"Creaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seems to say this, the saying brings him no solace. What, "creaking like a ghostly cricket," it intends, he must perceive, since he is neither deaf ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... boudoir scent, enervating, enfeebling, which called up for de Gery feminine visions—Aline, Felicia—permeating the fairy-like landscape, in this blue-charged atmosphere, this heavenly day, which one might have called the perfume become visible of so many open flowers. The creaking of a door made him open his eyes. Some one had just gone into the next room. He heard the rustle of a dress against the thin partition, a leaf turned in a book which could not be very interesting, for a long sigh turning into a yawn made him start. Was ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... waited for Rudd in the dark boot-hole under the Chief's study on Pack Monday night just before twelve. In stockinged feet he had crept downstairs, opened the creaking door without making any appreciable noise, and then waited in the boot-room, which was filled with the odour of blacking and damp decay. There was a small window at the end of it, through which it was just possible to squeeze out on to the Chief's front lawn. After that all was easy; anyone could ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... toward the conservatory and had reached the main hall when the creaking of the stairsteps brought him up with a start. Some one was descending, slowly and cautiously. For a second time and with grateful appreciation of Muriel's forethought, he carefully avoided the ferocious jaws of ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... aldermen have rechristened it Park Row. There other delegations of Greek and Italian children meet and escort the music on its homeward trip. In one of the crooked streets near the river its journey comes to an end. A battered door opens to let it in. A tallow dip burns sleepily on the creaking stairs. The water runs with a loud clatter in the sink: it is to keep it from freezing. There is not a whole window pane in the hall. Time was when this was a fine house harboring wealth and refinement. It has neither now. In the old parlor downstairs a knot of hard-faced men and women sit on ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... The bell is ringing, The pigs are squeaking, The barn door creaking, The brook is babbling, The geese are gabbling Mercy on us, ...
— Little Songs • Eliza Lee Follen
... it at the dungeon door, and turned the bolt with ease. He then led Hopeful to the iron gate of the castle, and though the lock went desperately hard, yet the key opened it. But as the gate moved, it made such a creaking ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... I hear the rusty hinges of my beloved's door give me creaking invitation. My heart creaks and throbs with respondent trepidations: Whimsical enough though! for what relation has a lover's heart to a rusty pair of hinges? But they are the hinges that open and shut the door of my beloved's ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... when I pushed open the heavy door, which closed with a pulley whose creaking echoed through the vestibule. What was then my surprise to hear, in the midst of general mourning, the tones of a song and harpsichord! Monsieur de la Vablerie was singing, and Mademoiselle Jeanne accompanying him. I knew not, in those days, that the misfortune of one ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... moment there would have been bloodshed. But suddenly the dark shadows at the other end of the room swayed with a strange motion; a great creaking sound arose, and the warping-bars tottered forward and fell upon the floor ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... lavish singers all summer long is the indigo bunting; yet when he first came back from the South he was very shy, and his voice seemed to be out of tune, so that, even when he tried to sing, which was seldom, his effort sounded like the creaking of a rusty door-hinge. Afterwards, however, when he got the cobwebs out of his larynx, he made up for all his previous silence. Quite different is the habit of the towhee, which announces his presence by his loud, explosive trill—all too ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the left; the path here is steep and muddy. He stops in front of a blurred circle of yellow light; by this can one faintly perceive the outlines of a building. Above the narrow doorway hangs a creaking sign which announces to all it may concern that this is the "Loup Noir," much sought after for its nearness to the racecourse and for its ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... comfort of horses. It was sans air brake and sans spring; and when the engineer made up his mind, which he often did, to stop that train, he did so in a manner the most alarming to aching limbs and weary eyes. "Let's go," the soldiers' war cry, rang out along the creaking, swaying, grinding train, and we were off on our 400-mile journey to the training area assigned to our Division ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... in which the last sentences were uttered, and the creaking of the bedstead indicated that the fireman was composing his massive limbs to rest, and scarcely had Mrs Dashwood resumed her washing, when his regular heavy breathing proclaimed him to be already ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... exhausted that he would fall asleep in the cage. He would fall asleep at supper, and go in and sink down on his cot and sleep like a log. And oh, the torture of being routed out before daybreak! Having to shake the sleep out of his head, and move his creaking joints, and become aware of the burning in his eyes, and the blisters ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... terror! Give thy roan jade spur, And spare her not! All Devon waits for thee, Thou, for the moment, most important man! A sevennight later, when the rider sent To Town drew rein before The Falcon inn Under the creaking of the windy sign, And slipped from saddle with most valorous call For beer to wash his throat out, then confessed He brought no scrap of any honest news, The last hope died, and so the quest was done. "They far'd afoot," quoth one, ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... view of the table. There was a silence that made the creaking of starched evening shirt-bosoms noisy as those men drew long stealthy breaths when breathing became imperative. All my "clients" and Dominick—he at Roebuck's right. At Roebuck's left there was a vacant chair. "Shall I sit ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... a ridge, long and low and weathered gray like a part of the earth. By day it had rested in a green sun-dazzle of trees or a glistering purity of snow. By night you heard the boards creaking and the lonesome sound of wind talking down the chimney. Yes, it had ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... ears the tears unshed, Grieve for their family's unlucky head. Virginia City intermits her trade And well-clad strangers walk her streets unflayed. Nay, all Nevada ceases work to weep And the recording angel goes to sleep. But in his dreams his goose-quill's creaking fount Augments the debits in the long account. And still the continents and oceans ring With royal torments of the Silver King! Incessant bellowings fill all the earth, Mingled with inextinguishable mirth. He roars, men laugh, Nevadans weep, beasts howl, Plash the affrighted ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... more ado, he passed through the creaking gate, up the lime-tree avenue, heedless of the ghost-like shadows of the tombstones, and the rustle of the ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... bedroom door rattled a little in the draught of another door which opened and closed. She heard an unmistakable creaking of the back stairs that led to a hall behind her room and the girls' rooms, and which ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... small room there doing some writing, when I heard a pair of feet in this passage doing a dance that was as queer as the dance of death. First came quick, funny little steps, like a man walking on tiptoe for a wager; then came slow, careless, creaking steps, as of a big man walking about with a cigar. But they were both made by the same feet, I swear, and they came in rotation; first the run and then the walk, and then the run again. I wondered at first idly ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... having arrived safely at the Towers, none the worse for her long drive yesterday. Mrs. Keziah, however, showed a disposition to qualify her report, saying:—"Th' o'ald la'ady was ma'akin' but a power show, at that. She'll be a great age, shower-ly! Only they do say, creaking dowers ha'ang longest." ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... gently. It yielded very slightly, and he tried again and yet again. Finally, he put down the lamp and set his shoulder against the wooden barrier with all his force. A dull creaking sound rewarded his efforts, and inch by inch the huge door opened into what at first appeared immeasurable darkness. Holding up the light he looked in, and uttered a smothered exclamation. A sudden gust of wind rushed from the sea through the passage ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... as he sat in the front parlor under the little creaking room. He would sit there where he could hear every sound, where it was almost as if he was by her ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... sack, round which he fastened the rope in such a manner that as soon as the strain on it was relieved it could be shaken off. Then he climbed out on to the bough, and poured a little melted lard on the sheave of the block to prevent it from creaking. Then he lowered the barrel down, shook off the fastening, and drew up ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... this soft and moving web of silence. No, not quite silence, for past his ear the splendid hyacinths drifted with a musical creaking, leaf on leaf, the buoyant bulbs brushing each other. The islets joined and parted; once he saw open water and plunged for it—and over his shoulders there surged a soft coverlet. He turned and beat it; he churned his bed into a ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... that the first and most peculiar effect of this misty environment was the absolute silence. The empty, invisible sails above did not flap; the sheets and halyards hung limp; even the faint creaking of an unseen block overhead was so startling as to draw every eye upwards. Muffled orders from viewless figures forward were obeyed by phantoms that moved noiselessly through the gray sea that seemed to have invaded the deck. Even the passengers ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... to criminals in whatever they undertake, he unscrewed the iron bars, slipped them from their places without the slightest noise, placed them against the wall, and opened the shutters, leaning heavily upon their hinges to keep them from creaking. The moon was shedding its pale pure light upon the scene, and he was thus enabled to faintly see into the room where Wilhelm and Wahlenfer were sleeping. There, he told me, he stood still for a moment. The ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... the boys were still at breakfast when the early morning train came creaking into the station, and the first person to come towards ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Black Forest of Germany babbled in playful melody no more, but rushed on with deafening din, mingling their torrent roar with the wild creaking of the huge oaks, the rustling of the firs, the howling of the affrighted wolves, and the hollow ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... followed upon his heels. He flung himself at Celia's door and opened it He burst into the room, stood for a second, then ran to the window. He hid behind the curtain, looking out. With his hand he waved to his companions to keep back. The sound of wheels creaking and rasping rose to their ears. The cab had just come out into the road. Durette upon the box turned and looked towards the house. Just for a moment Hanaud leaned from the window, as Besnard, the Commissaire, had done, and, like Besnard again, he waved his hand. Then ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... howling mobs,—and became sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round, and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... at a distance, on the neighb'ring plain, With creaking wheels slow comes the heavy wain: High on its tow'ring load a maid appears, And Nelly's voice sounds shrill in Robin's ears. Quick from his hand he throws the cumb'rous flail, And leaps with lightsome limbs th' enclosing pale. O'er field and fence he scours, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... on a countless throng, a throng that neither earth nor wave could hold. Thick flared all their camp-fires, and the whole wood blazed up; the flame betokened a numberless array. The earth sank under the fraying of the horse-hoofs; creaking waggons rattled swiftly. The wheels rumbled, the driver rode upon the winds, so that the chariots sounded like thunder. The earth hardly bore the throngs of men-at-arms, speeding on confusedly; they trod it, but it could not bear their weight. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... crowded the afternoon of the funeral. The decent black-clad village people, with reddening eyes and mouths drooping with melancholy, came in throngs into the snowy yard. The men in their Sunday gear tiptoed creaking across the floors; the women, feeling for their pocket-handkerchiefs, padded softly and heavily after them, folded in their ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... goodly house And grown a mansion ruinous With winter blowing through its crumbling walls! The master paceth up and down his halls, And in the empty hours Can hear the tottering of his towers And tremor of their bases underground. And oft he starts and looks around At creaking of a distant door Or echo of his footfall on the floor, Thinking it may be one whom he awaits And hath for many days awaited, Coming to lead him through the mouldering gates Out somewhere, from ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... twin pillars of church and school and stage were strong enough to support on the shoulders of their authority the first crude fabric or formless model of our comic theatre, while the tragic boards were still creaking and cracking under the jingling canter of Cambyses or the tuneless tramp of Gorboduc. This one play which the charity of Sidney excepts from his general anathema on the nascent stage of England has hitherto been erroneously ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... great creaking of saddles took place as the men eased their positions, and conversation began again. The Spanish soldiers filed off through a break in the barbed wire fence, the defiant trumpeters playing their pretty march-call ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... and four men got out. Instead of going toward the cave, they towed the globe, which floated a few inches from the earth, toward the side of the hill farthest from where the doctor stood. Three of them held it, while the fourth went forward and bent over some controls on the ground. A creaking sound came through the night and the men moved forward with the globe. Presently its movement stopped and men reappeared. Again came the creaking sound and the glow faded out as though a screen had been drawn in front of it. The four men ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... advantages of the North Cape over the stormy Atlantic was not calculated to raise the drooping spirits, and it was very early when he and his shattered guests turned in. There was little sleep on board the "Flitter" that night. Even if it had been easy to forget the danger, the creaking of the ship and the incessant roar of the water were enough for wakefulness. With each lurch of the boat it seemed more incredible that it could endure. It was such a mite of a thing to meet so furious an attack. As it rose on the wave to pause in terror ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... perfect stillness which followed it. The vessel seemed quite to stagger under the blow and to be paralysed by it, so that several seconds must have elapsed before the heavy rolling recommenced. This, and the creaking and groaning of the vessel, had something solemn about it; but some minor sounds were neither so grand nor so philosophically borne by either Papa or myself. One of the most persevering of these arose from my carelessness in having forgotten to bolt the door of a ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... enjoyed the reputation of being 'desperately haunted' from, at any rate, 1865 down to its dismantling. I will merely give the experiences of my own relations, as told by them to me. My mother told how one night she and my father heard creaking and grating, as if a door were being forced open. The sound came from a passage in which was a door nailed up and clamped with iron bands. A heavy footstep came down the passage, and stopped at the bedroom ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... key and turned it in the creaking lock. He was stripping himself even before the two sailors were out in the sun, and by the time that Crothers and Joe Byng had realized that there was an audience of something like a thousand, including children, he was ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... ten-foot drop at the end," said Jim, casting his eye up at the creaking sails. "But it certainly was a nasty moment while one wondered if the old affair would hold. I don't believe it ever was made in ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... did not falter. Her humble and faithful admirer, Ned, appeared at the attic door, when summoned by Goody Pearse, to help her downstairs. Ned made short work of it; he lifted Mary in his arms, and trudged down the creaking steps with her without a single halt, and placed her by her desire on the settle, where her leg could rest. Mary's smile was a sufficient reward for Ned. But when Mary held out her hand, and said she owed him more than tongue could tell for going to London, Ned was speechless with emotion. ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... rocking motion could be felt. Then I increased my speed in proportion to the speed of the tower itself. It was a slow start, but the momentum began to grow, and as it did each successive sway became faster and faster. Soon it was going so fast that I began to have unstable footing, the whole tower creaking like a tree that it is blown by a heavy wind. The speed kept increasing until it reached its fastest, swooshing to and fro with all of ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... music, and are you turning music-mad at this time of day? Mad—that you are! The music is inside your own noddle, old addle-pate!" she went on, as she took his head in her hands and rocked it to and fro on her shoulder. "Tell me now, old man; isn't it the creaking of the wheels that sings in ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... open field. Men lay everywhere sleeping, so exhausted the dead and living looked alike; there were ghastly bandages, dust-caked faces, bloody uniforms, features blackened by powder, and limping figures helped along by comrades. Empty ammunition wagons loaded again with wounded, went creaking slowly to the rear, the sharp cries of suffering echoing above the infernal din. Just outside the gate, under the tree shadows, was established a field hospital, a dozen surgeons working feverishly amid the medley of sounds. I had heretofore ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... walls and ceiling whitewashed, the floor plain boards. Yonder, near the one small window, stood a table and tall-backed oaken chair, afar off, as it were, from the doorway—a journey to them across the creaking floor. On one side an old four-post bedstead of dark oak, much damaged, was placed by the wall; the sacking hung down in a loop, torn and decayed—a bedstead on which no one had slept these hundred years past. By the table there was, too, an ancient ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... Instantly, creaking and groaning, the face of the rock opened like a door, gaping blackly. Then, one after another, the three old men entered, and nothing was left but the dull light of their torches, shining on the walls of ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... to a smock, Creaking his shoes on the plain masonry, Till honour is bought up, and no sword worn ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... an immoderate feeling of faintness and sickness, with no more remembrance of things past than has a man bereft of reason. And for some time I swung between sense and oblivion before an overpowering stench forced itself upon my nostrils, accompanied by a creaking, straining sound and sweeping motion. I could see nothing for the pitchy blackness. Then I recalled what had befallen me, and cried aloud to God in my anguish, for I well knew I had been carried aboard ship, and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... at a temperature neither too hot nor too cold; 68 deg. F. is usually considered favorable for study. When reading in the library, sit down in a quiet spot, with your back to the door, so you will not be tempted to look up as people enter the room. Do not sit near a group of gossipers or near a creaking door. Having made the external conditions favorable for study, you should next address yourself to the task of eliminating bodily distractions. The most disturbing of these in study are sensations of fatigue, for, contrary to the opinion of many people, study ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... adverse, but could not recall when awake again. We remember, that day, a few watchers insecure on an exposed dockhead that projected into a sullen dreariness of river and mud which could have been the finish of the land. At the end of a creaking hawser was a steamer canting as she backed to head downstream—now she was exposed to a great adventure—the tide rapid and noisy on her plates, the reek from her funnel sinking over the water. And from the dockhead, ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... seen by her with this door-handle in his hand, she faithfully continued every day to begin her light tasks by rubbing it, and while so doing she would often call to mind the early spring twilight she had opened her eyes in so long ago, and heard creaking footsteps passing down the stairs; and then how she had heard the great bolt of the door withdrawn, and had sprung out of bed, and peering through her casement had seen him close it after him, and with his young brother steal away among the ghostly ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... stairs again, heated the milk, and brought it back. When it had been taken she kissed the small face, drew the linen sheet smooth again, and went away with the candle. In her own room she presently lay down upon her cot, rejoicing that the old lady could not hear its creaking. ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... radiance from a crude lamp and the ever-changing light of the open fire; the long, wavering shadows within the cabin; and, without, the banshee wailing of the storm wind around the eaves, the occasional crash of thunder, the creaking of limbs and fitful dashes of rain. He found himself leaning back in his chair and mentally attempting to dissect and study not the bodies, but the personalities, of the three who were the representatives of a type, in manners and customs ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... as the woman, who was stout and consequently slow in her movements, led the way up the creaking stairway and then through the hall on the second floor. The floor here also was loose and every step was announced by creakings, while various other sounds were emitted as the boards resumed ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... splintered a bone or two, had not the archer with the most perfect coolness clung to the other's forearms to break his fall. As it was, he dropped upon his feet and kept his balance, though it sent a jar through his frame which set every joint a-creaking. He bounded back from his perilous foeman; but the other, heated by the bout, rushed madly after him, and so gave the practised wrestler the very vantage for which he had planned. As big John flung himself upon him, the archer ducked under the great red hands that clutched for him, and, catching ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scowled. He was a stocky man, who had been a butcher. His face was blotched by ruddiness resembling that of raw meat. Behind his cockaded silk hat pressed the faces of his aids. The little yard was filled with men who peered in at the windows. A big truck wagon was creaking as its horses backed it to ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... say that: and it comes pat. You'll think his thoughts; and mutter them in your mind, Before he can give them tongue, Ruth. He's not said An unexpected thing since he grew out Of his first breeches: and, like the most of men, He speaks so slowly, you can almost catch The creaking of ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... beef with sheath-knives and fingers, or scooping thick pea-soup out of pannikins by means of battered iron spoons. The stench of bad beef was in his nostrils, while in his ears, to the accompaniment of creaking timbers and groaning bulkheads, echoed the loud mouth-noises of the eaters. He watched them eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he would be careful here. He would make no noise. He would keep his mind upon ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... horribly risky, but Torrance spoke with a curious unconcernedness, and Clavering laughed as, signing to two men, he prepared to do his bidding. There was a creaking and rattling, and the great door at one end of the hall swung open, and Flora Schuyler, staring at the darkness, expected to see a rush of shadowy figures out of it. But she saw only the blurred outline of two men who stooped and dragged something ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... decency, honour, and repose. But for us the man ends with his last line. His body that was so very real, his personal voice, his jargon—tangible and audible things—spread outward suddenly a vast shadow upon nothingness. It was the end, also, of a world. The first Presses were creaking, Constantinople had fallen, Greek was in Italy, Leonardo lived, the stepping stones of the Azores were held—in ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... for mumps. It was a world of peace and he the one dark cloud that threatened. But at last there came a time of real illness—a time when I lay for months together inside my wickerwork-basket bed, and then it was that I learned that that hard face could relax, that those country-made creaking boots could steal very gently to a bedside, and that that rough voice could thin into a whisper when it spoke to a ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the traveller with a metallic check for the sort of vehicle he demands. They were not proud, but it seemed best not to risk a second-class cab in a strange city, and when their first-class cab came creaking and limping out of the rank, they saw how wise they had been, if one of the second ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... round the court, opens the door of the postchaise, takes out his pistols, looks at the priming, and puts them back again. Then we are off again, and time enough too. It seemed to me many hours since we had arrived at that creaking old "Bell." And away we go through Addington, Eynesford, by miles and miles of hop-gardens. I dare say I did not look at the prospect much, beautiful though it might be, my young eyes being for ever on the look-out for St ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... citizen in the rough: he needs polishing down with a federal holly-stone before he can be admitted into good society:' a voice like the creaking of a door resounded through the passage. Being a rough sort of citizen didn't affect me as long as I had the straight up-and-down principles within. Well, I got up the go-a-head, and walked in steady. 'T'wont do! citizen Smooth!' interposes ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... hot June morning, and the little town was crowded, like some old-time immigrant ship. Women in plaid shawls and frilled caps, men in somber black as befitted a monthly occasion. Squawking of ducks and hens, trudging of donkeys, creaking of carts, unbelievably stubborn bullocks and heifers being whacked by ash-plants, colts frisking. Girls with baskets of eggs and butter; great carts of hay and straw. Apple-women with bonnets of cabbage-leaves against the sun. Herring-men bawling ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... passed the time of day with the saloon man had disappeared over a ridge and out of sight; Thornton consequently rode swiftly to overtake the stage. Before the four running horses had drawn the creaking wagon after them a half mile Hap Smith stopped his horses in answer to the shout from behind him and stared over his ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... was not "GLORIOUS." The very sight of Greek letters brings back to me the dingy, faded, ink-splashed quality of our class-room, the banging of books, Topham's disordered hair, the sheen of his alpaca gown, his deep unmusical intonations and the wide striding of his creaking boots. Glorious! And being plastic human beings we would consent that it was glorious, and some of us even achieved an answering reverberation and a sympathetic flush. I at times responded freely. We all accepted from him unquestioningly that these melodies, these strange sounds, exceeded ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... painter and Ginevra thought themselves alone, Servin rapped in a peculiar manner on the door of the dark garret, which turned at once on its rusty and creaking hinges. Ginevra then saw a tall and well-made young man, whose Imperial uniform set her heart to beating. The officer had one arm in a sling, and the pallor of his face revealed sharp suffering. Seeing an unknown ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... sound of their footsteps is a little clank made by the hilts of swords and the butts of pistols striking against the metal on their belts. There is a slight creaking of leather, too, which could not possibly come from a band of warriors. I hear the echo of a voice! I think it is a command, a short, sharp word or two such as white officers give. The sounds of the footsteps merge now, Black Rifle, because the men are marching to the same ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... German Waiter! there are many other lands Where you can take your creaking boots and eke your dirty hands; And we think you'll have discovered, ere you reach your next address, That in England German Waiters aren't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... grew well again, and back from Uncle Roger's came Jehosophat and Hepzebiah. They came back in the old creaking buckboard with Methuselah the old, old white ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... concern. They had wide gilt frames, and were protected from ravaging flies by mosquito netting. He hoped that Ma would not hang them in the hall or the living-room. And that rocker, for which she yearned, was probably the one with the creaking coiled springs—the one that had leaped after him and clashed its jaws like ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... bore the teapot, Emil the bread, Rob the milk, and Teddy insisted on carrying the sugar basin, which was lighter by several lumps when it arrived than when it started. Some women might have found it annoying at such a time to have boys creaking in and out, upsetting cups and rattling spoons in violent efforts to be quiet and helpful; but it suited Mrs. Jo, because just then her heart was very tender; and remembering that many of her boys were fatherless or motherless, she yearned over them, and found comfort in their blundering ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... of reach of the monster, sings, "How can I pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early dawn, and the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... more tractable and companionable, better suited for human association, less mechanically brutal. They were not monstrous enough to require motor tractors to draw them at a stately gait, but behind their teams could be up and away across the fields on short notice, their caissons of ammunitions creaking behind them. Along the communication trenches perspiring soldiers carried "plum puddings" or the trench-mortar shells which were to be fired from the front line and boxes of egg-shaped bombs which fitted nicely in the palm of the ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... was gone, immediately turned round, and going to her knees, leaned, with her half-cold infant still in her arms, against a creaking chair, and prayed with as much earnestness as a distracted heart permitted her. The little ones, at her desire, also knelt, and in a few minutes afterwards, when her drunken husband came home, he found his miserable family, grouped as they were in their ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... listened. There was a stealthy creaking on the stairs. It grew more distinct; then it ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... along the magnificent avenue of royal palms which connected the east and west ends of the Island. They were bending and creaking horribly, the masses of foliage on the summits cowering away from the storm, wrapping themselves about in a curiously pitiful manner; the long blade-like leaves seemed striving each to protect the other. Through the ever-increasing roar of the storm, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... buildings, and the gravestones scattered here and there began to issue from the shade. The road was no longer quite empty. Marketmen were moving toward the gates, leading asses and mules laden with vegetables; here and there moved creaking carts in which game was conveyed. On the road and along both sides of it was a light mist at the very earth, which promised good weather. People at some distance seemed like apparitions in that mist. Vinicius stared at ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... cloth, with two holes for his great piteous eyes. It was in the springtide, and one night as he lay sleepless in the dark, listening to the long murmur of the wind in the swaying pines, he heard overhead sharp cries and trumpetings, and the creaking ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... Pecuchet was awakened by the creaking of a boot in the corridor. The evening before, according to custom, he had himself drawn all the bolts; and he called out to Bouvard, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... turned his head vaguely away. The house was so still that the creaking of the stairs as his weight shifted from one foot to another, sounded horribly loud; he noticed it, and regretted having moved. The idea of Fifi's dying had of course never occurred to him. Something put into his head the simple thought that he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... gusty day, and the creaking of the oaks and pines on shore, reminded us of more northern climes than Greece, and more ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... crept over me. I arose and undressed, moving on tiptoe about the room, doing stealthily what I had to do, as if I were environed by sleeping enemies whose slumbers it would be fatal to break. I covered up in bed, and lay listening to the rain and wind and the faint creaking of distant shutters, till they lulled ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... creeping round the wagon while Phil spoke. She heard the creaking of the planks and turned to see him tiptoeing toward the stall. His clothing was soiled and crumpled. His bent, slinking figure as he stole toward his booty affected her disagreeably. She ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... on the corner of High Street and the Square; a mean two-story structure of frame, across the shabby front of which hung a shabby creaking sign bearing witness that within might be found: "Archibald McBride, Hardware and Cutlery, Implements and Bar Iron." McBride had kept store on that ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... nothing to report. He could easily find an explanation for every sound, even to the creaking noise which he felt sure was caused by one of the cows rubbing itself ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... the house with a hurried step, and Christopher, after an instant's hesitation, passed to the back, and, taking off his clumsy boots, crept softly up the creaking staircase to his little ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... Barnes moaned and groaned, and tossed and heaved on her bed, but Mona slept on unconcerned and happy. Even the creaking of the stairs when granny came down in the morning did not rouse her. The first thing that she was conscious of was a hand shaking her by the shoulders, and a voice saying rather sharply, "Come, wake up. Don't you know that it's eight o'clock, and no fire lit, nor nothing! I thought I might ...
— The Making of Mona • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... open the gate without noise, but I could not succeed. Some creaking of its hinges was unavoidably produced, which I feared would be overheard by the lady and multiply her apprehensions and perplexities. This inconvenience was irremediable. I therefore closed the gate and pursued ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... a picture of all the variations in those sweet, busy-idle days? They vanished all too swiftly. But now the rick-yard was heaped high with golden sheaves; the carts came in steady lines, creaking under endless loads, from those fields which, two years later, lay scorched with drought, and over which famine brooded. The peasant girls tossed the grain, with forked boughs, to the threshing-machine, tended by other girls. The village boys had a fine frolic dragging the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... through the rocks that run together, the ne'er resting beaches of Phineus, [and] the marine shore, running o'er the surge of Amphitrite,[59]—where the choruses of the fifty daughters of Nereus entwine in the dance,—[although] with breezes that fill the sails, the creaking rudders resting at the poop, with southern gales or the breezes of Zephyr, to the bird-haunted land, the white beach, the glorious race-course of Achilles, near the Euxine Sea. Would that, according to my mistress' prayers, Helen, the dear daughter of Leda, might sometime chance to come, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... she had slight hope that any other caller would appear; a female face would have been welcome to her, even that of foolish Mrs. Morton, who might possibly look in before six o'clock. To her relief the door did presently open, but the sharp, creaking footstep which followed was no lady's; ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... sapless, strengthless[obs3], powerless; weakly, unstrung, flaccid, adynamic[obs3], asthenic[obs3]; nervous. soft, effeminate, feminate[obs3], womanly. frail, fragile, shattery[obs3]; flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread; rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky; craichy[obs3]; drooping, tottering &c. v.. broken, lame, withered, shattered, shaken, crazy, shaky; palsied &c. 158; decrepit. languid, poor, infirm; faint, faintish[obs3]; sickly &c. (disease) 655; dull, slack, evanid|, spent, short-winded, effete; weather-beaten; decayed, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in the old chair, creaking out a dismal echo to the auctioneer's, "Going, going, gone!" while the flush deepened in Angy's cheek. Again she fastened her gaze upon the indomitable red rose which hung a pendant ear-ring on the right side of ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... under the sunrise, and great cracks gaped in the earth as if it were thirsty. The trenches and channels were still there, but there was little water in them; and through the ragged fringes of the rusty vineyards I heard, instead of the cheerful songs of the vintagers, the creaking of dry windlasses and the hoarse throb of the pumps in sunken wells. The girdle of gardens had shrunk like a wreath of withered flowers, and all the bright embroidery, of earth was ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... alone," said Tuan. "I was so alone that my own shadow frightened me. I was so alone that the sound of a bird in flight, or the creaking of a dew-drenched bough, whipped me to cover as a rabbit ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... There was but one line which could be considered even mildly significant. "The little net," wrote Blakely, "has now a value that it never had before." Yet Angela was snuggling that otherwise unimportant billet to her cheek when the creaking stairway told her portentously of a solemn coming. Ten minutes more and the note was lying neglected on the bureau, and Angela stood at her window, gazing out over dreary miles of almost desert landscape, of rock and shale and sand and cactus, with ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... huge sail struck by the wind, a wild creaking of the boom, and a smart dash of spray over the bows and into his face waked him from his slumber. He started up, half blinded, to look around. Buttons sat gazing over the waters with an expression of bitter vexation. They ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... life of the men and women who, in mediaeval France and Germany, did the work which had been taught by Hesiod and Virgil. About all these tragedies the literature of the Middle Ages, ready to show us town vice and town horror, dens of prostitution and creaking, overweighted gibbets, as in Villon's poems, utters not a word. All that we can hear is the many-throated yell of mediaeval poets, noble and plebeian, French, Provencal, and German, against the brutishness, the cunning, the cruelty, the hideousness, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... grandmother had taken my old shoes, and replaced them with a new pair. I needed them; for several inches of snow had fallen, and it still continued to fall. When I walked through Mrs. Flint's room, their creaking grated harshly on her refined nerves. She called me to her, and asked what I had about me that made such a horrid noise. I told her it was my new shoes. "Take them off," said she; "and if you put them on again, I'll throw them ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... circumstance. In the first place she immediately relieved their wants. I have read somewhere the story of Dr. Guthrie when he was first called to the metropolis of Edinburgh. Of their filling his pockets with tracts, and with all the ardor of his noble heart, commenced his great work. He ascended the creaking stairs of a high building in the old town, and knocking at the door, an elderly woman made her appearance, whereupon he proffered her a tract. Looking earnestly upon him, and in a loud shrill voice she exclaimed, pathetically: "'Deed, Sir, I dinna ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... There you are waiting, little friendly house: Those are your chimney-stacks with you between, Surrounded by old trees and strolling cows, Staring through all your windows at the green. Your homely floor is creaking for our tread; The smiling tea-pot with contented spout Thinks of the boiling water, and the bread Longs for the butter. All their hands are out To greet us, and the gentle blankets seem Purring and crooning: 'Lie ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... nodded its head and expanded its wings, and the squire, whose recent experience had prepared him for any wonder, fully expected to hear it speak, but it only croaked loudly and exultingly, or if it laughed, the sound was like the creaking of rusty hinges. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the busy harvester, and many a creaking wain Bore slowly to the long barn-floor its load of husk and grain; Till broad and red, as when he rose, the sun sank down at last, And like a merry guest's farewell the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... a tremendous amount of unnecessary confusion and trouble, the oxen were inspanned, and with the usual unearthly yells and loud cracking of the long whip by Jantje, mounted upon the wagon box, the creaking, lumbering vehicle was got under way, Ramoo Samee following close behind and leading the horses, while the dogs and Leo came to heel and trotted along close behind Grosvenor and Dick, as was their wont when their masters chose to walk, which ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... trees, date trees, and dom palms, growing in some places in lines along the pathways, in others distributed in groups among the fields. Half a dozen saqiyehs, ranged in a line along the river-bank, raise water day and night, with scarcely any cessation of their monotonous creaking. The inhabitants do not allow a foot of their narrow domain to lie idle; they have cultivated wherever it is possible small plots of durra and barley, bersim ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... find—one an alluvial fan near his house, another a natural terrace near the river. Back of the house was a thatched shelter under which he had constructed a little sugar mill. It had a pair of hardwood rollers, each capable of being turned, with much creaking and cracking, by a large, rustic wheel made of roughly hewn timbers fastened together with wooden pins and lashed with thongs, worked by hand and foot power. Since Saavedra had been unable to coax any pack animals over the trail to Conservidayoc he was obliged to depend entirely on his own limited ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... had been a time when the stir and bustle of such arrivals had been sweet to him—not so sweet as to some, for he had never been deeply in love with the parade of office—but sweeter than to-day, when they were no more to him than the creaking of the mill to the camel that turns it ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... absolute rhythm and beat. It was like the blows from giant pile-drivers. When the melody gave way the silence was broken only by the stamp of iron-shod boots, and then again the song rose. When the singing ceased the bands played marches. They were followed by the rumble of the howitzers, the creaking of wheels and of chains clanking against the cobblestones, and the sharp, bell- like voices of ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... waiting to look ahead, for not a moment was to be lost. The helm was hard up, the after yards shaking, and the ship in the act of wearing. Slowly, with the stiff ropes and iced rigging, we swung the yards round, everything coming hard and with a creaking and rending sound, like pulling up a plank which has been frozen into the ice. The ship wore round fairly, the yards were steadied, and we stood off on the other tack, leaving behind us, directly under our larboard quarter, a large ice island, peering out of the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... leads into the Castle-yard, and with his Key opened that door also. After he went to the iron Gate, for that must be opened too, but that Lock went damnable hard, yet the Key did open it. Then they thrust open the Gate to make their escape with speed; but that Gate as it opened made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who hastily rising to pursue his Prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his Fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King's High-way again, and so were safe, because they were ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... this very winter, In the summer just passed over, Often rattled the door-handles, For the ringed hands that should close them, And the stairs were likewise creaking For the fair one robed so grandly, And the doors stood always open, And ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... fades the fire on the hearth, its embers Scattering wide at a stronger gust. Above, the old weathercock groans, but remembers Creaking, to ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... Nic lay puzzling his weary, confused head as to the meaning of a strange creaking, and a peculiar rising and falling, and why it was that he ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... yellow panels of the wainscot. So loud was the beating of the rain through all the house that, in Markheim's ears, it began to be distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him to the verge of madness. On every side ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... road came a low, long, musical shouting; then with creaking and straining of wagons, four great black mules dashed into sight with twelve bursting bales of yellowish cotton looming and swaying behind. The drivers and helpers were lolling and laughing and singing, but Miss Taylor ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... over the railroads were creaking under the tramp of a never-ending crowd. The street cars were crowded like beehives till the horses could not move, and some of the cars broke down, ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... hangings, curtains and covers of chintz, over which faded purple and crimson roses were flung broadcast on a honey-yellow ground. The colourings were discreetly cheerful, the atmosphere not unpleasantly warm, the quiet, save for the creaking of a board as he crossed the floor, unbroken. Outwardly all invited to peaceful slumber. And Tom felt more than ready to profit by that invitation this last night on shore, last night in England. His attention had been ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... by the feet of three children on their way to school. In his day the blank row of houses had been a mud taipa wall, broken just here by the little gate of the priest's house. In his day there had been that long, high-plumed bank of bamboos, forever swaying and creaking, behind the screen of which had lain the wonder ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... well-knit plot, some attempt at character, sufficient change of incident and scene, and hardly any longueurs. Even the hinge of the whole, though it presents certain improbabilities, is not of the brittle and creaking kind reprobated in that ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... pervading sorcery was above, below, and around him, and that issues of life and death might be controlled by instruments the most unnoticeable and seemingly the most feeble, the Indian lived in perpetual fear. The turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a bird, the creaking of a bough, might be to him the mystic ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... the silence came to us, over no great stretch of water as it seemed, the sound of a creaking block, the fall of a yard on deck, and a voice raised in some sharp order. Then I thought I heard an anchor plunge, and there was silence. Very ghostly it seemed to hear these familiar sounds and to see naught, and it was the more so that we might by no means ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... most part, were too large for comfort. When one spoke, a dozen ghostly echoes answered, and at twilight the smaller children huddled around the kitchen fire and seldom went beyond that cheerful room until bed time. Often, in the dead of night, the creaking of timber and the voices of the wind startled the little ones from sleep, and a sense of something unreal and mysterious overshadowed ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... infringements on its empire, solitude, dark, comfortless, and unrelieved, fell around the creaking footsteps of Mr. Morris Brown. "I wish," soliloquized the worthy broker, "that I had been able advantageously to dispose of this cursed umbrella of the late Lady Waddilove; it is very little calculated for any but a single lady of slender shape, and ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... uncanniness attaching to them. They are so cunning and strong, so terrible in their numbers, so cruel, so secret. They swarm in deserted houses, where the broken casements hang rotting to the crumbling walls and the doors swing creaking on their rusty hinges. They know the sinking ship and leave her, no one knows how or whither. They whisper to each other in their hiding-places how a doom will fall upon the hall and the great name die forgotten. They do fearful deeds in ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... presently opened a door to the right, and led the way into a large gloomy room, with a little newly lighted wood fire crackling in an enormous grate, making darkness visible, and drawing the cold out of the walls. We need scarcely say it was that terrible room—the best; with three creaking, ill-fitting windows, and heavy crimson satin-damask furniture, so old as scarcely to be able to sustain its own weight. 'Ah! here you are,' observed Mr. Jawleyford, as he nearly tripped over Sponge's luggage as it stood by the fire. 'Here you are,' repeated ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... still dark courtyard on a cold early morning in winter. They walked in single file—a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier, a prisoner, a soldier—there seemed to be no end to it; there was a steady shuffling of feet across the courtyard. A small gate opened in the wall with a creaking sound. All walked through it. And beyond the wall Elisaveta already caught a glimpse of a flat, endless field of snow, and of a whole row of gallows that stretched into the invisible distance. They were approaching these nearer and nearer—to meet ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... way of doing business made a strongly marked impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened to go out now, ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... moments he appeared engrossed in his work, turning the creaking wheel to the right, the left, and finally steadying it on its true course. Wilson waited. The man had said enough to excite his interest and he knew the best way to induce him to talk more freely was ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... and jolted over the cobbles. She was here; she was here; and the loyal crowds yelled and surged to and fro, and cloths and handkerchiefs flapped and waved, and caps tossed up and down, as at last the great creaking carriage came ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... creaking of the manilla sheet. It was getting near noon, and fine, clear weather in southern waters,—just the sort of day and the time when you would least expect to feel creepy. But I remembered how I had heard that same tune overhead at night in a gale ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... blustering day. The dry leaves were flying, and the weather cocks turned, creaking, around, and Gustave had to hold his head low for he was only a little boy and the wind nearly pushed him down. A bent old gentleman, walking with a cane, passed them. Puff, whisk, the wind took the old gentleman's hat and sent it racing ahead ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... The slack breeze flapped lazily in the sails overhead and scarce ruffled the drowsy ocean. The stars one by one put out their little lights and vanished into the blue. There was no sound but the creaking of the yards and the gentle plash of the water on the hull; only these and the music of a maiden's song. It went hard with me, that night. For a while, as I sat there, gazing into her face and listening to her music and feeling the touch of her hand on my arm, I was fool enough ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... is no spirit of evil which is so much dreaded by the Breton peasantry as the Ankou, who travels the duchy in a cart, picking up souls. In the dead of night a creaking axle-tree can be heard passing down the silent lanes. It halts at a door; the summons has been given, a soul quits the doomed house, and the wagon of the Ankou passes on. The Ankou herself—for the dread death-spirit of Brittany is probably female—is ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... well-wheel's creaking tongue,— He liked the thrush that fed her young,— He liked the drone of flies among His netted peaches; He liked to watch the sunlight fall Athwart his ivied orchard wall; Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call Beyond ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... snowy flight are taking From the tall tamarind unto their nest, The bullock-carts along the road are creaking, The bugles o'er the wall are sounding rest. On a calm jetty looking off to Mecca Sons of Mahomet watch the low day's rim. He too is waiting for it—with an echo Upon his lips of a ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... event. The decision has now been reached that the time has come for China to go to war. She has been "notified" to this effect. What she will eventually do is the question. Anyway, the screws are now being put on in earnest: you can fairly hear them creaking. ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... said Drouet, creaking off in his good shoes toward the elevator. The old butterfly was as light on ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... of the little night-lamp that I found by the colonel's bedside. It is my theory that Mrs. Maynard was restless after the colonel finally fell asleep, that she heard your tumble, and took her little lamp, crossed over into Miss Renwick's room, opened the door without creaking, as I can do to your satisfaction, found her sleeping quietly, but the room a trifle close and warm, set her night-lamp down on the table, as I did, threw her shadow on the wall, as I did, and opened the shade, as you thought ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... insupportable on such days than in bright days, especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about, resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the horses, staring ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... jammed together on the platforms—for at the last moment, Colonel Howell had readily given his consent to the superintendent that he might also throw open the special car to the general public, as far at least as Morineville, the end of the passenger run—the creaking train crawled around a bend, and while the boys and Colonel Howell waved a farewell to Mr. Zept, the journey northward on the new ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... creaking of the mattress and sound of shuffling feet; the door was opened reluctantly, and Granfa, bare-legged, white of beard and red-shirted, stood in ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... the tapping, and now so loud, The minister paused (though his head was bowed). Rappety-rap! This will never do, The girls are peeping, and laughing too! So the sexton tripped o'er the creaking floor, Lifted the latch and opened ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... paint The Golden Tun And others to my mind, And mellow them in rain and sun, And hang them on the wind; And I would say, "My handcraft creaking On this autumnal gale Unto all wayfarers is speaking In praise of rest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various |
