"Cock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the march of a grand procession with the king's banner floating over it. The passengers in the street below would discern her anxious visage and send up a shout: "When the golden Indian on the province-house shall shoot his arrow, and when the cock on the Old South spire shall crow, then look for a royal governor again!" for this had grown a by-word through the town. And at last, after long, long years, old Esther Dudley knew—or perchance she only dreamed—that a royal governor was on the eve ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bush pines, heirs of the white birches' heritage, rabbits hopped away; sometimes a cock grouse, running like a rat, fled, crested head erect; twice twittering woodcock whirred upward, beating wings tangled for a moment in the birches, fluttering like great moths caught ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... the huge form lay still, while the ring of Legionnaires remained petrified. Suddenly the group realized that the fighting cock had ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... blunt and uncultivated than they came to his ears from the lips of the dying "George—." But that he took no other liberties of the least consequence is pretty certain. He respected the "Supernaturall" here, as in his grave brochure on the Cock Lane Ghost, which spectre, alas! mightily took him in. And, by the way, the reader will please observe in his pages here following that though the method of "building" and so of forming the "Square," and of "reducing" it, seems ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson
... newspaper and a smell of Sullivans—how good they are after shag! Meanwhile I pay my rent and am a good tenant in every way; and it's a very useful little pied-a-terre—there's no saying how useful it might be at a pinch. As it is, the billy-cock comes in and the topper goes out, and nobody takes the slightest notice of either; at this time of night the chances are that there's not a soul in the building ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... aside and thus, led by the music, beheld a jester in his motley lying a-sprawl beneath a tree. A long-legged knave was he, pinched and something doleful of visage yet with quick bright eyes that laughed 'neath sombre brows, and a wide, up-curving mouth; upon his escalloped cape and flaunting cock's-comb were many little bells that rang a silvery chime as, up-starting to his elbow, he ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... have no trouble; Livingston was so cock-sure that we wouldn't try it that he'd probably forgotten all about it. I guess that conceited little fool Fletcher will talk out of the other side of his mouth for a while now. What do you think? He had the nerve to tell me last week that he guessed he could prevent a kidnaping, ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... balance and comes down thump on the floor, or breaks his fall on the mosquito curtains. He is one of the signs that we really are in the East; here is another. Listen for a moment at the window. There is a distant barking of dogs, a far-away crow from a defiant cock, a strange murmurous chant of men, weird cries intermingled, and now and then the deep beat of a parchment drum. The people of the land are all awake and stirring though it is late—the East never really sleeps as profoundly ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... direction, he would make a sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the lawn. I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow. I believe they looked on him as a bit of a crank, and humored him by coming within springing distance, just to keep him amused. Dashing young cock sparrows would show off before their particular hen sparrows, and earn a cheap reputation for dare-deviltry by going within so many yards of Edwin's lair ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... The old woman had been lately put upon board wages. Lucky old woman! Frank rang a third time, and with the impetuosity of his age. A face peeped from the belvidere on the terrace. "Diavolo!" said Dr. Riccabocca to himself. "Young cocks crow hard on their own dunghill; it must be a cock of a high race to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rice cakes, thin, hard, and indigestible as bits of slate. The children's stomachs are abnormally large; due, perhaps, to the half-cooked rice and other poorly prepared food. When it comes to the choice of caring for the child or the fighting cock, the cock has the preference. The bird is carried as fondly and as carefully as if it were a superior creature. It was strange to see how they would carry these birds on their palms; nor did they attempt to fly away, but would ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... instantly made itself an eagle, and went in pursuit of the serpent. The serpent, however, being vigilant, assumed the form of a white cat; the eagle in an instant changed to a wolf, and the cat, being hard pressed, changed into a worm; the wolf changed to a cock, and ran to pick up the worm, which, however, became a fish before the cock could pick it up. Not to be outwitted, the cock transformed itself into a pike to devour the fish, but the fish changed into a fire, and the son of Eblis was burnt to ashes before he could make another change.—Arabian ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... if you're an infant Band of Hope, let me recommend you to play in some other backyard,' said the Cock-Hatted Man. ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... you mine, mamma; mine is perfectly empty; not a speck of pain, or anything else, in it, and it would last just so, as long as you live, and ever so much longer. It is so destressing to have a head so brimful of sufferling;" and little Sallie looked as grieved as cock-robin's wife when he was killed by the sparrow, with his ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... trio of culprits—Hastings, Fitzgerald, and the Cardinal de Rohan.... So much for tragedy. Our comic performers are Boswell and Dame Piozzi. The cock biographer has fixed a direct lie on the hen, by an advertisement in which he affirms that he communicated his manuscript to Madame Thrale, and that she made no objection to what he says of her low opinion of Mrs. Montagu's book. It is very possible that it might not ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... It looks like a conspiracy to throw those fire-extinguishers back on Miss Sally's hands. Probably he has taken an agency for fire-extinguishers, or had made a deal to take some in payment for advertising space in his paper, and wants to sell them to Skinner. I understand there is some cock-and-bull story he has got up about these fire-extinguishers being out-of-date, or useless, or something of that kind, and that he means to make a big stir about the council having been bribed to force them on Skinner. I suppose Jones will get something out of it, someway. I ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... when the perch was put into the garden, Miss Betty was sometimes startled by stumbling on John Broom in the dusk, sitting on his heels, the unfastened chain in his hand, with his black head lovingly laid against Cock's white and yellow poll, talking in a low voice, and apparently with the sympathy of his companion; and as Miss Betty justly feared, of that "other side of the world," which they both knew, and which both at ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... sung out a small shrill treble from the midst of a crowded cock-boat, nearly swamped ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... kick in the ribs that caused him to jump out with all his legs, like a frog, and then off went the spoon-legged animal with a gait that was not a trot, nor yet precisely pacing. He rode around our grass plot twice, and then pulled his horse's head up like the cock of a musket. "That," said he, "is time." I replied that he did seem to go pretty fast. "Pretty fast!" said his owner. "Well, do you know Mr. ——?" mentioning one of the richest men in our village. I replied that I was acquainted with him. "Well," said he, "you know ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... Dudley, who hast been afield since the crowing of the cock, know what hath passed about the dwellings? It is plain that envy, or some other evil passion, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... invention, fabrication, fiction; fable, nursery tale; romance &c (imagination) 515; absurd story, untrue story, false story, trumped up story, trumped up statement; thing devised by the enemy; canard; shave, sell, hum, traveler's tale, Canterbury tale, cock and bull story, fairy tale, fake; claptrap. press agent's yarn; puff, puffery (exaggeration) 549. myth, moonshine, bosh, all my eye and Betty Martin, mare's nest, farce. irony; half truth, white lie, pious fraud; mental reservation ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... rantin', ramblin' billies, [those] Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows: [Devil a bit] Except for breakin' o' their timmer, [wasting, timber] Or speaking lightly o' their limmer, [mistress] Or shootin' o' a hare or moor-cock, The ne'er-a-bit they're ill to poor folk. But will ye tell me, Master Caesar? Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure; Nae cauld nor hunger o'er can steer them. [touch] The very thought ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... inform Montigny that Berghen had known of the new bishoprics before the Cardinal. This, urged Granvelle, was particularly necessary, because the seigniors were irritated that so important a matter should have been decided upon without their advice, and because the Marquis Berghen was now the "cock of the opposition." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of hounds, with which he hunted on alternate days, and he had even endeavored to do so on the Sunday; but the obsequious "county" had declined to go with him to that extent, and this anomaly of the nineteenth century had been compelled to confine himself on the seventh day to cock-fighting in the library. He kept a bear to bait (as well as a chaplain to bully), and ferrets ran loose about Crompton as mice do in other houses. He had a hunter for every week in the year, yet he often rode his horses to death. He had a stud of racers, and it was this, or rather his belief in ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awakened the crowing cock; Tu—whit!——Tu—whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. 5 Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... box, to eight inches above, depending somewhat on the amount of water space above the crown sheet, as this space differs very materially in different makes of the same sized boiler. The boiler is also tapped on or near the level of crown sheet, to receive the lower water glass cock and directly above this, for the top cock. The space between this shows the safe variation of the water. Don't let the water get above the top of the glass, for if you are running your engine at hard work, ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... so worked up for something dreadful, that I am sorry to say, Mamma, I went into a shriek of laughter. That seemed to annoy Godmamma very much; she got as red as a turkey-cock, and said she saw nothing to cause mirth—in fact, she had hoped I should have been ashamed at such deplorable immodesty, if, as she feared from my attitude, her accusation was correct. I said, when I could stop laughing, of course it was ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... one Sunday morning last November [1882] with my camera lucida to see whether I should like to make a sketch of the gap made by the demolition of the Cock Tavern. It was rather pretty, with an old roof or two behind and scaffolding about and torn paper hanging to an exposed party-wall and old fireplaces and so on, but it was not very much out of the way. Still I would have taken it if it had not been the Cock. ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... shown to strangers, I have not seen it; but of old many persons journeyed thither, attracted by the quaint mural paintings, in the Prior's room, of domestic animals uttering speech. "Christus natus est," crows the cock. "Quando? Quando?" the duck inquires. "In hac nocte," says the raven. "Ubi? Ubi?" asks the cow, and the lamb ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... off at half-cock into the bargain? I ain't one of the kind, you know, that talks around Robin Hood's barn. I go straight in at the front door and out at the back. It's my rough way of coming to the p'int at once. I kin see that you're runnin' ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of it. I shall say, 'Take care of your heart, Bopp, for she has a bad habit of playing battle-door and shuttle-cock with these articles; and, though it may be very good fun for a time, it makes them ache when they get a last knock and are left to ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... gamesters, unable to bear reverse, have made vows which they lacked the moral courage to keep. Dr. Norman Macleod tells a curious anecdote of a well-known character who lived in the parish of Sedgley, near Wolverhampton, and who, having lost a considerable sum of money by a match at cock-fighting—to which practice he was notoriously addicted—made a vow that he would never fight another cock as long as he lived, "frequently calling upon God to damn his soul to all eternity if he did, and, with dreadful ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... neighbour—"you shall not be driven away. You shall till this land, but in a way you little think for. Remember, my good fellow, how in your youth, some fifty years ago, you were rash enough to wed my father's little serf, Jacqueline. Remember the proverb, 'He who courts my hen is my cock.' You belong to my fowl-yard. Ungird yourself; throw away your sword! From this day forth ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... still feels a fair wind blowing yet looking aloft, sees the uneasy weather-cock veer and veer in varying flaws, so she, sensitive and fine in mind and body, gradually became aware of the trend of things; felt the premonition of the distant change in the atmosphere—sensed it gathering ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... JOE would cock a nose At "Cockney JOHN," as certain foes Called JOSEPH's rival. Words like those Part Shepherd swains. Sad when crook-wielders meet as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... boxing and quarterstaff. But perhaps these belonged to the practice of arms and archery, which were never neglected, because at any moment the London craftsman might have to become a soldier. They had cock fighting, a sport to which the Londoner was always greatly addicted. And they loved dancing with the girls to the music of pipe and tabor. In the winter, when the broad fens north of the walls were frozen, they skated. And they hunted with hawk and hound in the Forest of Middlesex, which belonged ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... his body: but even this extreme measure has been known to fail; in which case the terrified animal is withdrawn, and another is put forward in his place. These are cruel pastimes, though they may be thought not more so than dog-fighting and cock-fighting, which were formerly so much practised in Britain; and not so barbarous as a pugilistic combat between two hired brutes ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de Kock with a loud proud knocker with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the ditch and pitched her out on her head instead," I jeered. "That's all poppy-cock. I've taken that bridge at full speed a ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... cock's first crow In dreams they walk where windflowers blow; Late do they dream, and liker grow To Charles ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... subjects, caricatures of contemporaries, some indeed of so objectionable a character that they have been removed of late years. A few examples of these carvings will be given. On the arm of one of the stalls a fox is represented preaching to a flock of geese, a cock acting as clerk. On one of the misereres we have a pair of devils somewhat resembling monkeys tempting an angel, a goose bringing an offering on a plate to a quaint figure, a man with a hatchet employed in carving, a man with a hole in the back of his garments ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... burn your thumb with the match—you always did, you know. That's the style. You've forgotten to cock your head to the side. Not so bad. That's ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... night, however, two men dug down to the kettle, and seized it by the handle; but immediately wonderful things happened, with a view of preventing them from taking away the kettle and the money—first, they saw a black dog with a red hot tongue; next, a cock drawing a load of hay; then a carriage with four black horses. The men, however, pursued their occupation without uttering a word. But at last came a man, lame in one foot, halting by, and he said, 'Look, ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... of a thorn thicket two cock-pheasants were having a difference, and were enthusiastically settling that difference in the approved method of game-cocks. He lingered to see which might win, but a misstep and a sudden crack of a dry twig startled them, and they withdrew like two stately ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... to find him. They soon discovered him, and, laughing most heartily, called out, 'Hallo, Byron! here's a gentleman wants you.' And what do you think? He had got on Drury's hat. I can still remember the arch cock of Byron's eye at the hat and then at my father, and the fun and merriment it caused him and all of us whilst, during the day, he was perambulating the highways and byeways of Ida with the hat on. 'Harrow Speech Day and the Governor's Hat' was one of the standing rallying-points ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and sloth, his imitative attempts at literature. But no one knew how bitterly he despised himself, in lonely walks in the rain, in savage pacing about his furnished room. To others he seemed vigorously conceited, cock-sure, noisily ready to blame the ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Parker was a brisk little man, clad in brindle jeans of ancient cut, resplendent with brass buttons. Two small piercing eyes, deep-set beside a hawk's-beak nose, twinkled from under the rim of his brown straw hat, whose crown was defiantly surmounted by a cock's feather. But he was exceedingly jolly withal, and welcomed the Yankees with pompous good-humor, despatching a sergeant for a jug of applejack, which was doubtless as inexpensive to the major as his other hospitality. Having been a prisoner at Chicago, he prided himself on his knowledge of dungeon ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... presence of mind, and taking out his handkerchief covered his face and his stars, so that his crew might not be discouraged by knowing that the wounded officer being carried past to the cock-pit was their dearly ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... would serve his turn. Yet it required no slight measure of courage to treat his fellow-creatures with the steady disrespect with which Reineke treats them. To walk along among them, regardless of any interest but his own; out of mere wantonness to hook them up like so many cock-chafers, and spin them for his pleasure; not like Domitian, with an imperial army to hold them down during the operation, but with no other assistance but his own little body and large wit; it was something to venture upon. And a world ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Mart.... You're still the ground-and-lofty thinker of the outfit, ain't you? Now that you mention it, though, we may find that the Last of the Mohicans ain't entirely toothless, at that. But say, Mart, how come I'm as wild and cock-eyed as I ever was? Rovol's a slow and thoughtful old codger, and with his accumulation of knowledge it looks like I'd ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... tails aloft, for more distant thickets; cottontail rabbits and an occasional jack-rabbit, venturing forth as the shadows grew long in the valley, flashed through the low sage and weeds; from the purpling hillsides cock quails called cheerily to their families to come right home. The air was still and cool, heavy with the perfume of sage, blackberry briars, yerba santa, an occasional bay tree and the pungent odor of moist earth and decaying vegetation. There had fallen upon the land that atmosphere ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... don't want to live—without her. You needn't cock up your eyes like that. I'd go back to her now—yes, by God, I'd do this thing now, if ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... the cock, which rejoices over every little thing, and crows with varied and lively ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... years of age, of thriving master-mechanic appearance and obviously comfortable temper. On seeing the child, and before taking any notice whatever of the elders, the comer made a noise like the crowing of a cock and flapped his arms as if they were wings, a method of entry which had ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... to win or lose two or three hundred pounds in an afternoon. The custom that the cockpit brings to the shop more than repays the proprietor for the expense and trouble of keeping it. In Cuba, the spurs of the cock are artificially pointed by paring with a penknife, but the Mexican way of arming them ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... chamber. She was disturbed by many thoughts, and became alarmed at the step she had taken. At earliest dawn she threw open her window. The first sun-rays, reflected on a thousand dewdrops on the trees; the chirping of the birds, which already began their matin song; the joyous voice of the cock, which crowed in a most satisfactory and majestic manner in the paddock of her hostess; all these sights and sounds, to which she was so little accustomed, restored her serenity of mind once more. She dwelt more on the attractions of her love—so adventurous, so romantic. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... of wooden nutmegs; that's a cap sheef that bangs the bush—it's a real Yankee patent invention." With that all the gentlemen set up a laugh, you might have heerd away down to Sandy Hook, and the Gineral gig-gobbled like a great turkey-cock—the half nigger, half alligator-like looking villain as he is. I tell you what, Mr. Slick,' said the Professor, 'I wish with all my heart them 'ere damned nutmegs were in the bottom of the sea.' That was the first oath ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... think so, Night-prowler?" she asked. "Do you think that what you did to the father and his house, you will do to the daughter also? Well, it is strange, but last night, just before the cock crew, I sat by Seyapi's grave, and he spoke to me of you, White Man. Listen, now, and I will tell you what he said," and stepping forward she ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... sends a cock-boate to the shore, To summon backe his men vnto their ship, Who com'd a board, began with some vprore To way their Anchors, and with care to dip Their hie reuolues in doubt, and euermore, To paint deaths visage with a trembling lip, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... fight till the Judgment Day, Each night ere the cock should crow, Where the thunders boom and the lightnings play In the wrack of the battle-glow. They swore by Drake and Plymouth Bay, The men of the Good Hope's crew, By the bones that lay in fierce Biscay, And they ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... eyes open, I was that sleepy. Tell you what I did. Had some eating-tobacco along, and I'd chew it a spell, then rub the juice into my eyes. Kept it up all night. Blame near blinded me, but I come through. Me and another man named Blacklock—Cock-eye Blacklock we called him, by reason of his having one eye that was some out of line. Cock-eye sure ought to have got it that night, for he went bad afterward, and did a heap of killing before he did get it. He was a bad man for sure, ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... here"—he hunted about in his pocket for the key of the cupboard—"Cyrus, I'll tell you what happened; that female across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with sudden angry gravity,—"these people that poke their noses into other's ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... to beautiful creatures, the kihi-kihi, or sea-cock, with alternate black and yellow transverse bands on his body; the hinalea, like a glorified mullet, with bright green, longitudinal bands on a dark shining head, a purple body of different shades, and a blue spotted tail with a yellow tip. The Ohua too, a pink scaled fish, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... a pistol-hammer coming to full cock brought one of the lounging miners to his feet. He fell forward in the instant of his rising, and the woods gave back a hundred crashing echoes to the volley which the bandits fired. Their aim was so true—for they had stolen close in and taken good time to settle themselves ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... to enjoy, he was impatient to obtain the means of enjoyment. So that, at one time, the turning up of the jack at all fours was to make his fortune; but how provoking! it happened to be the ten: at another it depended on a duck-wing cock, which (who could have foreseen so strange an accident?) disgraced the best feeder in the kingdom, by running away: and it more than once did not want half a neck's length of being realized by a favourite horse; yet was lost, contrary to the most accurate calculations which, as the learned ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... shillings, and on for eighteen shillings cash to a little old withered Chinaman—so did pass Cocky, as mortal or as immortal as any brave sparkle of life on the planet, from the possession of one, Ah Moy, a sea-cock who, forty years before, had slain his young wife in Macao for cause and fled away to sea, to Kwaque, a leprous Black Papuan who was slave to one, Dag Daughtry, himself a servant of other men to whom he humbly admitted "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... little infant in modernised Dutch costume comes in waddling laughingly after her parent. Another Member turns round on his swivel chair as his page-boy runs up to him, shakes him heartily by the hand, tosses him on his foot and gives him a "ride-a-cock-horse." Oh, you English sticklers for etiquette! What would you say if Mr. Labouchere came in on all fours with his little child pulling his coat-tails and whacking him with a stick, or if Sir William Harcourt played at leapfrog with Lulu round the ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... sort, rode they unto the court, Their jolly son Richard rode foremost of all; Who set up, for good hap,[135] a cock's feather in his cap, And so they jetted[136] down to the king's hall; The merry old miller with hands on his side; His wife, like maid Marian, did mince at ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... but it was necessary to wait for an opportunity to avoid the fury of the mountain foam-crested billows, rolling in quick succession across the ocean, one of which, striking her bows as she came up to the wind, would have treated the proud frigate with little less ceremony than they would a mere cock-boat. Even during the fiercest gale there are spots on the surface of the sea which are less agitated than elsewhere, while at times there comes a lull of the wind, often the precursor, however, of a more furious blast. For such a lull the captain ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Here ended all the phantom-play; They smelt the fresh approach of day, And heard a cock to crow; The whirling wind that bore the crowd Has clapp'd the door, and whistled loud, To warn ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... luggage. The first mate of the steamer, a Swedish Finn, attended the search proceedings, and became much interested In a rusty pistol which was found in the luggage of one of the deck passengers. The question arose, Was the pistol loaded? and he undertook to find out. He raised the hammer to full cock, and, placing the muzzle in his mouth, he blew down the barrel, with his finger on the cap nipple, to feel if the air passed through. He naively explained to me the certainty of this mode of discovering whether a percussion arm is loaded or not. In this instance ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... men do not know it, it is likely that in their ignorance they will speak evil of me. So by my good-doing I only come to be evil spoken of. This is what I do not desire, but am not able to avoid. In the case of a man, who gets up at cock-crowing to practise what is good and continues sedulous in the endeavour till midnight, and says at the same time that he does not wish men to know it, lest they should praise him, I must say of such a man, that, if he be not deceitful, he is stupid."' Another ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... much unhappy for my absence, and trying for some diwersion by making himself free," said Carl, instructing him in the use of the weapon, "you shall shust cock it so,—present it at his head or stomach, vichever is conwenient—so,—then pull the trigger as you please, till he is vunce more quiet. That is all. Now I shall say goot pie to him till I ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... morning, you see that Spinosa was alive, and pretty well. But it seems "he had summoned from Amsterdam a certain physician, whom," says the biographer, "I shall not otherwise point out to notice than by these two letters, L.M. This L.M. had directed the people of the house to purchase an ancient cock, and to have him boiled forthwith, in order that Spinosa might take some broth about noon, which in fact he did, and ate some of the old cock with a good appetite, after the landlord and his wife ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... you—so as you don't feel strange. I told Ben you'd take to it like a duck to water. 'That young lady'll look stunning on horseback,' Steel said. A little cheeky of him, but he's privileged. I say, Deleah, what'll the old women of Brockenham say when they see you with me, a-cock-horse, riding side ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... his trade, Which, like all other things, may fade, Longs for a curricle and villa: This Hatchet splendidly supplies, The other Cock'ril builds, or buys, To charm himself and ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... could go baiting of bulls and bears, and nothing is more historically certain than the fact that the more infuriated the animals became, the more delighted were the spectators; they 'drew' badgers, and rejoiced in the tenacity and the courage of their dogs; they enjoyed the noble sport of the cock-pit; they fought dogs and killed rats; they 'squalled' fowls—that is to say, they tied them to stakes and hurled cudgels at them, but only once a year, and on Shrove Tuesday, for a treat; they boxed and fought, and were continually privileged to witness ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... found Peterkin listening to him,' and she smiled very kindly at Pete. 'Before that, I had not noticed him very much; at least, I had not made friends with him. But he has a wonderful memory; really wonderful, you will see. He will not have forgotten you the next time you come, and each time he will cock his head and pretend to be shy, and gradually it will ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... Cock, with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin, And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before; Oft listening how the hounds and horns Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, From the side of some hoar hill, Through ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... is by no means so clear that on looking at Don Quixote we are tempted to think of that most unromantic of monarchs, Carlos Quinto.[15] His son is still more unlike his supposed portrait. As to the Duke of Lerma, they who can believe, on the faith of the cock-and-bull stories told by the Abbe Lenglet du Fresnoy and the Jesuit Rapin, that Cervantes satirized the all-powerful minister in revenge for personal injuries suffered at his hands, may be consigned to the same limbo with the believers in the Bacon-Shakespeare. The theory ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... chickens; nor did he ask if he might do so, but while Clara went for the corn he opened the wire door and boldly thrust his hand in: only, however, to receive, as she had done, a severe peck from the hen, which sent him stamping and screaming up and down, no doubt to the great astonishment of the cock and hens, and the immediate disarrangement of the family party, who all rushed out to know what was the matter. It certainly was a severe peck that the old hen had given, and a very great fright that the household had been put into by ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... simple operation which took very little time. He crept down two flights of stairs, feeling his way in the dusk, his red hair standing up in peaks, like a cock's comb. He went through the kitchen into the adjoining washroom, which held two porcelain stands with running water. Everybody had washed before going to bed, apparently, and the bowls were ringed with a dark sediment which the hard, alkaline water had not dissolved. Shutting the door ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... the fields, and when they pass an orchard they cry out, "More fruit than leaves!" Down to recent years at Laviron, in the department of Doubs, it was the young married couples of the year who had charge of the bonfires. In the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted with a wooden figure of a cock fastened to the top. Then there were races, and the winner received ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... ugly, guttural "chuck." The missel-thrush has a harsh scream; the jay a note like "wrack," "wrack;" the fieldfare a rasping chatter; the blackbird, which is our robin cut in ebony, will sometimes crow like a cock and cackle like a hen; the flocks of starlings make a noise like a steam saw-mill; the white-throat has a disagreeable note; the swift a discordant scream; and the bunting a harsh song. Among our song-birds, on the contrary, it is rare ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... men came back to their seats, and when Master Windecke, who, in speaking, had forgotten to eat, fell to with double good will, Uncle Conrad gravely bid Kubbeling to out with what he had to say; and yet the man, who was lifting the leg of a black-cock to his mouth, would reply no more than a rough, "All in good ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cock-robin makes love he is the same considerate, deferential, but insinuating gallant. The warble he makes use of on that occasion is the same, so far as my ear can tell, as the one he pipes when facing ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... ladies have of dressing their hair, seen in Fig. 206, many instances of which were passed on the streets during this early evening ride. It was fearfully and wonderfully done, laid in the smoothest, glossiest black, with nearly the lateral spread of the tail of a turkey cock and much of the backward curve of that of the rooster; far less attractive than the plainer, refined, modest, yet highly artistic style adopted by either ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... the ship's side, Blood's eyes anxiously scanned the line of seamen leaning over the bulwarks in idle talk with the Spaniards in the cock-boat that waited at the ladder's foot. But their manner showed him that there was no ground for his anxiety. The boat's ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... few men to marry their daughters to champion boxers: and as Dutch Sam was not a Don Quixote, the average peddler or huckster never enjoyed the luxury of prancing gait and cock-a-hoop business cry. The primitive fathers of the Ghetto might have borne themselves more jauntily had they foreseen that they were to be the ancestors of mayors and aldermen descended from Castilian hidalgos and Polish ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... well however: glad of that: that's something, my shy cock: any thing but a liberal or a constitutional. Cut portmanteau-straps; waylay old women; hocus pocus; any thing you like. But I'll have no liberal doings here: no liberality shall be found on board of me, whilst my name's le Harnois. Damn! ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... cock-eared fox-terrier named 'Gyp,' with the most wonderful eyes, and a nose that worked with excitement as quickly as his short-cropped tail, which was docked to half an inch and was ever on the wag, got into the habit of coming forward on the forecastle ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... wasn't you it was somebody else. "Baghdad," I said, "is sure to be captured. The English are in great force, and if we don't watch it carefully they're sure to snatch it from us." That's what I said; but you wouldn't have it. You were all so cock-sure, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... horror of my mind, at seeing the shore spread with skulls, hands, feet, and other bones of human bodies; and particularly I observed a place where there had been a fire made, and a circle dug in the earth, like a cock-pit, where it is supposed the savage wretches had sat down to their inhuman feastings upon the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... cried Doctor Tusher, turning as red as a turkey-cock, while my lord continued to roar with laughter. "If you listen to the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cock-a-hoop about it that she stickled for this, and she stickled for that until the attendants, who were at first inclined to be civil, began to look askance, and Foster-father had to bid her ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... amongst many other things gave her the pretty carved walking-stick of black and white umzimbeet wood, also the two young blue cranes and the kid that afterwards were such pets of hers, and with them the beautiful white feathers of a cock ostrich that had been killed on the veld. In the same way it was he who sent milk and eggs to Dorcas when she was at her wits' end for both, which more than once were found mysteriously at the door of their hut, and ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... Sullivan, within doors, to hurry with the next course, which, I was charmed to learn, would be lemon soup and frosted cake. Mrs. Sullivan's response, though audible only to her mistress, who was compelled to cock an intent ear toward the kitchen, seemed to be in some manner ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... is the dearling of my heart whom I love with dearest love; yet can none avail to unsorcel her of me." Quoth his companion, "And what would expel thee?" And quoth he, "Naught will oust me save a black cock or a sable chicken; and whenas one shall bring such and cut his throat under her feet of a Saturday,[FN443] I shall not have power to approach the city wherein she dwelleth." "By Allah, O my brother," said the other, "thou hast spoken sooth: there is in this land nor wizard ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... performance a moment or two, began making their bets, both individually and through the agency of the "farmer," who, standing in the centre of the ring, cried out chaffingly in Visayan to faint-hearted gamesters. Then circles were drawn on the earthen floor of the pit, and the money put up on each cock deposited in one or the other of these rings. At the end of the fight some one appointed cried out the name of the victorious bird, and the winners swarmed down into the pit where they collected their money and the original stakes. There is never ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... this immemorial grudge of class, there is something peculiarly hostile in the relationship between boy and boy when their backs are once up, and they are alone on a quiet bit of green,—something of the game-cock feeling; something that tends to keep alive, in the population of this island (otherwise so lamblike and peaceful), the martial propensity to double the thumb tightly over the four fingers, and make what is called "a ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... straight path, leading south-east. Follow that. Nebahquam obeyed and followed it, till he came to a thick wooded country through which the path led. He soon came to stumps of trees newly cut down, and afterwards heard a cock crowing. He next passed through a new town, where he was inclined to stop, but was told to go on. Again the cock crew. He next came to an immense plain, through which his path led straight forward for some time, till he came to the ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... observed Sandy gravely, "that greater success will attend Penelope's perambulations. Kitty was so cock-a-hoop over it that she couldn't refrain from 'phoning the good news on Sunday morning. I meant to tell you when you came back ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... replied Bill. "I tell you what, Frank, if it wasn't for being cock of the roost myself, I should wish that Stewart headed this watch now. What fine times we used to have, eh?—but he has altered as well as the times—how odd he has acted by spells ever since we got that packet at Malta. I'm d—d if I don't believe he ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... back to Fleet Street, Through a sunset nook at night, And saw the old Green Dragon With the windows all alight, And hailed the old Green Dragon And the Cock I used to know, Where all good fellows were my friends ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... afternoon that chairs were carried outside, and they had tea in the garden under a gorgeous pink-blossomed almond tree, with the perfume of wallflowers and sweet scented stocks wafted from the rockery above. Two cats and a dog joined the party, also an impudent bantam cock, who, being considered the mascot of the establishment, was much petted, and allowed certain privileges. He would sit on Miss Carson's wrist like a little tame hawk, and she sometimes brought him into the garden at tea-time ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... that his part of mute, should he persist in it, might entail disastrous consequences. So one night, when he was with the abbess, he cut the tongue-string, and thus broke silence:—"Madam, I have understood that a cock may very well serve ten hens, but that ten men are sorely tasked to satisfy a single woman; and here am I expected to serve nine, a burden quite beyond my power to bear; nay, by what I have already undergone I am now so reduced that my strength is quite spent; wherefore either bid me Godspeed, ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the wine was exhausted or their hearts flagged, and when the voice of the early cock woke the swan that tended her callow brood amongst the sedges of the Meuse the Old Man departed. Jacques never saw him again, although he often looked in all directions when he went to the hill for a supply of fuel; but from that day Liege grew up in industry, riches, and power. Jacques had found ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... gathered before a youth—a perspiring, red-faced youth with a billy-cock hat shoved back upon his bullet head—a youth in galluses and soiled shirt and belled pantaloons, who, standing upon a box for elevation, was exhorting at the ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... did not perceive any superiority of understanding.' BOSWELL. 'But will you not allow him a nobleness of resolution, in penetrating into distant regions?' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is not to the present purpose. We are talking of his sense. A fighting cock has a nobleness ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... days since I wrote to you, my dear old chap, and yet I find myself loaded to the muzzle and at full cock again. I have come to Bradfield. I have seen old Cullingworth once more, and I have found that all he has told me is true. Yes; incredible as it sounded, this wonderful fellow seems to have actually built up a great practice in little more than a year. He really is, with ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... You drink St. Emilion or still hock; I drink water from the well or the cup that cheers but not obfuscates. The difference goes to pay for the crockery. Do likewise, and with your untold wealth you might play Aunt Sally at Oriental blue, and take cock-shots with a boot-jack at ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... to commit his dispatch to the posting-box—in fact, his hand was outstretched—when, to the amazement of a cock-robin who frequented the pillar for company's sake, and had seen more letters posted than there were feathers upon his back, he hesitated, exclaimed, stared at the letter with knitted brow, and then thrust it ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... feathers in his hat and girded at his side was the broken hilt of an old sword without a blade. But strangest of all was a little wicker basket he always carried on his back. When he set this down and opened it, there hopped out a tame raven who would cock its head on one side and say ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... though he knew nothing in the world about Jesus. But Peter loved Jesus too much to be able to do this well. He was unhappy, he could not sit still; he got up, and went away into a place near the door, called the porch, and when he was in the porch he heard a cock crow. Perhaps he went into the porch because he thought that it would be dark there and that nobody would see him. But the girl who kept the door told another woman to look at him, and that woman said to the people who stood by, 'This fellow was ...
— The Good Shepherd - A Life of Christ for Children • Anonymous
... Sainville and Ravel carry on in the green room just as they do on the stage, inventing cock-and-bull yarns ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... jack rigged up!" he whispered presently. "Step in now, Neal, and I'll open it. Have you got your rifle at half-cock? That's right. Be careful. A fellow would need to have his hair parted in the middle in a birch box like this. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... be declared COCK by an eagle. At this moment he is having a spree with veal and wine in honor of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... hand, "this ways, laying the outermost part of your feather this fashion next to your hook, and the point next to your shank, this wise, and that wise; and then, sir,—count, you take the hackle of a cock's neck—" ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... told me that one could shoot without ... caps? He! He! ... without caps! He said that if there were any sulphur left in the gun one could fire without a cap. So I put the loaded rifle on my knee like this, and fired it off at full cock with my finger, like this, see? Then bang! it went off! Nearly killed myself! He! He! Loaded the rifle, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... chap is so deuced odd about that name of his. I asked him what the B. stood for, and he looked me in the eye like a fighting cock and said for his middle name.... Queer chap—" Suddenly Falconer looked sidewise at ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... mentions a Panegyric on his excellency general Monk 1659, in one sheet quarto. Though Denham's name is not to it, it is generally ascribed to him. A Prologue to his majesty, at the first play represented at the Cock-pit in White-hall, being part of that noble entertainment, which their majesties received, November 19, 1660, from his grace the duke of Albemarle. A new Version of the Psalms of David. The True Presbyterian, without Disguise; or, a Character ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... Some fly round with the flock, throwing a clean summersault every few yards till they are obliged to settle from giddiness and exhaustion. These are called Air-tumblers, and they commonly throw from twenty to thirty summersaults in a minute, each clear and clean. I have one red cock that I have on two or three occasions timed by my watch, and counted forty summersaults in the minute. At first they throw a single summersault, then it is double, till it becomes a continuous roll, which puts an ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... heart upon a certain thing. All people have their fancies; some desire horses, and others dogs; and some are fond of gold, and others of honour. Now, I have no violent desire of any of these things; but I have a passion for friends; and I would rather have a good friend than the best cock or quail in the world: I would even go further, and say the best horse or dog. Yea, by the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a real friend to all the gold of Darius, or even to Darius himself: I am such a lover of friends as that. And when I see you and Lysis, at your ...
— Lysis • Plato
... The house cock, shaking His rustling wings, While priest-bell rings, Crows up the morn, And touting horn Wakes thralls to work and weep; Ye sons of Adil, cast off sleep, Wake up! wake up! Nor wassail cup, Nor maiden's jeer, Awaits ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... to his girths in a squire-trap, never halloos ''ware bog,' till five or six more are in it. I can fancy the hoary-headed villain gloating hideously over us now. I wish I had him here. I could be so unkind to him! He talked about the shooting and the society. Bah! there's about one cock to every thousand acres of forest; and as for women fair to look upon, I've not flushed one since we came. I don't think I can ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... choyce and chaunge of labors is delectable and sweete unto me," whiche wordes he uttered holdinge a boy by the hande. Socrates also was espied of Alcibiades upon a time, playing with Lamprocles, who was in manner but a childe. Agesilaus riding upon a rude, or cock-horse as they terme it, played with his sonne beeing but a boy: and when a certayn man passing by sawe him so doe and laughed there withall, Agesilaus sayde thus, Now hold thy peace and say nothing; but when thou art a father I doubt not thou wilt ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... giant cock in the Talmud (q. v.), which stands with its foot on the earth, touches heaven with its head, and when it spreads its wings causes a total eclipse of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood |
