"Creak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... than a whisper from without—the creak of a board. Andrew Lanning slipped to the door and turned the key in the lock. When he rejoined her in the middle of the room he gave ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... sight that she overturned her stool and drew a stitch awry in her sampler, longer than the women of her family were accustomed to take. The children gazed spellbound. The weavers at the loom were petrified; even the creak of the treadle and the noisy thumping of the batten—those perennial sounds of a pioneer home—sunk into silence. The two negroes at the end of the vista beyond the shed-room, with the ox-yoke and plough-gear which they were mending between them, opened ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... With a creak and lurch, the sleigh left the grade, and took the white snow edging the shoal water that led out to the deep green of the middle ice. The watcher drew a ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... here and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, and makes them hold ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... yard. And while the words were still upon my lips the stagnant air about me once more stirred, the great spaces of canvas beneath me swelled sluggishly out with a small pattering of reef-points from the three topsails, and a gentle creak of truss and parrel, as the strain of the filling canvas came upon the yards; and I saw the brightening disc of the sun begin to sweep round until it bore broad upon our larboard quarter. Then some sharp words of command from the poop, in Mr Hennesey's well-known ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... the even pressure of monotonous events. But, on some unexpected day, a tide comes rushing down the stream of being, and spins it round at speed; and then tears onward to the ocean called the Past, leaving its plaything to creak and turn, to turn and creak, or wrecked ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... night, since she was watching not for daylight but for that first stirring in the streets which tells that daylight is approaching. Having neither watch nor clock the stirring was all she had to go by. When it began to rumble and creak and throb faintly in and above the town she got ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... her bitter-sweet musings, came the creak of the door as some one pushed it quietly open, and ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... midst of my surprise, when the door opened with a very slight creak, and in walked a slim figure so silently that I ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... her lair. He peeped over to assure himself of her complete somnolence. Satisfied that Mex would not likely be roused by any slight disturbance, he stole to the front door and undid the fastenings so softly that not a creak of the bolt sliding from its staple was heard even by his own quick ear. But when he swung the door open, providing for his ready escape, the hinges gave out a complaining sigh. The sound was faint, but it startled Mex. She raised her drowsy ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... over my head and stood craning over the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life had not a sudden disquietude seized upon me and made me turn my head. Perhaps I had heard a creak or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye; perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but, sure enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, already half-way towards me, with the dirk in his ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... eyes, he was suddenly aware that the door leading to the kitchen was slowly opening. He had thought he heard it creak once or twice during his deliberate reply to Stanner. It was evidently moving now so as to attract his attention, without disturbing the others. It presently opened sufficiently wide to show the ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... and they would fain do the same to-day. 'Is not this common,' exclaimed a renowned musician, 'the least little critic, in reviewing some work of art, will say, pity this and pity that—this should have been attired, that omitted? Yea, with his wiry fiddle-string will he creak out his accursed variations. But let him sit down and compose himself. He sees ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... of the second machine ground deeper into the mud and loose stones, throwing them and the water up into the air and even onto the cover of the machine. The towing-rope continued to creak ominously. ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... three hours, and King and the coachman for two, when the unguided carriage gave a violent jolt, a loud creak, a revolving motion, and fell, wheels uppermost, on the road-side. King awoke in an instant, but too late to resist being plunged to the top of a high, irritable bramble hedge that showed him no mercy, while R—— and P—— found themselves, in a state of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... is finished; here and there the shocks are being overhauled for the corn, which is shucked as gathered, while the pumpkins are still accumulating sunshine for the golden Thanksgiving pie. From the barn yards come the pounding of the steam thresher or the creak of a windlass, suggesting that the hay crop is being baled. Everything is busy but the cows, who evidently do not like frosting on their cake and, having the day before them, can afford to wait till the good sun comes along to ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... not realize you were coming, old man; otherwise they would have had some weather especially prepared for your benefit," Bob replied, springing into the sleigh beside his chum. "My, but this is a jolly old pung! Hear it creak. I say," he leaned forward to address the driver, "where did my father ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... his head against what appeared to be some sort of joist or support, unless it had been placed there by the maker as a practical joke, on the chance of this kind of thing happening some day, coincided with the creak of the opening door. Then the light was switched on again, and the bulldog in the ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... Presently the creak of the door reopening roused her, and she turned, instantly on the defensive, anticipating that Olga had come back to renew the struggle. But it was only Baroni, who approached her with a look of infinite concern ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... sheave of his deck winch. He took out a cigarette and lighted it, swung one foot back and forth. He did not make haste to reply. An expectant hush fell on the crowd. In the slow-gathering dusk there was no sound but the creak of rubbing gunwales, the low snore of the sea breaking against the cliffs, and the chug-chug of the last stragglers beating into ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the rooms, and rested before a fine window, where probably the lady was also. You can believe that the poor lover remained melancholy and dreaming, and not knowing what to do. The window gave a sudden creak and broke his reverie. Fancying that his lady was about to call him, he looked up again, and but for the friendly shelter of the balcony, which was a helmet to him, he would have received a stream of water and the utensil which contained it, since ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... see, at intervals, the trees above the quarry bowing their heads, and the reeds waving in the swamp, and the water of the meadow-ponds dimpling and rippling, as the wind swept over the Levels. Oliver soon heard something that he liked better still—the creak of the truck that brought the gypsum from the quarry, and the crack of the ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... giving up the search in despair, after sweeping with his two hands every spot of the wall-surface around him, when chancing to turn his whole body a little to one side, he heard a creak, and saw a thin lance of light. His foot had unconsciously pressed some spring laid in the floor. The jamb was ajar. Pushing it open, he stood at liberty, in ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... projection so narrow that it seemed to grudge him foothold. Some of the ledges, however, were wider, and occasionally a dwarfed huckleberry bush, nourished in a fissure, lifted him up like a helping hand. He quaked as he heard the roots strain and creak, for he was a pretty heavy fellow for sixteen years of age. They did not give way, however, and up and up he went, every moment increasing the depth below him and the danger. His breath was short; ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... he now?" she asks herself with a shivering sigh, as she listens to the restless creak and sough of the trees. It is a question she is asking continually; ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... to object to you keeping your mouth shut," he returned. "Jammed logs"—the phrase stuck in his mind—"jammed logs don't creak any; but when it comes to joining forces, like two jams together for instance, there's got to be, in the nature of things, some demonstration. What I'm aiming at is this. Has this here Myst. meant business or has he not? I'm a man of the world—so is Gaston—he ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... the monotonous chant of their labor song, and sometimes the creak and squeak of some inland well-sweep drawn round and round by some patient camel. She felt herself to be in another world, as she sat in that boat guarded by that old woman and an eunuch, a world strange and ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... the divan creak under his weight, but not until Gaston came back bringing his supper. As he ate he spoke, and his first words provoked an exclamation of dismay from the Frenchman, which was hastily smothered with a murmured apology, and then Diana became aware that others had come into the room. ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... now, of course, the houses were covered with snow, and looked like baby Eskimo huts. The Forest Children crept sleepily out of the boat, kissing the Tree Mother good-by as though in a dream. Not a word was spoken. There was the creak of their little feet on the cold snow,—that was all. Each child went alone into his little house. They were lighted and looked warm through the doors, and Tree Mother nodded as though that were well. But before the air-boat had risen out of sight, ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... "What became of your last poem, Clara?"—and the reply, "Youth's Companion, came back with a printed slip; Independent, ditto; then I tried the Waverley Magazine, who accepted it, but did not pay young contributors"; I became unthinkingly an interested eavesdropper, and just then, with creak and clatter, the train stopped, the station, "Wellesley," was called, and the fair ones departed, taking my thoughts (and all power of concentration on work in hand) ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... terminology, and then, after all, perhaps we should not understand one another. Men have an idea that they are thinking when they operate the mechanism of language which they have at command. When somebody makes the joints of language creak, they say: "He does not know how to manage it." Certainly he does know how to manage it. Anybody can manage a platitude. The truth is simply this: the individual writer endeavours to make of language a cloak to fit his form, while, contrarywise, the purists attempt to mould ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... beloved is a splendid heart tonic. Mr. Grimm straightened up suddenly on the couch, himself again. He touched the slip of paper which she had pinned to his coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after which he recalled the fact that while he had heard the door creak before she went out he had not heard it creak afterward. Therefore, the door was open. She had left it open. Purposely? That was beside ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... not touched again; but, directly afterward, I heard the basket, in which the cat lay, creak. I tell you, I fairly pringled all along my back. I knew that I was going to learn definitely whether whatever was abroad was dangerous to Life. From the cat there rose suddenly a hideous caterwaul, that ceased abruptly; and then—too ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... lock she found swiftly in the dark until she must have shot back five or six bolts; a door opened before them. He could not see it, since beyond was a dark no less impenetrable, but caught the familiar creak of hinges. He heard the door close softly when they had gone through; he heard the several bolts shot back. Then Zoraida left him, groped a moment and thereafter the tiny flare of a match in her upheld ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... the door of the front room; he placed his ear against the keyhole, and listened. Within all was silent. A fresh terror seized him. Why was no sound to be heard?...He opened the door cautiously lest it should creak. There sat his father asleep in the arm-chair, his head bent on his bosom, his arms hanging ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... out a face just disappearing from sight outside. He dismissed his suspicions as the manufactures of sleep, and was about to fall back again on the comfortable divan when he heard footsteps outside, and the creak of his door-knob. He rose quickly to ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... any obstacle. He could make out the loom of the island over the starboard quarter, a black spot focussed in the all-pervading blackness of the night. Everything seemed to give promise of secrecy for him. The rasp of the boom-jaws, the swishing of coiled ropes on the pin-rails, and the chirping creak of the shrouds as the schooner bobbed and rolled on the lulling swells, concealed the ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... only by the soft melancholy murmur of the forest. They refilled the magazines of their carbines, built up the tinder fire, and stretched their ears to catch the first warning note of danger. Then the whisperings swarmed in upon them. A creak of a branch, the turn of a leaf, the scraping of creeping insects, the whizzing of moths, and the murmur of the forest, all seemed to them the whisperings of stealthy foes. Every now and again they moistened ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... heard the groaning of timbers and the creak of cordage he knew at once that they were under way and he was glad. The events of the night before passed rapidly through his mind, but they seemed vague and indistinct. At first he thought the vision of St. ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as no doubt it was theirs when their hearts were purged by service. Morning and night I send down the moss-grown bucket with its urgent message from a dry and dusty world; the chain tightens through my hand as the liquid treasure responds to the messenger, and then with creak and jangle—the welcome of labouring earth—the bucket slowly nears the top and disperses the treasure in the waiting vessels. The Gibeonites were servants in the house of God, ministers of the sacrament of service even as the High Priest himself; and I, sharing their ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... copying-clerks and the engrosser, whose pens forthwith began to creak over the stamped paper, making as much noise in the office as a hundred cockchafers imprisoned by schoolboys ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... to talk and laugh off her confusion. "I don't think so, and poor Dermot did not find it so when the wrong one was left to lift him, and just ran his great stupid arm into the tenderest place in his side, and always stepped on all the boards that creak, and upset the table of physic bottles, and then said it was Harold's way of propping them up! And that's the creature they expect ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... line that stood nearest the spigot, now staggering and splashing as he lugged a full pail, now scampering back happily with an empty one. And he was beside a stairway, and on the point of taking in a drink to the horse stalled closest to the entrance, when he heard several voices, the creak of doors, and footsteps. So he paused, the bucket swinging from both hands, until half a dozen pairs of shaggy legs appeared just above him. Then as the big hats were bobbing into view, so that he knew his labors could be seen and appreciated, he faced round with ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... off short, and held up his hand for silence. Both men listened intently, and from the river bank they heard the steady, lumbering creak as of ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... imponderable pat. Ah, mine no more! for lo! 'tis noised around How thou wilt soon cost seven bob a pound. As well demand thy weight in radium As probe my 'poverished poke for such a sum. Wherefore, farewell! No more, alas! thou'lt oil These joints that creak with unrewarded toil; No more thy heartsick votary's midmost riff Wilt lubricate, and, oh! (as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... before those words were shouted from the main-top, the low-toned conversation carried on by the two young officers, with an occasional creak or rattle from a swinging sail was all that broke the silence of the drowsy vessel; now from everywhere came the buzz of voices and the hurrying trample ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... clock struck twelve, he cautiously rose from the bed, and pulled off his boots, which a proper respect for his host or the bed had not prompted him to do before. The house was old, and the floors had a tendency to creak beneath his tread. With the utmost care, he crawled on his hands and knees to one of the doors of the lumber hole, which he succeeded in opening ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... man who had just passed, for the very fact that he had thought of it often. The man had come into the dim radiance of the far light, then had melted into the blackness of the night again, leaving as a sign of his presence the creak of his shoes and ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... I was suddenly conscious of an odor of tobacco, as though some one smoking a cigar had entered the room, and an instant later I heard that chair before the desk creak as though it had been swung around. I switched on the light at once. The chair had turned. It had been facing away from the desk, and it ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... little bunch of buffalo, and listened to the thud of their hoofs as they fled through the sultry, velvet gloom; but for the most our ride was attended by no sounds save the night song of frogs in the upland sloughs and the hollow clank of steel bits keeping time to the creak of saddle-leather. ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the incidents of a horrible horse-and-precipice accident; Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been swept by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers' Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose furniture is guaranteed to creak, not with the heat of June but with the weight of Invisibles who come to lounge in the chairs; Peshawur possesses houses that none will willingly rent; and there is something—not fever—wrong with a big bungalow in Allahabad. The ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... seemed possessed with a kind of intellectual gaiety. He leaned back with his legs crossed, lounging and chatting, while Goodwood, more restless, but not at all lively, shifted his position, played with his hat, made the little sofa creak beneath him. Osmond's face wore a sharp, aggressive smile; he was as a man whose perceptions have been quickened by good news. He remarked to Goodwood that he was sorry they were to lose him; he himself should particularly miss him. He saw so few intelligent men—they were ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... minute or two, then drew a deep breath, and pressed it ever so slightly inward. The door did not budge. Tommy was annoyed. If he had to use too much force, it would almost certainly creak. He waited until the voices rose a little, then he tried again. Still nothing happened. He increased the pressure. Had the beastly thing stuck? Finally, in desperation, he pushed with all his might. But the door remained firm, and at last the truth dawned upon him. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... the stately stir, And bending to your silken flowing, One day, my banner-poles, ye creak Naked beneath the high winds blowing! One day ye fall across the wall And moulder in the moat's green bosom, While in the cleft the wild tree left Bursts into spikes of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... of ten minutes, however, the wind carried with it the creak of rowlocks. A moment later a light, flat duck-boat shot around the bend and drew up at ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... pockets could not be persuaded to receive more than a small portion of the manuscripts. He gathered them in his hand, and prepared to redescend the perilous stairs. He walked as lightly as possible, dreading that every creak would bring Mrs. Wilson from her parlour. A few more steps, and he would be in the passage. A smell of dust, sounds of children crying, children talking in the kitchen! A few more steps, and, with ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... you were familiar enough to go upstairs, you could not find the steps which had been wont to creak. And peeping into the parlor you could see that some pretty new furniture had taken the place of the shaky old lounge and chairs; one good marine picture hung between the windows and a new rug lay ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... fairies were a long time munching the cake, and before they had finished it began to be rather dark, because a thunder-storm was coming up. The wind rose and made the old tree rock, and creak, and tremble. The little Fairies were so frightened that they got out of the nest and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... nothing better or safer than this here 'Sary Ann' along the shore," said the boat's master, grimly. "I sot every timber in her myself. She ain't got a crack or a creak in her. I keeled her and calked her, and I'll lay her agin any of them painted and gilded play-toys to weather the toughest gale on this here coast. You're as safe in the 'Sary Ann,' Padre, as if you were in church ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... to a closed door, in front of which he paused; and, as he did so, the broad leaves began to open of themselves, without creak or sound of lock or latch, or touch of foot or finger. The singularity was lost in the view that broke ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... had faith, if it lay not resting, A bright-eyed pearl, in the heart enclosed, In heav'nward gazes its sparkle vesting, When crumbling shell leaves the core exposed? Sweet slumber follows When pain expires.... And creak the gallows, And flame the fires, Lo, martyr! heaven shall open thence, And your ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... it will be of little use," replied the Major; "creak they will. I don't know whether the oxen here are like those in India; but this I know, that the creaking of the carts and hackeries there is fifty times worse than this. The natives never grease the wheels; ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the bell of the monastery. She knew it was not the hour customary for prayer, and she listened to the sounds, which rolled through the deep silence of the fabric, with strong surprise and terror. Presently she heard the doors of several cells creak on their hinges, and the sound of quick footsteps in the passages—and through the crevices of her door she distinguished passing lights. The whispering noise of steps increased, and every person of the monastery seemed to have awakened. Her terror heightened; it occurred to her that the marquis ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... are alike to the three young Misses, fair and fat,—at the Seventh Circle, nevertheless, my pupils are sticking fast; and I, to set them going again, recite, explain, and blow myself up red-hot with useless enthusiasm, when—a creak of boots in the passage outside, and in comes the golden Papa, the mighty merchant with the naked head and the two chins.—Ha! my good dears, I am closer than you think for to the business, now. Have you been patient so far? or have ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... not turn and go upstairs: the fire and the singing tea-kettle were, at least, companions. But something impelled me to take the bow and draw it across the crwth-strings. Presently I thought I heard a door overhead softly open, and this was followed by the almost inaudible creak of a light footstep descending the stairs. With paralysed pulses I kept my eyes fixed on the half-open door, in the certainty of seeing her pass along the little passage leading from the staircase to the front door. But as I heard the dear footsteps ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... probably because his black silk stockings never exhibited a wrinkle; they might just as well have said that he waddled, because his shoes creaked; for these last, which were always without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of a different hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. I cannot say that I ever ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... of a range cow; any of these usual sounds of the open failed to rouse him; but invariably he knew when a man was dangerously near. If the menace was upwind and within reasonable distance, his nose detected it. At times the creak of saddle leather reached his ears or the sound of the horse's hoofs ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... the light now, Calvin! creep softly, softly, down the rickety stairs, testing each board as you go, lest it creak. Out to the barn, where the good brown horse is dozing peacefully. He has had a good supper and a good rest; he is fit for the ten miles that lie between you and safety. Stow the bells under the seat, muffling ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... devoutly wished I were anywhere else but in that hideous hole. I felt myself leave the ground and rise steadily. The walls of the shaft glided past me. Up, up I went. The bit of blue sky grew bigger, bigger. There was a star shining there. I watched it. I heard the creak, creak of the windlass crank. Somehow it seemed to have a sinister sound. It seemed to say: "Have a care, have a care, have a care." I was now ten feet from the top. The bucket was rocking a little, so I put out my hand ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... sometimes in their own nakedness, sometimes in the stolen garb of the Madonna or the saints. Who knows whether they do not exist to this day? And, indeed, is it possible they should not? For the awfulness of the deep woods, with their filtered green light, the creak of the swaying, solitary reeds, exists, and is Pan; and the blue, starry May night exists, the sough of the waves, the warm wind carrying the sweetness of the lemon-blossoms, the bitterness of the myrtle on our rocks, the distant chant of the boys cleaning out their ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... flat head back and forth, hissing deafeningly at the sting of the tube, now and again lunging with its vast unseen body at the too narrow entrance that kept it from entering the laboratory. Dex could hear the foundation walls of the building creak at the ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... hear the thud and creak as Commodus threw himself back on the bed—then writhing again and groans of agony. Between the spasms Commodus ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... word," said he, with another hateful chuckle. And then suddenly I heard, amidst the roar of the storm, the creak and whine of the winch-handle turning and the rattle of the grating as it passed through the slot. Great God, he was letting loose the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... come to a city, for I could hear the passing of many wagons and the murmur of a crowd. Some were shouting, "Shoot the d—d Yankees!" and now and then a missile struck among us. There is nothing so heartless and unthinking as a crowd, the world over. I could tell presently, by the creak of the evener and the stroke of the hoofs, that we were climbing a long hill. We stopped shortly; then they began helping us out. They led us forward a few paces, the chain rattling on a stone pavement. When we heard the bang of an iron door behind us, they unlocked the heavy fetter. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... endurance to meet calmly or to speak coherently with any human being at that moment, I turned, with the instinct of flight strong upon me. I knew I must be alone, to face this thing in its inevitableness, to fight it out, to get my bearings. The gate was turning upon its hinges; I could hear it creak. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... he chirps beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of Autumn ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... flicker to burn themselves out in his black face, and then he would lie blinded and invisible in the midst of an intense darkness. He could hear on the quiet deck soft footfalls, the breathing of some man lounging on the doorstep; the low creak of swaying masts; or the calm voice of the watch-officer reverberating aloft, hard and loud, amongst the unstirring sails. He listened with avidity, taking a rest in the attentive perception of the slightest sound from the fatiguing wanderings of his sleeplessness. He was cheered by the rattling ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... voice, a grating creak, But only to himself would speak. Groaning with tears in piteous pain, "O! O! ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... the hatch a sudden puff of wind made the mast creak loudly. This alarmed the men below and Sack ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... the bed creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, repeated as regularly as the breath might come and go in a ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... fell into a sullen silence, and no sound was heard but the unsteady rumble of the wheels, the creak of an ungreased axle, and the occasional crack of a whip. Clouds of dust arose and were whipped by the stray winds into the faces of the travelers, the fine particles burning like hot ashes. The train moved slowly and heavily, as if it dragged a wounded ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... the "profession"—a piece of stiff wire, a skeleton key and other paraphernalia calculated to reduce the obstinate mechanism to submission. For a minute, two, three, he worked at the ancient lock; then, without a creak, the door swung open. A touch of oil to the hinges had insured their silence. Jimmie O'Hara believed in being artistic in his work, especially when it came to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... side-street in Brighton, romantic and miserable scene of his sensitive childhood. It was a solemn house for him. Through the basement window on a dark night he had first glimpsed Marguerite. Unforgettable event! Unlike anything else that had ever happened to anybody!... He heard a creak, and caught sight through the letter-aperture of a pair of red slippers, and then the lower half of a pair of trousers, descending the stairs. And he dropped the flap hurriedly. Mr. Haim was coming to open the door. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... by creak of gear and flap of idle sails. The schooner barely moved now, though the western sky held promise of a breeze later on. Then came a cry from one of the negro crew forward, and its tenor stirred the party into ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... moment, at the creak of a footstep on the kitchen stairs, Lawford also had drawn soundlessly back into the darkness of the ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... for instance, I am loved by women. I don't call them, I don't lure them, they come to me of themselves." He seated himself on a bag of flour and told us how the women loved him and how he handled them boldly. Then he went away, and when the door closed behind him with a creak, we were silent for a long time, thinking of him and of his stories. And then suddenly we all began to speak, and it became clear at once that he pleased every one of us. Such a kind and plain fellow. He came, sat awhile and talked. Nobody came to us ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... went back. For the moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky. The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... about the mat, But her mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet the creak of the opening door; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor - But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turned its skirt of a ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the people who have too much," the old woman explained, straightening her labor-stiffened back with such an effort that almost Saxon could hear it creak. The old woman's black eyes flashed angrily, and her wrinkled lips, drawn tightly across toothless gums, wry with bitterness. "The people that have too much. It is to keep up the price. They throw them overboard ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... value your Keats letter if the signature was traced over to make it last longer? It's just because I love the past that I want this house to look back on its glamourous moment of youth and beauty, and I want its stairs to creak as if to the footsteps of women with hoop skirts and men in boots and spurs. But they've made it into a blondined, rouged-up old woman of sixty. It hasn't any right to look so prosperous. It might care enough for Lee ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... sell myself body and soul to the devil, for that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: "SOAMES, ENOCH" endlessly—endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena, biographies'—but here he was interrupted by a sudden loud creak of the chair at the next table. Our neighbour had half risen from his place. He was leaning ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... seas were too heavy over the bar, so that it would have been death to any man foolish enough to try to reach us; and we looked for none. So as the stout ship wallowed and plunged at her anchors—head to wind and sea, and everything, from groaning timbers to song of wind-curved rigging and creak of swinging yard, seeming to find a voice in answer to the plunge and wash of the waves, and swirl and patter of flying spray over the high bows—we found what shelter we might under bulwarks and break of fore deck, ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... beams bravely through the big windows of the gallery upstairs. She looked at the sleeping roses, the velvet lawns, the tall trees; and her eyes were very peaceful. The golden moonlight transfigured the scene; from the dreaming river came the creak of oars moving gently in their rowlocks; and the nightingale's song was dying softly, tenderly, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... cards, curds and custards of what is called polite society. They hated hypocrisy, sham, pretense, and scorned the soft, the warm, the pleasant, the luxurious. They liked stormy weather, the sweep of the wind, the splash of the rain and the creak of cordage. They gloried in difficulties, reveled in the opposition of things, and smiled at the tug of inertia. In their natures was a granitic outcrop that defied failure. It was the Anglo-Saxon, with a goodly cross of the Norse, that gave them this ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Surgeon suggested sincerely that the house was much too big for the White Linen Nurse to run all alone, but conceded equally sincerely, under the White Linen Nurse's vehement protest, that servants, particularly new servants did creak considerably round a house, and that maybe "just for the present" at least, until he finished his very nervous paper on brain tumors perhaps it would be better to stay "just ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... visited Quebec in 1698, and Charlevoix, who writes in 1720, describe this district as the most beautiful in the city. Instead of the crowded quays of to-day there was a terraced lawn bordered with flower gardens; and where now the winches creak and rattle, and the railway engines hiss and scream, birds sang among willow-trees, and the Angelus echoed through a quiet woodland. Across the St. Charles lay the well-ordered grounds of the Jesuit monastery, and farther to the west the lonely spire of the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... slammed with the wind, contrasting its rude sound with the rusty creak of the "invisible" iron fence just set up, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... they chattered with fear. We heard a loud scream overhead. "What was that?" cried he. I confess that I was as much alarmed as Tom. The scream was repeated, and it had an unearthly sound. It was no human voice—it was between a scream and a creak. Again it was repeated, and carried along with the gale. I mustered up courage sufficient to look up to where the sound proceeded from; but the darkness was so intense, and the snow blinded me so completely, that I could see nothing. Again and again did ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... none she drives full tilt at the ice, with her heavy plunge, runs her sloping bows up on it, treads it under her, and bursts the floes asunder. And how strong she is too! Even when she goes full speed at a floe, not a creak, not a sound, is to be heard in her; if she gives a little shake it is all ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... the box could not restrain her impatience. She cast me another short glance. I affected not to see it; took out my watch, consulted it, put it back quickly and slipped out into the hall. As I closed the door behind me, I heard a slight creak. Instantly I was back again, and with so sudden a movement that I surprised her, with her face bent over ...
— The Bronze Hand - 1897 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... before their door. First an inch, then two, then four, then six, and on and on. The roof began to strain and creak ominously beneath the great weight. All rushed forth at once into the storm, and with poles and their rude shovels they thrust the great mass of accumulated snow from the roof. This task they repeated at intervals ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... leading on to the side-porch creak stealthily, then pause, and creak again. Perhaps Annie was ill, and she ought to follow her. She softly tiptoed back to her room and peeped from her window. Her sister was stealing down through the orchard, her light summer dress plainly visible against ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation. What is any man's discourse to me, if I am not sensible of something in it as steady and cheery as the creak of crickets? In it the woods must be relieved against the sky. Men tire me when I am not constantly greeted and refreshed as by the flux of sparkling streams. Surely joy is the condition of life. Think of the young fry that ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... moment the great iron gate was heard to creak on its hinges. Other wretches were being pitched inside to await ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... night watches, and feeling that his prisoner was secure behind the bolted door, had fallen fast asleep. Another minute and she had fairly flown through the hall and reached the door of the garret stairs; she recollected that the latch had a troublesome creak occasionally; indeed, she had noticed it only that very day, as she and Sally Tracy had mounted to their eyrie in the big dormer window of the garret, where safe from all ears they were wont to confide their girlish ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... of the kamas root, and took a smoke. Reflecting on the events of yesterday, he became aware of an odd change in his condition. He was not bruised and wounded, as he expected, but very stiff only, and his joints creaked like the creak of a lazy paddle on the rim of a canoe. His hair was matted and reached a yard down his back. 'Tamanous,' thought the old man. But chiefly he was conscious of a mental change. He was calm and content. Hiaqua and wealth seemed to have lost their charm for him. Tacoma, ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long while. Her mind was quite made up. If she heard her father moving from that room, she would just wait until he was asleep, ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... of the packet. A single square window in the end of the chambermaid's cabin looked out on the wheel, but at all times, except when the wind was blowing from just the right quarter, this window was deluged with a veritable Niagara of water. The continual shake of the cabin, the creak of the rudder-beam working to and fro, the watery thunder of the wheel, and the solemn rumble of the engines made conversation impossible until the travelers grew accustomed to the noises. Still, Cissie found it pleasant. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... being in tolerable possession of his faculties at the moment, and that what he was relating to me actually occurred, he told me that he remembered at once that he had heard that peculiar creak, a few moments before Euphra and he discovered that they were left alone in this very chamber. He had ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... minister to her amusement, and she pays them handsomely. More jokes are made within her borders in a day than suffice the rest of the globe for a year. And the laughter which they provoke is not spontaneous. You can hear the creak of the machine as it goes to work. The ever-present jester is a proof that humour is an exotic, which does not grow naturally on the soil, and does not belong more intimately to the American people than did the cumbersome jokes of Archie Armstrong to ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... as cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep,—or, it may be, broad awake,—with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fine I know that.' For some time afterwards their voices could be heard from downstairs, but what they talked of is not known. And then came silence. Had I been at home I should have been in the room again several times, turning the handle of the door softly, releasing it so that it did not creak, and standing looking at them. It had been so a thousand times. But that night, would I have slipped out again, mind at rest, or should I have seen the change coming ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... the hills above mining towns are magnificent. The long valleys, cut and slashed by the railroads and made ugly by the squalid little houses of the miners are half lost in the soft blackness. Out of the darkness sounds emerge. Coal cars creak and protest as they are pushed along rails. Voices cry out. With a long reverberating rattle one of the mine cars dumps its load down a metal chute into a car standing on the railroad tracks. In the winter little fires are started ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... glass rattling to the ground), they are unusually dark to-night. The darkness is augmented and confused, by flying dust from the earth, dry twigs from the trees, and great ragged fragments from the rooks' nests up in the tower. The trees themselves so toss and creak, as this tangible part of the darkness madly whirls about, that they seem in peril of being torn out of the earth: while ever and again a crack, and a rushing fall, denote that some large branch has yielded to ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... in the steeples, or make the furniture, and things on shelves, jump about quaintly enough. It will make trees bend to and fro, as if a wind was blowing through them; open doors suddenly, and shut them again with a slam; make the timbers of the floors and roofs creak, as they do in a ship at sea; or give men such frights as one of the dock-keepers at Liverpool got in the earthquake in 1863, when his watchbox rocked so, that he thought some one was going to pitch him over into the dock. But these are only little hints and warnings ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... creak of saddle-leather that has a way of putting heart in a man. To hear the hogskin rubbing its yellow elbows is a good sound. It means action. It means being on the way. It means that all the idle talking, planning, doubting is over and done with. Sir Hubert has cut ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... section, the faint hoof-beats of an approaching cavalcade, with the swelling thunders of its passage, surely suggests a narrative, a programme. After the D major episode there are two bars of anonymous modulation—these bars creak on their hinges— and the first subject reappears in F, then climbs to F sharp, thence merges into a glittering melodic organ-point, exciting, brilliant, the whole subsiding into an echo of earlier harmonies. The final octaves are marked fortissimo ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... if we had but the wit to see it, and the humility to adopt it? What can be more manifest than the desire of children for intellectual sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can—"Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming—"Mamma, see what ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... far end of the loft a glimmer of light through a crack seemed to indicate a door. Cautiously Alex rose to his knees, and began creeping forward to investigate. When half way a loud creak of the boards brought him to a halt with his heart in his mouth. But the loud conversation below continued, and heartily thanking the drumming rain on the roof overhead, Alex moved on, and finally ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... when suddenly a noise was heard, at no great distance from the spot where they lay. It was one of those sounds which would have been inexplicable to any but a seaman, but which conveyed a meaning to the ears of Ludlow, as plain as that which could be imparted by speech to a landsman. A moaning creak was followed by the low rumbling of a rope, as it rubbed on some hard or distended substance; and then succeeded the heavy flap of canvas, that, yielding first to a ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... of course, Olivier's assertion that he went out with him is an impudent lie. The house door is provided with a ponderous lock, which on locking and unlocking makes a loud grating echoing noise; moreover, the wings of the door squeak and creak horribly on their hinges, so that, as we have proved by repeated experiments, the noise is heard all the way up to the garrets. Now in the bottom story, and so of course close to the street door, lives old Master Claude Patru and his housekeeper, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... creak and a bump the train started, and the Colonel ran it slowly up until the locomotive stood on the tracks exactly where Buck Ogilvy had been cutting in his crossing; whereupon the Colonel locked the brakes, opened his exhaust, and blew ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... across the way; the call of their mother summoning them to bed. The tinkle of a piano down the street; the whine of a Victrola in another home; the cry of a baby in pain; the murmur of talk on the porch next door; the slamming of a door; the creak of a gate; footsteps going down the brick pavement; the swinging to and fro of a hammock holding happy lovers under the rose pergola at Joneses. She could identify them all, and found her heart was listening for another sound, a smooth running car that ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... massive form, colour is lost in shadowy but closer at hand are the dark pervading greens of the trees and vegetation, palms and tree ferns and banana trees helping by their graceful form to provide the truely tropical features, while the equally graceful clumps of bamboo sway and creak in the light breeze, their pointed leaves supplying that perpetual flutter and movement which one associates with the birches and beeches of one's native land. The cultivated patches on hillside and valley are rich in colour. Here, the yellow paddy is ripening for ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... not answer or seem to hear, and now Judith gave up asking questions. Carried along at his side in silence, she listened to the muffled creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, hushed by the steady and sleepy sound of it, half closing her eyes. His left arm was behind her shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel it there, warm and strong. Breathing when ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... see, if I die for it," said Deborah, and whirled up the wooden steps in a silent manner surprising in so noisy a woman. Paul heard the trap-door drop with a stealthy creak. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams The village gleaner oft pursues her toil, So, to where modest shame appears, thus low Blue pinch'd and shrin'd in ice the spirits stood, Moving ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... in this grassy ditch beneath the stars, I shall slumber as sweetly as ever I did between the snowy sheets." Saying which, I rose and began to look about for some likely nook in the hedge, where I might pass the night. I was thus engaged when I heard the creak of wheels, and the pleasant rhythmic jingle of harness on the dark hill above, and, in a little while, a great wagon or wain, piled high with hay, hove into view, the driver of which rolled loosely in his seat ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... had been none too rapid. The silence above was broken by the creak of an opening door, the sound of excited voices, and a sudden gleam of light, finding entrance through the open cellar-way. West startled, crept back into a corner, every nerve alert at approaching peril. He recognized Hobart's voice, as the fellow plunged down ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... tented valley stretching away to right and left of you, with the constant roar of sluice boxes and cradles, the creak of windlasses, and the perpetual noise of human voices. There's the excitement of pegging out your claim and sinking your first shaft, wondering all the time whether it will turn up trumps or nothing. There's the honest, manly labour from dawn to dusk. And then, when daylight fails, and ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... after this that, when we wake up, we find that the tossing and rocking motion has ceased; it is curiously quiet, the iron plates that bind the ship together no longer creak and groan as if they were in agony. We are bewildered. Then in a moment the meaning of all this flashes upon us. ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... triumphed again when he found himself really standing by Sir Louis Scatcherd's bedside. As for Lady Scatcherd, she did not even show herself. She kept in her own little room, sending out Hannah to ask him up the stairs; and she only just got a peep at him through the door as she heard the medical creak of his shoes as he ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man: his elbows on his knees: his forehead hidden in his hands. 'What ails that man?' asks the foremost officer. ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... said, "you'd turn any fellow into a brick. If there were more girls like you in the world I shouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of good men too; and the world could be oiled on all its hinges, so to speak, so that it wouldn't creak and jump and fret one at every turn as it seems to have an unpleasant habit of ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... fool Jeb was. An' when the ole folks goes to bed, Nance lays thar under a quilt a-watchin' an' a-listenin'. Well, Jeb knowed the premises, ef he couldn't talk, an' purty soon Nance heerd Jeb's cheer creak a leetle, an' she says, Jeb's a-comin', and Jeb was; an' Polly Ann 'lowed Jeb was jes a leetle TOO resolute an' quick-like, an' she got her hand ready to give him one lick anyways fer bein' so brigaty. I don't know as she'd 'a' hit him more'n ONCE. Jeb had a ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... had been the scene of combat, the fields were deserted, and for several days I had not seen a peasant at work upon the ground. In the vicinity of the camp of the Pasha, where the people had submitted themselves, the discordant creak of the water-wheels frequently attracted the ear, and the peasants cultivated their fields within musket shot of the camp ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... faint creak, and, as he peeped around the corner of the arch, he saw dimly the figure of a man near the door, evidently just in the act ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... it hung heavily. Her fingers were sensible of the touch of silk; she distinguished a depending bulk, and she felt at it very carefully and mechanically, saying within herself, in her anxiety to pass it without noise, 'If I should awake poor Chloe, of all people!' Her alarm was that the door might creak. Before any other alarm had struck her brain, the hand she felt with was in a palsy, her mouth gaped, her throat thickened, the dust-ball rose in her throat, and the effort to swallow it down and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and then overcast and again clears up. Sudden little puffs of wind make the boat lazily creak and groan in all its seams. Thus the ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... on which side the sign occurs'. This sign is still used by physicians and is known as Hippocratic succussion. In another passage in the same work the symptoms of pleurisy are described and 'a creak like that of leather may be heard'. This is the well known pleuritic rub which the physician is accustomed to seek in such cases, and of which the creak of leather ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... reply, and the other busied himself in attempting to unlock a large and much-dented cash-box. From on deck came falsetto cries and the creak and rattle of blocks as the black crew swung up mainsail and driver. Grief watched a large cockroach crawling over the greasy paintwork. Griffiths, with an oath of irritation, carried the cash-box ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... creak came from the confessional; the Mother of God, in a halo, in the dazzlement of her golden crown and mantle smiled tenderly with tinted lips upon the infant Jesus; and the heated clock throbbed out the time with quickening strokes. It seemed as if the sun peopled ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... was at supper, an' didn't see us when we clumb aboard the Lass. When it was pitch-black we cast off the lines, an' she drifted out on the ebb tide, which just there runs easy a knot an' a half. Then we got up our headsails so as to get steerage-way on her, and bless my soul if the blocks made a creak! Might have been pullin' silk thread through a fur mitten, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... of disturbed waters. When I look back at that time I figure myself as forever sitting with uplifted pen, waiting for a word that would not come, and that I did not much care about getting. The panels of the room would creak sympathetically to the opening of the entrance-door of the house, the faintest of creaks; people would cross the immense hall to the room in which they plotted; would cross leisurely, with laughter and rustling of garments that after a long time reached ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... empty-headed blue jay, held by the terrible fascination, remained on his bough, watching with dilated eyes. He saw the great beads of sweat stand out on the face of each, he could hear the muscles strain and creak, he saw the two fall to the ground, locked fast in each other's arms, and then turn over and over, first the white face and then the red uppermost, and ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... or the rudimental street of a new settlement which is sprouting on this otherwise barren soil. Half a century ago, the most frequent token of man's beneficent contiguity might have been a gibbet, and the creak, like a tavern sign, of a murderer swinging to and fro in irons. Blackheath, with its highwaymen and footpads, was dangerous in those days; and even now, for aught I know, the Western prairie may still compare ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
