"Creak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... held back. At last Tom rose slowly and softly, and started alone. But the first step he made wrung such a hideous creak from the crazy floor that he sank down almost dead with fright. He never made a second attempt. The boys lay there counting the dragging moments till it seemed to them that time must be done and eternity growing gray; and then they were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... playing hide and seek behind the bushes across the way; the call of their mother summoning them to bed. The tinkle of a piano down the street; the whine of a Victrola in another home; the cry of a baby in pain; the murmur of talk on the porch next door; the slamming of a door; the creak of a gate; footsteps going down the brick pavement; the swinging to and fro of a hammock holding happy lovers under the rose pergola at Joneses. She could identify them all, and found her heart was listening for another sound, a smooth running car ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... opportunity to land. I can't imagine where the light comes from unless it be from the people waiting for the arrival of the sun." Every instant the speed was lessening. Overhead the cables were beginning to creak and groan, and, now and then, the great globe swung perilously near some tall stony peak, or passed under a mighty stalactite. Slower and slower it got till, when within a few feet of the ground, it stopped its onward motion and only swung back and ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... wide, with creak and din; A blast of cold night-air came in, And on the threshold shivering stood A one-eyed guest, with cloak and hood. Dead ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the day, there was little sign of change, beyond an indefinable presence of busier life, even in the hush of the hot autumnal noon. But at night the drawbridges rose and the portcullises descended—each with its own peculiar creak, and jar, and scrape, setting the young rooks cawing in reply from every pinnacle and tree-top—never later than the last moment when the warder could see anything larger than a cat on the brow ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... noise—the creak of a rustic wooden gate on its hinges; a figure approached. And then it was given to me to gaze upon Her Highness the Shereefa of Wazan. She was not called Zuleika, but Emily—her maiden name had been Keene, and she came not from the rose-bordered bowers of Bendemeer's stream, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... unintentionally—here he was, prettily trapped; and for the life of him he could see no way out of it again. The darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all was silent without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy creak—as though many persons were at his side, holding themselves quite still, and governing even their respiration with the extreme of slyness. The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly as if to defend his life. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... nothing; I was too chilled to feel; I was as alone and powerless as a lost canoe in the ocean; but somewhere on earth or in air I heard a company of men pass me by. The sounds were unmistakable. I heard the swish of wet leaves, the pad of feet, and even the creak of the damp leather of the carrying-straps. Something cracked, pricking in my ears in a blur of sound, and I knew that the men had brushed a branch with the canoe that they were carrying on their heads. They were near me; at ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... gear all ready beside me, I sat on the matted floor of the hut in which I lived, smoking my pipe and listening to the fury of the squalls as the force of the wind bent and swayed the thatched roof, and made the cinnet-tied rafters and girders creak and work to and fro under the strain. Suddenly the wicker-work door on the lee side was opened, and Nalik jumped in, dripping with rain, but ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... a long time munching the cake, and before they had finished it began to be rather dark, because a thunder-storm was coming up. The wind rose and made the old tree rock, and creak, and tremble. The little Fairies were so frightened that they got out of the nest and crept ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... closing of a door," he replied; "but before that I had distinctly heard a stair creak. Someone crossed the hall then, Knox. Yet, as you perceive for yourself, it affords ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... and bewilder with their geometric cruelty and coldness. One gets no intimation that in fashioning them the composer has liberated himself. On the contrary, they seem icy and brain-spun. They are like men formed not out of flesh and bone and blood, but out of glass and wire and concrete. They creak and groan and grate in their motion. They have all the deathly pallor ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... was not a particularly loud noise, but it seemed to consist of a series of thuds or heavy blows, such as might be struck on a wooden door by a man seeking to enter. They were followed by something like a faint creak or crack, as if the obstacle had either been opened or had given way. He opened his own bedroom door and listened, but as he heard talk and laughter all over the lower floors, he had no reason to fear that a summons would be neglected or the house left without protection. He went to his open window, ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... She expected to see no one; looked for no one. A moment she paused by the door that led into the garden, and in that pause she heard a slight sound. It might have been anything. It probably was a creak from one of the wicker chairs that stood in a corner. Whatever its origin, it startled her to greater haste. She fumbled at the door and pulled ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... carried up to him an impression of mixed doubt and discomfort—ultimate disbelief in his possession of arms, an energetic oath or two, and another creak ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... in the great trees above them, the chatter of a squirrel remonstrating against this intrusion into his solitude, a strange sad bird-note farther up the mountain, and the occasional fall of a leaf or creak of a limb as it rubbed shoulders with its neighbor, broke the silence. Once in a clearing a deer and her fawn gazed at them with wondering eyes before leaping through the ferns into the safe shelter ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... Perhaps it would be well to go armed. He took the Indian knife from its hiding place, and felt a pleasant return of his wandering courage. He slipped stealthily down the narrow stair, his hair rising and his pulses halting at the slightest creak. When he was halfway down, he was disturbed to perceive that the landing below was touched by a faint glow of light. What could that mean? Was his uncle still up? No, that was not likely; he must have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... folk-lore of the place, and soon surpassed Harriet herself in the interpretation of dreams and the reading of signs and tokens. She began to invent methods of divination for herself too, such as, "If the boards don't creak when I walk across the room I shall get through my lessons without trouble this morning," a trick which soon became a confirmed habit into which she was apt to lapse at any time; and so persistent are these early impressions that to the end of her days she ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... nearing midnight, the bookcase behind me cracks. I start and turn. Nothing. There is a creak of ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... XIII. Then come the creak of cables and the cries Of seamen. Clouds the darkened heavens have drowned, And snatched the daylight from the Trojans' eyes. Black night broods on the waters; all around From pole to pole the rattling peals resound And frequent flashes ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... and it was the law for the convict's children to wear these things. 'To-night,' said the Prince, 'you shall wear a ring of gold and be a Princess,' and he commanded John to file away the ring and take her upon his horse. They rode across the creak and came to the palace; and the Prince, after kissing his father and mother, said, 'I have brought you all kinds of presents from abroad; but best of all I have brought home a bride.' His parents, who wondered at her beauty, and never doubted but ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... after this that, when we wake up, we find that the tossing and rocking motion has ceased; it is curiously quiet, the iron plates that bind the ship together no longer creak and groan as if they were in agony. We are bewildered. Then in a moment the meaning of all this flashes upon ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... much longer than we suspect, sometimes in their own nakedness, sometimes in the stolen garb of the Madonna or the saints. Who knows whether they do not exist to this day? And, indeed, is it possible they should not? For the awfulness of the deep woods, with their filtered green light, the creak of the swaying, solitary reeds, exists, and is Pan; and the blue, starry May night exists, the sough of the waves, the warm wind carrying the sweetness of the lemon-blossoms, the bitterness of the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... there are three such basins, placed one above the other, as if they were stages by which the precious water mounts to the fields of corn and lucerne. And then three "shadufs," one above the other, creak together, lowering and raising their great scarabaeus' horns to the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... somebody was on the road, but she would not look. She heard the latch of the gate and the creak of its hinges. Somebody was behind her. How softly Tunis stepped! She thought that he was approaching her quietly, believing he could surprise her. In a moment she would feel his arms about her and would surprise him by laying her head back against his breast and ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... umbrella, as it threatens rain. In his absence, I will ask you to listen while I walk about in his room. One can't be too particular, when rest is of such importance to your young lady—and it has struck me as just possible, that the floor of his room may be in fault. My dear, the boards may creak! I'm a sad fidget, I know; but, if the carpenter can set things right—without any horrid hammering, of course!—the sooner he is sent for, the more ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... his addled wits to invent some plausible way to elude this Amazon) he was at once startled and still further dismayed to hear the bed-springs creak, a light double thump as two bare feet found the floor, and again the woman's voice flavoured ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... But although a Presbyterian in practice, Sir Walter in several parts of his works expressed his dissent from several of the rigid canons of that Church, and an example occurs in that graphic scene in the Antiquary, the funeral group of Steenie Mucklebacket, where "the creak of the screw nails announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in the act of being secured above its tenant. The last act which separates us for ever from the mortal relicks of the person we assemble ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... kept moving about in her room. Poor Nora could scarcely restrain herself from calling out, "Oh, do be quick, Linda! What are you staying up for?" but she refrained from saying the fatal words. Presently she heard the creak of Linda's bed as she got into it. This was followed ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... the floor of the verandah with his bare feet at each step, lest the boards should creak a little under his weight. He reached the window door of his own room, and slipped into the darkness ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... out the candle and slipped the end into his pocket, as he tiptoed after Dan down the stairs. At every step the old boards seemed to creak as though in pain. As they paused breathless half-way down on the landing, they heard no sound save the loud ticking of the clock in the hall below and the gentle whispering of the breeze without. The moon gave light enough had they needed it, but each of them could have ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... rise to the occasion, but that wouldn't work, and time was passing, so I turned to bribery, but by good fortune I'll keep my racket yet. At this very moment she will be feeling her way cautiously down that stair, and he'll be hearing the creak, and coming forward to see the cause. All bluey white they'll be, and each one so scared by the sight of the other that they'll hardly dare to breathe. Listen now while I open the door, and you may hear ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... creak, then opened like a door, though very unwillingly, as though its hinges had been fixed for a long, long time and rusted in the damp, which was indeed the case. Inside of it, like a corpse in an upright coffin, appeared a figure, a square, strong figure, clad in a tattered monk's robe, surmounted ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... first glimmer of day came relief, but she did not sleep. The night's terror had left her nerves too shaken for repose. Yet as the sun rose and the farmyard sounds began, as she heard the mill-wheel creak and turn and the rush and roar of the water below, common sense came to her aid, and she was able to tell herself that her night alarm might have been due to nothing more ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... He waddled up, put his arm about Johnny, and leaned back sturdily. The bear looked up again and growled, this time more earnestly. The luncheon was about finished. Johnny set his teeth and pulled again. The baby added, say, thirty pounds to the pull. It was just what was needed. There was a creak at the top ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... the sullen timbers creak, With echoings deep and numb; No other sound: nor groan nor shriek; ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... return to Neeland, but that young man motioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in the passage creak open a little way, ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... scratched his hands at the bramble-hedge and, half raising himself, slowly, with restrained movements, put the key into the lock. He turned it gently. Would the door open without an effort? Was there no bolt closing it on the other side? He pushed: the door opened, without a creak or jolt. He was ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... a far-away look in his eyes, while the aged servant followed him weeping. The sun was setting, and over the eastern sky was flung a heavy curtain of clouds. A dry wind shook the tree-tops and made the bamboo clumps creak. Ibarra went bareheaded, but no tear wet his eyes nor did any sigh escape from his breast. He moved as if fleeing from something, perhaps the shade of his father, perhaps the approaching storm. He crossed through the town to the outskirts on the opposite side and turned ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Few travelers passed by their cabin in the winter, but he was sure that he heard a faint noise in the distance. It sounded like the creak of wheels. The noise came again—this time much closer. A man's ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... precisely the first of June—when a thunderstorm was blowing up from the south-west, and scattering the smoke of the Five Towns to the four corners of the world, and making the weathercock of the house of the Ebags creak, the ladies Ebag and Carl Ullman sat together as usual in the drawing-room. The French window was open, but banged to at intervals. Carl Ullman had played the piano and the ladies Ebag—Mrs Ebag, somewhat comfortably stout and Miss Ebag spare—were talking very well and sensibly about ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... with tapestry moth-eaten and filled with spiders! And what have we for table?—a board laid on cross-bars! And the oaken chairs are rush-bottomed, and so straight the backs are a persecution! The door hinges creak in these ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... her hind-feet. Then she'd give a big jump, casual-like, to one side of the path, and sit down again, with her ears twitching and turning as if she thought there was mischief in every flutter of a leaf or creak of ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... did this he did not know. He didn't wish to wake her up, and the slight creak of the broad bedstead had sounded very loud to him. He turned round apprehensively and waited for her to move, but she did not stir. While he looked at her, he had a vision of himself lying there too, also fast asleep, and—it occurred to him for the first time in his life—very ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... outside. There was a rumble of wheels and the rattle of a hansom. The hansom came nearer and nearer. It stopped in the outside courtyard. There was the noise of a curb-chain as if the horse were shaking its head. The doors of the hansom opened with a creak and banged back on their spring. A voice, a woman's voice, said "Good-night!" and another voice, a man's voice, answered, "Good-night and thank you, miss!" Then the cab wheels turned and went off. All his senses seemed to have gone into ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... it. Then he cut out a pane of glass—it was all A.B.C. to him—put his hand in and raised the sash a little; then it was simple to push it up from below. But the sash had not been raised for years; it stuck; when it yielded to his efforts, it gave a loud creak. He flung one leg over the window-sill and sat poised there, listening. The room was lighted up; but if there were anyone in it, he must be asleep, or very hard of hearing, or that creak ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... midst of my surprise, when the door opened with a very slight creak, and in walked a slim figure so silently that I knew it ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the thud of some sudden fall or collapse. She listened. The bell swallowed all other noise. She thought that she had been mistaken, but the tapping at the window began again, now insistent; the church bell suddenly stopped and in the silence that followed one could hear the slight creak of some bough driven by the sea-wind against ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... to make a big attempt at it," answered the miner. They heard the rope creak and knew that he had thrown his ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... That was the thing that worried me. I'd just made up my mind to have a lucid interval, when cr-creak, the front door opened, ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... most he chirps beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of Autumn o'er ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... able to regard it as among things commonplace. The rumbling and rattling of waggons and carts, the loading and unloading of boxes and bales, the people who are late, and the people who are early, the faces which are excited, and the faces which are sad, the trunks and bales, and cranes which creak and groan, the shouts and cries, the hurry and confusion of movement, notwithstanding that every day has seen them all for years, have a sort of perennial interest ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... adolescence she had passed through a long period of abject superstition, largely through the influence of a servant. All the old woman's signs were very dominant in her life. She even invented methods of divination, as, "if the boards do not creak when I walk across the room I shall get through my lessons without trouble." She always preferred to see two rooks together to one and became expert in the black arts. She used to hear strange noises at night for a time, which seemed signs and ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... broom-colored hair or stroking his large, long chin, while his shirt-tab moved ceaselessly in time to his breathing, he read a Norwegian paper. Carl's mother darned woolen socks and thought about milk-pans and the neighbors and breakfast. The creak of rockers filled the unventilated, oilcloth-floored sitting-room. The sound was as unchanging as the sacred positions of the crayon enlargement of Mrs. Ericson's father, the green-glass top-hat for matches, or the violent ingrain ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... heard what he had heard first—they heard the tonk-tonk-tonk of a cowbell, coming near and nearer toward them along the hallway without. It was as though the sound floated along. There was no creak of footsteps upon the loose, bare boards—and the bell jangled faster than it would dangling from a cow's neck. The sound came right to the door and Squire Gathers wallowed among the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... up the search in despair, after sweeping with his two hands every spot of the wall-surface around him, when chancing to turn his whole body a little to one side, he heard a creak, and saw a thin lance of light. His foot had unconsciously pressed some spring laid in the floor. The jamb was ajar. Pushing it open, he stood at liberty, in the ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... and again, my puppets or my plot-wires creak a bit noisily,—what then? Creaking, at worst, is a sure indication of movement,—of action,—of incessant progress of sorts. A thing that creaks is not standing still and gathering mildew. It moves. Otherwise ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... heard the thud of the music book on the organ, the creak of the treadle,—and when he returned to consciousness he was Mrs. Mason's son-in-law, and proud of it. And she,—bless her heart and the hearts of all good women who give up the joy of their lives to us ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... behind her door, with her ears pricked up to catch the first sound. When everybody had gone to bed, she went downstairs and hid herself, until break of day, in a recess in the entrance-hall. She was prepared to spring out at the least creak on the stair, for she felt convinced that Suzanne would slip out in the dark with the object of joining Philippe. This time, Marthe would have killed her. And her jealousy was so exasperated that she lay in wait, not with fear, but with the fierce hope that ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... said no more; but angry, fiery rays, From scars his visage bore, seemed suddenly to blaze. Four times he turned his heel upon, Then bade the door stand wide, or ere his foot he stayed; With one long creak the door obeyed, And lo! the bearded ghaist ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... the one to object to you keeping your mouth shut," he returned. "Jammed logs"—the phrase stuck in his mind—"jammed logs don't creak any; but when it comes to joining forces, like two jams together for instance, there's got to be, in the nature of things, some demonstration. What I'm aiming at is this. Has this here Myst. meant business or has he not? I'm a man of the world—so is Gaston—he ain't never ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... fatigue of body, and something like illness; and on that a great terror. If they drugged her in her food? The thought was like a knife in the girl's heart, and while she still writhed on it, her ear caught the creak of a board in the passage, and a furtive tread that came, and softly went again, and once more returned. She stood, her heart beating; and fancied she heard the sound of breathing on the other side of the door. Then her eye alighted on a something white at the foot of the door, that had not been ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... had all that lot of bullion in the whole course of my life before. Are you right now, Kathleen—can you slip upstairs without making any noise? Don't forget that the step just before you reach the upper landing gives a great creak like the report of a pistol; hop over it on to the landing itself, and you are safe. Alice is in bed, snoring like anything; I ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... the creak of a footstep on the kitchen stairs, Lawford also had drawn soundlessly back into the darkness ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... loved by women. I don't call them, I don't lure them, they come to me of themselves." He seated himself on a bag of flour and told us how the women loved him and how he handled them boldly. Then he went away, and when the door closed behind him with a creak, we were silent for a long time, thinking of him and of his stories. And then suddenly we all began to speak, and it became clear at once that he pleased every one of us. Such a kind and plain fellow. He came, sat awhile and talked. Nobody came to us before, nobody ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... straightened up suddenly on the couch, himself again. He touched the slip of paper which she had pinned to his coat to make sure it was not all a dream, after which he recalled the fact that while he had heard the door creak before she went out he had not heard it creak afterward. Therefore, the door was open. She had left it open. Purposely? That was beside the ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... on into the dining-room. Mrs. Thorne knocked, in a whisper as it were. There was no answer. She softly unlatched the door, and a draft of air crept through, widening it with a prolonged and wistful creak. The sleeper did not stir. She had changed her pillows to the foot of the bed, and was lying in the full light, with her window-curtains drawn. In all the room there was an air of abandonment, an exhausted memory of the night's despairing heat. Mrs. Thorne stepped ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... said he, with a motion that made you expect to hear his back creak (it was intended for a bow)—"please, sir, can I do ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... and he is General of France, in the King's stead, for four-and-twenty hours; Sieur Motier must step forth, with that sublime chivalrous gait of his; solemnly ascend the steps of the Fatherland's Altar, in sight of Heaven and of the scarcely breathing Earth; and, under the creak of those swinging Cassolettes, 'pressing his sword's point firmly there,' pronounce the Oath, To King, to Law, and Nation (not to mention 'grains' with their circulating), in his own name and that of armed France. Whereat there ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... nature has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes in her dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows us upstairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... "But what was that?—the creak of a timber not louder than if a mouse had stirred. And, directed by the faint sound, I saw the wooden bolt that fastened the door on the inside heave, just once, as if by the pressure of a lever cautiously at work on the other side. The hammer slipped ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... he muttered, and thrusting his arm through, he reached the lock, turned the key, and the door swung open with a dismal creak. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... of air stirring, and not a sound upon the night except for the placid and continual gurgle of the stream which had no voice at all by day. Yes. One other sound there was, a sound as of some one moving uneasily in a creaking chair. Creak, creak, creak It grew momently. Crackle, crackle, crackle. Still it grew. A tongue like the tongue of a snake—so light and fine and swift was it—flashed out of a crevice, and flew back again, flashed out again, and ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... fed his face while first his cheeks would dimple with the gladness o' the moment, an' then his eyes would sadden as he thought of all the good eatin' he had missed by not knowin' the proper kind o' diplomacy to use in handlin' a cook. An' me!—say, I mowed away until my skin begun to creak under the strain an' I couldn't roll my eyes more'n two degrees. Then I got up an' I shook ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... Political Economy is useful in this sense, even where it is wrong; because at least it does give a system, and therefore forces its opponents to present an alternative system, instead of simply cutting a hole in the shoe when it pinches, or striking out the driving wheel because it happens to creak unpleasantly. And I think so the more because I cannot but observe that whenever a real economic question presents itself, it has to be argued on pretty much the old principles, unless we take the heroic method of discarding argument altogether. I should be the last to ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... bridge and shot off into space on the other side like a hurdler clearing an obstacle. With a creak and a thud the big car landed, reeled drunkenly, and straightened out in earnest, Maclaren craned his head to see the speedometer, but had not the heart to look; he ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... it but the chuckling mutter of the tide along the buoys, But the creak of straining cables, but the night wind's mournful noise, Sighing with a rising murmur in among the ropes and spars, Setting every shroud and backstay singing shanties to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... a grating creak, But only to himself would speak. Groaning with tears in piteous pain, "O! O! would I were ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... Scatcherd, she did not even show herself. She kept in her own little room, sending out Hannah to ask him up the stairs; and she only just got a peep at him through the door as she heard the medical creak of his shoes as ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... hand over hand, until he reached the Comfort's bow. I heard the thump of the anchor as he dragged it into the dory. Then came the creak and splash of oars. His voice sounded from ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... inner room. After the lamp was blown out and everything was dark, her mother heard a soft stir and the pat of a naked foot in there, then she heard the door swing to with a cautious creak and the bolt slide. She knew with a great pang, that Lois had locked ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... noiselessly upon the terrace below. His nerves quivered as he sat astride the window-sill but he set his jaw and lowered himself from the window, catching the iron gutter-pipe with bare fingers and toes. The spout seemed to creak horribly, and for a moment he thought that it was swaying outward with him. But the sensation was born of his own weakness. The pipe held and slowly he descended, reaching the ground, his knuckles bruised and ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... silence, studying his hostess so perpetually that Anne's nerves began to creak at last under ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs without. What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our tread? - a miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all comfort, save that which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man: his elbows on his knees: his forehead ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... was stirring, and the absolute quiet that prevailed was broken only by the moving men and the rhythmic creak, creak of the snow-shoes as they came in contact with the hard ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... creak and show signs of toppling over, give it a few sharp blows and as it falls jump sideways. Never jump or run backward. This is one way that men get killed in the woods. A falling tree will often kick backward like a shot. It will rarely go far to either side. Of course a falling ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... the Lass. When it was pitch-black we cast off the lines, an' she drifted out on the ebb tide, which just there runs easy a knot an' a half. Then we got up our headsails so as to get steerage-way on her, and bless my soul if the blocks made a creak! Might have been pullin' silk thread through a fur mitten, for ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the cousin of Red Feather, the wise man who might help us. I heard the rattle of the bar as the helper lifted it, then the creak of the gate. Then a furious outcry, a confusion of howls and screams, a war-whoop and a rush of feet. The Indians were within the stockade. A moment later they burst into the shop and advanced upon us, uttering blood-curdling whoops and brandishing their hatchets and knives. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... heavy-scented with the odour of flowers, and the hum of the night insects was everywhere in the air. Close to the wall I saw the figures of my scouts. The noise of the tramp of feet, the creak of waggons, and the voice of command came to me from ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... there were no visions of walking to death with a "firm tread," as the papers say, and "dying game" before the admiring eyes of soldiers and natives. With him it was steel-ribbed facts. He could hear the bang of the trap, the snap of the rope, and the quivering creak of the scaffold. And afterward, the lonely, hopeless years. Besides, the dishonor of it. What irony to parade with thirty years of service chevrons on his sleeves, and be pointed out as the father of a man hanged for ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... creak!" said the Director as he came up to the glass case, with a young lady to whom he was showing the ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... still held the parasol aloft and looked down with a great wonder at the frowsy, unkempt creature, trying to reconcile it with the little part of life that she knew. To her ears came the cries of men, the stamp of hoofs on the bridge, and the creak and groan of wagons heavy laden. It was a breathless California Indian summer day. Light fleeces of cloud drifted in the azure sky, but to the west heavy cloud banks threatened with rain. A bee droned lazily by. From farther ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... became distinct. He had one of those clear visions that cross the mind at such times. He saw the doctor with his ear pressed against his daughter's back and he listened with him. He thought he heard the bed creak as it does when any one turns on it. It was over, they would be coming now; but no one came. He began pacing up and down again, as he could not keep still. He grew irritable with impatience and thought the doctor was a very long time, but the next ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... follow his own suggestion, for when he heard the front door creak on its hinges, he laid down his revolver and covered his ears with his hands. This made Rodney turn as white as a sheet and get upon his feet again, fully expecting to hear the roar of a shotgun, followed by the clatter of buckshot in the hall; but instead of that, there ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Sylvia leaned her head against the panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long while. Her mind was quite made up. If she ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... and fall. According to his established methods, Whetstone would allow him to mount, still standing with that indifferent droop to his head. But one who was sharp would observe that he was rolling his old white eyes back to see, tipping his sharp ear like a wildcat to hear every scrape and creak of the leather. Then, with the man in the saddle, nobody knew ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... perorations on the moon, on squeaking shoes. But the song of the shoes never ceased. Louder and louder it waxed. It crashed into the innermost fibres of her frame, completely deafened her mental processes. Never would she forget it: creak-creak-creak-creak! ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Gehenna and the place the smoke of whose torment goes up for ever, a strange confusion crept like a haze across his mind, tired out and tortured with delirium, and he dropped the aching lids and fell away into slumber again; for he had thought himself vexed with the creak of cordage and noise of feet, stived in his dark and narrow cabin, on a filthy bed in a foul air, if any air at all were in that noisome place, reeking with heat and the ferment of bilge-water and fever-smell; and here, unless a new delirium ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... and held up his hand for silence. Both men listened intently, and from the river bank they heard the steady, lumbering creak as ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... routed out his men. There was a sleepy muttering, the patter of bare feet upon the deck above, then the creak of blocks as the sails were raised. From forward came the sound of some one splitting wood to kindle the charcoal fire for breakfast. Other sailing-craft seemed to be getting under way, and a fishing-boat, loaded with the night's catch, came to ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... smiled, And sick men borne in litters high on the necks of slaves, And troops of sun-burn'd husbandmen with reaping-hooks and staves, And droves of mules and asses laden with skins of wine, And endless flocks of goats and sheep, and endless herds of kine, And endless trains of wagons that creak'd beneath the weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, choked every ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... doors and passed into the inner room, accompanied by Jessie. Julian waited for her. He found himself listening to her movements in the other room, to the creak of wood, as she pulled out drawers, to the rustle of a dress lifted from a hook, the ripple of water poured from a jug into a basin. He heard the whole tragedy of preparation, as this girl armed herself for the piteous battle of the London streets. And then his ears caught the eager patter ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... about the mat, But her Mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The Dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet the creak of the opening door; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor— But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turn'd its skirt of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... they heard the floor creak under a step downstairs. Rouletabille stopped Matrena short and drew his revolver. He wished to creep down alone, but he had not time. As the floor creaked a second time, Matrena's anguished voice called down the staircase in Russian, ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... year ago it is, since she and me used to swing back'ards and for'ards on this," he said, still pushing the gate slowly to and fro. "The hinges used to creak then. They go smooth enough now. Oiled, I suppose." As he said this, he moved his hands from the bar on which they rested, and turned away to go on to the town; but stopped, and walking back to the gate, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... the lamp to his own room, shaking his fist at himself for allowing his mother's door to creak. He pulled up his blind. The town lay as still as salt. But a steady light showed in the south, and on pressing his face against the window he saw another in the west. Mr. Carfrae's words about the night-watch came back to him. Perhaps it had been on such a silent night ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... it creak, and then the sound of a small voice came to him. "Jimmie! Jimmie! Are yehs dere?" it whispered. The urchin started. The thin, white face of his sister looked at him from the door-way of the other room. She crept to him ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... instant, the watch on deck, bending on to the halliards with a will, hoisted the gleaming white sails aloft and sheeted them home; when, bellying out before the northerly breeze, they expanded their folds, making the yardarms creak again, and looking like the wings of some gigantic seabird, the ship herself bearing out the resemblance and swooping away in a heavy lurch to leeward, after apparently preening her pinions for a fresh flight, being now a perfect pyramid of canvas ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Jock sat down as he always did, heavily and noisily, exactly on the last word of the psalm proper, and pulled Mrs. Jock's silk wrap to make her give a like condemnation to the bit of popery. Lawyer Ed sat in the pew opposite Jock and heard the protesting creak of Jock's seat when he descended and, in a spirit of mischief, he turned round till he faced the McPherson and rolled out the "Amen" directly at its objector. It was shocking conduct for an elder, as J. P. said afterwards, but then every one knew that though he should become Moderator ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... to go very early to bed, and offered to sleep in a separate room if his return late was likely to disturb her. She agreed that, perhaps, that would be best. So, at about eleven-thirty that night, Dion made his way to their spare room, walking tentatively lest a board should creak and ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... were dim, and dull as death the street, It might be that the watchman slept that night upon his beat, When lo! a heavy foot was heard to creak upon the stair, The door revolved upon its hinge—Great Heaven!—What ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... dull times in that small back room, but gay-coloured lawless times, when our fancy was let free, and we fought on empty stomachs, and felt only the wind in our faces, and heard the creak of straining cordage. What if ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... l'Intendant. La Potherie, who visited Quebec in 1698, and Charlevoix, who writes in 1720, describe this district as the most beautiful in the city. Instead of the crowded quays of to-day there was a terraced lawn bordered with flower gardens; and where now the winches creak and rattle, and the railway engines hiss and scream, birds sang among willow-trees, and the Angelus echoed through a quiet woodland. Across the St. Charles lay the well-ordered grounds of the Jesuit monastery, and farther to the west the lonely spire of the General ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... myself, ma mere. Many things are done to me and I sit in the centre looking on, like the weathercock on our castle at home, who sees himself turning this way and that way and can only creak." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the crime. And who was with him in that house? Who was there to observe and testify to his going forth and his coming home? No one. He was alone in the house. On that night, of all nights, he was alone. Not a soul was there to rouse at the creak of a door or the tread of a shoe—to tell as whether he slept or whether he stole forth in the dead of ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... Should he cough gently to attract her attention, or should he retire on tip-toe and leave her to indulge her grief as long as she would, without making any attempt to console her? The latter course seemed almost brutal, yet he was nearly deciding upon it, when a slight creak of the door against which he leaned, caused her to look up suddenly. Seeing him, she rose quickly from her desponding position and faced him, her cheeks somewhat deeply flushed and her eyes ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Suddenly a sharp creak, like that of a rusty spring, broke the silence. Don Juan, in his surprise, almost dropped the flask. A perspiration, colder than the steel of a dagger, oozed out from his pores. A cock of painted wood came forth from a clock and crowed three times. It was one of ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... think that while the gables moan And easements creak in winter drear I should be piteously alone Without the speech of comrades dear; And friendly for my sake they fear, It grieves them thinking of me so While all their happy life is near— What do they ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... barely overlapping one another, the vanes at the mastheads wake, and become agitated. As the tide rises, the fishing-boats get into good spirits and dance, the flagstaff hoists a bright red flag, the steamboat smokes, cranes creak, horses and carriages dangle in the air, stray passengers and luggage appear. Now, the shipping is afloat, and comes up buoyantly, to look at the wharf. Now, the carts that have come down for coals, load away as hard as they can load. Now, the steamer ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... reached us of the Fight—but if I have dreamed aright, 'Twas a loud one and a long, as ever thundered through! Right stiffly, past a doubt, the Dragon fought it out, And his Angels, each and all, did for Tophet their devoir— There was creak of iron wings, and whirl of scorpion stings, Hiss of bifid tongues, and the Pit in full uproar! But, naught thereof enscrolled, in one brief line 'tis told (Calm as dew the Apocalyptic Pen), That on the Infinite Shore their place was found no more. God ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... first bar, but a full-fledged captain, with fifty men under him to care for and discipline and lead into battle. There was not a man in my troop who was not at least a few years older than myself, and as I rode in advance of them and heard the creak of the saddles and the jingle of the picket-pins and water-bottles, or turned and saw the long line stretching out behind me, I was as proud as Napoleon returning in triumph to Paris. I had brought ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Gentleman, must be painted yellow with gold. Philemon Ward, a Patriot, must be sprinkled with gray. Martin Culpepper's Large White Plumes must be towsled. Watts McHurdie, a Poet, must be bent a little at the hips and shoulders. Adrian Brownwell, a Gallant, must creak as he struts. Neal Dow Ward, an Infant, must put on long trousers. E. W. Bemis, a Lawyer, must be dignified; Jacob Dolan, an Irishman and a Soldier, must grow unkempt and frowsy. Robert Hendricks, Fellow Fine, must have his blond hair rubbed off ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... I thought he had every time I heard a board creak. I didn't dare close my eyes for a minute. Have you ever stayed awake all night, waiting for the goblins that get you if you don't watch out? Well, take it from me ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... than her father's steady-going old buggy horse. The click was different; and when the buggy, instead of turning toward the stable, came straight for the stiles, her heart quickened and she raised her head. She heard acutely the creak of the springs as some one stepped to the ground, and then, without waiting to tie his horse, stepped slowly over the stiles. Unconsciously she rose to her feet, not knowing what to think—to do. And then she saw that the man wore a slouch hat, that his coat was ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, and makes them ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... came in for the first time to see her, Rose knew. Harriet was living here now, running the house for Rodney, while Rose was laid up. Doing it beautifully well, too, through all the confusion of nurses and all. Not the slightest jar or creak of their complex domestic machinery ever reached Rose in the big chamber where ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars, the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint twitter—also recurrent ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... permitted on board, no smoking, no other lights in cabin or saloon. There was scarcely a sound to be heard on the ship, save the throbbing of her engines, the long, splintering crash of heavy seas, and the dull creak of her steel vertebrae tortured by ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... set!" is finally heard from some teamster— "All's set," is directly responded from every quarter. "Stretch out!" immediately vociferates the captain. Then the "heps!" to the drivers, the cracking of whips, the trampling of feet, the occasional creak of wheels, the rumbling of the wagons, while "Fall in" is heard from head-quarters, and the train is strung out and in a few moments has started ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... sounds reverberated afar through the still, moveless void. She could hear Mrs. Clover stridently counselling her Ephraim at the house, the quarter of a mile away. Later, she heard the hollow tramp of two pair of feet, one heavy and one light, on the plank-walk; the creak of rowlocks with the dip and splash of oars; and, after a little pause, the sudden, sharp, explosive rattle of a motor exhaust, as rapid, loud and staccato as the barking of a Gatling, yet quickly hushed——almost ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... but this time they came together. They had met in the boudoir, and came up the stair so quietly that I did not hear them. They all looked very subdued, and Marriot took the cane chair so softly that it did not creak. I noticed that after a furtive glance at me each of them looked at the centre-table, on which lay my brier, Romulus and Remus, three other pipes that all had their merits, though they never touched my heart until now, my clay tobacco-jar, and ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie |
