"Fife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... throbbed with the double drum-beat at the finish of each line. The tune was called "Funeral Thoughts." They changed to "Roslyn Castle" as they crossed the bridge; yet an hour had scarce passed when I heard their volley-firing not very far away, and back they came, the Fife-Major leading, drums, fifes, and light-infantry horns gaily sounding "The Pioneer," and the men swinging back briskly to fall in with the Church details, now marching in from every direction to the admonitory timing of a ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... Golconda, according to their sex. The impresario put down the dogs, cracked his whip, and suddenly every one of the actors forsook the horizontal for the perpendicular position, and transformed itself into a biped. The drum and fife started ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which the mind of Orange Ulster is prepared to face the tasks of the twentieth century. Barbaric music, the ordinary allowance of drum to fife being three to one, ritual dances, King William on his white horse, the Scarlet Woman on her seven hills, a grand parade of dead ideas and irrelevant ghosts called up in wild speeches by clergymen and politicians—such is Orangeism in its full heat of action. Can we, with ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... The Saskatchewan Fife Wheat: Its history, from its first importation from the Saskatchewan Valley, in Manitoba, six years ago, till the present ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... anxious and depressing warfare should have so delightedly seized and adopted this unusual and comparatively joyous style of singing, but perhaps the new spirit of liberty demanded more animated and spirited expression; and Billings' psalm-tunes were played with drum and fife on the battlefield to inspire the American soldiers. Billings wrote of his fuguing invention, "It has more than twenty times the power of the old slow tunes. Now the solemn bass demands their attention, next ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... power, gallant days, bustling days, worth the bravest days of chivalry at least; tall battalions of native warriors were marching through the land; there was the glitter of the bayonet and the gleam of the sabre; the shrill squeak of the fife and loud rattling of the drum were heard in the streets of country towns, and the loyal shouts of the inhabitants greeted the soldiery on their arrival, or cheered them at their departure. And now let us leave the upland, and descend to the sea-bord; there ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... signal; and, in a few minutes, Domilaw, Dumprender, and Arthur's Seat, exhibited tops of fire as the night fell down on them, bearing the tidings, as if lightnings flying on different courses revealed them, through Berwickshire and the Lothians, and enabling Roxburghshire and Fife to read the tale; while Binning's Craig, repeating the telegraphic fire, startled the burghers of Linlithgow on the one hand, and on the other ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... window the light fading off the Fife Lomonds, and the long line of the shore darkening under the night into a ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... with sick and wounded, but half provided with food and clothing to sustain life. Our money was depreciated to naught and our cause lost. We left our homes four years previous. Amid the waving of flags and handkerchiefs and the smiles of the ladies, while the fife and drum were playing Dixie and the Bonnie Blue Flag, we bid farewell to home and friends. The bones of our brave Southern boys lie scattered over our loved South. They fought for their "country," and gave their lives freely for that country's cause: and now they ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... in every house of the neighbourhood, sounded the fife and lute, while the inmates indulged in music and singing. Above head, the orb of the radiant moon shone with an all-pervading splendour, and with a steady lustrous light, while the two friends, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... remarkable writer. But it is not Lady Culross's literature that so much interests us and holds us, it is her religion; and it is its depth, its intensity, and the way it grows in winter. After a long and racy introduction, sometimes difficult to decipher, from its Fife idioms and obsolete spelling, she goes on thus: 'Did you get any heart to remember me and my bonds? As for me, I never found so great impediment within. Still, it is the Lord with whom we have to do, ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it had long after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the Firth, the Seahorse, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding for sunk dangers. Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the Wildfire Rocks and Satan's Bush, famous dangers ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hivins, Hinnissy, she looked like a fire in a pawnshop, fair covered with dimons an' goold watches an' chains. She was cut out to be an aldherman's wife, and it was worth goin' miles to watch her leadin' th' gran' march at th' Ar-rchy Road Dimmycratic Fife ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... distant music of fife and drum, augmented by cornet: "Yankee Doodle;" and in the traditional Revolutionary regalia, the musical minute-men led a parade down the aisles of the Choral Guard. They segued to "Onward Christian Soldiers" as they marched past the mesmerized audience, up to and onto the stage; and topped ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... county of Fife this night was called "Singen E'en," probably from the custom of singing carols then. This day is popularly known in Scotland as Hogmany, and the following is a fragment of a Yorkshire ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... his side, And on a bull-frog he did ride. "March on!" he cried. And, hot and thick, His army rushed, in double quick. And hardly one short hour had waned, Before the ranks the rat-camp gained, With sounding drum and screaming fife, Enough to raise the dead to life. The rats, awakened by the clatter, Rushed out to see what was the matter, Then down the whole mouse-army flew, And many thieving rats it slew. The mice hurrahed, the rats they squealed, And soon the dreadful battle-field ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... vein in marble, and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The hero is the sole patron of music. That harmony which exists naturally between the hero's moods and the universe the soldier would fain imitate with drum and trumpet. When we are in health all sounds fife and drum for us; we hear the notes of music in the air, or catch its echoes dying away when we awake in the dawn. Marching is when the pulse of the hero beats in unison with the pulse of Nature, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... and estates in 1558, being brought up by his uncle, the 4th earl of Morton, a Presbyterian. In 1573 he was made a privy councillor and sheriff of Berwick, in 1574 lieutenant-general of Scotland, in 1577 warden of the west marches and steward of Fife, and in 1578 lieutenant-general of the realm. He gave a strong support to Morton during the attack upon the latter, made a vain attempt to rescue him, and was declared guilty of high treason on the 2nd of June 1581. He now entered into correspondence with the English government ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... future voters and soldiers, demanded an active share in the proceedings, and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and drum corps, so that by day and night martial but most inharmonious music woke the echoes, and deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out at the soles of their shoes. Dick Carter was made captain, for his grandfather had a gold medal given him by Queen Victoria for rescuing three hundred ...
— The Flag-raising • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... last hour before the combat, he gave the signal to advance. It was dawn and the tide flowed full, when, with a favoring wind, the forty great Spanish vessels, bearing the floating pennons of Castille, advanced to the sound of fife and drum in battle line upon the English fleet. Arrived at close quarters, and grappling Pembroke's ships with chains and iron hooks, they poured down from their tall towers a rain of stones and lead upon the lower and exposed decks of the English, who with ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... must lay to heart as he valued his weekly allowance. The Bailie also expressed his deep regret, which, indeed, seemed to be very sincere, that he had to leave by the Dundee train before the departure of the slow Fife train by which his double travelled. And when this fact emerged—that the other Bailie was to be left even for five minutes at their disposal—Speug threw Howieson's bonnet to the end of the compartment, with his own following in a ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... strings—some of the strings are invariably broken. I know a big man who is nothing but a big drum; and I know another whose whole existence has been a jig on a fiddle; and I know a shrill little fellow who is a fife; and I know a brassy girl who is a pair of cymbals; and once—once," repeated the parson whimsically, "I knew an old maid who was a real living spinet. I even know another old maid now who is nothing but an old music book—long ago sung ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... de la patrie— Electric... piercing... shrill as a fife the voice of a little Russian breaks out of the shivered circle. Another voice rises... another and another leaps like flame to flame. And life—surging, clamorous, swarming like a rabble crazily fluttering ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... looked at the moonlight on the water, or the cloud-shadows on the hills, or the sunset sky, with the tall, black tree-boles and waving foliage relieved against it, or when I heard a mellow gush of music from the brown-breasted fife-bird in the summer woods, or the merry quaver of the bobolink in the corn land, the thought of an eternal loss of these familiar sights and sounds would sometimes thrill through me with a sharp and bitter pain. I have reason to thank God that this fear no longer troubles me. Nothing ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... were exposed to the sun and air. On the Thursday and Sunday mornings the ship's company was mustered, and every man appeared clean shaved and dressed; and when the evenings were fine, the drum and fife announced the forecastle to be the scene of dancing; nor did I discourage other playful amusements which might occasionally be more to the taste of the sailors, ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... He met only a few natives, with whom he had little intercourse. But one family becoming somewhat familiarized, established itself a hundred yards from the landing-place. Cook gave a concert for them, in which the fife and cornet were lavished on them in vain, the New Zealanders awarded ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... God faithfully," he would say, when nightfall found them supperless in the waste. "Look at the eagle overhead! God can feed us through him if He will"—and once at least he owed his meal to a fish that the scared bird let fall. A snowstorm drove his boat on the coast of Fife. "The snow closes the road along the shore," mourned his comrades; "the storm bars our way over sea." "There is still the way of heaven that lies open," ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... cause on earth To many a battle growing, Of music God has thought them worth, A gift of His bestowing. It came through Jubal into life; For Lamech's son inventing The double sounds of drum and fife, They both became consenting. For music good Wakes manly mood, Intrepid goes Against our foes. Calls stoutly, "On! Fall on! fall on! Clear field and street Of hostile feet, Shoot, thrust them through, and cleave, Not one against ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 'neath waving stripes and stars Inscribed alike to Mercury and Mars, Those gallant warriors in their dread array, Who shook these halls,—O where, alas! are they? Gone! gone! and never to our ears shall come The sounds of fife and spirit-stirring drum; That war-worn banner slumbers in the dust, Those bristling arms are dim with gathering rust; That crested helm, that glittering sword, that plume, Are laid to rest in reckless faction's tomb." Winslow's Class ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... down, and there brooded over the snowy forest a deep silence. This fact allowed the listeners without to catch the sound of voices inside the hut, for one of the tramps talked heavily, and the other had a high-pitched voice that carried like a squeaking fife. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, 5 Applauding Freedom loved of old to view? What new Alcaeus,[21] fancy-blest, Shall ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... beach, also containing a great number of marine shells of recent species, traced up to a height of 14 feet above the sea by Mr. W.J. Hamilton at Elie, on the southern coast of Fife, is doubtless another effect of the same extensive upheaval.* (* "Proceedings of the Geological Society" volume 2 1833 page 280.) A similar movement would also account for some changes which antiquaries ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... years old when a great excitement arose among the colonists in Virginia, and the fife and drum were heard, to announce that England, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... chemist's business. But before settling down in their new home, the Howitts undertook a long pedestrian tour through Scotland and the north of England, in the course of which they explored the Rob Roy country, rambled through Fife, made acquaintance with the beauties of Edinburgh, looked in upon Robert Owen's model factories at New Lanark, got a glimpse of Walter Scott at Melrose, were mistaken for a runaway couple at Gretna Green, gazed reverently ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... ANNE (1750-1825), author of the ballad "Auld Robin Gray," the eldest daughter of James Lindsay, 5th earl of Balcarres, was born at Balcarres House, Fife, on the 12th of December 1750. She was married in 1793 to Andrew Barnard, a son of the bishop of Limerick, for whom she obtained from Henry Dundas (1st Viscount Melville) an appointment as colonial secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. Thither the Barnards went ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... glacial beds,—that strange and as yet almost unknown period that ushered in the existing creation. He studied it minutely along the shores of the Moray Firth, on the east coast of Scotland, along the shores of Fife and the Lothians, and on the coast of Ayrshire and the Firth of Clyde. This last summer he made a tour through the centre of the island, and obtained boreal shells at Buchlyvie in Stirlingshire,—the omphalos of ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... ancient picturesque history, "thereafter there was great peace and rest a long time, where through the king had great profit; for he had ten thousand sheep going in the Ettrick forest, in keeping by Andrew Bell, who made the king so good count of them, as they had gone in the hounds of Fife." ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... the wild news came, Far flashing on its wings of flame, Swift as the boreal light which flies At midnight through the startled skies. And there was tumult in the air, The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat, And through the wide land everywhere The answering tread of hurrying feet; While the first oath of Freedom's gun, Came on the blast from Lexington; And Concord, roused, no longer tame, Forgot her old baptismal name, Made bare her patriot ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... Down, Omagh, Strabane, County Tyrone**; Scotland - 32 council areas; Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, The Scottish Borders, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee City, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, City of Edinburgh, Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow City, Highland, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Moray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Orkney Islands, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Shetland Islands, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling, West ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... ululatus of many-voiced humanity—marvellously monotonous, considering the infinite variety of its ingredients, booms on through the dark. The story-teller alone can take up the score of the mighty medley, and read at a glance what every fife and fiddle-stick is doing. That pompous thrum-thrum is the talk of the great white Marseilles paunch, pietate gravis; the whine comes from Lazarus, at the area rails; and the bass is old Dives, roaring at his butler; the piccolo is contributed ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... working ill that people were accused of witchcraft and executed; ill or well made little difference. In Edinburgh in 1623 it was charged against Thomas Grieve that he had relieved many sicknesses and grievous diseases by sorcery and witchcraft. "He took sickness off a woman in Fife, and put it upon a cow, which thereafter ran mad and died." He also cured a child of a disease "by straiking back the hair of his head, and wrapping him in an anointed cloth, and by that means putting him asleep," ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... hereafter by either King or Parliament?" He reminded Allan M'Aulay that the measures taken in the last reign to settle the peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in fact levelled at the patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentioned the celebrated settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they were called, in the Lewis, as part of a deliberate plan, formed to introduce strangers among the Celtic tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancient customs and mode of government, and to despoil them of the inheritance of their fathers. [In the reign of James VI., an attempt ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... reward. Gearson did not come to tea, but she had given him till morning, when, late at night there came up from the village the sound of a fife and drum, with a tumult of voices, in shouting, singing, and laughing. The noise drew nearer and nearer; it reached the street end of the avenue; there it silenced itself, and one voice, the voice she knew best, rose over the silence. ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... O ye pleasaunt Springs 145 Of Tempe, where the countrey nymphs are rife, Through whose not costly care each shepheard sings As merrie notes upon his rusticke fife As that Ascraean bard*, whose fame now rings Through the wide world, and leads as ioyfull life; 150 Free from all troubles and from worldly toyle, In which fond men doe all their dayes turmoyle. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... on the eve of St. Nicholas that the boat which contained Wallace drew near to the coast of Fife. A little of the right towered the tremendous precipice ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... remember. The day's proceedings are indelibly fixed upon my memory. We went down to the place where the ship was built, accompanied by our friends. We made quite a little procession, headed by a drum and fife. My father and mother walked first, leading me by the hand. I had new clothes on, and I firmly believed that the joy bells were ringing solely because our ship was to be launched. The Mary Ellen was launched ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... fife, and cry the slogan— Let the pibroch shake the air With its wild triumphal music, Worthy of the freight we bear. Let the ancient hills of Scotland Hear once more the battle-song Swell within their glens and valleys As the clansmen march along! Never from the field ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... stood in Washington, the unchallenged prince and chief in the Senate, or in foreign lands, the kingliest man of his time in the presence of kings, his heart was in New England. When the spring came, he heard far off the fife bird and the bobolink calling him to his New Hampshire mountains, or of the waves on the shore at Marshfield alluring him with a sweeter than siren's voice to his home ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... marching riflemen. In front of one of these, the fife and drum corps playing behind him, was a young Tory, who had insulted the company, and was, therefore, made to carry a gray goose in his arms with this maxim of Poor Richard on his back: 'Not every ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... loosed, the men were going round the capstan to the sound of the merry fife, when a messenger from the Admiralty arrived in hot haste, directing the captain to carry out despatches to the governor of Cape Coast Castle, instead of proceeding direct to the Pacific, ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... speaks of Edinburgh as the place where he met his patient, and does not mention any other place of sojourn, but the record just quoted goes on to say that he abode with the Primate for eleven weeks at his country residence at Monimail, near Cupar, Fife, where there is a well called to this day ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... given day about three hundred or four hundred of these forlorn outcasts were bundled wholesale into the streets, and they formed up in a large body, many of them with only a shift and a petticoat on, and with a lot of drunken men and boys with a fife and fiddle they paraded the streets for several days. They marched in a body to the workhouse, but for many reasons they were refused admittance.... These women wandered about for two or three days shelterless, and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... who rallied to the defence of their country and rendered such assistance as was required. The right wing of the Scottish army was composed of the men of Argyle, Lennox, Athole, and Galloway, while the left wing was constituted by those from Fife, Stirling, Berwick, and Lothian. The center, commanded by the king in person, was composed of the men of Ross, Perth, Angus, Mar, Mearns, Moray, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... though not dated,—dating perhaps from about Fritz's fifteenth year. "Fritz is a QUERPFEIFER UND POET," not a Soldier! would his indignant Father growl; looking at those foreign effeminate ways of his. QUERPFEIFE, that is simply "German-flute," "CROSS-PIPE" (or FIFE of any kind, for we English have thriftily made two useful words out of the Deutsch root); "Cross-pipe," being held across the mouth horizontally. Worthless employment, if you are not born to be of the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... unhorsed, And walk on foot as it pleaseth the fates; In the King's army no man shall harm ye. Then come along, boys, valiant and strong, boys, Fight for your goods, which the Roundheads enjoy; And when you venture London to enter, And when you come, boys, with fife and drum, boys, Isaac himself shall cry, ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... too hard a question at the time for a skipper to ask of a foremast-hand, so I said nothing, but did a lot of thinking. The flywheel-pump was amidships at the main fife-rail. We could not go down to it without danger from the wounded lion, the rhino, and possibly the wolf, though, with these out of the way, we might dodge or kill the cobras ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... son of a miller at Masham, a little town situated in the valley of the Yore, in the north-west corner of Yorkshire. Musical taste seems to have been hereditary in the family, for his father played the fife in the band of the Masham Volunteers, and was a singer in the parish choir. His grandfather also was leading singer and ringer at Masham Church; and one of the boy's earliest musical treats was to be present at the bell ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... brief Memoir of one of the characters in this book is added by his friend, in the hope that the record of an exemplary fife in an humble sphere may be of some ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... thought it just to knock a man on the head when reduced to such a necessity; and in another of their provinces, they all forsook him to shift for himself as well as he could. To whom do they not, at last, become tedious and insupportable? the ordinary offices of fife do not go that length. You teach your best friends to be cruel perforce; hardening wife and children by long use neither to regard nor to lament your sufferings. The groans of the stone are grown so familiar to my people, that nobody ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... made a little nervous by the thought of going into battle so soon; but gulping down my fears I mounted a marsh-mare which stood near the inn door. I hoped sincerely that no militia bullet would find any part of either of us. Then the drums began to play us out of the town with their morning roll. A fife whined out, going down to our marrows with its shrillness. Lights showed at the windows. We saw dark heads framed in yellow patches. People called to us. In the door of the great inn stood Monmouth; his ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... fiddle and fife going, it will keep up the spirits of the men," said Adair to the first lieutenant, who at once issued the order. Presently merry notes were heard amid the howling of the gale, sounding strangely, and yet inspiriting the crew. Still, in spite of all that could be ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love: And such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour: and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... was concentrating its power. Behind him that nation was patching up its one great quarrel, and now a gray phantom stalked out of the past to the music of drum and fife, and Crittenden turned sharply to see a little body of men, in queer uniforms, marching through a camp of regulars toward him. They were old boys, and they went rather slowly, but they stepped jauntily and, in their natty old-fashioned caps and ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... Poland. Segismund his Son. Astolfo his Nephew. Estrella his Niece. Clotaldo a General in Basilio's Service. Rosaura a Muscovite Lady. Fife her Attendant. ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... which he distinguished those whom he employed were flattering: they were not gaolers and turnkeys, but captains of divisions and delegates. He delivered lectures upon geography and astronomy: those who could play instruments, such as clarionet, fife, and violin, were stationed on the deck, while the rest marched in ranks. He instituted a court of enquiry, consisting of five persons, of which his clerk was the recorder, who examined witnesses, and disposed ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... the love of heaven to come to his assistance, and pacify the people. It would not have been proper in me to have refused; so out I went in the very nick of time: for when I got to the door, there was the soldiers in battle array, coming marching with fife and drum up the gait with Major Blaze at their head, red and furious in the face, and bent on some bloody business. The first thing I did was to run to the major, just as he was facing the men for ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... settled, Barrientos arrived at our quarters attended by 200 Chinantlans carrying the lances he had procured. On trial these were found excellent, and we were immediately exercised in their use. A muster was now made of our force, which amounted to two hundred and six men, including fife and drum, with five mounted cavalry, two artillery-men, few cross-bows, and fewer musketeers. This being the force, and such the weapons, with which we marched against and defeated the vastly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... attention, keep back the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the cloud appears. A fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... electric engines and apparatus, public buildings, illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my new country. No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight in its institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no Fourth of July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even the common agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the letter carrier and the fire engines, I regarded with a measure of respect. I know what I thought of people who said that Chelsea was a very ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... sound clear and sharp. In eager chords of tuned pitch the fiddling ghost summons the dancing groups, where the single fife is ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... Edward [Footnote: The naming of Edward the Confessor gives us at the same time the epoch in which these historically accredited transactions are made to take place. The ruins of Macbeth's palace are yet standing at Inverness; the present Earls of Fife are the descendants of the valiant Macduff, and down to the union of Scotland with England they were in the enjoyment of peculiar privileges for their services to the crown.] the Confessor, and on which he set a great value, is brought in very naturally.—With such occasional matters we ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... which remain of this period show him chiefly residing at Broomhall, where, in his father's absence, he takes his place in the affairs of the county of Fife; commands his troop of yeomanry; now presides at a farmers' dinner, for which be has written an appropriate song; now, at the request of Dr. Chalmers, speaks at a public meeting in favour of church extension. At one time we hear of long solitary rides over field and fell, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... will you marry me, With the bagginet, fife and drum?' 'Oh, no, pretty miss, I cannot marry you, For I've got ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... unconquered still. He calls aloud, aye, even on ye, wife and son of Comyn of Buchan, to snap the link that binds ye to a traitor's house, and prove—though darkly, basely flows the blood of Macduff in one descendant's veins, that the Earl of Fife refuses homage and allegiance to his sovereign—in ye it rushes free, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... anticipatory protest against the possibility that Scotland might be deprived of some of her seventy-two Members. "I myself," he said, "represent two whole counties, Clackmannan and Kinross, and I have a bit of Stirling and Perth and West Fife, and I am told I am to be swept out of existence." Gazing at his ample proportions the House felt that the Boundary Commissioners will have their work cut out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... business-like wife getting somewhat more vigorous and emitting more domestic sparks, until there came a change to every one. The farmer, who had read of martial music, heard with his own ears the roll of the drum and the shrieking, encouraging call of the fife. War was on, and good men abandoned homes and families and surroundings because of what we call patriotism and principle. As for John Appleman, he was among the very first to enlist. He went into the army blithely. It is to ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... two girls. They meant to do something, and, in a fever of excitement, they got the drum and took the cracked fife from the bureau drawer. Mrs. Bates, intent on the scene outside, did not heed them, and they slipped out ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... my household-book. Sophia does not set out till the middle of the week, which is unlucky, our antiquarian skirmish beginning in Fife just about the time she is to arrive. Letter from John touching public affairs; don't half like them, and am afraid we shall have the Whig alliance turn out like the calling in of the Saxons. I told this to Jeffrey, who said they would convert us, as the Saxons did ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... William Carmichael, formerly a bailie of Edinburgh, was one of Sharp's favourites, and one of his numerous commissioners for suppressing conventicles in Fife. He was a licentious profligate, greedy of money, and capable of undertaking any job, however vile. This man's enormities were at last so unbearable that he became an object of general detestation, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... who's been bored by that song From his cradle - each day - all day long - Who's heard it loud-shouted By throats operatic, And loyally spouted By courtiers emphatic - By soldier - by sailor - by drum and by fife - Small blame if he thinks it the plague of his life! While his subjects sing loudly and long, Their King - who would willingly ban them - Sits, worry disguising, anathematising ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Scotland; five guardians, the bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the earls of Fife and Buchan, and James, steward of Scotland, entered peaceably upon the administration; and the infant princess, under the protection of Edward, her great uncle, and Eric, her father, who exerted themselves on this occasion, seemed firmly seated on the throne of Scotland. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... spinet, virginals, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, vielle^, pianino^, Eolian harp. [Wind instruments]; organ, harmonium, harmoniphon^; American organ^, barrel organ, hand organ; accordion, seraphina^, concertina; humming top. flute, fife, piccolo, flageolet; clarinet, claronet^; basset horn, corno di bassetto [It], oboe, hautboy, cor Anglais [Fr.], corno Inglese^, bassoon, double bassoon, contrafagotto^, serpent, bass clarinet; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... now known as Scotland, save only the Scandinavian jarldoms of Caithness, Sutherland, and the Isles. Strathclyde rapidly adopted the tongue of its masters, and grew as English in language (though not in blood) as the Lothians themselves. Fife, in turn, was quickly Anglicised, as was also the whole region south of the Highland line. Thus a new and powerful kingdom arose in the North; and at the same time the cession of an English district to the Scottish kings had the curious result of thoroughly Anglicising ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... Fife and Forfarshire, with the town of Dundee, joined Knox in the walled town of Perth, though Lord Ruthven, provost of Perth, deserted, for the moment, to the Regent. On the other hand, the courageous Glencairn, with a strong body of the zealots of Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... the Synod of Fife met at St. Andrews, and James Melville as the retiring Moderator had to preach the opening sermon. It was a full meeting. The Archbishop with a 'grait pontificalite and big countenance' was seated by the preacher's side. The subject of discourse was the ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... heerd in his life That th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; But John P. Robinson he Sez they didn't ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... city, and make up more of its sight and sound than anything else that lives. They stroll about individually; they pace as sentinels in all the public places; and they march up and down in squads, companies, and battalions, always with a very great din of drum, fife, and trumpet; ten times the proportion of music that the same number of men would require elsewhere; and it reverberates with ten times the noise, between the high edifices of these lanes, that it could make in broader streets. Nevertheless, I have no quarrel with the French soldiers; they are fresh, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had always manifested the most decided predilection for a military life. Often had he, in earliest childhood, toddled away from the gate after the fife and drum of a recruiting party; and often did he march and countermarch me, till I could not stand for fatigue, with a grenadier's cap, alias a muff, on my head, and my father's large cane shouldered by way of a firelock. The menaced invasion had ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... to look as if you heard drums and fife," Jerome explained, with one of his quick smiles, that always wiped ...
— Different Girls • Various
... merchantmen. The admiral fired a signal-gun. We repeated it, and before the smoke had cleared away the merchantmen let fall their topsails, we setting them the example; the anchor was hove up to the merry sound of the fife, and, taking the lead, we stood out of the Cove of Cork with a fair breeze, the other frigate and corvette ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue! O farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... normal condition he sleeps like a bag of corn-meal—who was there in all the house to keep those boys quiet? Nobody but me. When they organized a military company in our back yard directly under father's windows—two drums, a fish-horn, a jews-harp, a fife, and three tin pans—was there anybody but me to put a stop to it? It was on this occasion that the pet name Moolymaria, afterward corrupted into Messymaria, and finally evolved into Meddlymaria, became attached to me. To this day I do not like to think how many cries I had over it. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... return of the "Malignants," the Royalists of the earlier war, to its ranks. With summer the campaign recommenced, but Leslie again fell back on his system of positions, and Cromwell, finding his camp at Stirling unassailable, crossed into Fife and left the road open to the South. The bait was taken. In spite of Leslie's counsels Charles resolved to invade England, and call the Royalist party again to revolt. He was soon in full march through Lancashire ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... fife, denotes that there will be an unexpected call on you to defend your honor, or that of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... head for a soldier!" cried some wag in the crowd. "Yes," screamed another, "he'll make the Russians run." "Have you chosen your regiment yet?" barked a third. "Why, of course!" yelped a fourth: "he is to be fife-player in the second battalion of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... "Largo is in Fife," said he. "We'll go there. I'm going to see that yacht with my own eyes, and hear with my own ears what the man who found it has got to say. For, as I remarked just now, my lad, the mere fact that the yacht was found empty doesn't prove ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... been crossed in love; but it was the faintest of traditions. A gay young lieutenant of marines had flirted with her at a country ball (A.D. 1811), and then marched carelessly away at the head of his company to the shrill music of the fife, without so much as a sigh for the girl he left behind him. The years rolled on, the gallant gay Lothario—which wasn't his name—married, became a father, and then a grandfather; and at the period of which I am speaking his grandchild was actually one of Miss ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... was born at Edinburgh in the year 1671. His father was the younger son of an ancient family in Fife, and carried on the business of a goldsmith and banker. He amassed considerable wealth in his trade, sufficient to enable him to gratify the wish, so common among his countrymen, of adding a territorial designation ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Let fife and drum preserve their place, While softer sounds delight thee; The fiddle shall our wedding grace, But horns shall never fright thee. Come, come away, Love chides thy stay, Oh! prithee come ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... they said, to avenge the death of the king, and to draw the son from hands which had killed the father and which were keeping the mother captive. As to Murray, he had kept completely in the background during all the last events; he was in the county of Fife when the king was assassinated, and three days before the trial of Bothwell he had asked and obtained from his sister permission to take ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... was streaming from a long pole, and Fernando heard the roll of the drum and the shrill notes of a fife. The company was more than half made up when he arrived. He enlisted at once and four days later the company was ready ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... wolf hunt together, Where thousands must yield up their breath, By the night, by the light—in all weather! Then hurrah, for the wild hunt of death! Where the deep cannon bays for our beagle, Over mountain and valley we come, While the death-fife now screams like an eagle To the roll and the roll and the roll and the roll ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... vows, that if trouble wont come, why he will bring it by quarrelling with the first rascally Indian he meets. All is ready. Rations are put up for the men;—hams, buffalo tongues, pies and cake for the officers. The batallion marches out to the sound of the drum and fife;—they are soon down the hill—they enter their boats; handkerchiefs are waved from the fort, caps are raised and flourished over the water—they are almost out of sight—they ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... bring it about that Jack is set to watch the cattle, and she allows him only rotten food. An old man with whom he shares his victuals grants him three wishes in return for his kindness. He asks for a bow and a fife; and the old man gives him a bow that never misses its aim, and a fife that compels every one to dance. He also grants Jack's third wish, that every time his step-mother hurls a bad word at him or about him, she ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... cornets; Limpy-toes brought his flute, Wiggle his fife, Scamper the alto horn, and Nimble-toes his beloved drum. At a signal from Uncle Squeaky, the little band began ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... Fife and Drums, as before } Drum Major } Who, on arrival in the Eight Trumpets } Hall, immediately went Kettle Drums } into the Gallery over the Eight Trumpets } ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... and be glad to do it. I hope they will turn out strong, for you will find that the workers are the men that make the soldiers. I am glad we've got a drum and fife. You don't know how hard it would be for me to drill a large squad without some kind of music to help ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... my professional studies were finished, and I had occasion to visit a Fife laird near the East Neuk. The gentleman was notable for his taste in kitchen-gardening; and having a particularly fine bed of Jerusalem artichokes which I must see, he conducted me to the scene of his triumphs, when, hard at work with the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... Earl of Fife, withouten strife, He bound him over Solway; The great would ever together ride That race they ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... for vifteen years I vorked at making brooms—me und my vife—from fife in the morning until six at night, und I loose mine fingern trying to save enough money to puy a house that we could call our own. Then when we saved eight hundred dollars this man come to us und sold ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... pictures are the three "Banquets" respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch. Plutarch's has the least claim to historical accuracy; but the meeting of the Seven Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of ancient manners and discourse, and is as dear as the voice of a fife, and entertaining as a French novel. Xenophon's delineation of Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato, and supplies traits of Socrates; whilst Plato's has merits of every kind,—being a repertory of the wisdom of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... Duke of Fife" is the form of address for a Duke; "My Lord Duke" being the salutation, and "Your Grace's most obedient servant" ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... came from Anthony, said: "How d' ye do—how d' ye do;" sounding like the first effort of a fife. But Anthony did ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fife! How they have maddened mankind! And the deep bass boom of the cannon, chiming in in the chorus of battle, that trumpet and wild charging bugle,—how they set the military devil in a man, and make him into a soldier! Think of the human family falling upon one another at the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... prisoner, and sailed with them to Fastcastle. Or he might have made direct to Fastcastle, and welcomed them there. His reason for being at Restalrig or in the Canongate was to get the earliest news from Perth, brought across Fife, and from Bruntisland ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... has removed its object, demonstrates both its lower origin and its baser nature. In a well consorted marriage, the soul, the mind, esteem and faith, the pure strain of friendship, enter more largely. The grave is not the boundary of its functions. After death, the love is cherished in the ideal fife of the mind as vividly as ever, and with an added sanctity. Widowed memory clings to the disconsolate happiness of sitting by the fountain of oblivion, and drawing up the sunken treasure. If, as Statius said, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... controverting, till the dishes she was washing would clash and clang excitedly in the general badinage. Loaded with a pyramid of glistening cups and saucers, she would improvise a gallant line of march from the kitchen table to the pantry, heading an imaginary procession, and whistling a fife-tune that would stir your blood. Then she would trippingly return, rippling her rosy fingers up and down the keys of an imaginary portable piano, or stammering flat-soled across the floor, chuffing and tooting like a ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... the only child of the late Lord of the Isles, was the great heiress of the day. It is true that the hereditary possession of Skye, Staffa, Mull, Arran, and Bute went, with the title, to the Marquis of Auldreekie, together with the counties of Caithness and Ross-shire. But the property in Fife, Aberdeen, Perth, and Kincardineshire, comprising the greater part of those counties, and the coal-mines in Lanark, as well as the enormous estate within the city of Glasgow, were unentailed, and went to the Lady Glencora. She was a fair girl, with bright blue eyes and short wavy flaxen hair, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... stump. Many years ago the young men there resolved upon having a ball. They concluded not to go to a hotel, on account of the expense, and so chose a private house. There was a man in the neighborhood who could play the fife; he offered to furnish the music for seventy-five cents. But this was deemed too much, so one of the party agreed to whistle. History does not tell how many beaux there were bent upon this reckless enterprise, but there were three girls. For refreshments ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... overbearing manner of Albany. It was an evil day for Scotland when our good king, who was then but prince, lamed himself for life; and so was forced, on his accession, to leave the conduct of affairs to Albany, then Earl of Fife. The king, as all men know, is just and good, and has at heart the welfare of his subjects; but his accident has rendered him unfit to take part in public affairs, and he loves peace and quiet as much as Albany loves intrigues, and dark and devious ways. 'Tis a sore pity ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... let the Deacon Convener unfurl the sacred Blue Blanket, under which every liege burgher of the kingdom is bound to answer summons! The bale-fires are gleaming, giving alarm to Hume, Haddington, Dunbar, Dalkeith, and Eggerhope. Rise, Stirling, Fife, and the North! All Scotland will be under arms in two hours. One bale-fire: the English are in motion! Two: they are advancing! Four in a row: they are of great strength! All men in arms west of Edinburgh muster there! All eastward, ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... thoughts, at parting from Can Grande, the mighty, the vehement, the great fighter. How were we to miss his deep music, here and at home! With his assistance we had made a very respectable band; now we were to be only a wandering drum and fife,—the fife particularly shrill, and the drum particularly solemn. Well, we went below, and examined the little den where Can Grande was to pass the other seven days of his tropical voyaging. The berths were arranged the wrong way,—across, not along, the vessel,—and we foresaw that his head would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... colloquially true; because, by no trees, in common speech, we mean few. When he is particular in counting, he may be attacked. I know not how Colonel Nairne came to say there were but TWO large trees in the county of Fife. I did not perceive that he smiled. There are certainly not a great many; but I could have shewn him more than two at Balmuto, from whence my ancestors came, and which now belongs to a branch of ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... still inhabits the island and keeps the light. The son whom she bore to Marcel Thibault was called Baptiste, after her father, and he is now the lighthouse-keeper; and her granddaughter, Nataline, is her living image; a brown darling of a girl, merry and fearless, who plays the fife bravely all along the ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... the poop to the quarter-deck, and in a minute the drum and fife struck up the air which is known all over the civilized world as the call to arms. In most services this summons is made by the drum alone, which emits sounds to which the fancy has attached peculiar words; ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... nearly proved of very serious importance to the future welfare of the expedition. Early on the morning of the 11th I received a note from Lieutenant Liddon, acquainting me that, at daylight on the preceding day, Mr. Fife, with a party of six men, had been despatched from the Griper, with the hope of surprising some reindeer and musk-oxen, whose tracks had been seen in a ravine to the westward of the ships. As they had not yet returned, in compliance with the instructions given to Mr. Fife, and had only been supplied ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons, a diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear this strident and lilting refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent gleam, and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a will-o'-the-wisp playing the fife:— ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... in marching order, with the shout of command ringing clear upon the air, and down Fifth Avenue as far as he could see, other columns of women were forming to the strains of military music and to the stirring echoes of fife ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... was each to his slumber laid, When the country folks came to serenade; With twang of fiddle, and toot of horn, And shriek of fife, they stayed till morn! Poor Campers! never a wink got they! So they started for home ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... better than fightin'," said Jakin, stung by the splendor of a sudden thought due chiefly to rum. "Tip our bloomin' cowards yonder the word to come back. The Paythan beggars are well away. Come on, Lew! We won't get hurt. Take the fife an' give me the drum. The Old Step for all your bloomin' guts are worth! There's a few of our men coming back now. Stand up, ye drunken little ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... infantry men had been at half-past four. At six the attack upon the hill had developed, and Clements in response to those frantic flashes of light had sent up a hundred men of the yeomanry, from the Fife and Devon squadrons, as a reinforcement. To climb a precipitous thousand feet with rifle, bandolier, and spurs, is no easy feat, yet that roar of battle above them heartened them upon their way. But in spite of all their efforts they were only in time to ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nauseous soup, a morsel of veal, a salad dressed with rank oil, a mess of sweet curd, and a dish of stewed prunes. After the fiction of dining, Miss Foster took the two pupils for a walk by the river, where groups of soldiers under shade of the trees were practising the fife and the drum. Caen seemed to be full of soldiers, marching and drilling for ever. Louise, the handsome portress at the school, frankly avowed that she did not know what the young women of her generation would do for husbands; the conscription carried away all the finest young men. Janey ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... always a weak-minded boy) in incessantly riding up and down between London and Uxbridge outside the coach. He was taken to Bow Street, as well as I remember, on the completion of his fifteenth journey; when four-and-sixpence, and a second-hand fife which he couldn't play, were found ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... after work was over, the colored people would gather in the little hamlet and march to the music of a drum and fife, and under the command of Nimbus, whose service in the army had made him a tolerable proficient in such tactical movements as pertained to the "school of the company." Very often, until well past midnight the fife and drum, the words of command, and the rumble of marching feet ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... came out to see, and declared it was the loveliest sight they ever beheld, while Thorny played "Hail Columbia" on his fife, and Ben, mounting the gate-post, crowed long and loud like a happy cockerel who had just reached his majority. He had been surprised and delighted with the gifts he found in his room on awaking, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... great JEFFREY! Heaven preserve his life, 460 To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife, And guard it sacred in its future wars, Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars! Can none remember that eventful day, [xxxv] [61] That ever-glorious, almost fatal fray, When LITTLE'S leadless ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... answered briefly, and with unhesitating certainty. "It iss goot. Vor der boor man it iss—it iss salfation. Mit fife huntret tollars und hiss two hants he can himself a home make—und a lifing be ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... manufacturing city so fortunate in its situation, where the rushing Tay calms and broadens into a wide Frith, with a background of green hills and a foreground of the pleasantly broken shores of Forfar and Fife. The trades held high holiday, and gave the Queen a jubilant welcome, the air ringing with shouts of gladness as she landed from the yacht, leaning on Prince Albert's arm, while he led by the hand the small daughter who reminded the Queen so vividly of herself—as the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... one. There are other battles and armies besides those where thousands of disciplined men move over the ground to the sounds of the drum and fife. Life itself is a battle, and no grander army has ever been set in motion since the world began than that which for more than two centuries and a half has been moving across our continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, fighting its way through countless hardships and dangers, bearing ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Scotland, north of the Firth of Forth, where now are the counties of Fife, Kinross, Perth, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... had always been my home; I loved it as such. I love it still, and it is a comfort to me in my old age to know that I am not far away from a fort, that I can almost see the beautiful flag, as it sways in the breeze, can almost hear the drum and fife, the music of my childhood, and can feel that they are near me, in dear old Fort Snelling, ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a four-inch gun which they were feeding at ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... Church canonize a saint? Let us suppose some good man dies, and all his neighbors talk about his holy fife, how much he did for the poor, how he prayed, fasted, and mortified himself. All these accounts of his life are collected and sent to Rome, to the Holy Father or to the cardinals appointed by him to examine ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... expedition. Brevet Brigadier-General Harney was assigned to the command-in-chief, an officer of a rude force of character, amounting often to brutality, and careless as to those details of military duty which savor more of the accountant's inkstand than of the drum and fife, but ambitious, active, and well acquainted with the character of the service for which he was detailed. He was, at the time, in command in Kansas, subject in a measure to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.' From the moment men introduced music they made verse a thing essentially separate from prose, from its natural key of emotion to its natural ordering of words. Do not for one moment imagine that ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... and for this reason Sir Arthur Sullivan has replaced it in the score of "Ivanhoe" by a high G flute. The piccolo is exactly an octave higher than the flute, excepting the two lowest notes of which it is deficient. The old cylindrical ear-piercing fife is an obsolete instrument, being superseded by a small army flute, still, however, called a fife, used with the side drum in the drum ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various |
