"Mumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and pulled out the tape. He ran it quickly through his fingers, mumbling under his breath. Just once he stopped and set some figures into his hand computer. The result flashed in the window and he ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... an effect of Alice's white back and sloping shoulders and veiled head receding toward the altar. In some incomprehensible way that back view made her feel sorry for Alice. Also she remembered very vividly the smell of orange blossom, and Alice, drooping and spiritless, mumbling responses, facing Doctor Ralph, while the Rev. Edward Bribble stood between them with an open book. Doctor Ralph looked kind and large, and listened to Alice's responses as though he was listening to symptoms and thought that on the whole ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... he muttered. "It'll be bright enough. The mark. It'll shine. They'll know when they see it. It is very good. A very good sign: it burns in the dark. They'll know it over there in the night." Then he went on mumbling to himself, but so brokenly that we could catch only a few words here and there—"black and red, knowledge and beauty; red and black, pleasure and strength. What ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... Finnie and Sandy Macgill went and hearkened at the window, where they heard the gay gallant stumbling in the floor, churming sweet and amorous words as he went groping his way towards the bed where the auld toop was breathing thickly, mumbling and crunching the kail-blades in a state of as great sensual delight and satisfaction as any beast could well be. But no sooner had the cavalier placed his hand on the horned head of the creature than he uttered a yell of despair; in the same moment the toop, in little less fright, jumpit ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... on this the other night, under the mattress in there." He jerked his head toward the stateroom. "Wait!" I heard him knocking things over in the dark and mumbling at them. After a moment he came out and threw on the table a long, cloth-covered ledger, of the common commercial sort. It lay open at about the middle, showing close script running ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... which man really thinks, is scrupulously excluded from all polite gatherings. Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to no conclusion. When not occupied with mumbling, 'I quite agree with you'—'As you say'—'That is precisely my opinion'—we sit about and ask each other riddles: 'What did the ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... embers in her father's face glowing to dark-red heat. Everybody had been watching them except Harold who, though addressing his father, had been mumbling "what chaps had ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... suffering women and children with all the politeness I was capable of mastering, with disgust boiling over. With stuttering and mumbling his dislikes, and shaking his head, with the feathers and straws waving and nodding in every direction, he took his pen and scribbled a pass that was difficult to decipher. The next line of guards hardly knew what to do with it until I told them ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... sat looking at the toe of his boot. Peter of Blentz, Maenck, and the Austrian watched him intently. The possibilities of the plan were sinking deep into the minds of all four. At last the king rose. He was mumbling to himself as though unconscious of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sure; something which he had feared and was partially prepared for, yet which in happening had crushed him. Was it a pitfall into which the poor little lady had fallen? If so—But he is speaking—mumbling low words to himself. Some of them she can hear. He is reproaching himself—repeating over and over that he should never have taken such a chance; that he should have remembered her youth—the weakness of a young girl's nerve. He had been mad, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... twinkle of the eyes, translated the proposal to Ephraim, who stood with his huge red hands clenched, mumbling about the saltless pottage of papacy. De Catinat replied briefly, however, that they were all of the laity, and that if they were to reach their destination before nightfall, it was necessary ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and the stout gentlemen came to the ice together, making a very considerable star, and a noise which was still more terrific. First there was the sudden crash and rending asunder of the thick ice, and then the noise went rolling and mumbling away to the other ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... three men were college chums of his. They waited to hear the girl's scream, but as there was nothing but silence they finally stole into the room. And there they saw the girl sitting on the floor, holding the arm in her hands. As she sat there she was mumbling to herself and eating one end of it! Of course the poor thing had gone ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... the Cabanal, and are afraid of a bit of sea! You'd think you fellows had never been offshore! This isn't going to last. These easterlies are always freakish things! But anyhow! What's the use of getting scared? It's a sailor's place to die at sea! I always said so: sooner a lobster than a mumbling parson and the worms! Pull yourselves together, boys. And lash yourselves to something. The boat's all right. Just don't ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... crows, when they were near their home, and very quiet they kept their affairs until their young got into the habit of yelling, "Kah, kah, kah," at the top of their voices whenever they were hungry, and of mumbling loudly, ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... greatest pleasure, I assure you, if I did not have to be at home to-night to receive visitors," replied the young man, mumbling his words and ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... toast be dear woman!" "Hallo, old fellow, thought you were asleep. Had something of a nightmare, eh? Been mumbling away as if the supper didn't agree with you." "Well, your toast, with all the honors, ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... the verandah was seated a schoolmaster, with long white beard, his pupils sprawling about on not over-clean mats, studying a huge Koran placed on a stand before them, mumbling in monotonous tones their lessons; the teacher more asleep than awake, the pupils imitating his example, and looking as lazy and ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... houses, closed the doors and windows, and prayed to the Virgin for deliverance from the impending evil. Never had there been seen in Castrillo such a counting of rosaries and beating of breasts, such genuflexions, and mumbling of aves and paters, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... stirred beyond. The crackling of twigs was plainly recognized, and the mumbling sound of voices could be made out. They were human voices, but their intonations, as they came nearer, were sufficient to show that the language was not that of civilized people. They were more in the nature of successive ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... mother, the stately Lady Ashton, kept close guard over her; and it made me shudder to behold, also, the old hag, Ailsie Gourley, crouching down by her bonny mistress, and stroking the lily-white hand which hung so listless at her side, mumbling the while what seemed to me must be some incantation to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... coverlet. The notes were tightly held by three fingers; the free finger and the thumb picked at the counterpane. Von Holzen bent over the bed and examined the face. The sick man's eyes were closed. Suddenly he spoke in a mumbling voice—"And now that you have what you want, you ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... shut his eyes, and in a minute or two was breathing heavily. Neal, who had been aroused too, followed his example, laughing and mumbling something about "it's being an old trick of Dol's to hunt in ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... pointed to another part of the congregation. "Peter Dexter! Stand up!" The president of the Dexter Trust Company also arose, trembling as if with palsy, mumbling something, one could not tell whether ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... bumble-bee in it, and the bung stopped up. You know that I am not imaginative; but my teeth, Sir, would suddenly grow to the length of a mastodon's, and perhaps five minutes after, (if at the table,) a narcotic deadness would take the place of the previous excitement, and I would seem to be mumbling my food like people whose teeth are gone. But in the street, I always seemed to be grinning at every body, like some horrible beast who couldn't get his mouth shut. If you have ever stayed agape for an hour or so, while the doctor ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... could I elicit relative to the religion beyond the continual "Um mani panee, Um mani panee!" which our friend seemed never tired of mumbling; and although the sepoy was, I believe, considerably more adapted for the extraction of reluctant supplies of food for our kitchen than for eliciting such information on the subject of theology as I was in ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... thtory than that air!" said Bobby, growing tired of the long mumbling reading of ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... snow and the clean bare crag above it on which was Tong Tong Tarrup. All day he climbed and evening found him above the snow-line; and soon he came to the stairway cut in the rock and in sight of that grizzled man, the long porter of Tong Tong Tarrup, sitting mumbling amazing memories to himself and expecting in vain from the stranger a ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... that vague, forced, pleasant smile which stands propriety-guard over a mind asleep; Mildred Gower felt that her nerves would endure no more; and the general was falling into a besotted state, spilling his wine, mumbling his words. The coffee and the brandy revived them all somewhat. Mildred, lifting her eyes, saw by way of a mirrored section of the enormous sideboard the English butler surveying master and guests with slowly moving, sneering ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... lie. Perhaps, if James had not been there, he would have lied. As it was, he glanced up two or three times, and his lips as many times framed themselves about words that did not come. Finally he said, mumbling ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by an envoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed over to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There was a slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old woman; but the statuesque Italian remained impassive, and—probably secure in an infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of chance—immediately prepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of an emaciated beau or worn-out libertine, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... sight of a Christian. Every day the "Holy woman," with wild eyes and vermilion-painted cheeks, is to be seen prophesying in some public place. And the "Holy man," too, who is incessantly walking like the wandering Jew, always in a hurry and all the while mumbling his prayers. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... her part, a guest, a country gossip, consisted only in standing by the door, as if she were overhearing something, and then speaking a short monologue. For at least an hour and a half before her cue, while the others were walking, reading, having tea, quarrelling, she never left me and kept on mumbling her part, and dropping her written copy, imagining that everybody was looking at her, and waiting for her to come on, and she patted her hair with a trembling hand ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... as red as she In hair and cheek; and almost elbowing her, So close they stood, another, mute as death, And white as her own milk; her babe in arms Had felt the faltering of his mother's heart, And look'd as bloodless. Here a pious Catholic, Mumbling and mixing up in his scared prayers Heaven and earth's Maries; over his bow'd shoulder Scowl'd that world-hated and world-hating beast, A haggard Anabaptist. Many such groups. The names of Wyatt, Elizabeth, Courtenay, Nay the Queen's right ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... still reasoned bravely. It was a heroic spark of life, a fighting spark, and hard to put out. It told him that when he came to shelter be would at least feel it, and that he must fight until the last. And all this time, for ages and ages it seemed to him, he kept mumbling over and over ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... rustling among the straw, which discomposed the young peasant so much, that he sprang out at the door, and overthrew his father in his flight. The old gentleman would not spend time in getting up, but crawled backwards like a crab, with great speed, till he had got over the threshold, mumbling exorcisms all the way. I was exceedingly mortified to find myself in danger of perishing through the ignorance and cowardice of these clowns; and felt my spirits decay apace, when an old woman entered the barn, followed by the ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... idiot boy to the carriage, leering in upon its inmates, and rolling from side to side, with his hand out, mumbling that one word over and over between his heavy lips: and up came the gang of paupers, gazing ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... heard the curate linking awa at it in his white sark yonder, and the musicians playing on whistles, mair like a penny-wedding than a sermon—and to the boot of that, I might hae gaen to even-song, and heard Daddie Docharty mumbling his mass—muckle the better I wad ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... shuddering, frightened eh from the crowd.... A French soldier mumbling ... "'Cre nom de nom de nom de nom de ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... she went on mumbling titles as she struggled along, the sun beating fiercely on her bare head. Such a quaint head, with sleek black hair parted and plaited and hung with jewels, even down the long pigtail of brown wool that was added on to the back to make the ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... What?... What are you mumbling there? Just blow your nose, and then speak sensibly! One can't make head or tail ...
— The First Distiller • Leo Tolstoy
... further irritating her, the old Pacha kept mumbling and muttering to himself, nodding his head and smiling at each fresh mark of attention, for though he was so independent and fearless still he appreciated the trouble she took. The mumbling in his mouth was a sort of purring. Her dutiful spirit had stroked him up to a pleasant state of electric ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... A mumbling old blockhead!—Didn't you, Sir Abel? Yes; I was rather married many years ago; but my ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... "Don't stand mumbling to yourself there," cried Ezra, catching his father's arm and half dragging him along the beach. "Don't you understand that there's a hue and cry out after you, and that we'll be hung if we are taken. Wake up and exert yourself. The gallows would be a nice end to all your preaching ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... matter what you do, miracles or fruitless deeds, You're a man, man, man, if you do them with a will; And no matter how you loaf, cursing wealth or mumbling creeds, You are nothing but a noise, and ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... did not sooner detect the fallacy of magic? How could they continue to cherish expectations that were invariably doomed to disappointment? With what heart persist in playing venerable antics that led to nothing, and mumbling solemn balderdash that remained without effect? Why cling to beliefs which were so flatly contradicted by experience? How dare to repeat experiments that had failed so often? The answer seems to be ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the time had come for prompt action. He snatched up his loaded rifle from the corner where it stood always ready, ran out upon the steps, and shouted at the bull. The great black animal stopped and looked around, mumbling deep in his throat. He wheeled half-about to return to the old enemy. Then he paused irresolutely and eyed the gay bevy of children. Which foe should ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... an unpleasant feeling of momentary discomfort, but, not being able to locate his ideas clearly, he irritably gave up the attempt to arrive at a solution of this instinctive sensation, mumbling to himself: "This tropical hell is ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... waistcoat, and assuming an engaging expression as a preliminary to an encounter with the fair, that the spectacle of a man who enters a strange drawing-room and shakes hands quietly and naturally all round, without twisting his features into an agreeable smile and mumbling entirely inarticulate words of rapture, always arouses in me feelings of envy ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... discipline cleared poor Wamba's wits or cooled his humor, it is certain that he became the most melancholy fool in England, and if ever he ventured upon a pun to the shuddering poor servitors, who were mumbling their dry crusts below the salt, it was such a faint and stale joke that noboby dared to laugh at the innuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he could muster. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted poor wretch), laughed outright at ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... went; but delivered without the slightest regard for rhythm, and composed in stark defiance of those laws which should regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, were carefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke's death; and yet I hear you still mumbling that I didn't let the actual fact be told you by a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against me is for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch against Clarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? No. But Katie, at Clarence's first words, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... a spirit of religious inquiry is growing up in Spain, and the Church sees it and cannot prevent it. It watches the liberal newspapers and the Protestant prayer-meetings much as the old giant in Bunyan's dream glared at the passing pilgrims, mumbling and muttering toothless curses. It looks as if the dead sleep of uniformity of thought were to be broken at last, and Spain were to enter the healthful and vivifying atmosphere ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... a girl lying in the centre was sent flying into the air, she who reached the greatest height receiving the appropriate prize of a needle or thimble. At night the dance was continued, and on this occasion a fire was kindled around which the medicine men seated themselves, mumbling incantations and casting small pieces of deer or walrus meat into the flames as a sacrifice to the evil spirits. The whale entertainment lasted for three nights, but the incidents which occurred upon the last evening are not fit ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... placed a table, covered with a rich and gold-embroidered cloth, bordered with heavy gold fringe, upon which stood four tall wax candles, surrounding a mimic altar surmounted by an ebony crucifix. His chaplain, dressed in Popish canonicals, was mumbling forth some form of prayer, and a splendidly-illuminated missal lay open before him. There was also on the table a small marble basin of water, and a curiously inlaid box filled with bones—relics, no doubt—imbued with the spirit of miracle-working. The priest was perhaps ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... one after the other given the child such gifts as each counted best, and the fifth had just stepped back to her place in the surrounding splendour of ladies and gentlemen, when, mumbling a laugh between her toothless gums, the wicked fairy hobbled out into the middle of the circle, and at the moment when the archbishop was handing the baby to the lady at the head of the nursery department of state affairs, addressed him thus, giving a bite or two to every word ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... on her knees beside him, mumbling inaudible words with husky voice. The hands that loosened the reddening collar of his shirt were firm and decided. She did not hear the grate of Zephyr's shoes. She was only conscious of other hands putting hers aside. His knife cut the clothes that hid the wound. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... angels she sent him as men —in the forms of the tawny Dakotas, And they led his feet from the fen, —from the slough of despond and the desert. Half-dead in a dismal morass, as they followed the red-deer they found him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktmee [72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks on the marshes at midnight, With a flickering torch in his hand, to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... In this order they made the circuit of the cathedral, passing twice before me where I leaned against a pillar. The priest who seemed of most consequence was a strange, down- looking old man. He kept mumbling prayers with his lips; but as he looked upon me darkling, it did not seem as if prayer were uppermost in his heart. Two others, who bore the burthen of the chaunt, were stout, brutal, military-looking men of forty, with bold, over-fed eyes; they sang with some lustiness, ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a close lane, as I pursu'd my journey, I spy'd a wrinkled hag, with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. Her eyes with scalding-rheum were gall'd, and red, Cold palsy shook her head, her hands seemed wither'd, And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt The tatter'd remnant of an old striped hanging, Which served to keep her carcass from the cold; So there ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... were hoarse from an afternoon's bellowing. Some were still drunk with the acid fire of exhausted nerves, and were loud. Others, drained, mumbled in the background like a chorus of the stupid. Gesticulating, mumbling, shouting, shadowed, lumped into one knot of blackness lighted by a ruddy cheekbone here, a gleaming brow there above an eye socket as inky and blank as a bottomless pit, they were like something out of the wan and misty ages before the Earth had ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... of light, a puff of smoke, a loud report. The Kru boy fell forward upon his face howling with fear. Monty ran off towards the house mumbling to himself. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... most ominous of all. It was as though it came from afar off, down behind the horizon line that showed black, with a fringe of angry yellow in the west. A low, mumbling, roaring, moaning wind it was, that whistled mournfully through the rigging of the schooner, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... our efforts to "attend." I may say for myself that, child as I was, I began to find a satisfaction and pleasure in going to church, though the place was hideous, the ritual dreary, and the minister mumbling. When by chance there was a nice hymn, such as, "Glory to Thee," or "O GOD, our help in ages past," we were quite happy. We also tried manfully to "attend" to the sermons, which, considering the length and abstruseness ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... dishes were removed, pipes were brought out and tankards sent on their rounds. By this time poor old Tim's weak brains were muddled, and he was discovered leaning back against the wall and mumbling out the tag-end of ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... waist, wrestled with and finally threw him. We were both down, with our faces in the snow, and I held him tight. I expected that he would be angry, and hot to turn the play into a real fight; but he said instead, mumbling with his mouth ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... induce my parents to let me be educated, and they wanted me to take to trade, too, and to know nothing but the Talmud. . . . But you will agree, it is not everyone who can spend his whole life struggling for a crust of bread, wallowing in filth, and mumbling the Talmud. At times officers and country gentlemen would put up at papa's inn, and they used to talk a great deal of things which in those days I had never dreamed of; and, of course, it was alluring and moved me to envy. I used to cry and entreat them to send me to school, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of his mouth, and he was conscious that at his entrance dead silence had fallen upon the group by the fire. Then Mrs Ffolliot rose and held out a kind fair hand to him, and said something that he could not hear. Somehow he reached the succouring hand and clung to it like a drowning man, mumbling the while, "Sorry to intrude upon you, but one of your sons"—again the name eluded him—"has broken his arm, and he's ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... days of acute suffering, brought him to the grave. During his illness he was constantly and zealously tended by his wife, but he displayed great aversion to her, declaring himself bewitched, and that an old woman was ever in the corner of his room mumbling wicked enchantments against him. But as no such old woman could be seen, these assertions were treated as delirious ravings. They were not, however, forgotten after his death, and some people said that he had certainly been ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... we set up to be God's witnesses, Miriam. Our creed is naught but prayer-mumbling and pious mummeries. The Christian Apostles went through the world testifying. Better a brief heroism than this long ignominy." He burst into sudden tears and sank ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Jacob Flanders, aged nineteen. It is no use trying to sum people up. One must follow hints, not exactly what is said, nor yet entirely what is done—for instance, when the train drew into the station, Mr. Flanders burst open the door, and put the lady's dressing-case out for her, saying, or rather mumbling: "Let me" very shyly; indeed he was rather ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... scramble to their feet unaided, while others could not. These Denman helped; but, as he assisted them with one hand, holding his pistol in the other, there was no demonstration against him with doubled fists—which is possible and potential. Mumbling and muttering, they floundered down the small hatch and forward into the forecastle. The last in the line was Sampson, and ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... them alone," said Uncle John, but the official, mumbling that it was against the rules of the hotel, summoned a porter and ordered him to throw the ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... before he gave in; but finding he could not damp the burning curiosity which devoured me, and that my ears were deaf to the somewhat rough music of his reasoning and his predictions, the worthy man at length closed the fountain of his eloquence, and, though growling and mumbling in an under tone at my juvenile obstinacy, which had deprived him of his bed and his supper, quietly took his seat in the tree; then drawing from the bottom of his pocket some tobacco and a short pipe—his consolation in his greatest ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... something on Milburn's mind, though he was unable to explain it. Every attempt was made to interpret his want, but in vain, till Aunt Hominy broke the silence by mumbling: ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... of a Witch, an old weather-beaten Croane, hauing her chinne, & her knees meeting for age, walking like a bow leaning on a shaft, hollow eyed, vntoothed, furrowed on her face, hauing her lips trembling with the palsie, going mumbling in the streetes, one that hath forgott[e] her pater noster, and hath yet a shrewd tongue in her head, to call a drab, a drab. If shee haue learned of an olde wife in a chimnies end: Pax, max, fax, ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... help, that all we needed was enough money to whip Hawkins out of the way, and that if he would "come up" with the needful we would look out for him. I left him a disgusting sight, sitting in a red plush armchair, with his face in his hands, his hair streaking down across his forehead, moaning and mumbling to himself. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... those of a young girl, almost—words that gasped themselves forth, seeming to leave a great deal more behind them than they told, and died out discontented with themselves, like the monologue of thunder in the sky, which always goes off mumbling and grumbling as if it had not said half it wanted ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... old man entered. He was mumbling. He was saying, in that jumble of sound which it was difficult for even Alan to understand—and which Sokwenna had never given up for the missionaries' teachings—that he could hear feet and smell blood; and that the feet were many, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... the walk with hurried tread, and raved; I threw myself beneath the willow-tree, And muttered like the muttering of a storm. My little lamb came bleating mournfully; Angered I struck him;—out among the trees I wandered mumbling 'beggar' as I went, And beating in through all my burning soul The bitter thoughts it conjured, till my brain Reeled and I sunk upon the dew-damp ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... without a cry, dropped like a log (poor fellow, he never rose again! the apoplexy which the surgeon promised had come), his comrade gave a cry, and sank in a heap in a corner, mumbling a prayer, and making the sign of the cross, his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... discomfiture of the opposite party, and had given him some account of the representation of the play at the Parthenon. Her father was delighted to find her in high spirits. So many people come back from the theater looking glum and worn out, yawning and mumbling when asked what they have seen and what it had all been about. Phyllis was not glum, nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own powers of description, ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... Mumbling incoherently, he slowly raised himself and glared owlishly around, caught sight of the picture in Leyden's hand, ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... soldiers with their rifles ready, and we discovered afterwards that the machine guns had been brought up to the gates ready for use at a moment's notice. We shuffled for a few minutes, frowning, glowering, mumbling, cursing and swearing, but as the Germans always mean what they say, we sullenly moved off as ordered. Still the protest bore fruit; no further attempts were made to serve us ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... of Argile back again," said an old halberdier, staunching a savage cut on his knee, and mumbling his words because he was chewing as he spoke an herb that's ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... as I saw you in that dark room, in your black gown, lying weeping, I was so overcome by my feelings that I stood still, unable to speak, not knowing what to say. Instead of giving sympathy, I myself was in need of it, therefore I departed, completely overcome by the sad sight, mumbling and speechless, as you noticed or might have noticed. Perhaps this happened to me because you had need of neither my sympathy nor my condolences; for, knowing my devotion and fidelity, you would also be aware of the pain which I felt on account of your sorrow, and you in your wisdom ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... bit of butter, she allowed her glance to rove perfunctorily over the three plates beyond her own. She asked Wrinkle if his coffee was strong enough, and the gap in the black bonnet if the mush was too lumpy. From the bonnet came a mumbling content with the yellow mass into which cream was being slowly stirred with a quivering hand. Wrinkle seemed more ready in the use ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... another ornament of Chesterton from a room at the back of the shop. He was quite a kid, not more than a hundred and fifty at the outside, so, as a last chance, I tackled him on the subject. He looked at the photographs for about half an hour, mumbling something about it not being 'thiccy 'un' or 'that 'un', or 'that 'ere tother 'un', until I began to feel I'd had enough of it. Then it came out that the real chap who had sent the letters was a 'la-ad' with light hair, not ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... to crumble away in order that the spirit of M. Viollet-le-Duc alone may pervade it and it may subsist simply as a magnificent shell. As the leases of the wretched little houses fall in, the ground is cleared of them; and a mumbling old woman approached me in the course of my circuit, inviting me to condole with her on the disappearance of so many of the hovels which in the last few hundred years (since the collapse of Carcassonne as a stronghold) had ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... Hedwig at once bristled up and said with emphasis that rascals, neither great nor small, were in the habit of lending their money to deserving young men; and Herr Sohnstein, a little sheepishly perhaps, and mumbling a little in his gray mustache, ventured the statement that this was a free country already, and people living in it were at liberty to lend their money to whom they pleased; and Minna, looking up from her books—Gottlieb's ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... town. A half-mile lay behind me before I met the first man. He was riding an ass, but when I gave him "Buenos dias," he replied with a whining: "Una limosnita! A little alms, for the love of God." He wore a rosary about his neck and a huge cross on his chest. When I ignored his plea he rode on mumbling. The savage bellow of a bull not far off suggested a new possible danger on the road in this unfenced and almost treeless country. More men passed on asses, mules, and horses, but none afoot. Finally over the brown rise appeared Dolores ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... came. He appeared to have been drinking; and, after some mumbling talk, laid down inside the fort, near the gate. I made the gate fast, driving the big wooden pins home with an axe; built up a great fire, and sent Edwards to bed in the tent. The Chinese prisoners were already asleep on the ground. Then I sat down on the opposite side ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... head, a little abashed, perhaps, yet very glad she had succeeded in hurting Peter. She turned and went out the door, mumbling something which might have been ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... of the highway, and looking pleasantly around him as he walked. From time to time he paused, took out his note-book and made an entry with a pencil; and any spy who had been near enough would have heard him mumbling words as though he were a poet testing verses. The voice of the wheels was still faint, and it was plain the traveller had far ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... different sects of religion, but are mostly atheists; many of them believing, that if they lead good lives, they will be born again to great riches, and be made governors; whereas those who lead bad lives will be changed to some vile animal, as a frog or toad. They burn sacrifices every new moon, mumbling over certain prayers in a kind of chanting voice, tingling a small bell, which they ring aloud at the close of each prayer. When any of them of good account lies sick and like to die, they sacrifice in this manner: Their altars are furnished with goats, hens, ducks, and various ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... again as before and, when close to me, lay down before me on the pavement and began to paw at me, purring loudly in her throat, now and then snarling softly. She played with me as she had often played before, all her claws sheathed and her paws soft as thistledown; mumbling my hands and forearms in her hot mouth, slavering over them, yet never so much as bruising the skin with her needle-sharp teeth. Yet I seemed to detect a subtle difference in her mood and, from moment to moment, dreaded that she might claw me to ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... nothing. If you say another word, I'll put you down four. You tall gal, what's your name, you keep back there, or I'll fetch you such a cut as'll keep you at home till next reckoning. Cuss you, you old fool, do you think I am to be kept all day while you are mumbling here? Who's pushing on there? I see you, Mrs Page. Won't there be a black mark against you? Oh! its Mrs Prance, is it? Father, put down Mrs Prance for a peck of flour. I'll have order here. You think the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... strong analogy to a well-known line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the syllables that accidentally reached me, I was no less perplexed with the intonations of the voices of the different speakers. While it was easy to understand they were of the two sexes, they had no direct affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the English, the vehement monotony of the French, the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards, the noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves of the Germans, or the undulating, head-over-heels enunciation ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... answered, mumbling with his swollen lips, "I have for some weeks been under the impression that you are a madman. Now I know it, and that you are a dangerous one as well. If it were not that I am unwilling to make a scandal in the college, you would now be in ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is still far from Benares,' said the lama wearily, mumbling over the cakes that Kim offered. They all unloosed their bundles and made their morning meal. Then the banker, the cultivator, and the soldier prepared their pipes and wrapped the compartment in choking, acrid smoke, spitting and coughing and ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... maintained, in all neighbourhood differences, the studious attitude of an incorruptible neutral. Old Grandsire Templey, his father-in-law, sat always in the same low chair on the porch in summer and back of the stove in winter, with his palsied hands crossed on his staff-head and his toothless gums mumbling in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... come with me and do the talking. I protest in advance against any such outrageous invasion of my private life." Muttering and mumbling, he came rolling after me like an angry ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spend whole days in the woods; but first I want to tell you about a story concerning cows; and this is the trufe too. Every New Years night when the whistles begin to blow, cows get down on their knees lift up their front legs and make a mumbling noise. This is true cause one night I made it my business to be around some cows when the whistles begin to blow and sho nuff they got down on their hind legs and started making that noise. I was so fraid I ran all ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... surprise, half suspicious, half incredulous. But when Henry in low, rapid tones had expounded his plan, the young man's face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang into it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a moment he was on his knee, mumbling the prince's hand, his eyes moist with gratitude. Nor was that all; the two talked long, the murmur of their voices broken more than once by the ripple of laughter. When they at length separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the folds of his cloak, had stolen to his lodgings, where, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... parlour-maid, my place was no sinecure, and but few opportunities of observation through the crack of the door were afforded me. All that was clear to me was that the chief guest was a Mr. Teidelmann—or Tiedelmann, I cannot now remember which—a snuffy, mumbling old frump, with whose name then, however, I was familiar by reason of seeing it so often in huge letters, though with a Co. added, on dreary long blank walls, bordering the Limehouse reach. He sat at my mother's right hand; and I ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... by Jove!" were the first words he articulated, and then, appearing to recollect himself, he added, "Oh, I forgot, I'm drowned—well drowned, too—can't be help'd, however—wasn't born to be hanged—and that seems clear." Thus he kept muttering and mumbling for an hour, until old Grace thinking him so far recovered as to remove all danger from sudden surprise, allowed me to take her seat at the bedside. He looked at me long and intensely, but the light was not sufficiently strong to ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... at the other girls, but they shook their heads decidedly—the mumbling old crone ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... whose place George had supplied—had joined them outside the town, and now walked by the side of the caleche. He assisted George's companion in bearing out the coffins. The huge door grated on its hinges, as they opened it. The coffins were borne in, and the whole party entered; the priest mumbling a short Latin prayer. In a short time, the priest alone returned; and looking cautiously around, and seeing no one, struck a light from a tinder box, and lighted his cigar. The other two men brought back the coffins, evidently relieved of their weight; and the priest—the boy—with ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was in a tremendous hurry, for he had many other places to visit that morning. He fairly ran through the rooms, sprinkling each with a dash of holy water, mumbling a prayer and raising his hand in blessing, then racing on to the next, with all the household trailing behind him like the tail of a kite. He blessed the kitchen and pantries, he even blessed the cat ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... gave birth to a girl; she had suffered terrible pains. Philippina had seen and heard it all. She had run back and forth, from the kitchen to the bedroom and from the bedroom to the kitchen, for hours; she was like an insane person; she kept mumbling something to herself. What she mumbled ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... rows of mystic signs, and read her notebook, mumbling. But suddenly she let it drop into her lap, covering the signs with both ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... savaging the horse, my lads?" demanded Anthony, running a hand over the sweating animal with the caressing touch of a true horseman. "Come, speak up and no mumbling!" ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... got here, there wasn't a soul in this house. Not even the dog. We went back to Hynds House, and walked through our garden, and then came back here, because we didn't know what else to do. Oh, Sophy!" I patted her shoulders, mumbling that she mustn't cry, it was ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... deaconlike attitude of the dentist, the conventional solemnity of the schoolteacher and of the immobile Swede, the shaking, quavering terror of Mrs. Ducharme, mumbling to herself the words of the service. Why should the old woman be so upset, he wondered. But his vagrant thoughts always came back to the woman near the coffin, the woman he loved. How could she summon up such peace! Was hers one of those mighty souls that never ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... already prayed to God for food, but it did not come as promptly as their necessities seemed to demand. They searched for Thorhall for three half-days, and found him on a projecting crag. He was lying there, and looking up at the sky, with mouth and nostrils agape, and mumbling something. They asked him why he had gone thither; he replied, that this did not concern anyone. They asked him then to go home with them, and he did so. Soon after this a whale appeared there, and they captured it, and flensed it, and no one could tell what manner ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... for their meal, and Dame Isabeau would call to the child, even sharply perhaps now and then, to leave that all-absorbing needlework and come in and help, as Martha called Mary fourteen hundred years before; and where the priest, mumbling his mass of a cold morning in the little church, would smile indulgent on the faithful little worshipper when it was done, sure of seeing Jeanne there whoever might be absent. She was a shy girl, blushing and drooping her head when a stranger spoke to her, red and shame-faced when they ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... mumbling her hand. An hour later Catherine told Jehan de Vaucelles she intended to marry Noel the Handsome when he should come back from Geneppe with the exiled Dauphin. The old man, having wisdom, lifted his brows, and returned to his reading in Le ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... never waited for us to come to his help. The others, when they were hungry and impatient, tried to break through the hard rind with their teeth, but seldom with success if the pumpkin was full grown. Buck never wasted time in this mumbling, slavering way, but crushed them with his head. He went to the pile, picked out a good one, like a boy choosing an orange or apple, rolled it down on to the open ground, deliberately kneeled in front of it, placed his broad, flat brow on top of it, brought his weight hard down and crushed it, then ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... and then felt pity, and now and then heard it preached from the pulpit. He was exhorted to be pious, and to pour wine and oil into the wounds of his neighbor; but it never once struck him that piety extended further than going to church, mumbling his prayers and forgetting the sermon, through most of which he generally slept; and his commentaries on the good Samaritan were not more extensive, for it was so difficult to make him comprehend who was his neighbor, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Louis sat back in his chair, his thin lips mumbling nervously at his nails, his eyes fixed on his own handwriting: the ring, a passport to life or death, he had at once slipped upon his finger. Every moment he knew he was watched, every action weighed, and he was a little uncertain how far a judicious ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... so awfully lonely out there on the frontiers"—he said, mumbling his words through his moustache in a ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... with a haughty drawback motion, and a supercilious arching of her brows, was "happy to have the honour." Honour nasally prolonged, and some guttural sounds followed, but further words, if words they were, which she syllabled between snuffling and mumbling, were utterly unintelligible; and Helen, without being "very happy," or happy at all, only returned bend ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the appointed time, Copernicus Droop might have been seen approaching the white cottage. Still nursing a faint hope, he walked with nervous rapidity, mumbling and gesticulating in his excitement. He attracted but little attention. His erratic movements were credited to his usual potations, and no one whom he passed even gave him ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... valiant stomach of the age of almost of a hundred and twenty hours breeding, fell to, and ate two loaves and never said grace: and as I was about to make a horse-loaf of the third loaf, I did put twelve of them into my breeches, and my sleeves, and so went mumbling out of the cave, leaning my back against a tree, when upon the sudden a gentleman came to me, and said, "Friend, what are you eating?" "Bread," (quoth I,) "For God's sake," said he, "give me some." With that, I put my hand into my breech, (being my best pantry) and I gave him a loaf, which ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor |
