"Covert" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as they thus confronted each other, must have called them a strange couple. Why they should be mistress and servant was not a matter to be determined upon a first light guess. Indeed, they seemed scarcely such. From dark eye to dark eye there seemed to pass a signal of covert understanding, a signal of doubt, or suspicion, or armed ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... power in the tumult, which obliges their rulers to gloss over their oppression with a show of right. Thus, as wars, agriculture, commerce, and literature, expands the mind, despots are compelled, to make covert corruption hold fast the power which was formerly snatched by open force.* And this baneful lurking gangrene is most quickly spread by luxury and superstition, the sure dregs of ambition. The indolent puppet of a court first ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... depressed, despondent, gloomy, melancholy, heavy-spirited, sorrowful, dismal, dejected, disconsolate, miserable, lugubrious. Satiate, sate, surfeit, cloy, glut, gorge. Scoff, jeer, gibe, fleer, sneer, mock, taunt. Secret, covert, surreptitious, furtive, clandestine, underhand, stealthy. Seep, ooze, infiltrate, percolate, transude, exude. Sell, barter, vend, trade. Shape, form, figure, outline, conformation, configuration, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the right whale fishery, they were only anxious to prevent the colonists of New South Wales from embarking in the sperm whale fishery; and could they have accomplished this object without running the risk of discovering the covert aim of the act in its progress through parliament, they would have gladly compromised this point with them, and have left the right whale fishery open to them on the same conditions as it was before the enactment of this bill. To have evinced, however, any such tolerant inclination might have betrayed ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... the cabin, and brought out the clay pipe. They smoked. Willock cast covert glances toward the girl. She stood slim and straight, her face rigid, her eyes fixed on the horse whose halter she held. Her limbs were bare and a blanket that descended to her knees seemed her only garment. The face ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... but with covert approval. Wary though he was, like all idealists, regarding the things near to his soul, it now for the first time struck him that he wished very much that Miss Maitland should understand what meant so much to him. And he ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... sent on to examine the covert of rocks, while Karl and the shikarree remained in the rear to intercept the deer if it attempted ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... sense, for you who look with such tender regard upon the bright heavens, the verdant meadows, the pure air. I know a country instinct with delights of every kind, an unknown paradise, a secluded corner of the world—where alone, unfettered and unknown, in the thick covert of the woods, amid flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my prince. I do not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read to the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... as the feathers quivered, and the barb thrilled, about to leap from the terse string, the tall form of the soldier sprang up into the clear moonlight from the underwood, and crying "Hold! hold!" mastered her bowhand, with the speed of light, and dragged her down into the covert. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... crowd had edged up to the two gentlemen with apparent carelessness, to overhear their conversation. Those who did overhear repeated it in covert asides, and this circulating undertone, confirming a vague rumor that Beaucaire would attempt the entrance that night, lent a pleasurable color of excitement to the evening. The French prince, the ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... northwest toward Germanna and Ely's Fords. This would enable him to reach, without discovery, the Orange Plank-road, or Old Turnpike, west of Chancellorsville, as the woods through which the narrow highway ran completely barred him from observation. Unless Federal spies were lurking in the covert, or their scouting-parties of cavalry came in sight of the column, it would move as secure from discovery as though it were a hundred miles distant from the enemy; and against the latter danger of cavalry-scouts, Stuart's presence with his horsemen provided. The movement was thus made without alarming ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... busy serving tea, but she cast covert glances in Blue Bonnet's direction. There was something beside the "rounding out" that interested her. There was a different air, a decided improvement in her niece. What was it? Not poise—yet! It was too soon ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... the lightness of a hare. He had also the hare's address in doubling and turning. His pursuers never knew, did he pass from sight behind a covert of tents and mounds, where he would bob up next. He avoided shafts and pools as if by a miracle; ran along greasy planks without a slip; and, where these had been removed to balk the police, he jumped the holes, taking risks that were not for a ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... now; this woman is wiser in her own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. Now also the covert for the Sabbath must be turned to the use of the king of Assyria, &c. (2 Kings 16:18). Thus has the beauty of God's church betrayed her into the hands of her lovers, who loved her for themselves, for the devil, and for the making of her a seat, a throne for the man of sin. And poor woman, all ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... efforts made by man for saving life, and diminishing suffering, in comparison with the deeds of havoc and destruction which have been so much gloried in, in ages that are past. The Life-Boat rests in its retreat, not like a ferocious beast of prey, crouching in its covert to seize and destroy its hapless victims, but like an angel of mercy, reposing upon her wings, and watching for danger, that she may spring forth, on the first warning, to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... usual manner. That is to say, every Congressman who presumed to ask what it was all about, or to point out obvious defects in the bill, was disposed of by the insinuation, or even the direct charge, that he was a covert defender of obscene books, and, by inference, of the carnal recreations described in them. We have grown familiar of late with this process: it was displayed at full length in the passage of the Mann Act, and again when the Webb Act and the Prohibition Amendment were before Congress. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... confin'd, Art not concern'd in what is left behind; While we sustain the losse that thou art gone, Un-essenc'd in the separation; And he that weeps thy funerall, in one Is pious to the widdow'd nation. And under what (now) covert must I sing, Secure as if beneath a cherub's wing; When thou hast tane thy flight hence, and art nigh In place to some related hierarchie, Where a bright wreath of glories doth but set Upon thy head an equal coronet; And thou, above our humble converse gon, Canst but be reach'd by contemplation. ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... nettle shaft through air was borne, Feathered with down of the hum-bird's wing. And now they deemed the courier-ouphe, Some hunter sprite of the elfin ground; And they watched till they saw him mount the roof That canopies the world around; Then glad they left their covert lair, And freaked about ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... made a point of acquainting himself with the private correspondence of his own relatives, his ministers, and his generals. After the revolution of September 1870, hundreds of copies of more or less compromising letters, covert attacks on or criticisms of the Imperial Government, billets-doux also between Imperial princes and their mistresses, and so forth, were found at the Palace of the Tuilleries; and some of them were even published by a commission nominated by the ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... calm exterior, and perhaps some wickedness. It is true she never was with him precisely as she was before the world. The character of their relations was marked by a peculiar tone. It was precisely that tone of covert irony adopted by two persons who desired neither to remember nor to forget. This tone, softened in the language of Camors by his worldly tact and his respect, was much more pointed, and had much more of bitterness on the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... around is now still as death, not a whisper is heard, but a total inactivity and silence seem to pervade the earth; the birds afraid to utter a chirrup, in low tremulous voices take leave of each other, seeking covert and safety: every insect is silenced, and nothing heard but the roaring of the approaching hurricane. The mighty cloud now expands its sable wings, extending from north to south, and is driven irresistibly on by the tumultuous winds, spreading its livid wings ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever; I will trust in the covert of thy wings." ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... aid of this damsel, from the clutches of the demon. Our escape was effected on horseback, and we had to plunge into the lake. The immersion deprived my fair preserver of sensibility, so that as soon as I landed, and gained a covert where I fancied myself secure, I dismounted, and tried to restore her. While I was thus occupied, the steed I had brought with me broke his bridle, and darted off into the woods. After a while, Mabel opened ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Friday afternoons. It was a cherished aim of the Club to uproot foolish superstitions, hence Friday. It did not seem in the least risky to the ordinary person for a woman to attend a meeting of the Zenith Club on a Friday, in preference to any other day in the week; but many a member had a covert feeling that she was somewhat heroic, especially if the meeting was held at the home of some distant member on an icy day in winter, and she was obliged to make ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... clothes which would lead to its identification, and, for the next few days, every glance in his direction, or, for the matter of that, in any other direction, was interpreted by him as having some covert allusion to this foundling grandchild of his; but the conversation of some men outside his yew-hedge, which he accidentally overheard one day, set ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, pointed out in a careful dispatch to the Russian Government that Korea was a region which fell naturally under the sway of Japan. Not only has a tragic fate overcome the sixteen million inhabitants of that country, but there has been a covert extension of the principles applied to them to ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... pricked a tufted ear; Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, And once a town declared me for a spy; But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, Since this poor covert where I pass the night, This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip And share with ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... of the breath—by those snugly ensconced within that other horse of famous memory, the Trojan, which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive force of the garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow, as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they suffer or dislike, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... I am thus led to reject the alternative of immolation. Spartian's own words, quem muliebriter flevit, as well as the subsequent acts of the Emperor and the acquiescence of the whole world in the new deity, prove to my mind that in the suggestion of extispicium we have one of those covert calumnies which it is impossible to set aside at this distance of time, and which render the history of Roman Emperors and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... conjugal monosyllable dropping from Fairthorn's lips was as much cut in two as if a shark had snapped it. Unspeakably frightened, the poor man sidled away, thrust himself behind a tall reading-desk, and, peering aslant from that covert, whimpered out, "Don't, don't now, don't be so awful; I did not mean to offend, but I'm always saying something I did not mean; and really you look so young still" (coaxingly), ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Splatchett's" boundary, and one of their own beaters reported that two boys were stationed in the road, each tapping two sticks together to confine the pheasants to that strip of land, on which the low larches and high grass afforded a strong covert. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... transaction of her life, her marriage with Reinwald, Court Librarian of Meiningen, had its origin in 1783; the fruit of that forced retreat of Schiller's to Bauerbach, and of the eight months he spent there, under covert, anonymously and in secret, as 'Dr. Ritter,' with Reinwald for his one friend and adviser. Reinwald, who commanded the resources of an excellent Library, and of a sound understanding, long seriously and painfully ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... replied, 'O deer, kings behave in the matter of slaying animals of thy species exactly as they do in the matter of slaying foes. It behoveth thee not, therefore, to reprove me thus from ignorance. Animals of thy species are slain by open or covert means. This, indeed, is the practice of kings. Then why dost thou reprove me? Formerly, the Rishi Agastya, while engaged in the performance of a grand sacrifice, chased the deer, and devoted every deer in the forest unto the gods in general. Thou hast been slain, pursuant to the usage sanctioned ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... possibly a coat of tan covert cloth with strapped seams, but it is the startling climax which claims attention. An owl! Surely not, Mr. Payne! It may have been a parrot, for once upon a time, before the Audubon Society met with widespread recognition, women wore such things, and ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... vessel approach, and an officer put off from her. He had been sent by the governor, who was on board, and had been going up the river to call on the captain of the French ship, and express his regret at not having seen him at Bathurst in the morning—a covert complaint, in fact. On hearing who I was, and that I expected to go to Bathurst the following day, he sent me word that he would ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... fiction, Martha rejects Alfred Barton, who, indeed, is but a cool and timid wooer, and a weak, selfish, spiritless man, of few good impulses, with a dull fear and dislike of his own father, and a covert tenderness for Gilbert. The last, being openly accepted by Martha, and forbidden, with much contumely, to see her, by her father, applies himself with all diligence to paying off the mortgage on his farm, in order ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Ruth, tearful with the memory of that last look from Mr. Denner's dying eyes, tried to approach the subject delicately, but was met with such amazing certainty on the part of Miss Deborah, and a covert allusion to the value of the miniature, that she was silenced. And again,—on Dr. Howe's return from Lockhaven,—Miss Deborah's condescension in telling Miss Ruth she might accompany her to the graveyard fell somewhat flat when she found that her sister had intended going, and ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... now impatient pony when her ear caught the sound of a smothered hand-clap, and, whirling about in swift hope and surprise, her face once more darkened at sight of an Indian girl, Apache unquestionably, crouching in the leafy covert of the opposite willows and pointing silently down stream. For a moment, without love or fear in the eyes of either, the white girl and the brown gazed at each other across the intervening water mirror ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... had by going some little distance from Constantinople. It usually is done either by beaters or with boarhounds; but I have had very good sport at boar while hunting for woodcocks and pheasants, in what may be called covert shooting—not exactly English covert shooting, in which almost every tree is known by the keepers, but in coverts of great extent, in which there are almost impassable thickets, made still more impassable by a well-known bramble ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... water—inconceivably fresh music for African ears. A scent of mint and aniseed; fields with grass growing high and straight in which you plunge up to the knees. Here and there, deeply engulfed little valleys with their bunches of green covert, slashed with the rose plumes of the lime trees and the burnished leaves of the hazels, and where already the northern firs lift their black needles. Far off, blended in one violet mass, the Alps, peak upon peak, covered with snow; and nearer in view, sheer cliffs, jutting fastnesses, ploughed ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the dogs!" Sort had said. And all Marie Melsen's covert allusions had meant the same thing. But what then? Perhaps he had already gone to the dogs! Suppose there was no other escape than this! But now he would sleep, and think no more of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... a long passage, into which the moon was shining, and came to a door. She managed to open it, and, to her great joy, found herself in the other place, not on the top of the wall, however, but in the garden she had longed to enter. Noiseless as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs, her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, by the very touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so sweet and friendly to them. A soft little wind was out among the ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... you woman fitter for the swarthy monsters? Why do you send tokens, why billet-doux to me, and not to some vigorous youth, and of a taste not nice? For I am one who discerns a polypus, or fetid ramminess, however concealed, more quickly than the keenest dog the covert of the boar. What sweatiness, and how rank an odor every where rises from her withered limbs! when she strives to lay her furious rage with impossibilities; now she has no longer the advantage of moist cosmetics, and her color appears as if stained ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... woman, land, harsh words, natural incompatibility, and injury.[414] When the person with whom hostility occurs happens to be a man of liberality, he should never be slain, particularly by a Kshatriya, openly or by covert means. In such a case, the man's fault should be properly weighed.[415] When hostility has arisen with even a friend, no further confidence should be reposed upon him. Feelings of animosity lie hid like fire in wood. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... so crude as a sensation, but with a retinue of covert looks following in her train, she made her way to the young hostess, and was there joined by two men and a middle-aged woman, who plainly had been a beauty, and though 'gone to fat,' as the vulgar say, had ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... biscuits, to have them ready for the ducks. She must needs wonder if she'd forgotten the salt, and for ten minutes she was almost in a panic at the thought, while he watched her in breathless wonderment, and took covert glances up the Mississippi River, fearful of, and yet almost wishing to see, that pursuing motorboat ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... pointed out, the men must have made a circuit of open ground, which it was impossible they could have accomplished in so short a time. A thick wood skirted the meadow-land in another direction; but they could not have gained that covert for the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... her voice had vanished now. After all she had not changed. What he had supposed was a return of the old cameraderie was but another of her covert sneers. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... only at eleven to-morrow, because the first covert is at a corner of the park, quite near, and if it is fine we are all coming out with you until luncheon which we have in the house; then you go to the far coverts in the motors. When, I wonder, would be best?"—It seemed so nice to ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... spinster, with a stiff bow, slipped past the lawyer and into the reception room without seeing his outstretched hand. Spencer's florid complexion turned a deeper tint as he met Henry's blank stare, but a covert glance at the Whitneys convinced him that they had not ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... legislative assemblies that had brought me to comprehend the "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," for which the average politician is "peculiar," the ruse would have succeeded. I remained at headquarters, enduring alike the open attacks of the venal press and the more covert opposition of the saloons and brothels, and, as vigilantly as I could, watched all legislative movements, taking much pains to keep the public mind excited through the columns of the Daily Oregonian and the weekly issues of the New Northwest. The bill, which had been prepared by Professor William ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... somewhat wider range, for she had traveled. Just what topics were favored in those long undertone conversations with Mr. Barlow only Elsie Howard could have told, as the seat on the other side of the pair was occupied by the deaf old gentleman. There were many covert glances and much suppressed laughter, but neither of the two old maids opposite were able to catch the drift of the low-voiced dialogue, so it remained a tantalizing mystery. Mrs. Pendleton, when pleased ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... his equally wily friends. They professed to be organizing an opposition party to oust the dictatorial Percival and his clique from office at the ensuing election,—a feat, they admitted, that could be accomplished only by the most adroit and covert "educational" campaign, "under the rose" perforce, but justifiable in the circumstances. They had led Landover to believe that he was their choice for governor. They went among the people, insidiously ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... firs, and then, turning, dipped over the edge and began to wind in sharp loops down the other side of the ridge. Down we scrambled, single file, our chins on a level with the top of the passage, the close green covert above us. The "bowel" went twisting down more and more sharply into a deep ravine; and presently, at a bend, we came to a fir-thatched outlook, where a soldier stood with his back to us, his eye glued to a peep-hole in the ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Eve the moon was holding high carnival. Wrapped in a costume of silvery radiance, she was displaying her charms to the busy throng beneath with all the coquetry she could summon, to her aid, darting quick glances at youths and maidens, and by covert smiles bringing even the middle-aged man of business to her feet. The air is also influenced by her wooing, and is inclined to be less severe than some hours earlier. Floods of light are radiating King Square, giving even to its leafless trees a charm of softness and effect. Pedestrians ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... one; and in defence of practices, the cruelty of which has been challenged as abhorrent to the conscience of mankind, we have distorted and exaggerated claims of utility; we have assertions that have no basis in fact; we have covert appeals to woman's fears in her greatest emergency, and to that sentiment, the noblest almost that man himself can entertain—his solicitude for the mother of his children in her hour of peril. To the malign influence of untrue suggestion no bounds can be placed; in the creation of ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... quantities as to form a natural raft; under this he dived, and swam below water until he succeeded in getting a breathing place between the floating trunks of trees, whose branches and bushes formed a covert several feet above the level of the water. He had scarcely drawn breath after all his toils, when he heard his pursuers on the river bank, whooping and yelling like so many fiends. They plunged in the river, and swam to the raft. The heart of Colter almost died ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... more to vanity than to a desire to find favour with Lord Hunsdon. But she was seldom far from Anne Percy, whose propinquity he could enjoy even if debarred communion. And Lady Mary frequently made Anne the theme of her remarks, in entertaining the poet; whose covert admiration she too detected and encouraged, although not without resentment. Miss Percy was undeniably handsome and high-born, but alas, quite lacking in fashion, in style, in ton. Not that Lady Mary despaired of her. If she ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... these parleys, found her much dejected, and in Tears. He had always maintained a ghostly sway over her, and was in these latter days stern with her almost to harshness. And although I have ever disdained eavesdropping and couching in covert places to hear the foregatherings of my betters (which some honourable persons in the world's reckoning scorn not to do), it was by Chance, and not by Design, that, playing one wintry day in the Withdrawing-room ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... President Garfield set his face sternly against the bad practice of rewarding political adherents by allowing them to nominate officials in the public service—a species of covert corruption sanctioned by long usage in the United States. This honest and independent conduct raised up for him at once a host of enemies among his own party. The talk which they indulged in against the President produced a deep effect upon a half-crazy and wildly egotistic ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... part, laid covert plans to get the fair lady out of the fort, and with this in view pressed Hurtado to pay him a visit and bring his wife with him. This the Spaniard was loath to do, for Miranda had told him of her fears, and he suspected ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... scared glance round him, as though afraid that even the silence might be the silence of treachery, the gaunt figure advanced with covert eagerness across the floor, leaving the door wide open behind him, as if to be ready for him should he desire to fly; and precipitating himself upon a ewer of cold water standing upon the floor, he drank and drank and drank as though he ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cried Blanchard, "what is that for, you dog!" and with that he came forward to look over the bush. I hesitated, as I said, and attempted to look behind me; but there was no time: the next step discovered two assassins lying in covert, waiting for blood. "Coward, we are ruined!" cried my indignant friend; and that moment my piece was discharged. The effect was as might have been expected: the old man first stumbled to one side, and then fell on ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... open. Some who had been called from shops and warehouses, without other merit, to sit in supreme councils and committees (as their breeding was), fell to huckster the Commonwealth. Others did thereafter as men could soothe and humor them best; so he who would give most, or under covert of hypocritical zeal insinuate basest, enjoyed unworthily the rewards of learning and fidelity, or escaped the punishment of his crimes and misdeeds. Their votes and ordinances, which men looked should have contained the repealing of bad laws, and the immediate constitution of better, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... oak-forests of Daghestan have served, from time immemorial, as a covert for innumerable herds of wild hogs; and although the Tartars—like the Mussulmans—hold it a sin not only to eat, but even to touch the unclean animal, they consider it a praiseworthy act to destroy them—at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... egoism. New Greece, with her hazardous northern frontier, needs to cultivate friendship, and will have to employ all her strategy to gain any. Her mainstay is, of course, England. For us Greece has the natural respect which a weak country pays to a strong friend, but she has also a curious covert regard for us as one nation of sailors for another, a petty maritime State for a great one. Her weakness is in asking material favours at the same time as she pays compliments. Greece is almost our ally in the Near East. French rivalry has bound British and Greeks together. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... passage might have gone for banter before the keenest eyes and the sharpest ears in Europe. I alone could know what a duel the two men were fighting behind their smiles. I alone could follow the finer shades, the mutual play of glance and gesture, the subtle tide of covert battle. So now I saw Levy debating with himself as to whether he should accept this impudent challenge and denounce Raffles there and then. I saw him hesitate, saw him reflect. The crafty, coarse, emphatic face was easily read; and when it suddenly lit ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... waters of the bayou, as motionless as a sleeping snake under its misty covert—to continue the poetical language or thought. The ripples ran frightened and shivering into the rooty thicknesses of the sedge-grown banks, startling the little birds bathing there into darting to the nearest, highest rush-top, where, without losing their hold on their swaying, balancing ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... they, who were so fond of a visible Deity, might have one, even a true and natural image of God the Father, the express image of his person." It only requires a little reflection to appreciate the Prelate's covert irony ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill
... and benevolence, which manifested itself in the somewhat singular method of making every one around them uncomfortable, and in the happy faculty which they possessed in an eminent degree, of imparting injurious doubts and covert insinuations as to the manners and habits of their neighbors, who else might have journeyed peacefully adown the vale of life in perfect good faith with all the world; moreover, they hated a mystery, did these two sister-spinsters, from their own innate ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... surprised him than to see Englishmen, the most learned and intelligent people in the world, visiting a place like Cintra, where there was no literature, science, nor anything of utility (coisa que presta). I suspect that there was some covert satire in the last speech of the worthy priest; I was, however, Jesuit enough to appear to receive it as a high compliment, and, taking off my hat, departed with an infinity ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... speaks loud; and I should wrong it To lock it in the wards of covert bosom, When it deserves, with characters of brass, A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time And rasure of oblivion. Give me your hand, And let the subject see, to make them know That outward courtesies would fain proclaim Favours that keep within.—Come, ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the masonry of the scarp, engineers first lowered the cordon to the level of the covert-way. Under these circumstances, the enemy, although he could no longer see it, reached it by a curved or "plunging" shot. When, in fact, for a given distance we load a gun with the heaviest charge that it will stand, the trajectory, AMB (Fig. 2), is as depressed as possible, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... legislative honesty of the illustrious Chamber that was dying as it would seem of indigestion. A whimsical result! his efforts to get his daughter married secured him a splendid popularity. He perhaps found some covert advantage in selling his truffles twice over. This accusation, started by certain mocking Liberals, who made up by their flow of words for their small following in the Chamber, was not a success. The Poitevin gentleman had always been so noble and so honorable, ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... no sound to wake The primal forest's awful shade; And breathless lies the covert brake, Where many an ambushed form is laid: I see the red-man's gleaming eye, Yet all so hushed the gloom profound, That summer birds flit heedlessly, And mocking nature ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... she drew me playfully toward her, dragged me down, and held up her lips. I touched them with my own; they were as cold as ice, or the cheek my own face just touched in passing. I went to the table; took my seat; and madam poured out the tea, with a covert glance toward me. I was not looking at ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot; Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... attempt at a smile. Poor fellow! as I thought of his wife I wondered that he could have heart to put on even the semblance of mirth. At last I ventured a home thrust. I determined to commence a series of covert insinuations, or innuendos, about the oblong box, just to let him perceive, gradually, that I was not altogether the butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasant mystification. My first observation was by ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... out, Peggy!" shouted Cibber. "I know the run—there's the covert! Hark, forward! ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... that covert! If this was acting it was marvelous; there had not been the slightest flicker of ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... clover, a pale poplar stands With glimmering leaves that, when the wind comes, beat Together like innumerable small hands, And with the calm, as in vague dreams astray, Hang wan and silver-grey; Like sleepy maenads, who in pale surprise, Half-wakened by a prowling beast, have crept Out of the hidden covert, where they slept, At ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... fright at his first expression of faith; he must "be wise as the serpent and harmless as the dove." He must work upon her soul alone, and secretly. He, who would have shrunk from any clandestine association with a girl from mere human affection, saw no wrong in a covert intimacy for the purpose of religious salvation. Ignorant as he was of the ways of the world, and inexperienced in the usages of society, he began to plan methods of secretly meeting her with all the intrigue of ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... irreparable was this disgrace and calamity of a black skin, and how irreparable it must be for ages yet, in this world where every other shame and all manner of wilful guilt and wickedness may hope for covert and pardon, I had little heart to laugh. Indeed, it was so pathetic to hear this poor old soul talk of her dead and lost ones, and try, in spite of all Mr. Johnson's theories and her own arrogant generalizations, to establish their whiteness, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... was giving his consent to the match; that was his temper, his proud, evil temper; but he really and permanently was satisfied with the connection, though he would occasionally turn round on his nephew-in-law, and sting him with a covert insult, as to his want of birth, and the inferior position which he held, forgetting, apparently, that his own brother-in-law and Lettice's father might be at any moment brought to the bar of justice if he attempted ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... thinking, conspiring with personal good-will, I should have the firm support of Mr. Madison in the general course of my administration." But when he found in Madison his most determined opponent, either open or covert, in the most important measures he urged upon Congress,—the settlement of the domestic debt, the assumption of the debts of the States, and the establishment of a national bank,—he was compelled to seek for other than public motives for this opposition. "It had been," he declared, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Germany, being situated in the midst of Europe, had many neighbours, most of whom had more reason to fear her than to like her. Any exhibition of goodwill between these neighbours was treated by German statesmen, for years before the war, as a covert act of hostility to Germany, amply justifying reprisals. The treaty between France and Russia, wholly defensive in character, the expression of goodwill between France and England, inspired in part by fears of the restless ambitions of Germany, though both were intended to guarantee the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... After his entrance into the great square, they were still to remain under cover, withdrawn from observation, till the signal was given by the discharge of a gun, when they were to cry their war-cries, to rush out in a body from their covert, and, putting the Peruvians to the sword, bear off the person of the Inca. The arrangement of the immense halls, opening on a level with the plaza, seemed to be contrived on purpose for a coup de theatre. Pizarro particularly ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... cries, and as eagerly as hounds in sight of a fox, the Spaniards gave over their careful beating of every covert, and rushed from all sides towards the scene of disturbance. Several of them passed so close to Ridge that he could have touched them, but in their blind haste they failed to notice him. In another moment they had swept ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... tell what thief or foe, In the covert of the night, For his prey will work my woe, Or through wicked foul despite? So may I die unredrest Ere my ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... over and speak to the little girl, Jim," suggested old Dick Neeland, as he motioned the dogs into covert again. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... same 'covert of wings' that David used when things spun too fast for him," answered Mr. Goodloe with the jeweled radiance that always came from his face when he spoke of his faith even casually. "Only 'where there is no vision the people perish,' and a people who invent flying machines and hold international ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that its truth is to some extent acknowledged in the existing marriage-law of several countries. As a set-off against this, no woman can have a child entirely her own except by incurring what are called "social disadvantages." The hare that breaks covert incurs social disadvantages. A happy turn of events had shielded Rosalind from the hounds, or they had found better sport elsewhere. And her ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... of them. "Keep her out of covert or they'll lose her," and he threw out his arms and began to jump about, ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... all might come out. In time, Helena would know that this yacht which she supposed to be Davidson's was my own, that the farm I was supposed to have rented really was a handsome estate that I owned, that many covert deeds in finance had been my own—it was only my silence and my absence in many parts of the world which had prevented her, also much a traveler, from knowing the truth about me long ago. And the truth was, I was not a poor ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... side of the forest. From the city walls they were seen in sweeping droves, flying before the Swedish cavalry for a course of ten, fifteen, or even thirty miles, until headed and compelled to turn by another party breaking suddenly from a covert, where they had been waiting their approach. Sometimes it would happen that this second party proved to be a body of imperialists, who were carried by the ardor of the chase into the very centre of their enemies ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Black Rim folk had drawn together like a wolf pack, and were waiting only until he was down before they rushed in to rend him and his family. Old grudges were brought out and aired secretly. It would go hard with the Lorrigan family if Tom were found guilty. Although he sensed the covert malice behind the smiles men gave him, he would not yield one inch from his mocking disparagement of the whole affair. He laid down a law or two to his boys, and bade them hold their tongues and go their way and give no ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... villains provided themselves with large sticks, loaded at the end with lead; with these, from behind a hedge, they were able to knock down passengers as they walked along the road, and then starting from their covert, easily plunder and bind them if they thought proper. They had carried on this detestable practice for a long space in almost all those roads which lead to the little villages whither people go for pleasure from the hurry and ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... on a woman, in a synagogue, and by all these characteristics was specially interesting to Luke. He alone records it. The narrative falls into two parts—the miracle, and the covert attack of the ruler of the synagogue, with our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... death-dealing volley, from the gallant Kentuckians, decided their course of action; and again yelling fearfully, they parted to the right and left, and bearing their dead and wounded with them, rushed for the covert of a neighboring forest. At the same moment, the party which had sallied forth upon the Lexington road, to make a feint of attacking their decoys, entered the fort by the eastern gate, in high spirits at the success ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... a torrent of flame— There were nineteen couple and over, And a huntsman grey Who blew them away With the note of a true hound-lover, While his Whip sat back On her rough old hack And called to the last in covert. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... end they marched in five respective bodies, and by agreement were to make the attack at the same time. The captains Jahier and Laurentio passed through two defiles in the woods, and came to the place in safety, under covert; but the other three bodies made their approaches through an open country, and, consequently, were more exposed to ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... signify to it. The invention is beautiful, but I do not think there can be found in the world a magnet that has such a virtue. Neither is the thing expedient, for treason would be too frequent and too covert." ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... was certainly not knowledge of this that drove Walter into the wide, lonely park. "Away from men!" moans the wounded life. Away from the herd flies the wounded deer; away from the flock staggers the sickly sheep—to the solitary covert to die. The man too thinks it is to die; but it is in truth so to return to life—if indeed he be a man, and not an abortion that can console himself with vile consolations. "You can not soothe me, my friends! leave me ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... given, and now softly drop On the warm ivory a double kiss. Seat thyself then, and with one hand draw closer Thy chair to hers, while every tongue is stilled. Thou only, bending slightly over, with her Exchange in whisper secret nothings, which Ye both accompany with mutual smiles And covert glances that betray, or seem At least, your tender passion ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... which thereby inspired the said clerks, prompting them to the perpetration of several rash and unparalleled pieces of presumption—such as drinking wine with each other (an act of free-will on their part almost unprecedented), and indulging in sundry sly pieces of covert humour, such as handing the vinegar to each other when the salt was requested, and becoming profusely apologetic upon discovering their mistake. But the wildest storm is often succeeded by the greatest ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... the schedule, which the guests often came down to Gaydene ostensibly to accomplish, but they sent men back to town with increased energy and good humour, and kept the party in heart. Towards the end of the month the premier came down, and for him the Blue Ribbon Covert had been reserved, though he really cared little for sport. It was an eighteenth century tradition that knights of the garter only had been permitted to shoot this choice preserve, but Mr. Sidney Wilton, in this advanced age, did not of course ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... I shrink out; and am not easy until I have run to bury my head in my mother's bosom. Alas! pride cannot always find such covert! There will be times when it will harass you strangely; when it will peril friendships—will sever old, standing intimacy; and then—no resource but to feed on its own bitterness. Hateful pride!—to be conquered, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... with severe, but polite attention; she showed no vexation for fear of losing her customers. The lady insisted upon being called the Marchioness of Parolignac. Her daughter, aged fifteen, was among the punters, and notified with a covert glance the cheatings of the poor people who tried to repair the cruelties of fate. The Perigordian Abbe, Candide and Martin entered; no one rose, no one saluted them, no one looked at them; all were profoundly ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... intelligent birds in existence. Indeed, he is a genuine humorist, and many amusing stories are told of his pranks. His powers of mimicry are but slightly surpassed by those of the mocking-bird, and it is his delight to send the smaller feathered tribes to covert by imitating the cries of the sparrow, hawk, and other birds of prey. When so tame as to haunt the neighborhood of dwellings, he is unwearied in playing his tricks on domestic fowls, and they—silly creatures!—never ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... kept his immediate neighbors in a state of semi-hysterical mirth. The clink of wine glasses, the laughter of beautiful women, the murmur of cultivated voices, rising and swelling through the faint, mysterious gloom, made a picturesque, a wonderful scene. Pale as a marble statue, with the covert smile of the gracious host, Andrea Korust sat at the head of his table, well pleased with his company, as indeed he had the right to be. By his side was a great American statesman, who was traveling around the world ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... himself opposed by Captain Monk. Had he a suggestion to make for the welfare of the parish, his patron ridiculed it; did he venture to propose some wise measure at a vestry meeting, the Captain put him and his measure down. Not civilly either, but with a stinging contempt, semi-covert though it was, that made its impression on the farmers around. The Reverend George West was a man of humility, given to much self-disparagement, so he bore all in silence and hoped ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... wish to be assured of that faith which vanquishes every error,[1] "did ever any one who afterwards was blessed go out from here, either by his own or by another's merit?" And he, who understood my covert speech, answered, "I was new in this state when I saw a Mighty One come hither crowned with sign of victory. He drew out hence the shade of the first parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah, of Moses the law-giver and obedient, Abraham the patriarch, and David the King, Israel with his father, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... named Tiny, Sir Francis Drake, and Luther—I fear the last name had a covert allusion to the ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... but a few days of the four months between the inauguration of President Garfield and his assassination that he could be said to have had any enjoyment out of the great office. It brought him only bitter cares, venomous criticisms, lurking malice, covert threats ambushed in demands that were unreasonable if not irrational. He felt keenly the accusation that he had been nominated when his duty was due another; and he was aware that friends had given color to accusation ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... sweet memories, like fragments of a dream, We hear the dip of paddle blades, the ripple of the stream, The mad, mad rush of frightened wings from brake and covert start, The breathing of the woodland, the throb ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... And thus our whole company, being fourteen in number, travelled on till night overtook us, without seeing anything unless a few birds and some very insignificant animals. We rested all night under the covert of some trees, and indeed we very little wanted shelter at that season, the heat in the day being the only inclemency we had to combat with in this climate. I cannot help telling you my old friend lay still nearest me on the ground, and declared he would be my protector should any of ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... grew stronger, and though Rosemary rather dreaded the visit, she came away feeling that next term in school she and Fannie would be, if not close friends, at least on amiable terms instead of irritatingly hostile which had been their covert attitude this ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... large number, among whom were many rich, cultivated, and kindly people; these last, above all, needed watching, and were most dangerous. In looking over the harsh treatment of the Tories by the rebels, it should be remembered that a covert enemy is more dangerous than an open one, and that the Tories comprised both of these. Many men of property and character in Massachusetts were in favour of England, partly from conviction and partly from ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... greatly furthered the establishment of civilized rule in the province conquered by Clive. He accomplished this in the face of difficulties and all dissensions in his own Council, against subtle native intrigues, against opposition open and covert of the most persistent kind. Every creature who throve out of the disorganization of India naturally worked, in the daylight or in the dark, against Hastings's efforts at organization. In 1771, when he was made Governor of Bengal, he had attempted much and succeeded in much. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... aimed at the Methodists, as they alone answered the description of the parties referred to by the petitioners. The petition was also a covert re-statement of the often disproved charge of disloyalty, etc., on the part of the Methodists. The House very properly came ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... music in the stirring wind When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone Whose ancient trees, on the rough slope reclined, Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sear. If in such shades, beneath their murmuring, Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring, With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year; Chiefly ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... who deny that it is the novelist's vocation to do more than merely amuse them; who shrink from all honest and serious reference, in books, to subjects which they think of in private and talk of in public everywhere; who see covert implications where nothing is implied, and improper allusions where nothing improper is alluded to; whose innocence is in the word, and not in the thought; whose morality stops at the tongue, and never gets on to the heart—to those persons, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... fugitives from her tyranny,—slave-hunts, merely, on a national scale and at the common expense,—followed next in the march of events. Then Texas loomed in the distance, and, after years of gradual approach and covert advances, was first wrested from Mexico. Slavery next indissolubly chained to her, and then, by a coup d'etat of astonishing impudence, was added, by a flourish of John Tyler's pen, in the very article of his political dissolution, to "the Area of Freedom!" Next came ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... behind the western trees. But the valley was still bathed in its misty, vanishing light. Over the eastern ridge the gray glimmer of the little day was rising, faintly tinged with rose. It was time for the broken soldier to seek his covert and rest till ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... his own gallant nature was rather pleased than irritated by a haughtiness that at least seemed to bespeak independence of spirit. Nevertheless, L'Estrange's suspicions of Randal were too strong to be easily set aside, and therefore he replied, civilly, but with covert taunt, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... my mother said blandly; and in my covert I wondered what could be coming. Mark obeyed, and drawing his chair nearer the fire waited till she had laid aside her wrappings and seated herself in front of him. Then ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... reproachful silence. M. Verdurin, dreading the painful impression which the mention of these 'bores,' especially when flung at her in this tactless fashion, and in front of all the 'faithful,' was bound to make on his wife, cast a covert glance at her, instinct with anxious solicitude. He saw then that in her fixed resolution to take no notice, to have escaped contact, altogether, with the news which had just been addressed to her, not merely to remain dumb but to have been deaf as well, as we pretend ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... age when the Christian literature arose, a tendency to symbolism, which is seen outside the pale of Christianity. Moreover, the long time in which the profession of Christianity was dangerous, favoured the growth of symbolism as a covert means of mutual intelligence. Then Christian thought had in its own nature something which invited allegory, partly by its own hidden sympathies with Nature, and partly by its very immensity, for which all direct speech was ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... name, so likewise are the assemblies of the Revolution Church. As the Episcopalians owned the king, in the exercise of his Erastian supremacy over them, so the Revolution Church, instead of opposing, did take up her standing under the covert of that anti-christian supremacy, and has never since declined the exercise thereof. And, as the civil power prescribed limits unto, and at pleasure altered, the prelatic church, so this church has accepted of a formula, prescribed ...
— Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive • The Reformed Presbytery
... safe, snug, warm sheaf they dwelt, Till the long, cold night was gone, And softly and clear the sweet church bells Rang out on the Christmas dawn, When down from their covert, with fluttering wings, They flew to a resting-place, As the humble peasant passed slowly by, With a sorrowful, downcast face. "Homeless and friendless, alas! am I," They heard him sadly say, "For the sheriff," (he wept and wrung ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... self-conscious. He peered covertly at Tommy, and Tommy caught him at it every time, and then each quickly looked another way, and Cathro vowed never to look again, but did it next minute, and what enraged him most was that he knew Tommy noted his attempts at self-restraint as well as his covert glances. All the other pupils knew that a change for the worse had come over the dominie's temper. They saw him punish Tommy frequently without perceptible cause, and that he was still unsatisfied when the punishment was over. This apparently was because Tommy gave him a look before returning ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... made a covert allusion to the fact that if Michael had not failed her, she would, in the event of his death, have had a lover to comfort her. She chose to ignore his meaning, to speak as if Michael had no place in her thoughts. Freddy was not to be worried by things which ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... barking sound the Shepherd hears, A cry as of a dog or fox; He halts—and searches with his eyes Among the scattered rocks; And now at distance can discern A stirring in a brake of fern; And instantly a Dog is seen, Glancing through that covert green. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... Meredith (of which the first volume is a magnificent unfolding of the character of a great man) are full of references to popularity, references overt and covert. Meredith could never—and quite naturally—get away from the idea of popularity. He was a student of the English public, and could occasionally be unjust to it. Writing to M. Andre Raffalovich (who had sent him a letter ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... two turns about the deck, and each time as he passed the spot he sent a covert glance into the corner where Miss Guile's chair was standing. Of course he did not expect to find her there in weather like this, but—well, he looked and that is the end to the argument. The going was extremely treacherous and unpleasant he ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... follow. But Iris had no wish to meet San Benavides. If she were seen with him in the dark pateo at this late hour, fuel would be added to the fire of Carmela's foolish spite. She was aware of Carmela's covert glance watching her from the other end of the long room. What was to be done? Why not send Carmela in her stead? They were almost of the same height, and dressed somewhat alike in flowered muslin. It would be an amusing mistake, though annoying, perhaps, to San Benavides; at ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... respectful. He dusted a little heap of ashes from the small table beside him and scattered them with his foot, in a well-meant attempt to cover the traces of his previous untidiness. She watched him with a covert sneer. ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... was not in the Venetian post-office; but he saw that he brought her greater distress in ascertaining the fact. He got to dreading a look of resolute cheerfulness that came into her face, when he shook his head in sign that there were no letters, and he suffered from the covert eagerness with which she glanced at the superscriptions of those he brought and failed to find the hoped-for letter among them. Ordeal for ordeal, he was beginning to regret his trials under Mrs. Lander. In them he could at least demand ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Russians advancing more and more, no French help arrived yet, and the enthusiastic Polish Chivalry being good for nothing against regular musketry,—King Stanislaus finds that he will have to quit Warsaw, and seek covert somewhere. Quits Warsaw this day; gets covert in Dantzig. And, in fact, from this 22d of September, day of the autumnal equinox, 1733, is a fugitive, blockaded, besieged Stanislaus: an Imaginary King thenceforth. His real Kingship had ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves till something should amuse them. Among this strangely mingled party were some men with whom Lucien had had transactions, combining ostensibly kind offices with covert ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... sat there an unnoticed time when the sound of some heavy carriage approaching roused him. From his green covert he could see all that passed, and instinctively he looked up. It was the Barbizon diligence going in to meet the five o'clock train at Fontainebleau, a train which in these lengthening days very often brought guests to the inn. The correspondance had been only begun during the last week, and ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but the fox alone can cope with him in point of intellect and sagacity, and put him to all his shifts. It is this ingredient in fox-hunting—viz: the consciousness of having to do with a foe worthy of him, which brings men of all ages, sorts, kinds, intellects, characters, and professions to the covert side, uniting together occasionally as odd an assemblage as ever went into the ark. No man, when he puts on his top-boots in the morning, can say whether he may not be about to assist at a run which may live in story like ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... greater material for future triumphs than they had gotten in all their lives before at the feet of the greatest masters. Meanwhile the other two vaguely divided orders of gentlemen and sages were sight-seeing, whipping the covert or the pool with various success for our next day's dinner, or hunting specimens of all kinds,—Agassizing, so ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... the party in the cabin consisted of Captain Patterson, Mr. Covert, Mr. Anossoff, and myself. Mr. Covert was the engineer of the steamer, and amused us at times with accounts of his captivity on the Alabama after the destruction of the Hatteras. Captain Patterson was an ancient ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... her. How could she tell what wild, uncanny second nature had not grown up in him under those outlandish tropical skies? He had just told her that his ruin was absolute—overwhelming—yet there had been a covert smile in the recesses of his glance. Even now, she half felt, half heard, a chuckle from him, there as ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... horn and pelt our peoples melt In covert to abide; Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill Our Jungle Barons glide. Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain, That draw the new-yoked plough; Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... having reached the edge of the woods, and shut out the gadding town, we enter within their covert as we go under the roof of a cottage, and cross its threshold, all ceiled and banked up with snow. They are glad and warm still, and as genial and cheery in winter as in summer. As we stand in the midst of the pines, in the nickering and checkered light which straggles but little ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... His covert allusions and sharp innuendoes were perfectly understood by his hearers, and signs of dissentient feeling were rife among the crowd. Still, the people continued to listen, on the whole respectfully; for, whatever might be the sentiment of Old ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... she chanted, and lo— allured by her sorrowful accents— From the dark covert crept a red roe and wonderingly gazed on Winona. Then swift caught the huntress her bow; from her trembling hand hummed the keen arrow. Up-leaped the red roebuck and fled, but the white snow was sprinkled with scarlet, And he fell in the oak ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... indeed open country, wide and high. They talked and bounded on, Jude cutting from a little covert a long walking-stick for Sue as tall as herself, with a great crook, which made her look like a shepherdess. About half-way on their journey they crossed a main road running due east and west—the old road from London ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... her relatives is an English-educated lawyer, a bitter though covert foe, who not long ago stirred up such opposition that we were warned not to go near the place. Men had been hired "to fall upon us and beat us." This because a girl, a connection of his, read her ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... very difficult to employ in favor of establishment, and which, nine times out of ten, leaves its wielder fighting on the side of heterodoxy. Theological argument, when not enlivened by bigotry, is seldom worse than narcotic: but theological fun, when not covert heresy, is almost always sialagogue. The article in question is a craze, which no editor should have admitted, except after severe inspection by qualified persons. The author of this wit committed a mistake which occurs now and then in old satire, the confusion between himself and the party aimed ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... house, however, was dark, and only by chance did I catch the sly movement of one of the curtains and the glint of an eye, peeping out at me. Whoever its owner might be, he or she had crept across the tiled vestibule silently and was now behind the outer door conducting a covert investigation. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... its species, seeks the densest covert, and its hide is almost impenetrable, it is a difficult animal to bag. Its peltry being of about the same consistency and thickness as the vulcanized India Rubber used in cushioning billiard tables, balls often rebound from it without producing a score. This ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... I say it; I slept too late." Smiling, the Queen said: "Then are we both in the same case, for I also arose too late. But tarry with me, and soon ye will hear the baying of the hounds; for often I have known them break covert here." ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... grace and majesty of her time."[1] The lovely Montmorency on coming to Court in her fifteenth year had sorely troubled the heart of the amorous soldier-king, Henry of Navarre, who had married her in 1609 to his nephew of Conde with the covert hope of finding him an accommodating husband; but the latter, alike defiant and uxorious, made the jovial Bearnois plainly understand that he had wedded the blooming Charlotte exclusively for himself. The gaillard monarch, however, at ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... saw from their covert that the savages had a woman prisoner. A singular feature about it all was that the Indians remained in the same place all day, did not light a camp-fire, and kept a sharp lookout. The bordermen crept up as close as safe, and remained on watch ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... able to talk to him on that delicate subject in a way to make him uncomfortable and self-contradictory. There are various, quite innocent questions which the student of wild life may put to a keeper about foxes which have a disturbing effect on his brain. How to expel foxes from a covert, for example; and here is another: Is it true that the fox listens for the distressed cries of a rabbit pursued by a stoat and that he will deprive the stoat of his captive? Perhaps; Yes; No, I don't ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... inasmuch as I conceived that I knew where to find Herdegen and the young dancing wench, and I cared only to save his poor betrayed sweetheart from shame and sorrow. I crept away, unmarked, through the garden of herbs behind the lodge, to a moss but which my banished cousin had built up for me, in a covert spot between two mighty beech-trees, while I was yet ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... settled down to try to get some sleep, as some time still remained before dawn would break. He meant to be early astir. There was danger in the air, as he might be discovered unless he arranged for a better hiding place than the covert of ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... sparkling Hock no longer mantle in our glass; but Barclay's beer—nectar of gods and coalheavers—mixed with hippocrene—the Muses' "cold without"—is at present our only beverage. The grouse are by us undisturbed in their bloomy mountain covert. We are now content to climb Parnassus and our garret stairs. The Albany, that sanctuary of erring bachelors, with its guardian beadle, are to us but memories, for we have become the denizens of a roomy attic (ring the top bell twice), and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... movements in battle." It was doubtless the verification of this report to Grant's satisfaction that caused him finally to relieve that General from duty in the field, and in doing so to incur both his active and his covert hostility. ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson |
