"Mutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Kentucky. As the panic subsided, they were released. No Louisianian suffered in person or property from any retaliatory action of the Government; but lasting good was done by the abject failure of the plot and by the exhibition of unused strength by the American people. The Creoles ceased to mutter discontent, and all thought of sedition died away in ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... ." he went on; "here you are teaching all the time, fathoming the depths of the ocean, dividing the weak and the strong, writing books and challenging to duels—and everything remains as it is; but, behold! some feeble old man will mutter just one word with a holy spirit, or a new Mahomet, with a sword, will gallop from Arabia, and everything will be topsy-turvy, and in Europe not one stone will be left ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the fresh honey, grow Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter With earnest willingness the truth they know; But if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter 750 All plausible delusions;—these to you I give;—if you inquire, they will not stutter; Delight your own soul with them:—any man You would instruct may profit if ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... his heavy battle-axe hewed and cut at the wolves as they sprang towards him. In a minute they had cleared their way to the figure, which was that of a knight in complete armour. He leant against the rock completely exhausted, and could only mutter a word of thanks through his closed visor. At a short distance off a number of the wolves were gathered, rending and tearing the horse of the knight; but the rest soon recovering from their surprise, attacked with fury the little party. The thick cloaks of the archers stood them in good ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... his own hair, which was coarse and straight, and in an age when every man wore a wig this made him look absurd. He had a trick of making queer gestures with hands and feet. He would shake his head and roll himself about, and would mutter to himself until strangers though that he ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... afternoon we had almost rounded the slough and were gradually closing towards the wooded ground of the river bank. We were within ear-shot of the settlers. They were flying past with terrified cries of "The half-breeds! The half-breeds!" when I heard Grant groan from sheer alarm and mutter— ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... they had gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their daggers—cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'—they had come to the end of the play. Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite. Not a step further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they began to mutter, 'Well, what are you up to next?' We believe that no act so thoroughly womanish, that is, moving under a blind impulse without a thought of consequences, without a concerted succession of steps, and no arriere ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Listen! I never saw a more pitying glance fall from the eye of man than the Intendant cast upon you one day when he saw you kneeling in your oratory unconscious of his presence. His lips quivered, and a tear gathered under his thick eyelashes as he silently withdrew. I heard him mutter a blessing upon you, and curses upon La Pompadour for coming between him and his heart's desire. I was a faithful servant and kept my counsel. I could see, however, that the Intendant thought more of the lovely ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... low white houses, where the air was sweet with the smell of pine and cattle, and the men were splitting firewood and women gossiping at the doors, and then across the fields, where the peasants looked up to mutter a gruffly civil 'G'n Abend' as they turned the ox-plough at the end of the furrow. Now and then they came upon one of the large crucifixes common in the district, and stopped to examine the curious collection of painted wooden emblems grouped around the central ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... heaven knows. Some nights I haven't gone to bed at all. Even at that, I felt a little skittish when I went up for my exam. But I was desperate and went in largely on my nerve. When the Prof. looked over my papers I thought I heard him mutter to himself something that sounded like: 'All Gaul is divided into three parts and you've got two of them.' But that may simply have been my guilty conscience. At any rate I got away with it, and the old sport gave me a clean bill ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... a low ebb, were not much elevated by sundry scowling looks directed at him, and by one red-faced, irritable-looking chap seizing the opportunity when Mr. Snelling's back was turned to shake his fist at Bert and Frank, and mutter loudly enough ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... vehicle, with the children forming a bodyguard round her. A group of men hung about uneasily, looked sheepish, and waved large, helpless red hands, till a young fellow about seven feet high—who looked more uneasy and had even larger hands than the rest—was hustled forward, and began to mutter ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... be crowded to-morrow morning," MacIlwaine, chief of detectives, paused long enough from storing away useful information to lean and mutter in Colonel Stilton's ear. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... seeking those who might participate My deeper pleasures (nay, I had not once, Though not unused to mutter lonesome songs, Even with myself divided such delight, 240 Or looked that way for aught that might be clothed In human language), easily I passed From the remembrances of better things, And slipped into the ordinary works Of careless youth, unburthened, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... while she keenly listened with lifted face, had its only response in a mutter from Wachique, who feared any invocation of spirits. Peggy sat looking straight ahead of her without a word. She could not wash her face soft with tears, and she felt no reaching out towards disembodiment. What she wanted was love in this world, and pride in her ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Ross began to mutter something, but Crowley snapped, "Shut up for a minute, I'm talking." He resumed his condescending tone. "Just for example, take a couple of guys who got to the top. Edison in science and Khrushchev ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... and said with inly-mutter'd voice, "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold; This neither is its courage nor its choice, But its necessity in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... nothing, Auntie followed him. A minute later she was sitting in a sledge by her master's feet and heard him, shrinking with cold and anxiety, mutter to himself: ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wrapped about his nose and mouth as though it were still the hour before the dawn. Over the contents of this cart a black cloth was thrown, beneath which were outlined shapes that suggested—but, no, it could not be. Only why did Antonio cross himself and mutter Muerte! or some ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... boys outside heard the man mutter to himself. "Phil Lawrence? Oh, it can't be!" Then he raised his voice: "You are trying to play some trick on ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... linsey-woolen one lined with yellow flannel. He packed him up in the two blankets and heated stones for his feet and hands. Presently the boy fell into sound sleep for the first time since he was wounded. He had slept before, but always uneasily and restlessly. Now he did not mutter between clenched teeth nor ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... to hell!" and the man fades away again, without even looking startled, to mutter "Well, you needn' be so damn peeved about it—I'll say you needn' be so damn peeved—whatcha think you are, anyhow—Marathon Mike?" as Oliver's feet take Oliver swiftly ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... old habit, I kiss Liza's fingers and mutter: "Pistachio... cream... lemon..." but the effect is utterly different. I am cold as ice and I am ashamed. When my daughter comes in to me and touches my forehead with her lips I start as though a bee had ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... to be seen at the river which has not its counterpart in the world. The pious Hindoos come here to perform their devotions; they step into the river, turn towards the sun, throw three handsful of water upon their heads, and mutter their prayers. Taking into account the large population which Benares contains, besides pilgrims, it will not be exaggeration to say that the daily number of devotees amounts, on the average, to 50,000 persons. Numbers of Brahmins sit in small kiosks, or upon blocks of stone on the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... composed by Pestal, one of the victims of Russian tyranny," said he. "The executioner did his work badly, and Pestal had to be strung up twice. In the interval he was heard to mutter, 'Stupid country, where they don't even know ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... revival of cosmetics must needs be so splendid an influence, conjuring boons innumerable, that one inclines almost to mutter against that inexorable law by which Artifice must perish from time to time. That such branches of painting as the staining of glass or the illuminating of manuscripts should fall into disuse seems, in comparison, so likely; these were esoteric arts; ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... her gray head and feel for the beads of her rosary, and mutter many an Ave for the repose of my soul. Much as I wished it, I could never get her to talk about her mistress—it was the one subject on which she was invariably silent. On one occasion when I spoke with apparent enthusiasm of the beauty and accomplishments of the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... match in a hurry, and was making my way from the hut as quick as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when suddenly a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send up a succession ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... opened, letting in a swirl of raw November evening wind and Ches Maybin. He nodded sullenly to Mr. Fell and passed down the store to mutter a message to a man ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... present: he is intently minding his business; and has been heard to mutter in his breast that "it might be as well if others did ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... little by so dangerous an endowment. Ellen, being persuaded by her maid, craved a specimen of this wonderful art. The hag, a smoke-dried, dirty-looking beldame, with a patch over one eye, and an idiotic expression of face, began to mutter and make an odd noise at the sight of the sick lady. She took a piece of chalk from her handkerchief, and began her work of divination. First she drew a circle on the floor, as a boundary or frame, and within it she put many uncouth and crabbed signs; but their meaning was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... said Percival. "They're beginning to wake up, down there—beginning to turn over in their sleep and mutter. Pretty soon they'll begin to stretch lazily; when they finally hear something drop and jump out of bed it will be too late. The bulls will be counting their chips to cash in, and the man waiting around to put out the lights. And I don't see why Burman isn't as safe as I am." "I don't, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... Tinette to come with her. The strange thing was, that none of the servants dared to go anywhere alone and always found an excuse to ask each other's company, which requests were always granted. The cook, who had been in the house for many years, would often shake her head and mutter: "That I should live ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... could trim the boat to the wind through narrow channels in weather in which Jean would hardly venture to do it himself: and the way in which the fish took his bait made Jean sometimes cross himself, as he counted over the shining boat-load of bream and cod, and mutter in his guttural Breton speech, "'Tis the blessed St. Yvon aids him." Everybody liked him in the village, and he took a kind of lead among the other lads, but, whether it was the grave gaze of his blue eyes, or his earnest, outright speech, or some other quality about him less ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... He remembered how he had seen her for the first time. He was still a student then. He had met her on the staircase of his lodgings, and, jostling by accident against her, he tried to apologise, and could only mutter, 'Pardon, monsieur,' while she bowed, smiled, and suddenly seemed frightened, and ran away, though at the bend of the staircase she had glanced rapidly at him, assumed a serious air, and blushed. Afterwards, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... crowd of animated countenances I had seen outside the same building, around Punch, the day before. The devotion before me was a dead, not a living thing. It had been dead before the foundations of this august temple were laid. But it loved to revisit "the glimpses" of these tapers, and to grimace and mutter amid these shadowy aisles. To nothing could I compare it but to the skeleton in the chapel beneath, that lay rotting in a shroud of gorgeous robes. It was as much a corpse as that skeleton, and, like it too, it bore a shroud of purple and scarlet, and fine linen and gold, which ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... few others paid their yearly subscriptions to The Wand every time they got their government allotment. "Your subscription is already paid," I would explain, but they would shake their heads and mutter. This was their newspaper, too, the thing that had signs and their own names printed on a machine. They had the right to trade beadwork or another dollar for it ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... L'Aubespine, the French ambassador; and that minister was obliged to leave the kingdom. The queen, affecting to be in terror and perplexity, was observed to sit much alone, pensive and silent; and sometimes to mutter to herself half sentences, importing the difficulty and distress to which she ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... speed at which St. Justin was passed. I was beyond caring. We missed a figure by inches and a cart by a foot. Then the cottages faded, and the long snarl of the engine sank to the stormy mutter she kept ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... of hissings and gutturals. Carmena jerked her hand about in swift signs and cried back in uncouth thick-tongued Apache words. The dispute at last ended in a sullen mutter from below and a sudden thudding of hoofs. The Apaches dashed out from under the cliff, loping their horses toward a corral over across to the left of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... whose face they had been sprinkling water, began to show signs of life and to mutter fearful oaths against Ashton, Allie, and the young man who had so ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... expressing the views of all, for a murmur of assent, with a mutter of hearty, deep-sea curses, ran ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... throat and kept on working at it until my father called to him to come down and have a glass of vodka. Sometimes my father pretended not to hear him, and we smiled at one another around the table, while Yakub's throat grew worse and worse, and he began to cough and mutter and rustle in his straw. Then my father let him come down, and he shuffled in, and stood clutching his cap with both hands, while my father poured him a brimming glass of whiskey. This Yakub dedicated to all ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... and the ruby wine glowed, and even the faces shone, and all invited genial talk. Yet David, on the eve of his departure and of his fate, oppressed with suspense and care, was out of the reach of those genial, superficial influences. He could only just mutter a word of assent here and there, then relapsed into his reverie, and eyed the fire thoughtfully, as if his destiny lay there revealed. Mr. Bazalgette, on the contrary, glowed more and more in manner as well as face, and, like many of his countrymen, seemed to imbibe friendship with ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... out?"[630] Slander also was busy in the guise of that gadfly, Nicholls, who proposed to thank the King for dismissing him. By way of retort Pitt's friends triumphantly carried a motion of thanks to Pitt for his great services, against a carping minority of fifty-two; but members were heard to mutter their preference for Addington over all ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... in love) that had brought on this mood. Love for himself, love full of hope—warm young love for all that was good in his own soul (and at that moment it seemed to him that there was nothing but good in it)—compelled him to weep and to mutter ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... purpose, it must be fully equipped, and thoroughly competent and equal to its work. For God always adapts means to ends. Hence it can never resemble the tribunals existing in man-made churches, which can but mutter empty phrases, suggest compromises, and clothe thought in wholly ambiguous language—tribunals that dare not commit themselves to anything definite and precise. Yea, which utterly fail and break down just at the critical moment, ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... life all love and tenderness, endearing words, caressing touches, fond admiring looks, had been utterly unknown to her. To sit in a room with a father who was busy writing letters, and who was wont to knit his brows peevishly if she stirred, or to mutter an oath if she spoke; to be sent to a pawnbroker's in the gloaming with her father's watch, and to be scolded and sworn at on her return if the money-lender had advanced a less sum than was expected on that security—do not compose the most delightful ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... who earned their living as professional assassins; to the Warrows, who wallowed in the marshes; to the Arawaks, or "Flour People," who prepared tapioca; to the Caribs, who sought them that had familiar spirits and wizards that peep and mutter. "It seems very dark," they wrote to the Count, "but we will testify of the grace of the Saviour till He lets the light shine in this dark waste." For twenty years they laboured among these Indian tribes; and Salomo Schumann, the leader of the band, prepared an Indian ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... but a mutter, was fervent indeed. The captain and Elizabeth had turned to the vine-shaded doorway of the Eyrie, and there, in that doorway, was Miss Snowden and, peering around her thin shoulder, the moon face of Mrs. Chase. Sears looked annoyed, Miss Berry looked more so, and Elvira looked—well, she looked ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... this time Charlie had finished the broth. The doctor then bathed his head for some time in hot water, but was obliged to cut off some of his hair, in order to remove the bandage. As he examined the wound, Charlie was astounded to hear him mutter to himself: ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... clink of spurs; Once more the long grey cloaks adorn The bellicose backs of the high-well-born; Once more to the click of martial boots Junkers exchange their grave salutes, Taking the pavement, large with side, Shoulders padded and elbows wide; And if a civilian dares to mutter They boost him off and he ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... the poor, beggarly dress and the quiet, yielding mien were assumed to baffle observation. Soon another person in similar dress but of fewer years met him. The two joined hands and looked earnestly into each other's eyes, and the older one appeared to mutter a word or two. What was that word, at which the younger bent his head with reverent gesture? Was it a command or a blessing? Whatever it was, in a second it was all said. The hands then unclasped—the bended head raised with a startled glance around, as though with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... moment of sympathy and apprehension, as her shaking hand dropped the pen, and then the clergyman picked it up and finished the half-written name. I felt a sharp self-reproach, and Dick did not mend matters as he turned from her to me and said, in an indignant mutter,— ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... mourn a year, And bear about the mockery of woe To midnight dances, and the public show? What tho' no weeping Loves thy ashes grace, Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face? What tho' no sacred earth allow thee room, Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb? Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast: There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, There the first roses of the year shall blow; While angels ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... Don Rodrigo gathered, continued to arrive for the next half-hour, until in the end there must have been some twenty of them assembled in that chamber. The mutter of voices had steadily increased, but so confused that no more than odd words, affording no clue to the reason of this gathering, had ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Nora. "This is Sophia, and this is Lucy." Sophia and Lucy would have been thoroughly willing to receive their sister's lover with genial kindness if they had been properly instructed, and if the time had been opportune; but, as it was, they had nothing to say. They, also, could only mutter some little sound intended to be more courteous than their ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... mutter to hisself dat he couldn't clar me in his own mind till somebody else was cotched, and proved guilty; and nobody has been cotched, and I'se berry wretched, 'deed, sah, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... occupation any serious interest. All the particulars which Sperver had made me acquainted with appeared clearly before me; sometimes the count, waking up with a start, would half rise, and supported on his elbow, with neck outstretched and haggard eyes, would mutter, "She is ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... disturbed; something in Driscoll's voice and look had jarred his nerves, and it cost him an effort not to waken Father Lucien. It was not time yet and the priest needed sleep. Driscoll lay quiet with his eyes shut, but presently moved and began to mutter. Thirlwell, leaning forward, caught the words: "I never had the thing; ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... usual alliterative petition for deliverance from Popery, Prelacy, and Peveril of the Peak, which had become so habitual to him, that, after various attempts to conclude with some other form of words, he found himself at last obliged to pronounce the first words of his usual formula aloud, and mutter the rest in such a manner as not to be intelligible even by those who stood nearest ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... all and through and over all, Runs on the cadence of the changeful sea; Now pleasantly the graceful surges fall, And now they mutter in an angry key Ever, throughout their ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... matter the interests of Kansas and Missouri are identical." Chester Lamb, a lawyer in Atchison, and Samuel Dickson, a merchant of the place, both pro slavery men, also united with Judge Tutt in pleading that I might be set at liberty. While these gentlemen were speaking, I heard my keepers mutter, "If you don't hush up, we will tar and feather you." But when Kelley saw how matters stood, he came forward and said he "did not take Butler to have him hung, but only tarred and feathered," Yet in the saloon he had sad to the mob: "You shall do as you please." He dared not take the ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... in the slovenly manner which had almost disgusted him when he was well. It was of no use telling him that Simpson, his mother's maid, had superintended the preparation at every point. He offended her by detecting something offensive and to be avoided in her daintiest messes, and made Mrs Morgan mutter many a hasty speech, which, however, Mrs Bellingham thought it better not to hear until her son should be ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... enough of it. Bread, beef, and mutton would be almost unobtainable. But chickens, turkeys, and ducks were abundant, while hard-tack would do instead of bread. Bird-and-biscuit of course became unpopular; and after weeks of it Grant was not surprised to hear a soldier mutter "hard-tack" loudly enough for others to take up the cry. By this time, however, he luckily knew that the bread ration was about to be resumed; and when he told the men they cheered as only men on service can—men to whom battles are ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... and palms, of natural flowers, or beautifully executed in silver. Behind come the mourners on foot, a few women, many men, a Grand Duke or two among them, it may be; the carriages follow; the devout of the lower classes, catching sight of the train, cross themselves broadly, mutter a prayer, and find time to turn from their own affairs and follow for a little way, out of respect to the stranger corpse. More touching are the funerals which pass up the Prospekt on their way to the unfashionable ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Franklin had not paid her rent, crept off, a lugubrious figure, across the bridge. Franklin watched her till she was out of sight, then took off his hat, exposing a high, baldish head. His face was dark, and he began to mutter to himself. ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... much. She was fond of mosques, delighting in their airy simplicity, in their casual holiness which seemed to say to her, "Worship in me if you will. If you will not, never mind; dream in me with open eyes, or, if you prefer it, go to sleep in a corner of me. When you wake you can mutter a prayer, or not, just as ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... to the poor fellow when, as he undoubtedly would do in the course of the drive, he inquired of Aline the name of her maid and was told that it was Simpson. He would mutter something about "Reminds me of a girl I used to know," and would brood on the remarkable way in which Nature produces doubles. But he had a bad moment, and it was partly at the recollection of his face that ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... foretaste of the affliction in store for him; for, when he opened his breviary and began to mutter his morning devotion, his new companions gathered about him with faces that betrayed their superstitious terror, and gave him to understand that his book was a bad spirit with which he must hold no more converse. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... to coward of that mob, changed from three hundred strong to three hundred weak. Then I bowed and withdrew, leaving them to mutter and disperse. I felt well content with the trend of events—I who wished to impress the public and the financiers that I had broken with speculation and speculators, could I have had a better than this unexpected opportunity sharply to define my new course? And as Textiles, unsupported, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... sailors used to lower their heads almost as low as the table and mutter together before every move, but they muttered so low that you could not ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... windows came only a dim, vaporous light. The dull ripple of the water as the ship rocked on the slow swell of the sea made a melancholy sound, and the sick man's heavy breathing seemed to fill the air. The slight noise made by the opening door roused him; he rose on his elbow and began to mutter. Sarah Purfoy paused in the doorway to listen, but she could make nothing of the low, uneasy murmuring. Raising her arm, conspicuous by its white sleeve in ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... philosophically, observing that she could not have turned the heel of her stocking so correctly while thinking of Nilo and his poor mother. Archie remained silent, only when Aunt Cattie sat down and resumed her narrative, he was heard to mutter to himself ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... John-a-nods, "What are the odds That we shall wake up here within the sun, When time is done, And pick up all the treasures one by one Our hands let fall in sleep?" "You have begun To mutter in your dreams," Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams, And they ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... this time that Copernicus Droop finally awakened. He lay perfectly still for a minute or two, wondering where he was and what had happened. Then he began to mutter to himself. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... deceptive thickness ahead loomed the sharp, flaring bow of another forty-footer, sheering quickly, as her pilot sighted them. She was upon them, and abreast, and gone, with a watery purl of her bow wave, a subdued mutter of exhaust, passing so near than an active man could have leaped the ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... subject of their serious conversation. One said that "He had seen him wander about by night, and look rather strangely at the moon! and then, he roamed over the hills, like a partridge." Another said, "He had heard him mutter, as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could understand!" Another said, "It's useless to talk, Thomas, I think he is what people call a 'wise man.'" (a conjuror!) Another said, "You are every one ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the hovering boats, and put off in it. Eph watched the boat for a few moments before he turned to Captain Jack to mutter: ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... stood I could not see beyond the door, but I saw Mr. Jamieson's face change and heard him mutter something, then he bolted down the stairs, three at a time. When my knees had stopped shaking, I moved forward, slowly, nervously, until I had a partial view of what was beyond the door. It seemed at ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... quiet, except for the mutter of distant thunder and the heavy breathing of exhausted men. Tom Ward crouched in the darkness by ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... gossip, no scandal: for somehow in "St. George" Winter's house one felt warmly disposed even to one's enemies; and no unkind words were spoken by any one except General Caradine. He, who had a habit of mumbling his secret thoughts aloud unconsciously, was heard to mutter: "Same old crew: same dull lot, year after year, world without end. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... those which were actually and physically impossible. But both were, in those ignorant and superstitions times, easily credited as proofs of guilt.—The first class set forth, that Rebecca was heard to mutter to herself in an unknown tongue—that the songs she sung by fits were of a strangely sweet sound, which made the ears of the hearer tingle, and his heart throb—that she spoke at times to herself, and seemed to look upward for a reply—that her garments ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... rainy night, and I have told Topsy, who has a cold, that she cannot come with us to church. After a wild outburst of anger she was heard to mutter that "Teacher wouldn't let her go to church because she was afraid she ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... this, and he let his feeling be seen, though he said no more than to mutter, "He's a willian!" words that had frequently issued from his lips within the last day ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Judge, whose mind was on the argument, continued to mutter defiantly until his eye ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the fastnesses of Cape Corso, across which, from this eastern shore to the western, and to the camp at Olmeta, one only pass (so Marc'antonio informed me) was practicable. I guessed we were nearing it when he began to mutter to himself in the intervals of scanning the crags high on our left; for this was to him, he confessed, an almost unknown country. But the gap, when we came abreast of it, could scarcely be mistaken. With a glance around, as though to take our bearings, he abruptly headed ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... last time, your compact, do you hear? Behave properly or I will pay you out!" Miuesov had time to mutter again. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... was completely off his guard. He started up, stared at Agias, and began to mutter excuses for a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... before me gazed at me for some seconds in amazement, and his wife in terror; as though there was something alarmingly extraordinary in the fact that anyone could come to see them. But suddenly he fell upon me almost with fury; I had had no time to mutter more than a couple of words; but he had doubtless observed that I was decently dressed and, therefore, took deep offence because I had dared enter his den so unceremoniously, and spy out the squalor and untidiness ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the old woman, as if suddenly recollecting that she had been too matter-of-fact in the way of dealing with us, went to her cauldron, and poking up the fire, began to mutter various cabalistic words, at the same time stirring ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... I'll fix it. See here, Bradley. This is the place you are thinking of. When Cobb says to Lady Ellen "Fenderson Featherhead," you enter the room, and in a nervous aside you mutter: "What, he! Does he again dare to cross my path?" That's the ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... their heads; men and women halted and cried to each other: "The River—the River is rising! If it floods, we are lost! Our beasts will drown; we, even we, shall drown! The River!" And women stood like things of stone, listening; and men shook their fists at the black sky and at that traveling mutter of the winds and waters; and the beasts sniffed at the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and consideration by which reality is apprehended—were once more coming back to the girl and beginning to stir in her mind. She began, gently now, and without perturbation, to recall what had passed, the long crescendo of the previous months, the gathering mutter of the spiritual storm that had burst last night—even the roar and flare of the storm itself, and the mad instinctive fight for the conscious life and identity of herself through which she had struggled. And it seemed to her as ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... door. Just then it opened very quietly, and a man staggered down the hall steps, and bent his course toward the northern part of the city suburbs. A female might be observed to follow him at a distance, and ever as he began to mutter his drunken meditations to himself, she approached him more closely behind, in order, if possible, to lose ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... The crash and mutter of the dockside railway, The noise of quarrel, the noise of fist on face, My country's songs, guitars, and gramophones, The noise of boot on stone, The noise of women bargaining their flesh, The noise of singers in the ships, Sounds of threat and ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... found myself sitting up in bed, staring at the dark. I found myself praying that the Heat-Ray might have suddenly and painlessly struck her out of being. Since the night of my return from Leatherhead I had not prayed. I had uttered prayers, fetish prayers, had prayed as heathens mutter charms when I was in extremity; but now I prayed indeed, pleading steadfastly and sanely, face to face with the darkness of God. Strange night! Strangest in this, that so soon as dawn had come, I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... und ein Butter Bringen wir auch, nemt es an! Einen Han zu einer Suppen, Wanns die Mutter kochen kann. Giessts ein Schmalz drein, wirds wol guet sein. Weil wir sonsten gar nix han, Sind wir selber arme Hirten, Nemts den guten ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... and hide away: creep soon Into your icy beds: the embers die; And on your frosted panes the pallid moon Is glimmering brokenly. Mutter faint prayers that spring will come e'erwhile, Scarring with thaws and dripping days and nights The shining majesty of him that smites And slays you with a smile Upon his silvery lips, of ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... pulled in his head and scowled at his aunt, but he dared not disobey, and went out slowly with a sulky mutter. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... cried out and said, "I would to God, it would please him to take me out of this wretched world; and I would I had died with the good men that have suffered death heretofore, for they were quickly out of their pain."'[T] Then, half wandering, he began to mutter to himself aloud the thoughts which had been working in him in his struggles; and quoting St. Bernard's words about the pope, he exclaimed, 'Tu quis es primatu Abel, gubernatione Noah, auctoritate Moses, judicatu Samuel, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... presided at his birth and his genii know all about it), what should he do? Let him jump from where he is standing four cubits, or else let him repeat, "Hear, O Israel," etc. (Deut. vi. 4); or if the place be unfit for the repetition of Scripture, let him mutter to himself, "The goat at the butcher's is ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... gentleman mutter loud enough for Newton to overhear. A few minutes more were spent in perambulation, when he threw himself into ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... passed on, and Bill chose to interpret the mutter as consent. He strolled over to the tent, joked condescendingly with the guard who stood before it, and announced that the Captain had said he might talk to ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... Ancient Mariner would mutter, "strange, and most strange. This is the very place. There can be no mistake. I'd have trusted that youngster of a third officer anywhere. He was only eighteen, but he could navigate better than the captain. Didn't he fetch the atoll after eighteen ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... is coming home!" returned Mrs. Cheyne, with so much interest in her voice that Miss Mewlstone left off counting to look at her. ("Just so, just so," Phillis heard her mutter.) "You must have worked hard to get ready for her so soon. When my foot will allow me to cross a room without hobbling, I will do myself the pleasure of calling on her. But that will be neither this week ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... hear the thunder mutter, The wind is gathering in the west; The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter, Then droop to a fitful rest; Up from the stream with sluggish flap Struggles the gull and floats away; Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap,— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... morning of September 14th. Scores of neutral flags float from the windows on the Calle de Plateros, and in their shade beautiful women gaze curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. "Los Yanquies!" is the cry, and every neck is stretched ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... on a soft carpet of moss, overhead the gentle summer breeze stirred the great branches of the elms, causing the crisp leaves to mutter a long-drawn hush-sh-sh in the stillness of the night. From far away came the appealing call of a blackbird chased by some marauding owl, while on the ground close by, the creaking of tiny branches betrayed the quick scurrying of a squirrel. From the remote and infinite distance came the subdued ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... ne Hu, hearing him mutter; "Why meddle again," she explained, "in things that don't concern you? I had endless trouble in getting to speak to your paternal aunt; and your aunt had, on the other hand, a thousand and one ways and means to devise, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... ragged half-seen reefs. You saw the flash of foam leaping half the height of the black cliffs. The thunder of the surf was in our ears, now rising to wild clamor, fierce, hungry, menacing, now dying to a vast broken mutter. Now our boat felt the lift of the great shoreward rollers, and sprang forward like a living thing. The other boat, empty of all but the rowers and returning from the island to the ship, passed us with a hail. We steered warily away from a wild welter ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... the man hardly knew how the conviction had come to the child that his father had killed his mother. A vague comprehension perhaps of the doctor's urgings and his father's denials—a head-shaking mutter from the nurse—the memory of all his mother's tears. He was hardly more than a baby, but he had always feared and disliked his father—now he hated him, blindly and intensely. He saw him as the cause not only of his mother's tears and death, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... the lower plane of mere utility and money value, it would be bondage to them to be kept from other and higher considerations. Moreover, in his own material sphere his narrow prejudices were ever a jarring element that often exasperated Webb, who had been known to mutter, "Such clods of earth ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... arrival of the Prince of Wales; and as the little cavalcade dismounted at the door and entered the noble hall, a figure, habited after the fashion of the ecclesiastics of the day, stepped forth to greet the scion of royalty, and the twin brothers heard their comrades mutter, ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Talbot heard him mutter; "but they shall burn through me first, little one;" and he stretched himself across the corpse as if to shield it from the approaching flames, and far off the red eyes of the planets sank nearer the horizon, ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... Mohun mutter more than once, in a dissatisfied tone, "Why does not that scoundrel show himself? I can't make out Delaney." All at once I heard a stifled cry on my right, and, to my horror, I saw Clontarf dragged over the balustrade in the gripe of a giant, whom I guessed ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... by striking at a fly directly over my head with a flapper made of sugar paper fastened to a stick. He generally spoke in German, and in his kindly voice exclaimed, "Auf, Kinder, auf; es ist Zeit. Die Mutter ist schon im Saal." ("Get up, children, it is time. Your Mother is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... to my office, and there we sat a very full board all the morning upon some accounts of Mr. Gauden's. Here happened something concerning my Will which Sir W. Batten would fain charge upon him, and I heard him mutter something against him of complaint for his often receiving people's money to Sir G. Carteret, which displeased me much, but I will be even with him. Thence to the Dolphin Tavern, and there Mr. Gauden did give us a great dinner. Here we had some discourse ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... expression which I could not account for, until I discovered that he had only one eye. At this time an Indian advanced toward us, bearing in his arms a quantity of small stakes; I was at loss to understand what was to transpire, when I heard my one-eyed companion mutter under his breath, "drat 'em, they be a goin' to stake us." Sure enough this was their intention; seizing us one by one, they stretched us on the turf in three files, the heads of one file resting between the feet of the row above him; driving the stakes firmly ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... again, villain, and I'll blow your brains out," cried I, seizing Antoine by the throat, and pinning him against the wall; "only dare to mutter it, and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... that Griscom spoke. Fogg was Ralph's fireman on the present trip. He presented a decided contrast to the brisk, bright engineer of No. 999. He shoveled in the coal with a grim mutter, and slammed the fire door shut with a vicious ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... closer, she saw that he walked with his chin on his breast; when he reached the gate at the end of the avenue, he did not see it and bumped into it. "Dios mio!" she heard him mutter. "Dios! Dios! Dios!" The last word ended in tragic crescendo; he leaned on the gate, and there, in the white silence, the last of the Farrels stood gazing up the avenue as if he ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a mutter from the west, a hollow, solemn warning; and the cliffs responded with a plaintive moan. Even incredulous Hayoue ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... get out of the way in time, damn them!" I heard Keston mutter. True, but not all the prolats had moved fast enough at the warning shout. Cowering under the saving key-boards, shrinking from the metallic arms not quite long enough to reach them, I could count only a score. The others—but what use to describe the slaughter ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... is custom and tradition, and the habit of thought it weaves about us, that I have heard ancient and grave farmers, when the fact was mentioned with horror, hum, and ah! and handle their beards, and mutter that 'they didn't know as 'twas altogether such a bad thing as they was hung for sheep-stealing.' There were parsons then, as now, in every rural parish preaching and teaching something they called the Gospel. Why did they not rise as one man ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... clamors, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities, and when the sun has gone down to his rest. This sister is the visitor of the Pariah; of the Jew; of the bondsman to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys; of the English criminal ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... neighboring towns who had turned from their errors on their death-beds, some one exclaimed, "John Hodges! why, he isn't dead,—he's alive and well." Whereat there was a roar of laughter. While holding an argument at table, I heard him mutter to himself at something that his adversary said; and though I could not distinguish what it was, the tone did more to convince me of some degree of earnestness than aught beside. This character might be wrought into a strange portrait of something ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and did. And without too much effort the three transported the injured man, who was but a light weight, across the yard, into the house, and to a room which Mrs. Candace showed them. He began to groan and mutter before they managed to get ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... sentence died in an unintelligible mutter. He seemed to utter a name I could not catch. All the time I was watching him intently, and never shall I forget the look that passed over his face. He had been very pale before, but now his pallor was ghastly. For a moment he looked almost like a dead man, save for the ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... life or plans, but wherever you go those eyes are fixed on you. By-and-by he disappears—he is sure to do so if there are no people about the tan—and then reappears with some dark descendant of the Dom and Domni. I have always been under the impression that these dogs step out and mutter a few words in Rommany—their deportment is, at any rate, Rommanesque to the highest degree, indicating a transition from the barbarous silence of doghood to Christianly intelligence. You may persuade yourself that the Gipsies do not mind your presence, but rest assured that though he may lie on ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... enough to startle Meg Merrilies, who led the van, and who, having already gained the place where the cavern expanded, had risen upon her feet. She began, as if to confound any listening ear, to growl, to mutter, and to sing aloud, and at the same time to make a bustle among some brushwood which was now ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... said in a low mutter, his once mighty voice sounding hollow and laboring, but fearless and firm—"ye come—not to conquer, vain rebels!—ye whose dark chief I struck down at my feet in the tomb where my spell had raised ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... desperate firmness. In presence of another he says little, But I perceive his lips move now and then; And once or twice I heard him, from the adjoining Apartment, mutter forth the words—"My son!" Scarce audibly. I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... they commingle always in great music; and therefore it is that music can move us more profoundly than the voice of ocean or than any other voice can do. But in music's larger utterance it is ever the sorrow that makes the undertone, —the surf-mutter of the Sea of Soul.... Strange to think how vast the sum of joy and woe that must have been experienced before the sense of music could evolve in ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... to, Mr. and Mrs. Bracken drifted into the other room and left her alone with Jenny Lind. Mr. Bracken did not take his hat and mutter that he would be back for dinner. He walked over to the window and stood looking down the street. At last he turned around and looked at his wife who was sitting on the davenport as ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... those sacraments. Towards six in the morning, they arrive. Cardinal Grand-Almoner Roche-Aymon is here, in pontificals, with his pyxes and his tools; he approaches the royal pillow; elevates his wafer; mutters or seems to mutter somewhat;—and so (as the Abbe Georgel, in words that stick to one, expresses it) has Louis 'made the amende honorable to God;' so does your Jesuit construe it.—"Wa, Wa," as the wild Clotaire groaned ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... have hornless heads, like hinds and does. Thus wethers have small horns, like ewes; and oxen large bent horns, and hoarse voices when they low, like cows: for bulls have short straight horns; and though they mutter and grumble in a deep tremendous tone, yet they low in a shrill high key. Capons have small combs and gills, and look pallid about the head, like pullets; they also walk without any parade, and hover chickens like hens. Barrow- hogs have also ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... super-abundant wisdom; I like to see folk fret, and stew, and scold, as our maids did last week when I cut the line, and let all the sheets, and gowns, and petticoats, and frocks, and shirts, and aprons, and caps, and what not, fall plump into the dirt. O! how I did laugh! and how they did mutter and scold! And do you know, that just as the wash ladies were wiping their coddled hands, and comforted themselves with the thought of their work being all over, and were going to sip their tea by the fireside, I put them all to the scout; and ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... but recalling the evening when, wrecked at heart, with stinging feet, he had stumbled at last into the trail to Doc's camp, he could only mutter, "Dash it all!" ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... be," she confessed, "but we 're not. The truth is, we like to get far away from civilisation and exchange confidences. Warwick is a great whispering-gallery, full of tale-bearing bats that peep and mutter." ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... the minister, and he gave a sigh of relief. They echoed across the river, and rolled away toward the village, and into the distance. Nor did they stop there—those echoes: the Atlantic is wide, but they crossed it; they made Lord North, Thurlow, and Wedderburn start in their chairs, and mutter a curse: they penetrated to the king in his cabinet, and he flushed and bit his lip. More than a hundred years have passed; and yet the vibrations of that shot across Concord Bridge have not died ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... could write? My wife near crazy with ear- ache; the rain descending in white crystal rods and playing hell's tattoo, like a TUTTI of battering rams, on our sheet- iron roof; the wind passing high overhead with a strange dumb mutter, or striking us full, so that all the huge trees in the paddock cried aloud, and wrung their hands, and brandished their vast arms. The horses stood in the shed like things stupid. The sea and the flagship lying on the jaws of the bay vanished in sheer ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Brothers; and that to use a gallant Man (who does his Duty) ill, speaks a Revenge which cannot proceed but from a Coward Soul. He order'd that the Prisoners should leave their Chests; and when some of his Men seem'd to mutter, he bid 'em remember the Grandeur of the Monarch they serv'd; that they were neither Pyrates nor Privateers; and, as brave Men, they ought to shew their Enemies an Example they would willingly have follow'd, and use their Prisoners as they wish'd to ...
— Of Captain Mission • Daniel Defoe
... are withdrawn, And friends like shadows fled, When all your fondest dreams are gone, Your dearest hopes are dead, You curse the fickle goddess, then, Who wrought you such despair, Yet hide chagrin beneath a frown, And mutter, "I don't care!" ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... that baffed on their eyelids. The little whisper of the sea by the cliffs joined with the whisper of the wind over the grass, the hum of insects in the thyme, the ruffle and rustle of the flock below, and a thickish mutter deep in the very chalk beneath them. Mr Dudeney stopped explaining, and went on with his knitting. They were roused by voices. The shadow had crept halfway down the steep side of Norton Pit, and on the edge of it, his back to them, Puck sat beside a half-naked ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... said one evening to me, 'dat dis not go on much much longer. De crew getting desperate. Dey talk and mutter among demselves. Me thinks we have ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... morning the mutter of cannon on the horizon, and they knew the German conquerors were advancing. They were always advancing. Nothing had stopped them. The metal and masonry of the defenses at Liege had crumbled before their huge guns like china breaking under stone. The giant shells had ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pictures of kittens and grapes and daffodils. After everyone was put on the easel Henrietta Templeton Price would stick her thumb up in the air and sight across it with one eye shut and say "A stunning bit, that!" and the others would gasp with delight and mutter to each other about its ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the clutching hands. He held the mike up and they heard him say, "There's no point in my talking with you unless you will be quiet and listen." He paused. The roar slowly subsided into an angry mutter. ...
— Criminal Negligence • Jesse Francis McComas
... answer, a heavy step down the hall heralded Mr. Frank Blaisdell's advance, and in the ensuing confusion of his arrival, Mr. Smith slipped away. As he passed the lawyer, however, Mellicent thought she heard him mutter, "You rascal!" But afterwards she concluded she must have been mistaken, for the two men appeared to become at once the best of friends. Mr. Norton remained in town several days, and frequently she saw him and Mr. Smith chatting pleasantly ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... and, hearing the noise of the enemy in the corridor, walked with it in his hand across to the door. He tapped his box with accustomed preciseness, but I, a step behind, having lingered for a last look into Margaret's eyes, heard him mutter, "Damn ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... thousands Glaucon turned toward the only faces that he saw out of the innumerable host: Themistocles, Democrates, Simonides, Cimon. They beheld him raise his arm and lift his glorious head yet higher. Glaucon in turn saw Cimon sink into his seat. "He wakes!" was the appeased mutter passing from the son of Miltiades and running along every tier of Athenians. And silence deeper than ever held the stadium; for now, with Lycon victor twice, the literal turning of a finger in the next event might win or lose the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... sent home! She ought to have thought of that possibility before. Now Miss Pomeroy was angry with her and she had made a miserable beginning of the delightful boarding school life she had dreamed so much about. Two hot tears gathered in her eyes again, but just at that minute she heard Chrystobel mutter between her teeth so the principal could not ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Duchess Helen with Sir Hacon at her side had watched the eddying dust-clouds rolling now this way, now that, straining anxious eyes to catch the gleam of a white plume or the flutter of the blue banner amid that dark confusion. And oft she heard Sir Hacon mutter oaths half-stifled, and oft Sir Hacon had heard snatches of her breathless prayers as the tide of battle swung to and fro, a desperate fray whence distant shouts and cries mingled in awful din. But now, as the sun grew low, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... fill the army. The working people were also liable to be pressed for the navy, or drawn for the militia; and though they could not fail to be discontented under such circumstances, they scarcely dared even to mutter their discontent ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... the door, and Grace heard him mutter: "Nice night to send a pal out in, and on a still hunt, too. Nothing short of soup'll open up that claim. If the rest of the jobs he's goin' to pull off are like this hand out, me ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... The mutter died. Some youths at the back started applause, which spread, though somewhat half-heartedly, through the crowd, and for a space the ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell |
