"Covey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... along the roadway! Cottontails and jackrabbits darted across the path and into hiding, an occasional harmless snake lifted its head to survey them and then glided away among the rocks, and twice a startled covey of quail rose from the underbrush and vanished in the blue mountain air. Oh, it was grand! How could she ever have thought the desert lonely and ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... adequately describe Daddy Jack's imitation of the flushing of a covey of partridges, or quail; but it is needless to say that it made its impression upon the little boy. The old African ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... continued their sport till late; and returning, loaded with game, had nearly reached the palace, when Corny, who had marked a covey, quitted Harry, and sent his dog to spring it, at a distance much greater than the usual reach of a common fowling-piece. Harry heard a shot, and a moment afterwards a violent shout of despair;—he knew the voice to be that of Moriarty, and running to the spot from ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... instantly formed and instantly dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the covey's fled the cover; Put forth the dogs, and let the falcon fly— I'll spend some leisure in the keen pursuit, Nor longer waste my ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in a crowded street is great sport. A young man with a new revolver shooting at a mad dog is a fine sight. He may not kill the dog, but he might shoot into a covey of little children and possibly ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... the sultry heat, turned brown and half dead, now washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!" flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers kept up their ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... I've been shooting into a covey of publishers for twelve years and never have touched a feather. Perseverance is a good quality, but there is such a thing as insanity." He stared unconsciously at the portieres ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... physics. I don't mean such as you had to take last week, after that sleigh-ride. Well, I remember feeling this intense communism, this voltaic rapport with nature in a like way once before, on seeing a covey of strange creatures, Aztecs, Albinos, wild Africans, busied, by chance, in a game of romps together, the pure overflow of animal spirits. It was a curious scene. They made eerie faces at each other; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hear; I know nothing more, except that she has a child already. So you see she has got into a cursed way of having children. And perhaps, by the time I'm forty, I shall see a whole covey of cherubs flying away ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with glasses was looking to the south-eastward for signs of them. But at last, when they had almost been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow squall. He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole covey, except two, had returned. ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... bringing home a few brace of grey grouse, which were exceedingly tame—so tame, indeed, that sometimes they did not take wing until two or three shots had been fired. On one occasion, after walking about for half an hour without getting a shot, we started a covey of seven, which alighted upon a tree close at hand. We instantly fired at the two lowest, and brought them down, while the others only stretched out their long necks, as if to see what had happened to their comrades, but did not fly away. Two more ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... A covey of Uhlans entered the shambles, picking their way across the wreckage of the battle, a slim, wiry, fastidious company, dainty as spurred gamecocks, with their helmet-cords swinging like wattles and their ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... instantly suggested, but occasionally, when we observe a single isolated specimen, especially in the month of July, he will certainly masquerade in an entirely new guise. Look! quick. Turn your magnifier hither on this green shoot. No thorn this. Is it not rather a whole covey of quail, mother and young creeping along the vine? Who would ever have thought of a thorn! Turning now to our original group, how perfectly do they take the hint, for are they not a family of tiny birds with long necks and swelling breasts and drooping tails, ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... about that, myself," returned the soldier, slightly raising his cap and scratching his crown, as if in recollection of some narrowly escaped danger. "I reckon, tho', when I see them slope up like a covey of red-legged pattridges, my heart was in my mouth, for I looked for nothin' else but that same operation: but I wur just as well pleased, when, after talkin' their gibberish, and makin' all sorts of signs among themselves, they made ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Garrick entered the school about two years after Johnson left. According to Garrick's biographer, Tom Davies (p. 3), 'Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the sportsman. Happy was the boy who could slily inform his offended master where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain pledge of his pardon.' Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Justices, ii. 279, says:—'Hunter is celebrated for having flogged seven boys who afterwards sat as judges in the superior courts at Westminster at the same time. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... entered the spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow, roaring river. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber around their knees, and then with splash and thump they forded it over the slippery rocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey of grouse whirred up into the low branches ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... the viper, and the viper looking down upon me, flickering at me with its tongue. It was only the kindness of God that saved me: all at once there was a loud noise, the report of a gun, for a fowler was shooting at a covey of birds, a little way off in the stubble. Whereupon the viper sunk its head, and immediately made off over the ridge of the hill, down in the direction of the sea. As it passed by me, however—and it passed close by me—it hesitated a moment, as if it ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... snow gleaming beneath the dazzling rays of a now warming sun. A hungry coyote and his mate prowling in search of food at a distance of half-a-mile looked large by reason of their isolation. An occasional covey of prairie chicken, noisily winging their way to a far-distant bluff, might well be startling both to horses and driver. A dark ribbon-like flight of ducks or geese, high up in the heavens, speeding from the south ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... over all, to frighten thieves, was hung Well clean'd, altho' but seldom us'd, my gun. Ah! that damn'd gun! I took it down one morn— A desperate deal of harm they did my corn! Our testy Squire too loved to save the breed, So covey upon covey eat my seed. I mark'd the mischievous rogues, and took my aim, I fir'd, they fell, and—up the keeper came. That cursed morning brought on my undoing, I went to prison and my farm to ruin. Poor Mary! for her grave the parish paid, ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... it mayn't be seeing death, friend Louis" he snorted. "There are a couple of rogues in that covey who would spit you or split you or slit you for ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... last he managed to get erect, and came spluttering for the bank with such a mixture of godly ejaculations and of profane oaths that, even in our terror, we could not keep from laughter. Rising from under his feet like a covey of wild-fowl, we scurried off across the fields and so back to the school, where, as you may imagine, we said nothing to our good master of what ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him, and gave him the smallest coin in her purse, which happened to be a shilling. He, in a transport at possessing what was to him a fortune, uttered a piercing yell, and darted off to show the coin to a covey of small ragamuffins who had just raced into view round the corner at which the public-house stood. In his haste he dashed against one of the group outside, a powerfully built young man, who turned and cursed him. The boy retorted ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... poplars were clear amber and the hickories russet and the oaks a deep burgundy. Lean hogs began to fill and fatten with their banqueting on beechnuts and acorns. Scattered quail came together in the conclave of the covey, and changed their summer call for the "hover" whistle. Shortly, the rains would strip the trees, and leave them naked. Then, Misery would vindicate its christener. But, now, as if to compensate in a few carnival days of champagne ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... extracted knowledge of the alphabet and reading from white boys of his acquaintance. At sixteen, under a brutal master he revolted and was beaten until he was faint from loss of blood, and at seventeen he fought and whipped the brutal overseer Covey, who would have invoked the law, which made death the punishment for such an offense, but for shame of having been worsted by a negro boy and from the reflection that there was no profit from a dead slave. Only at twenty did he escape ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... The King!" Brilliana cried, in an ecstasy, and as the loyal syllables died on her lips there came a trampling of near feet, and then through the yawning doorway rushed a covey of young gentlemen waving their drawn swords and yelling their cry, "The King! The King!" As they flooded into the room, bright foam on the wave of victorious loyalty, Brilliana knew them all. Sir Rufus Quaryll, her neighbor ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... nervously and under protest, glancing ever over her shoulder, as if she expected the austere Fairy momentarily to appear; while her companions sit without winking or moving, cowering together like a covey of birds when the hawk is circling over the turnip-field. How can you expect a man to make himself agreeable under such appalling circumstances? The heart of the adventurer sinks within him. Lo! there is ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... guiltless of rugs or carpets, were of earthen tiles and worn into hollows where the feet of the palace-dwellers passed oftenest to and fro. A multitude of undraped windows opened like doors upon stone balconies, whither the inhabitants flew like a startled covey of birds every time the king and queen drove by in the street below, and upon which they passed always from room to room. The outer balcony looks down upon the Piazza Barberini and its famous Spouting Triton, with an horizon-line ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... a covey of flying-fish might be seen skimming over the ocean, but they came out of the water to avoid the jaws of their persevering foes, the dolphins or bonitos, not because they liked it, or wished to exhibit their brilliant ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... of fox-ways. I have not spoken of his occasional tree climbing; nor of his grasshopper hunting; nor of his planning to catch three quails at once when he finds a whole covey gathered into a dinner-plate circle, tails in, heads out, asleep on the ground; nor of some perfectly astonishing things he does when hard pressed by dogs. But these are enough to begin the study and still ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... here at four o'clock P.M.—and comes a final note from my aunt Mrs. Hedley (supposed to be at Brighton for several months) to the effect that she will be here at twelve o'clock, M.!! So do observe the constellation of adverse stars ... or the covey of 'bad birds,' as the Romans called them, and that there is no choice, but to write as I am writing. It can't be helped—can it? For take away the doubt about Miss Mitford, and Mr. Kenyon remains—and take away Mr. Kenyon, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... this danger has no existence; he takes in a room at a glance. He has the sportsman's eye which, in a covey of partridges, marks its bird at a glance. He never hesitates. "That is the thing to make for," he says, "come along"—and we make for it. He plants himself right in front of the picture, with both hands in his overcoat ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... old covey—twig his shorts and long gaiters: he's some old Suffolk squire, has grown too fat for harriers, and goes out with the greyhounds twice a-week—a truly respectable member of society"—continued Mr Daggles with a sneer, when the subject of his lecture ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... Little Family: —Tree-hopper (Membracis binotata); a singular entertainment; graceful curves, 87; a branch in masquerade; queer thorns, 88; a sudden disappearance; animated thorns; like a covey of quails, 89; like "Bob White," 90; singular agility; queer anatomy; always ready for flight, 91; fondness for locust and oak-trees, simulating the color and character of the branches, 92; manner of sitting on the branches, 93; always headed towards the top; tiny ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... the old covey left me all his money. I don't care a d—— red cent why you love me, only I must be sure that it's a fixed fact. Now I'll go straight out and ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... still a hawk in spirit, was proved on an occasion of almost equal interest. A neighbour had sent us a very fine specimen of the smaller horned owl (Strix brachyotus,) which he had winged when flying in the midst of a covey of partridges; and after having tended the wounded limb, and endeavoured to make a cure, we thought of soothing the prisoner's captivity by a larger degree of freedom than he had in the hen-coop which he inhabited. No sooner, however, had our former acquaintance, the hawk, got sight ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... you started up the wrong covey this time. Good morning, lad," nodded the officer to Frank, who promptly ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... light was pretty strong he trotted on regardless of observation. The fog, however, abated none of its denseness even on the "Surrey side," and before they reached the "Elephant and Castle," Jorrocks had run against two trucks, three watercress women, one pies-all-ot!-all-ot! man, dispersed a whole covey of Welsh milkmaids, and rode slap over one end of a buy 'at (hat) box! bonnet-box! man's pole, damaging a dozen paste-boards, and finally upsetting Balham Hill Joe's Barcelona "come crack 'em and try 'em" stall at the door of the inn, for all whose benedictions, the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... of Prussia is found again—where do you think? only in Poland, up to the chin in Russians! Was ever such a man! He was riding home from Olmutz; they ran and told him of an army of Muscovites,(941) as you would of a covey of partridges; he galloped thither, and shot them. But what news I am telling you! I forgot that all ours comes by water-carriage, and that you must know every thing a fortnight before us. It is incredible how popular he is here; except a few, who take him for the same ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... he set his first covey of quail, and remained perfectly staunch. "He's goin' to make a great dog," said Thompson. Everything—size, muscle, nose, intelligence, earnestness—pointed to the same conclusion. Comet was one of the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... of Us?' Kim ducked under a Mewar camel-driver's greasy armpit and cannoned off a covey of jabbering Sikh matrons. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... distancing us and returning to play with us like big sportive birds. The train was filled with our shipmates from the boat and we all craned our necks from the windows to look at the wonderful sight of the air covey that fluttered above us. Even the Eager Soul, our delicious young person with her crinkly red hair and serious eyes, disconnected herself long enough from the Gilded Youth and the Young Doctor "for to admire and for ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... they are practically the same bird now. They are gradually taking the place of Prairie Chickens, which are becoming extinct. The hen will hatch but once each year, and then in the late spring. She will hatch a covey of from eighteen to twenty-two young birds from each setting. The bird likes a more open country than the quail, and nests only in the open fields, although it will spend much time roaming through timberland. Their disposition is much like that of the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... sandbag us into electing him? Is that the sort of hold-up you stand for? Well, then, I tell you I'll never vote for him. I'd rather see these lakes and streams of ours dry up; I'd rather see the last pheasant snared and the last covey leave for the other end of the island, than buy off that Dutchman with a certificate ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... "I perceive a native. Several natives, in fact. Quite a little covey of them. We will put our case before them, concealing nothing, and rely on their advice to ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... bundling along a rough track not 500 yards away, half seen through whirling dust. The men fling themselves down, some tearing a handful of cartridges from their bandoliers to have handy, and settle their carbines on the rocks. Crack! goes the first shot, and at the sound, as at a signal, the covey of fleeing Boers shakes out and scatters over the veldt. The fire quickens rapidly as the carbines come into action. Every Boer as he rides off, you can see through the glasses, is pursued and attended by little dust tufts that ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... jewel-weed and mint, the white setter in the lead swung suddenly west, quartered, wheeled, crept forward and stiffened to a point. Behind him his mate froze into a silvery statue. But Gordon walked on, gun under his arm, and the covey rose with a roar of heavy wings, driving blindly through the tangle deep into the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... thrust my hands into my coat pockets, and fell to pacing the floor while I reflected. That is to say, I reflected after I had secured a good, firm grasp upon the thoughts which skurried helter-skelter, like a flushed covey of quail, ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... infallible 'Brain Town'—that self-complacent and pretentious 'Hub,' can show a more ambitious covey of literary fledgelings!" ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... a start, "I refuse to hang out a minute longer. Seems like I c'n just get a whiff of the steak a sizzling on the gridiron at our house; and say, when I think of it, I get wild. I'm as hungry as that bear that came to our camp, and sent us all up in trees like a covey ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... would be saved, and we were cracking on cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion, when, scur, scur, scur, we stuck fast on the bank. Our black boatmen, being little encumbered with clothes, jumped overboard in a covey like so many wild—ducks, shouting, as they dropped into the water, "We must all get out,—we must all get out;" whereupon Mr Callaloo, a sort of Dominie Sampson in his way, promptly leaped overboard up to his waist in the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... arrangement and invention, beating the home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts. On he struggles through that wild, and too luxuriant cover; now brought up by a "lawyer," now stumbling over a root, now bogged in a green spring, now flushing a stray covey of birds of Paradise, now a sphinx, chimsera, strix, lamia, fire-drake, flying-donkey, two-headed eagle (Austrian, as will appear shortly), or other portent only to be seen now-a-days in the recesses of that enchanted forest, the convolutions of a poet's brain. Up they whir ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... make her promise to quit young Swiggsy. I offered to match you five dollars agin de gurl, an' I said if you was to win I wouldn't trouble you. You said if I winned I could have her. All right. I lost, an' I give up my good money. Den you went ter work wallopin' de gurl. You'd er kilt her if dis covey hadn't er lit in. All right, dat wasn't no fault er mine. An' fur all me, he kin stick dat blazin' iron clear down yer t'roat, an' I'll set yere an' ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... groaned aloud. And as if this had evoked spirits of mischief, up started a whole pack of children from some ambuscade, and unseen, but heard loud enough, clattered out of the church like a covey rising ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... red gurnards, and are said to prey on their smaller cousins, which are also pursued by bonitos, albicores, and dolphins of various species, as well as by numerous sea-birds. Several times we saw a large covey of the smaller kind rise above the surface, followed closely by another of the larger species, when at the same moment a dozen sea-birds would descend, and, quick as lightning, a dolphin would dart by, intent on sharing the ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... whirring, rushing wing, there flew over the hedge beside them a covey of partridges, followed by Ranger's eager bark. Marian's pony started, danced, and capered; Edmund watched her with considerable anxiety, but she reined it in with a steady, dexterous, though not a strong hand, kept her seat well, and rode on in triumph, while Edmund exclaimed, "Capital, Marian!" ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... had enough to do to keep their heads out of the shop-windows. However, as soon as they began to get warm to their work, things improved, and we rattled along merrily. We were spinning away at about twelve miles an hour when, just as we were getting clear of the town, we came suddenly upon a covey of juvenile blackguards who were manufacturing dirt pies right in the centre of the road. As soon as I saw them I sung out to them to clear the course, but before they had time to cut away we were slap into the middle of them. Well, I thought it ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... has various cuts amongst which is a frontispiece, that occurs again at page 29 of the little volume, depicting Gonsales being drawn up to the lunar world in a machine, not unlike a primitive parachute, to which are harnessed his 'gansas ... 25 in number, a covey that carried ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... one possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble birds will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair of ravens ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... curt bow, as a great gray cat springs into her lap and curls himself down on her Milton;) and, as I was going on to say of this dashing Baronet, he played our damsels about in agony, as an old sportsman does a covey of ducks, wounding more in the head than in the heart, and finally creating no end of a demand for matrimony. To-day, all the town was positive, he would marry the beautiful Miss Boggs; to-morrow it was not so certain that he would ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... be up with another covey in five minutes,' said the long gamekeeper. 'If the gentleman begins to fire now, perhaps he'll just get the shot out of the barrel ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... he comes with our tea. I won't have my wild things shot. There was a covey of partridges on the lawn this morning, and my squirrels come up to the porch to be fed. Men are cruel creatures with their guns ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... considerable danger, though of a more humorous order, even in the taking of a bath, as B.-P. discovered in going down to a pool and spotting just in time a leering crocodile in the reeds. Lions, too, were stumbled upon in clumps, just as in peaceful England one walks upon a covey of partridges. Then, lying down one day after dinner for a nap, B.-P. discovered on awaking that a snake had selected precisely the same spot for its own siesta. The charm of night marches, too, was occasionally broken by the growling of a bloodthirsty hyaena, following and snarling ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... the dining-room table, and threw my arms round my mother's neck, who only screamed, "Good heavens, my child!" and fell into hysterics. My father, who was in the very midst of helping his soup, jumped up to embrace me and assist my mother. The company all rose, like a covey of partridges: one lady spoiled a new pink satin gown by a tip of the elbow from her next neighbour, just as a spoonful of soup had reached "the rosy portals of her mouth;" the little spaniel, Carlo, set up a loud and incessant ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... kilted almost into a loin-cloth. The art is to swoop on the food-field, pick up with unerring swiftness the right things and quantities, swoop forth again on the open, and separate, leaving the gifts in a new pile: so you may see a covey of birds in a corn-field. This reminds me of a very inhumane but beautiful passage I had forgotten in its place. The gift-giving was still in full swing, when there came a troop of some ninety men all in tafa lava-lavas of a purplish colour; they ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... establishment which, before he entered it, never knew the want of him. As for me, he was everything to me. Mike informed me what horse was wrong, why the chestnut mare couldn't go out, and why the black horse could. He knew the arrival of a new covey of partridge quicker than the "Morning Post" does of a noble family from the Continent, and could tell their whereabouts twice as accurately. But his talents took a wider range than field sports afford, and he was the faithful chronicler of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... on and on they came out of shadows. Hirondelle stated that he began to think the Crown Prince's army was surrendering to him. At last, when the procession stopped, he—and his mythical sixteen—marched the entire covey, without any objection from them, only abject obedience, ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... until September the war dragged on. It was a dull and dreary time, and as September drew near Gordon thought of happy days in England, with the scent of autumn leaves, and the whir of a covey of birds rising from the stubble, and he longed for partridge-shooting. But they shot men, not birds, in the Crimea. "The Russians are brave," he wrote, "certainly inferior to none; their work is stupendous, their shell practice is beautiful." Gordon was ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... Scalding House, or Scalding Wike). The pluckers and scorchers of the feathered fowl occupied the shops between the Stocks' Market (now the Mansion House) and the Great Conduit. Just before Stow's time the poulterers seem to have taken wing in a unanimous covey, and settled down, for reasons now unknown to us, and not very material to any one, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, and the end of St. Nicholas flesh shambles (now Newgate Market). Poultry was not worth its ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... and if they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head of the college. Then, by-and-by, somebody else will go after some more, and if they beat him, he'll have to go again, or else give up his berth. That's the way they do it. This old covey knows the ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here, where nobody's ever been afore, and where they'll never think of coming." This explanation satisfied Jack; and as it raised Mr. N.'s credit for capacity, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... repetition of a song or a story was as keen as at its initial giving. Was there ever a troubadour of old who struck upon as royal a castle in his wanderings? While he lay thus, meditating upon his blessings, little brown cottontails would shyly frolic through the yard; a covey of white-topknotted blue quail would run past, in single file, twenty yards away; a paisano bird, out hunting for tarantulas, would hop upon the fence and salute him with sweeping flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse pasture the pony with the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... made only two hours and a-quarter, through the expansive valleys of yesterday. Here we found the salt-caravan, there being in this place abundance of room, herbage, and a large well, all necessary for such an assembly of people and beasts. On the road we put up a covey of partridges, and a splendid solitary bird, the hobara of Soudan. Footprints of the hares and of the gazelle were ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... cooked meat, and bread, for his mess, in a bag, swung over his shoulder. They came on across the field until within a hundred yards of the line, when a shell struck, in the field, not far from them. The darkies scattered, like a covey of birds! Some ran one way, and some another. Some ran back to the rear, and a few ran on to us. Our cook, Ephraim, came tearing on with long leaps, and tumbled over among us crying out, "De Lord have mercy upon us." "Ephraim," we said, "what is the matter? what did you run for?" All in a tremble, ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the teachers had ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ground was azure with the bluebells swaying in the soft breeze. Several times he started up with a laugh of delight as a rabbit leaped up from under the greenery and scudded away with a twinkle of short white tail behind it. Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and flew away, and then he shouted and ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... landmark; yet as hour after hour went by and the sun sank lower and lower he never halted, never seemed in doubt as to his destination. The country was growing more rolling now, almost hilly, and he approached each rise cautiously, vigilantly. Once, almost at his feet a covey of frightened prairie chickens sprang a-wing, and at the unexpected sound he dropped like a stone in his tracks, all but concealing himself in the tall grass; then, reassured, he was up ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... there was a flourishing covey of fifteen: Pa Tridge, Ma Tridge, and thirteen little Tridges, all brown and speckled and very chirpy. They had been born in a hollow under some big leaves beside a hedge, and they now moved about the earth, pushing their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... a covey soon after. He and Ernest slipped out of the wagon and stole up as close as possible. Ernest got two with the scattering bird ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... single covey we at last reached another clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... Boys and myself could easily have mastered him and his Servant, and then the two thousand Pistoles would have been shared between us four. Now we must let in the Band for a share, and perhaps the whole Covey may escape us. Should our Friends have betaken themselves to their different posts before you reach the Cavern, all will be lost. The Lady's Attendants are too numerous for us to overpower them: Unless our Associates arrive in time, we must needs let these Travellers set out tomorrow ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... notwithstanding that Thoman doubted if I was "hefty" enough. "Little Lotta" Crabtree was charming. Her mother traveled with her. Between performances she played with her dolls. She danced gracefully and sang fascinatingly such songs as "I'm the covey what sings." Another prime favorite was Joe Murphy, Irish comedian and violinist, pleasing in both roles. I remember a singing comedian who bewailed ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... Well, presently a covey got up, and away we galloped up a long slope. Suddenly a wild tally-ho from Roger. A hare had got up and was lepping across Jezebel's line. So Jezebel fairly flattened herself out to keep the hare in. But the hare was across before she could get ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... over the tree-tops, a big covey of them in a long, straggling line, travelling at I know not what speed, for a fierce gust from the rising gale had caught them. I fired at the first bird, which fell at my feet. I fired again, and another fell behind me. I snatched up the second ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... This peril over, we encounter at the next turning a mad dog, who makes a passing snap at our toga as he darts into a neighbouring blind alley, whither we do not care to follow his vagaries among a covey of young Roman street Arabs. Before we reach home a mumping beggar drops before us as we turn the corner, in a well-simulated fit of epilepsy or of helpless lameness. 'Quoere peregrinum'—"Try that game on country cousins,"—we mutter in our beard, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... not volunteer. The parent who once had wielded the disciplinary strap-end so painstakingly had long since rejoined his bearded ancestors, but there was a dependent mother to be cared for and a whole covey of younger brothers and sisters to be shepherded through school and into sustaining employment. So he waited for the draft, and when the draft took him and his number came out in the drawing, as it very soon did, he waived his exemptions and went to training camp wearing an ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... Confucius worked out the doctrine thus: True government is by example; given the true ruler, and he will have the means of ruling at his disposal, and they will be altogether different from physical force. 'Example' does not covey it either: his thought was much deeper. There is a word li—I get all this from Dr. Lionel Giles—which the egregious have been egregiously translating 'the rules of propriety'; but which Confucius used primarily for a state of harmony within the soul, which should enable beneficent forces ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... I think," said Jeekie, kneeling down and letting fly at a clump of the little men, which scattered like a covey of partridges, leaving one of its number kicking on the ground. "Ah! my boy," shouted Jeekie in derision, "how you like bullet in tummy? You not know Paradox guaranteed flat trajectory 250 yard. You remember that next time, sonny." ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... situation, Reader, did ever you see a careful setter run suddenly into the middle of a covey who were not on their feet nor close together, but a little dispersed and reposing in high cover in the middle of the day? No human face is ever so intense or human form more rigid. He knows that one bird is three yards from his nose, another the same ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Berghem's. There is a jolly set of us. All crack men. When my governor is here, I never go. He is so jealous. I suppose there must be only one gamester in the family; eh! my covey?' Lord Bagshot, excited by the unusual affability of the young Duke, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... my three guests took their leave. I remained out of doors and was engaged in splitting wood for my stove. Suddenly, from a distance, rifle shots rang through the woods, first one, then a second. Afterwards all was still. From the place near the shots a frightened covey of blackcock broke and came over me. At the top of a high pine a jay cried out. I listened for a long time to see if anyone was approaching my hut but everything ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... gone from him like a covey of frightened quail. The fence was cut. For a hundred yards or more along the hilltop it was cut at every post, making it ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... no idleness in that camp. Each man was busy within and without the conical-walled tents in which the troopers lie like the spokes of a wheel, with heads out like a covey of partridges. Before one tent sat the tall soldier—Abe—and the boy, his comrade, whom Crittenden ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... that—blackness, and, so far as he could tell, a silence of death. Just behind them a passing puff of wind lifted a single leaf, looked at it, then laid it softly down again without disturbing the rest of the covey. It seemed as if a million invisible causes had combined just to produce that single visible effect. Other life pulsed about ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... in grace, that I shall ever see. But indeed I could expect no better, after the warning that Maister Wiggie had more than once given us from the pulpit on the subject. Instead, therefore, of getting my grand reward for finding the old man's daughter, the whole covey of them, no better than a set of swindlers, took leg-bail, and made that very night a moonlight flitting; and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought from sunrise to sunset for two days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being well paid for his trouble as he ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... freshman at Oxford, 1642, I was wont to go to Christ Church, to see King Charles I. at supper; where I once heard him say, " That as he was hawking in Scotland, he rode into the quarry, and found the covey of partridges falling upon the hawk; and I do remember this expression further, viz. and I will swear upon the book 'tis true." When I came to my chamber, I told this story to my tutor; said he, that covey ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... that very afternoon, he had been so sure that he had heard Piney's pony up on the bluff that he had gone up there searchingly, joyfully. But except for a little scatter, that he took to be the lift of a covey of quail somewhere off in the Gulch bushes, not a sound or sign came up to the bluff. Steering mourned for Piney. If the tramp-boy had not gone away, things might have been more bearable. But the lad's jealousy and his ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... in the garrison, therefore it has been a great pleasure to us to bring in game for all. Faye rides Bettie now altogether, so I was on Pete yesterday. We had quite a number of chickens, but thought we would like to get two or three more; therefore, when we saw a small covey fly over by some bushes, and that one bird went beyond and dropped on the other side, Faye told me to go on a little, and watch that bird if it rose again when he shot at the others. It is our habit usually for me to ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... cannot select his distance, for the cactus lies thick about, and the little running bird is only on view for the shortest of moments. You must overrun a dog after his first point, since he works too close behind them. The covey will keep together if not pursued with too much haste, and one gets shot after shot; still, at last you must run lively, as the frightened covey scurry along at a remarkable pace. Heavy shot are necessary, since the blue quail carry lead like ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... by the advent of a covey of flying fishes and a (Sunday) "school" of porpoises, is responsible for the following, which is adventured with profuse apologies ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... action changes: crouching to the ground and beating her sides rapidly with her tail, she runs hither and thither, snuffing eagerly in the grass. Now Sancho comes up and catches the cold trail, for a covey has certainly been in that place to-day. Most probably they rose from the spot, frightened by the swoop of a hawk, and made for the nearest cover, for the dogs can do nothing with the scent. But that little whiff of the exciting effluvia has brought them down to their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... trip over a hostile leg and stumble and fall, and I saw a big mountaineer drop right on top of him, pinning him flat to the floor. I saw the musicians inside the orchestra rail, almost under my feet, scuttling away in two directions like a divided covey of gorgeous blue and red birds. I saw the snare drummer, a little round German, put his foot through the skin roof of his own drum. I saw Judge Barbee overturn the white china pitcher of ice water that sweated on the table at his elbow, and as the cold stream of its contents spattered down the legs ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... there all out of breath, you find that each absurdity is invested with habits, strong interests, and chummy Congressmen. Attack all along the line and you engage every force of reaction. You go forth to battle, as the poet said, and you always fall. You can lop off an antiquated bureau here, a covey of clerks there, you can combine two bureaus. And by that time you are busy with the tariff and the railroads, and the era of reform is over. Besides, in order to effect a truly logical reorganization ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... acres, lying along the banks of Newport Creek. Since the civil war it has been worked by tenants. Much of it is woodland and salt-marshes. Five years before my visit, a Philadelphian sent the doctor a few pairs of prairie-chickens, and a covey of both the valley and the mountain partridge. I am now using popular terms. The grouse were from a western state; the partridges had been obtained from California. The partridges were kept caged for several weeks and were then set at liberty. They soon disappeared in the woods, with the exception ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... through without ever touching it, and the worst was I lost my arrow: however, I found it again in the hollow of a tree. I felt it; it felt clammy. I smelt it; it smelt honey. "Oh, ho," said I, "here's a bee's nest," when out sprang a covey of partridges. I shot at them; some say I killed eighteen; but I am sure I killed thirty-six, besides a dead salmon which was flying over the bridge, of which I made the best ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various |
