"Crackling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consideration. But now the solemn words of the lawyer, his own legal counselor, brought conviction, and for the moment all power of speech deserted me. It was actually true then—the girl was a slave, a thing belonging to Kirby. Nothing broke the stillness within the cabin, except the sharp crackling of flames in the open fireplace, and the heavy breathing of the negro. He was seated on the edge of the bed, his black face showing a greenish tint, and revealing puzzled amazement, with wide-opened eyes staring blankly at Haines, who stood ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... lingering over the dainty dishes of a dinner exquisite in more senses than one. We had come as far as the roast, however, and still we had no neighbors; no sound came from the next room save the crackling of the fire. But when the clock struck eight, we heard voices and noisy footsteps; the waiters brought candles. Evidently there was a party assembled in the next room, and at the first words I knew at once with whom we had to do—four bold cormorants as ever ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... horrified at the sight which burst upon her view. There in the far corner of the cellar was a barrel of shavings blazing almost to the floor above. In the meantime Esther had reached the cellar, and stood looking at the crackling flames in blank astonishment. The water Olive had poured into the barrel was not enough to quench the flames, for in the excitement of the moment she had spilled more than half of it on her way down. What was to be done? The house would catch ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... of rank; men and officers were huddled together, watching with despairing hearts the progress of the fiery element, which threatened to hurry them so quickly into eternity. Volumes of black smoke rose in huge pillars from all parts of the ship, whilst far above the hissing and crackling of the flames, as they ricked the masts and rigging, rose the shrieks and death yells of the hapless men, who, unable to gain the forecastle, had sought safety aloft, where the flames had now ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... what manner it could not be said, there was seen to be a serpent of flame swiftly stealing along the Elevated's track. A tiny frill of fire, under a feathery cloud of smoke, ran down the wooden ties; sharp crackling sounds were heard; and a moment later the frame roof of the raised depot burst into light. One would hardly have thought that there was here sufficient fuel to jeopardize greatly the stout stone walls of the South Station itself; even to the firemen, skilled ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... smoke rose from one corner of the pyre—the flames licked upward, crackling. La stood there like a beautiful statue of despair gazing at Tarzan and at the spreading flames. In a moment they would reach out and grasp him. From the tangled forest came the sound of cracking ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of repose—the hour when, for the most part, every cottage window brightens to the joyous crackling of the rustic hearth, and shines afar through shade and foliage, whilst clouds of smoke issue from the chimneys, and curl up slowly towards the sky. But now, strange to say, every hearth in the country seems cold and deserted. Stranger ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... lighted on the hearth, one small candle was fixed to the wall, and I heard half a dozen locks and bolts closing the door that shut me off from mankind. The first hour, which I spent gazing at my crackling fire, was the most desolate of all ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... The fire did not appear to be making much headway, still it did not seem to be abating. Already the framework of that end of the bridge was outlined like the figure in a set piece of fireworks. They could hear the crackling of the flames, and the wooden tunnel was becoming filled with smoke. Tommy was coughing, to remind her companions that they were in ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... the crackling underbrush till the trees hid her and the noise of her going died away, till she was so far off that we heard the rain drops drip from the boughs and the horses ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... masterful Pro-Consul at the Cape, Lucknow might have fallen, before there were forces to relieve it. That would have lit, for our rule in India, a bonfire in which Bombay would only have been a crackling twig. ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... turnovers of a flakiness and a puffiness so ethereal, that one might think the very eyes of the observer should drop lightly on them, lest that too appreciative glance should flatten them down—I say, ladies and gentlemen, when I smell that crackling, when I cast my eyes on those cinders in the gravy, I am irresistibly reminded of occasions when I myself, arrayed in a holland pinafore, have presided over like entertainments; and of one in particular when, being of tender age—of one occasion, I say, that is never to be forgotten, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... on the ground, wrapped in her warm clothes, her eyes, fixed on the crackling logs. Of what was she thinking? Whatever occupied her mind, it was soon chased away by the sudden speech of Ivan. "Kolina," said he, in a tone which borrowed a little of intensity from the state of mind in which hunger had ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... But the crackling out of more shots behind him told the onlookers that the young dispatch rider in Uncle Sam's khaki uniform must make ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... hypothesis, and experiment—have men made discoveries that have been helpful to their fellow-men; while, on the other hand, the most elaborate theories of the most popular physicians, which have owed their birth to premature generalization and invention, have passed away, like the crackling of thorns under a pot. Belonging to the latter class of men, we have Stahl, Hoffman, Boerhaave, Cullen, and Brown; while to the former belong ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... each cell. Fortunately, the only man who was vile enough to have betrayed the plan, was absent in the hospital. Six hours elapsed after the locking-in; regularly during that time the night-guard went his rounds, making an awful crackling as he passed along the lower range. Sixty-odd men lay awake, silent and excited—with hearts beating louder and blood rushing faster through their veins than the approach of battle had ever occasioned. Perhaps the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... firmness, resolutely asserting his innocence of any capital crime and persistently refusing to give up his band. As a last motive of confession, the paper written by Gabriel Le Noir upon his death-bed was shown him. He laughed a loud, crackling laugh, and said that was all true, but that he, for his part, never had intended to harm a hair of Capitola's head; that he had taken a fancy to the girl when he had first seen her, and had only wanted to carry her off and force her into a marriage ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of flame sprang from the ten guns of La Royale and a splitting of boards and crackling of splinters showed that the iron missiles had punctured the stout sides of ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Wolvehoek, we entered on Commandant De Wet's hunting-ground and the scene of his recent exploits. There, at almost every culvert, at every ganger's house, were pickets of soldiers, all gathered round a crackling fire at that chill morning hour; and at every one of these posts freshly constructed works of sandbags and deep trenches were in evidence to denote that their sentry work was no play, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Their giant staggering lunges had carried them five miles from her. They were almost the size of fighting titans. The blurred distant shapes of them were silhouettes against the glow of the sky. The forest out there was crackling under their tread ... a blurred ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... danced. The four hosemen staggered as the stream ripped from the nozzle, crackling like pistol discharges. There was no question as to Uncle Trufant's ability to get the most out of the ancient pride of Vienna. He ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... when there was no northern light to be seen; and it must not be forgotten that Wrangel and Gieseke were fully convinced that the sound they had heard was to be ascribed to the contraction of the ice and the crust of the snow on the sudden cooling of the atmosphere. The belief in a crackling sound has arisen, not among the people generally, but rather among learned travelers, because in earlier times the northern light was declared to be an effect of atmospheric electricity, on account of the luminous manifestation of the electricity in rarefied space, ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... little dog that wandered about there was liable to be trodden upon. On that night of storm it was a vast, bright place, so silent one could hear the ticking of the wag-at-the-wa' clock, the crisp crackling of the flames, and the snapping of the coals. The uncovered deal tables were set back in a double line along one wall, with the chairs piled on top, leaving a wide passage of freshly scrubbed and sanded oaken floor from the door to ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... jumped the ditch and disappeared. For a few seconds the crackling of twigs on the bushes, and the sound of steps among the underbrush, was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... a short, crackling laugh. "Nevertheless, I shall go on with my story. I came home a few hours ago. My wife told me that Angelot was safe with his uncle at Les Chouettes." The General started violently, but neither of them noticed him. "We went there ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... river, and found it rasping and crackling over rocks as an Androscoggin should. We passed the last hamlet, then the last house but one, and finally drew up at the last and northernmost house, near the lumbermen's dam below Lake Umbagog. The damster, a stalwart brown chieftain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... lit up the sky. Erick clapped his hands over his eyes. The flash whitened, growing larger, expanding. Suddenly there was a roar, and a furious hot wind rushed past him, throwing him on his face in the sand. The hot dry wind licked and seared at them, crackling the bits of branches into flame. Mara and Jan shut their eyes, ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... in Germany and had been strictly forbidden so perilous an amusement. As they walked over the crackling ice-cover of the snow, he said, "Why do you want to sled, Leila? I consider it extremely dangerous. I saw two persons hurt when we were in Switzerland." His imagination was predicting all manner of disaster, but he had the moral courage which makes hypocrisy impossible. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... July passed like fevered dreams; the brief sweet spring had suddenly turned into summer in a single day—a strange, stifling, menacing summer full of heavy little thunder-storms which rolled crackling and banging up the Hudson amid vivid electric displays, leaving no coolness behind their ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... mother had resumed her spinning, casting from time to time a furtive and uneasy glance at the soldiers. Nothing was to be heard save the humming of the wheel, the crackling of the fire, and the singing of the water ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... is more excitement in this hide-and-seek game, as you play it, than in the pursuits of a musty pedant," admitted the other, crackling his large knuckles. "But when are we going to spring upon friend Livius and strip ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... There was a crackling of static over the loud-speaker and then the calm voice of Tom filled the control tower. "This is Corbett on the Space ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... The fire was crackling merrily by the time the servants were seated and Diggs had turned out the ceiling and wall lights from the switch, leaving the big room in semi-darkness. The blazing logs sent a bright, nickering glow into the faces of Mr. Bingle's auditors. He bowed gravely ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... he begins to lie, with a tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your cap and flee from the house. I remember my old mother was alive then, and in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling out of doors, and had sealed up hermetically the narrow panes of our cottage, she used to sit at her wheel, drawing out a long thread in her hand, rocking the cradle with her foot, and humming a song, which I ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... ever stove like that! There's a pleasant smell to the polish as it burns off, and the wood has such a crackling, cheery sound; and the hot steam from the Indian cakes sends forth an inviting odor as the brown ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... droning undertone of croupiers; the continual, languid in-rake and out-rake of golden piles, of crackling notes, of rouleaux—on one of which the old-time Joseph could have lived so well for months: here, side by side, the much-remarked woman, the pale-faced, angel-eyed youth, quietly took their ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... old sledge by the light of a single candle. There was a race out on the lake, and a far-off merriment, with an occasional halloo, like a suggestion of a busy world somewhere, but all so softened and toned down that it did not jar on my tranquillity. There was a crackling fire of green logs as large as the guides could lift and lay on, and they simmered in the blaze, and lit up the surrounding tree-trunks and the overhanging foliage, and faintly explored the recesses of the forest beyond. I lay on the blankets, and near ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... on the philanthropists sometimes when they happened to be working in inhabited houses of the better sort. They always had to go in and out by the back way, generally through the kitchen, and the crackling and hissing of the poultry and the joints of meat roasting in the ovens, and the odours of fruit pies and tarts, and plum puddings and sage and onions, were simply maddening. In the back-yards of these houses there were usually huge stacks of empty beer, stout and wine bottles, ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... dry needles over a precious bit of his birchbark and struck a flame. In the glowing light he found other fuel, and added to the fire until the crackling blaze leaped as high as his head. The woman's face was hidden, and she looked as though she had fallen asleep in the warmth of the fire. For half an hour Mac-Veigh dragged in fuel until he had a great pile of ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... in the place, and carry him across the open space into the parlour, I hastily ran on before, got some one to help me to drag one of the light frames into the sitting-room, laced it before the fireplace, and then made up a good blazing fire on the open hearth. By the time the dry wood was crackling and sparkling out its cheery welcome, my patient arrived, and was laid down, blankets and all, on the rude little bedstead, before the blaze. By its fitful and uncertain light I proceeded to examine the enormous frame stretched so helplessly before me, feeling ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... him, his face dark with the shadow of death. This invention was so well conceived and imagined by Giulio, that it seems to be real and true, for in it one sees the fierce heat of the sun burning the wretched youth's wings, the flaming fire gives out smoke, and one almost hears the crackling of the burning plumes, while death may be seen carved in the face of Icarus, and in that of Daedalus the most bitter sorrow and agony. In our book of drawings by various painters is the original design of this very beautiful ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... honour," said the beast, casually scorching an eagle that flew by into ashes. The cinders fell, jingling and crackling, round the ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... men in armour, bruised and bleeding for them; and with school-dames' scourges in their fists do they give counsel to those who protect them from the cart and halter. In the name of the Lord, I must spit outright (or worse) upon these crackling bouncing firebrands, before I can ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... landing, they took their position on the rocks, and were delighted to find that the tiger could not retreat to the main jungle without passing them. They had not long taken up their position before they heard the crackling of the wood in the jungle, announcing the tiger's approach towards them. They fixed their bayonets and cocked their locks; the young gentleman with the knife was also prepared; but the noise in the jungle ceased. Whether it was that the tiger was afraid to attack three at the same time, or was ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... stake was the most highly inflammable that could be collected, and a mighty blaze soon spread along the pile, with its fiery spires leaping high in air, and its forked tongues hissing like serpents! Snapping, crackling, roaring! the devouring flames rushed to their work ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... to him. He gripped her by the arm. He was trembling like a leaf. The crackling of the burning house above came down to him; the cries ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... breaking fallen branches over his knee, and I groped round and filled my arms again and again with little fagots. So after a few minutes we had a fine fire crackling in a place where it could not catch the branches of the trees. Father had scraped the needles of the pines together in such a way that a bare rim of earth was left all around the fire, so that it could not spread along the ground; and presently the coffee-pot was ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... in roundly again except when he rustled his paper in the turning. The fire was crackling now, too, in sharp explosions. Beyond the arc of lamp the room was deeper than ever in shadow. Finally John Burkhardt's head relaxed again to his shirt-front, the paper falling gently away to the floor. She regarded his lips puffing out as he breathed. Hands clasped, ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... grew darker and darker with clouds; mists rose in the forests and froze into fine crystals which instantly covered Maciek's sukmana, the child's shawl, and the horses' manes with a crackling crust. The logs became so slippery that his hands could scarcely hold them; the ground was like glass. He looked anxiously towards the setting sun: it was dangerous to return with a heavy load when the roads were in that condition. He crossed ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... hour and his surroundings forgot his instructions, now steadying to a slow second fire. This was something like a counter-excitement; we were beginning to speak at last. We were delighted. It was not so much the gun reports which thrilled us as the resonant echoes which, crackling like very dry fagots in a fierce fire as the bullets sped down the long, straight street, made us realise their destroying power. Have you ever heard a high-velocity machine-gun firing down deserted and gloomy thorough-fares? It crackles all over ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... rose they, and the corse surrounded, Spreading out a pall into the air; And the sharp and sudden crackling sounded Mournfully to all the watchers there. Soon their force was spent, And the body blent With ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... finally all was ready, the young scout-master after grouping his followers around the heap, solemnly took a brand from one of the cooking fires, and with a flourish applied it to the inflammable tinder. Immediately the crackling flames shot up through the stuff prepared, and in another minute there arose a brilliant pyramid of fire that caused the neighboring trees to stand out like red ghosts. And then arose a shout from eight lusty young throats, as the Silver Fox Patrol ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... in the door and groped his way to the liquors. While he hastily swigged and smacked he heard the firing begin with a crackling, desultory volley. He laughed jovially, there in the dark, between draughts and deep ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... the churchyard directly toward the house: an immense procession! The eyes of fire are his grandfather's, and the train behind are all the dead. It advances continually toward the house, roaring, crackling, flashing. The windows burn in the reflection of dead men's eyes ... he made a mighty effort to collect himself, "For it was a dream, of course, only a dream; but let me waken! ... See: now I am awake; ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... That fireball flattened, then spread to form the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted to overtake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame and crackling with lightning the next. The armor-tender began to pitch and roll; it was all the engineer and one of the assistants could do, ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... asked for Sergeant Jeremiah Wilson. When the latter was pointed out, the man handed him the familiar yellow envelope, with the crossed signal flags on the cover, and the burning torch. An instant quiet fell in the room, as Jeremiah received the crackling paper. He took it deliberately, and with trembling fingers fumbled for his glasses. Deliberately he put them on, and deliberately abstracted the message from the envelope, while the silent troopers watched him with fascinated gaze. He unfolded the paper and stared at it, then, taking ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Jane heard the crackling of the limbs of the tree and the snap of a brace on a cot. Her frantic calls to Harriet were unanswered. Crazy Jane knew that Harriet ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... dancing firelight, the ruby that lay on the dame's forehead seemed to flicker like a live jewel in Helen's eyes; as the flame rose, her breast heaved too, a color rested on the pale cheek; as it fell, Helen fancied that she sighed; with all the quick lightning and darkening of the crackling fire the glance of the eyes shifted to and fro, the shadows round the mouth wavered; now they lowered, and now they smiled, and now the parted lips seemed just ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the discordant voice of Mariana la Mursiana, crackling in strident protest. My door was still open; I turned to look and saw her, hot-faced, tousle-haired, insufficiently wrapped, striving to ascend the gallery steps, but valiantly opposed by Madame Brossard, who ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... confidence at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 462, 463.] It was not a comfortable night in the overcrowded log house for either hosts or guests, but it was made cheery by the hearty soldiers' welcome we received, and we sat late around the crackling fire in the stone chimney after we had eaten with a relish, known only in camp, the best supper which the meagre rations of the army ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the follie of my thoughts, I said: It may be that this Nymph, by al likelihoods, is some reuerend goddesse, and therefore my speeches will be but as the crackling reedes of Archadia in the moist and fennie sides of the riuer Labdone, shaken with the sharpe east wind, with the boisterous north, cloudy south & rainie south west wind. Besides this, the gods will be seuere reuengers of such an insolencie, for the companions of Vlysses ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... smoke got stronger, and, in about as long as it would take you to count one and a half, what should happen but that the whole duckhouse was suddenly lighted up. Then there came a crackling, roaring sound, and Papa ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis
... radical—thus made a mark for gibes instead of winning honor as a martyr for the cause—began to wail and plead the men who were nearest the scene of flagellation started to laugh. The laughter spread like a fire through dry brambles. It ran crackling from side to side of the great square. It mounted into higher bursts of merriment. It became hilarity that was expended by a swelling roar that split wide the night silence and came beating back in riotous echoes from the faade of the State House. That amazing method of handling ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... help pick up the right kind of wood, for every scout has to learn such things early in his career in woodcraft. Soon a crackling little blaze sprang up, which, being carefully fed, presently amounted to ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... at one of the tables, he was disgusted to find upon his plate—not, as he had confidently expected, a couple of plump poached eggs, with their appetising contrast of ruddy gold and silvery white, not a crisp and crackling sausage or a mottled omelette, not even the homely but luscious rasher, but a brace of chill forbidding sardines, lying grim and headless ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... it was who with a gallant arm, And manly daring, took the keep at Sarnen. The Rossberg I had stormed the night before. But hear what chanced. Scarce had we driven the foe Forth from the keep, and given it to the flames, That now rose crackling upwards to the skies, When from the blaze rushed Diethelm, Gessler's page, Exclaiming, "Lady Bertha ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... burst of cheers with which "C" Troop goes tearing, thrashing into the heart of the village, swallowed up instantly in a dense cloud of dust. For a moment cheer and yell and rallying and war-cry, mingling with the thunder of hoofs and the sharp crackling of revolver and rifle, drown all other sounds. Then the screams of Indian women and children add to the clamor, and, with slashing knives, the startled braves hew their way out through the tepees. Then the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... the two small windows burned a row of candles, flickering in the draught that blew down the great chimney and swept through the little chamber. And these, with the crackling blaze upon the hearth, sent queer shadows ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... as it fell softly over the black hills and changed the river into a pale flood of rolling gold. The fragrant wreaths of smoke floated lazily away on the faint breeze of night. There was no sound save the rushing of the water and the crackling of the camp-fire on the shore. We talked of many things in the heavens above, and the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth; touching lightly here and there as the spirit of vagrant converse led us. Favonius has the good sense to talk about himself occasionally ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... without demur, and thanked me. I could see that her thin hands were trembling with excitement as she put the crackling banknote into her purse. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... In front of each tank there walked a man who bore suspended from his shoulders on his back, a white towel so that the unseen directing genius in the tank's turret could steer his way through the underbrush and crackling saplings that were crushed down under the tread of this ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... ready to go forth and do what I thought my country, your country, demanded of me. And, Gentlemen, allow me to say here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard the fagots already crackling, by the blessing of Almighty God I would have gone on and discharged the duty which I thought my country called upon me to perform. I would have become a martyr ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... round the table, doing tricks with cards. The fire was crackling in the stove, and there was a delicious smell of coffee. They were tired after the day's work and they didn't feel inclined to dress themselves to go out. One could see how they enjoyed feeling that they were at home. "You should ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... completely closed. The water running over spread to both sides on the moss. The top fagots were perfectly dry; then Dr. Weber, supplying himself with a torch, himself lit the fire. The flames ran from twig to twig with an angry crackling, and soon leaped toward the sky, chasing ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... he heaped additional fuel upon the living turf, until the blaze shone with scorching light upon everything around. Dark and desolating was the tempest within him, as he paced, with agitated steps, before the crackling fire. ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... "See, it is no longer we who will it so! Come, come!" They embrace. "Listen! my heart is almost strangling me! Ah! how beautiful it is in the shadows!" "There is some one behind us!" whispers Melisande. Pelleas has heard nothing. "I hear only your heart in the darkness." "I heard the crackling of dead leaves," insists Melisande. "A-a-h! he is behind a tree!" she whispers. "Who?" "Golaud!—he has his sword!" "And I have none!" cries Pelleas. "He does not know we have seen him," he cautions. "Do not stir; do not turn your head.—He will ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... expression in his companion's face, rose also, and for several minutes the silence was only broken by the crackling of the burning wood in the fireplace, the shrill chirp of a cricket and the plaintive call of a whip-poor-will from without. Then with a look of superstitious awe and terror upon his thin face, the moonshiner gasped, in a choking voice, "Boyd City—Richard ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... she thought that the nausea which had seized her as she surrendered would, the next instant, make flight imperative. Then her amazed ears caught the sharp bump—crack—of an eggshell against the rim of the basin, followed by a further brisk crackling just above her. She shuddered from head to foot as the egg descended with a cold slither upon her incredulous skull. Tears came to her eyes as she gave beneath the onslaught of two hugely enveloping, vigorously ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... which touched them and mingled with their dust. But public safety and the demands of science had long ago decreed that they should be whisked off, as soon as dead, a score or two at a time, and swept on iron tram-cars into furnaces heated to such intense white heat that they dissolved, crackling, even as they entered the chamber, and rose in nameless gases through the high chimney. That towering structure was the sole memorial monument of millions of them. Their graveyard was the air. Nature reclaimed her own with ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... over his task, and again the crackling waves broke away from their prison. Once his finger hesitated. He glanced surreptitiously at Crawshay. "Four degrees south," ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Then, the big revolver in her hand, she waited only for the fire to give those watching on Sagebrush the signals agreed upon. At last the flame-colored smoke burst into tongues of fire, leaping, crackling tongues which told the anxious watchers on Sagebrush that the note had been found and that all was well. A moment later three shots from the mountain opposite tore away the stillness. Donald sent back an answering three. Then five in quick succession came ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... Tu-Kila-Kila's palace-temple from the rear, where the big tree, which overshadowed it with its drooping branches, was most easily approachable. As he and Toko crept on, bending low, through that dense tropical scrub, in deathly silence, they were aware all the time of a low, crackling sound that rang ever some paces in the rear on their trail through the forest. It was Tu-Kila-Kila's Eyes, following them stealthily from afar, footstep for footstep, through the dense undergrowth of bush, and ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... was a thunderous crackling and roaring. Harper felt himself flying about, and for an instant of awful vertigo he did not know up from down. Forces seemed to be tearing at him. He felt as though he were a piece of iron being attracted simultaneously in several ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... burn up immediately, as though soaked with some inflammable liquid. I rose, and went out to see if there were anything wrong. As I opened the door which shut off the whole apartment from the stairs, I heard a strange crackling sound, and outside the window of the staircase, which was in the back of the house, I saw a red glare, which brightened in the moment while I watched it. I did not go further, for I knew the danger ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... sudden, while I stood hesitating, blaming myself for being without matches, I heard the movement repeated. Someone was quickly receding—escaping from the spot. I listened again. The sound was not of the rustling of leaves or the crackling of dried sticks, but the low thuds of a man's feet racing over softer ground. He had scaled the rough stone dyke and was out in ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... the bushes and lay still. At the sharp report of the white man's weapon the firing all around ceased suddenly. But the intense silence that followed was broken by a strange sound like the shrill blast of a steam whistle mingled with the crackling of sheets of tin rapidly shaken and doubled. Noreen, crouching submissively in the shelter where Dermot had placed her, thrilled and wondered ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... applied in several parts to a dry wood and crackling shrubs of laurel, or as with impetuous fall from the steep mountains, foaming torrents pour down to the ocean, each clearing a destructive course."—AEneid, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of the orrery, a fat-faced Ser came in with a long tube and began working the molten sky material, getting the feel of it. He did things Hanson knew were nearly impossible, and he did them with the calm assurance of an expert. Even when another rift in the sky appeared with a crackling of thunder, there was no faltering on his part. The sky shell and world supports were blown into shape around the world model inside the outer tracks in one continuous operation. The Ser then clipped the stuff from his tube and sealed the tiny opening smoothly with a bit of sun material on ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... Plunging through the crackling greasewood at the side of the road, the Yuma colt leaped toward the car. In broad sombrero, blue silk neckerchief, blue flannel shirt, and silver-studded leather chaps, was a strangely familiar figure. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... already burning itself out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap would not be able to move on for some time, Alpatych got down and turned into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a man in a frieze ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... circle of light shone plainly at the top of the stairs. Someone was coming down. Ricky's breath was warm on Val's cheek and she moved with a faint crackling of her cape which sounded as loud as ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... quarters he had discovered. There, indeed, they stripped off their wet clothing and hung it in front of the fire, which, by diligent prodding and by an addition of logs which lay beside it, was soon giving off a fine heat, and was crackling and ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... by an old man who keeps the place; we found him cooking his supper over a small crackling fire of sticks, which he had lighted in the main hall; his feeble old voice chirps about San Carlo this and San Carlo that as we go from room to room. We have no carpets here—plain honest brick floors—the chairs, indeed, have once been covered with velvet, ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... gone, and before the crackling logs on the andirons in the library Mary Cary, on her knees, held out her hands to their blaze and ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... black, was always in motion and shimmered with infinite changes. There never was a more sensitive, nervous, and electric animal. If she were stroked two or three times, in the dark, blue sparks came crackling from her fur. She attached herself to me in particular, just as in the novel Eponine becomes attached to Marius. As I was less taken up with Cosette than that handsome youth, I accepted the love of my affectionate and devoted cat, who ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... an old hacknied abuse of NERO, that when Rome was in flame he accompanied the crackling of doors and rafters with his very best fiddle. We grant this showed a want of fine sympathy on the part of NERO; there was, nevertheless, a boldness, an exhibition of nerve, in such instrumentation. Any way, it leaves us with a higher ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... voyageur was right. As he spoke he pointed with one band to the loopholes. We saw a red glare spreading farther and farther across the trampled snow crust, and heard a hissing, crackling noise. The dead Indian had ignited the heaped-up material, probably by means ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... forgive God Almighty!" cried the brutal captain. The fourth boatswain's mate, with a fresh cat-o-nine-tails swung it about his head and brought the terrible scourge hissing and crackling on the young and tender back. Fernando turned his face away ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... of magnolia leaves Rasps with the crackling scratch of old brocade, The low bird-voices ripple like the laugh Of Watteau beauties coiffured, with pomade; Here ribboned dandies offered scented snuffs To other ghosts, beneath the giant trees— Was that a flash of rose-flamingo stuffs— Azaleas?—was ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... bases, Jimmie slipped from tree to tree. Ahead of him he heard the stranger trampling upon dead twigs, moving rapidly as one who knew his way. At times through the branches Jimmie could see the broad shoulders of the stranger, and again could follow his progress only by the noise of the crackling twigs. When the noises ceased, Jimmie guessed the stranger had reached the wood road, grass-grown and moss-covered, that led to Middle Patent. So, he ran at right angles until he also reached it, and as now he was close to where it entered the main ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... exhausted, I amused the coachman with anecdotes of the supernatural—stories of ghosts, wraiths, apparitions, and second sight; but he professed himself a disbeliever, and I thought I had failed to make any impression on him, till at last he started at the crackling of a twig, and the gleaming whiteness of a silver birch. He would have liked the stories better, he confessed at length, if the night had not been ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... fifteen thousand miles for this glad occasion: GUCCHI mushrooms from Kashmir, canned RASAGULLA and mango pulp, PAPAR biscuits, and an oil of the Indian KEORA flower which flavored our ice cream. The evening found us grouped around a huge sparkling Christmas tree, the near-by fireplace crackling with logs ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... tea-table, and the steam rises in a little jet from a tiny hole in the top. The boiling water comes out of a tap at the bottom. Old Peter threw in the lighted sticks and charcoal, and made a draught to draw the heat, and then set the samovar on the table with the little fire crackling in its inside. Then he cut some big lumps of black bread. Then he took a great saucepan full of soup, that was simmering on the stove, and emptied it into a big wooden bowl. Then he went to the wall where, on three nails, hung three wooden spoons, deep like ladles. ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... him at the gathering-place of the wood, and returned to the lodge. Toward night-fall she heard his little footsteps crackling through the snow, and he hurried in and threw down, with an air of triumph, one of the birds which he had killed. "My sister," said he, "I wish you to skin it, and stretch the skin, and when I have killed more, I will have a coat made ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... heart, lest it should burst with grief and sadness. The carriage was to conduct the young King into his kingdom. Faithful Henry helped them both in, and placed himself behind again, and was full of joy because of this deliverance. And when they had driven a part of the way, the King's son heard a crackling behind him as if something had broken. So he turned round and cried, "Henry, the carriage ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... of wind cut off his answer, the blue glare of lightning suddenly drenched them, and the crackling of thunder tore a path across the sky. The umbrella was wrenched from Susan and her wail as the biscuits fell pierced the tumult with the thin, futile note of human dole. He had no time to help her, for the tent with an exultant wrench tore itself ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... they found, when they came in sight of it, and they thrilled with excitement and joyful alarm. Suppose 'Lias's dreadful stepfather should come out and yell at them! They came forward on tiptoe, making a great deal of noise by stepping on twigs, rustling bushes, crackling gravel under their feet and doing all the other things that make such a noise at night and never do in the daytime. But nobody stirred inside the room with the lighted window. They crept forward and peeped cautiously inside ... and stopped giggling. The dim light coming from a little ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... Nevski! But it was quite natural that night. The town seemed to me blazing with light. Of course that it cannot have been; there can have only been the stars and some bonfires. And perhaps we stopped at the police-courts which were crackling away. I don't remember that, but I know that somewhere there were clouds of golden sparks opening into the sky and mingling with the stars—a wonderful sight, flocks of golden birds and behind them ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... different parts of the building, springing aloft in spiral coils from the marble pavement that yawned crashingly open to give the impetuous flames their rapid egress, . . fire climbed lithely round and round the immense carven columns, and ran, nimbly dancing and crackling its way among the painted and begemmed decorations of the dome, ... fire enwrapped the side-altars, and shrivelled the jewelled idols at a breath, . . fire unfastened and shook down the swinging-lamps, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... than half-a-dozen steps when a hissing, crackling sound caught his ear and he paused to listen. What could it be? He went to the door from whence the sound proceeded. As he did so he noticed an unmistakable smell ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... till the daylight came; And down the stairs I stole, and there was our housekeeping dame (No mother of me, the foundling) kindling the fire betimes Ere the haymaking folk went forth to the meadows down by the limes; All things I saw at a glance; the quickening fire-tongues leapt Through the crackling heap of sticks, and the sweet smoke up from it crept, And close to the very hearth the low sun flooded the floor, And the cat and her kittens played in the sun by the open door. The garden was fair in the morning, and there in the road he stood Beyond the crimson daisies and the ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... great-great-great-grandfather's log cabin with hostile Indians about. It might, as her great-great-grandmother Letitia had said, be much worse. So she knitted soberly, and the other Letitia knitted, and neither spoke, and there was not a sound except the crackling of the hearth fire and bubbling of water in a large iron pot which swung from the crane, until suddenly there was a frantic pounding at the door, and a sound as if somebody were hurled ...
— The Green Door • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Which will have to be turned by hand, through a thousand revolutions, And through a thousand circles it moves the pivot. When you put a kernel in, you will turn the handle with quick hand— No delay—and you will wonder how the crackling kernel is With much grinding quickly reduced to a powder. Once only the lower compartment receives on its kindly bosom The crushed grains, which are placed in the very ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... passage of the ugly wild-looking little harbour, supposed to be full of the skeletons of men and carcasses of ships. It looked like the mouth of a cavern, rather than the entrance of a port. They could hear the crackling of the pile on high within the iron grating. A ghastly purple illuminated the storm; the collision of the rain and hail disturbed the mist. The black cloud and the red flame fought, serpent against serpent; live ashes, reft by the wind, flew from the fire, and the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... and swelled through all the forest, died away, then swelled and died again. From the dark wall of the trees came the crackling fire of rifles. No one ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... up and crossed over to his sleeping pile. After tying several skins together, he folded them under his arm and walked out into the pre-dawn night. His bones felt the crackling cold of early spring as they had never felt it before. Slowly he made his way around the village to where Thor was housed under a huge slanting roof of bark and scraped skins. He'd never seen Thor, and now wished he'd paid at least one ...
— Regeneration • Charles Dye
... the lights of his cabin; and the thud of oars, the voluble noises of the water, and the crackling of the cresset overhead had, too, the quality of impersonal and supernatural ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... hinder that, he thought better of it, and suffered her to go and give her finishing touches; watching her all the time, as she felt, but without speaking; and when Cindy shut the door and tramped down stairs, the room was very still. Only the light crackling of the hickory sticks in the chimney, and those soft movements about the table. If ever such movements were made with pleasure—if ever a face of very deep peacefulness hovered over the placing and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... frightened eyes at the burning house. They won't forget that sight, I'll bet a sovereign, not even when they grow up. We rode away and left them, a forlorn little group, standing among their household goods—beds, furniture, and gimcracks strewn about the veldt; the crackling of the fire in their ears, and smoke and flame streaming overhead. The worst moment is when you first come to the house. The people thought we had called for refreshments, and one of the women went to get milk. Then we had to tell them that we had come to ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... see," said the doctor laughing. "Perhaps it would go better, my boy, if the dampers were not shut up tight. All it needs is a little draught,—see?" And in a moment there was a comfortable crackling sound ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... to work, and very soon a brisk fire was crackling in the great stove that stood at one end of the room, gaily ornamented with its long rows of coloured Dutch tiles. He placed his mother carefully in a warm corner, sat down beside her, and then began: 'Rudorf the journeyman ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... eleven clans stopped in the center of the circle, and a silence, broken only by the crackling of the fires and the sputtering of the torches, came once more over the great assembly. But a thousand eager faces were turned toward them. The Shawnees and Miamis apparently had not yet moved, still standing in rows, every face an ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... The enemy agent overhears. The false news is sent crackling through the ether to Berlin (wireless, my dear, in the cellar, of course). The German General Staff looks up the village on a map, and sticks into it a flag marked 17. Not 580, mark you. And the General Staff frowns, and Majesty pushes the ends of its moustache ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... answer 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
... there—mind the furrow, Tim." The man who was loading prepared himself for the shock, and the waggon safely jolted over the furrow, and on between the wakes of light-brown hay, crackling to the touch as if it would catch fire in the brilliant sunshine. The pitchers, one on each side, stuck their prongs into the wakes and sent up great "pitches," clearing the ground rapidly, through emulation, for it was a point of honour to ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... profound, save for the crackling of the pages as she turned them over, and an occasional long-drawn ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... that the flesh of a pet pig, accidentally roasted in the destruction by fire of his owner's house, proved delicious to the palate, the Chinese for years made a practice of burning down their houses to get roast pig with "crackling." Early experimenters in aviation observed that birds flapped their wings and flew. Accordingly they believed that man to fly must have wings and flap them likewise. Not for hundreds of years did they observe that most birds flapped their wings only to get headway, ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... roof, and the shingled screen of the veranda; had darted up the dry wooden stairway, devouring banister, railing, and snapping pine floor, and then, billowing forth from every crack, crevice, and casement of the upper floor streamed hissing and crackling on the blackness that precedes the dawn, a magnificent glare that put to shame the feeble signal fires lately gleaming in the mountains. Luckily there was no wind—there never was a wind at Sandy—and the flames leaped straight for the zenith, lashing their way into the huge ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... from the low hanging clouds, circled about their heads, throwing a lurid glare on the countenances of all on deck. Once more all was dark; then again the forked lightning burst forth hissing and crackling through the air, leaping along the waves and playing round the quivering masts. Now the big ship plunged into the trough of the sea with a force which made it seem as if she was never going to rise again; ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... most luscious cuts are baked in a pot in an oven, and the fat poured out into a bladder, as it runs out of the meat, for hog's-lard. When all the lard has been drained off, the remains (which are called cracklings, being then baked quite crisp) resemble the crackling on a leg of pork, are eaten with potatoes, and from the quantity of salt previously added to them, to preserve the lard, are unpalatable to many mouths. The rough farmers' men, however, devour them as a savoury dish, and every time "lard" is being made, cracklings are served up for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... Market street about that time was a crackling mass of flames. Mr. Anthony made his way to Eighth and Market, thence down Eighth to Townsend and to Third street, and the entire section which he traversed was afire, making it impossible for him to reach his destination. He attempted to back track, but found ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum |
