"Muzzle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... metal. Nelson bore down on them in two lines, heading one himself, while Collingwood, in the Royal Sovereign, led the other, which first entered into action. "See," cried Nelson, as the Royal Sovereign cut through the centre of the enemy's line, and muzzle to muzzle engaged a three-decker, "see how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ships into action." Collingwood, on the other hand, said to his captain, "Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here?" As the Victory approached an incessant raking ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... eye both Marko and myself had covered him with our firearms—we both had guns at our side—and Stephan began to talk. Stephan was a violent-tempered man, and now he let himself go. He spoke for some minutes, and it was lurid. The muzzle of my carbine began to wobble, for his fluency and comprehensiveness were distinctly amusing, while our attacker, who soon let go the butt of his revolver, listened with pained but undisguised admiration. "And now, thou accursed one," wound up ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... over-crowded, ill-smelling and unsanitary. In these ramshackle affairs the loggers were packed like sardines. The bunks were arranged tier over tier and nearly always without mattresses. They were uniformly vermin-infested and sometimes of the "muzzle-loading" variety. No blankets were furnished, each logger being compelled to supply his own. There were no facilities for bathing or the washing and drying of sweaty clothing. Lighting and ventilation were ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... his hand into his pocket and drew out a great roll of money. With the muzzle of Philo Gubb's pistol hovering just out of reach before him, he counted out five crisp one hundred dollar bills. He held them out with a sickly grin. Philo Gubb took them ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness in the first instance had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... inhabits these trees, of which the muzzle is that of the fox, while the tail resembles that of a marmoset, and the ears those of a bat. Its hands are like man's, and its feet like those of an ape. This beast carries its young wherever it goes in a sort of exterior pouch, or large bag. ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... rifle, so leaning slightly forward he drew his right foot back, and with eyes fixed steadily on the little patch amidst the fern, trusted to them and the balance as he flung the long barrel up. Few men can use the rifle as the Canadian bush rancher can, and there was a flash from the muzzle as the heelplate touched his shoulder. Alton had not glanced along the barrel, but the curious thud which he heard in place of the explosion told him that the heavy bullet was smashing through bone and muscle. Then thin ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... Free from attack, in hope of larger spoil From fresh adventures; for the peaceful sea May tempt them, and their goal in safety reached, To dare a second voyage. Round the stag Thus will the cunning hunter draw a line Of tainted feathers poisoning the air; Or spread the mesh, and muzzle in his grasp The straining jaws of the Molossian hound, And leash the Spartan pack; nor is the brake Trusted to any dog but such as tracks The scent with lowered nostrils, and refrains From giving tongue ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... relenting face, and began swiftly to fasten up her already short dress in disregard of the exposure of trim ankles. The agitated Mr. Brown coughed, his uneasy glances straying down the open shaft. He would gladly, and with extreme promptness, have shoved the cold muzzle of his Colt beneath the nose of any man at such moment of trial; but this young girl, with a glance and a laugh, had totally disarmed him. Disturbed conscience, a feeling akin to disloyalty, pricked him, but the temptation left him powerless to resist—those black eyes held him already captive; ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... the dog's muzzle, and with difficulty restraining him from burying his teeth in the tramp's shin, "what shall we do with this heroic specimen of manhood? Shall we cart him over to the jail in Port Vigor, or shall we ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... hyar's Whitefoot's muzzle jes' ez nat'ral—an' Me—waal, sir! don't I look proud!" he cried suddenly, with a note of such succulent vanity, so finely flavored a pride, that the stranger could but laugh at ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... did muzzle him. He fought like a little demon, and hit out right and left, and one of his blows gave the Bavarian a black eye. But he was soon mastered by four grown men, and his father flung him with no light hand out from the door of the back ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... thicket to the knight's assistance. It was a large wolf-dog, in strength a mastiff, in form and almost in fleetness a greyhound. Bevis was the noblest of the kind which ever pulled down a stag, tawny coloured like a lion, with a black muzzle and black feet, just edged with a line of white round the toes. He was as tractable as he was strong and bold. Just as he was about to rush upon the soldier, the words, "Peace, Bevis!" from Sir Henry, converted ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... briskly. And the rider turned his head, eyed the girl sharply as she came up, and nodded a cursory greeting. His horse lifted its head to look, decided that it wanted another swallow or two, and lowered its muzzle again ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... animal or an insect, they may, perchance, destroy the life of an ancestor, develops their love and care for every living creature to an almost incredible extent. Not only is there a hospital for invalid animals in every town and village, but their priests always wear a muslin muzzle, (I trust they will pardon the disrespectful expression!) in order to avoid destroying even the smallest animalcule, by inadvertence in the act of breathing. The same fear impels them to drink only filtered water. There are a few millions of Jainas ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... with a cup at the butt and a cork at the muzzle. Skate off now, like an angel, and get it. Bring ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... turned the Count jumped and started for the door like a flash. With a quick side step, however, Edestone threw himself between him and the only exit from the room, and giving the fugitive a good poke in the stomach with the muzzle of his gun, said: ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... and ladders and ropes, from the midst of which a vast tube, looking as if it might be a piece of ordnance such as the revolted angels battered the walls of Heaven with, according to Milton, lifted its muzzle defiantly towards the sky. Why, you blessed old rattletrap, said I to myself, I know you as well as I know my father's spectacles and snuff-box! And that same crazy witch of a Memory, so divinely wise and foolish, travels thirty-five hundred miles or so in ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... "The muzzle of the gun happened to be pointed towards Mr. Davis's garden; and, just as he was in the midst of his military exercises, a stone thrown by William hit him directly in one of his eyes. The fright and pain together made Harry drop the gun, which went off, and in a moment both ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... and stroking the fox skin the while. And Samur, who sat in front of him, cocked his head first on one side, then on the other, and gave him a knowing look. At last the dog stretched out his neck, raised his muzzle into the air and howled, using every variation of key known to him. At this Arni stopped short and stared at him, then bending his head slightly to one side to study him, he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... was peaceably enough disposed, and, contrary to the usual habit of Asiatics, made no objections to our examining the small cannon he carried. On inspecting the deadly instrument we discovered it to be loaded to the very muzzle, a mixture of pebbles, slugs, and bits of iron being crammed into the barrel over a charge of a couple of ounces of powder. On our inquiring why it was so heavily charged, the man told us with much naivete, that it was to kill nine men, illustrating the method by ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... behind the beast slid back into the hollow and disappeared. Then, from the left of the house came a volley that woke the echoes all round; it was the explosion of the Captain's blunderbuss. The detective ran along the fence to Mr. Terry's beat, and found the veteran reloading his rifle from the muzzle. "Keep your post, Mr. Terry," he cried, "while I run and see what it is you have bagged. I imagine your son-in-law will look after the Captain." Mr. Nash ran down the hill, closely followed by the lawyer, who had come out to see the fun. All the bedroom windows ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... people passin' an' talkin'. But I knew well I was far from home. There is a queer smell upon our cantonments—a smell av dried earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable- litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an' bad water, an' wanst somethin' alive came an' blew heavy with his muzzle at the chink av the shutter. "It's in a village I am," thinks I to mysilf, "an' the parochial buffalo is investigatin' the palanquin." But anyways I had no desire to move. Only lie still whin you're in foreign parts an' the standin' luck av the British Army will carry ye through. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... impatient. 'That dalled keeper has left an earth open,' remarks one of the riders. His companion points with his whip at the hedge just where it joins the wood. A long slender muzzle is thrust for a moment cautiously over the bare sandy mound under cover of a thorn stole. One sniff, and it is withdrawn. The fox thought also to steal away along the copses, the worst and most baffling course he could choose. Five minutes ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... woman. I can understand what Phillida's about. But Miss what's-her-name, in Fourteenth street, can't explain to save her life, so's you can understand, how she cures people, or what she's about, except to earn money in some way easier than hard work. There comes your uncle, loaded to the muzzle for a dispute," said Aunt Hannah, laughing mischievously as she heard her ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... see my rifle lying on the ground and Joe's big gun standing with its muzzle pointed skyward, leaning against a boulder. They were only six feet away, but six feet were six feet: we could not reach them without climbing up, and that was out of the question—the bear could get there much more quickly ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... her elder daughter in the muzzle department of the Army and Navy Stores the next week. That was one of the annoying aspects of the muzzling order; one met in muzzle shops people with whom neither temperament nor circumstances ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... counter-advancing, trying to gain the advantage of number or position so that the other would be forced to retreat. It became a war of nerves; a game of seeing who had the most guts; who could walk closer to the muzzle of an ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... this wild breed is invariably white, the muzzle being black; the whole of the inside of the ear, and about one-third of the outside, from the tips downward, red; horns white, with black tips, very fine, and bent upward; some of the bulls have a thin, upright mane, about an inch and a half or two inches long. The beef is finely ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... still clinging to the candle, Aunt Olive seized the gun, and, dragging it along by the muzzle, she cried: ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... was that of a Roman centurion—bold, cruel as a hawk's beak, strong-nostriled as a wolf's muzzle. His firm white teeth, as they crunched on the cracker suggested, even stronger, the semblance to a carnivorous animal of prey. A benevolent-looking pair of gold-rimmed glasses sat astride that nose, but Burke noticed that, oddly enough, Trubus did not need them for his reading, nor later ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... sound issued from the mouth of Captain Asher; he was choking to death. In the same second that she heard it Olive thrust the muzzle of the pistol against the side of the man's head and ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... pistol drew and held it muzzle end, "Ye have taken the one from a foe," said he; "will ye take the mate from ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... or cannon, were muzzle-loading. The secondary armament, mounted in tops, cageworks, bulkheads, etc., were breech-loading; but these smaller pieces fell out of favor as time went on owing to reliance on long-range fire and rareness ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... him what to do when the time came. I guess thet thet nigger knew thet ef he didn't play straight he was a dead coon. Tia sat down jest behind him, and every now and then touched his backbone with the muzzle ev her pistol—jest ter show him she was keepin' awake. At the same time he wasn't unwillin', for he hed told us thet he and his dead mate were not Baian's men—they were slaves he had captured from a town he had ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... evening, and I still laboring along, when, over the low hedge to my right, a man on a sorrel mare leap'd easily as a swallow, and alighted some ten paces or less in front of me; where he dismounted and stood barring my path. The muzzle of his pistol was in my face before I could lay ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... wholly gone, and he found himself standing by the ashes of the fire in a state of amazement and stupid terror that left him the helpless prey of anything that chose to happen. Had a muskrat poked its pointed muzzle over a rock, or a squirrel scuttled in that instant down the bark of a tree, he would most likely have collapsed without more ado and fainted. For he felt about the whole affair the touch somewhere of a great Outer Horror ... and his scattered powers had not as yet had time to collect themselves ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... galloped awkwardly a few rods, the branch trailing from his mouth. Then, with the ponderous but sudden shift of bull psychology, indignation rose in his bosom. He stopped himself so short that his fore-hoofs plowed two long furrows in the soft earth; whirled, lifted his muzzle, and bellowed. One fore-hoof tore up the dirt and showered it over his back. He dropped to his knees and rubbed the ground with his neck in sheer abandonment to the joy of his own abandoned wickedness. He ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... chin. His face was broad, but his features were sharp; his cheeks were scorched into a dusky red by two fiery little gray eyes, his nose turned up, and the corners of his mouth turned down, pretty much like the muzzle of ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... muzzle full of dreadful threat, In thy weak hand thou took'st withouten dread; The gentle beast with milk-outstretched teat, As nurses' custom, proffered thee to feed. As one that wondereth on some marvel great, I stood this while amazed at the deed. When thee she saw well filled and ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... among the bullocks, now jammed and goring one another at the entrance of a narrow alley. And his shots seemed to be a signal for a general salvo of random musketry. I saw a woman cross the roadway with a rifleman close behind her; he swung up his rifle, holding it by the muzzle, and clubbed her between the shoulders with ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the road. The artillerymen had turned the gun and loaded it with a solid shot. Instantly a wide lane opened through our ranks; the man with the lanyard drew the fatal cord, fire burst from the primer and the muzzle, the long gun sprang up and recoiled, and there seemed to be a demoniac yell in its ear-splitting crash, as the heavy ball left the mouth, and tore its bloody way through the bodies of the struggling ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... Jack, Ned and Harry saw Jimmie standing in the street, surrounded by German soldiers wearing the uniforms of Uhlans. Directly behind the lad stood one of the soldiers with the muzzle of a gun pressed against Jimmie's back. Before him an officer stood, apparently administering some form of oath. The three boys could see Jimmie's lips move in response to the prompting of ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... his adversary miserably collapse, his legs grotesquely curving inwards under him,—without even the dignity of death in his fall,—and so sink helplessly like a felled bull to the ground. Still erect, and lowering only the muzzle of his pistol, as a thin feather of smoke curled up its shining side, he saw the doctor and seconds run quickly to the heap, try to lift its limp impotence into shape, and let it drop again with the words, "Right through the ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... his gun out, pressed the muzzle against the prisoner's chest and brought his finger against the trigger slowly ... slowly.... The prisoner turned pale as a corpse; his face lengthened; his eyelids were fixed in a glassy stare. He breathed in agony, his whole body shook as with ague. Blondie kept his gun in the same position ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... when I thought how long that cargo had taken to get on board, it was wonderful how soon they whipped it out of her. When they had stripped her of all they thought worth taking, they ran one of the cannon to the open hatch, loaded it and crammed it full of balls to the muzzle; then they pointed it down the hold and fired it, and were soon on board ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the close of the Civil War our navy was suffered to fall into neglect and decay. The thirty-seven cruisers, all but four of which were of wood; the fourteen single-turreted monitors built during the war; the muzzle-loading guns, belonged to a past age. By 1881 this was fully realized and the foundation of a new and splendid navy was begun by the construction of three unarmored cruisers—the Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago. Once started, the new navy grew ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... my middle and draw the pistol from its case. I drew and cocked it. Now the tree was coming over, and there, within three feet of my head, was the great brown trunk of the elephant. I placed the muzzle of the pistol within an inch of it and fired. The result was instantaneous. Down sunk the tree again, giving one of my legs a considerable squeeze, and next instant I heard a crashing sound. ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... following the man along the palings with the muzzle of his Deckard, "by the etarnal! 'tis like ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... as I have shown, was fond of hunting in his early manhood, and was the owner of an excellent muzzle-loading rifle, which was as good as when his keen eye glanced along the brown barrel and the bullet was buried in the unsuspicious deer, so far away as to be scarcely visible to ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... Hill's strong countenance. It was almost a smile of understanding. "I am—indebted to you—boss," he said, and with the words very calmly he took his revolver by the muzzle and held it out. "I surrender to ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... themselves against the gun's defenders. They would seize that demon of machinery and hurl it over into the gully below. But the doughboys, with bayonets stationed on the sides of the gun, thrust or stabbed them back. No native approached the muzzle of the Gatling and lived to cause further trouble. In as wide an arc as possible Sergeant Hal swung the nose of the piece ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... wrong. You don't carry a rifle with the muzzle pointing towards your left ear. Here, give the thing ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... arranged tangentially to an arc of a circle whose center was occupied by the pivot of the gun, and consequently at right angles with the latter. The piece employed was a 6 in. gun, 35 calibers in length. The distance of its muzzle from the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... slave merely for this seemed such a mockery! Day after day sped swiftly by, made up of nothing but this infernal drudgery, and I said to myself—Is this life? But I made up my mind that NEVER WOULD I GIVE MYSELF TONGUE. I clapped a muzzle on my mouth. Had I followed my own natural bent, I should have become expressive about what I had to endure, but I found that expression reacts on him who expresses and intensifies what is expressed. If we break out into rhetoric over a toothache, the pangs are not the easier, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... kneeling in the dust, His holy master had implored, in true Assurance he was heard, he downward thrust A heap of stones. O what things may he do That in the Saviour wholly puts his trust! The stones beyond the use of nature grew; Which rolling to the sandy plain below, Next, neck and muzzle, legs and belly show. ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... negroes, was entirely open on one side; on that side a fire is lighted at night, and a person sleeping puts his feet towards it. One night I was awoke by some animal smelling my face, and snuffing strongly; I felt its cold muzzle. I suddenly thrust out my arms, and shouted with all my might; it was frightened, and made off. I do not know whether it was a bear or a panther; but it seemed as tall as a large calf. I slept, of course, no more that night. I put my trust in the Lord, and continued on the ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... a mere word to him," said Mowbray; "I believe that he no more realized the fact that you would direct the muzzle of a pistol toward his breast, than that you would stab ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... gun was empty. I had him at the foot of the ladder, not ten feet from the muzzle, and click—nothing doing. The beggar turned and laughed ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... cliff, soon to be joined by the boys' father, tall, gaunt and bearded. His hair, untrimmed for many weeks, was long and snarled. He was nearly barefooted and his clothing hung in tatters. In one hand he carried a rusty old trade gun, (a single-barreled, old-fashioned muzzle loading shotgun), in the other he clutched by its wing a gull that he had recently shot. Following the father came an older lad, perhaps fourteen years of age, little better clothed than his two brothers and as wild and unkempt in appearance ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... spoke he drew a pistol from his pocket and turned the muzzle towards himself,—at which unexpected action there was a hasty movement of surprise, terror ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... circle of seething flame and rolling smoke here, too,—a malodorous neighborhood, around which fatigue-parties are working with averted heads; and among them some surly and unwilling Indians, driven to labor at the muzzle of threatening revolver or carbine, aid in dragging to the flames carcass after carcass of horse and mule, and in gathering together and throwing on the pyre an array of miscellaneous soldier garments, blouses, shirts, and trousers, all more or less hacked and blood-stained,—all of ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... the fire in the twilight, in a somewhat forlorn mood, when the door was pushed ajar, and the muzzle of a gun entered, causing her to start up in alarm, scarcely diminished by the sight of an exultant visage, though the words were, 'Your ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... perhaps suspended for a while; but, if all progress is evidently suspended, recourse must be had to the hook or the forceps. By gentle but continued manipulation much may be done, especially when the muzzle of the puppy can be brought into the passage. As little force as possible must be used, and especially the foetus little broken. Many a valuable animal is destroyed by the ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... whispered the Sergeant over my shoulder, "if a scandal was to burst up in the house to-night. Don't be alarmed! I have put the muzzle on worse family difficulties than ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... beat upward against the hatch and ceased. He sprang erect, slid an arm around her and dragged her back—not a second too soon. A gun exploded against the hinges at their feet, blowing one loose. John saw the crevice gaping and the muzzle of a gun pushed through to prise it open. He leaped upon the hatch, pistol ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "God and the Queen!" "God and St. George for England!" sweeping them back by showers of arrows and musket balls, thrusting them down with pikes, hurling grenades from the tops; while the swivels on both sides poured their grape, and bar, and chain, and the great main-deck guns, thundering muzzle to muzzle, made both ships quiver and recoil, as they smashed the round shot through and ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the sorrow?' And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the new-made sky, which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my power, O Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from a Hairless One, and he has called me a shameful name.' 'And why?' said Tha. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... he could, went into his house and smelled all around and finally lay down, his muzzle sticking out of ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... at the back of the kitchen with her face in her hands, and Jack was off his horse and stooping by her side with his hand on her shoulder. She kept saying, 'I thought you were——! I thought you were——!' I didn't catch the name. An old single-barrel, muzzle-loader shot-gun was lying in the grass at her feet. It was the gun they used to keep loaded and hanging in straps in a room of the kitchen ready for a shot at a cunning old hawk that they called ''Tarnal Death', and that used to be always ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... sir, I suppose not, unless we got the cook up with a pudding-bag to hold it over the muzzle and catch them again." ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... and deliberate abandon of a big dog courted and caressed by a blazing fire and a soft rug? Man has not the dignity of soul to be so grandly natural. Yet his very pert self-consciousness, the fringed petticoats of affectation which he wears, give him the kennel, the collar, the muzzle, the whip, weapons of power to bring the dog to subjection. And Julian, as he watched Rupert and Mab wrapped in large lethargic dreams, found himself pitying them, as civilized man vaguely pities all other inhabitants of the round world. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... graceful curves we were met by a duck flying close over our heads with noisy quacks. A little farther we came upon the cause of the bird's lively flight in an Indian boy, not above nine years old, paddling a large birch canoe, over the gunwale of which peeped the muzzle of a sanguinary-looking old shot-gun. The diminutive sportsman was for a moment dashed by our sudden and novel appearance, but, from the way he urged his canoe and from the determined set of his dirty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... was empty, the post-trader turned from arranging cans of condensed milk upon an upper shelf to face the sergeant's revolver. He threw up his hands to the level of his ears as though expressing sharp unbelief, and waited in silence. The sergeant advanced until the gun rested on the counter, Its muzzle pointing at the pit of Cahill's stomach. "You or me has got to leave this post," said the sergeant, "and I can't desert, so I ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... could take an old muzzle-loader and knock over plenty of ducks in the city limits, and Chicago wasn't Cook County then, either. You can get them still, but you've got to go to Kankakee and take a hammerless along. And when I started in the packing ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... his head bowed, spoke quietly to the dog at his feet. Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle on his master's knee and looked up into the homely, world-worn face. Gently, the strange man—so lonely and embittered in the fame that he had won—at a price—stroked the brown head. "Your mother knew best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at his companion. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... feel anything," I whispered; as with the cold sweat pouring from me I placed the muzzle within an inch of her forehead and began to press the trigger. My God! yes, I actually began to press the trigger softly and steadily, for I wished to ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... wolfhound raised its head and stared into the ashes also, as if it saw something there that no man saw, for the bristles lifted on its neck, and it whined a little. O'Donnell dropped his hand to the thin muzzle, and the dog was quiet again. But after that the men stared at the ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... the winged fleet was circling almost overhead at this moment and seemed tantalizing near. With a twist of the wheel Mowrey swung the muzzle of his gun up a couple of inches and gave the signal again to fire. Following the shot for a moment the frenzied gunner was elated to note that the machine just above sagged suddenly to one side. Like a bird with a broken pinion it swerved drunkenly in its ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... the black dog, stretched at his wife's feet, muzzle on paws and blinking yellow eyes, growled discontentedly at the noise. Mrs. Travers laughed a faint, bright laugh, that seemed to escape, to glide, to dart between her white teeth. D'Alcacer, concealing his amazement, was looking down at her gravely: and after a slight gasp, she said ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... boat was so near that we were soon alongside and looking into her. There were three dead, two badly wounded, one slightly wounded man, and one unhurt man in her. The latter looked at us without the slightest fear, even when Tepi, picking up a carbine, thrust the muzzle of it almost into his face. Niabon gently took the weapon from Tepi's hand, laid it down and waited for me to question ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... brought the day's bag home at night. Prominent figures there were two brothers Stevenson, Willie and Jamie, known for twenty miles round as the "fox-hunters," known to us, after the southern sporting slang had been brought among us by our neighbour Captain Barclay, as "Pad-the-hoof" and "Flash-the-muzzle[7]" The fox-hunting was on foot, but let no mounted hunter sneer. The haunts of the game were continuous woods and bogs, hard to ride and from which no fox could be forced to break. "Pad-the-hoof" looked no ignoble sportsman as he cheered his great slow-hounds through the thicket, and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... strides brought him up to the mare, Then they rushed to wild shouting through a whirl of blown air; Then Gavotte died to nothing; Soyland came once again Till his muzzle just reached to the knot on ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... to be fully a finger-nail high.—[My own expression, and a quite happy one. I said to the Duke: "Your Grace, they're just about finger-milers!" "How do you mean, m'lord?" "This. You notice the stately General standing there with his hand resting upon the muzzle of a cannon? Well, if you could stick your little finger down against the ground alongside of him his plumes would just reach up to where your nail joins the flesh." The Duke said "finger-milers was good"—good and exact; and he afterward used it several times himself.]—Everywhere ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... reject, but if it accompanies words, and together with an ode feasts and delights our reason, we gladly introduce it. And we believe the famed Marsyas was punished by Apollo for pretending, when he had nothing but his single pipe, and his muzzle to apply to his lips, to contend with the harp and song of the god. Let us only take care that, when we have such guests as are able to cheer one another with philosophy and good discourse we do not introduce anything that may rather prove an uneasy hindrance ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the town, that the countess seated herself on a mossy bank in the shade. Wilhelm sat down beside her on the gnarled root of a tree; Anne was sent home, to return in two hours' time, but Fido was allowed to remain. He was a silvery-white sheepdog with a sharp muzzle, stiff little pointed ears, and a bushy tail curling tightly over his back. He had attached himself to Wilhelm from the first moment, and gave vent to his delight when caressed by having a severe attack of asthmatic ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... took a look at the guns with his glass, and I knew he must have been thinking of how he stood tied to the muzzle of one of them, for he gave a sort of shudder as he closed his glass with ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... that swarmed so with that kind of game. They were running in all directions, and often even right into our lines, for they are stupid animals when frightened, as they then were by the noise our men made; and I managed to kill one with the muzzle of my musket, and sold it to the captain of ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... to sally forth. They plunged into the water, and swimming on each side, got at length right before the animal, and then seized the reins. Thus they continued swimming on each side, like tritons, holding the muzzle of Sphinx, while I, sallying forth astride upon the creature's back, steered forward on our voyage to the ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... cut loose with that thing," Loudons said, looking apprehensively at the brass-rimmed black muzzle that was covering them from the belfry. "I wonder if we ought to—Oh-oh, ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... excitedly halted within pistol range. Dell fingered the trigger in vain. "Throw in a cartridge!" breathlessly suggested Sargent. The lever clicked, followed by a shot, which tore up the sod within a few feet of the muzzle of the rifle! ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... pensioner, lent me his piece and loaded it to me. Not being well acquaint with guns, I kept the muzzle aye away from me, as it is every man's duty not to throw his precious life into jeopardy. A bench was set before the sessions-house fire, which bleezed brightly. My spirits rose, and I wondered, in my bravery, that a man like me should be afraid of anything. Nobody was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... guns in the streets. A small swivel, used by the younger population of Salem to celebrate Christmas and the Fourth of July, had been planted to receive us: about eighteen inches long, it was loaded to the muzzle, and mounted in the public square by being propped against a stick of fire wood. It was not fired, however, for the man deputed to perform that important duty, somewhat astounded by the sudden dash into the town, dropped the coal of fire with which he should have touched it off, and ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... around you, as must have been evident to the dullest, like the care-burthened honey-fly, possessed with the fixed desire to hide his murmurs in the rose. When for months I have been, in fact, like a dog with his nose on your footprints, asking nothing but to lie down at your feet with his muzzle on your shoe." ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... while others began to collect them in a large stack, properly disposed for burning, as close to the iron-grate as they could be piled. Fire was speedily obtained from one of their guns, and Hobbie was already advancing to the pile with a kindled brand, when the surly face of the robber, and the muzzle of a musquetoon, were partially shown at a shot-hole which flanked the entrance. "Mony thanks to ye," he said, scoffingly, "for collecting sae muckle winter eilding for us; but if ye step a foot nearer ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... yell of rage from the Mexicans as the machine gun barked forth. With the muzzle describing an arc of several degrees, many of the flankers were hit. The others threw themselves flat on the ground to escape its ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... it! The neutralizer may be all right, in its way, but personally I'm rather strong for these!" He laid a hand on the breech of the Lewis machine-gun mounted in the gallery, its grim muzzle pointed out through a slit in the colloid screen. "The six guns we've got aboard, in strategic positions, look like good medicine to me! Wouldn't it be the correct thing to call the gun-crews and limber up a little? These chaps aren't ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... been the moment before, the kiss of the cold muzzle turned his purpose to ice. The desire to live was all-compelling. Choking, gasping, his eyes rolling appealingly, he nodded assent. With the revolver at his back he ran down the corridor, and, as he ran, without further direction, fumbled frantically at ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... the heat blazing and dancing across objects, and the pale brassy dome of the sky cloudless over all, the sun a glaring white disc with its edges almost melting into the sky. Job held his gun carelessly ready (it was a double-barrelled muzzle-loader, one barrel choke-bore for shot, and the other rifled), and he kept an eye out for dingoes. He was saving his horse for a long ride, jogging along in the careless Bush fashion, hitched a little to ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... to be thought of that he should give up his Lankester, and the first thing to be done was to muzzle Furnival's young men. I went to Furny the next day and told him plainly that his joke had gone too far, that he knew what Burton was and that it wasn't a bit of good trying ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair |
