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Scabbard   /skˈæbərd/   Listen
Scabbard

noun
1.
A sheath for a sword or dagger or bayonet.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Scabbard" Quotes from Famous Books



... narrow street he was separated from his guard. Suddenly Lord Broghill, who was with him, saw the door of a cobbler's stall open and shut, while something glittered behind it. He therefore got out of the carriage and hammered at the door with his scabbard, when a tall man, armed with a sword, rushed out and ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... as they thought fit. Their gowns were every whit as costly as those of the ladies. Their girdles were of silk, of the color of their doublets. Every one had a gallant sword by his side, the hilt and handle whereof were gilt, and the scabbard of velvet, of the color of his breeches, the end in gold, and goldsmith's work. The dagger of the same. Their caps were of black velvet, adorned with jewels and buttons of gold. Upon that they wore a white plume, most prettily ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... in the Vatican. Meanwhile, amid crowds of Cardinals in hunting-dress, dances of half-naked girls, and masques of Carnival Bacchantes, moved pilgrims from the North with wide, astonished, woeful eyes—disciples of Luther, in whose soul, as in a scabbard, lay sheathed the sword of the Spirit, ready to flash forth ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... 'Number six, fire!' the roar throbbed out with the flash, you should have seen the dead line, that had been lying behind the works all day, come to resurrection in the twinkling of an eye, and leap like a blade from its scabbard."] ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... an unfortunate history: its beautiful scabbard, belt, and shoulder strap were ruined when my tent was burned the next winter; its hilt was shot off at Chancellorsville, and the naked blade was thrown away on ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... body. On the contrary, the greatest conceivable energy of mind would probably exhaust and destroy the strength of the body. A temperate vigour of mind appears to be favourable to health, but very great intellectual exertions tend rather, as has been often observed, to wear out the scabbard. Most of the instances which Mr Godwin has brought to prove the power of the mind over the body, and the consequent probability of the immortality of man, are of this latter description, and could such stimulants be continually applied, instead of tending to immortalize, they ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... partner Dave Morningstar had the build of the slighter Frank. These two old cow punchers had given the boys the run of their wardrobes. Each lad carried an automatic at his hip swinging from a well-filled cartridge belt. In addition, Jack bore his repeating rifle in a leather scabbard on his saddle. ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... paper; thrice did he clinch his teeth, and make a horrible countenance, as though a dose of rhubarb-senna, and ipecacuanha, had been offered to his lips. At length, dashing it from him, he seized his brass-hilted sword, and jerking it from the scabbard, swore by St. Nicholas to sooner die than yield to ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... this one," said Morgan, still in the same measured, calm voice. He offered the pistol back to its owner, who snatched it with ungracious hand, shoved it into his battered scabbard, turned to the crowd at his back with ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... of his right hand, clapped it to the hilt of his re-sheathed cutlass, and half drew it from the scabbard. "My!" he ejaculated, and his eyes seemed to flash in the morning sunshine. "It's going to be a warm time for some of 'em. I shouldn't like to be in that Yankee gentleman's shoes, nor be wearing the boots of his men ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn

... salute he turned towards the door which stood open. Some one was coming up the stairs rather slowly, his spurs clinking, his scabbard clashing against the gilded banisters. Papa Barlasch stood aside at attention, and Colonel de Casimir came into the room with a gay word of greeting. Barlasch went out, but he did not close the door. It is to be presumed that he stood without, where he might ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman

... brought forth from his cabin his sword and two brace of pistols, which he placed on the table. The old soldier drew his sword from its scabbard, and regarded it with a look of the greatest affection. He turned it round to the light, to see that no rust had rested on it, and then pressed its point on the deck, and let it spring up again, to assure himself that it had not lost ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... his own expense with a good fire-arm, with a steel or iron ramrod and a spring to retain the same, a worm priming wire and brush, and a bayonet fitted to his gun, a scabbard and belt therefor, and a cutting sword or a tomahawk or hatchet, a pouch containing a cartridge-box that will hold fifteen rounds of cartridges at least, a one-hundred buckshot, a jack-knife and tow for wadding, ...
— Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold • Archibald Murray Howe

... good King Arthur (How high is your desire?) His sword within its scabbard lay, The sword ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

... Cuglas. He held his hand close to his eyes, but he saw it not. He shouted that he might hear the sound of his own voice, but he heard it not. He stamped his foot on the rocky ground, but no sound was returned to him. He rattled his sword in its brazen scabbard, but it gave no answer back to him. His heart grew colder and colder, when suddenly the cloud above him was rent in a dozen places, and lightning flashed through the valley, and the thunder rolled over the echoing mountains. In the lurid glare of the lightning ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... on land and goes to draw his sword, but he has none—only the scabbard is hanging there; and as the Stargard men are already pressing thick upon them, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... the great Virginian Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash Shot union through the incoherent clash Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 310 Around a single will's unpliant stem, And making purpose of emotion rash. Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its womb, Nebulous at first but hardening to a star. Through mutual share of sunburst and of gloom, The common faith that made ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... forty-two, and that what was sport to her was toil to a mind unaccustomed to constant attention. Change of labour is not rest, unless it be through gratification of the will. Her very best pupil she had killed. Finding a very sharp sword, in a very frail scabbard, she had whetted the one and worn down the other, by every stimulus in her power, till a jury of physicians might have found her guilty of manslaughter; but perfectly unconscious of her own agency in ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... devotion to the emperor and belief in the necessity of future war in order to increase German prosperity, were widely taught. The "mailed fist" was clenched, and "the shining sword" rattled in the scabbard whenever Germany thought the other nations of Europe showed her a lack of respect. Enormous preparations for war were made in order that Germany might gain from her neighbors the "place in the sun" which ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... far, undescried, The young heart was rankling; for there, of a truth, In the first earnest faith of a pure pensive youth, A love large as life, deep and changeless as death, Lay ensheath'd: and that love, ever fretting its sheath, The frail scabbard of life pierced and wore through and through. There are loves in man's life for which time can renew All that time may destroy. Lives there are, though, in love, Which cling to one faith, and die with it; nor move, Though earthquakes may shatter the shrine. Whence or how Love laid ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... feathered helmet on the door-peg and thrusting his sword and scabbard into the umbrella-stand, Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT took a seat at the table, afterwards putting out his chest. Mr. WELLS was observed to sink into an elaborately assumed apathy. But in his eyes ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various

... scabbard bounded by thy side, And shouts of victory our toils repaid, The stately curvet, and the pacing stride, None of our troops ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various

... nation—at a moment when an accident of this kind occurs, before we have made a representation to the American Government, before we have heard a word from it in reply— should be all up in arms, every sword leaping from its scabbard, and every man looking about for his pistols and his blunderbusses? I think the conduct pursued—and I have no doubt just the same is pursued by a certain class in America—is much more the conduct of savages than of Christian and civilized men. ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... "Now do ye hold me over feeble, an ye think I shall thus yield. Ye will do well to dismount straightway, an ye have lust to fight." He covered himself with his shield, and drew forth his sword from the scabbard. Sir Gawain dismounted, whether he liked it well or ill, and let his horse that men call the Gringalet, stand beside him; never a foot would that steed stir till its lord came, and once more laid hand on it. Forthwith they betook them to fight, and dealt each other fierce ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston

... its scabbard. No!—the trenchant blade, that had cut Suleiman Ben Malek Ben Buckskin from helmet to chin, disdained to daub itself with the cerebellum of a miserable monk;—it leaped back again;—and as the Chaplain, scared at its flash, turned him in terror, the Baron gave him a kick!—one ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... all mankind, and remains an everlasting faith in the house of the good. We confidently hold that this will be when half the times are past[357]." The pilot also brought back a rich cymeter in a scabbard of beaten gold, with a handle of the same, splendidly ornamented with pearls of great value. Antonio would have made a return, but the vessel could not be overtaken. From thence Antonio proceeded to the river Pulo Cambier, which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... The caterpillars grow restless. The grub forthwith retires from the fray. And how? Marvel is added to marvels: what I took for a flat cord, for a ribbon, at the lower end of the suspensory thread, is a sheath, a scabbard, a sort of ascending gallery wherein the larva crawls backwards and makes its way up. The cast shell of the egg, retaining its cylindrical form and perhaps lengthened by a special operation on the part of the new-born ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... him. Whereat the veteran took great umbrage and, slapping his sword, let the King know that he had served him well and was entitled to better treatment. Christian snatched the weapon in anger and struck him with the scabbard. The sailor never got over it. "He withered away and died," says the tradition. It was the old superstition; but whether that killed him or not, the King lost a good man ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... unwilling hosts time to get accustomed to your presence. I inspected the family for a while, in silence. The spare, bony form of the woman, her deep-set gray eyes, and the long, thin nose, which seemed to be merely a scabbard for her sharp-edged voice, gave me her character at the first glance. As for the man, he was worn by some constant fret or worry, rather than naturally spare. His complexion was sallow, his face honest, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various

... saddle horn. She gave Snake a kick in the ribs, but Al checked the horse's first start and Snake was too tired to dispute a command to stand still. Al put up his gun, pulled a hunting knife from a little scabbard in his boot, sliced two pairs of saddle strings from Lorraine's saddle, calmly caught and held her foot when she tried to kick him, pushed the foot back into the stirrup and tied it there with one of the leather strings. Just as if he were engaged ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... Jimmie was preparing to follow without further parley, began replacing his saber in its scabbard. For an instant his attention was concentrated on the task ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson

... with him that iron mace, Which won him deathless fame in many a fight: Wherewith he proved him fully of the race Of that good Danish warrior, famed for might. That best of faulchions, which through iron case Of cuirass or of casque was wont to bite, Youthful Rogero from the scabbard snatched, And with the martial Dane ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... been leaning back in the saddle-bag chair, watching me with keen eyes sheathed by languid lids; now he started forward, and his eyes leapt to mine like cold steel from the scabbard. They struck home to my slow wits; their meaning was no longer in doubt. I, who knew the man, read murder in his clenched hands, and murder in his locked lips, but a hundred murders in ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung

... cited. The dress, so precise and costly, worn by him on the day whose events have been narrated, had not willingly been put on. And that silver-mounted sword, apparent symbol of despotic command, was not, indeed, a sword, but the ghost of one. The scabbard, artificially stiffened, was empty. ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... was inevitable, and yet, says Sismondi, he only yielded to it with repugnance. "You will have it so," said Conde at last; "but understand that if I do draw the sword, I shall be the last to return it to the scabbard." It was the women especially who hurried their ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... deeds, or when the coat of arms on his embroidered saddle and horse-gear shone sternly upon him, or when his beautiful sword would suddenly fall from the nail on which it was hanging in the cottage, gliding from the scabbard as it fell, he would quiet the doubts of his mind by saving: "Undine is no fisherman's daughter; she belongs in all probability to some illustrious family abroad." There was only one thing to which he had a strong ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... leapt the North Wind, he who guards the pole, and drew his sword of ice out of his scabbard of snow and sped away along the road that leads across the blue. And in the darkness underneath the world he met the three grey travellers and rushed upon them and drove them far before him, smiting them with his sword till their grey cloaks streamed with blood. ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... of a room for the President of the United States to be domiciled in; but Mr. Lincoln seemed pleased with it. When he came to breakfast the next morning, I inquired how he had slept: 'I slept well,' he answered, 'but you can't put a long sword into a short scabbard. I was too long for that berth.' Then I remembered he was over six feet four inches, while the berth was only six feet. That day, while we were out of the ship, all the carpenters were put to work; ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... presented arms, the fifes began to play, the drums to rattle. General Washington lifted his hat, bowed right and left, drew his sword from its scabbard, and rode along the line. The soldiers saw dignity, decision, and energy, yet calmness, in all his movements. They knew he had a great plantation on the bank of the Potomac River in Virginia; that he could live at ease and enjoy life in hunting and fishing ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... the Angel met him on his way, And half in earnest, half in jest, would say, Sternly, though tenderly, that he might feel The velvet scabbard held a sword of steel, "Art thou the King?" the passion of his woe Burst from him in resistless overflow, And, lifting high his forehead, he would fling The haughty answer back, "I am, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... less pleased with the Nez Perce lad, and nothing would do but he must exchange knives with him; drawing a new knife out of the Nez Perce's scabbard, and putting an old one in its place. Another stepped up and replaced this old knife with one still older, and a third helped himself to knife, scabbard and all. It was with much difficulty that Wyeth and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... legs, and Angell was wounded. Lieut. Crawford and Adjutant Gregory were wounded. Col. Barlow and Lieuts. Keech and Morrison were the only officers with us, and some of these had very close calls, all of them had bullet holes in their clothing. Barlow's horse was killed and Keech's scabbard was battered up with one or more bullets. But forty men were together unharmed at the end ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... few necessaries that were nothing to my purpose. Thence I turned to the chests. The first was full of meal; the second of moneybags and papers tied into sheaves; in the third, with many other things (and these for the most part clothes) I found a rusty, ugly-looking Highland dirk without the scabbard. This, then, I concealed inside my waistcoat, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from sharing in the unbridled zeal of her sister city on the Limath, whose intervention in the affairs of St. Gall was not the least among the reasons, that held her sword in the scabbard, during the first campaign, in the summer of the year 1529. But then Zurich endeavored to defend the steps she had taken against the abbot by the articles of the Landfriede; this treaty, it was said, would secure the city of St. Gall from punishment for what she had permitted ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... impulse he had no name for, Thurston snatched the sheriff's revolver from its scabbard. As the heap squirmed pantingly upon the porch he stepped into the doorway to avoid being tripped, which was the wisest move he could have made, for it put him in the shadow—and there were men of the Circle Bar whose trigger-finger would ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower

... knight, his sword flashing out of its scabbard, "I shall cut you down and fling you out to the dogs. Fight here and ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller

... at the figure of the man. An ejaculation of pain told me that it touched flesh. A second later, I heard a sword slide from its scabbard, and felt the wind of a ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... that I have dealt too gently with you and with your fathers, Children of Lulala, whose shadow I am here upon the earth, so that because you only see the scabbard, you have forgotten the sword within and that it can shine forth and smite. Well, why should I be wrath because the brutish will follow the law of brutes, though it be true that I am minded to slay you where you stand? Hearken! Were I less merciful I would ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... action Glazier, who occupied the post of volunteer aide to General Davies, had his horse shot under him, received a sabre-stroke on the shoulder, two bullets in his hat, and had his scabbard split by a shot or shell. His conduct was such as to obtain for him the thanks of his general and a promise of early promotion. This was the fourth battle of Brandy Station in which the Harris Light ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... fellow amused me, for he cocked his busby, swung the blue dolman which hung from his shoulder, sat his horse, and clattered his scabbard in a manner which told of his boyish delight and pride in himself and his regiment. As I looked at his lithe figure and his fearless bearing, I could quite imagine that he did himself no more than justice, while his frank smile and ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... likewise a hyacinth as big as a swan's egg; I likewise saw a pearl so large that they had wrought the figure of a cock out of it, and the cock was somewhat more than an inch high, but the thing which struck me most was the sword of Tamerlane, generally called Timour the Tartar; both the hilt and scabbard were richly adorned with diamonds and emeralds, but I thought more of the man than I did of them, for he was the greatest conqueror the world ever saw (I have spoken of him in Lavengro in the chapter about David Haggart). Nevertheless, although ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... looked round oftener, this notable treaty would never have come about; for, by the time Sorley Boy reached the Castle gate, he was glaring round him defiantly, and the hilt of his sword was an inch out of the scabbard. ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... thing to see. At a grasp he caught from a belt which hung at the head board of the bed a well-worn revolver whitened where long friction on the scabbard had worn away the bluing. "Out of the way, Eddring," he cried. "Get your head out of the way, man!" His pistol sight followed steadily here and there, searching for a clean opening at its victim, now partly protected by Eddring as the latter ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... Revolution came but not the Reformation. The sword was returned to its scabbard, but Church and State did not return to their Covenant God. Into sympathy and fellowship with institutions founded on principles subversive of those they had vowed to maintain, the faithful followers of the Reformers and Martyrs could not enter. The banner for Christ's Crown ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various

... caught the faint distant pattering, which grew into a rapid and insistent rumble. "Cavalry, b'gad!" cried Battersleigh. Franklin's eyes shone. He spurred forward fast as he could go, jerking loose the thong which held his rifle fast in the scabbard ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... knew that Numa must be quickly finished before those mighty teeth had found and parted the slender cord that held him. It was a matter of but an instant to reach the black's side and drag his long knife from its scabbard. Then he signed the warrior to continue to shoot arrows into the great beast while he attempted to close in upon him with the knife; so as one tantalized upon one side, the other sneaked cautiously in upon ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Knights of the Garter, all richly dressed and bareheaded; next came the Chancellor, bearing the seals in a red silk purse, between two, one of whom carried the Royal sceptre, the other the sword of state, in a red scabbard, studded with golden FLEURS DE LIS, the point upwards: next came the Queen, in the sixty-fifth year of her age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... in Australia and New Zealand to the European Scabbard-fish, Lepidopus caudatus, White. The name is said to be derived from the circumstance that the fish is found alive on New Zealand sea-beaches on frosty nights. It is called the Scabbard-fish in Europe, because it is like the shining white metal ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... the intention, if Luigi Pulci were there, of doing something to the discontent of both. When I heard and saw that no one but a poor servant-girl called Canida was in the house, I went to put away my cloak and the scabbard of my sword, and then returned to the house, which stood behind the Banchi on the river Tiber. Just opposite stretched a garden belonging to an innkeeper called Romolo. It was enclosed by a thick ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... set his feet against the hilts, and pulled until he tore the pouch off, at which Skofnung creaked and groaned, but never came out of the scabbard. ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... herself, now burst fourth unrestrained towards Morales. His sudden appearance bringing the conviction that he had played the spy upon their interview, roused his native irritation almost into madness. His sword flew from its scabbard, and in fearful passion he exclaimed—"Tyrant and coward! How durst thou play the spy? Is it not enough that thou hast robbed me of a treasure whose value thou canst never know? for her love was mine alone ere thou earnest between us, and by base arts and cruel force compelled her to be thine. ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... times the neighing of his steed reminded him of former feats of chivalry, and seemed to ask for more; if his coat of arms, embroidered on the saddle and trappings, caught his eye; or if his good sword fell from the nail on which he had hung it and slipped out of its scabbard, he would silence the misgivings that arose, by thinking, Undine is not a fisherman's daughter, but most likely sprung from some highly noble family in distant lands. The only thing that ever ruffled him, was to hear the old woman scolding Undine. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... a shout rang out ahead; horsemen in line across the road, rifles on thigh, moved forward towards us; an officer reversed his sword, drove it whizzing into the scabbard, and spurred forward, followed by a trooper, helmet ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... Springett, the under keeper, to breast the steepest brae in Cumberland with never a sob or a painful breath? Did they never murmur while thinking how brightly the blade might have flashed, how deftly have been wielded, if the worthless scabbard had only lasted out till, on some grand field-day, the word was given, "Draw swords?" Some felt this, doubtless; but the most part, I imagine, were possessed with a comfortable assurance that their short life had been useful, if not ornamental; and so, to a certain extent, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... Rezzonico, who took the name of Clement the Thirteenth. This absurd priest determined to try what the weight of his authority could effect in favour of the orthodox Maria Theresa against a heretic king. At the high mass on Christmas-day, a sword with a rich belt and scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with ermine, and a dove of pearls, the mystic symbol of the Divine Comforter, were solemnly blessed by the supreme pontiff, and were sent with great ceremony to Marshal Daun, the conqueror of Kolin and Hochkirchen. This mark of favour had more than once been ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... forth all the lively images you have conceived in your mind, and to convey them to the hearers in the same rich coloring, without which all the principles we have laid down are useless, and are like a sword concealed and kept sheathed in its scabbard. ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... said at last, thrusting his sword back into its scabbard. "It is but ten minutes' walk to the boundary wall, I will let him ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty

... have nothing to say, nothing to do but obey!" Colonel Landcraft blazed up in sudden explosion, after his manner, and set his heel down hard on the floor, making his sword clank in its scabbard ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... escape the notice and the skill of artists nor the vanity of its owner, especially in times of peace, when it is worn with no more use than a crosier by a bishop or a sceptre by a king. Shark-skin and finest silk for hilt, silver and gold for guard, lacquer of varied hues for scabbard, robbed the deadliest weapon of half its terror; but these appurtenances are playthings compared with ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... measured their strength from the morning until the setting of the sun. And when the day was about to vanish, Sohrab seized upon Rustem by the girdle and threw him upon the ground, and kneeled upon him, and drew forth his sword from the scabbard, and would have severed his head from his trunk. Then Rustem knew that only wile could save him. So he ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... freedom of the press! Why? Because the defense was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and want of it change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile, the race he hated sat again upon ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... Heaven and a righteous cause," said the doctor, as he drew the sword he had spoken of from the stick, and threw away the scabbard. "Come with me if you like, or I ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... gasping for breath, and says,—in that far-off, moaning voice we all remember in his famous farewell to the "big wars that make ambition virtue,"—"The widow sits upon my arm, and the wronged orphan's tear glues it to the scabbard,—it will not be drawn," etc., etc.,—or something of the sort. It was not so much a thrilling as a curdling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... its scabbard and drew the table back to its former place. Sir John stood in hesitation for a moment or two, and ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... newspaper correspondents had sent terrible accounts of death and disease, and of ills which, as there seemed room for suspicion, might have been prevented by better management. Through long disuse the army had rusted in its scabbard, and everything seemed to go wrong but the courage of officers and men. A great demand arose for reform in the whole administration of the country. A movement, now much forgotten, though not fruitless at the time, was started for the purpose of making ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... was to be done must be done in a moment. Fortunately, the young sergeant wore his bayonet in scabbard at his belt. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... one feeble blast Would fearful odds against thee cast. But fear not—doubt not—which thou wilt— We try this quarrel hilt to hilt."— Then each at once his faulchion drew, Each on the ground his scabbard threw, Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain, As what they ne'er might see again: Then foot, and point, and eye opposed, In dubious strife they darkly closed. Ill-fared it then with Roderick Dhu, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... important lesson, that when we draw our swords in a just and virtuous cause, having faith in God, we may reasonably hope for victory, ever remembering to extend the hand of charity to the fallen foe; sheathe it, and sooner may it rust in its scabbard than be drawn in the cause of injustice ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan

... once the moral and the natural consequences of her transgression; the lost peace of conscience, the lost morning of her love. Her paramount desire has been for expiation and rest. In one more pang they are coming. Lord Tresham breaks in on her solitude. His empty scabbard shows what he has done. But she soon sees that reproach is unnecessary, and that Mertoun's death is avenged. It is best so. The cloud has lifted. The friend and the brother are one in heart again. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... prey. The grand and gorgeous personifications of Scripture naturally clothe themselves in tropical language of inimitable beauty and exhaustless variety. "O thou sword of the Lord," says Jeremiah, "how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still. How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore? There hath he appointed it." Chap. 47:6, 7. The prophet Habakkuk represents God as coming forth in his glory for the salvation of his people: "The ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... walked to the land, and proceeded up the river until he reached a wharf where small skiffs were to let. One of these he engaged, and refusing the services of a waterman, stepped in, and drifted down the stream. He detached sword and scabbard from his belt, removed the cloak and wrapped the weapon in it, placing the folded garment out of sight under the covering at the prow. With his paddle he kept the boat close to the right bank, discovering an excellent place of concealment under the arch supporting ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... trimmed, mounted on a chesnut horse, whereof the legs were grey from the top of the forelegs, and from the bend of the hindlegs downwards. And the rider wore a coat of yellow satin sewn with green silk, and on his thigh was a gold-hilted sword, with a scabbard of new leather of Cordova, belted with the skin of the deer, and clasped with gold. And over this was a scarf of yellow satin wrought with green silk, the borders whereof were likewise green. And the green of the caparison of the horse, and of his rider, ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... own child Sarpedon likewise perished. Turnus too his own fate summons, and his allotted period hath reached the goal.' So speaks he, and turns his eyes away from the Rutulian fields. But Pallas hurls his spear with all his strength, and pulls his sword flashing out of the hollow scabbard. The flying spear lights where the armour rises high above the shoulder, and, forcing a way through the shield's rim, ceased not till it drew blood from mighty Turnus. At this Turnus long poises the spear-shaft with ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... round the waist; they commonly wore a handkerchief, or other piece of linen round the head, in the manner of a turban. In the sash or wrapper, which all wear round the waist, they had their cress or dagger stuck, the scabbard of which was a case of wood. Many of these natives were troubled with a disease much resembling the leprosy; their skins were covered with a dry scurf, like the scales of a fish, which had ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter

... For Dick was standing by the hangings with the sword that he carried half-drawn from the scabbard, and great black rings round his eyes, and ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... having on her head a Diana coronet of diamonds.... Among the gentlemen were officers attached to the various deputations from England, Austria, France and Sardinia. Several princes were among them, and conspicuous for splendor of dress was Prince Esterhazy; parts of his dress and the handle and scabbard of his ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... began Alexander—who already saw the sword of execution leap from its scabbard—with pathetic dignity, which astonished the emperor as coming from him, "it means that I herewith declare before you, and my Alexandrian fellow-citizens here present, that I bitterly repent my indiscretion; nay, I curse it, since I heard from your own lips ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... heavy table and flung it over to make a barricade in front of him. It fell with a crash, and the lower rim struck upon the instep of the leader and pinned his foot. His companion drew back; he himself uttered a cry and wrenched at his foot. Wogan with his left hand drew his sword from the scabbard, and with the same movement passed it through his opponent's body. The man stood swaying, pinned there by his foot and held erect. Then he made one desperate lunge, fell forward across the barricade, and hung there. Wogan parried the lunge; the ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... Everything in them was as well-kept and as well-polished as good servants, thoroughly drilled, could make it. Not a stain or a speck anywhere. A miracle of neatness. Indeed, when I carelessly drew the Norwegian dagger from its scabbard, as we waited for lunch, and found that it stuck in the sheath, I almost started to discover that rust could intrude ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes, The wars that o'erhot knighthood makes For Christ's and ladies' sakes, Fair Ladye? Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed To fight like a man and love like a maid, Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade, I' the scabbard, death, was laid, Fair Ladye. I dare avouch my faith is bright That God doth right and God hath might, Nor time hath changed His hair to white, Nor His dear love to spite, Fair Ladye. I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay, And fight ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... in the galas at Pheasants' Isle:—'over a dress richly laced with silver he wore the usual Castilian ruff, and a short cloak embroidered with the red cross of Santiago; the badge of the order, sparkling with brilliants, was suspended from his neck by a gold chain; and the scabbard and hilt of his sword were of silver, exquisitely chased, and of Italian workmanship.' In the likeness of Velasquez, which is the frontispiece of Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's 'Life,' the painter appears ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, And laid his lance beneath his oak, Felt if his arms in order good 80 The long day's march had well withstood— If still the powder filled the pan, And flints unloosened kept their lock— His sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, And whether they had chafed his belt; And next the venerable man, From out his havresack and can, Prepared and spread his slender stock; And to the Monarch and his men The whole or portion offered then 90 With far less of inquietude Than courtiers at a banquet ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... of Ismael, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your mercenary soldiery, it is a good opportunity of gracing the poem with * * *. With these things and these fellows, it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I know it is against fearful odds; but the battle must be fought; and it will be eventually for the good of mankind, whatever it may be for the individual ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... not even notice the incongruous phrase "my friend", but nodding again and again, drew his sword and flung the scabbard far behind ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... Geoffrey, without regarding the monarch's frown, "I return this, which my ancestor more than a century ago first unsheathed in fealty to the House of Hanover." He took from its scabbard the sword with which Maggie had girded him that day when he courted her in the haunted chamber of Ripon House, and snapped the blade in twain. He flung the pieces on the ground and turned to leave the room. ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... What odds, when Fate is one's antagonist!— Nay, more, this royal father, self-dismay'd At having Fate against himself array'd, Upon himself the very sword he knew Should wound him, down upon his bosom drew, That might well handled, well have wrought; or, kept Undrawn, have harmless in the scabbard slept. But Fate shall not by human force be broke, Nor foil'd by human feint; the Secret learn'd Against the scholar by that master turn'd Who to himself reserves the master-stroke. Witness whereof ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... of May Congress met. There were still two parties, one in favor of renewed attempts at conciliation, before drawing the sword and throwing away the scabbard; the other felt that the powers of conciliation were exhausted, and that nothing now remained, but the ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott

... disconnected limbs aroused my ire to its utmost height, and I let them have the contents of the brass carronade, with ghastly effect. Next moment the hulls of the two ships were grinding together, the cold steel flashed from its scabbard, and the death-grapple ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... then came another impulse. The great wings furled close like blades leaping back to scabbard; the flying-girls dropped sheer in a dizzying fall. Half-way to the ground, they stopped simultaneously as if caught by some invisible air plateau. The great feathery fans opened—and this time the men got the whipping whirr of them—spread ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... stretch of ground makes one think of a graveyard," thought Darrin, with a comical little shiver, as his left hand gripped his sword scabbard tightly to prevent it clanking against ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock

... walking-stick, of Huw Morris; it was supported against a beam by three hooks; I took it down and walked about the kitchen with it; it was a thin polished black stick, with a crome cut in the shape of an eagle's head; at the end was a brass fence. The kind creature then produced a sword without a scabbard; this sword was found by Huw Morris on the mountain—it belonged to one of Oliver's officers who was killed there. I took the sword, which was a thin two-edged one, and seemed to be made of very good steel; ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... think that a man can pluck from his heart a love like mine, as easily as he draws the sword from his scabbard? ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac

... father gayly, and left the room with a quick step and a joyous heart; and the jingling of his spurs, and the quick, merry clash of his scabbard on the marble staircase, told how joyously ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... and let go a burst at the horseman who now blocked his way; and the Mongolian, in the act of lifting a knife from its holster-scabbard, dipped across the animal's flank, with his eyes rolling toward heaven, his foot ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... Word and Spirit can keep him out of the church. The flaming sword! It gives light and heat to the children of God; but threatens destruction to their enemies. All should bear this sword; not sheathed in a scabbard, but forever held high in the right hand, ready to be ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... sold thyself to perdition! I'll purge this earth of witchery;—I'll make their carcases my weapon's sheath;—hence inglorious scabbard!" He flung away the sheath. Twining her dark hair about his fingers—"Die!—impious, polluted wretch! This blessed earth loathes thee,—the grave's holy sanctuary will cast thee out! Yon glorious sun would ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... his favorite weapon, jumped around to see if there was anybody he could stick it into; but as all the Yabouks and other cattle were standing at a respectful distance, and there was only old Trumkard running up, he thought better of the matter, and put his sword into its scabbard, feeling himself a man again. The Giant walked round the tower, putting his eye to the windows, but said he ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton

... whistle clansmen stern, Of this small horn one feeble blast Would fearful odds against thee cast. But fear not—doubt not—which thou wilt— We try this quarrel hilt to hilt.' Then each at once his falchion drew, Each on the ground his scabbard threw Each looked to sun and stream and plain As what they ne'er might see again; Then foot and point and eye opposed, In dubious strife ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... talk, when in all probability he soon would be embroiled with the man in a dispute, if not in an issue of more serious nature. However, the other, nothing daunted, and gazing on his two companions, whom he discovered wrapped in drunken slumber, snoring roundly, prodded them both with the scabbard of his sword, which action eliciting from them nothing but a grunt, and being desirous of further conversation, he again turned to him of the green apron who had resumed his watchful scrutiny from before the ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley

... a sigh of relief, as the Earl of Pevensey, raising his hands lightly toward heaven, laughed once more, and departed into the thicket. Lord Falmouth laughed in turn, though not very pleasantly. Afterward he loosened his sword in the scabbard and wheeled back to seek their rendezvous in the shadowed place where they had made sonnets to ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell

... was said to Peter as representing bishops and clerics (Matt. 16:52): "Put up again thy sword into the scabbard [Vulg.: 'its place'] [*"Scabbard" is the reading in John 18:11]." Therefore it is not lawful ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... O King, I am unarmed. Give me a weapon to carry with me. So the King took him into the armoury, and he chose for himself a sword almost as long as he was tall. But he threw away the scabbard, saying: This would only be in the way: and now, I am prepared. And then the King led him away, and ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain

... said, he bade them take courage, passed over the river, and himself first of all led them against the enemy, clad in a coat of mail, with shining steel scales and a fringed mantle; and his sword might already be seen out of the scabbard, as if to signify that they must without delay come to a hand-to-hand combat with an enemy whose skill was in distant fighting, and by the speed of their advance curtail the space that exposed them to the archery. But when he saw the heavy-armed horse, the flower of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... and looked towards Mademoiselle Bran's back. At the rattle of his scabbard against the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... from the rack. The scraping of the scabbard against its holder as I withdrew it sounded like the filing of cast iron with a great rasp, and I looked to see the room immediately filled with alarmed and attacking guardsmen. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... of a tawny colour, with matted locks, and thin. And the mighty ascetic, beholding Arjuna stop at that place, addressed him, saying, 'Who art thou, O child, arrived hither with bow and arrows, and cased in mail and accoutred in scabbard and gauntlet, and (evidently) wedded to the customs of the Kshatriya? There is no need of weapons here. This is the abode of peaceful Brahmanas devoted to ascetic austerities without anger or joy. ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... quite agree with the tales he had previously been telling. I went for my sword, and buckled its belt about me, the scabbard hanging to my heels. Presently some creature came bounding over the brush. I saw him break through the wall of darkness and stop quickly in the firelight. Then D'ri brought him ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller

... the conditional tax laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery makes him hasty, quick, nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a texture; they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a tougher scabbard; the river, not content with channel and restraining banks, overflows perpetually; the extortionate exacting armies of the Ideal and the Causal persecute MY spirit, and I would make a patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace: I write these things only to be quit of them, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... resolving not to flinch from a trial of their respective strengths. A thousand guineas were bid by Earl Spencer—to which the Marquess added ten. You might have heard a pin drop. All eyes were turned—all breathing wellnigh stopped—every sword was put home within its scabbard—and not a piece of steel was seen to move or to glitter except that which each of these champions brandished in ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... and retreated. At this signal of alarm, the greater part of the crowd hurried down the stairs, and the Count, Henri and Ludovico were left alone to pursue the enquiry, who instantly rushed into the apartment, Ludovico with a drawn sword, which he had just time to draw from the scabbard, the Count with the lamp in his hand, and Henri carrying a basket, containing provisions for the ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... relief of the despoiled elector: the king of Denmark had agreed to contribute to his assistance a hundred thousand pickled herrings, the Dutch a hundred thousand butter-boxes, and the king of England a hundred thousand ambassadors. On other occasions, he was painted with a scabbard, but without a sword, or with a sword which nobody could draw, though several ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... that I really made the Major; he never could appear in his company or perform his duties without me; his queue was not more essential. He was not a Major without me. Every one feared me when they saw my shining blade out of its scabbard, and it was really amusing occasionally to see the effect I produced. There have been swords that have done bloody work, but I ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen

... the assault did take place; otherwise Sir George would hardly have lived to describe it. He went back with spirit on the details, more armour of youth to be placed in the scabbard of age. One item held a small essay on the influences which determine human action in a crisis of life or death. He was speaking of the feeling that seized him when spear after spear cut into his flesh. Here was a struggle between mind and body, each ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... Leaving the white wall against which she had leaned, she came a little forward, and with gayety and grace dropped him a curtsy. "Oh, the white satin like the lilies in your garden!" she laughed. "And the red heels to your shoes, and the gold-fringed sword knot, and the velvet scabbard! Ah, let me see your sword, how ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... of her, and put it back into the scabbard, and thereafter laid his hand on her shoulder, and brought her back on the road whereby they had come. And when he came to the entry of the wood, there found he a great part of his company, which was come to meet him and when they saw them thus naked, they asked of him: ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris

... pinched me on the side so violently that the pain nearly brought forth an exclamation of anger. I looked at him. His eye met mine; but his look was so forbidding that it struck a chill into the more nervous part of my system. He again seated himself, drew his butcher-knife from its greasy scabbard, examined its edge, as I would do that of a razor suspected dull, replaced it, and again taking his tomahawk from his back, filled the pipe of it with tobacco, and sent me expressive glances whenever our hostess chanced to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... its three peaks in front, and its two little peaked towers, one on either side of the door, we see brave Captain Gardner issuing forth, clad in his embroidered buff-coat, and his plumed cap upon his head. His trusty sword, in its steel scabbard, strikes clanking on the doorstep. See how the people throng to their doors and windows, as the cavalier rides past, reining his mettled steed so gallantly, and looking so like the very soul and emblem ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... in hand," the prince said; and seizing the ring, he and Harry pulled at it. Ere they raised the stone an inch, a volume of dense smoke poured up, and they at once dropped it into its place again, feeling that their retreat was cut off. The prince put his sword in its scabbard. ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... this meeting, and it promised now to be a failure. He had anticipated the eager enthusiasm of a host of brave and noble spirits ready to fling out the banner of freedom to the winds, and cast the scabbard from the sword forever. Instead of this, he found but a little knot of cold, irresolute men, thinking only of the perils of life which they should incur, and the forfeiture and loss of property which might accrue from any hazardous experiments. Bolivar spoke to them in language less artificial ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... of Bayard," quoth he to De Fistycuff; "I'll meet these recreants sword in hand on foot." Thus speaking, he drew Ascalon from the scabbard, and advanced towards his foes. From the narrowness of the defile only three could engage in the fight at once. Sharply clashed the steel. Loud rang their swords upon his polished armour; but Ascalon ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... of Ravenna lies stretched upon his back in the hollow of a bier covered with laced drapery; and his head rests on richly ornamented cushions. These decorative accessories, together with the minute work of his scabbard, wrought in the fanciful mannerism of the cinquecento, serve to enhance the statuesque simplicity of the young soldier's effigy. The contrast between so much of richness in the merely subordinate details and this sublime severity of treatment in the person of the hero is ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... accomplice of the criminal. Therefore, in the name of justice, of mercy, of religion, of human dignity, of all that makes man's life worth living and distinguishes it from the life of the brute, America, for all she is or ever can be, has drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard. God helping her, she could ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... fully completed. And you were justly censured for it by Pope Sixtus Quintus, a more consummate politician, who said, "You ought to have known that when a subject draws his sword against his king he should throw away the scabbard." You likewise deviated from my counsels, by putting yourself in the power of a sovereign you had so much offended. Why would you, against all the cautions I had given, expose your life in a loyal castle to the mercy of that prince? You trusted ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched the voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his scabbard. She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the Venetian ladies affected, and under its projecting eaves her face spied out at him as sweet as ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton

... ever takes this in good part. Both of you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard. Six weeks after, Caroline may prove to you that she has quite sense enough to minotaurize you without your ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac

... Henry More says "the soul's astral vehicle is of that tenuity that itself can as easily pass the smallest pores of the body as the light does glass, or the lightning the scabbard of a sword without tearing or scorching of it." And again, "I shall make bold to assert that the soul may live in an aerial vehicle as well as in the ethereal, and that there are very few that arrive to that high happiness as to acquire a ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... three inches broad, and have many cabalistical names, with crosses, trines, and circles inscribed on them. Their shoes should be of new russet leather, with a cross cut upon them. Their knives are dagger-fashion; and their swords have neither guard nor scabbard."—See these, and many other particulars, in the Discourse concerning Devils and Spirits, annexed to REGINALD SCOTT'S Discovery ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... you know what I have resolved to do, and if you should not wish to have me join you in this enterprise you can exclude me now. There is plenty of work, or will be soon, for my sword in France, without my taking it to a land where it will only rust in the scabbard." ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... altercation in which two of the King's gentlemen were prevented from seizing Gowrie, they made an ineffectual effort to capture the Earl. Gowrie ran from them along the street, and there 'drew his two swords out of one scabbard,' says Cranstoun. {28} The Earl had just arrived in Scotland from Italy, where he had acquired the then fashionable method of fencing with twin-swords, worn in a single scabbard. Gowrie, then, had retreated from the ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang

... who had sworn to die with her when the decisive moment came. She looked with a smile on the blade which he had already half drawn from its scabbard; and she hailed it as a dear, ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... two layers); ten barrels of wine, and five sorts of condiments. The lower classes send a robe of white silk, a robe of coloured silk, in a pile of one layer, together with six barrels of wine and three sorts of condiments. To the future father-in-law is sent a sword, with a scabbard for slinging, such as is worn in war-time, together with a list of the presents; to the mother-in-law, a silk robe, with wine and condiments. Although all these presents are right and proper for the occasion, still they must be regulated according to the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... starting blood her eyeballs burning roll; Her cheek convuls'd with spots of livid red, 790 All pale and ghastly, Death approaching spread. Strait to the court with darting stop she bends, With frantic haste the funeral pyle ascends, And from the scabbard draws the Dardan blade. (Sad gift, alas, for no such purpose made), 795 But when the bed, and Trojan vest she view'd; That well known bed—she paus'd—and pensive stood. Tears found their way—once more that bed she ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... reliques, jewels, and bric-a-brac; a large, evil-looking knife still caked with the mud of the deadly affray, but bearing legibly in Italian on its blade the inscription, 'He who gets me in his body never need take a medicine,' and with a hilt and scabbard encrusted ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... deficient in consistency or method; and he wasted neither his soldiers nor his treasures where the authority of his name sufficed. What he could obtain by negociations or by artifice, he required not by force of arms. The sword, although drawn from the scabbard, was not stained with blood, unless it was impossible to attain the end in view by a manoeuvre. Always ready to fight, he chose habitually the occasion and the ground. Out of fifty battles which he fought, he was the ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... takes the old fingers that once could grasp the sword that hangs on the wall. It will not be for very long now. A newspaper paragraph will soon give a short record of all the battles that sword left its scabbard to see, and will tell of its owner's service in his later days as deputy Commissioner at Umritsur, and of the record of long residence in India it established, exceeding that of his next competitor by many years. Not a few old warriors that were in those battles, and many that knew his later ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... [PLATE CVII., Fig. 3.] The favorite terminal ornament consisted of two lions clasping one another, with their heads averted and their mouths agape. Above this, patterns in excellent taste usually adorned the scabbard, which moreover exhibited occasionally groups of figures, sacred ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... exclaimed a young man, who now pressed forward into the melee. He wore a long, loose civilian's coat, a small oilskin-covered forage cap, and had for his sole military insignia an embroidered sword-belt, sustaining the gilt scabbard of the sabre that flashed in his hand. His countenance was pale and rather sickly-looking, his complexion fairer than is usual amongst Spaniards; a large silk cravat was rolled round his neck, and reached nearly to his ears, concealing, it ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... was not very large, but it was literally filled with rifles and pistols of various sizes and makes, some still bright, and others much rusted from water and dampness. To the collection were added several swords, one with a scabbard and the others without. There were also a large number of powder horns and bullet ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer

... justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed. Still more precise advances were repeated, and have been received in a spirit forbidding every reliance not placed on the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... prisoner's lot was ever made more easy than mine. To you and yours I am deeply grateful. If your people all behaved as kindly towards the natives of this country as you did to me, Britain would be conquered without need of drawing sword from scabbard." ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty

... Ambrosio flashed in an instant from the scabbard; the student was armed, and equally alert. There was a fierce clash of weapons: the crowd made way for them as they fought, and closed again, so as to hide them from the view of Inez. All was tumult and confusion for a moment; when there was a kind of shout ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... fool thou," said De Aquila, and all his voice changed; "for I have given thee the Manor of Dallington up the hill this half-hour since," and he yerked at Hugh with his scabbard across the straw. ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... furnished with flat wooden pallets, each having at the head a slanting piece of board supposed to do duty for a pillow. Outside the open door a policeman paced the broad passage, a man taken from the mounted detachment and whose scabbard and spurs clattered and jingled, hour after hour, as he walked. The sound produced something half rhythmical, like a broken tune in search of itself, and the change of sentinels made no perceptible difference in the regular nature of the ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... had promised him. He needed her. The words she had spoken to Madge, not dreaming then of their swift application. They came back to her. "God has called me. He girded His sword upon me." What right had she to leave it rusting in its scabbard, turning aside from the pathway pointed out to her because of one weak, useless life, crouching in her way. It was not as if she were being asked to do evil herself that good might come. The decision had been taken out of her hands. All she had to do was to remain quiescent, not ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... themselves, for they were not in the least suspicious of six other men, also dressed as peasants, who followed them up-street, and sat down in full view with their backs against a wall. Yet I could see quite plainly the scabbard of a bayonet projecting through a hole in the ragged cloak of the nearest of those ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... large silk bag; yellow gloves on his hands; holding a cocked hat with cockade in it, and the edges adorned with a black feather, about an inch deep. He wore knee and shoe buckles; and a long sword with a finely wrought and polished steel hilt. The scabbard was white ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... was drawn up around the face so as to meet the napped brim of a laced hat; the features, therefore, were completely hidden. But the British officers deemed that they had seen that military cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded from the folds of the cloak and glittered in a vivid gleam of light. Apart from these trifling particulars there were characteristics of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering guests to glance from the shrouded figure to Sir William Howe, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hoarse, bough-bending wind, The hill-wolf howling on the neighboring height, And bittern booming in the pool below. Some drops of rain fell from the passing cloud That sudden hides the wanly shining moon, And from the scabbard instant dropped his sword, And, with long, living leaps, and rock-struck clang, From side to side, and slope to sounding slope, In gleaming whirls swept down ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... dagger worn with pistols in the belt, in a metal scabbard, generally of silver; and, among the ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... tartari, and in cloth of purple, which the Soldan of Persia had sent him, and put him on hose of the same, and set him in his ivory chair; and in his left hand they placed his sword Tizona in its scabbard, and the strings of his mantle in his right. And in this fashion the body of the Cid remained there ten years and more, till it was taken thence, as the history will relate anon. And when his garments waxed old, other ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... to desert his army, and return to the Parliament, and the like. Had his Majesty, at the head of his army, with the full reputation they had before, and in the ebb of their affairs, rested at Windsor, and commenced a treaty, they had certainly made more reasonable proposals; but now the scabbard seemed to be ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe

... Captain Hollister led on, with his head elevated to forty-five degrees, with a little, low cocked hat perched on his crown, carrying a tremendous dragoon sabre at a poise, and trailing at his heels a huge steel scabbard, that had war in its very clattering. There was a good deal of difficulty in getting all the platoons (there were six) to look the same way; but, by the time they reached the defile of the bridge, the troops were in sufficiently compact order. In this manner they marched up the hill to the summit ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... and it was not beneath people of family and respectability to take part in it. But by and by Protestantism and Catholicism began to be at somewhat less deadly enmity with each other; religious wars were still far enough from being ended, but the scabbard of the sword was no longer flung away when the blade was drawn. And so followed a time of nominal peace, and a generation arose with whom it was no longer respectable and worthy—one might say a matter of duty—to fight a country with which one's own land was not at war. Nevertheless, the seed had ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

... made no answer the squaw slipped out into the shadows, leaving him staring into the flames, to return a moment later bearing something in her hands, which she placed in his. It was a knife in a scabbard, old ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... maiden, Looked on the charming young girls, who rather might still be called children. Savage desire possessed them; at once with merciless passion They that trembling band assailed and the high-hearted maiden. But she had snatched in an instant the sword of one from its scabbard, Felled him with might to the ground, and stretched him bleeding before her. Then with vigorous strokes she bravely delivered the maidens, Smiting yet four of the robbers; who saved themselves only by flying. Then she bolted the gates, and, armed, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... sleeping in a whole skin; so a man might come home by Weeping-Cross:[346] no, by lady, a friend is not so soon gotten as lost; blessed are the peace-makers; they that strike with the sword, shall be beaten with the scabbard. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various

... leaped up, and drew his sword half out of its scabbard, but again checked himself suddenly; for, as the Saga tells us, "it was his invariable rule, whenever anything raised his anger, to collect himself and let his passion run off, and then take the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... vengeful approach, I realised that this was not a fight but an execution, and that it would not be a good thing for me to take part in it. I feared that I might find pleasure in killing some of these scoundrels, so I put my sabre back in its scabbard and left to our soldiers the business of exterminating these assassins, two thirds of whom ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot



Words linked to "Scabbard" :   sheath



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