor, a dirk made by the ship's armorer out of a file, and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to this empire, to act as agent for him at that port, until my appointment be ratified and confirmed by the States General, of which he informs me there is no doubt, I proceeded hither in the Snell Zee Post, Dirk Morris, master; and after being becalmed off (Affernie) Cape de Geer, I arrived here the third morning after my departure from Mogodor. I sent my horses by land; and on our 59 approach to the shore, I discovered them approaching ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk, I vow that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... support; the divine could see no danger threatening his country except from the alleged infidelity of a few leading radicals; the timid citizen, with no fixed political opinions, was overawed by the bluster of Southern bullies, shuddered at the sight of pistol and dirk-knife, and only asked "to be let alone"; while the thoughtless votary of fashion, readily accepting the lordly bearing and imperious air of the planter as the highest evidence of genuine aristocracy, reasoned, with the sort of logic which we should look for in such a mind, that slaveholding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... stern and silent; their thoughts fixed upon the coming battle, or perhaps wandering back to the green fields and pleasant homes they had so recently left, perhaps forever. The gray old yeoman of the frigate, with his mates, walked from gun to gun, silently placing a well-sharpened cutlass, a dirk, and a heavy leather boarding-cap at each man's side. The marines were drawn up in a line amidships; their erect, soldierly air and rigid alignment contrasting with the careless slouchiness of the sailors. Butts for the sailors' ridicule ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... which you insinuate, I will tell you that he died loving me and me only." The young girl made a gesture of rage. "I understand you, Fernand; you would be revenged on him because I do not love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that answer? To lose you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that friendship changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way to evil thoughts. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his slumbers. The head of the prisoner lay rudely pillowed on a billet of wood, one hand protecting his face from its rough surface, and the other thrust in his bosom, where it rested, with a relaxed grasp, on the handle of a dirk. Although he slept, and that heavily, yet his rest was unnatural and perturbed. His breathing was hard and quick, and something like the low, rapid murmurings of a confused utterance mingled with his respiration. The moment had now arrived when the character ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he, I galloped, Dirk galloped, we galloped all three. 'Good speed!' cried the watch as the gate bolts undrew, 'Speed' echoed the wall ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... their flings and taunts with great coolness, until one, presuming on his forbearance, drew forth a dirk, and holding it before him, asked him if he had ever seen a weapon like that in his part of the country. Park, who was a Hercules in frame, seized the dirk, and, with one blow, drove it through an oaken table:—"Yes," replied he, "and tell your ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... appearance at this period is thus described by one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed, had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol and dirk by ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... Holland, and there he encountered Dirk Hammerhand, from whom to take a buffet was never to need another, and bought from him his famous mare Swallow, the price agreed on being the half of what Hereward had offered and a box on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... full chieftain's suit to meet them. The eagle's feather in his Glengary gave to his great stature the last grace. The tartan and philibeg, the garters at his knee, the silver buckles at his shoulder, belt, and shoon, the jewelled mull and dirk, had all to these poor fellows in this last hour a proud and sad significance. As he stood on the steps to welcome them, the wind colored his handsome face and blew out the long black hair which ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Scotland's heir: And when their swords can do nae mair, Lang bowstrings o' their yellow hair Let Hieland lasses spin, laddie. Charlie's bonnet's down, laddie, Kilt yer plaid and scour the heather; Charlie's bonnet's down, laddie, Draw yer dirk and rin. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... night of October 1, 1901, about 11.30 P.M., a party of Boers surrounded a native house at Dassie Klip, near Zandspruit, and killed four natives in or about the house. The party consisted of twenty-four, under the following leaders: Dirk Badenhorst, of Dassie Klip; Cornelius Erasmus, of Streepfontein; and C. Van der Merwe, of Rooi Draai. The witnesses in this case are all natives residing at Dassie Klip, who knew the assailants well. In one case a native called Karle was ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a bad boy. Killed a policeman onct. Wears a dirk knife in his boots, saw him to-day looking ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... there's sure to be a war! and I shall get promoted, and be a man before any of you. I shall go about, and see condors, and lions, and elephants, and wear a sword—at least, a dirk—while you are learning Latin and ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my eyes continuously watching the President's face, I asked a gentleman to cut the coat and shirt open from the neck to the elbow to enable me, if possible, to check the hemorrhage that I thought might take place from the subclavian artery or some other blood vessel. This was done with a dirk knife, but no wound was found there. I lifted his eyelids and saw evidence of a brain injury. I quickly passed the separated fingers of both hands through his blood matted hair to examine his head, and I discovered his mortal wound. The President had been shot in the back part of the head, behind ...
— Lincoln's Last Hours • Charles A. Leale
... a profusion of the plant: many charms and legends were considered to be connected with the tree, and the duration of the family of Hay was said to be united with its existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a sure charm against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard in the day of battle. A spray gathered in the same manner was placed in the cradle of infants, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... two who tried to get to Arnkel's side were seized and hurled to the ground by the men who cheered for Gerda, and I knew that the day was won. But I watched Arnkel, for there was somewhat of madness in his look. His hand stole down to the long dirk in his belt, ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... didn't work, With a kris or bowie-knife, Poniard, assegai, or dirk, I would make them beg for life;— Spare them, though, if they'd be good And guard me from what haunts the wood— From those creepy, shuddery sights That come round a fellow nights— Imps that squeak and trolls that prowl, Ghouls, the slimy devil-fowl, Headless goblins with lassoes, Scarlet ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... beautiful—holding up his hands, and repeating the words "Beautiful, beautiful! they are all beautiful together! There is Bana beautiful! his box is beautiful! and his medicine beautiful!"—and, saying this, led us in to see his women, who at my request were grouped in war apparel—viz., a dirk fastened to the waist by many strings of coloured beads. There were from fifty to sixty women present, all very lady-like, but none of them pretty. Kaggao then informed me the king had told all his Wakungu he would keep ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... a Clerk who came from Campen, a kinsman of John of Ummen, our first founder. The fourth was Dirk of Kleef, a Clerk who came from that state. These four made their profession on the same day, and when the Divine Mysteries had been celebrated, and their bodies had been refreshed, they spent the day in spiritual ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... distractedly. He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty's eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the water ...
— Options • O. Henry
... did not look suspicious for one who planned much walking on the caked Lowland ooze. But those fat soles were cleverly fashioned to hide a long, keen knife-blade, like a dirk. I could lift a foot and get the knife out of its hidden compartment with fair speed. This I had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... our old Scottish proverb?—'Better kind fremit, than fremit kindred.' ['Better kind strangers than estranged kindred.' The motto is engraved on a dirk, belonging to a person who had but too much reason to choose such a device. It was left by him to my father. The weapon is now in my possession. S.] I will find out that man, which, methinks, should be no difficult task, since he is so wealthy ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... towards nightfall of the day on which Dickory had escaped from the pirates at the spring that he found himself on a piece of high ground in an open place in the forest, and here he determined to spend the night. With his dirk he cut a quantity of palmetto leaves and made himself a very comfortable bed, on which he was soon ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... a party of men came rushing down Eighth Avenue, opposite Lamartine Hall, cheering and shouting, led by a man waving a sword cane. As he swung it above his head it parted, disclosing a long dirk. The police immediately advanced and swept the street. Eighth Avenue was cleared from Thirtieth Street to Twenty-eighth Street, and the police formed several deep, leaving only room enough ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... the morning and the evening that there was any breeze. Will had just turned in for the middle watch, and had scarcely dropped to sleep, when he was suddenly awakened by a loud noise. He sprang out of bed, seized his dirk and a brace of pistols which were part of the equipment given him by the first lieutenant. As he ran up the companion he heard a coil of rope thrown against the door, so he leapt down again and ran with all speed to the ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... along familiar lines. No: none of these hypotheses explains the unfinished state of that narrative. My explanation is that the story has a foundation in fact, and that Poe himself never learned more than a foundation for the portion which he wrote. Its leading character next to Pym is one Dirk Peters, a sailor, mutineer, etc. It is my theory that Pym and Peters existed in fact, but that Poe never met either of them, though he did meet sailors who had known Dirk Peters, and that he heard from them the first ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... with the braggart!" the Laconians were clamouring. The Athenians answered in kind. Already a dark sailor was drawing a dirk. Everything promised broken heads, and perhaps blood, when Leonidas and his friend,—by laying about them with their staves,—won their way to the front. The king dashed his staff upon the shoulder of a strapping Laconian who was just ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Much noise and confusion prevailed; and two gentlemen, who, as I afterwards learned, were officers belonging to a Spanish vessel then in port, fell into a dispute and got into a fight, during which one of them stabbed the other with a dirk-knife, inflicting a ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... mayor, Dirk Wessels, recorder, Jan Wendal, Jan Jansen Bleeker, Claes Ripse, David Schuyler, Albert Ryckman, aldermen, Killian Van Rensselaer, justice, Captain Marte Gerritse, justice, Captain Gerrit Teunisse, Dirk Teunisse, justices, ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... what is this?" exclaimed the cutler, as Arvina unbuckling his toga and suffering it to drop on the ground, stood clad in his succinct and snow-white tunic only, girded about him with a zone of purple leather, in which was stuck the sheathless dirk of Cataline. "What is this, noble Paullus? that you carry at your belt, with no scabbard? If you go armed, you should at least go safely. See, if you were to bend your body somewhat quickly, it might well be that the keen point would rend your groin. Give it me, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... enwraps the stalwart figure. On his head is the tufted Breton cap familiar in the pictures of the days of the great navigators. At the waist, on the left side, hangs a sword, and, on the right, close to the belt, the dirk ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... was a peon. From somewhere on his person, he produced a dirk and slashed vigorously. Okada evaded the blow, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... boot-hook in the culprit's pocket and dragged him into the boat, while the rest of the crew, by this time spoiling for a fight, seized their stretchers, jumped ashore, and began laying on right and left. Farragut, so far from restraining, went with them, waving his dirk and cheering them on. The victorious seamen fought their way up to Market Square, where the police interfered, arresting all parties, and the little officer was formally bound ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... will!" There was nothing peculiar in his dress, except a huge pair of loose boots, of the thickest untanned leather, that reached considerably above his knees, and from frequent immersion in the tide had assumed a deep brown hue. His hat was conical, and only distinguished by a small dirk glittering in the band, which he carried there as a place of safety from ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... risen again. A dirk gleamed in his extended hand. His eyes blazed like coals. Fury distorted his features which were craned forward in hideous ugliness parallel ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... hed to save him. I'd missed all the summer an' fall to nuss him Who now like a tiger wuz takin' my life. 'Hol' on, my dear Josh! Hol' on, my dear boy!' No further I got, fer his hands clutched my throat— I squirmed myself loose, but grapplin' my coat He throwed me ag'in, now a madman, indeed. His dirk-knife wuz raised. I said, 'Do yer best. I've give you now all that I ever possessed But life. Take it now if ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... back when two other men suddenly appeared through a door at the left, and the three surrounded him, one leveling a revolver at his head, another at his breast, and the third pointing a dirk at his side, all indulging in an indiscriminate volley of oaths and threats. Said his grey-haired guide (who afterwards proved to be John P. Chester, Elsie's master, the same who had enacted to me the role of the sympathetic physician), ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... Mr. Clarke Nichols Vedder, a Farmer, Isherwood Brom Van Brunt, a Schoolmaster, Fisher Rory Van Clump, Landlord of George 3d Tavern, Wells Henderick Hudson, Capt. of the Spirit Crew of the Dutch discovery ship 'Half Moon' Hayden Richard Juet, his Mate, Dirk Quackenboss, Dutchmen, Spirit Crew, &c. Dame Van Winkle, Rip's Scolding Wife, Mrs. Wheatley Alice, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... the strength of their arms, and thus shame our honoured lord; but we could not halt in our deed of vengeance. Having taken counsel together last night, we have escorted my Lord Kotsuke-no-Suke hither to your tomb. This dirk, by which our honoured lord set great store last year, and entrusted to our care, we now bring back. If your noble spirit be now present before this tomb, we pray you, as a [297] sign, to take the dirk, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... at the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin. To the extreme north we find the Gulf of Carpentaria, and to the extreme south the island which used to be called Van Diemen's Land. It is not altogether to be wondered at that almost to the middle of this century ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... a sporran an' a dirk, An' a beard like besom bristles, He was an elder o' the kirk And he hated kists o' whistles! Hech mon! The pawky duke! An' doon on kists o' whistles! They're a' reid-heidit fowk up North Wi' beards ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... through the door, and sprang up the steps. No sooner was he in the open air than an armed figure confronted him. But Manasseh did not strike down this person, for it was a woman,—Zenobia. A dirk and a brace of pistols were stuck ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... spared for a time, but one, Captain Drummond, ordered him to be put to death; and a boy of five or six, who had clung to Glenlyon's knees entreating for mercy and offering to become his servant for life if he would spare him, and who had moved Glenlyon to pity, was stabbed by Drummond with a dirk while he was in the agony of supplication. Barber, a sergeant, with some soldiers, fired on a group of nine MacDonalds who were round their morning fire, and killed four of them, and one of them, who escaped into a house, expressed a wish to die in the open air rather ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... said Jehu, looking very uncomfortable, as he saw Peter flourishing a short dirk, and the doctor holding him back and remonstrating with him. "That man of Satan I never saw before yesterday, when I entered his house, where there was fiddling and dancing, and serving the devil. Truly my head became dizzy at the sight, my heart sunk within me at beholding such ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... political value, but it revives as in a magic mirror somewhat dim, certain scenes of actual human life. Now and again the mist breaks, and real passionate faces, gestures of living men and women, are beheld in the clear- obscure. We see Lochgarry throw his dirk after his son, and pronounce his curse. We mark Pickle furtively scribbling after midnight in French inns. We note Charles hiding in the alcove of a lady's chamber in a convent. We admire the 'rich anger' of his Polish mistress, and the ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... yellow-haired party has got him by the throat; I saw her looking at him most uncommon sharp, when she was telling that biggest story of hers, about the serpent that swallowed. Dirk he thinks he's been swallowed by one of 'em; he feels it choking in ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... into the humiliating attitude popularly indicative of prayerful supplication. Smith walked slowly up behind him, relieved him of two automatics and a dirk. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... of the contest was apparent. With a mingled yell of rage and contempt, his sword brandished above his head and his dirk between his teeth, the enormous bandit rushed upon his intrepid opponent. De Vaux seemed scarce more than a stripling, but he stood his ground and faced his hitherto invincible assailant. 'Mong Dieu,' cried De Smythe, 'he ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... be crazy enough to try anything like that," Commander Dirk Prinsloo, of the Aldebaran, declared. "He'd get away with it for just twelve months—the time it would take to get the news to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here. And then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek floating around this system as far out as the orbit ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... pocket for dinner, and ridden over to the Eildon Hills. He had seen a rainbow touch one of them, and there he hoped he would find the treasure that always lies at the tail of the rainbow. But he got very soon tired of digging for it with his little dirk, or dagger. It blunted the dagger, and he found nothing. Perhaps he had not marked quite the right place, he thought. But he looked at the teeth of the sheep, and they were yellow; so he had no doubt that ...
— The Gold Of Fairnilee • Andrew Lang
... house, noted in the story of the Massacre of Glencoe, beside the brawling river: and a woman, stolen by the fairies, returned for an hour to her husband, who became very unpopular, as he neglected the means for her rescue; I think he failed to throw a dirk over her shoulder. Every now and then mysterious lights may be seen, even by the Sassenach, speeding down the road to Callart on the opposite side of the narrow sea-loch, ascending the hill, and running down into the salt water. ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... aye be carrying that?" said I; for he looked so wild and lawless that it was not in me to be believing that he trusted to aught save his dirk. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... on the forfeited estates of his family and from the clan of which he was head. Success was instantaneous. Within a few weeks Fraser was at the head of some 1500 men. They wore the Highland dress, with a sporran of badger's or otter's skin and carried musket and broadsword; some of them wore a dirk at their own cost. Among the officers were no less than five Simon Frasers,[3] three or four each of Alexander Frasers and John Frasers, and a good many other Frasers, among them a young Ensign, Malcolm Fraser, destined to ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... Neuchatel, his father an Italian, his mother a Genevese; studied and practised medicine, came to Paris as horse-leech to Count d'Artois; became infected with the revolutionary fever, and had one fixed idea: "Give me," he said, "two hundred Naples bravoes, armed each with a good dirk, and a muff on his left arm by way of shield, and with them I will traverse France and accomplish the Revolution," that is, by wholesale massacre of the aristocrats; he had more than once to flee for his life, and one time found shelter in the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Aberardair was a guest in Donald's house, and Donald's wife said, "Though I put butter on the table for you tonight, it will just be dirtied". "I will go with you to the butter-keg," said Ronald, "with my dirk in my hand, and hold my bonnet over the keg, and he will not dirty it this night." So the two went together to fetch the butter, but it was dirtied just ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... which such guests had gathered, presented a gay, magnificent spectacle. The yellow leather of the doublets worn by Junker von Warmond, Colonel Mulder, and Captain Allertssohn, the colored silk scarfs that adorned them, and the scarlet coat of brave Dirk Smaling contrasted admirably with the deep black robes of Pastor Verstroot, the burgomaster, the city clerk, and their associates! The violet of the commissioner's dress and the dark hues of the fur-bordered surcoats worn by the elder Herr Van der Does ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... certain night the old man told him the green round hill, where the fairies kept the boy, would be open, and on that date the smith, having provided himself with a Bible, a dirk, and a crowing cock, was to proceed to the hill. He would hear singing and dancing, and much merriment going on, he had been told, but he was to advance boldly; the Bible he carried would be a certain safeguard to him against any danger ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... appeared at Mackinaw from the rendezvous at Fort William. These held themselves up as the chivalry of the fur trade. They were men of iron; proof against cold weather, hard fare, and perils of all kinds. Some would wear the Northwest button, and a formidable dirk, and assume something of a military air. They generally wore feathers in their hats, and affected the "brave." "Je suis un homme du nord!"-"I am a man of the north,"-one of these swelling fellows would exclaim, sticking his arms akimbo and ruffling ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... willing at that time that their country should be annexed. Men who during the late war were our foes were at the time of the annexation clamouring for it, welcoming Sir Theophilus Shepstone as the deliverer and saviour of the country. I mention Swart Dirk Uys, an eminent Boer, who fought against the English in 1880-81, as one amongst the hundreds and thousands who went out to meet Sir Theophilus Shepstone with palm ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... use of his teeth to steal a scimitar, [Footnote: Scimitar: a short Turkish sword, carbine: a short light rifle.] steadied the blade between his knees, cut through the thongs which bound his hands; in an instant he was free. He at once seized a carbine and a long dirk, [Footnote: Dirk: a dagger.] then took the precaution of providing himself with a stock of dried dates, a small bag of oats, some powder and bullets, and hung a scimitar around his waist, mounted one of the horses and spurred on in the direction ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Merode, twisting round in the darkness and reaching blindly for the haft of his dirk. "Nom de ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... holidaying air about it and the men who traveled on it had the same spirit too. They were Bavarians—all new troops, and nearly all young fellows. Their accouterments were bright and their uniforms almost unsoiled, and I saw that each man carried in his right boot top the long, ugly-looking dirk-knife that the Bavarian foot-soldier fancies. The Germans always showed heat when they found a big service clasp-knife hung about a captured Englishman's neck on a lanyard, calling it a barbarous weapon because of the length of the blade and long sharp ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb |
