"Battering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... left the two together while we returned for Rayburn. And as we lifted the stretcher our hearts bounded, for at that instant there was a tremendous crash at the grating; whereby we knew that those without had brought to bear against it some sort of a battering-ram that they might ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... besiegers been provided with cannon, the defence could not have lasted long, for the walls would not have resisted battering by shot; but cannon, in those times, were rare, and were too clumsy and heavy to accompany an expedition requiring to move with speed. For a time, the men-at-arms alone garrisoned the wall; the farmers and their men being occupied in pumping water ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... to the Sailor's Rest, and should have come on with it this morning. Instead of doing so, he tells the landlord—a most unreliable man—to send it on. And my precious mummy—the mummy that has cost nine hundred pounds," cried Braddock, working furiously, and battering the chisel as though it were Bolton's head, "is left to be stolen by any scientific thief that comes along." While the Professor, assisted by Cockatoo, loosened the lid of the packing case, a mild voice was heard at the door. Lucy turned, as did ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Every one was howling, and yelling; and in the midst of them was an old woman, whose shouts and shrill cries made her conspicuous in the scene. She was encouraging and stimulating a number of men who were carrying a beam to the house, which they evidently purposed to use as a battering-ram, so as to ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... time to change armor during a battle, would I? One suit is enough for me. By George, they look worse than football suits, don't they? One couldn't drive a javelin through this chunk of stuff with a battering ram." ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... the picket-gate was banged in their faces and the bolt shot in the staples, and the Knights of the Rose were left shouting and battering with their cudgels ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... he might have said was forestalled by a heavy battering at the outer door. These deep vibrations seemed on the sudden to stir Peggy out of her sleep. She sat upright, digging fists ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... had the slightest effect on the woods-boss. Crouched low and with his arms wrapped around his head, Rondeau still came on unfalteringly, and Bryce was forced to give way before him; to save his hands, he avoided the risk of battering Rondeau's hard ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... discharged flights of darts and arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... wife near crazy with ear- ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing hell's tattoo, like a TUTTI of battering rams, on our sheet- iron roof; the wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us full, so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Now, there you are, you see. Take Prescott. He's never crocked a man seriously in his life. I don't count being winded. That's absolutely an accident. Well, there you are, then. Prescott weighs thirteen-ten, and he's all muscle, and he goes like a battering-ram. You'll own that. He goes as hard as he jolly well knows how, and yet the worst he has ever done is to lay a man out for a couple of minutes while he gets his wind back. Well, compare him with this Bargee man. The Bargee weighs a stone less and isn't nearly ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... warriors of the Emperor Tiberius could then have foreseen the future, Titus was to quarter his famous legions on that vantage point; and from its elevation he was to hurl himself as a resistless battering ram against the Holy City. But, on this autumn day, when these chronicles begin, no blare of trumpets was summoning the Roman soldiery to arms; only the feet of the camp sentinels, as they walked their appointed rounds, broke the quiet ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford
... really a fine thing, but the important thing was that some of the rescued men had been exposed to the battering of the sea so long that they needed medical attention, and so we drove for home—and cracked our foremast-head doing it. That delayed us almost a week, for the skipper had to have that spar just so. A lot might depend on it, same as the rest ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... are ourselves responsible for this person's intrusion," said George Heriot; "this is the scrivener whom we desired to see.— Look up, man, and see us in the face as an honest man should, instead of beating thy noddle charged against us thus, like a battering-ram." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the evening, with ranjows stuck round the outer defence. It was excellently situated for battering Balidah; but Balidah, I fear, is too loosely constructed to be battered to the best advantage. During the day the Sow and Singe Dyaks joined, to the amount of about 150 men, and other tribes have been gradually dropping in; so that altogether there are not fewer ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... sees, no sister-charioteer. Desperate of flight, nor daring to advance, Aghast, and shuddering at the lifted lance, He falters. Then AEneas poised at last His spear, and hurled it, as he marked his chance. Less loud the stone from battering engine cast, Less loud through ether bursts the levin-bolt's ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... his right arm towards Westerfelt's face so quickly that the spectators scarcely saw it leave his side, but it was not quicker than Westerfelt's left, which skilfully parried the thrust. Then, before Toot could shield himself, Westerfelt struck him with the force of a battering-ram squarely in ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... good, for the doors were soon forced open by the enraged rioters, who proceeded in a much more systematic operation, using long heavy pieces of timber which were carried on the shoulders of several men, and driven with the force of battering-rams—which, in fact, they ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... castle is built, each party uses its best efforts for the demolition of the other, but no one is allowed to make use of his hands in the demolition of either castle or fort; battering-rams may alone be employed. In ancient times, battering-rams were large beams, hooped and shod with iron; but the moderns do things better, and the way in which it may be done is as follows:—A boy who volunteers to be battering-ram ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... could sing?—and she had an irritated feeling he had tried to call her. Her room was on the east and the dawn was still gray. She lay looking at it a minute perhaps after her eyes came open: frightened, that was it, frightened. Things seemed to have been battering at her brain in the night, and all the windows of her mind had been closed, the shutters fast, and they could not get in. But now the light was coming and they kept on battering. And whatever they wanted, she was frightened, too frightened to give herself the panic of thinking it ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of Hercules. The poor brought skins of Cordova leather, tanned and untanned, excellent pieces of cloth and linen (poor Ermentrude must have worked hard for the month before the justices came!), boxes, and wax. 'With this battering-ram,' cries the shocked Bishop Theodulf, 'they hope to break down the wall of my soul. But they would not have thought that they could shake me, if they had not so shaken other judges before,' And indeed, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... had roused the two stable orderlies. They would open up in a minute. They did, with much blinking of eyes and some demur, but stood abashed when the burly major strode in, big Jim Ennis at his heels. The latter hesitated not one second. His weight went in with the battering ram of that muscular leg and massive foot, and the sergeant's door flew open before them. The room was empty. Fitzroy and Fitzroy's furs were gone. Nor was that all. Snatching a stable lantern from the hand of one of the shaking ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... tossing hands. It was a sea that heaved before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead, presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it ecstasy. Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of worship ten thousand voices hailed ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... by way of encouraging the youngster, Finn would lower himself to the ground, head well out, and, covering his eyes and muzzle with his two fore legs, would allow Jan to plunge like a little battering-ram upon the top of his head, furiously digging into the wolfhound's wiry coat in futile pursuit of flesh-hold for his teeth, and still exhausting fifty per cent. of his energies in ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... And yet, battering at that instinctive feeling, came the knowledge that she was to start for New York the next day. She felt suddenly that she could not. "I can't! I can't!" she cried dumbly. "I can't, even ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... about that date, were as strange a lot of men as ever were paid by a great empire to fight its battles. It was the darkest hour of the land struggle, when the one side came out with crow-bar and battering-ram by day, and the other with mask and with shot-gun by night. Men driven from their homes and potato-patches found their way even into the service of the Government, to which it seemed to them that they owed their troubles, and now and then they did wild things before they came. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mandarin lurches and rolls awfully, making it extremely difficult at times for any of the mules to keep their feet; each mule seems to think his next neighbor responsible for the jostling and crowding, and the kicking and squealing is continuous along both lines. While battering away at each other, each mule seems to be at the same time keeping a loose eye behind him for the oncoming waves and swells that occasionally curl over the bulwarks and irrigate and irritate them in the rear. Most of the mules seem capable of kicking at their neighbors ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the attacks became less frequent. The schooners manoeuvring in the river poured broadsides into the Indian villages, battering down the flimsy wigwams. Pontiac moved his camp from the mouth of Parent's Creek to a position nearer Lake St Clair, out of range of their guns, and turned his thoughts to contrive some means of destroying the troublesome vessels. He had learned from the French of the attempt ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... the circumstance, was unable to satisfy her with sixty blows of a large sledge hammer. He afterwards used the same weapon, with the same degree of strength, for the sake of experiment, and succeeded in battering a hole in a stone wall at the twenty-fifth stroke. Another woman, named Sonnet, laid herself down on a red-hot brazier without flinching, and acquired for herself the nickname of the salamander; while others, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... of July, in the minds of some persons purely political, would prove to be a moral revolution. The social class to which she belonged, not being able, during its unhoped-for triumph in the fifteen years of the Restoration to reconstruct itself, was about to go to pieces, bit by bit, under the battering-ram of the bourgeoisie. She heard the famous words of Monsieur Laine: 'Kings are departing!' This conviction, I believe was not without its influence on her conduct. She took an intellectual part ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... commanders, Saint Ruth obliged himself to no certain place, but rode constantly from one side to another to give the necessary orders where he saw occasion. Ginkell being now come up at so near a distance that his guns and other battering engines might do execution, he ordered them to be discharged, and as he had a vast number of them he made them play incessantly on the Irish army, hoping by that means to force them from the hill, which was of great advantage. But the Irish, encouraged by the presence and ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... their church into a fort at a few minutes' notice. The walls were nearly three feet thick; the seven windows were barred with iron, and so high up that, if the Indians wanted to peep, they had to climb on each other's shoulders. As for the doors, they could hardly be knocked in with a battering ram; so you had no excuse to stop at home on Sunday, even in "Indian Summer." Of course we went to see the grave where all that is mortal of Washington Irving lies in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery; and the famous bridge—or, rather, ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... his kin, and full like is he to be a noble man that is their leader and governor. He meant it by Sir Launcelot du Lake. So when Sir Tristram had beholden them long he thought shame to see two hundred knights battering upon twenty knights. Then Sir Tristram rode unto the King with the Hundred Knights and said: Sir, leave your fighting with those twenty knights, for ye win no worship of them, ye be so many and they so few; and wit ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Still the little boat steamed slowly and steadily on towards Soochow. Along the banks of the canal the rebels, in clusters, were marching towards safety. On them the Hyson opened fire, puffing and steaming after them, and battering them with ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... the militia-men proceeded in a body to the gaol, and demanded their comrade; and compliance with the demand being refused, they seized a long piece of timber that lay in the street, near the prison, and this they used as a battering-ram against the door of the gaol, which they soon forced off its hinges. I was sitting in the back dining-room at my house, No. 1, Lady Mead, and I witnessed the transaction myself. About the third effort with the battering-ram, each of which ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... burst out laughing. The thing was too absurd. Under cover of our animated talk the landlord must have bolted us in. The bars made the window no use. A skilled burglar might have beaten those bolts, and a battering-ram would, no doubt, have smashed the door; we ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... inhibited self of Dorn suddenly was no more. Fast as a flash he was upon the murdering Hun. Bayonet and rifle-barrel lunged through him, and so terrible was the thrust that the German was thrown back as if at a blow from a battering-ram. Dorn whirled the bloody bayonet, and it crashed to the ground the rifle of the other German. Dorn saw not the visage of the foe—only the thick-set body, and this he ripped open in one mighty slash. The German's life spilled ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... no monitors, nor fire-arms. Large swords, daggers, slings, the catapulta and battering-ram, were ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... his blood, a thing which he was holding back by sheer force of will. He tried to shut out the vision of a pale face floating in the sea; he fought to keep a grip on the dispassionate calmness which was a part of him. But the ship itself was battering down his stoic resistance. In an hour—since he had heard the scream of the woman—he had come to hate it. He wanted the feel of solid earth under his feet. He wanted, with all his soul, to reach that narrow strip of coast where Mary ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... and Pollux near the Basilica Julia. They are the only prominent objects on the south-west side of the Forum, and at once arrest the eye by their matchless symmetry and grace. Time has dealt very hardly with them, battering their shapely columns and rich Corinthian capitals, and discolouring their pure white Pentelic marble. But it has not succeeded in destroying their wonderful beauty; and the russet hues with which they have been stained by the long lapse ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... Crossing the frontier, Count Thurn boldly entered Austria and, meeting no foe capable of retarding his steps, he pushed vigorously on even to the very gates of Vienna. As he had no heavy artillery capable of battering down the walls, and as he knew that he had many partisans within the walls of the city, he took possession of the suburbs, blockaded the town, and waited for the slow operation of a siege, hoping ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... fell, on receiving a Jacob's shell; it was hit again twice, and lost a large amount of blood; and yet it sprang up, and charged a native, who, by great agility, had just time to climb a tree, before the maddened beast struck it, battering- ram fashion, hard enough almost to have split both head and tree. It paused a few seconds—drew back several paces—glared up at the man—and then dashed at the tree again and again, as if determined to shake ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... world shaking off Rome. It was the prognostication of the philosopher who sees human thought, volatilized by the press, evaporating from the theocratic recipient. It was the terror of the soldier who examines the brazen battering ram, and says:—"The tower will crumble." It signified that one power was about to succeed another power. It meant, "The press will ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... his Bible to his breast, and seizing the mast of the frigate's jolly-boat, which had been thrown up with the other spars, poised it with both hands on a level with his head, so as to use the foot of it as a battering-ram, and stalked ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the nimble mind and quick fancy of youth, turning over from the thing that is half done to a further task beyond. How would we fare in Brittany and Normandy while my young paladin with his lances and his bowmen was besieging Ascalon or battering at Jerusalem?" ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reason of imminent peril. Do not think this a meaningless or uncertain sign; fear, arising from the things they foresee, has changed their custom." Why say more? He inflamed the hearts of his soldiers to attack Aquileia again. Constructing battering rams and bringing to bear all manner of engines of war, they quickly forced their way into the city, laid it waste, divided the spoil and so cruelly devastated it as scarcely to leave a trace to be seen. Then growing bolder 222 and still thirsting for Roman blood, the ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... evident that the barricade was no longer tenable, for the heavy pieces of furniture they had heaped up to oppose entrance, were completely hammered to fragments by poles brought up by the assailants, and used as battering-rams. The retreat was sounded; they all hastened to the other story, where the ladies were already placed, and the galley-slaves were soon in possession of the first floor— exasperated by the defence, mad with wine ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... his age and his lifetime of battering about the world, Captain Cy had a sentimental streak in his makeup; his rejuvenation of the old home proved that. Betsy's letter interested him. He had made guarded inquiries concerning Mary Thayer, now Mary Thomas, of others besides ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and grass-grown stone urns, and furnished with the light foliage of untended creeping plants. Down the short broad walk leading to this sombre entrance, my eye constantly wandered; but no impatient rattle on the latch, no battering at the gate, indicated the presence of a visited, and the lazy bell hung ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... run hastily up the stairway and were battering at the door of Vanringham's chamber. "Locked!" said the Colonel. "Oh, the unutterable cur! Open, open, I tell you, Vanringham! By God, I'll have your blood for this if you have hurt ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... so that the Royal Family had scarcely finished lunch when they were startled by news that the people were once more advancing en masse up the road to the Palace, and would soon be battering at ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... of the city was free of defenders, save the isolated steam gunners left behind upon the walls. Ragged Men, drunk with success, ran through its ways, slashing at the walls, battering at the light-panels, pounding upon the doorways of the towers. Tommy saw them hacking at the great doorway of a tower. It gave. They rushed within. Almost instantly thereafter the opening spouted them forth ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... fish's offspring. For a long time his favourite pastime, whenever his mother's back was turned, was to build walls and houses of herrings; and he would also play at soldiers on the marble slab, arranging the red gurnets in confronting lines, pushing them against each other, and battering their heads, while imitating the sound of drum and trumpet with his lips; after which he would throw them all into a heap again, and exclaim that they were dead. When he grew older he would prowl about his aunt Claire's stall to get hold of the bladders of the carp and pike which ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... listening to the sound of blows battering the outer door. "They'll have it down in another minute. We've got to burn the wind seven ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... immediately!" he cried imperiously, kicking and battering again upon the door in furious rage, which was stilled the instant he heard her ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... negligence in the persons charged with the execution of these orders the battering artillery was not accompanied with suitable ammunition, and the necessary entrenching tools were not brought. These omissions were supplied the next day, but it was then too ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... of this institution was not in its architecture or lands, but in that part which could not be seen by the bodily eyes. For, spiritually speaking, Oneida Institute was an immense battering-ram, behind which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Beriah Green were constantly at work, pounding away to destroy the walls which slavery had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... was beaten to his knees. Struggling up, he tried to clinch, only to be met by another smashing blow in the face. He turned to escape, but the dancing figure with the battering fists was ever in front ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... indignant protests, the absurd schemes, the self-seeking applications, that poured into the White House from all points of the field of action and from all parts of the Border States and of the North. The man who during four years could stand that kind of battering and pressure and who, instead of having his hopefulness crushed out of him, instead of losing heart or power of direction or the full control of his responsibilities, steadily developed in patience, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... its long yellow teeth and worried him as a terrier does a rat—the poor old wretch was still able to make a bleating sound at that—dropped him, trampled and kicked him as he tried to crawl away, and went on trampling and battering him until he was no more than a bloody inhuman bundle of clothes and mire. For more than half an hour this continued, and then its animal rage was exhausted and it desisted, and went and grazed at a little distance from this misshapen, hoof-marked, ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... Ormiston had begun to speak, and he, too, turned his attention to the platform. He liked this old woman's invincible quality, the way she had turned to and made a battering-ram of her own meagre middle-aged body to level the walls of authority; and she reminded him of his mother. There was no physical likeness, but plainly this woman also was one of those tragically serious ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... cries, "Silence, in the King's name!" to no purpose, it would be an easier task to hale apart old beavers than one of these. But when Lucifer's veterans dashed into their midst, the growls, and blows, and battering lessened. "Silence in Lucifer's name!" roared the devil a second time. "What is this," demanded the King, "and who are these?" "Nothing, sire, but that in the general confusion, the drovers came across the cuckolds, ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... into the finest powder, until not a bit of stubborn self-conceit remains. And then the contrite become the humble! Our gracious Lord has sometimes to use heavy hammers in the destruction of this hard and stony pride: the shock of calamity, the battering of disappointment and defeat! Our pride must be ground to powder. Then He will come in ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Far better War's battering breeze than the Peace that barters the Past, Better the fear of our fathers' God than friendship false with their foe: And better anointed Death than the Nation's damnation at last, And the crawling of craven limbs in life and the curse ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... retorted Wright, kicking the bar with his foot, "nine feet of it, by Master Percy's computation, and, I warrant, as many years will be required to see the further side. Try it, good Catesby, 'tis a nut a giant could scarce crack, though he wield a battering ram." ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... to observe Belgium's neutrality, and at that very moment her guns were battering the little nation to bits. Was that just a European affair, or did it amount to ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... Olympius took council of the veteran captain, and they rapidly decided to allow all the women to depart at once and to divide the men into two parties-one to be sent to fight on the roof, and the other to defend the wall where the Roman battering-ram was by this time almost ready ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The battering at the door was resumed with renewed vigor. A cry of triumph announced to the crowd that the barrier was down, and a portion of the infuriated mob ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... erected upon a commanding position, about a mile and a half from the entrance to the bay. Its walls are substantially constructed of burnt brick, and are of sufficient thickness and strength to resist heavy battering. There are nine or ten embrasures. Like everything else in the country belonging to the public, the fort is fast falling into ruins. There has been no garrison here for several years; the guns are dismounted, and ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... Lisbon itself, challenged the governor, or any other of equal rank, to single combat: but this romantic proposal was prudently declined; and though the city was known to be weakly guarded, the total want of battering cannon in the English army precluded the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... taking much water over the lee rail. Cases of all descriptions began to break loose on the upper deck, the principal trouble being caused by the loose coal bags, which were lifted bodily by the seas and swung against the lashed cases. These bags acted like battering rams, no lashings could possibly have withstood them, and so the only remedy was to set to work and heave coal sacks overboard and re-lash the cases. During this difficult and dangerous task seas continually ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Amherstburgh. Deprived of the means of transport, the shallow bed of the Miami aiding them but little, it was a matter of no mean difficulty with the Americans to convey through several hundred miles of forest, the heavy guns they required for battering, and as it was only at intervals this could be effected; the most patient endurance and unrelaxing perseverance being necessary to the end. From the inactivity of this force, or rather the confinement of its operations to objects ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... he knew he would reach very soon, a solid wall! Rock and shale and earth were packed as if by battering rams. For a few moments he fought to control himself before facing Joanne. Over him swept the grim realization that his last fight must be for her. He steadied himself, and wiped the dust and grime from his face with his handkerchief. For the last time he swallowed hard. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... had selected him, much against his will, as her partner, was footing it away very composedly and becomingly, when a tremendous blow was inflicted on a certain part of the hinder portion of his body, which being as irresistible as if it had come from a battering-ram of the Romans, laid him prostrate on the floor, to the infinite delight of all the fashionables of the court, particularly the female part, who testified their joy by the utterance of the loudest laughs and clapping their hands in an extacy of mirth. In fact, the travellers entered ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... with trembling hands and a pounding heart that nearly bore me down, it acted so like a battering ram on the inside, I drew a delicately scented envelope from my mailbox ... addressed in ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... A more sorrowful, heart-rending sight mortal eyes have seldom seen. The father, the mother, the saint-like sister, the innocent and helpless children, had found but a momentary refuge from cannibals, who were roaring like wolves around the hall, and battering at the doors to break in and slake their vengeance with blood. It was seriously apprehended that the mob would make a rush, and sprinkle the blood of the royal family upon the very floor of the sanctuary where they had ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... edifice incurred the most imminent danger, and would probably have been destroyed in 1356, had not the timely arrival of the French troops caused the invading army to raise the siege of the city. A battering ram, used upon that occasion, was still shewed in Coutances, in the beginning of the last century. The king of France bestowed upon the chapter, in 1372, a sum of six hundred livres, in gold, for the express purpose of repairing the church, "bellis attrita et imminuta." At ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... you it? so you would leaue battering, I had rather haue it a head, and you vse these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and Insconce it to, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders, but I pray sir, why am I beaten? Ant. Dost thou not know? S.Dro. Nothing sir, but ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... are really relieved to find their impressions boldly put into form for them by him. Not one of them has understood anything. Walther's unprecedented leaping to his feet in the heat of inspiration has given offence to this one; the other terms his singing "empty battering at the ear-drums." They are about to subscribe unanimously to Beckmesser's verdict that he has lost his case, when Sachs's voice breaks in upon the confusion. He has listened to Walther in complete self-forgetful absorption. The absence of all jealousy in his large nature leaves his mind peculiarly ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... an involuntary disposition on the part of both the Major and Mr Dombey to look after them, that they both turned at the same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow, was toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the inch as before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the same supreme disregard ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... would-be lover would return stronger than before. As she did not want him or any man for husband she made great preparations for an attack, gathering a large body of warriors and having a wall of great strength and the finest workmanship built round the town. It was so high and thick that no battering ram could shake it, while water-cisterns were built into it to put out the fire if any one sought to burn it. From this we may judge that the wall was of wood. This done, Torborg made merry with her court, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... The sounds of battering had ceased, and as he passed the oak door he laid his ear to it: some one was in the place! the lid of the bureau shut with a loud bang, and he heard a lock turned. The wall could not be half down yet: the earl must have entered the moment he could ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... of Carlyle seems to me to be one of the most terrible and convincing documents in the world in proof of what I have been saying. The old man was so bent on battering and bumping people into righteousness, so in love with spluttering and vituperating and thundering all over the place, that he missed the truest and sweetest ministry of love. He broke his wife's heart, and it is idle to pretend he did not. Mrs. Carlyle was a sharp-edged woman ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... plain, right-handed, battering-ram punch to the neck that ended things, and Hassan Ah lay coughing on the sand with bulging eyes while Joe ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... room, barricaded behind the table, the landlord's wife and daughter crouched in terror of their lives. The gas, turned full on, blazed high enough to blacken the ceiling, and showed the heavy bolts shot at the top and bottom of the solid door. Nothing less than a battering-ram could have burst that door in from the outer side; an hour's work with the file would have failed to break a passage through the bars over the window. "How did she get there?" the sergeant asked. "Run downstairs, and bolted herself in, while the missus and the young 'un ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... fire peeps up and crackles as it should. Now why not first slide off our backs these weary loads of wood And dip a vine-branch in the brazier till it glows, then straight Hurl it at the battering-ram against the stubborn gate? If they refuse to draw the bolts in immediate compliance, We'll set fire to the wood, and smoke will ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... few seconds the enemy, astounded by the occurrence, ceased firing, but the English gave them no respite, and both parties immediately again set to work, battering away at each other. Shot after shot struck the Tudor, but the crew kept up their fire with unabated vigour. Murray had forgotten all about his forebodings of the previous evening; no sooner had the schooner blown up, than he saw that the chain being left unprotected ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... delusion as to our powers. We can't push Sher Singh back; we can only hold him back by fear for the city. We can't hope to conquer him, but we may make it impossible for him to move until a British brigade with battering guns ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... feudal militia amounting, according to the Spanish historians, to thirty thousand men. With these ample forces, his lieutenant-general, the duke of Savoy, closely invested Perpignan; and, as he was provided with a numerous train of battering artillery, instantly opened a heavy fire on the inhabitants. John, thus exposed to the double fire of the fortress and the besiegers, was in a very critical situation. Far from being disheartened, however, he was seen, armed cap-a-pie, on horseback from dawn till evening, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... cure. He nevertheless continued his journey without abatement of speed, and on the afternoon of the fourth day arrived on the summit of the hills that overlook Bilboa. The suburbs were occupied by the Carlists, whose slender battering train kept up a fire that was vigorously replied to by the forty or fifty cannon bristling the fortifications. Entering the faubourg known as the Barrio de Bolueta, he approached a group of soldiers lounging in front of their quarters, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... rockward, till one wheel-edge grazed. The chariot tript and flew, and all was mazed In turmoil. Up went wheel-box with a din, Where the rock jagged, and nave and axle-pin. And there—the long reins round him—there was he Dragging, entangled irretrievably. A dear head battering at the chariot side, Sharp rocks, and rippled flesh, and a voice that cried: "Stay, stay, O ye who fattened at my stalls, Dash me not into nothing!—O thou false Curse of my Father!—Help! Help, whoso can, An innocent, ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... diminishing. He struggled once more to his feet, with Nicholas, and they exchanged battering blows, dealt necessarily at random. Sometimes his arm swept violently through mere space, at others his fist landed with a satisfying shock on the body of his antagonist. The dark was occasionally crossed by flashes before Woolfolk's smitten eyes, but no actual ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... my Lord of Alanmere, especially when there is sterner work in hand," interrupted Natasha, with a laugh. "What are you going to do with those two cruisers that are battering each other to pieces down there? Sink them both, or leave them ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... crumbling privileges of man at a time when the "ladies" are claiming the earth and adjacent planets. Yet I don't believe he wrote Mildred Lawson (in the volume entitled Celibates) with malice prepense. Too great an artist to use as a dialectic battering-ram one of his characters, for all that he makes Mildred very "modern." She doesn't despise men, nor does she care much for the ideas of her dowdy friend the "advanced" Mrs. Fargus; on the contrary, she makes fun of her clothes and ideas, though secretly regretting that she hadn't been sent by ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... his face in his hands. Bridge rolled another smoke. The sound of a shot came from the front room of the jail, immediately followed by a roar of rage from the mob and a deafening hammering upon the jail door. A moment later this turned to the heavy booming of a battering ram and the splintering of wood. The frail structure ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with their shoulders. It seemed impossible it should stand, yet stand it did. Then one, Galors, cried suddenly out, "Fetch a hatchet!" and another ran helter-skelter down the corridor. The rest seemed to be waiting for him; the battering ceased. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... siege and field guns of the Germans—which had been used with such telling effect upon Liege, Brussels, Antwerp and Ostend, battering the fortifications there to bits in practically no time at all—while immense in their power of destruction, were still not a match for the longer range guns mounted by the British battleships. Consequently, long-range artillery duels in the north had been ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... got into you? What business have you got with me, old fellow? What are you pounding me for? What are you jerking me along for? What do you mean by battering me? ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... heard continued cries and groans. He had now and then been dully aware of a change in the noises. Now it would seem as if all else was swallowed up in the sound of tremendous blows, as if the car were being struck again and again by a mighty battering-ram. Then a chorus of shouting went roaring up, as if an army cried. Noise and physical sensation were too intimately blended to be separated; his brain struggled in confusion, emerging now and then for a moment of consecutive thought ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... trembling, stood by as if he had been paralysed. But the brewer bent his round head like a furious bull, and charged, using his skull as a battering ram, right into the middle of the scrimmage. Now there were two against ten. The odds were still far too great; and the brewer also was soon on the floor. The fighters made a tremendous noise, but whereas usually at the least sound a corporal would come running up ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... at more than that distance, Sire, but for battering down walls they are used at shorter distances. The ships are, as you say, floating castles, and will carry hundreds of men, with provisions and stores for many months, besides merchandise and goods. These castles are armed with weapons such as you speak of, some of them carrying twenty ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... dreamy nature, felt in the quiet dusk the power to do all things. He had the poetic temperament which sometimes leads on to great things, and the man so gifted who does not feel himself capable, at that hour of the day of rest, of battering down Gibraltar or of upbuilding the whole human race, must ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... the stable from the nearer end, the opposite gable fell out with a great splash, letting in the wide level vision of turbidly raging waters, fading into the obscurity of the wind-driven rain. While he stared aghast, a great tree struck the wall like a battering-ram, so that the stable shook. The horses, which had been for some time moving uneasily, were now quite scared. There was not a moment to be lost. Duff shouted for his men; one or two came running; and in less than a minute ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... live here now; she has moved away. If monsieur had told me he was going to her apartment I would have spared him the trouble of battering down the door." ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... oblique but immovable loopholes of the curtain, or even through the sloping crenelets of the higher towers. On this the besiegers brought up mangonels, and set them hurling huge stones at these woodworks and battering them to pieces. Contemporaneously they built a triangular wooden tower as high as the curtain, and kept it ready for use, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... screw boat of 400 tons, most unprepossessing in appearance, slow, but sure, and capable of bearing an infinite amount of battering. It is jokingly said that her keel has rasped off the branch coral round all the islands. Though there are many inter-island schooners, she is the only sure mode of reaching the windward islands in less than ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Imagine, dear reader, a huge mass, composed of blocks of ice, large stones, and drift timber, occupying the centre of the river, and extending back for a great distance; the top on a level with the roofs of the houses. The inhabitants of the town had everything to dread from such a gigantic battering-ram applied to ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Whitner, the commander, and either capturing or wounding nearly all the commissioned officers. Before we knew it, or even expected it, the enemy was in our front, advancing in line of battle. The men hadn't time to raise a gun before the bullets came whizzing over our heads, or battering against the stone wall. We noticed away to our right the lines give way. Still Kershaw's Brigade held their position, and beat back the enemy in our front. But in the woods on our left some troops who were stationed there, ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Atkins want? He had broken in on a moment that was as private as a dream. There was nothing he could do. Baker was dying. He knew he was dying. There was no medicine that could heal the battering his body had taken. He had been slipping away into peace and release of pain. He had no desire to ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... is a long-winged hawk for the heron. The Hyppe is the berye of the sweet bryer or eglantine. Nowell meaneth more than Christmas. Porpherye is a peculiar marble, not marble in common. Sendale, a sylke stuffe. The trepegett is not the battering-ram, but an engine to cast stones. Wiuer or Wyvern, a serpent like unto a dragon. Autenticke meaneth a thing of auctoritye, not of antiquitye. Abandone is not liberty though Hollyband sayeth so. Of the Vernacle. Master ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... ever was a morning calculated to inspire good-will and heartiness in a human being it was that morning. The dawn came swiftly, battering through a fleece of clouds and painting the Blue Mesa in all the gorgeous and utterly indescribable colors of an Arizona sunrise. The air was crisp and so clear that it seemed to sparkle, like water. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... The long bronze guns which threw the smaller stone shot of from six to eleven inches, would command a far more extensive range than the interval of the heights which dominate Lefkosia; and even should battering have been ineffective at that distance against walls of masonry, the plunging fire would have destroyed the town and ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... these trees was cut down some years ago by a party of men, who, I think, should have been sent to prison for the deed. It took five men twenty-five days to cut it through with augers and saws, and then they were obliged to use a great wedge and a battering-ram to make ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... garlands, with fine white tusks long and thick as plough-shafts, worthy of carrying kings on their backs, capable of bearing every kind of noise on the field of battle, with huge bodies, capable of battering down the walls of hostile towns, of the colour of new-formed clouds, and each possessing eight she-elephants. With this wealth, O king, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... pursued him with her army, and overtook him at the summit; finding no place to hide himself, he attempted in desperation both to wreak vengeance upon his enemies and to end his own life by beating his head violently against the cane of the Heavenly Bamboo which grew there. By his mad battering he at last succeeded in knocking down the towering trunk of the tree, and as he did so its top tore great rents in the canopy of the sky, through which poured great floods of water, inundating the whole earth and drowning all the inhabitants except the victorious Queen and ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... you as noisy as a magpie. If you're not whistling, you're singing some damned rake of an Irish song and if you're not singing, you're at the piano battering out a scrap-heap ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... little. It had been taken by the Germans in the autumn of 1914, after their retreat from the Marne, and they had held it until about a year ago, when it was retaken by the English and the Chasseurs d'Alpins. They had been able to reduce it and to drive the Germans out, only by battering it down with artillery; ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... after it. But he did not sigh. He puffed away at his pipe as if entirely satisfied with his lot. He was still watching the brougham when a surface-car came gliding swiftly around a curve. There was a smash of splintering wood and breaking glass. The car had struck the brougham a battering-ram blow, crushing a rear wheel and snapping the steel ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... deeply into my trousers-pocket, as if feeling for the price of a "liquor," and the man having involuntarily allowed me a little swing for this, I suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran at him as if my head were a battering-ram, and his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleaguered city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, and dodging the leg he had put out to trip me, I ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in doubt as to the lady's disposition toward him, Edward eased his heart with sneers at the soft, sanguinary graciousness they were to expect, and racked mythology for spiteful comparisons; while Algernon vehemently defended her with a battering fire of British adjectives in superlative. He as much as hinted, under instigation, that he was entitled to defend her; and his claim being by-and-by yawningly allowed by Edward, and presuming that he now had Edward in his power and need not fear him, he exhibited ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... swirls round some steadfast rock. A posse of police from the back fought their way steadily towards him, and charged up the heights of the platform steps, only to be sent tumbling backwards, as their leader was hurled at them like a battering-ram. Upon the top of the heap he fell, surmounting the strata of policemen. But others clambered upon them, escalading the platform. A moment more and Mortlake would have been taken. Then ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... be sufficiently accurate in saying that the corresponding period in the fifth century (namely, from about 404 to 420 A. D.) first witnessed those uproars of ruin in Egypt and Alexandria—fire racing along the old carious timbers, battering- rams thundering against the ancient walls of the most horrid temples— which rang so searchingly in the ears of Zosimus, extorting, at every blow, a howl of Pagan sympathy from that ignorant calumniator of Christianity. So far from the fact being, according to the general prejudice, as though Constantine ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... The system of warfare and defence pursued by these people, is undoubtedly excellent for the peculiarities of the country. Their stockades are usually built of any thick teak timber, or rather squared trees, which are much too strong to be penetrated by any other than battering cannon, and, in consequence, were invariably carried by escalade. Some of them are built of bamboos, running from a foot to two feet in diameter. These are equally strong, with the peculiarity that if you fire ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... A battering-ram broke down the prison-door. There stood Wallace and his men, their weapons and armour covered with blood. De Valence, evading the clutch of Kirkpatrick, thrust his dagger into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various |
