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Covert   Listen
noun
Covert  n.  
1.
A place that covers and protects; a shelter; a defense. "A tabernacle... for a covert from storm." "The highwayman has darted from his covered by the wayside."
2.
(Zool.) One of the special feathers covering the bases of the quills of the wings and tail of a bird.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Covert" Quotes from Famous Books



... that morning. At first it had been fighting fury that had impelled her to hurry; now it was fear that drove her homeward where Lone was, and Swan, and that stolid, faithful Jim. She felt that Senator Warfield would never dare to carry out his covert threat, once she reached home. Nevertheless, the threat haunted her, made her ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... the covert early, to go out and feed," thought he. "If not frightened, they will browse around in the hollows ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... hung against the mast in the dead calm, and the smoke curled straight upward from some log-huts within the fort. The wildness of the surrounding landscape was most remarkable. Within sight of the Capital of the Republic, the fox yet kept the covert, and the farms were few and far apart. It seemed to me that little had been done to clear the country of its primeval timber, and the war had accomplished more to give evidence of man and industry, than two centuries of occupation. A military road had been cut through the solid rocks here; ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... perverse as to rectify a mistake which had given occasion to a burst of merriment. Sometimes I drew the conversation up by degrees to a proper point, and produced a conceit which I had treasured up, like sportsmen who boast of killing the foxes which they lodge in the covert. Eminence is, however, in some happy moments, gained at less expense; I have delighted a whole circle at one time with a series of quibbles, and made myself good company at another, by scalding my fingers, or mistaking a lady's lap for my ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... had betrayed it in the morning. Gaylass was hardly in the gorse before she discovered the doomed brute's vicinity, and told of it to the whole canine confraternity. Away from his hiding-place he went, towards the open country, but immediately returned into the covert, for he saw a lot of boys before him, who had assembled with the object of looking at the hunt, but with the very probable effect of spoiling it; for, as much as a fox hates a dog, he fears the human race more, and will run from an urchin with a stick into the ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... the fruits of our civilising policy. No one of us doubts for a moment that Japan is, in reality, doing England's work. Moreover, in every part of the globe where our interests are at stake, we encounter either the open or covert hostility of England. The complications in the Balkans and in Turkey, which England has incited and fostered by the most despicable methods, have simply the one object in view—to bring us into mortal conflict with ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann

... enough to contend against him in the field. The Britons held the wood strongly, and defended it right manfully. Peredur might not take it for all his cunning, and lost there largely of his company. The Britons lured the Romans within the covert, and slew them in the glooms. So hot and so perilous was the melley, fought between the ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace

... oiled his scalp and was stretching it on a willow hoop, very busy with the pride and importance of his work. I glanced at Mayaro and caught a gleam of faint amusement in his eyes; but his features remained expressionless enough, and it seemed to me that his covert glance rested on the Wyandotte more ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... one another for two or three hundred yards, creeping from one covert to another till they had placed the bushes on the plain between them and the herd. They then stopped a little and reconnoitred. The herd of antelopes had left off feeding, and now had all their heads turned towards the bushes, and in the direction where they were concealed; the large male ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... so God was pleased to appear in our nature, that they, who were so fond of a visible Deity, might have one, even a true and natural image of God the Father, the express image of his person." It only requires a little reflection to appreciate the Prelate's covert irony and ...
— Astral Worship • J. H. Hill

... tell me," she asked, "that you did not use your knowledge of this treasure to gain a share in it, under a covert threat of disclosing it to the newspaper you ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn

... the boar, for it had left a broad trail through the forest. The heroes and the huntsmen pressed on. They came to a marshy covert where the boar had its lair. There was a thickness of osiers and willows and tall bullrushes, making a place that it was hard for the ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... Oetaeans and the Malian gulf, and to the Achaeans of Phthia and the Thessalians, urging them to join the assembly and take part in the deliberations concerning the peace and well-being of Greece. However, nothing was effected, and the cities never assembled, in consequence it is said of the covert hostility of the Lacedaemonians, and because the attempt was first made in Peloponnesus and failed there: yet I have inserted an account of it in order to show the lofty spirit and the magnificent ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... blandly; and in my covert I wondered what could be coming. Mark obeyed, and drawing his chair nearer the fire waited till she had laid aside her wrappings and seated herself in front ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott

... some that I have never since heard, that must have long ago died out of the musical world and left no echo but in my memory. Of two of these I think the words pretty enough to be worth preserving, the one for its naive simplicity, and the other for the covert irony of its reflection upon female constancy, to which Mademoiselle Descuilles' delivery, with her final melancholy shrug of the shoulders, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... looks betrayed nothing to the uninitiated, though Albinia detected a feverish restlessness and covert impatience, and judged that her sleep had been little. Genevieve's had perhaps been less, for she was very sallow, with sunken eyes, and her face looked half its usual size; but Albinia could not easily have compassion on the poor little unwitting ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the lightness of a hare. He had also the hare's address in doubling and turning. His pursuers never knew, did he pass from sight behind a covert of tents and mounds, where he would bob up next. He avoided shafts and pools as if by a miracle; ran along greasy planks without a slip; and, where these had been removed to balk the police, he jumped the holes, taking risks that were not for a sane man. Once he fell, but, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... unfeminine strength of mind, while the more charitable prophesied that she would pay dearly for this unnatural repression. And the whispered remark of one of the prettier and younger damsels, that the loss of a husband did not seem to crush her, at any rate, met, on the whole, with covert approval. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... the climbing rose at the front of the house, and carefully lifting a branch, motioned to the boys to look under it. There, hidden in the leafy covert, no higher than the young girl's chin, was the daintiest nest ever seen, made of soft cotton from the pussy willows by the brook, interwoven with the finest grasses and green mosses, and embroidered with one shining golden thread. And there was wee mother humming-bird, ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... element, and thus rendering it either a nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a "Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its bayonets ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... for there were not many boys, and those that there were learnt from their father to shoot with the bow and arrow, to hunt the stag in his covert, to kill the bear in order to make clothes out of his skin, and to rub two pieces of wood together till they caught fire. When they knew this perfectly, they had ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... Gourville who, under a heavy expression of countenance, concealed a most subtle, most acute, and fertile intelligence. Persuasive, energetic, prompt, reflective; knowing how to gain an end by the direct road; or, under the eyes of those opposing, attaining it unperceived, by covert and tortuous ways. A man who never found himself in any situation, however desperate it might be, without having the confidence that he could extricate himself from it. Did the cleverest consider a position as lost? Gourville intervened, infused hope, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... pestilence that stalks slaying in the dark, or to the stealthy, gliding serpent, which strikes and poisons before the naked foot is aware. The other resembles the 'destruction that wasteth at noonday,' or the lion with its roar and its spring, as, disclosed from its covert, it leaps upon ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... thoughts. The only events of the slow, dull days for her were now his visits to the store. She no longer started back when, in going, his eager glance rose to her window, but panting, yet secure behind her covert, looked into his eyes and scanned his expression. Sometimes a quick rush of tears would rob her of her vision as she read in the sad hunger of those eyes how he longed for a glimpse of her face. But for very shame's sake she would have pulled ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... planes of thought and action. Two great obstacles to this consummation are apparent: (a) The lack of unity, want of harmony, absence of a self- sacrificing spirit, and no well-defined line of policy seeking definite aims; and (b) The persistent, relentless, at times covert opposition employed to thwart the Negro at every step of his upward struggles to establish the justness of his claim to the highest physical, ...
— The Conservation of Races • W.E. Burghardt Du Bois

... the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock oranges and conch shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... fascinations, but he threw it off savagely now, with a quick and bitter recalling of her deceit and his own weakness. Turning his back upon the scene with a half-superstitious tremor, he plunged once more into the trackless covert. But he was conscious that his eyesight was gradually growing dim and his strength falling. He was obliged from time to time to stop and rally his sluggish senses, that seemed to grow heavier under some deadly ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... of South Meadshire will tell you that it is one of the best counties for all-round sport. Game is preserved, but not over-preserved, and the mixture of pasture and arable land and frequent covert, while it does not tempt the fox-hunting Londoner, breeds stout foxes for the pleasure of those who know every inch of it; and there is enough grass, enough water, and stiff enough fences to try the skill of the boldest, and to provide occasionally ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... namely, that the woman I had loved had actually been engaged to old Mr. Courtenay before her sister had married him. Its tenor showed how intensely antagonistic she was towards the man who had fooled her, and in the concluding sentence there was a distinct if covert threat—a ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... rather glad the janitor was sweeping them out of the house. "You must find it pretty hard," he remarked, with covert reproach, "to keep ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... the south. If the people of Massachusetts or those of Lancashire were employed in raising cotton and sugar, and if the prices which they obtained for their produce were kept down by southern competition, then there might perhaps be some ground for suspecting a covert hostility in any action or influence which they might attempt to exert on such a question. But the contrary is the fact. New England and Old England manufacture and consume the cotton and sugar which the south produces. They are directly and deeply interested in ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... which ordinarily escape attention. The constant change of landscape which attends even the slow progress of a loitering gait puts one on the alert for discoveries of all kinds, and prompts one to suspect every leafy covert and to peer into every wooded recess with the expectation of surprising Nature as Actaeon surprised Diana—in the moment of uncovered loveliness. On the other hand, when one lounges by the hour in the depths of the forest, or sits, book in hand, under the knotted ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... she murmured, several times, and Billy gathered from her covert glance upon him that part of the awkwardness consisted in being saddled with his acquaintance. Then, "Very nice of you, I'm sure," she added. "I hope the creature isn't lingering about somewhere.... We'd better take a cab, Claire—I'm sure we're ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... 1021] were all made the most of, in order to accentuate Steele's incapacity for his task. October 7, the Chickasaw Legislature petitioned for the elevation of Cooper to the full command in Indian Territory [Ibid., 1123-1124]. It was, of course, a covert attack upon Steele.] ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... solemn, wrapped the whole horizon. The sun had altogether disappeared, and nothing was visible in the sky but one unbroken mass of darkness, unrelieved even by a single pile of clouds. The animals, where they could, had betaken themselves to shelter; the fowls of the air sought the covert of the hedges, and ceased their songs; the larks fled from the mid-heaven; and occasionally might be seen a straggling bee hurrying homewards, careless of the flowers which tempted him in his path, and only anxious to reach his hive before the deluge should overtake him. The ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... accompanying its aroma, after his bath and return to ranch clothes, found no appetite. He was as a man whose mind cannot hold fast to anything that he is doing. Firio, restless, worried, his eyes flicking covert glances, was frequently in and out of the living-room ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... upon the Government, though Lloyd George and Mr. Asquith got the major share. On this occasion all the guns were brought to bear on Lloyd George. The insurance tax was unpopular, and nothing that ridicule, covert insult, or open denunciation could achieve was left undone by the Northcliffe papers to smash Lloyd George and his policy. There was plenty of scope for attack. The Insurance Act was undoubtedly hurriedly conceived, and ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot

... space of time. It was not pleasant to hear a reminder of his inexperience from the lips of his fiancee, and he could not stifle a reflection that it would have been kinder on her part to have spared him even so covert a reproach. He tried to hide all signs of annoyance, but there was an edge in his voice ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... they were making their way around a huge mass of rocks, in a path that seemed to have been worn by the feet of wild animals. Tim paused, cocked his rifle and held it ready for instant use, while the boys looked around for some covert into which to retreat, if ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis

... department, after a minute of speechless staring, "really, now, Dr. Parkman, you astonish me."—"That's the truth, if he ever spoke it," thought the doctor grimly."—Dr. Hubers' wife, I understand you to say?"—and he of erudition was equal to a covert sneer—"just what has she to ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... tried, all these years, to think of some way of "doing" hell too—and have always had to give it up. Hell, in my book, will not occupy five pages of MS I judge—it will be only covert hints, I suppose, and quickly dropped, I may end by not even referring ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... in his opinion by the angle at which the light entered the window, and he decided that he would lie in the pew until night came again. It was a trying test. School his will as he would he felt at times that he must come from his covert and walk about the chapel. The narrow wooden pew became a casket in which he was held, and now and then he was short of breath. Yet he persisted. He was learning very young the value of will, and he forced himself every day to use ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Association had, at the same time, a school for Freedmen and the children of Freedmen there, and Miss Mary E. Sheffield, a most faithful and accomplished teacher from Norwich, Connecticut, was in charge of it. The climate, the Rebel prejudices and the indifference or covert opposition to the school of those from whom better things might have been expected, made the position one of great difficulty and responsibility; but Miss Sheffield was fully equal to the work, and continued in it with great usefulness ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... even persons of a more substantial and solid character need to be warned to be on their guard, lest they be ensnared by flattery of a more cunning type. No one who has a moderate share of common-sense fails to detect the open flatterer; but great care must be taken lest the wily and covert flatterer may insinuate himself; for he is not very easily recognized, since he often assents by opposing, plays the game of disputing in a smooth, caressing way, and at length submits, and suffers himself to be outreasoned, so as to make him on whom ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... house, however, was dark, and only by chance did I catch the sly movement of one of the curtains and the glint of an eye, peeping out at me. Whoever its owner might be, he or she had crept across the tiled vestibule silently and was now behind the outer door conducting a covert investigation. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... the conspirators present, returned an audacious answer, "What harm," said he, "when I see two bodies, the one lean and consumptive with a head, the other great and strong without one, if I put a head to that body which wants one?" This covert representation of the senate and the people excited yet greater apprehensions in Cicero. He put on armor, and was attended from his house by the noble citizens in a body; and a number of the young men went with him into the Plain. Here, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... John's covert glance was now for Madame Lannes. How would the matron who was cast in the antique mold of Rome take such news? But she veiled her eyes a little with her long lashes, and he could ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... enchantment fleet, I leave thy covert haunt untrod, And envy Science not her feat 35 To make a twice-told tale ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell

... himself—that is your host," the young gentleman replied—only Macleod could nor tell why he was obviously trying to repress some covert merriment. ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... us, but a ruddy and deep-bosomed lass, a royal and free-hearted spender and giver of gifts. Asters of imperial purple, golden rod fit for kings' scepters, march along with her in ever thinning ranks; the great bindweed covers fences and clambers up dying cornstalks; and in many a covert and beside the open ditches the Gerardia swings her pink and airy bells. All down the brown roads white lady's-lace and yarrow and the stiff purple iron-weed have leaped into bloom; under its faded green coat the sugar-cane shows purple; and sumac ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... pack, and were waiting only until he was down before they rushed in to rend him and his family. Old grudges were brought out and aired secretly. It would go hard with the Lorrigan family if Tom were found guilty. Although he sensed the covert malice behind the smiles men gave him, he would not yield one inch from his mocking disparagement of the whole affair. He laid down a law or two to his boys, and bade them hold their tongues and go their way and give no heed ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... her lover, and then I am sorry to say that the Huntsman began to use very bad language. Nothing had been attended to; the hounds might as well have been entered at rabbits. The fox never even had occasion to break covert, and the gay assemblage rode away towards Branspath before two o'clock in the afternoon. The science of earth-stopping had not been pushed to its final term on the Ellington estate, but still there was hope now that the ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... his leafy covert, wrung his hands in despair, and cursed the whole creation in the utter wretchedness of his sore distress. It seemed to him monstrous, almost iniquitous, that this woman, so pure and rigidly inflexible, should yield herself so unresistingly ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... him depart, and then, quite casually, the big beast hunted closer and closer to Teeka in his search for food. At last he was within a few feet of her, and when he shot a covert glance at her he saw that she was appraising him and that there was no evidence ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... as he lounged back to his place with a covert glance at the girl, who made no sign of seeing ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... did her blushes fade away, More crimson every moment they. Thus shines the wretched butterfly, With iridescent wing doth flap When captured in a schoolboy's cap; Thus shakes the hare when suddenly She from the winter corn espies A sportsman who in covert lies. ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... Orleans, the party of which he formed one had an encounter with brigands, 'for no sooner were we entred two or three leagues into ye Forest of Orleans (which extends itself many miles), but the company behind us were set on by rogues, who, shooting from ye hedges and frequent covert, slew fowre upon the spot... I had greate cause to give God thankes for this escape.' Taking boat, he went down the Loire to St. Dieu, and thence rode to Blois and on to Tours, where he stayed till the autumn. 'Here I took a master of the language and studied the tongue ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... a low, prolonged whistle of mingled wonder and incredulity, but Bruno gave him a covert kick, himself too deeply interested to bear with ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.

... you are brave men in sooth; you deserve success. The fortunes of war must surely be yours at last," cried Corinne, with covert enthusiasm. ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... masonry of the scarp, engineers first lowered the cordon to the level of the covert-way. Under these circumstances, the enemy, although he could no longer see it, reached it by a curved or "plunging" shot. When, in fact, for a given distance we load a gun with the heaviest charge that it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... E. Covert, Townsendville, N. Y.—This hame tug, according to the present invention, is made of a strip of malleable iron or other suitable material, perforated or provided with V-Shaped holes or slots having a center tongue piece, for the reception of a V-Shaped block ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... discouragements, I was permitted to call that afternoon in the hope that the obdurate Uncle Remus might graciously consent to see me. I found him in his office in the top story of the building, an appropriate place to avoid being run to covert by the public, but inconvenient because of the embarrassment which might result from dropping out of the window if he should have the misfortune to be cornered. To say that I was received might be throwing too much of a glamour over the situation. At least, I was not summarily ejected, nor treated ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... he did his work very well, I believe," Mr. Thurwell said impatiently. "It was what he did after working hours, and which has just come to my notice, which makes me ask you. It seems he spent the whole of his spare time making covert, but I must say ingenious, inquiries respecting Sir Geoffrey's murder, and I am also given to understand that he paid Falcon's Nest an uninvited visit in the middle of the night. What does it all mean? Was it merely curiosity, or had he ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... receded to more distant parts of the city; for the field of combat embraced an area of several miles, and there were forty thousand troops engaged in it. As soon as I could do so with safety, I left my covert, and endeavored to see what had happened elsewhere. But troops guarded every possible avenue, and fired on all those who attempted to approach any interdicted spot. I noticed some pools of blood, but the corpses had been removed; in a cross-street ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of my friends; my chest was on the way to Greenock; I had composed the last song ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... to allay the feelings engendered against them Guy Johnson, on May 18th, wrote to the Committee of Schenectady declaring "my duty is to promote peace,"[104] and on the 20th to the Magistrates of Palatine, making the covert threat "that if the Indians find their council fire disturbed, and their superintendent insulted, they will take a dreadful revenge."[105] The last letter thoroughly aroused the Committee of Tryon county, and on the 21st stated, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... lodging there. To save farther trouble, the indulgence was allowed. About midnight the chamber door opened, and a person was heard stepping across the room. The gentleman started from his sleep; the dog sprung from his covert, and seizing the unwelcome disturber, fixed him to the spot! All was dark; and the gentleman rang his bell in great trepidation, in order to procure a light. The person who was pinned to the floor by the courageous mastiff ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... kidney ought to be. If they haven't found I'm a nigger,—and by the holy he's away. Come along Larry and forget the petticoats for half an hour." So saying, Runciman broke into a gallop, and Larry's mare doing the same, he soon passed the innkeeper and was up at the covert side just as Tony Tuppett with half a score of hounds round him, was forcing his way through the bushes, out of the coverts into the open field. "There ain't no poison this time, Mr. Twentyman," said the huntsman, as, setting his eye on a gap in the further fence, he ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... life. The soul thirsts for sympathy. It hungers for love. Baffled and broken it seeks a great heart. For the pilgrim multitudes Moses was the shadow on a great rock in a weary land. For poor, hunted David, Jonathan was a covert in time of storm. Savonarola, Luther, Cromwell sheltered perishing multitudes. Solitary in the midst of the vale in which death will soon dig a grave for each of us stands the immortal Christ, "the shadow of a great rock in a ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis

... Mr. Adams ever crossed swords in the House with a man of commanding power was in the famous discussion of January, 1836, with George Evans of Maine. Mr. Adams had made a covert but angry attack on Mr. Webster for his opposition to the Fortification Bill in the preceding Congress, when President Jackson was making such energetic demonstrations of his readiness to go to war with France. To the surprise ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... stranger in this part of the country, I presume" said he, with a view of bringing him out for his own covert and somewhat ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... the royal bidding; and though the words were innocent enough, for the sword was part of the usual dress of a gentleman which he must necessarily resume when he laid aside the gown of the Chancellor, they were taken as conveying a covert threat. He was still determined to force on the king a peace with the States. But he looked forward to the dangers of the future with even greater anxiety than to those of the present. The Duke of York, the successor to the throne, had owned himself a Catholic; ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... kind of vision. I do not know if you will understand. The Warehouse of Life, with our Individual Fate hurrying each of us through. Showing us with a covert sneer all the good things that we cannot afford. A magnificent Rosewood love affair, for instance, deep and rich, fitted complete, some hours of perfect life, some acts of perfect self-sacrifice, perfect ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... to any thing she pleased, he acquainted the consul with the hope he had formed. His reasoning appeared not altogether unfounded, and he was desired to go to Tarentum as a deserter and having gained the confidence of the praefect by means of his sister, he began by sounding his disposition in a covert manner, and then, having sufficiently ascertained his weakness, induced him, by the aid of female fascinations, to the betrayal of that custody of the place to which he was appointed. After the method to be pursued and the time for putting the plan into effect had been agreed ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius

... leaping through the small bushes towards the covert. The deer moved not until Joe reached within a few feet of it, when, making a mighty spring, it bounded over the head of its assailant, and its sharp feet running through the icy surface of the snow, penetrated ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror, its likeness was in Reuben's memory. He even recognized the veins which seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters: everything remained the same, except that a thick covert of bushes shrouded the lowerpart of the rock, and would have hidden Roger Malvin had he still been sitting there. Yet in the next moment Reuben's eye was caught by another change that time had effected since he last stood where he ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... known pecuniary cares himself, did not well understand these sallies of Erasmus. He replies to them with delicate irony and covert rebuke, which Erasmus, in his turn, pretends not to understand. He was now 'in want in the midst of plenty', simul et in media copia et in summa inopia. That is to say, he was engaged in preparing for ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... chilling winter binds, Deform'd by rains, and rough with blasting winds; The wither'd woods grow white with hoary frost, By driving storms their verdant beauty lost, The trembling birds their leafless covert shun, And seek, in distant climes a warmer sun: The water-nymphs their silent urns deplore, Ev'n Thames benum'd's a river now no more: The barren meads no longer yield delight, By glist'ring snows ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... ten minutes after this that the girl, clad entirely in white, made her appearance on deck; and as Leslie stole a covert glance at her face, and noted its absolute composure, he told himself that he had been mistaken; she had certainly not been crying; and he wondered what in the world it was that could have put so ridiculous an idea into his head. She appeared to be frankly ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... conversation with a grim sort of self-effacement. Soon they saw another figure approaching by the flagged path. It was the figure of Eben Tollman and his manner was full of solicitude—but as he talked with the father, Farquaharson saw him more than once steal covert glances at the daughter. Obviously he bore, here, the relationship of family friend, and though Conscience seemed to regard him as a member of an older generation, he seemed to regard her as ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... heavens, the verdant meadows, the pure air. I know a country instinct with delights of every kind, an unknown paradise, a secluded corner of the world—where alone, unfettered and unknown, in the thick covert of the woods, amidst flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my prince. I do not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read your own,—aye, even to its depths. I will ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... these guests would make but a short sojourn in this spot. There was reason to suppose that it was now night, and that, after a short repose, they would start up and resume their journey. It was my first design to remain shrouded in this covert till their departure, and I prepared to endure ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... nobody now; this woman is wiser in her own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. Now also the covert for the Sabbath must be turned to the use of the king of Assyria, &c. (2 Kings 16:18). Thus has the beauty of God's church betrayed her into the hands of her lovers, who loved her for themselves, for the devil, and for the making ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... sprinklings of gray mortar. Nevertheless the consul thought the streets preferable to the persistent gloom of his office, and sallied out. Youthful mercantile St. Kentigern strode sturdily past him in the lightest covert coats; collegiate St. Kentigern fluttered by in the scantiest of red gowns, shaming the furs that defended his more exotic blood; and the bare red feet of a few factory girls, albeit their heads and shoulders were draped and hooded in thick shawls, filled him with a keen ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... are here the embodiment and revelation of the whole ideal world. The hunted one flees, as men so constantly flee from the Highest, and seeks refuge in every possible form of earthly experience—at least in every clean and noble form, for there is nothing suggestive of low covert or the mire. It is simply the second-best as a refuge from the best that is depicted here—the earth at its pagan finest, in whose charm or homeliness the soul would fain hide itself from the spiritual pursuit. And the Great Huntsman is remorseless ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... been seen riding together towards White Lodge, which was the name of the house where these two young men lived. Lumley followed them. He rode into the stable yard, and found there Ruth's mare and Wingrave's covert hack, from which he had not changed when they had left the field. Both animals had evidently been ridden hard, and there was something ominous in the smile with which the head groom told him that Lady Ruth and ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... mounted the winged Pegasus. The brilliant Burgundy and sparkling Hock no longer mantle in our glass; but Barclay's beer—nectar of gods and coalheavers—mixed with hippocrene—the Muses' "cold without"—is at present our only beverage. The grouse are by us undisturbed in their bloomy mountain covert. We are now content to climb Parnassus and our garret stairs. The Albany, that sanctuary of erring bachelors, with its guardian beadle, are to us but memories, for we have become the denizens of a roomy attic (ring the top bell twice), and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... of the rainbow, fluttering down from the land of the sun when June scatters her roses northward, and poising on wings that never weary, kisses the nectar from the waiting flowers; how bright and beautiful is the horizon of his little life! How sweet is the dream of the covert in the deep mountain gorge, to the trembling, panting deer in his flight before the hunter's horn and the yelping hounds! How dear to the heart of the weary ox is the vision of green fields and splashing waters! And down ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... and was striding forward, when I distinctly noticed a covert movement somewhere near the middle of the carriage, and heard a low gurgle, which was instantly suppressed. I stopped dead at this sharp reminder that I was probably not the only curious person in ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... her own voice was like that of a singing lark, mounting from its daisy covert; or rather, like the flow of a silver rill whose music was soon lost, however, in the tumultuous rush of other tributary streams of sound; still, the general effect was good, and the people enjoyed it. By the time the second stanza ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... himself in a high-backed chair, he arranged his garments fussily about him, rolled up his long embroidered sleeves to the elbow, and spread his writing implements all over the desk in front of him with much mock-solemn ostentation. Then, rubbing his lean hands together, he gave a stealthy glance of covert derision round at Sah-luma and Theos,—a glance which Theos saw and in his heart resented, but which Sah- luma, absorbed in his own reflections, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... is that of oblique and covert reflections; when a man doth not directly or expressly charge his neighbor with faults, but yet so speaketh that he is understood, or reasonably presumed to do it. This is a very cunning and very mischievous way of slandering; for therein the skulking calumniator ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... lukewarm, it is owing to the prayers of the fervent, who are continually crying, 'et ne nos inducas in tentationem.' I have said this, not for the purpose of honouring those whom we see walking in the way of contemplation; for it is another extreme into which the world falls, and a covert persecution of goodness, to pronounce those holy forthwith who have the appearance of it. For that would be to furnish them with motives for vain-glory, and would do little honour to goodness; on the contrary, it would expose it to great risks, because, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... not to be entrusted with the momentous interests with which the cause of the Reformation was freighted. And hence, at the risk of the Elector's displeasure and at the peril of his life, Luther came forth from his covert to withstand the violence which was putting ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... your informant further of her part in the matter!" he hissed, suddenly, an open sneer in his voice and a covert implication of deep meaning. ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... the safe, snug, warm sheaf they dwelt, Till the long, cold night was gone, And softly and clear the sweet church bells Rang out on the Christmas dawn, When down from their covert, with fluttering wings, They flew to a resting-place, As the humble peasant passed slowly by, With a sorrowful, downcast face. "Homeless and friendless, alas! am I," They heard him sadly say, "For the sheriff," (he wept and wrung his hands) "Will come ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann

... trotted out of the corral for me was a pure white, beautiful mustang, nervous, sensitive, quivering. I watched Frank put on the saddle, and when he called me I did not fail to catch a covert twinkle in his merry brown eyes. Looking away toward Buckskin Mountain, which was coincidentally in the direction of home, I said to myself: "This may be where you get on, but most certainly it ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... flung open and M. de Fontelles appeared. He bowed coldly to me and vented on his servants the anger from which he was not yet free, calling them drunken knaves and bidding them see to their horses and lie down in the stable, for he must be on his way by daybreak. With covert glances at me which implored silence and received the answer of a reassuring nod, they slunk away. I bowed to M. de Fontelles with a merry smile; I could not conceal my amusement and did not care how it might puzzle him. I strode out of the kitchen and made my way up the stairs. I had to pass the ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... her; the more unintelligible the discussion becomes, the better for the sceptic; you may not only doubt, but doubt whether you even understand your doubts. You may play 'hide and seek' there for ten thousand years." "For all eternity," was his reply. But he said he had no wish to seek any such covert, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... evening of my imprisonment, there was an unusual stir in the building soon after nightfall. Intercourse between the different rooms is prevented as much as possible, but the channels of covert communication are many, and not easily cut off. In ten minutes every one was aware that the iron-clads which were to annihilate Charleston had recoiled, beaten and wounded. My mate rejoiced greatly after his saturnine fashion, and I—the fullness of listlessness being not ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... tottering to his fall, amidst the ruins of a crumbling State, forsaken by the Powers that egged him on with covert promises of armed support, abandoned to the tender mercies of his foes by those on whose behalf he drew the sword. Yet, even now, the dauntless spirit of the man rises above the wreckage of disaster. A little band of heroes ring ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... the surface-ice Of stiff stolidity. Vigour, aye, and vice, Therein find ready covert. Wickedness here may lurk, or even wit. Not to name happiness; but naught of it Is obvious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various

... and nights of fierce warfare with the Indians "way back in the fifties," when every ripple of the Columbia River and her tributaries hid covert danger. God had dowered him with a queer, crooked gift of expression and a fierce anxiety for the welfare of his two little sons—tanned and reserved children, who attended school daily and spoke good English in ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... distinction, then, between definitions of names, and what are erroneously called definitions of things; but it is, that the latter, along with the meaning of a name, covertly asserts a matter of fact. This covert assertion is not a definition, but a postulate. The definition is a mere identical proposition, which gives information only about the use of language, and from which no conclusions affecting matters of fact can possibly be drawn. The accompanying postulate, on the other hand, affirms ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... which Frances could picture Chadron looking at King in his covert, man-weighing way. ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... with Vanderbank's covert aid, had begun to appear to have pulled himself together, dropping back on his sofa and attending in a manner to his tea. It might have been with the notion of showing himself at ease that he turned, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... his head gently, and, leaning back, bestowed a covert wink upon the signboard. He then explained that it was the dream of his life to give ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs

... at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil! Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber, Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing. What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of men? Have compassion; Be favourable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge; Let me, contented and mute, with the beasts of the fields, my brothers, Tranquilly, ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough

... This covert threat at once reduced Tom to a sense of discipline, and he made a gallant effort to secure Mr ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... has ever denied that Denney must have employed a faultless, an incomparable tact, to bring J. Rodney Potts to this agreement. By tact alone had he achieved that which open sneers, covert insult, abuse, ridicule, contumely, and forthright threats had failed to consummate, and in the first flush of the news we all felt much as Westley Keyts said ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not energetic manner, he had ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope

... Alternate by reprisal and revenge, Doubly compensate each discomfiture, Yet seek not to attack each-other's home, Where Age, and Infancy, in safety dwell: They war but with freebooters: private Peace And Female Covert, Valour scorns to assail. But when in evil hour some female hand, Whether by force of Love, or force of Arms, Is led across the desart by the Foe; The jealous fury kindles to a flame: No longer sacred the domestic hearth: Fire, Death, and Devastation, mark their way, And all the horrid ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield

... of Celoron. The Great West. Its European Claimants. Its Indian Population. English Fur-Traders. Celoron on the Alleghany. His Reception. His Difficulties. Descent of the Ohio. Covert Hostility. Ascent of the Miami. La Demoiselle. Dark Prospects for France. Christopher Gist. George Croghan. Their Western Mission. Pickawillany. English Ascendency. English Dissension and Rivalry. The Key of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... covert negotiations between Henry and the States had caused much anxiety among the foreign envoys in France. Don Bernardino de Mendoza, who had recently returned from Spain after his compulsory retreat from his post of English ambassador, was now established in Paris, as representative ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... of marriage had never entered her head, even though Licinia—with constant garrulousness—had oft made covert allusions to that coming time. She knew—for it had been instilled into her from every side ever since her father had left her under the tutelage of the Caesar—that she must eventually obey him, if one day he desired that she ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... he brought his rifle around to the front, so that he could use it at a moment's need, for he could not but see the probability that, if his horse had been lately disturbed, it was likely that those who did so were still in the vicinity, and no place was more likely to be used for a covert than the same patch of timber which he ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... seems impossible that the hand of human industry, or the foot of human wayfaring should ever penetrate; no wholesome growth can take root in its slimy depths; a wild jungle chokes up parts of it with a reedy, rattling covert for venomous reptiles; the rest is a succession of black ponds, sweltering under ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... "We all speak with covert irony sometimes," answered the man, "as I did then. Poor Joe Morgan! He is an old and early friend of Simon Slade. They were boys together, and worked as millers under the same roof for many years. In fact, Joe's father owned the mill, and the two learned their trade ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... suggestive, satirical, or over-familiar, which he would not have perceived in days gone by, but to which he had grown sensitive. It was clear that the story gained piquancy from its contrast with the staidness of his life; and his most intimate friends permitted themselves a little covert "chaff" with him on the event. He was not of a nature to resent this raillery on his own account; it was serious to him only because it ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King

... on a woman, in a synagogue, and by all these characteristics was specially interesting to Luke. He alone records it. The narrative falls into two parts—the miracle, and the covert attack of the ruler of the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... genial and human personage; full of a knowledge of human nature, and of a tenderness and sympathy, which account for his undoubted power over the minds of men; and showing, too, at times, a certain covert and "pawky" humour which puts us in mind, as does the humour of many of the Egyptian hermits, of the old-fashioned Scotch. These reminiscences are contained in the "Words of the Elders," a series of anecdotes of the desert fathers collected by various ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... bounded off through the forest, no more to be guided or curbed than the feet of a wild and unbridled horse. Through darksome wood and glimmering glade, over rugged hill and tangled vale, with incredible swiftness sped they on; nor turned aside for bramble covert or reedy brake, but right through the thick of them dashed, till the boy was covered with scratches from head to foot, and his ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... brought him again to the sea, in an opposite direction to that by which he had approached the island. Here he crawled into a hiding-place among the rocks, and lay down to rest. The day was again declining before he ventured forth from his covert, and cautiously approached the distant shore, whence he might see the ship. He reached the spring by which he had stood yester eve, when his companions parted from him, with something like pity stirring in the hearts of all ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh



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