However, he was of strong and athletic build, and with a well-affected, good-humoured bluffness, he was able to push back the foremost aggressors without having recourse to any weapon.
"The Luck of Gerard Ridgeley"
Bertram Mitford
But there was more than an East Anglian bluffness in the statement and the manner of its delivery, as his next observation at once explained.
"The Last Hope"
Henry Seton Merriman
Having met a good deal of the sea, they knew, like a man who has felt a good deal of the world, that heavy endurance and patient bluffness are safer to get through the waves somehow than sensitive fibre and elegant frame.
"Springhaven A Tale of the Great War"
R. D. Blackmore