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Fife   Listen
noun
Fife  n.  (Mus.) A small shrill pipe, resembling the piccolo flute, used chiefly to accompany the drum in military music.
Fife major (Mil.), a noncommissioned officer who superintends the fifers of a regiment.
Fife rail. (Naut.)
(a)
A rail about the mast, at the deck, to hold belaying pins, etc.
(b)
A railing around the break of a poop deck.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Fife" Quotes from Famous Books



... of guilt was the murder of the unfortunate Archbishop. On the 3d of May 1679, a party of the Fife non-conformists were prowling near the village of Ceres, on the outlook, it is said, for Carmichael the Sheriff-substitute of the county, against whom they had sworn vengeance if he should ever fall into their hands. This party ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... litanies which he had heard nowhere else, and yet he had experienced all kinds, in churches. At St. Sulpice, for example, it was recited to two tunes. When the choir sang it was set to a plain chant melody, bellowed by the gong of a bass to which the sharp fife of the boys made answer; but during Rosary month, on every day except Thursday the task of singing it was entrusted to young ladies; then in the evening round a wheezy old harmonium, a troup of young and old geese, made Our Lady run round on her litanies as on ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... hinds' cottages. The seaward views are very fine, and include the whole of the rugged line of coast from Fast Castle on the east to Tantallon and North Berwick Law on the west. In the middle distance are the tower of Dunbar Church, the Bass Rock, and the Isle of May; and farther off is the coast of Fife, with Largo Law and the Lomonds in the background. The land is mostly bare of trees, but there is a notable exception to this in the profound ravines which come down from the hills to the sea, and whose banks are thickly clothed with ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns

... FIFE Being the Chronicle written by Norman Leslie of Pitcullo, concerning marvellous deeds that befell in the realm of France, in the years of our redemption, MCCCCXXIX-XXXI. Now first done into English out of ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... Smyrna Ancient and Honorable Firemen's Association, Hiram Look foreman, and his new fife-and-drum corps, and the rest of the trimmin's, have you, Uncle Brad?" drawled a man near him. "Well, don't commit yourself too far on old Vienny till the Smyrna part of the parade gets past. I see 'em this ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... who, as the reader will discover later, liked to think that he had a hand in pretty much every important measure in the political and literary history of the country in those early days, and remembered that when the great Washington appeared, Webster was ready with the prelusive fife. The three years which followed were years of excitement and distraction. In the summer of 1777 the college life at New Haven was broken up, and the classes were disposed in various towns, the Junior class, in which Webster belonged, being stationed at Glastonbury and placed under the ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... warrior comes, With shrill-sounding fife and drums; But peaceful by our quiet homes, The conquering ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... the American seamen of 1812 were in fighting mood; they had been whetted by provocation to a keen edge for war. They understood the meaning of "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," if the landsmen did not. There were strapping sailors in every deep-water port to follow the fife and drum of the recruiting squad. The militia might quibble about "rights," but all the sailors asked was the weather gage of a British man-of-war. They had no patience with such spokesmen as Josiah ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Londonderry, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane Scotland: 9 regions, 3 islands areas*; Borders, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife,, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Orkney*, Shetland*, Strathclyde, Tayside,, Western Isles*, Wales: 8 counties; Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South Glamorgan, West Glamorgan Dependent areas: Anguilla, Bermuda, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... Robert. He listened almost incessantly to the sound of drum and fife, the drill master's word of command, or to voices raised in prayer, preaching or the singing of psalms. Recruits were continually coming in, awkward plowboys, but brave and enduring, waiting only to be taught. Master Benjamin Hardy was compelled to return ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... beginning of the year 1679, he said to William Nicolson a Fife-shire man, Ye shall have a brave summer of the gospel this year, and for your further encouragement an old man or woman for very age may yet live to see the bishops down, and yet the church not delivered, but ere all be done we will get a few faithful ministers in Scotland to hear; but keep still ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... sort of resonance to the voices of the speakers. To-night through the closed windows could be heard the sound of distant drums and marching feet. In the hall outside the council door were packed at least a thousand men with ropes, sticks, a fife-and-drum corps which occasionally struck up "Hail! Columbia, Happy Land," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "Dixie." Alderman Schlumbohm, heckled to within an inch of his life, followed to the council door by three hundred ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... the dormant public enthusiasm was stimulated by music at an uncomfortably early hour in the morning. Two horn players and a clarionet player; a fat musician who blew through a very small fife and kept time with his head; and a withered little man who beat furiously on a mighty drum—drew up in martial array, one behind the other, before the principal inn. Two boys, staring about them in a stolidly ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... unbearable pity for Macbeth's mind. The horror is felt later, when it is made plain that the treachery does not end with that old man on the bed, but proceeds in a spreading growth of murder till the man who fought so knightly at Fife is the haunted awful figure who goes ghastly, killing men, women and little children, till Scotland is like a grave. At the end, the "worthy gentleman," "noble Macbeth," having fallen from depth to depth of degradation, ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... looking on, that day, must have felt the impressiveness of the long line as it slowly filed down the broad street under the graceful arches of the tall old elms, in the cold light of the cloudy afternoon. First came the drum corps, with wailing fife and muffled drum; next appeared the gray uniforms of the company who marched two by two, with bowed heads and reversed arms, to escort the hearse in their midst. Directly behind the hearse trotted a small, yellow figure, at sight of whom Alan stealthily ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray

... Craigavon, Down, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Londonderry, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane Scotland: 9 regions, 3 islands areas*; Borders, Central, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highland, Lothian, Orkney*, Shetland*, Strathclyde, Tayside, Western Isles* Wales: 8 counties; Clwyd, Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd, Mid Glamorgan, Powys, South Glamorgan, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... did all that lay within the compass of their power to keep me out, insomuch, that there was obliged to be a guard of soldiers to protect the presbytery; and it was a thing that made my heart grieve when I heard the drum beating and the fife playing as we were going to the kirk. The people were really mad and vicious, and flung dirt upon us as we passed, and reviled us all, and held out the finger of scorn at me; but I endured it with a resigned ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... ask the Master that,' said the soldier. 'I ken nae mair; I was sent on anither little errand of the Earl of Fife into the Highlands, and only cam back hither a week syne, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... this leads up to my tale O' what befell puir Tam MacPhail, A dacent miner chiel in Fife Wha led a maist exemplar' life, An' ne'er abused himsel' wi' liquor, But took it canny-like an' siccar. Aye when he cast his wet pit-breeks, Tam had a gless that warm'd his cheeks; For as it trickled owre his craigie, He held it wardit aff lumbaigy. ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie

... several harsh dealings and discourtesies passed between us and the Dutch. The 1st of April, 1613, the Dutch mustered about 120 men ashore, gathered from their ships and forts, and every morning and evening relieved guard with drum and fife, and displayed ensign. On the 2d, seeing no appearance of Key Malladaia, according to his promise, I ordered our water-casks to be filled, and every thing to be in readiness for setting sail with the first ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... you for alarms and agitation, but if good signs appear, you will eventually find a smooth path through your fife. ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... French ship of considerable force, apparently well manned, and armed for offensive or defensive operations. The national flag streamed gaily on the wind, and, as it anchored just against Castle Island, the roll of the drum, and the shrill notes of the fife, were distinctly heard, and men were seen busied on deck, as if preparing for some important action. The little bark, already mentioned, was filled, chiefly, with females and children, bound, on an excursion of pleasure, to an island in the ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney

... hold up to the view of the world, the greatest man of this age, will be compelled, in order to give a faithful delineation, to take for his model the portrait which I, better than any one else, have been able to draw from fife. I think that no one has done this as yet; certainly not so much ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of George Robertson, of St. Anne's, Soho, who lived in the middle of the last century, and married Elizabeth Love, of Ormsby, co. Norfolk. He was uncle, I believe, to Mr. Robertson Barclay (who assumed the last name), of Keavil, co. Fife, and nearly related, though I cannot say in what degree, to William Robertson, of Richmond, whose daughter Isabella married David Dundas, created a baronet by George III., and one of whose granddaughters was married to Sir James Moncreiff, and another to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various

... floor, By abbots and abbesses trodden before, In the good old chivalric days of yore, And what see I there?— In a rush-bottom'd chair A hag surrounded by crockery-ware, Vending, in cups, to the credulous throng A nasty decoction miscall'd Souchong,— And a squeaking fiddle and "wry-necked fife" Are screeching away, for the life!—for the life! Danced to by "All ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Vice literally flaunts its banners in the face of the public. But a few days since I saw from my window a banner carried through the streets, blazoned with the name and attractions of one of the vilest fashionable groggeries in the city, and preceded by the music of a drum and fife. The snug retreat, known only to the initiated few, where licentiousness and drunkenness are secluded, and thousands lost and won, was never more popular than now. Practiced decoys lie in wait for ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.

... quality, yield, and time of maturity of several varieties of the same species. Samples of such varieties of wheat as Red Fife, White Fife, Preston, Turkey Red, Dawson's Golden Chaff, White Russian, etc., may be obtained from the Central Experimental Farm at Ottawa, if not ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education

... rainbow. Some trees appeared from a distance to be covered with many-colored flowers. Nell was particularly charmed by the sight of paradisaical fly-catchers and rather large, black birds, with a crimson lining to the wings, which emitted sounds like a pastoral fife. Charming woodpeckers, rosy on top and bright blue beneath, sped in the sun's luster, catching in their flight bees and grasshoppers. On the treetops resounded the screams of the green parrot, and at times there reached them sounds as ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... important personage who carried a new civilization to Ts'in, and practically "created" that power about 350 B.C., was, personally, simply named Yang, or "Bellyband." As he came originally from the orthodox state or principality of Wei, he might be called Wei Yang, just as we might say Alexander of Fife. As he received from Ts'in, as a reward for his services, the petty principality of Shang (taken in war by Ts'in from Ts'u), he might be called the prince or laird (kuen) of Shang (of. Lochiel), or Shang Kuen. As he was the grandson (sun) of a deceased earl ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... development of the sport, exists in the south of France, where a ball is knocked along the roads to a fixed goal. But this is naturally very poor fun compared to the genuine game as played on the short turf beside the grey northern sea on the coast of Fife. Golf has been introduced of late years into England, and is played at Westward Ho, at Wimbledon, at Blackheath (the oldest club), at Liverpool, over Cowley Marsh, near Oxford, and in many other ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... by the Fife and Drum Corps (36 uniformed members) of the Third Ward Grammar School of Long Island City, of which the ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... with clarion, fife, and drum, He claims and wins his own; When o'er the deluge drifts his ark, To rest upon ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... old-fashioned fire-place. There was no one to draw him out of danger, and before the pain brought him partially to his senses, his leg was so badly burned that it had to be amputated. There were no anaesthetics in those days, but while the leg was being removed, a fife and drum corps played its hardest at the bedside, and the doughty old warrior kept time to the music with ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... the storm, in the smoke, in the fight, I come To help thee, dear, with my fife and my drum. My name is Music: and, when the bell Rings for the dead men, I rule the knell; And, whenever the mariner wrecked through the blast Hears the fog-bell sound, it was I who passed. The poet hath told you how I, a young maid, Came ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... writhings of our egoism to cast its first slough. Idea is there. The funny part of it is our finding it in books of fiction composed for payment. Manifestly this lady did not 'chameleon' her pen from the colour of her audience: she was not of the uniformed rank and file marching to drum and fife as gallant interpreters of popular appetite, and going or gone to soundlessness and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Washington himself presiding. This tribunal decided that Church's acts had been criminal, but remanded him for the decision of the General Court, of which he was a member. He was taken in a chaise, escorted by General Gates and a guard of twenty men, to the music of fife and drum, to Watertown meeting-house, where the court sat. "The galleries," says an old writer, "were thronged with people of all ranks. The bar was placed in the middle of the broad aisle, and the doctor arraigned." ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... leaf her keep her head. So mine wife, she say, 'yes, 'tis too pad to cut dat nice head,' an' she leafs it on her, an' mine wife she comb an' prush it for Maddy. But I tells Maddy she shall sell dat head for so moosh as fife tollars if she schuse." ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews

... the heads of the hills; here and there a light wreath of mist lay along their sides, floating slowly off, or softly dispersing; the river lay in quiet beauty waiting for the gilding that should come upon it. I listened—the brisk notes of a drum and fife came to my ear, playing one after another joyous and dancing melody. I thought that never was a place so utterly delightsome as this place. With all speed I dressed myself, noiselessly, so as not to waken Mrs. Sandford; and then I resolved I would go out and see if I could not find a place where ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell

... come, with fife and drum, And gleaming pikes and glancing banners: Though the eyes flash, the lips are dumb; To talk in rank would not be manners. Onward they stride, as Britons can; The ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... you will come over here on Sunday morning, bringing no brass band, fife or drums, I will tell ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho

... jockeys are personal friends, the weather is bright and warm, the ladies wear their smartest dresses, the course is kept and order maintained with the aid of bluejackets from the gun-boat in port, while her drum and fife band or nigger troupe renders selections of varied merits. A race over, the successful owner and jockey are seized and carried shoulder high to the bar behind the grand-stand, where winners and losers alike have ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... What say you?" At the Common they were met by a militia company, who charged upon them; some men of both sides were knocked down, but no lives were lost or blood shed. In the afternoon the sailors were out again with drum and fife. The paper from which we obtain this information says that they probably would not get any advance, as it is assured by a shipper that he found no difficulty in procuring crews at the customary wages. Probably ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks

... without the use of electricity were inferior to those grown under its influence. Hubeck came to the conclusion that seeds germinated more rapidly and buckwheat gave larger returns; in all other cases the electric current produced no result. Professor Fife in England and Otto von Ende in Germany carried on experiments at the same time, but with negative results, and these scientists advised the complete abandonment of applying electricity to agriculture. After some years had elapsed Fichtner began a series of experiments in the same ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... lamps barely render darkness visible. The floor is of black sandy earth, the roof hid in a smoky impenetrable blackness; two or three benches stand against the walls, and the orchestra consists of a fiddle, a fife, a drum, and a triangle. There is plenty of company, consisting of young men and women, all very neatly dressed in white and black—a true Portuguese habit. Quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas are danced with great vigour and much skill. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... the people. It was a glorious day in the dawn of spring. The tenderest greens, the softest blues, the freshest scents, the clearest air, the most delightful sunshine were everywhere. The white old town, with its picturesque crowds, its murmur of voices and laughter, its echoes of fife and drum, its loves and its hatreds, was at his feet; and, far off, the hazy glory of the mountains, the greenness and freshness of Paradise, the peace and freedom of the vast, unplanted places. The old ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... boldly answered, "Where are they? let me see them." And they called the spirits, which were three. And the first arose in the likeness of an armed head, and he called Macbeth by name, and bid him beware of the thane of Fife; for which caution Macbeth thanked him; for Macbeth had entertained a jealousy of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... before he grows much older," added Clyde, drawing out a belaying-pin from the fife-rail. "I shall not be in this ship a great while longer; but I mean to stay long enough to settle my accounts with the big boatswain and the two ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... cockades in their hats, and the women wore blue rosettes on their bosoms. Three negroes in uniform—a contribution from the nearest railroad town—were parading up and down the straggling street with fife and drums, and a number of men were planting a flag-pole ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... produce, had husbands labas, or merely feared for their poultry and the cleanliness of their homes. Next day the exhausted men would reappear as beaux sabreurs with bright buttons, clean if discoloured tunics, and a jaunty, untired walk. The drum and fife band practised in the tiny square before an enthusiastic audience of gamins. Late every afternoon the aerodrome was certain to be crowded by inquisitive Tommies, whose peculiar joy it was to watch a homing party land ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... judged by its original idea, namely, to lure James to Perth, with only two or three servants, at an early hour in the day. Matters fell out otherwise; but, had the King entered Gowrie House early, and scantly attended, he might have been conveyed across Fife, disguised, in the train of Gowrie as he went to Dirleton. Thence he might be conveyed by sea to Fastcastle, the impregnable eyrie of Gowrie's and Bothwell's old ally, the reckless intriguer, Logan of Restalrig. The famous letters which Scott, Tytler, and Hill Burton regarded ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... men-of-war, a frigate and a corvette, and of all the merchantmen. The admiral fired a signal-gun. We repeated it, and before the smoke had cleared away the merchantmen let fall their topsails, we setting them the example; the anchor was hove up to the merry sound of the fife, and, taking the lead, we stood out of the Cove of Cork with a fair breeze, the other frigate and ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... his eye and saw white flags fluttering before a drum and fife band and a knot of youths in sweaters gathered round the dummy breech of a four-inch gun which they were ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling

... king, who had been abroad when the defeat of Stirling Bridge lost him Scotland, had now returned home, and was already on his march toward the borders at the head of a powerful army. A body of English, which had landed in the north of Fife, led by Aymer de Vallois, Earl of Pembroke, is said by the Scottish authorities to have been attacked and routed by Wallace on June 12, 1298, in the forest of Blackironside, in that county; but when the two main ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... too loud; the wood a little too muffled; the strings—some of the strings are invariably broken. I know a big man who is nothing but a big drum; and I know another whose whole existence has been a jig on a fiddle; and I know a shrill little fellow who is a fife; and I know a brassy girl who is a pair of cymbals; and once—once," repeated the parson whimsically, "I knew an old maid who was a real living spinet. I even know another old maid now who is nothing but an old music book—long ago sung through, learned by heart, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... to fire their cannon on the crest of the low hill, out at the cemetery; and from a little way down the street came the rat-a-tat of a toy drum and sounds of a fife played execrably. A file of children in cocked hats made of newspapers came marching importantly up the sidewalk under the maple shade trees; and in advance, upon a velocipede, rode a tin-sworded personage, shrieking incessant commands but not ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington

... such as the waves make or the leaves, the muttering of a multitude. Jamie turned his face homeward, and edged along by the wall, where there was most room. And now the mutter rose and swelled, and above it he heard the noise of fife and drum and the tread ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... combat, he gave the signal to advance. It was dawn and the tide flowed full, when, with a favoring wind, the forty great Spanish vessels, bearing the floating pennons of Castille, advanced to the sound of fife and drum in battle line upon the English fleet. Arrived at close quarters, and grappling Pembroke's ships with chains and iron hooks, they poured down from their tall towers a rain of stones and lead upon the lower and exposed decks of the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... unconscious evidence of the intellectual progress of the Negroes during the eighteenth century. "He's an 'artful,'"[1] "plausible,"[2] "smart,"[3] or "sensible fellow,"[4] "delights much in traffic,"[5] and "plays on the fife extremely well,"[6] are some of the statements found in the descriptions of fugitive slaves. Other fugitives were speaking "plainly,"[7] "talking indifferent English,"[8] "remarkably good English,"[9] and "exceedingly good English."[10] In some advertisements we observe such expressions ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson

... question hereafter by either King or Parliament?" He reminded Allan M'Aulay that the measures taken in the last reign to settle the peace, as was alleged, of the Highlands, were in fact levelled at the patriarchal power of the Chieftains; and he mentioned the celebrated settlement of the Fife Undertakers, as they were called, in the Lewis, as part of a deliberate plan, formed to introduce strangers among the Celtic tribes, to destroy by degrees their ancient customs and mode of government, and to despoil them of the inheritance of their fathers. [In the reign of James ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... and often-referred-to 'portfolio' there (Dii meliora piis!), you would see in it, (the note not the portfolio) the blandest utterance ever mild gentleman gave birth to. But I forgot that one may make too much noise in a silent place by playing the few notes on the 'ear-piercing fife' which in Othello's regimental band might have been thumped into decent subordination by his 'spirit-stirring drum'—to say nothing of gong and ophicleide. Will you forgive me, on promise to remember for the future, and be more considerate? Not that ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... Union; they haf treated us like tirt. "Do what we tell you," said they. I haf peen captain of the furnace-men twenty years, and I say to the Union—[excitedly]—"Can you tell me then, as well as I can tell you, what iss the right wages for the work that these men do?" For fife and twenty years I haf paid my moneys to the Union and—[with great excitement]—for nothings! What iss that but roguery, for all that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... who, not content with carrying Her Majesty's mails, voluntarily carry Her Majesty's rifles. These go through the drudgery and drill of military service at odd hours, as they find time, and on high occasions they march out to the martial strains of fife and drum. ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... and their two elder sisters. Of this pair, Maggie, the eldest of them all, had long been coupled with Andrew as the two greatest credits to the family. She was the wife (and incidentally, it was said, the making) of Ramornie of Pettigrew, a laird of good estate in the kingdom of Fife. Her business capacity was almost equal to her brother's. She had extracted Pettigrew from the hands of the friends who had been "doing him no good," paid off the bonds on his property, presented him with three creditable children, including ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston

... nation was concentrating its power. Behind him that nation was patching up its one great quarrel, and now a gray phantom stalked out of the past to the music of drum and fife, and Crittenden turned sharply to see a little body of men, in queer uniforms, marching through a camp of regulars toward him. They were old boys, and they went rather slowly, but they stepped jauntily and, in their natty old-fashioned caps and old gray jackets pointed ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.

... grace? he was something better. He had inherited a small estate, and built a house upon it, near Yanwath, upon the banks of the Emont. I have heard him say that his heart used to beat, in his boyhood, when he heard the sound of a drum and fife. Nevertheless, the spirit of enterprise in him confined itself in tilling his ground, and conquering such obstacles as stood in the way of its fertility. Persons of his religious persuasion do now, in a far greater degree than formerly, attach themselves ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... tree, where the alligator couldn't find him, and the frog boy beat on a hollow log with a stick as if it were a drum. Then he blew out his cheeks, whistling, and made a noise like a fife. Then he aimed his wooden gun and cried: "Bang! Bang! Bung! Bung!" just as if the wooden gun had powder in it. Next Bawly waved his cap with the feather in it, and the alligator heard all this, and he saw the waving soldier ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... Philadelphia (August 30, 1781), dusty and ragged, but keeping step to the fife and drum. The next day, the French troops marched through, jaunty in white and green uniforms, with bands playing. Lafayette, who was in Virginia, sent word to Washington that the British troops had landed at Yorktown (instead of going ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay

... antiquarian politics, declaim against the Saxon, for all practical political purposes he and the Saxon are one. The distinction between the southern and the northern English—for the men of Lothian and Fife must allow me to call them by this last name—is, speaking politically and without ethnological or linguistic precision, much as if France and Aquitaine had been two kingdoms united on equal terms, instead ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... would move out and go south to the Somme while battered divisions from the Somme front would drift up into our area. Among these was the Ulster division whose fife and drum band came marching gaily up the street, nearly every musician wearing a German cap. A few days later the south of Ireland division came up and the two divisions occupied the line side by side. Needless to say they ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... young squaw did the honors with all the hauteur of the Indian race. Maquinna then entertained his visitors with a sham battle of painted warriors, followed by a mask dance. Not to be outdone, the whites struck up fife and drum, and gave a wild display of Spanish fandangoes and Scotch reels. In honor of the day's outing, it was decided to name the large island which Vancouver had almost ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... much, but very little that we could have reached without consuming considerably more time. A day's trip north of Edinburgh, across the Firth of Forth into Fife, would have enabled us to visit Loch Leven and its castle, where Queen Mary was held prisoner and was rescued by young Douglas, whom she afterward unfortunately married. Had we started two or three hours earlier on our trip to Abbottsford ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... of the Scottish kirk. Expiatory declaration required from Charles. He refuses and then assents. Battle of Dunbar. Progress of Cromwell. The king escapes and is afterwards taken. The godliness of Cromwell. Dissensions among the Scots. Coronation of Charles. Cromwell lands in Fife. Charles marches into England. Defeat of the earl of Derby. Battle of Worcester. Defeat of the royalists. The king escapes. Loss of the royalists. Adventures of the king at Whiteladies. At Madeley. In the royal oak. At Moseley. At Mrs. Norton's. His repeated ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... responsibility: the names by which he distinguished those whom he employed were flattering: they were not gaolers and turnkeys, but captains of divisions and delegates. He delivered lectures upon geography and astronomy: those who could play instruments, such as clarionet, fife, and violin, were stationed on the deck, while the rest marched in ranks. He instituted a court of enquiry, consisting of five persons, of which his clerk was the recorder, who examined witnesses, and disposed of trivial offences, by exhortation, warning, and ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... afternoon a number of young men and maidens assembled at the foot of Montluc's castle of Estellac on the votive festival of St. Jacques at Roquefort. Franconnette was there, as well as Marcel and Pascal, her special admirers. Dancing began to the music of the fife; but Pascal, the handsomest of the young men, seemed to avoid the village beauty. Franconnette was indignant at his neglect, but was anxious to secure his attention and devotion. She danced away, sliding, whirling, and pirouetting. What would not the admiring youths ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... Master Hal; they say that all the young gentlemen who have archery uniforms are to walk together in a body, I think they say, Sir; and they are to parade along the Well-Walk, they desired me to say, Sir, with a drum and fife, and so up the hill, by Prince's Place, and all to go upon the Downs together, to the place of meeting. I am not sure I'm right, Sir, for both the young gentlemen spoke at once, and the wind is very high at the street door, so that I could not well make out all they said; but I believe ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... lose his license. On a given day about three hundred or four hundred of these forlorn outcasts were bundled wholesale into the streets, and they formed up in a large body, many of them with only a shift and a petticoat on, and with a lot of drunken men and boys with a fife and fiddle they paraded the streets for several days. They marched in a body to the workhouse, but for many reasons they were refused admittance.... These women wandered about for two or three days shelterless, and it was felt that the remedy was ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... out to see, and declared it was the loveliest sight they ever beheld, while Thorny played "Hail Columbia" on his fife, and Ben, mounting the gate-post, crowed long and loud like a happy cockerel who had just reached his majority. He had been surprised and delighted with the gifts he found in his room on awaking, and guessed why Miss Celia and Thorny gave him such pretty ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... sez he never heerd in his life Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes, But John P. Robinson he Sez they didn't know everthin' ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... of Fife met at St. Andrews, and James Melville as the retiring Moderator had to preach the opening sermon. It was a full meeting. The Archbishop with a 'grait pontificalite and big countenance' was seated by the preacher's side. The subject of discourse was the evil that ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... surmounted by a dingy lace cap topped with a soiled red ribbon, eyed him cautiously, and remarked, after loosening out the mantilla: "Dem teater gurls only vant such tings, and dey can pay nuddin'. No, I vouldn't even gif fife tollars. Petter dake it ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, "The ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... there came marching a regiment of men, without fife or drum, moving to the music of a refrain which lifted and fell on the quiet air. It was the Battle Hymn of the Republic,—and the two listeners presently ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... one sentence, out of the "Varieties" of some Fife newspaper. He had begun to read it, then stopped suddenly, but finished it. It consisted only of a few words: "'Young love is passionate, old love is faithful; but the very tenderest thing in all this world is a love revived.' That ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... a deep silence. This fact allowed the listeners without to catch the sound of voices inside the hut, for one of the tramps talked heavily, and the other had a high-pitched voice that carried like a squeaking fife. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... that lives. They stroll about individually; they pace as sentinels in all the public places; and they march up and down in squads, companies, and battalions, always with a very great din of drum, fife, and trumpet; ten times the proportion of music that the same number of men would require elsewhere; and it reverberates with ten times the noise, between the high edifices of these lanes, that it could make in broader streets. Nevertheless, I have no ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... he excitedly, "I hafe knowed dot boy ven I sold cloding in Des Moines, more as fife years ago, and so help me Moses I did nefer belief he vud do such a ting ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... known as "Holy Halyburton," born at Dupplin, near Perth; was minister of Ceres, in Fife, and from 1710 professor of Divinity in St. Andrews; was the author of several widely-read ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... our day. By these ladders the assailants were quietly to ascend, and then overpower the little garrison, and possess themselves of the Castle. When the stroke had been done, they were to fire three cannon, and men stationed on the opposite coast of Fife were thereupon to light a beacon; and the flash of that light would be the signal for other beacons from hill to hill to bear the news to Mar—as the lights along the Argive hills carried the tale of Troy's fall to Argos. The plan was an utter failure. It broke ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... versified paraphrase of a letter received from Mr. Birdofredom Sawin, "a yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a drum and fife," and who finds when he gets ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... and the Castle, its streets reddened with feud at intervals, and its merchants clustering round the Cathedral of St. Giles like bees in a honeycomb; and the king, when he looked across the faint azure of the Forth, beheld the long coast of Fife dotted with little towns, where ships were moored that traded with France and Holland, and brought with them cargoes of silk and wines. James was a popular monarch; he was beloved by the nobles and by the people. He loved justice, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... are, in certain places, particularly about Newhaven, the most perfect evidence of a sea bank, where the washing of the sea had worn the land, upon a higher level than the present. The same appearance is to be found at Ely upon the Fife coast, where the sea had washed out grottos in the rocks; and above Kinneel, there is a bed of oyster shells some feet deep appearing in the side of the bank, about 20 or 30 feet above the level of the sea, which corresponds with the old sea banks. I have seen the same evidence ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... There were slaine of men of estimation, sir Iohn Swinton, sir Adam Gordon, sir Iohn Leuiston, sir Alexander Ramsie of Dalehousie, [Sidenote: Prisoners taken.] and three and twentie knights, besides ten thousand of the commons: and of prisoners among other were these, Mordacke earle of Fife, son to the gouernour Archembald earle Dowglas, which in the fight lost one of his eies, Thomas erle of Murrey, Robert earle of Angus, and (as some writers haue) the earles of Atholl & Menteith, with fiue hundred ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed

... sometimes bet, I know, Well, now you'll have a show The 'books' to frighten. Up here at Wingadee Young Billy Fife and me We're training Strife, and he Is ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... jerk in his voice. He rose now, and paced the floor, throwing out his feet in quick thrusts. "I'm getting along, Bulger, and I'd like to know." More pacing. Coming to the end of his route, he peered shrewdly into the face of the younger man. "Have you read the Psychical Society's report on Mrs. Fife?" ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin

... rude sound shall reach thine ear, Armor's clang, or war-steed champing, Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come 640 At the day-break from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, 645 Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing, Shouting ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... can bear, And out across the little frightened bar Into the fearless seas alone with her, The great sail humming to the straining spar, Curved as Love's breast, and white as nenuphar, The spring wind singing like a happy fife, The keen prow cutting like a scimitar: O how I long to run away ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... Affleck[1237],) in Ayrshire, which belonged to a family of the same name with the lands, having fallen to the Crown by forfeiture, James the Fourth, King of Scotland, granted it to Thomas Boswell, a branch of an ancient family in the county of Fife, stiling him in the charter, dilecto familiari nostro; and assigning, as the cause of the grant, pro bono et fideli servitio nobis praestito. Thomas Boswell was slain in battle, fighting along with his Sovereign, at the fatal ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... virginals, dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, vielle^, pianino^, Eolian harp. [Wind instruments]; organ, harmonium, harmoniphon^; American organ^, barrel organ, hand organ; accordion, seraphina^, concertina; humming top. flute, fife, piccolo, flageolet; clarinet, claronet^; basset horn, corno di bassetto [It], oboe, hautboy, cor Anglais [Fr.], corno Inglese^, bassoon, double bassoon, contrafagotto^, serpent, bass clarinet; bagpipes, union pipes; musette, ocarina, Pandean pipes; reed instrument; sirene^, pipe, pitch-pipe; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... singularly deep and long-sustained flute-like sound is often heard. It might be supposed that it was produced by the pan-pipes used by the natives of that region. It is, however, the note of a bird, named by the Indians uira mimbeu, or fife-bird, from the peculiar tone of its voice. It is, from the ornament on its head—consisting of a crest, with long curved hairy feathers, having long bare quills; which, when raised, spread themselves out in the form of a fringed sunshade over the head—called the umbrella-bird ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... future suggestions that maybe sent to us will be entirely at the service of the Duke of FIFE and others, interested in ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

... which the bridegroom belonged, seized upon him, and putting a couple of bayonets out of the two corners of his hat, to represent horns, it was placed on his head, the back part foremost. He was then hoisted on the shoulders of two strong fellows, and carried round the arms, a drum and fife beating and playing the pioneers call, named Round Heads and Cuckolds, but on this occasion styled the Cuckold's March; in passing the colours, he was to take off his hat: this, in some regiments, was practised by the officers on their ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... slipped away. One morning Theodore was on his way from one office to another when he heard the sound of drum and fife and saw a body of the strikers marching up Washington street. Every boy within sight or hearing at once turned in after the procession, and Theodore followed with ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... were loose, the crew at the capstan tramped round to the merry sound of the fife, the boatswain's pipe was heard shrilly repeating the orders he received; the sails were sheeted home, the anchor came to the bows, was catted and fished, and the Wolf, with canvas widespread to the breeze, glided majestically through the waters ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica: Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum, And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife, Clamber not you up to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces; But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements; Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter My sober ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... shall reach thine ear, Armor's clang or war-steed champing Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, Here's no war-steed's neigh and champing, Shouting clans ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... the North the wild news came, Far flashing on its wings of flame, Swift as the boreal light which flies At midnight through the startled skies. And there was tumult in the air, The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat, And through the wide land everywhere The answering tread of hurrying feet; While the first oath of Freedom's gun, Came on the blast from Lexington; And Concord, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... without losing one particle of his dignity. He thus takes off some of that solemn formality which belongs to such meetings, and, by his easy, and graceful familiarity, imparts to them somewhat of the pleasing character of a private entertainment. Near Sir W. Scott sat the Earl of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Bart., Admiral Adam, Baron Clerk Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., James Walker, Esq., Robert Dundas, Esq., ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott

... brave a chief, so that he had now under him over one thousand infantry and two hundred cavalry; they were furnished, besides, just like regular troops, with a bugler for the cavalry, and eight drums and a fife for the infantry. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... was ended, and the tongues going over it all again, and throwing the victors; the greasy pole, with leg of mutton attached by ribbons, was being hoisted, and the swings flying, and the lads and lasses footing it to the fife and tabor, and the people chattering in groups; when the clatter of a horse's feet was heard, and a horseman burst in and rode recklessly through the market-place; indeed, if his noble horse had been as rash as he was, some would have been trampled under foot. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... verge of doing deeds that outwardly look so fiendish! Oh, strange rapture of the coming battle! We know something of that time now; we that have seen the muster of the village soldiery on the meeting-house green, and at railway stations; and heard the drum and fife, and seen the farewells; seen the familiar faces that we hardly knew, now that we felt them to be heroes; breathed higher breath for their sakes; felt our eyes moistened; thanked them in our souls for teaching us that nature is yet capable of ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a long pole, and Fernando heard the roll of the drum and the shrill notes of a fife. The company was more than half made up when he arrived. He enlisted at once and four days later the company ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard

... they might not have been so honest. All difficulties having been at length overcome, the important document was drawn up, and duly published the following morning by bando—that is, by sound of the trumpet, drum and fife—a body of citizens doing duty in lieu of troops, and the individual with the most stentorian lungs thundering forth the edict from where the corner of the streets might have been supposed to be. The proclamation was to the effect that any person or persons discovered ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... colloquially true; because, by no trees, in common speech, we mean few. When he is particular in counting, he may be attacked. I know not how Colonel Nairne came to say there were but TWO large trees in the county of Fife. I did not perceive that he smiled. There are certainly not a great many; but I could have shewn him more than two at Balmuto, from whence my ancestors came, and which now belongs to a branch of ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... as all the fire of youth seemed to have died out with Prancer years ago. But early associations are strong; and as the "horse scenteth the battle afar off," so did Prancer prick up his ears and quicken his pace at the spirit-stirring sounds of the fife and drum; and now he began to make an awkward attempt to dance sideways upon the points of his hoofs; and as he neared the brow of the hill, his excitement became more intense, and his curveting and prancing more animated. Cousin Betty was almost terrified ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely

... named William Carmichael, formerly a bailie of Edinburgh, was one of Sharp's favourites, and one of his numerous commissioners for suppressing conventicles in Fife. He was a licentious profligate, greedy of money, and capable of undertaking any job, however vile. This man's enormities were at last so unbearable that he became an object of general detestation, and his excessive exactions had ruined so many respectable lairds, owners, and tenants, that ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... both sexes in Cuba. The military band which led the column of infantry marched in, playing a quick operatic air, deploying to one side for the soldiery to pass towards the altar. The time-keeping steps of the soldiery upon the marble floor mingled with drum, fife, and organ. Through all this, one caught now and then the monotonous voice of a shaven-headed priest, reciting his prescribed part at the altar, kneeling and reading at intervals. The busy censer boys in white gowns; the flaring candles casting ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... mind! Farewell content! Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov

... skill enough to dissemble the lapses. "Kilmeny" at its best is poetry—such poetry as, to take Hogg's contemporaries only, there is none in Rogers or Crabbe, little I fear in Southey, and not very much in Moore. Then there is no doubt at all that he could write ballads. "The Witch of Fife" is long and is not improved by being written (at least in one version) in a kind of Scots that never was on land or sea, but it is quite admirable of its class. "The Good Grey Cat," his own imitation of himself in the Poetic ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... his life-guards, at the head of the army, moved from Holyrood to Pinkie-house that afternoon. A vast concourse of people were gathered to cheer us on our way, as we passed through the streets to the sound of the pipes and fife and beating drum. More than one twisted cripple flung himself before the horse of the Prince, begging for "the King's touch." In each case the Young Chevalier disclaimed any power of healing, but his kindly heart forbade his denying the piteous appeal. With a slight ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... said Mr. Fox. He really had a great many ideas in his head—more, probably, than any other of the forest-people. "I'm very fond of music and I want to have a fife-and-drum corps." ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey

... King of Poland. Segismund his Son. Astolfo his Nephew. Estrella his Niece. Clotaldo a General in Basilio's Service. Rosaura a Muscovite Lady. Fife her Attendant. ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... so much spirit that it had a strong effect on the little training company. They had always liked him much better than Fred, and were glad of an excuse now to make him their captain. A boy who could fife so well, and drum so well, ought to be promoted, they ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May

... necessary to say that the offer of the kind-hearted trapper was accepted with the utmost enthusiasm. Mickey and Ethan were more anxious to go out upon the prairies than they had been a year and a half before, when they started so full of fife and hope for that vast wilderness, and had come back with ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis

... tone, and with his usual harmlessly menacing utterance, as though he had been for the last time reproving confidentially that dead seaman at his feet. The men listened in scattered groups; they leaned on the fife rail, gazing on the deck; they held their chins in their hands thoughtfully, or, with crossed arms and one knee slightly bent, hung their heads in an attitude of upright meditation. Wamibo dreamed. Mr. Baker read ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... (with a share in the brewing business), the husband and two children of the married sister, a parrot, a drum (performed on by the little boy of the married sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife (played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several domestics and supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet high, a small fountain, and half-a-dozen ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... an hour?' 'Leave my post?' I say. 'Yais,' said he, 'I know your army has not moche provision lately, and maybe you are ongrie?' 'Ma foi, yais,' said I; 'I aff naut slips to my eyes, nor meat to my stomach, for more dan fife days.' 'Veil, bon enfant,' he say, 'come vis me, and I vill gif you good supper, goot vine, and goot velcome.' 'Coot I leave my post?' I say. He say, 'Bah! Caporal take care till you come back.' By gar, I coot naut resist—he vos so vairy ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... highway, some change of scene was (in the medical sense) indicated; my father at the time was visiting the harbour lights of Scotland; and it was decided he should take me along with him around a portion of the shores of Fife; my first professional tour, my first journey in the complete character of man, without the help ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... freedom. An innate reasoning taught the negro that slaves could not be relied upon to fight for their own enslavement. To get to the breastworks was but to get a chance to run to the Yankees; and thousands of those whose elastic step kept time with the martial strains of the drum and fife, as they marched on through city and town, enroute to the front, were not elated with the hope of Southern success, but were buoyant with the prospects of reaching the North. The confederates found it no easy task to watch the negroes and the Yankees too; their attention could be given ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... Scouts, sturdy with an enormous sense of uniform and valor, marched through the asphalt alleys of the park with trained, small-footed, regimental precision—small boys with clean, lifted faces. A fife and drum came ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... him thine and Scotland's, that those who watch his bearing in the battle-field may know who sent him there, may thrill his heart with memories of her who stands alone of her ancestral line, that though he bears the name of Comyn, the blood of Fife flows ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... ancient social pictures are the three "Banquets" respectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch. Plutarch's has the least claim to historical accuracy; but the meeting of the Seven Wise Masters is a charming portraiture of ancient manners and discourse, and is as dear as the voice of a fife, and entertaining as a French novel. Xenophon's delineation of Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato, and supplies traits of Socrates; whilst Plato's has merits of every kind,—being a repertory of the wisdom of the ancients on the subject of love,—a picture of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... system of agriculture and of draining, great preparations had been made for securing a good crop in a certain field, where Lord Fife, his factor, and others interested in the subject were collected together. There was much discussion, and some difference of opinion as to the crop with which the field had best be sown. The idiot retainer, who had been listening unnoticed to all that was said, at last cried ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... of hunger who served God faithfully," he would say, when nightfall found them supperless in the waste. "Look at the eagle overhead! God can feed us through him if He will"—and once at least he owed his meal to a fish that the scared bird let fall. A snowstorm drove his boat on the coast of Fife. "The snow closes the road along the shore," mourned his comrades; "the storm bars our way over sea." "There is still the way of heaven that ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... Ferdinand Fife Was a student of life: He was coarse, and excessively fat, With a beard like a goat's, But he held all the notes Of ruined John Jeremy Platt! With an adamant smile That was brimming with guile, He said: "I am took with the face Of your beautiful daughter, And ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... and fighters, demanded an active share in the proceedings, and were organized by Squire Bean into a fife and drum corps, so that by day and night martial but most inharmonious music woke the echoes, and deafened mothers felt their patriotism oozing out at the soles of ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... classes, lawyers and clergymen being packed together with grooms and brown Alpine herdsmen; and, after the government had been solemnly escorted to its private chamber, four musicians in antique costume announced, with drum and fife, the speedy opening of the Assembly. But first came the singing societies of Herisau, and forced their way into the centre of the throng, where they sang, simply yet grandly, the songs of Appenzell. The people listened with silent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... cardinal is a songster — the fact which, in connection with his lovely plumage, accounts for the number of these birds shipped in cages to Europe, where they are known as Virginia nightingales. Commencing with a strong, rich whistle, like the high notes of a fife, "Cheo-cheo-cheo-cheo," repeated over and over as if to make perfect the start of a song he is about to sing, suddenly he stops, and you learn that there is to be no glorious performance after all, only a prelude to — nothing. The song, such as it is, begins, with both male and ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... step-mother manages to bring it about that Jack is set to watch the cattle, and she allows him only rotten food. An old man with whom he shares his victuals grants him three wishes in return for his kindness. He asks for a bow and a fife; and the old man gives him a bow that never misses its aim, and a fife that compels every one to dance. He also grants Jack's third wish, that every time his step-mother hurls a bad word at him or about him, she shall give forth another noise not permitted ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... had to expose themselves to a torrent of fire, so fierce indeed that in bringing up two boxes of rifle ammunition which four men could carry twelve casualties were incurred. A head shown in the village instantly drew a hail of bullets from three sides. Reinforcements were on the way up, and the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry battalion of the Royal Highlanders were prepared to make a flank attack from their outpost line three-quarters of a mile south-east of Foka to relieve the Devons, but this would have endangered the safety of the outpost line ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey

... overbearing manner of Albany. It was an evil day for Scotland when our good king, who was then but prince, lamed himself for life; and so was forced, on his accession, to leave the conduct of affairs to Albany, then Earl of Fife. The king, as all men know, is just and good, and has at heart the welfare of his subjects; but his accident has rendered him unfit to take part in public affairs, and he loves peace and quiet as much as Albany loves intrigues, and dark and ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty

... be seen the soft outlines of the county of Fife, while beneath the spectator stretched the yellow ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... of British authority avoid the extremity by concession? Boston, indeed America, had seen no hour of intenser interest, of deeper solemnity, of more instant peril, or of truer moral sublimity; and as this assembly deliberated with the sounds of the fife and drum in their ears, and with the soldiery in their sight, questions like these must have been on every lip,—and they are of the civil-war questions that cause an involuntary shudder ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various

... clarion, fill the fife, To all the sensual world proclaim: One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... will you marry me, With the bagginet, fife and drum?' 'Oh, no, pretty miss, I cannot marry you, For I've got no ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... gread big pahty down to Tom's de othah night; Was I dah? You bet! I nevah in my life see sich a sight; All de folks f'om fou' plantations was invited, an' dey come, Dey come troopin' thick ez chillun when dey hyeahs a fife an' drum. Evahbody dressed deir fines'—Heish yo' mouf an' git away, Ain't seen no sich fancy dressin' sence las' quah'tly meetin' day; Gals all dressed in silks an' satins, not a wrinkle ner a crease, Eyes a-battin', teeth a-shinin', haih ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... may ABERCORN wonder and FIFE tootle praise, His two thousand hearers raise cheering—raise cheering. Of wild would-be Scuttlers he proves the mad craze, And of Governments prone to small-beering—small-beering. Sullen Boers may prove bores ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various

... nothing for Lord Buckingham to regret in the scene of party conflict he had quitted. It was an exchange from turmoil to peace, rendered still more acceptable to him by the expressions of regard and attachment it drew from some of the most distinguished men of his time. Well might Lord Fife congratulate him, in one of the numerous letters addressed to him at this period, on the difference he would find between Stowe and the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... and the contents of their lockers, chests, and bags, were exposed to the sun and air. On the Thursday and Sunday mornings the ship's company was mustered, and every man appeared clean shaved and dressed; and when the evenings were fine, the drum and fife announced the forecastle to be the scene of dancing; nor did I discourage other playful amusements which might occasionally be more to the taste of the ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne

... movement; is as smart above As meal and larded locks can make him: wears His hat or his plumed helmet with a grace, And, his three years of heroship expired, Returns indignant to the slighted plough. He hates the field in which no fife or drum Attends him, drives his cattle to a march, And sighs for the smart comrades he has left. 'Twere well if his exterior change were all— But with his clumsy port the wretch has lost His ignorance and harmless manners too. To swear, to game, ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... off the field: fifteen thousand of them, some historians say twenty thousand, were slain; among whom were Edward Keith, Earl Mareschal, and Sir Thomas Charteris, Chancellor: and the king himself was taken prisoner, with the Earls of Sutherland, Fife, Monteith, Carrick, Lord Douglas, and many other noblemen." The captive king was conveyed to London, and afterwards in solemn procession to the Tower, attended by a guard of 20,000 men, and all the city ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various



Words linked to "Fife" :   flute



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