"Stealthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was a broad-shouldered, bull-necked young man, who leaned against the marble mantel-piece, turning over the pages of an almanac, and taking from time to time a stealthy peep over the top of it at the toilers around him. Command was imprinted in every line of his strong, square-set face and erect, powerful frame. Above the medium size, with a vast spread of shoulder, a broad aggressive jaw, and bright ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was awakened by the fall of a lump of snow from the branch of a shaken evergreen. That was nothing. But there were other sounds in the forest, faint, stealthy, inaudible to an ear less keen than his. He crept out of the shelter and looked into the wood. He could see shadowy forms, stealing among the trees, gliding down the hill. Five of them. Wolves, doubtless! He must guard the provisions. By this time the rest of his ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... repaired. It may be watched and guarded, so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and near it the stealthy tread of the foe that would win ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the traitress, as I slept, Stole from the house, and from beneath my head She took the trusty falchion, that I kept To guard the chamber and the bridal bed. Then, creeping to the door, with stealthy tread, She lifts the latch, and beckons from within To Menelaus; so, forsooth, she fled In hopes a lover's gratitude to win, And from the past wipe out ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... of the sun, and ever-changing shape. On another, when the turbulent Foehn is blowing, streamers of snow may be seen flying from the higher ridges against a pallid background of slaty cloud, while the gaunt ribs of the hills glisten below with fitful gleams of lurid light. At sunrise, one morning, stealthy and mysterious vapours clothe the mountains from their basement to the waist, while the peaks are glistening serenely in clear daylight. Another opens with silently falling snow. A third is rosy through the length and breadth of the dawn-smitten valley. It is, however, impossible ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... said, "thank you, sir, yes, sir, I will, sir;" and retired from the room, as he had entered it, with his usual stealthy respect and quiet humility; leaving the major to muse and wonder over what ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... suggestion of agitation about him anywhere and with nothing furtive or stealthy in his movements, Trencher boldly passed the corner of the desk, crossed the lobby, went along the front of the news stand, where a young woman stood among her wares, and through another set of revolving doors came out upon ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... ascending, we had passed on one side of the rock. We looked about to discover the spot where we had left the guanaco. There it lay; but not a hundred yards from it we saw another animal approaching it by stealthy ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... interpolate on the laws of war a provision that pickets shall not be shot. This provision is, in accordance with our philosophy, founded on Christian principles and the dictates of healthy humanity, for pickets are not active belligerents, and can oppose no force to the stealthy attacks made on them by unseen enemies. To kill a picket is like fighting an unarmed man, a child or a woman. It is eminently right according to the selfish and silly philosophy of writers on national law, but inhuman, and therefore wrong, according ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of Valls had suffered the torments of the treacherous pin-prick, of the stealthy scratching, of the scissors in her braids, and then, on becoming a woman, the odium and scorn of her old-time companions had followed her, embittering the pleasures of the young woman despite her riches. What was the use of being elegant? On the avenues none but her father's friends ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Royalist plotters, to provoke the people into illegality, obstruct the transport of grains. Quick, ye organised Patriot Authorities, armed National Guards, meet together; unite your goodwill; in union is tenfold strength: let the concentred flash of your Patriotism strike stealthy Scoundrelism blind, paralytic, as with a ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... and sweet-mannered; Estridge sat by Ilse, looking a trifle careworn, as though hospital work were taking it out of him. Marya Lanois was there, too, with her slightly slanting green eyes and her tiger-red hair—attracting from him a curious sort of stealthy admiration, inexplicable to him because he knew he was so ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... The Mexican was not giving him any attention whatever, as far as he could see; on the contrary, he was staring down at the ground as though he, too, were looking for something. Starr gave him another stealthy look, gained nothing from it, and shrugged his ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... witchery and romance. You wander with Lucius across the hills and through the dales of Thessaly. With all the delight of a fresh curiosity you approach its far-seen towns. You journey at midnight under the stars, listening in terror for the howling of the wolves or the stealthy ambush. At other whiles you sit in the robbers' cave and hear the ancient legends of Greece retold. The spring comes on, and 'the little birds chirp and sing their steven melodiously.' Secret raids, ravished brides, valiant rescues, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... chargers. This squadron had been hovering in the neighborhood of the English army for some days, watching for an opportunity to attack them, but without success. Now, foreseeing that Edward would attempt to enter Romorantin, they pushed forward in a stealthy manner to the neighborhood of that town, and placed themselves in ambush at the sides of a narrow and solitary gorge in the mountains, through which they knew the English ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Phillis had done, and ransacked every likely hiding-place of papers or valuables, going through the operation with a rapid dexterity that astounded the old woman's weak mind, and made her ashamed of her own clumsiness. Anticipating the final stealthy look in her direction, the heavy lids fell once again, and were not raised until the rusty bolt passed gratingly into the socket, and she felt that the place was deserted by all save herself and the ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... of living things around them—things that moved about, silently and surreptitiously and conveyed the impression of mockery. The hills, the valley, the trees were full of it—the whole place teemed with it—teemed with silent, subtle, stealthy mockery. The senses of the three men were now keenly alive, but a dead weight hung upon their limbs and rendered them useless. And as they stared into the gloom, in sickly fear, the firelight flickered and they saw shadows, such as the moon, when low in the heaven, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... logical for me. I only catch a thought here and there along the page. There is a grandeur even in the subtlety of his mind. He walks with a step so still, that, but for his dignity, it would be stealthy, yet with brow erect and wide, eye grave and deep. He is a man such as I have never known before.' ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... skill in threading the maze with never a snapped twig to betray him. For though I have called him a youthling, he came of great, square-shouldered English stock, and was well upon fourteen stone for weight. Yet upon occasion, as now, he could be as lithe and cat-like as an Indian, stealthy in ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... these things fatten? Mass! I had forgot: I have a right to bark at trespassers. Rare privilege! While every fowl and bush, According to its destiny and nature (Which were they truly mine, my power could alter), Will live, and grow, and take no thought of me. Those firs, before whose stealthy-marching ranks The world-old oaks still dwindle and retreat, If I could stay their poisoned frown, which cows The pale shrunk underwood, and nestled seeds Into an age of sleep, 'twere something: and those men O'er whom that one word 'ownership' uprears me— If I could make ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... following afternoon followed by the stealthy glances of the crew, who had heard something from Henry, and, first getting his beard trimmed at a barber's, walked along to call on Mrs. Gething. She was in, and pleased to see him, and hearing that his crew were also searching, supplied him with another ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... by our gloom, Yon little mourner sits and sighs, His playthings, scatter'd round the room, No more attract his listless eyes. Nutting, his infant task, he plies, On moves with soft and stealthy tread, And call'd, in tone subdued replies, As if he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... of servants, who still lingered until he should dismiss them for the night. Turning back, he moved silently down the passage, until he reached the narrow arched door to the garden. This he unlocked and opened with the same stealthy caution. The rain had recommenced. Not daring to risk a return to his room, he took from a peg in the recess an old waterproof cloak and "sou'wester" of Peyton's, which still hung there, and passed out into the night, locking the door behind him. To keep the knowledge of his secret patrol from ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... no doubt that in this case his alertness was dulled. The fatigue of the march, his dose of fever, his previous night of wakefulness in the canoe, all combined to undermine his guard; and, moreover, the attack of the savages was stealthy in the extreme. Like ghosts, they must have crept back from the bush to reconnoitre their village; like daylight ghosts, they must have surrounded the trader missionary's hut and peered at the sleeping man between the bamboos of the wall, and then made their entrance; and it must ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... sentinel for the remaining hours that he continued on duty. He continued circling about the camp-fire, silent, stealthy, peering here and there, and listening for the first evidence of danger. Nothing of the kind was seen or heard, and he finally came back to the smouldering fire and looked at the ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... scarlet wherewith to robe himself, and if he looked noble in his armour he will look still more so in a doublet. When night comes he will sup with the king, queen, and princess; and all the time he will never take his eyes off her, stealing stealthy glances, unnoticed by those present, and she will do the same, and with equal cautiousness, being, as I have said, a damsel of great discretion. The tables being removed, suddenly through the door of the hall there will enter a hideous and diminutive dwarf followed by a fair dame, between ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... with sour grimace, "A gift-horse is not out of place, And, truly! godless cannot be The one who brought such things to me." A parson came, by the mother bidden: He saw, at once, where the game was hidden, And viewed it with a favor stealthy. He spake: "That is the proper view,— Who overcometh, winneth too. The Holy Church has a stomach healthy: Hath eaten many a land as forfeit, And never yet complained of surfeit: The Church alone, beyond all question, Has for ill-gotten goods the ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... other hand to feel at my right wrist, and found that it was clipped in one of a pair of handcuffs, the other being locked in a staple in the wall. I tugged my hardest to loosen this staple, but it held firm. The thing had been so sudden and stealthy that I scarce had time to realise that I was in serious danger, and that, doubtless, Plummer had preceded me, when a light appeared at an angle ahead. It turned the corner, and I perceived, coming toward me, carrying a lamp, the pale man of the eyes, whom I had encountered not an hour before—in ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... hiding place, and, with steps as silent and stealthy as those of a tiger tracking his prey, followed the man. When within a few paces of him he gave a sudden spring and flung himself upon him, burying his knife between his shoulders. Without a sound the man fell forward on his face. Nessus coolly wiped his knife upon the garments ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... thrill, While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, Glow opposite;—the marshes drink their fill And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade 145 Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... long breath, and stood looking at the doorway in utter bewilderment. The whole incident had been most perplexing. There was first her stealthy entry, and the suddenness with which she had appeared before him; then those mystic surroundings of her strange, weird figure which had excited his superstitious fancies; then the idea which had ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... butcher, of High Street, Wapping; that his visit to Wapping on the very night of his arrival was prompted by curiosity to know the position of his family, of whom he had not heard for some years; and that his stealthy transactions with the three sisters, and with the brother of Arthur Orton, had no object but that of furnishing them with an inducement to keep the dangerous secret of his true ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... Julius Hannibal, who had allowed himself to be crowded towards the door, stole out and went softly up stairs. With the stealthy motion of a cat, he crept along the hall and opened ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... you have. It isn't available." He bent forward: "Some men, Richling, carry their folly on the surface and their good sense at the bottom,"—he jerked his thumb backward toward the distant Narcisse, and added, with a stealthy frown,—"like that little fool in yonder. He's got plenty of sense, but he doesn't load any of it on deck. Some men carry their sense on top and their ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... With the stealthy tread of a panther, Bert climbed over the improvised rampart, and a few seconds later his form merged into the enveloping darkness and was lost to the view of his anxious friends. They listened with straining ears for any sound of shot or struggle, but the deep ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... on Bulwana—I say four, because one day there were four; but the Boers continually shifted their lighter guns from hill to hill—were very different. These creatures are stealthy in their habits, lurking among woods, firing smokeless powder with very little flash; consequently they are very difficult guns to locate. Their favourite diet appeared to be balloons; or, failing them, the Devons in the Helpmakaar Road or the Manchesters in Caesar's Camp. ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... stealthy rogue vanished from the room when the door of a closet in the rear opened ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... by an effort, he repeated the too familiar name, and baptized the child, bending his head over it afterwards in deep compassion and mental entreaty both for its welfare, and his own guidance in the tissue of wrongdoing thus disclosed. A hasty, stealthy glance at the hands covering the mother's face, showed him the ring on her fourth finger, and as they rose from their knees, he said, 'I am to register this child as Owen ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... now bent over the spring, Hagen with stealthy steps crept near and drew the hero's sword and quiver out of his reach. Stealthy still, he seized the spear which rested against the linden tree. Then while Siegfried drank of the cool, clear water, Hagen stabbed him, straight through the little cross of silk ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... was silent. The lights had been darkened for an hour. With stealthy step along the upper hall, and silent footfall on the stairway, the cloaked and hooded figure of Leah approached the sleeping apartment of her father and his wife. The sound of heavy breathing betokened heavy slumber, as she silently turned the door-knob and ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... long woodland ways that led To dells the stealthy twilights tread The west was hot geranium-red; And still, and still, Along old lanes, the locusts sow With clustered curls the May-times know, Out of the crimson afterglow, We heard the homeward cattle low, And then the far-off, far-off woe ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... desperate game for half an hour more. Twice the girl lost the bridle and had to get it again by stealthy wiles, and once she was almost on the point of giving up, ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... kind of start at this, like one thrilled for an instant with a sublime impulse. He cast a quick, stealthy look at Kitty, and then as suddenly withdrew his glance. What had happened to her who was usually dressed so prettily? Alas! true to her resolution, Kitty had again refused Fanny's dresses that morning, and had faithfully ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... case, only about twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts, extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears or much hopes for such an ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... scheme to be wealthy, By means that were cunning or stealthy; But we always had the bliss— And what further could we wiss?— To be pleased with ourselves, and be healthy; But we always ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... impotence.—Conscious of my own existence, yet unable to stir a limb in his behalf, alas! even this insignificant portion of thy being, thy Clara, is, like thee, a captive, and, separated from thee, consumes her expiring energies in the agonies of death.—I hear a stealthy step,—a cough—Brackenburg,—'tis he!—Kind, unhappy man, thy destiny remains ever the same; thy love opens to thee the door at night, alas! to ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... accepted,' says Peets, but still haughty; 'I descerns how you gets maladroit through errors over which you has no control. As to this person, who's so full of stealthy cunnin', he's all right. So long as he don't get no licker, no voylence is called for in his case.' An' with that Peets conducts his patient, who's come to ag'in, back to ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... lying down in such a bed would have given him so severe a cold in his head, that he would have nearly sneezed and snuffled it off. Not so in Senegal. Still there were other inconveniences, for Harry had not rested for five minutes, when he heard a stealthy footstep; his heart began to beat. He had learned in his Geography that Senegal was full of wild beasts, as well as the sugar plums the treacherous sailor talked about. He began to wish he had staid in the ship; but if he returned, there was Jack ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... out of bed the following morning at half-after six, I could not but wonder rather nervously what the day might have in store for me. I was obliged to admit that what I was in for looked a bit thick. As I opened my door I heard stealthy footsteps down the hall and looked out in time to observe Cousin Egbert entering his own room. It was not this that startled me. He would have been abroad, I knew, for the ham and eggs that were forbidden him. Yet I stood aghast, for with the lounge-suit of tweeds I had selected the day before ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... of all manner of haunted leafage, all those dense fierce growths with which Nature loves to proclaim her luxuriant victory over the work of man's hands—as soon, so to say, as his back is turned for a moment—like a stealthy savage foe ever on the watch in the surrounding darkness and only waiting for the hushing of human voices, for the cessation of human footsteps, to rush in ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... dull lamp, which only made a reddened twilight in the air. The fat woman watched me like a cat, and I fancied that her mouth was like that of a carnivorous beast. The sly old man looked on the ground, but his stealthy eye—like the eye of a cunning magpie—glittered sometimes as he turned it on me. Blackey was most cordial, and soon proposed a song. He obliged first, and warbled some ghastly affair which aimed at being nautical in sentiment. The chorus contained some observations ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... "It's worth five pounds in a police court," he muttered to himself, and knotting up his great hands, which glittered with rings, he approached his companion with his head sunk upon his breast, his eyes flashing from under his dark brows, and the slow, stealthy step of a beast of prey. There was a characteristic refinement of cruelty about his attack, as though he wished to gloat over the helplessness of his victim, and give him time to realize his position ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sweeping, old-world fashion which had done so much to build up his ten thousand a year, and, with the stealthy gait of a man whose life is spent in sick-rooms, he followed the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon the "Forty Thieves" and their officers. This little corps performed nearly all the active service. Their red shirts had become so well known, that the colour was enough to keep the natives at a distance; but although the Baris were now afraid to risk a stand-up fight, they troubled us by their stealthy tactics. It was impossible to say where they were concealed. They were spread all over the country: some hidden in the tall dhurra, others behind bushes. Their favourite place was in the grass and scattered bush on the banks of the river, where they lay in wait for ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... this hundred miles of tunnels that look so much alike? What if he should not intend to come? What if—But, thank Heaven! there he is at last! That is the firm, substantial sound of a mortal footstep; not those stealthy, phantom steps I seemed to hear before! There too is the distant glinting of the red lamplight on the sides of the cave! How long it takes him to get here! There he is at last! Blessed be his black face! how unlike the pale, phosphorescent forms I fancied just a little while ago! How foolish seem ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... floundering in the shallow water, and the noise they made prevented their hearing the stealthy ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... can make no such stealthy and sure attack. No matter how subtle her art, she can never hope to quite conceal her intent. Her eyes give her away. They flash and glitter. They have depths. They draw the male gaze into mysterious and sinister recesses. ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... had stopped singing in the noonday heat. The breeze had died down. Outdoors, in the house, there was not a sound. She felt as if she must not, could not breathe. The silence, like a stealthy hand, lifted her from her chair, drew her tiptoeing and breathless toward the room in which her father was sitting. She paused at its threshold, looked. There was Hiram, in his chair by the window, bolt upright, eyes ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... her teardrops as they fall; I flout my daytime fears; I mumble thanks to God for all These gibes and happy jeers. But, when the warning dawn awakes, Begins my wandering; With stealthy strokes through tangled brakes, A ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... a jar in his brain and a chill at his heart. His breath came short, and raising one hand, he stood beating the ground for half a minute with his foot. He gave a stealthy glance around, and ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... in that old packet, each one worse than the last, I believe—four voyages after nuts, and palm-oil, and enormous square logs of mahogany, and cages of snarling leopards and screaming parrots, and tanks of stealthy serpents. I used to wonder who found it worth while to hire us to bring such bizarre and useless things into England. Once one of the twenty-five hundred weight barrels of palm oil slipped from the slings and fell on the deck with a soft ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... covered many acres. There were deep, black pools in the unbroken shade; stealthy deer, tapirs, peccaries, and agoutis moved like shadows among the columnar trunks. A stream led from it into the distance that appeared greener and still more cheerful. Overhead, in the gnarled branches and leafy boughs were scores of snowy birds, egrets that had chosen the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... a sad task, and pity would lead us to soften every touch if this could be done in truthfulness. She was but twelve years of age, yet there was scarcely a trace of childhood left in her colorless face. Stealthy and catlike in all her movements, she gave the impression that she could not do the commonest thing except in a sly, cowering manner. Her small greenish-gray eyes appeared to be growing nearer together with the ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... just as the light of day was breaking. It was an engrossing study to observe how skillfully he kept us concealed from view of the enemy, by keeping rolls of the prairie between us. All his movements were like those of a wary animal, stealthy and noiseless. The fact is, the education of a savage is learned from the wild animals on which he lives, and that is what makes him such ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... not know," said Lan-O; "A-Kor says that he believes that it is because their country has never been invaded by a victorious foe. In their stealthy raids never have they been defeated, because they have never waited to face a powerful force; and so they have come to believe themselves invincible, and the other peoples are held in contempt as inferior in valor and the ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... With stealthy, quickened steps Slavin made his way towards it. Tensely they watched him. In each man's mind now was a vague feeling of certainty of something, they knew not what. They saw him reach the boulder, walk round it and stoop, peering at its base for a ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... made objects barely visible in the room. This done, he shuffled his feet slightly to apprise the half-conscious guardian of the ominous house that he was obeying her orders, and vanished in the rear darkness. The dead hush of sleep now reigned over the place. So it seemed, but the stealthy Pepillo was wide awake. He remained motionless, breathless, hidden in the gloom of the second cabin. At length he reappeared, took up the candle, stood awhile listening, then moved cautiously to the edge of the ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... was awakened by a noise that frightened me. All was still, but instantly there flashed through my mind tales of murdered travelers, and I was almost paralyzed with fear when again I heard that stealthy, sliding noise, just like Carlota Juanita's old slippers. The fire had burned down, but just then the moon came from behind a cloud and shone through the window upon Carlota Juanita, who was asleep with her mouth open. I could ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... The stealthy hand returned to the sight of all men and fussed among some papers on the desk-top. Major ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... enterprise. In another room lay Cummings and Moriarity, completely dressed. The former, with his habitual sang froid, was whispering to Moriarity, who, somewhat excited, was calmed by his companion's nonchalance, and as the hour for the work drew near became like him. A stealthy step, noiseless as an Indian's, interrupted the conversation, and the faint rap on the door ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... beauty to her grave I saw him moving evermore A stealthy wanderer on the wave, A shrouded shadow on the shore, The worm his bondsman, and the brave ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... weary game-keeper, the chirp of the burying-beetle, the croak of the bat, the wild laughter of the owl and the boom, boom of the frog, deep silence reigned. The crescent moon stole silently above the horizon. Wonderful, significant is that silent, stealthy approach of the moon. Red Head lumbered from his lair and crouched beside the shimmering fire of the furze. A startled grass-snake strove to leap out of the way of the monarch of the woods—- a hurried crunch ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... pleasant diversion in leading the youth a merry chase. So severe was his attack that he was alternately oppressed by chills of fear and fevers of ecstasy. He lost appetite, and the family began to fear for his sanity. Such a love must find expression some way, and so the daily stealthy notes to the young woman took the form of rhyme. The lovesick youth was revealing considerable facility in this way. It pleased him, and did the buxom young ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the outlaws would attack our premises until some time after the moon was risen, because it would be too dangerous to cross the flooded valleys in the darkness of the night. And, but for this consideration, I must have striven harder against the stealthy approach of slumber. But even so, it was very foolish to abandon watch, especially in such as I, who sleep like any dormouse. Moreover, I had chosen the very worst place in the world for such employment, with a goodly chance of awaking in ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... a small reception room, he made his way to the library door with a motion that would have reminded you of a great, stealthy cat, and called in ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the stealthy plotter stalks I must be quick too with my counterplot. To wait his onset passively, for him Is sure success, for ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... became convinced that they were fairly in the Company Canal and gliding up its dark colonnade in the direction whence they had evidently come. Then he returned to his cabin and with rifle cocked and with slow, stealthy step entered it, and in headlong haste began to prepare to leave ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... into the moonlight. Three human forms were moving along the wall, towards the entrance of the patio. Their height, their peculiar attitudes, and the stealthy silence of their steps, convinced me they were Indians. The next moment they were lost under the dark shadows ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... guards observed, with stealthy footsteps, creep Into the prince's chamber, and inquire With anxious curiosity, about The Marquis Posa's death. They seized him straight, And questioned him. Urged by the fear of death, He made confession that he bore about ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... was so light and dry that it seemed to be on the move all about them. There was a stealthy sound to the whispering particles, too, as though they breathed. "Hush.' Hush-sh-sh!" The old man was made nervous by it. He began to glance back over his shoulder at the faintly objecting mare. When Queenie slipped a little and scrambled in the unstable sand he uttered ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... benumbed and shuddering father, "How she loves my child; they all love her," but the thought made little impression at the time; the mind was too full of terror and woe. The doctor now asked for brandy in a whisper. Mrs. Dodd left the room with stealthy foot, and brought it. He asked for a quill. Julia went with swift, stealthy foot, and brought it. With adroit and tender hands they aided the doctor, and trickled stimulants down her throat. Then sat like statues of grief about the bed; only every now and then eye sought eye, and endeavoured ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... exceedingly trying to their patience. For the darkness soon became so profound that although from time to time there came to their ears certain slight sounds, such as the sudden swish of a bough, or the crackling of withered leaves and twigs, betraying the stealthy movements of some wild creature, they could see nothing, strain their ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... would lay anything he is not five feet five. I will, however, do him the justice of saying that he read the lessons with clearness and good emphasis, and that he strove to prevent his criminal congregation from enjoying the luxury of a stealthy nap. He occasionally furnished them with some amusement by attempting to lead the singing. The melody of his voice, which suggested the croak of an asthmatical raven, threw them into transports of sinister ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... nod of recognition, he crossed to the door of the sleeping-room, and, after looking in, made a gesture, stealthy and cautious, for ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... the old store was full of noises, for the fingers of decay never cease from picking and, in the silence of night, one can best hear their stealthy activities. Little falls of fragments sounded loudly, even echoed, in this great silence. There was almost a perpetual rustle and whisper; and once a thud and skurry, when a rat displaced a piece of mortar which fell from the rotting plaster. Dark though the ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... the gloom. The sharp patter of the rain on leaves had ceased, and from just ahead there came back to us the stealthy padding of feet in wet soil. My hand closed on Hotchkiss' shoulder, and we listened together, warily. The steps were close by, unmistakable. The next flash of lightning showed nothing moving: the house was in full view now, dark and uninviting, looming ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... finish. There had come a stealthy, crumbling step to the door, and in another moment Mukoki and Wabigoon were in ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... lion, and tiger, the largest and most formidable of the terrestrial mammals of the Old World, are not here to be found; but their places are well supplied by the swamp-loving tapir, the voracious alligator, the stealthy puma, and the blood-thirsty jaguar, all well worthy of the sportsman's rifle, or of the snake-visioned native warrior's weapons—for the power of destruction in these animals during life is great, while after death they either furnish valuable ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... most stealthy way, Morgan holding his fork the while as if it were a gun, and we were ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... enter fearlessly, leaving his horse hitched over a branch. We heard him no longer, as he proceeded with that stealthy silence known only to the Indian fighter. We listened, and waited in profound suspense. Not even the crackling of a branch broke the stillness. Full five minutes we waited, and then the sharp crack of a rifle near the centre of the copsewood relieved, us. The next moment was heard ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... girls came downstairs, the landlord's wife took their satchel, and led them over broken sidewalks to the meson, where the street was filled with torches and laden burros and blanketed shadows. Murguia's caravan was forming, making a weird, stealthy scene of activity. Jacqueline picked up a lantern, and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... it was easy enough to move the books silently, and at last she discovered the blue envelope, tucked between two of them. She drew it out without a sound,—careful lest the paper should crackle,—and started to retrace her stealthy steps upstairs again, when she saw the hem of the portiere move the ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... faster they sweep, driven by the strong arms of the rowers and the current. It is a stealthy, noiseless, rapid, tempestuous, dangerous, daring enterprise. They are tossed by the waves, but they glide with the rapidity of a race-horse. Two sentinels stand upon the parapet. A few rods in rear is a regiment of Rebels. A broad lightning-flash ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... chance to rest a little, Bessie had stopped her work to talk to Zara, and neither of the two girls heard a stealthy rustling among the leaves back of the woodshed, nor saw a grinning face that appeared around the corner. The first warning that they had that they were not alone came when a long arm reached out suddenly and a skinny, powerful hand grasped Zara's arm and ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... Fire and Trees, besides the Cat, the Dog and other animals, investing them all with individuality,—making for instance, with characteristic bias, the Dog the faithful friend of his boy and girl companions and the Cat their stealthy enemy. ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... recumbent before the fire. Our beds were already made of black-boy tops, and, therefore we had nothing to do but await the hour of rest. The sun had disappeared, and darkness, closing around us, drew nigher and more nigh every moment, swallowing up object after object in its stealthy advance, and seeming about to overwhelm us in its mysterious obscurity. But John heaped logs of dry wood upon the fire, and nobly we resisted all the powers of Darkness. In the midst of that black solitude, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... on the fenny edge of the wood. It was a small house, added, it appeared, to an ancient brick front adorned with pilasters, perhaps a fragment of some woodland temple. The door-step was overgrown with a stealthy green moss and tufted with giant fennel; and a shutter swinging loose on its hinge gave a glimpse of inner dimness. Odo guessed at once that this was the hunting lodge where Cerveno had found his death; and as he stood looking out across the oozy secrets of the marsh, the fever seemed to hang on ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... champed noisily at their bits. The young woman exchanged a few rapid sentences with the boy, and then returned in the direction from which she came. A man stepped out of a doorway as she neared the corner, accosting her with a stealthy deference that proclaimed him to be anything but an ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... reticence now, each revolving the problematic disclosure of their secret, each canvassing the question whether the pursuer himself was aware of his betrayal of his stealthy proximity. Not till they had reached the ford of the river did they venture on a low-toned colloquy. The driver paused in midstream and stepped out on the pole between the horses to let down the check-reins, as the team manifested ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... listening, still a little dazed with sleep, but nothing disturbed the silence of the wooden building, and it was a moment or two before the moan of the wind forced itself on his perceptions. Then, he thought he heard the trampling of a horse and stealthy footsteps in the mire below, and, springing from his bed, ran to the window. The night was dark, but he could dimly see a few shadowy figures moving towards the house. In another minute he slipped into part of his clothing and ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Miss Eliot was still there; imagination pictured her weltering in her own gore. Between fear and curiosity and the saving hope that there might be food of some sort in the house, Pudge left his hiding place and began a stealthy approach. ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... time, and sat gazing at the stars in the depths of the sky above the capital dome until a shadow emerged from the black mass of the trees opposite and crossed the street. In a few minutes there were footsteps in the corridor,—stealthy footsteps—and a knock on the door. Jethro got up and opened it, and closed it again and locked it. Then he turned ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whence weird hoots and bubbling cries and sharp clicks came at night, the stealthy sand marching over the land, the barren slopes of the mountain, and the misshapen rock, gave one's thoughts a twist in the direction of the vague and mysterious. Wylo's continual harping on the wonderful stone renewed the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... with Fouquet for Commandant), it has held out, under Fouquet's Second, only a few hours; and is gone without remedy! Certain, though incredible. Imbecile Commandant, treacherous Garrison (Austrian deserters mainly), with stealthy Jesuits acting on them: no use asking what. Here is the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... said this, Judas, with long and stealthy steps, sprang forward, looking from side to side as he came, until he stopped immediately behind Jesus; then standing on tiptoe he reached over the shoulder of Jesus and kissed him, saying, ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... the Zooelogical Gardens. For he refused to come on deck. He bared his teeth, and his eyes shone with the malice of hell if the men attempted to approach him. It was impossible to let him rest aloft throughout the night to command the ship, so to speak; for he might sink to the deck stealthy as the shadow of a cloud blown by the wind, and he was strong enough and big enough to tear a ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... revolved in the secret and guilty recesses of the mind—as when some individual stands between the tempted man and the possession of a fortune, or some other great object of desire—there is religious terror as stealthy, as secret, as unconquerable, as the strongest desire that takes possession of the human heart, to assist always at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... dread of something worse than mere robbery. He was seized by an accusing terror that said the Weymouth name and the Weymouth honour were about to be lost. Marse Robert robbing the bank! What else could it mean? The hour of the night, the stealthy visit to the vault, the satchel brought forth full and with expedition and silence, the prowler's rough dress, his solicitous reading of the clock, and noiseless departure—what else could ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... rudder-post stood Cigole, looking with all the rest at the gathering storm. His face was only half turned, and as usual he watched this with only a furtive glance, for at times his stealthy eyes turned toward Brandon; and he alone of all on board did not seem to be absorbed by ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... swift and stealthy pace, Calenus, gliding under the shade of the trees, reached the chapel, and gently putting back the boughs that completely closed around its rear, settled himself in his concealment; a concealment so complete, what with the fane in front and the trees behind, that no unsuspicious ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... straw near where I stood stopped me suddenly. My skin prickled and began to stir on my head and my feet and hands felt numb with a new fear. I heard stealthy footsteps in the darkness. I stood my ground ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... by the explosion of a heavy shell, or compelled to spring up in answer to the ring of the gong which announced a gas attack, but he might be awakened at two a.m. (a favorite hour for raids) by the outcry of sentries who had been overpowered by the stealthy rush of shadowy figures in the night, and while he got to his feet be killed by the burst of a bomb thrown by men whom he supposed were also fast asleep in their own quarters two or three hundred ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... only listener. Ever and anon while absorbed in the entertainment, or waiting, breathless, for a new note, I was startled by a rustle, and a low "Good evenin' Missis," and glanced up to see a negro stealing along in a stealthy way. It might be a woman with a big bundle or basket on her head, possibly a slouching young man or "boy" with an air of interest in my eccentric proceedings, or a group of youngsters with nothing particular to do, but one and all perfectly silent in movement. ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... out of the window, he informed himself of what was doing outside, and what progress the vessels made toward their haven. When, however, the schooner poked her slim, low black bows, with her sails down, around the point, he gave one stealthy peep, or glare rather, at her. He took all in at that glance, from the patches of sheet-lead nailed over the shot-holes in her side, to the sawed-off stump of the fore-top-mast; and then he remarked ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the great American chipper. There is no other bird that I know of that can chip with such emphasis and military decision as this yellow-eyed songster. It is like the click of a giant gun-lock. Why is the thrasher so stealthy? It always seems to be going about on tiptoe. I never knew it to steal anything, and yet it skulks and hides like a fugitive from justice. One never sees it flying aloft in the air and traversing the world openly, like most birds, but it darts along fences ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... sometime, somewhere, know? It could not be said. Forever that must remain a mystery. And, after all, had Bennett done right in keeping Lloyd from the sick-room? Now that all was over, now that the whole fearful tragedy could be judged somewhat calmly and in the light of reason, the little stealthy ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... stealing forth, and so will I. Sorry sight! to view Jabaster, with a stealthy step, skulk like a thing dishonoured! Oh! may the purpose consecrate the deed! the die ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... suddenly to him through the wood his mother's voice appealing for help, so that he nearly turned, running back. It was a hard, cruel place this world—and all the little ditches and hollows of the wood were running with brown, stealthy water. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... figure stole out from the shadow of one of the side walls, where it had been standing close under a window, listening to all that passed within the building. It followed on a few yards behind the preoccupied man with a stealthy but clumsy gait. Peter heard nothing and saw nothing. His mind and heart were too full to care in the least for anything that was going on about ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Fair was the chief as the morning-star; His eyes were mild and his words were low, But his heart was stouter than lance or bow; And her young heart flew to her love afar O'er his trail long covered with drifted snow. But she heard a warrior's stealthy tread, And the tall Wakwa appeared, and said— "Is Wiwst afraid of the spirit dread That fires the sky in the fatal north? [26] Behold the mysterious lights. Come forth Some evil threatens,—some danger nears, For the skies are ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... arm seaward; the dip of the oar had a stealthy sound in the deserted dawning. They passed the public gardens and saw the sea widen and the morning quicken. Islands swam up out of silver space, took form and colour, and there between the islands he saw the girl. She had gotten another oar from Giuseppe and stood delighting in the free ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin |
