"Muffled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bells greeted his anxious ears. Now softer, and now louder, now inaudible, now ringing very slowly over bad ground, now brisk and merry, it came on; until with a loud shouting and lashing, a shadowy postillion muffled to the eyes, checked his four struggling horses at ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... think," said Sancho, "that the thoughts that allow one to make verses cannot be of great consequence; let your worship string verses as much as you like and I'll sleep as much as I can;" and forthwith, taking the space of ground he required, he muffled himself up and fell into a sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt, or trouble of any sort. Don Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a cork tree—for Cide Hamete does not specify what kind of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... is said, caused a muffled peal to be rung from the steeple of St. Patrick's, on the day of the proclamation, and a black flag to be displayed from ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... for a lad of ten who had known only the placid brook in the open meadow and the amiable moods of its people! How many a boyish shout I muffled as I made my cautious way along that boisterous stream and pitted my wits against its wary dwellers! I wormed through an abatis of laurel; I scampered over the bared and tangled roots of a great oak; I reached a shelf of pebbly beach. Around it the water swept over moss-clad rocks into a deep pool; ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... biding their time, knowing that probably a strong sea-breeze would soon spring up and cast the ship helpless into their power. Thus another night closed on us. Ere long great was our joy to feel a light air blowing off the shore. The pawls of the windlass were muffled, and not a word was spoken. The anchors were lifted, the topsails were suddenly let drop, and slowly we glided off from the land. The weather becoming very thick and dark, we were compelled again to anchor, lest we might have ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... vanish as an unreal thing. The song was continuous—a soft melodious warble, full of sweetness and suggestion; but suggestion of June meadows and a summer sunrise, rather than of snow-packed evergreens and Christmastide. To add to the unreality, no ear could tell where the song came from; its own muffled quality disguised the source perfectly. I searched the trees in front; there was no bird there. I looked behind; there was no place for a bird to sing. I remembered the redstart, how he calls sometimes from among the rocks, and refuses to show himself, and runs and hides when you look for ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... to sounds from outside. The menacing footsteps reached the landing, and then continued to descend. Jack turned the key in the lock. He was none too soon. A moment later the padding of the bare feet of the sentries sounded muffled outside, then grew fainter as the men separated, one ascending the stairway of the tower, the other running along ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... far as it is intelligible. To a clear cry an answer comes, but not to a muffled call. The reader who comes within speaking distance of his author can hear him, and to bring the living within speaking distance of the dead, the living must know the facts, and understand the ideas which informed and inspired the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... crashed forth, and their shells went hurtling and screaming over the mountains to burst with a muffled roar somewhere ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side—pines, undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... four. The surest way to increase our possession of Christ's grace is to try to impart it. There is no better way of strengthening our own faith than to seek to make others share in it. Christian convictions, spoken, are confirmed, but muffled in silence are weakened. 'There is that scattereth and yet increaseth.' Seed heaped and locked up in a granary breeds weevils and moths; flung broadcast over the furrows, it multiplies into seed that can be sown again, and bread that feeds the sower. So we have in this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... pale. His eyes had a wandering look, and when he spoke his voice was muffled. But by an effort of his unquenchable energy he shook ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... color to her cheeks, the confident light to her eyes. The door from the park opened, and John Thoroughgood entered the room, holding by the hand a man in the staid habit of a Puritan soldier, whose eyes were muffled by a folded scarf of silk. Blindfolded though he was, the Puritan followed his guide with a ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... through the gloom, Ted sprang to the hatch and raised the lid. As the morning light streamed in through the opening a muffled cheer resounded from the interior of the sub. Vaulting up the ladder, Ted leaped on deck and looked around him. There to starboard, not more than five hundred feet away, loomed a giant cruiser. From her stern tailrail ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... The two gentlemen, muffled up in their cloaks and vizarded, repaired to the Fauxbourg, at the appointed time, where they found the soldiers on the post allotted for them by their officer; on which they all rode off together, and arrived before the walls of the monastery some few minutes before twelve, ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... his minnow into the swift water and slowly wound it in again. How did that old man know his name? And would the old savage really have hurt him had he not found out who he was? The little girl was a wonder: evidently she had muffled his last name on purpose—not knowing it herself—and it was a quick and cunning ruse. He owed her something for that—why did she try to protect him? Wonderful eyes, too, the little thing had—deep and dark—and how the flame did dart from them when she got angry! He smiled, remembering—he ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... are a terrible person! Go back, there's a dear, and do keep quiet!" cried a muffled voice from behind the dining-room door, as Shylock dodged back to escape observation; and Mrs Asplin retreated hastily, aghast at the sight of a hairy monster, in whom she failed to recognise a trace of her beloved son and ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... brave girl's throat so that the cry on her lips died in a gasp. But the relief gave Rod his opportunity. With a tremendous effort he reached his pistol holster, drew out the gun, and pressed it close up against his assailant's body. There was a muffled report and with a shriek of agony the Indian pitched backward. Hearing the shot and seeing the effect upon his comrade, the second Indian released his hold on Minnetaki and ran for the forest. Rod, seeing Minnetaki fall in a sobbing, frightened heap, forgot ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... caught sight of somebody muffled, leaning back in the other corner of the carriage, and ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... kind of a strike before," protested Peter. "It don't sound a bit like other clocks. And the door was shut and the sound kind o' muffled. It's all very fine to say you would have known what it was, but I don't ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... said Sister in a stern professional voice. "Keep your arms still, and you'll come down all right." A muffled screaming and a dangerously increased agitation of the chute was the only reply. Cook had quite lost her head and was having violent hysterics. Three or four of us raced upstairs to aid Sister in keeping the top end of the apparatus from jerking ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... swell in the offing would drive his vigilant enemies into places of shelter, and put them off their guard, he determined to cross the sea himself and bring his hesitating army over. He ordered a galley to be prepared, and went on board of it disguised, and with his head muffled in his mantle, intending that not even the officers or crew of the ship which was to convey him should know of his design. The galley, in obedience to orders, put off from the shore. The mariners endeavored ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... back at the lights of the Titanic. There was not a sound from her, only the lights began to get lower and lower, and finally she sank. Then we heard a muffled explosion and a dull roar caused by the great ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... and he discovered that, if his presence had not been marked by the members of the Torres household, it was at least exciting comment elsewhere in the neighborhood. Faces appeared at near-by windows; he heard sounds of muffled merriment which made him uncomfortable; passers-by smiled at him and dropped encouraging remarks which he could not translate. The little policeman, lounging at the next corner, watched him complacently ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... A whistle came muffled through the fog; they were slowing down. It was a station; the lights, the clamor of human voices, proved it. Eleanor looked out of the window. A knot of young men had broken for the platform; and she could distinguish the black boxes of cameras. There arose a sharp parley at the rear door; her ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... his teeth chattering, and I think his knees were knocking together. Jeff made no sound, and it was too dark to see his face. Suddenly the object rushed at us. There was no noise of footsteps—only a muffled sound and a faint hissing. I stood still, unable to move. So did Jeff. I felt the hair of my head rising. Stumps gasped again—then turned and fled. The creature, whatever it was, brushed past us with a hideous laugh. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Get up—fire!" came in muffled tones; and bounding out of bed he saw that there was a lurid light on the water, evidently reflected from something burning pretty near at hand, while there was the distant hum of voices, mingled with shrieks and ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... the same moment, like a clap of thunder, one of the screw-guns was discharged; the droning whizz of the shell grew fainter and fainter—a pause—and then the boom of its explosion was returned in a muffled echo from the ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... coming from the direction of Forest Lea, the sun now and then flashing on a steel cap or on the point of a pike. Fast rode on Sylvester, nearer and nearer came the troop; Rose almost fancied she could discern on one of the horses something muffled in black that could be no other than her mother. How she longed for wings to fly to meet her and cheer her heart with the assurance of Edmund's safety! How she longed to be on Sylvester's horse, as she saw the distance between him and the party fast diminishing! ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little muddy party hurried forward. Tiger's yelps could be heard plainer and plainer, mingled now with a muffled wail, as of ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... should he be forced to lag behind? He stretched the arch of his neck straight till the bit held hard in his mouth; the ears pitched forward in eager point; the great frame under the girl quivered and sank closer to earth; the roar of his beating hoofs came up to her ears, muffled by the drive of the wind that was now a gale as the Chestnut raced into it with the speed of an express. How her heart sang! Here was speed, and with such stride—strong, and straight, and true! Low she crouched, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... when a muffled roar of indignation from the direction of the guard-tent broke the stillness of the summer night. The roar swelled into a crescendo. What seemed like echoes came from other quarters out of the darkness. The ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... and would so lie, sleepless, with wide-staring eyes, for hours, while all sorts of weird pictures would paint themselves idly in the waste nooks and corners of my brain. One fancy I had, and for many nights I thought it nothing more than fancy, that I could hear soft and muffled footsteps passing up and down the staircase just outside my door; and that at times I could even faintly distinguish them in the room over mine, where, however, they never stayed for more than a few ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of my coat are coming in thicker than I ever knew them to before. I hadn't noticed it until I started to set them in order a minute ago." He buried his bill in the feathers of his breast. "Yes, sir," said he in a muffled voice, "they are coming in thicker than I ever knew them to before. There is a lot of down around the roots of them. I am going to have the warmest coat ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... dismal moan. It was a weird noise—worse than positive howling, and the dog himself seemed distressfully conscious that he was expressing something strange and unnatural. Two or three times he repeated this eerie muffled cry—then, lying down again, he put his nose between his great paws, and, with a deep shivering sigh, appeared to resign himself to the inevitable. There followed several moments of tense silence. Then came a sudden dull thud overhead, as of a heavy load falling or being thrown ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... scrutinizing the house on their own part or waiting for somebody to appear; then, as the little girl bounded to the open window the better to gratify her curiosity, the animal—if such it was—slowly wheeled about and loped away. There was a sound of muffled footfalls on the hard drive, and the ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... half-dozen are taking a lunch. The oyster-saloons are crowded. Boys are crying their newspapers. There are laughable and solemn scenes. Yonder is the hospital. A file of soldiers stand waiting in the street. A coffin is brought out. The fife begins its mournful air, the drum its muffled beat. The procession moves away, bearing the dead soldier to his ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... to think that when the Maker set up this strange instrument we call ourselves, and strung it for service, He selected of the heavy chords so few, and of the lighter ones so many! Some muffled ones there are; some slow and solemn sounds swell sadly forth at intervals, but blessed be God that we are so easily tickled, and the world is so funny that within it, even when exiled from home and friends, we find, as the days come ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray
... the very poorest schools connected with the Edinburgh Ladies' Highland School Association, but the teacher had a remarkable paucity of clothing, and he seemed to have the charge of his baby, which, much clothed, and indeed much muffled, lay on the bench beside him. For there were benches, and a desk, and even a blackboard and primers down in the deep wild gulch, where the music of living waters, and the thunderous roll of the Pacific, accompanied the children's tuneless voices as they sang an ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... remarks about the state of the Executive branch. We have found it full of honest and useful public servants—but their capacity to act decisively at the exact time action is needed has too often been muffled in the morass of committees, timidities and fictitious theories which have created a growing gap between decision and execution, between planning and reality. In a time of rapidly deteriorating situations at home and abroad, this is bad for the public ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... the electric button, there was a flash, a dull, muffled report and, for a moment, something black showed at the top of the steel chamber. Then it dropped ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... prepared for everything, I was not surprised to find the principal door open, and the hall filled with iron-bound cases and several plate-chests. As we stepped into the midst of these, completely muffled in our cloaks, a fellow came and whispered to ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... sun hanging over it—all perfectly still—and then the white shutter came down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I ordered the chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again. Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... return to that very bad man Saya Chone, who was also about to be a very disappointed and furious one. On the stroke of the hour he reappeared at the brink of the slope, just after the fugitives had vanished round the patch of reeds. Had they not muffled their heads they would have heard his call to Mr. Haydon. Had he not been thickly surrounded by the smoke of the green boughs which partly kept off the clouds of venomous assailants, he would have ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... water dripping from the eaves and falling far and near upon the yielding snow had many voices. I was half-asleep when I heard a new noise under the sledge. Something struck the front corner of the sledgehouse—a heavy, muffled blow—and brushed the noisy boards. Then I heard the timbers creak and felt the runners leaping over the soft snow. I remember it was like a dream of falling. I raised myself and stared about me. We were slipping down the steep floor. The lantern, ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... silence—sick, profound, and awful—was punctuated by the low, sullen tapping of a drum. Its droning sound reminded the prisoner of life-blood dripping from some single pore; the tone was B, and its insistent, muffled, funereal blow at rhythmic intervals would in time have worn away rock. Mendoza felt a prevision of his fate; being a musician he knew of music's woes and warnings. And he lifted eyes for the first time since his arrest in a ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... tooted and you see a presumptuous individual stepping off a damaging five yard penalty against your favorite team. At such a time you arise in your wrath and demand: "Who is that guy anyway? Where did he come from? Why did he give that penalty?" Other muffled tributes are paid him. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... vision—all the show with its million actors. He saw for example the pathos in the patient eyes of the old lady yonder—still waiting at eighty; he caught the flash of scarlet ribbon beyond, the silent message of the black one (another long waiting); the muffled laugh and the muffled oath; the careless eyes that tossed the coin to the counter, the sharp eyes that followed it, the dead ones that picked it up and threw it into the nickeled cash box which flew with it to its golden nest; the tread, ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... plain seemed to our benighted riders, for there was still no object to vary the monotony of the cheerless scene, although they had paced briskly, and, as they supposed, far enough to have reached the cliffs of the river. Nor was there even a sound heard as they rode along, save the muffled strokes of their horses' hoofs in the dry grass that covered the earth, the low winds, and an occasional cry of the dogs as they were trodden upon by ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Now he hears the sound of horse-hoofs on the hard road, and riseth to his feet and goeth to the very edge of the copse; looking thence he saw a rider who was just come to the very crossing of the roads. The new comer was much muffled in a wide cloak, but he seemed to be a man low of stature. He peered all round about him as if to see if the way were clear, and then alighted down from horseback and let the hood fall off his head, and seemed pondering which way were the best to take. By ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... out" at Harwell, and so, when at about nine the two boys beard many footfalls outside their door, and when in response to West's loud "Come" five mysterious and muffled figures in black masks entered they were somewhat puzzled what ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... at this time of year, and as she used to have more frequently when Horace spoke of incautious early risers getting nipped by the cold. One of the first things that strikes us as we make our way to the place of general rendezvous muffled in our thickest and heaviest cloaks and shawls is the apparent insensibility of this people to the cold. One would have expected it to be just the reverse. But whether it be that their organisms have stored ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... would be prepared in the afternoon for the start. Orders had been issued before he left that the oars of the boats were to be muffled, that the chains at the entrance of the channel were to be removed, and the ships got in a position, with shortened cables, for a start. He could picture to himself, as he stood there gazing into the darkness, that the men would be already in the ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... midnight, it was announced to the Emperor that the fires of the Russians seemed less numerous, and the flames were extinguished at several points; and some few said they had heard the muffled sound of drums. The army was in a state of great anxiety. The Emperor sprang wildly from his bed, repeatedly ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... describes the fight between the English and Dutch, the news brought by a Mr Daniel, "who was all muffled up, and his face as black as the chimney, and covered with dirt, pitch, and tar, and powder, and muffled with dirty clouts, and his right eye stopped with okum." The English "found the Dutch fleet at anchor, between Dunkirke and Ostend, and made them let slip their anchors; ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... the entrance of the jailor followed by another person muffled up in a large riding cloak. "A stranger," he said, "wished to exchange a few words in private ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... Muffled sounds came to him through the shutters from the streets below—the rolling of wheels, the clanging of church bells, and bursts of that military music which is so seldom silent in the streets of Munich. An hour perhaps passed by; sounds of ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... that Rozsi was no longer in her seat; it was she who was striking those forbidden notes. He looked round—everywhere the same unmoving faces, the same entrancement, and fierce stillness. The music sounded muffled, as if it, too, were bursting its heart in silence. Swithin felt within him a touch of panic. Was this a den of tigers? The way these people listened, the ferocity of their stillness, was frightful...! He gripped his chair and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... horrid as the hush of tomb or public library, lurked the painfully unmistakable sense of institutional restraint. Mournfully to her ear from some remote kitcheny region of pots and pans a browsing spoon tinkled forth from time to time with soft-muffled resonance. Up and down every clammy white corridor innumerable young feet, born to prance and stamp, were creeping stealthily to and fro in rubber-heeled whispers. Along the somber fire-escape just below her windowsill, like a covey of snubbed doves, six or eight of her classmates ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... not much honored with your presence during the day-time," observed Lomellino; "and at night the great lords and high-born ladies who happen to be abroad, are so muffled up—the former in their cloaks, the latter in ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the soft, fluttering flakes, and below, in the broad street, the horse- cars moved slowly along like immense white turtles ploughing their way through deep white sand. The sound of the bells was muffled as it came up, and the scraping of the Irishmen's heavy spades on the pavement before the hotel followed by the regular fall of the great shovels full on the heap, as they stacked the snow, sounded like the ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... we return at last to the dressing-room, to shiver, as we dress, in the cold drafts from the entry door; and then, muffled up to the eyes, we plunge into the refreshing outer air, and hurry home, looking like so many big bundles running away with smaller bundles. If we meet acquaintances on the way we are greeted with "zu refueh" ("to your good health"). If the first ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... furlough to join their regiments; lascars, or enlisted workmen belonging to the different civil branches of the army; and camp-followers in all their varieties, were everywhere squatted on their haunches, and although muffled up to their eyes in wrappers of cotton-cloth, were all looking miserably cold from the sharpness of the morning breeze. The crew consisted of about twenty sailors—half of whom were Europeans, and evidently picked hands. Under the influence of good pay, fresh provisions without stint, ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... Carrara[17] Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 10 The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, And still fluttered down ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... man hastened to help Carlton to alight. "That was the Duke who just drove off, sir; and those," he said, pointing to three muffled figures who were stepping into a second carriage, "are ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... Nevill to ask him to Algiers. Nevill had seen Margot's picture. In silence they walked towards the open door of the dining-room. Somewhere not far away the Kabyle dogs were barking shrilly. In the distance rose and fell muffled notes of strange passion and fierceness, an Arab tom-tom beating like the heart of the conquered East, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... black and lowering, fitting weather for the pandemonium I was about to turn loose. At ten o'clock, I loaded a wagon with the tanks of compressed cohorts, and, muffled in heavy overcoats, we drove to the sanatorium. All was silent as we approached; all was dark. The wagon concealed in a grove of pines, we took out the tanks one by one, and placed them beneath the ground-floor windows. The ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... shone with the stoic pride of a savage. The archbishop, standing behind her, and as if protecting her with the pastoral cross, abandoned his impassible demeanor and covered his eyes with his right hand. A muffled cry was heard, as though some one were dying. Two persons, Gerard and Roubaud, received and carried away in their arms, Denise Tascheron, unconscious. That sight seemed for an instant to quench the fire in Veronique's eyes; ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... moment Chirpy Cricket began fiddling right there in his room he became wide awake. He had had no idea how loudly one of the Cricket family could play his cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! cr-r-r-i! indoors. The high, shrill sound was piercing. It rang in Johnnie's ears and drowned the muffled concert of the fields and swamp which the light ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... in a wide plain, where as far as her eye could reach there was nothing but snow. The few fir-trees that stood in the distance were heavily laden; and Lucy herself,—where was she? Going very fast? Yes, whisking over the snow with all her might and main, and muffled up in cloaks and furs, as indeed was necessary, for her breath froze upon the big muffler round her throat, so that it seemed to be standing up in a wall; and by her side was a little boy, muffled up quite as close, with a cap or rather hood, casing his whole head, his hands gloved ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was sent off in frantic haste in search of Dr. Lancaster, and later in the day two white-capped nurses appeared on the scene. Then followed hours of hushed uncertainty, when people went to and fro with hurried, muffled footsteps and spoke together in whispers, while Virginie's face grew yellow and drawn-looking, and the tears trickled down her wrinkled-apple cheeks whenever one spoke ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... got coral reefs and palm-trees and cocoanuts and savages, friendly ones, I mean?" came in muffled tones from Ann's bag. ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... a critical intelligence that was giving out a subtle effluence of disapproval. The fancy was so vivid that, to shake it off, she rose and began to move about again. In the middle of the room stood a monumental divan surmounted by a massif of palms and azaleas. As Claudia's muffled wanderings carried her around the angle of this seat, she saw that its farther side was occupied by the figure of a man, who sat with his hands resting on his stick and his head bowed upon them. She gave a little cry and her ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... working men were driven with sticks by their overseers, and sang at their labor; but the voices of the leaders sounded muffled and hoarse, though, when after their frugal meal they enjoyed an hour of repose, they might be heard loud enough. Their parched throats refused to sing in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... muffled exclamation, slapped the com box, spoke more sharply into the mike. It was apparent he was not getting the results he wanted. Then with a quick glance ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... storm after storm of thunder and lightning, and the occupants of the stranded vessel were kept close prisoners, only getting a short visit occasionally to the drenched deck, where Carey used his glass to watch the torrent ashore, which had grown into a tremendous fall, whose roar came like muffled ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... been reading fifteen minutes, perhaps, when a muffled step on the heavy greensward caused her to glance up, to find ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... became interested in seeing the muffled figures pass us, and the carriages hurrying through the street, I grew uneasy as I saw that Jones was making his way to the centre of the town, to the very door of Lord Howe's mansion. At last I remonstrated with him, but Jones growled in answer: "How can you throw the ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... "No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee But finds some coupling with, the spinning stars; No pebble at your foot but proves a sphere; No chaffinch but implies the cherubim: ... Earth's crammed with heaven, And every ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... Barbara, hearing a muffled sob behind her, turned to see the tears running down Georgina's face. The next instant she was up, and with her arms around the child, was gently pushing her ahead of her out of the room, into the hall. With the door shut behind ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... floated to him as he approached, and from an old pear-tree near the door there was a flutter of wings where a brood of white turkeys settled to roost. Beyond the bole of the tree a small negro in short skirts was "shooin'" a large rooster into the henhouse, but at the muffled fall of Gay's horse's hoofs on the dead leaves, she turned with a choking sound, and fled to the shelter of the kitchen ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... a muffled thud, and Fletcher went down in a huddled heap upon the floor, while the other stood over him in the weakness which ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... parlance, lived in his boots all the winter, had to amuse himself without the aid of horse and hound; while even walking was made difficult by the snowdrifts that blocked the lanes, and reduced the face of Nature to one muffled and monotonous whiteness, while all the edges of the landscape were outlined vaguely against the misty greyness of ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... she lifts the latch, and glides, Through many a sadly curtained room, As daylight through the doorway slides And struggles with the muffled gloom. ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... trail was over the soft grass-covered sod of the valley, which muffled the sounds made by their moving feet, so that they might have passed within half a dozen rods of a camp without a man in it dreaming that a little company of men and horses were passing, unless he chanced to see them. Then the trail again entered the defiles of the mountains, ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... no question, but leapt across the room and threw the door open. Nayland Smith stood before me, muffled up in a heavy traveling coat, and with his hat pulled down over ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... resistance to the Stamp Act was manifested. Ominous proceedings were adopted by the public. As soon as the news of it arrived in America, at Boston the colours of the shipping were hoisted half-mast high, and the bells were rung muffled; at New York the act was printed with a skull and cross bones, and hawked about the streets by the title of "England's Folly, and America's Ruin;" while at Philadelphia the people spiked the very guns on the ramparts. The public irritation daily increased, and when at length the stamps arrived, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... were instantaneous. One or two bee-policemen, who were doing fixed point-duty near the opening, scuttled hastily back into the hive; and from within came a muffled buzzing as other bees, all talking at once, worried the perplexed officials with foolish questions, a buzzing that became less muffled and more pronounced as Elizabeth lifted the edge of the cover and directed ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... weevil, and the ingenious mechanisms of the musical instruments of the Decticus and the Cicada. With what subtle art he explains the song of the cricket, how the five hundred prisms of the serrated bow set the four tympana in vibration; and how the song is sometimes muffled by a ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... on their way; kind-eyed clergymen speeding perhaps to the bedsides of the dying; and, after a while, groups of children with satchels slung over their shoulders, whizzing past, toward the distant school. One and all wore skates except, indeed, a muffled-up farmer whose queer cart bumped along on ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Lo! the darkened street Where he abode was full of gazing crowds; He heard the muffled tread of many feet; A multitude stood gazing at the clouds. "What mark ye there," said he, "and wherefore meet? Only a passing mist the heaven o'ershrouds; It breaks, it parts, it drifts like scattered spars— What lies behind ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... with four others, immediately repaired to the place where Joe Braman's boat, which had been hired for the enterprise, was concealed. Seating themselves in it, they waited till the hour had expired, and then, with muffled oars, pulled ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... stacked sheaves of Paragot's corn stood quiet and pregnant symbols of the good earth's plenty. Here and there dark patches of orchard dreamed in a haze. Through one distant patch a farmhouse struck a muffled note of grey. On the left the ribbon of road glistened white between the sentinel poplars silhouetted against the sky. The hot smell of the earth filled the air like spice. A thousand elfin sounds, the vibration of leaves, the tiny crackling of cornstalks, the fairy whirr of ground insects, melted ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... hands round her slender waist as if to smooth some trifling wrinkle in her gown, turning sideways to see if its folds fell properly, and as she did so, she caught sight of the king on the couch behind her. The carpet had so muffled the sound of his steps that he had slipped in softly without ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... had ordered this handsome coin, Bandinello the sculptor came up; he had not yet been made a knight; and, with his wonted presumption muffled up in ignorance, said: "For these goldsmiths one must make drawings for such fine things as that." I turned round upon him in a moment, and cried out that I did not want his drawings for my art, but that I hoped before very long to give ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... peering downward from some giddy—height. While shameful, secret dissipation ruins the noblest of men, in the frank and open defiance of conventionality there is something that compels respect even in the most depraved. He who goes at nightfall, muffled in his cloak, to sully his life in secret, and clandestinely to shake off the hypocrisy of the day, resembles an Italian who strikes his enemy from behind, not daring to provoke him to open quarrel. There are assassinations in the dark corners of the city under shelter of the ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... I weigh four pounds," answered Dotty, drawing out her little cab, and throwing the muffled kitty into it, as if she had been a roll ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... to this group of hard questions, terrible divisions that had been long muffled and huddled away burst into view. The stupendous quarrel of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries again broke out. To the erastian lawyer the church was an institution erected on principles of political expediency by act of parliament. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... The muffled footsteps roused her from her revery and she turned her head and saw them coming. Her heart stood ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... a moon above them, and the night was soft and clear, while the Bush rolled away beneath, shadowy and still. Only the turmoil of the river came faintly up to them. The muffled sound sent a curious thrill through both of them, but they were silent as they went down the long slope among the climbing pines. Laura sat in the saddle, looking out on the silent forest with ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... came the beat of hoofs on the dust-muffled ways of Pa-Ramesu. A sentry knocked at the door of the commander and announced a visitor. Atsu, who still sat under the unextinguished reed light, greeted the new-comer with an exclamation of concern. The man was covered with dust, his dress was ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... it there came a muffled cry, then the tent began to pitch and toss. Evidently a savage struggle was going ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... this man alone Sits in the silence, glaring in the grate That sobs and sighs on in an undertone As stoical—immovable as Fate, While muffled voices from the sick one's room Come in like ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... walk of not above two miles "through shady lanes and sequestered footpaths", the delightful scenery of which made Mr. Pickwick feel regret to arrive in the main street of "Muggleton". The distance, however, is in fact something more than two miles as the crow flies. Cobtree Hall is a green-muffled Elizabethan mansion, of red brick, faced with stone, and looks out over an undulating country of orchards and hop fields. It has been altered and enlarged since the days of Pickwick, but the kitchen is just such another large, oldfashioned kitchen as befits ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled, and is heard but a few yards. It is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... lay at peace, but Paul's heart throbbed with expectation. Nor did it throb in vain. A muffled sound appeared in time at his door. It was some one at work on the fastenings, and Paul listened with every nerve a-quiver. Presently the noise ceased, a shaft of pale night light showed, and then was gone. But the door had been opened, and then ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ear the muffled sound of a cheer raised by countless voices. The smile upon his lips grew scornful: "The King!" he muttered, "greeting his good Parliament. 'Tis said he loves a well-timed jest; pity to rob England of such a famous clown; perchance ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... in the rather muffled voice of a man troubled by deafness, the impression he makes is by no means an impression of melancholy or despair; on the contrary it is the impression of strength, power, courage, and unassailable allegiance to truth. He is careless of appearance because he has something ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Confessions is shocking. No monk nor saint ever wrote anything more revolting in its blasphemous self-feeling. But the exaltation almost instantly became calm, when the course of the story necessarily drew the writer into dealings with objective facts, even muffled as they were by memory and imagination. The broodings over old reminiscence soothed him, the labour of composition occupied him, and he forgot, as the modern reader would never know from internal evidence, that he was preparing a vindication of his life ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... weakening a little. By the time we were ready to turn in they were reduced pretty well to silence and suffering—especially the bank clerk, Jean L. The punkies were eager for his tender skin and they were rank poison to him. He muffled his head in a blanket and tried to sleep, but it was only a partial success. When, by suffocating himself, he obtained a little relief from insect bites, there were stubs and knotty roots continually poking themselves among his ribs, or ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... that a huge open barge was being towed upstream alongside us, that it was being filled with these bales, to lighten the steamer for the sand-bars and shallows of the upper river, and that a monotonous but very musical cadence was being repeated at intervals, in muffled tones, somewhere on board. I went down to the cargo department of the lower deck and found the singers,—the herculean porters. One after another they bent their backs, and two mates hoisted the huge bales, chanting ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... cheer. The bishop's despairing face kept me company, and his troubles and the wrongs of the future heir took possession of me. Then the uncanny noises that make all old houses ghostly during the small hours began to make themselves heard. Muffled footsteps trod the corridor, stopping to listen at every door, door latches gently clicked, boards creaked unreasonably, sounds of stealthy movements came from the locked-up bathroom. The welcome crash of wheels at last, and the sound of the front-door bell. I could hear Lady ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... pace over level grassy ground. With these conditions the sensation is positively delightful. Nothing of earth is visible, only the vast circle of the heavens glittering with innumerable stars; the muffled sound of the hoofs on the soft sward becomes in fancy only the rushing of the wings of our Pegasus, while the enchanting illusion that we are soaring through space possesses the mind. Unfortunately, however, this method of riding is impracticable in England. And, even if ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... thundering in some adjacent cavern. The song of the sea in its old halls rung out in a style quite unearthly. The slamming of the mighty doors seemed far off in the chambers of the cliff, and the echoes trembled themselves away, muffled into stillness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... through all the country, the king heard of her; and, thinking she might perhaps be able to suggest something, sent for her. In the dead of the night, lest the princess should know it, the king's messenger brought into the palace a tall woman, muffled from head to foot in a cloak of black cloth. In the presence of both their Majesties, the king, to do her honor, requested her to sit; but she declined, and stood waiting to hear what they had to say. Nor had she to wait long, for almost instantly they began to tell her the ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... gates, a man, who had been loitering under the lamps, darted forward, and prying into the carriage-window, regarded Maltravers earnestly. The latter, pre-occupied and absorbed, did not notice him; but when the carriage drove into the courtyard it was followed by the stranger, who was muffled in a worn and tattered cloak, and whose movements were unheeded amidst the bustle of the arrival. The porter's wife led the way to a second-floor, just left vacant, and the waiter began to arrange the fire. Maltravers threw himself abstractedly upon the sofa, insensible to ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... utterance, and turned in his chair listening. "What is that?" There was a noise of hurrying footsteps and murmuring voices,—that sort of half-muffled confusion in a household which bodes something wrong,—and all at once Prince Sovrani threw open the door of the Cardinal's apartments without ceremony, crying out as ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli |
