"Muffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her dully. The old depression she had known when last she was in London returned. She hated the silence of the lounge; even the doors seemed to shut noiselessly, and everywhere the carpets were so thick that footsteps were muffled. ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... listened with straining ears. There came the faint sound of muffled voices from within, and the sound of movement. The moments dragged slowly. Once he thought he heard a series of sharp exclamations. But he could not be sure. He expected ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... unseen among the currant bushes, alls Bob White, Bob White, as if he were playing at hide-and-seek with that imaginary being. A rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (something like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered with snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had the good luck to see close by me in the mulberry-tree. The wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have not seen for many years.(1) Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... before Rome was a modern European capital. It was not even borne aloft on sailors' shoulders, like the silver statue of Our Lady at Marseilles, or the miracle-working black Madonna of Montenero at Leghorn. Instead, San Donato moved under the arm of a young girl, muffled in a shawl, skirting the bridge, the quay, the square, now in sunshine, now in shadow, and finally gained the Piazza di SS. Apostoli. Here he was conducted across a court adorned with mouldy statues, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... twisting round.] Call this justice? What about 'im? 'E got drunk! 'E took the purse—'e took the purse but [in a muffled shout] it's 'is ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... while they were thus, they felt themselves gulped in, and borne forward with terrible swiftness, they knew not where, like one that hath a dream of sinking; and outside the shell a rushing, gurgling noise, and a noise as of shouting multitudes, and muffled multitudes muttering complaints and yells and querulous cries, told them they were yet speeding through the body of the depths in the belly of the fish. Then there came a shock, and the shell was struck with light, and they were sensible of stillness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... blackness before us came a succession of curious, muffled clickings, like a smothered mitrailleuse. The luminescence that clothed Norhala brightened, deepening ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... Vane heard the first one—faintly in the distance. It loomed up suddenly out of the mist and crept across the road. Without a word the men detailed to push it seemed to rise out of the ground. Silently they disappeared with it, like ghouls at some mysterious ceremony. With muffled couplings it made no sound; and in a few minutes it was ready in position, with its leading truck where once the owner of a farm had sat before the fire, ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... assemblies alone that resistance to the Stamp Act was manifested. Ominous proceedings were adopted by the public. As soon as the news of it arrived in America, at Boston the colours of the shipping were hoisted half-mast high, and the bells were rung muffled; at New York the act was printed with a skull and cross bones, and hawked about the streets by the title of "England's Folly, and America's Ruin;" while at Philadelphia the people spiked the very guns on the ramparts. The public irritation daily increased, and when at length ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... did so he was conscious of the sound of many pattering feet—soft, muffled sounds, yet loud enough for him to hear. He even thought, as he turned over and flung out his arm, that his hand had touched something that was ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... into a sound so intense, so terrifying, so muffled and suppressed and menacing, it was as the cry of an animal wounded, dying, about to spring. Falling on their knees, they remained motionless for a moment; then, following the leader, each stepped forward in turn and took their places ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... own voice, muffled and unnatural. It seemed to work a sort of magic, for the python vanished, melted away like mist; she drew a great shuddering breath and found she was lying on her bed, unharmed, but with the sheet muffled about her throat and the thick eiderdown ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... the ropes. He stepped through them languidly, and, rejecting the proffered assistance of a couple of officious friends, drew on a boxing-glove fastidiously, like an exquisite preparing for a fashionable promenade. Having thus muffled his left hand so as to make it useless for the same service to his right, he dipped his fingers into the other glove, gripped it between his teeth, and dragged it on with the action of a tiger tearing its ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... again and with the faithful Bertrand plashed to the front through long rows of drenched recumbent forms. Once more they strained their ears to catch through the hiss of the rain some sound of a muffled retirement. Strange thuds came now and again from the depths of the wood of Hougoumont: all else was still. At last, over the slope on the north-east crowned by the St. Lambert Wood there stole the first glimmer of gray; little by little the murky ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... his best, while the shafts of the spirit lightened in his brain—Heine would sometimes feel a mysterious figure standing behind him, muffled in a cloak, and holding, beneath the cloak, something that gleamed now and then like an executioner's axe. For a long while he had not perceived that strange figure, when, on visiting Germany, after fourteen years' exile in Paris, as he crossed ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... fruitless descent; then men went down and brought up heavy shapes rolled in canvas and bore them to the women; and "each morning the Red Cross president, lifting the curtain of the car where he slept, would see at first light the still rows of those muffled figures waiting in the hopeless daybreak." Not yet had the body of the young superintendent been found; yet one might not hope because of that. But when one afternoon the head-lines of the papers blazed with a huge "Rescued," she ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... A tall man much muffled in a large cloak was ushered in, and at Gerrard's invitation, sat down on the floor. When Badan Hazari was gone, he lowered the cloak a little, and looked at Gerrard as though he expected recognition, but ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... muffled report echoed through the cavernous place. It was followed by five or six ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... had hardly commenced this perilous transit before he felt himself pulled back by his father, who said, in a strange, muffled voice: ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the side of the curragh, and sank down and down until he touched the bottom. Then he walked along without minding where he was going, and the only light he had was the shimmering moonlight, which descended as faintly through the waters as if it came through muffled glass. He had not gone very far when he heard a horrible hissing, and straight before him he saw what he thought were two flaming coals. After a few more steps he found himself face to face with the dragon of the lake, the guardian of the palace of the fairy queen. ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... Freckles' heart muffled in his throat. The Angel seemed to divine Jack's coming. She was humming a little song. She deliberately stopped and began pulling the heads of the curious grasses that grew all around her. When she straightened, she took a step backward and called: "Ho! Freckles, the Bird ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... colder with nightfall; a wind sharp with the tang of autumn was blowing in off the river when Barbara, muffled from throat to ankle in a sapphire fur-edged wrap, slipped in at the door, having stolen away ostensibly to display to them her costume. It was after the hour of ten, but the girl lingered a little after she had executed that mission; ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... muffled thunder, issued from the leathery flanks of the lion. The bull made a sudden stop, scoring up the ground with his hoofs. It seemed as if in full career he started back. Then down went his head, and like a black flash, its accompanying thunder a bellow of defiant contempt and wrath, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... you do not,—if you promise to be mine, don't forsake me afterwards, for I should surely die," and as if he already felt the agony it would cost him to give his darling up after he had once possessed her, he clasped his hands upon his heart, which throbbed so rapidly that Edith heard its muffled beat and saw its rise and fall. "I could not lose you and still live on without you, Edith," and he spoke impetuously, "You won't desert me, if you ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... silent autumn passed by. And his silent winter came. One day, in a December frost, he met the Canon, muffled up to the chin and on his way to see Miss Bigelow, who professed herself once again in extremis. They stopped in the snow and spoke a few commonplace words, but Maurice thought he observed a peculiar furtiveness in the old man's manner, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... terror mingled with sensuous delight, as if peering downward from some giddy—height. While shameful, secret dissipation ruins the noblest of men, in the frank and open defiance of conventionality there is something that compels respect even in the most depraved. He who goes at nightfall, muffled in his cloak, to sully his life in secret, and clandestinely to shake off the hypocrisy of the day, resembles an Italian who strikes his enemy from behind, not daring to provoke him to open quarrel. There are assassinations in the dark corners of the city under shelter of the night. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... within them, where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit of a great human dream that his soul could feel, the face of a girl had haunted him. Her voice—so sweet a voice that it rang like muffled silver in his ears, till, in the everlasting theatre of the pole, the stars seemed to repeat it through millions of echoing hills, growing softer and softer as the frost hushed it to his ears—had said to him late and early, "You must come back with the swallows." Then she had sung a ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... a muffled sob behind her, turned to see the tears running down Georgina's face. The next instant she was up, and with her arms around the child, was gently pushing her ahead of her out of the room, into the hall. With the door shut behind ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Joe turned around. It was Izon, dark, handsome, fiery, muffled up to his neck, his hat drawn low on his face, and the thin snow scattering from his shoulders ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... and Time is fleeting, And your hearts though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... cabin by the River Swamp at that eerie hour? Neptune, his gun gripped in his hands, twisted his head sidewise, listening. The knock came again, this time more insistent. Then a thick voice spoke, muffled by ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... the pathless waste I go, 5 With muffled step among the pines That, robed in sunlight and soft snow, Stand like ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... less a bit of real life than a bit lifted bodily from an opera. Facing the market-place was the ancient church; and the change was a pleasant one, from the vivid sunlight and warmth of the streets to its cool, shadowy interior: where the only sign of life was a single old woman, her head muffled in her rebozo, praying her way along the Stations of the Cross. For more than two hundred and fifty years had prayer been made and praise been offered here; and as I thought of the many generations who here had ministered ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... brilliant moonlight, with his back against a rock, stood Pierre, his glistening rapier in his hand, his thin, lithe body bent for the attack of three men who faced him. It was but a moment's tableau. The men rushed in. Muffled cries, blows, a single clash of steel, and Pierre's voice rose above the sound of conflict. "For the love of God, give me help, M'sieur!" He had seen Philip rush up to the edge of the break in the cliff, and as he fought he ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... With a muffled chuckle from the speaker, the door slowly opened, and Hank, a ragged figure, with an immense matted beard, long tangled hair and dim blue eyes, that blinked ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... this opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, pretending that I had been robbed in the Dunstable coach, and that I would go to see the two highwaymen. But when I came into the press-yard, I so disguised myself, and muffled my face up so, that he could see little of me, and consequently knew nothing of who I was; and when I came back, I said publicly that I knew ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... looking, with a tree and a farm or two. A lovely scene with the sun reddening the veldt in the pure crisp air. I smoked a cigarette in great content of mind. Soon shapeless heaps of blankets began to move down the trucks, muffled heads blinked out from odd corners, and gradually the Battery woke, and thawed, and breakfasted on biscuit and bully beef. We ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... going to say so to Jeekie when a light coming from behind him attracted his attention and he turned to see her standing in a corner of the great room, holding a lamp in her hand and looking towards him. Her gold breastplate and crown were gone, with every other ornament, and she was clad, or rather muffled in robes of pure white fitted with a kind of nun's hood which lay back upon her shoulders. Also on her arm she carried a shawl or veil. Standing thus, all undecked, with her long hair fastened in a simple knot, she still looked very beautiful, ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... Stoke once asked her in a moment of unusual expansion, his deep voice half muffled ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... muffled from his breast, where she had buried her head in the convulsions of her trembling at the moment when her modesty went down in the fierce battle with a higher pain. But the plea which seemed to give her the right to cling the closer made the man to draw apart. It was the old deep tragedy of human ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... a sudden commotion behind him, a swift rush of feet, a muffled thud, and a gasping, agonized grunt. The next instant the huge acetelyne lamp that lighted the room fell to the floor with a crash and the place ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... it more seriously, and turn towards heaven, the devotion which he misplaced on earthly beauties. This conversation is the subject of one of Boccaccio's eclogues, entitled, "Philostropos." His eclogues are in the style of Petrarch, obscure and enigmatical, and the subjects are muffled up ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... fragments from the child's path, that the journey might not be brought to an untimely end by some insuperable barrier a quarter of an inch high, she was alarmed by discovering that a man on horseback was almost close beside her, the soft natural carpet having muffled the horse's tread. The rider, who was Venn, waved his hat in the air ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... I could walk down, I think," said Faith. Mr. Linden remarked that the truth of that proposition would never be known; and then she was muffled in a large soft shawl, and carried down stairs and laid on the sofa in the sitting-room. The windows were open for the May wind, but there was a dainty little fire still—everything looked strangely familiar; even Mr. Linden; though his face wore not just its most wonted expression. He had laid ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... certainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting of a distant steamer. I can liken it to nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. My heart quickened as ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... With a muffled "Maircy me!" a heated young woman shoots out of a side door and proceeds at the double to the assistance of the ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... would, I believe, have given me assistance even without a bribe. He helped me to secrete food and wine in the bags of ballast, and on the morning of my ascent he kept the other workmen out of the way while I got Arowhena into the car. She came with early dawn, muffled up, and in her maid's dress. She was supposed to be gone to an early performance at one of the Musical Banks, and told me that she should not be missed till breakfast, but that her absence must then be discovered. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... unsightly attire, which he thought was the only possible device to disguise his birth. So he rejoined, "That slaves were not always found to lack manhood; that a strong hand was often hidden under squalid raiment, and sometimes a stout arm was muffled trader a dusky cloak; thus the fault of nature was retrieved by valour, and deficiency in race requited by nobleness of spirit. He therefore feared the might of no supernatural prowess, save of the god Thor only, to the greatness ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... smoking-room where he had been for the past two hours with Art Osgood, Lite came unsteadily down the aisle, heralded as it were by the muffled scream of the whistle at a country crossing. Jean turned toward him a face as depressed as the desert out there under the rain. Lite, looking at her keenly, saw on her cheeks the traces of tears. He let himself down wearily into the seat beside her, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... Madam, [for she looked hard at me,] that I am muffled up in this warm weather. I am but too sensible that I have left my chamber sooner that I ought, and perhaps shall have a return of my gout for it. I came out thus muffled up with a dreadful pain in my jaws; ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Canandaigua and across the Genesee to the village of Rochester and on through Lewiston and up the Niagara River to the Falls, and camped where they could see the great water flood and hear its muffled thunder. . ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... motor camions and gun-carriages on the way thither. As for the music, I could really hear that without flight of fancy: a deep, rolling undertone of heavy wheels, of jolting guns, of pulsing engines, like a million beating hearts; and out of its muffled bass rising the lighter music of men's voices: soldiers singing; soldiers going to the front, who shouted gaily to soldiers going to repose; soldiers laughing; soldier-music that no hardship or ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of midnight approached the men were mustered on deck, the cable was cut, and the muffled sweeps got out. These sweeps were immensely large oars, each requiring a couple of men to work it. In a few minutes we entered the mouth of the creek, which was indeed the mouth of a small river, and took about half-an-hour to ascend it, although the spot where we intended to land was ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... sound; rose and as it were remained stationary above it—like a smoke-cloud, which no wind comes to drive away. Gradually, though, the ear made out, in the conglomerate of noise, a host of separate noises infinitely multiplied: the sharp tick-tick of surface-picks, the dull thud of shovels, their muffled echoes from the depths below. There was also the continuous squeak and groan of windlasses; the bump of the mullock emptied from the bucket; the trundle of wheelbarrows, pushed along a plank from the shaft's mouth to the ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... [In a muffled voice.] Go into the next room and shut the door, and don't let me see your stupid, fat face till I ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... through a maze of shredded cloud-wreaths; the sombre river just perceptibly brightened under the veiled light; a deep silence pervaded the air and was emphasized, at intervals, rather than broken, by the hooting of an owl, the baying of a dog, or the muffled crash of a raving bank ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... a confusion of steps outside, and a sound as of a muffled oath. Then the door opened, there was a rush of feet behind me, and the flash of a bull's-eye lantern. I released my enemy, and sprang back to the corner where I could defend myself at some advantage. It was a poor chance for an unarmed man, but I ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... thundering rumble. High up, wooden shutters, behind which there is no glass, are thrown open upon the courtyard, and one window after another is opened to the morning air; on one side, girls and women look out, muffled in dark shawls; from the other grim, unwashed, bearded men call down to their companions, who have dismounted and are unsaddling their weary horses, and measuring out a little water to them, where water is a thing ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... and Duchesse du Maine, thanks to the perfidy of the Abbe Dubois, had had time to hide away all their papers, and to arrange together the different parts they should play. Madame du Maine, supported by her sex and birth, muffled herself up in her dignity, when replying to the questions addressed to her, of which just as many, and no more, were read to the replying counsel as pleased the Abbe Dubois; and strongly accusing Cellamare and others; protected ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... his face. Below were lights flashing in a white wilderness—amongst the hills flared the red fire of the guns, the music of their thunders was even then upon his ears. Down the steep defile he rode at the head of his troop, the sound of their approach muffled by the deep snow—afterwards the roar of meeting, the breathless excitement of the charge, the deep battle-cry of the men of Theos and from those others—ah, he ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... door through which the Prophet, who carried the planisphere in one hand, the George the Third candlestick in the other, rather excitedly debouched into a good-sized passage. As he did so he heard the muffled alto voice of the eight-day clock proclaim that it was a quarter-past eleven. Feeling that he was now upon the point of breaking both the promises of the damned fool, the Prophet hastened along the passage, darted through the first outlet, and found himself abruptly face to back with what ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... to the door, and Elsalill followed her. But as they stood on the threshold her foster sister paused and said to Elsalill: "You must put on your cloak. There is a strong wind outside." And as she said this her voice sounded clearer and less muffled ...
— The Treasure • Selma Lagerlof
... while I lay there, full in the heat of the fire, half dozing, then sleeping, then suddenly alert, only to look about me to see the Countess with eyes closed, motionless in her arm-chair, only to hear the muffled thunder of the guns in ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... unvarying kindliness for which, at heart, he was profoundly grateful. Even late that night, in the solitude of his plainly furnished room, with the wind moaning outside and the snow tapping with muffled fingers against the window pane, he yet exulted in a sense of freedom and happiness hitherto unknown in the brief period which held all ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... clairvoyant's ears, at first merely marking the tramp of the vast bodies of infantry with a joyous rhythm, but anon, as it died off in their receding march, wild, agonizing shrieks commingled with its tones, and the thundering roll of the drums seemed to be muffled by deep, low, but heart-rending groans, as of human sufferers ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... absence to surprise the unsuspecting camp. The march was conducted so noiselessly that, though he skirted the borders of our position for miles, nothing came to the ears of our pickets, save in a few instances where a heavy muffled tramp was heard, but disregarded as ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... sent out for all the daily papers, but there was no advertisement of a lost parrot in them. The parrot, with her cage muffled, was shut up in the back attic, but Aunt Kate ...
— Sonny Boy • Sophie Swett
... long, and time is fleeting,[612-3] And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... to get him in the car and away from the house before the school trooped in. She had no plan beyond that, but she knew that she must never let Wally go back to that school. She looked at his little wizened face, muffled up in his coat collar, and his little pinched hands on the wheel. No; only over her dead body should the ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... could hear the sound of their mingling voices coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first, forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But after sitting there a long time alone, and of course forgotten in the rapture of this ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... another minute they were gliding along the road at a pace which the muffled beating of the horses' hoofs on the thin sheet of snow that covered the road showed to have broken out of the conventional trot, and to resemble something more like ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... from the bed and opened the door stealthily. She crept along the hall in her bare feet, terrified by the muffled sound, and stopped before the velvet curtains that were drawn closely across the dining-room doorway. Someone was tampering with the ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... hush of tomb or public library, lurked the painfully unmistakable sense of institutional restraint. Mournfully to her ear from some remote kitcheny region of pots and pans a browsing spoon tinkled forth from time to time with soft-muffled resonance. Up and down every clammy white corridor innumerable young feet, born to prance and stamp, were creeping stealthily to and fro in rubber-heeled whispers. Along the somber fire-escape just below her windowsill, like a covey of snubbed ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... bones and wedgy ingots of silver. They chose a mirky night, when the thick air seemed too clotted and moist to break into hurly-burly of storm, and yet too heavy and dank to throw off the black envelope of fog and cloud. The black, oleaginous water seemed to slope from the muffled oar in a gluey, shining wave, and the heavy ripple at the bow of their boat parted in a long, adhesive roll, sloping away, but not breaking into froth or glisten of electric fire. The air and the sea ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... of the Voice of which Revelation also is the echo, that out of the mouths of two witnesses its truths should be established. That other echo can only come from Nature. Hitherto its voice has been muffled. But now that Science has made the world around articulate, it speaks to Religion with a twofold purpose. In the first place it offers to corroborate Theology, in the second to ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... and muffled as it was, sounded strangely hollow in that dark cave; yet it had a familiar tone. So surprising was the situation, that I could only stare into the black void, speechless. It was Burns who ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... habited like the other watchman, in a blue night-rail, and was armed with a halberd. He appeared much stouter, much older, and, so far as could be discovered of his features—for a large handkerchief muffled his face—much uglier (if that were possible) than his companion. He answered to the name of Bernard Boutefeu. They had no sooner entered the shop, than Leonard locked ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... coming of Mr. Pett, had been passing the time in improving with strenuous exercise his already impressive physique. If Mrs. Pett's guests had been less noisily concentrated on their conversation, they might have heard the muffled tap-tap-tap that proclaimed that Jerry Mitchell was punching the ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... entrances at the side, an audience of white sheep. They overspread the stage, cropping as they went. They climbed the green encircling seats, leaping up or down, where a softer tuft of grass invited. They broke the dreamy silence with the muffled sound of their hoofs, ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... heard a hurrying tread; The great doors creaked. The reader fled. Forth came a crowd with muffled laughter, A waft of Bergamot, and after, His Chaplain smirking at his side, My Lord himself in all his pride— A portly shape in stars and lace, With wine-bag ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... came down to the listening ears of the two men. The plane tore head on to meet the onslaught, to swing at the last instant in a frantic leap that ended as before in the maelstrom of air back of the ship. But the muffled roar was changed, punctured with a machine-gun's familiar rattle, and the stabbing flashes from Blake's ship before he threw it out of the other's path were a song of joy to the tense nerves of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... for this one place, which, as it rises, meets all sight on a level, and makes its contrast directly and unmistakably. A stair-carpet has other reasons for use in a country-house than aesthetic ones, as the stairs are conductors of sound to all parts of the house, and should therefore be muffled, and because a carpeted stair furnishes much safer footing for the two family extremes ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... that those who wait upon the Great Kaan with his dishes and his drink are some of the great Barons. They have the mouth and nose muffled with fine napkins of silk and gold, so that no breath nor odour from their persons should taint the dish or the goblet presented to the Lord. And when the Emperor is going to drink, all the musical instruments, of which he has vast ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in a muffled tone, for inside of the bag it was all he could do to breathe. The covering was so heavy he ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... so I hastily threw off my clothes and plunged in and had a short refreshing bath. Then on, with, the galloping even triplet of the house's hoofs beneath me, as they came down in quick succession, as if the earth were a muffled drum and we were beating an ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... occasion. The service was read by Dean Milman, who had been, as we have before mentioned, a spectator of Nelson's funeral. So perfectly adapted for sound is St. Paul's, that though the walls were muffled with black cloth, the Dean's voice could be heard distinctly, even up in the western gallery. The sarcophagus which holds Wellington's ashes is of massive and imperishable Cornish porphyry, grand from its perfect simplicity, and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... presently a door banged like muffled thunder somewhere beyond the sacristy, and simultaneously he heard a pair of boots ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... from his cabin, furred and hooded, he found a long train of crouching, whining animals harnessed and waiting, while muffled figures stocked the sled with robes ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Col. Barton of the Rhode-Island militia, a brave and cautious officer, was charged with the capture of Major-Gen. Prescott, commanding the royal army at Newport. On the night of the 9th of July, 1777, Col. Barton, with forty men, in two boats with muffled oars, evaded the enemy's boats, and, being taken for the sentries at Prescott's head-quarters, effected that officer's capture—a Negro taking him. The exploit was bold ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... round the Laurel; the oars were muffled; the officers were ordered to maintain a strict silence. It was hoped that by getting in the rear of the fort it might be taken with a rush, while the larger party entered the town, and took by surprise any troops who might be ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... in the window-seat; dreaming waking dreams of future happiness. She kept losing herself in such thoughts, and became almost afraid of forgetting why she sat there. Presently she felt cold, and got up to fetch a shawl, in which she muffled herself and resumed her place. It seemed to her growing very late; the moonlight was coming fuller and fuller into the garden and the blackness of the shadow was more concentrated and stronger. Surely Mr. Dunster could not have gone away along ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... side, formed sufficient protection from the rain to get a cracker lighted, and Marjorie bravely held it until it was almost ready to explode, and then flung it out into the storm. It went off, but to the anxious girls the noise seemed muffled by the rain. ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... harsh, frightened cries. At his side lay the dusty road, hemmed in by walls of cactus, and along its narrow length came lines of patient little donkeys with jangling necklaces, led by wild-looking men from the farm-lands and the desert, and women muffled and shapeless, with only their bare feet showing, who looked at him curiously or meaningly from over the protecting cloth, and passed on, leaving him startled and wondering. He began to find that the books he had brought wearied him. The sight of the type alone was ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... By hundreds and by hundreds followed more, Ordained for different tasks, the steps of those; Who burning torches like those others bore. Mantled, say rather closely muffled, goes Roland in sables next, and evermore His eyes suffused and red with weeping shows. Nor wears a gladder face Montalban's peer. At home his wound detains ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... already set toward the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of the floor and clapped his hands. The signal took instant effect. The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers—some already half-muffled for departure—fell into line down each side of the room, the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl who had already wound a ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... and sorrowful and weak, and because, perhaps, of what my mother was, I—I—" She fell away from Pierre, crouched against the side of the door, and wrapped the curtain round her face. "He told me you were dead—" The words came muffled. ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Suddenly a muffled clamour made itself heard from the depths of the dining-room, like that noise of voices which is heard behind the scenes at the theatre when an armed mob is about to burst upon the stage. Irish tones, high, windy, and angry, yells, and oaths defined themselves, and Mrs. ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... like flung-out ribands, winding into the great distances which suggest eternal things. From the darkness, as from the mouth of a mighty cavern, rose a wind, not strong, very pure, very keen, which seemed dashed with the spray of water. Now and then an Arab passed muffled in burnous and hood, a fold of linen held to his mouth. The noise of the city ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... in the capital, weighs down with hard policy the mutinous citizens long ere his iron influence is felt in the province, so the first tyrant of Winter has only rigour and frowns for London. The very aspect of the wayfarers has the look of men newly enslaved: cloaked and muffled, they steal to and fro through the dismal fogs. Even the children creep timidly through the streets; the carriages go cautious and hearse-like along; daylight is dim and obscure; the town is not filled, nor the brisk mirth of Christmas commenced; ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... away as they heard heavy steps and saw a line of light under the shut door. Then a last muffled caution from the larger boy ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... seen the grey winter gloom, brightened by fallen snow. The room, in which a fire is burning, is empty, and for a time there is silence. Then from a near street comes the soft sound of muffled drums. ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater
... waited. Gil Perez hailed him. "Is that you, Tormillo?" The muffled figure of a girl by his ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... great waves that smite The broken vanguard of the cliff: the rage Of storm-black tigers in the startled night Among the jackals of the wind and rain. It burst upon the hanging bell, and set The silver pendants chattering. It seemed A muffled march of soldiers hurriedly Sped to the night attack with muffled mouths, When no command is heard, only the tramp Of men and horses onward. "Boy," said I, "What sound is that? Go forth and see." My boy, Returning, answered, "Lord! the moon and all Her stars ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... constant muffled roar. It was like the biggest oil refinery in the world burning up on the mountain top. There was a tremendous explosion about 7.45 o'clock, soon after we got in. The mountain was blown to pieces. There was no warning. The side of the volcano was ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... proceeded the slum doctor: the hard marble betrayed the inequality of his footsteps. A minute more and they would be upstairs, swallowed and dispersed in the publicity of the meeting. Floor and ceiling above them brought down the sounds of a company near at hand, the scraping of a chair-leg, the muffled echo of voices. Carlisle's foot trod upon the bottom step ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... watering their horses, the Dragoons taking out their bits. The gunners knew what it meant, and the little major, who for some reason had undone his gaiter, shouted, without changing his attitude, the only necessary order, "Hook in!" To the Dragoons the muffled reports meant nothing. For all they knew or cared at the moment that hollow echoing rhythm might have been a housewife beating carpets. But the General, the Intelligence officer, and ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... to the command, a man well muffled with a cloak was forced into the room, a guard ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... me not the silent folk; To me they only seem Like leafless, bird-abandoned oak And muffled, frozen stream. ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... wait on the others. Danny did not say a word, but just laid about him. At last he called Pearl to him, and, in a muffled whisper, asked: "What is there now that I haven't had?" Pearl then knew that he was approaching the ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... of scene shifters, firemen, and figurants muffled up in comforters, the poet approached us, his tall figure bent double, his coat collar chillily turned up over his thin beard and long grizzled hair. He seemed depressed. The scant applause of the hired claque and literary ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... silently he entered the boat and tied the skiff to its stern, and he and Erica took their places where the men had sat one minute before. They used their own muffled oars to turn the boat round, till Oddo observed that the boat oars were muffled too. Then voices were heard again. The men were returning. Strongly did the two companions draw their strokes till a good breadth ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... curiosity was strongly excited one autumn by the regular appearance, at a certain hour every evening, of a sedan chair, to deposit a person carefully muffled up in a mantle, who was immediately ushered into her husband's private room, and commonly remained with him there until long after the usual bedtime of this orderly family. Mr. Scott answered her ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... that William Roper might have prohibited, as if she could not absolutely exculpate him, it might be fatal to him. She would therefore allow no one to assist save Ambrose, and a few more devoted old servants, of condition too low for anger to be likely to light upon them. She was to be rowed with muffled oars to the spot, to lie hid in the shadow of the bridge till a signal like the cry of the pee-wit was exchanged from the bridge, then approach the stairs at the inner angle of the bridge where Giles and Ambrose ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... words of Petrarch, and he heard them still, though muffled, for a moment or two after the boy had gone. Then it ceased abruptly, and a pause followed, at the end of which the page returned. Raising the portiere of blue and gold, he invited ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... express his admiration, the little picture was spoilt; for Christie called out, "Come, Vic, bring me some more pretties!" startling baby so that she lost her balance, and disappeared with a muffled cry, leaving nothing to be seen but a pair of small convulsive shoes, soles uppermost, among the brakes. David took a leap, reversed Vic, and then let her compose her little feelings by sticking bits of green in all the button-holes ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... Fumble and fill their mouths with hollow phrase, Or for the end-all of deep arguments Intone their dull commercial liturgies — I dare not yet believe! My ears are shut! I will not hear the thin satiric praise And muffled laughter of our enemies, Bidding us never sheathe our valiant sword Till we have changed our birthright for a gourd Of wild pulse stolen from a barbarian's hut; Showing how wise it is to cast away The symbols of our spiritual sway, That so our hands with better ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... of falling rocks below, a fierce shaking of the suspended rope, and then a muffled voice sang out an order, "H'ist away, and be dommed ter yer." Brown devoted himself assiduously to the creaking windlass, although never able entirely to remove his attention from that bright-robed, slender figure standing so closely at his ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into the circle ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was well suited to the purpose, for eight chosen wind instruments, and notwithstanding the volume of sound, I had not forgotten softness and delicacy of instrumentation. I substituted the gruesome tremolo of the violas, which appears in that part of the overture adapted by me, by twenty muffled drums, and as a whole attained to such an exceedingly impressive effect, especially to us who were full of thoughts of Weber, that, even in the theatre where we rehearsed, Schroder-Devrient, who was present, and who had been an intimate friend of Weber's, was deeply ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... pulmonary weakness. He, however, rose after a moment's rest with undiminished energy and cheerfulness, readjusted his knapsack, and began to lightly pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous command of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow, deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the bushes, followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... to the Lesnoi Kamchadals, who returned from here, we muffled ourselves from the biting air in our heaviest furs, took seats on our respective sledges, and at a laconic "tok" (go) from the taiyon we were off; the little cluster of tents looking like a group of conical islands behind us as we swept out upon the ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... waited, still as mice in our ambush, and alert. I began to think Colebrook must have been lost or killed—so long was he gone—and that we must return without him. At last—we leaned forward—a muffled movement in the grass ahead! A slight wave at the base! Then it divided below, bit by bit, while the tops remained stationary. A weasel-like body slank noiselessly through. Finger on lips once more, Colebrook glided beside us. We turned and crawled ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... loitering under the lamps, darted forward, and prying into the carriage-window, regarded Maltravers earnestly. The latter, pre-occupied and absorbed, did not notice him; but when the carriage drove into the courtyard it was followed by the stranger, who was muffled in a worn and tattered cloak, and whose movements were unheeded amidst the bustle of the arrival. The porter's wife led the way to a second-floor, just left vacant, and the waiter began to arrange the fire. Maltravers threw himself abstractedly upon the sofa, insensible to ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with no real intention of releasing the deadly electric charge along the paths provided for it. This cruel pleasure cost him his life. As he turned his back Quirl leaped. His iron-hard forearm rose and fell, and the edge of his hand came down on the back of the pirate's thick neck. There was a muffled crack and he slumped ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... open; but to recall thy steps and issue to upper air, this is the task and burden. Some few of gods' lineage have availed, such as Jupiter's gracious favour or virtue's ardour hath upborne to heaven. Midway all is muffled in forest, and the black coils of Cocytus circle it round. Yet if thy soul is so passionate and so desirous twice to float across the Stygian lake, twice to see dark Tartarus, and thy pleasure is to plunge into the ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... perceptibly darker as each crime was consummated, and at last there was one murder which was done quite in the dark, so that I could see nothing of the victim, and took some time to effect. It was accompanied by hard breathing and horrid muffled sounds, and after it Punch came and sat on the foot-board and fanned himself and looked at his shoes, which were bloody, and hung his head on one side, and sniggered in so deadly a fashion that I saw some of those beside me cover their faces, and I would gladly have done the same. But ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... gasped the muffled voice of Milburgh. "I have something to tell you—something that your master ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... when the assembly had refused to hear him, and he was going home with his head muffled up, taking it very heavily, they relate that Satyrus, the actor, followed him, and being his familiar acquaintance, entered into conversation with him. To whom, when Demosthenes bemoaned himself, that having been the most industrious of all the pleaders, and having almost spent ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... preparatory to the start was set about eagerly. The mules were laden with the much-reduced loads. Skeeter had his, but his bell was muffled so that it would be perfectly silent, and the water-barrels were hung in position across the ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... the stock, and then I'll show you how to yoke oxen," said Saul, with a twinkle in his eye as he led the way, when his new aide had muffled himself up as ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... after he reappeared with his companions, looking somewhat pale and anxious, and shouted to us to get back. Following our retreat to a certain distance, unwinding a wire as he came, presently he stopped and pressed the button of a battery which he held in his hand. There was a muffled explosion and a tremor of the soil like to that of an earthquake, while from the mouth of the shaft stones leapt into ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... planned, would not take place. Hemerlingue did not want it. If only the duke did not break his word! It was getting late. La Wauters, who was to sing the "Night" aria from the Magic Flute, after the performance at her theatre, had just arrived all muffled up in her ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... time When YOUTH kept open house, Nor left untasted Aught of his high emprise and ventures dear, No quest of his unshar'd — All these, with loitering feet and sad head bar'd, Followed their old friend's bier. FOLLY went first, With muffled bells and coxcomb still revers'd; And after trod the bearers, hat in hand — LAUGHTER, most hoarse, and Captain PRIDE with tanned And martial face all grim, and fussy JOY, Who had to catch a train, and LUST, poor, snivelling boy; ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... ready for use. Additional lanterns were lighted. Buckets were filled with water. The rowers in relief assembled under guard in front of the chief. As Providence would have it, Ben-Hur was one of the latter. Overhead he heard the muffled noises of the final preparations—of the sailors furling sail, spreading the nettings, unslinging the machines, and hanging the armor of bull-hide over the side. Presently quiet settled about the galley again; quiet full of vague dread and expectation, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... his breath, and waited for his enemy to overtake him. He could hear Overman's heavy breathing at each muffled step. When he approached so close he could feel the movement of his body in the air, he suddenly sprang on him, plunging the dagger in his body, and bore him to the floor, knocking the blower from the grate ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... its forts, seemed asleep. The moon, now slowly sinking in the west, edged the towers and spires with filmy lines of silver. To the right Marguerite caught sight of the frowning Beffroi, which even as she gazed out began tolling its heavy bell. It sounded like the tocsin, dull and muffled. After ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... thought of Asano he was able to view this place from a little screened gallery reserved for the attendants of the tables. The building was pervaded by a distant muffled hooting, piping and bawling, of which he did not at first understand the import, but which recalled a certain mysterious leathery voice he had heard after the resumption of the lights on the night of his ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... a man struck against him, scanned him piercingly, and then shuffled off. He was muffled up, but Andrew wondered if he had not seen him ...
— Better Dead • J. M. Barrie
... transparency and brilliancy almost vitreous. One felt as if the whole scene might shatter and vanish at the shock of any sudden sound. Then a sound came—but it was not sudden; and the mystic landscape did not dissolve. It was a sound of heavy, measured, muffled footfalls crushing the crisp snow. There was a bending and swishing of bare branches, a rattling as of twigs upon horn or ivory—and a huge bull moose strode into view. With his splendid antlers laid far ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... on the morning of December 13th, a muffled sound, issuing from the dense fog covering the low ground, indicated that the Federal lines were preparing ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... hobbled on, the cold drops of sweat oozing out on his face from pain. Reaching the bridge that crosses the stream there, he glanced back. He could not see the Federal troops, but he heard the dull march of their regiments,—like some giant's tread, slow, muffled in snow. Closer,—closer every minute! His heavy boots clogged with snow; the pain exhausted even his thick lungs,—they breathed heavily; he climbed the narrow ridge of ground that ran parallel with the road, and hurried on. Half an hour more, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... forget it? Those stunning men dashed into our rooms muffled in military cloaks, which they tossed aside with such grace that they nearly secured my scalp, for all they were after Bee's and Mrs. Jimmie's. They were in velveteen hunting costumes; we in the smartest of evening dress. Jimmie had given his fancy free rein ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... Ellen. The door opened and the lady herself walked in, followed by three others—large, tall women, muffled from head to foot against the cold. The quiet kitchen was speedily changed into a scene of bustle. Loud talking and laughing—a vast deal of unrobing—pushing back and pulling up chairs on the hearth—and Nancy and Ellen running ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... nothing in that metallic face. He said, voice muffled by the confines of the plastic helmet, "Who ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... sometimes like a great solo. As for the people I know or have known, some have to me the sound of brass, some the sound of wood, some the sound of strings. Only—so few, so very, very few yield the perfect music of their kind. The brass is a little too loud; the wood a little too muffled; the strings—some of the strings are invariably broken. I know a big man who is nothing but a big drum; and I know another whose whole existence has been a jig on a fiddle; and I know a shrill little fellow who is a fife; and I know a brassy girl who is a pair of cymbals; ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... we were now departing, one half at least of the village joined, we all got under Way; Tom, buttoned up to the throat in a huge white lion skin wrap-rascal, looking for all the world like a polar bear erect on its hind legs; and all of us muffled up pretty snugly, a proceeding which was rendered necessary by a brisk bracing north-west breeze. The sky, though it was scarcely the first twilight of an autumnal dawn, was beautifully clear, and as transparent—though still somewhat ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... day of ringing and rejoicing the bells were not muffled, nor was conversation on the subject withheld from the ear of Agnes! She heard like her neighbours; and sitting on the side of her bed in her little chamber, suffered, under the cottage roof, as much affliction as ever ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... over which they were clambering were so uneven that sometimes the young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy was descending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was delivered over his head. "Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't give their real names—they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed of their work, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... motion and sat down at a table before a cafe door, on the great plain of hot asphalt. Night arrived, the lamps were lighted, the tables near him found occupants, and Paris began to wear that evening grimace of hers that seems to tell, in the flare of plate glass and of theatre-doors, the muffled rumble of swift-rolling carriages, how this is no world for you unless you have your pockets lined and your delicacies perverted. Longmore, however, had neither scruples nor desires; he looked at the great preoccupied place for the first time with an easy sense of repaying its ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... to the sill. Thank heaven, I was athletic. Not a soul was about: but I heard a noise of muffled voices in the other rooms behind. Treading cat-like across the floor, I turned the key in the lock. A chalk mark still showed the position of the pistol on the ground exactly as you flung it. The box was on the table, and I saw at a glance, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... warrior dieth, His comrades in the war, With arms reversed and muffled drums, Follow his funeral car; They show the banners taken, They tell his battles won, And after him lead his masterless steed, While ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... the Duke of Wellington said to the Guards at—Oh, damn the clock, anyhow! He caught it up, and pitched it across the room on to a sofa, and hurled a bundle of draperies after it and on top of it. But the tune would not stop, and the muffled, unbaffled tick of the clock went on. He swung out of the studio, and went back to ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of a snow-storm are, as a rule, gentle and quiet; a marked hush pervades both the earth and the sky. The movements of the celestial forces are muffled, as if the snow already paved the way of their coming. There is no uproar, no clashing of arms, no blowing of wind trumpets. These soft, feathery, exquisite crystals are formed as if in the silence and privacy of the inner cloud-chambers. ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... slept with her nightgown unfastened so that the cool winds should blow over her through the trellis of the window. To-night she muffled herself up tightly, and when he came in from a strenuous ten minutes in the lake, feeling once more as though she had sent him to dip in Jordan, she pretended to be asleep. Seeing her so unusually wrapped up, he thought she was cold, and fetched a blanket ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... and rattled, with a muffled, eerie sound; snow sifted through the tiniest cracks, spraying upon those who sat near them. The old cannon-ball stove, crammed with coal, reached the point where dull red spots enlivened its bulging belly; yet the big room was cold with non-detectable drafts, the men ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... a swift upward glance, and we saw her eyes like green fire fixed an instant on Elias P. Hutcheson; and then her attention was given to the kitten, which lay still with just a quiver of her tiny limbs, whilst a thin red stream trickled from a gaping wound. With a muffled cry, such as a human being might give, she bent over the kitten licking its wounds and moaning. Suddenly she seemed to realise that it was dead, and again threw her eyes up at us. I shall never forget the sight, for she looked the perfect ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... muffled so closely in a black satin mantle that no feature could be distinguished, was thrust from one of the carriage windows, and looking around, seemed to seek for some decisive sign on the house front. The unknown lady appeared to be satisfied by her inspection, for she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... on, a squalid-looking woman in a slovenly, thick-bordered cap, with her arms muffled in a large red shawl, the fringed ends of which straggled nearly to the bottom of a dirty white apron, was communicating some instructions to her visitor—her daughter evidently. The girl was thinly clad, and shaking with the cold. Some ordinary word of recognition passed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens |
