Straight across, regardless of obstacles. “To send a person to hell across lots” was a phrase much used by Brigham Young.
1825. If the door wan’t shot arter ’em, they could push on, a pooty, tedious, clever bit furder, cross lots.—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ i. 138.
1834. So I set off to fetch ’em round ’cross lots.—Vermont Free Press, Nov. 8.
1844. He got over the fence, and went across the lots very fast.—Miss Sedgwick, ‘Tales and Sketches,’ p. 246 (N.Y.).
a. 1848. All ye who see bugaboos in the dim distance, and would cut ’cross lots to eternity.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 70.
1849.
| An’ see (acrost lots in a pond | |
| That warn’t more’n twenty rod beyond) | |
| A goose that on the water sot, | |
| Ez ef awaitin’ to be shot. | |
Lowell, ‘The Two Gunners.’ |
1853. [I dreamed that] I took my large bowie knife, that I used to wear as a bosom pin in Nauvoo, and cut one of their throats from ear to ear, saying, “Go to hell across lots.”—Brigham Young, March 27: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 83.
1853. By what means did He keep the mob from destroying us? It was by means of being well armed with the weapons of death to send them to hell cross lots.—The same, July 31: id., i. 171.
1869. I came cross lots from Aunt Sawin’s, and I got caught in those pesky blackberry bushes in the graveyard.—H. B. Stowe, ‘Old Town Folks,’ chap. vi.
1889. The effect of such railroading to the eye was quite picturesque, as a [army wagon] train wound its serpentine course along the country, up hill and down dale, appearing much as if it had jumped the track, and was going across lots to its destination.—J. D. Billings, ‘Hardtack and Coffee,’ p. 351.
