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More "Creaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a period of time, filled only by the clicking of the pawls and the sounds of the creaking parrel and the running gear. Then the ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... engine was a clumsy and apparently a very painful process, accompanied by an extraordinary amount of wheezing, sighing, creaking, and bumping. When the pump descended, there was heard a plunge, a heavy sigh, and a loud bump: then, as it rose, and the sucker began to act, there was heard a croak, a wheeze, another bump, and then a strong rush of ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... very short time the cable was slipped, for Big Sam had no notion of betraying the departure of the vessel by the creaking of a capstan; and, with the hoisting of a few sails and no light aboard except the shaded lamp at the binnacle, the Sarah Williams moved down the river and ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... intently over the ground. The last of the climbing dacoits was vanishing through the window, high above his head, and one stood motionless below. He, clearly, had been left on guard to keep the foot of the ladder. Now Jack heard plainly a shuffling and creaking and straining above. The Kachins were trying to force the door which ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... into the library," said Madame Beattie. "I can't stand. My knees are creaking. Come, Esther, ask your ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... had left behind in my hurry. My sword was at my belt, but it is not always the most convenient of weapons. I lay back in my seat in the gondola, lulled by the gentle swish of the water and the steady creaking of the oar. Our way lay through a network of narrow canals with high houses towering on either side and a thin slit of star-spangled sky above us. Here and there, on the bridges which spanned the canal, there was the dim glimmer of an ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... masses of white birds, the whirr and rush of flight, the clacking and slapping of wings, the domineering "coo-hoo-oo" of the male birds and the responsive notes of the hens; the tumult when in alarm all take wing simultaneously and wheel and circle and settle again with rustling and creaking branches, the sudden swoop with whistling wings of single birds close overhead, create a perpetual din. Then as darkness follows hard upon the down-sinking of the sun, the birds hustle among the thick foliage of the jungle, with querulous, inquiring ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... thinking, would hear the creaking of the springs of a bed from where, in another room, his mother-in-law was crawling under the sheets. Life was too intimate. He would ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... spoils of priceless value, the creaking wagons of the Gauls went southward. Alaric meant to lead them to the conquest first of Sicily, then of Africa. But death overtook him amid the schemes of his ambition. He died after a short illness, and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... for around the profile of the hill the locomotive of the oncoming train was emerging. The motorist looked at Markham and then at the advancing train in bewilderment; then jumped clear of the track beside Markham as the freight train, its brakes creaking, its steam shrieking, crashed into the unfortunate machine, turning it over and then crumpling it into a shapeless mass, through which it tore, its impetus carrying it well down the road and scattering the torn fragments of nickel and steel on both ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... hospital. The ground was damp, and fog was rising from the hollows and fens. Some signal corps officers were practising with flags in a ploughed field, and negro stewards were stirring about the cook fires. A few supply wagons that I passed the previous day were just creaking into camp, having travelled most of the night. I saw that the country was rude, but the farms were close, and the dwellings in many cases inhabited. The vicinity had previously been unoccupied by either ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... hear the skipper of a steamer bellowing and roaring through a speaking-trumpet, when his ordinary voice could have had no effect amidst the awful noises of a hurricane, and the sea and the breakers under his lee? Nothing could be fitter than his attitude on the creaking paddle-box, and the thunderous sound that issued from the tube. But wouldn't it be absurd for the commander of the Hugh Frazer, amid the quiet waters of Loch-Lomond, to give orders to the little boy that holds the helm, or point out the beauties of Inversnaid, through an instrument ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... can trim the courtier's smile, Or weave the diplomatic wile, But knows no deeper art; One who can dally with fair forms, Whom a well-pointed period warms— No man is he to hold the helm Where rude winds blow, and wild waves whelm, And creaking timbers start. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... and not, after that vain Roman conceit, to choose the manner of thine own death, which is indeed only another sort of self-murder. We therefore consider thee as a cause of scandal, and a rotten and creaking branch, to be excised by the spiritual arm, and do hereby excise thee, and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... to the rattle of blocks and the creaking of trusses as the head-yards were hauled round. Sail was made on the ship and the windlass manned again while he stood still, lost in thought. He only roused himself when a barefooted seacannie glided past him silently on his ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... from the capstan turned a creaking wooden wheel that set a series of leather belts into motion. Some of them vanished through openings into a large stone building, while the strongest strap of all turned the rocker arm of what could only be a counterbalanced ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... he held up a hand, and ten others were at once elevated, showing that the watchers were as vigilant as himself. It was, he thought, about one o'clock when he heard a faint creaking sound. It did not seem to him to be in the hall itself, but in a room adjoining it, the doors having all been left open. He rose to his feet, touched Beorn, who lay a pace or two away, and stole noiselessly out, grasping his sword in his hand. He stopped ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... cicala drily proses, Creaking the hot air to sleep, Bounteous orange flowers and roses, Yield the wealth of love they keep, To the sun's imperious ardour in a dream of ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... fishing lots since school closed and that isn't a lazy man's work especially if you wade upstream. I've hiked miles and I've worked in the garden at home; but at this minute I have three hundred and ninety-eight muscles creaking in my machinery that ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... sequestered corner of the fresh-swabbed quarter-deck. She wore her Army clothes—she had come on board in one of the muslins—and she was softly crying. From the jetty on the other side of the ship arose, amid tramping feet and shouted orders and the creaking of the luggage-crane, the overruling sound of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company had come apparently to pay the last rites to a fellow-officer whom they should no more meet on ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... sacristy, stopping to make genuflections before each image; and in the distance, invisible in the darkness, you could still divine the presence of the bell-ringer, like a restless hobgoblin, by the rattle of his bunch of keys and the creaking of the doors he ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... shovelling in coal with a recklessness that bordered on insanity. When the indicator showed eighty pounds of steam he came up on deck and discovered Mr. Gibney walking solemnly round and round the little capstan up forward. It was creaking and groaning dismally. Captain Scraggs thrust his engine room torch above his head to light the scene and gazed upon his navigating ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... was the hour for trophies. A prosperous townsman bore a stack of tortillas, and gloated leeringly as he hurried to put his treasure safely away. A dashing Hungarian with fur pelisse shouted gallant oaths at a yoke of oxen and prodded them with his curved sword, as though a creaking cart filled with corn were the precious loot of an Attila. Pueblo and soldiery tore ravenously at fortifications that had so long kept them from one savory broth. With nails alone they would demolish walls and trenches. Some lurched over fugitives in the grass, and then ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... imagine that the hitch is owing to original incompatibility of parts and purposes, that the whole machine must be pulled to pieces and made over, and that nothing will be done by standing patiently by, trying to soothe away the creaking and wheezing and groaning of the laboring, lumbering thing, by laying on a little drop of sweet-oil with a pin-feather. As it does not see any of these things that are happening before its eyes, of course it is shallowly happy. And on the other hand, he who does see them and is not amiable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... were in fact all ship-shape, taut and true, like the nerves in a human body. There was no need to steer her enormous bulk to avoid the waves or pass them by; it was enough to let her crush them with all her weight, let her grind them down and push them before her like drifts of snow. Groaning and creaking she ploughed straight on through all that came against her, heeling before the wind right down to her gunwale and leaving behind her a long furrow in the sea. High above the deck of this magnificent vessel, between two curved ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... before such buildings, at once so savage and inhospitable, the same distress that the ancient navigators suffered before the hell of slaves mentioned by Plautus, islands of creaking chains, ferricrepiditae insulae, when they passed near enough to hear ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... A creaking and shaking in the timbers of the old house, very early this morning, must have half awakened me; then there was a muffled rap on my door. "Be 'ee goin' to ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... in peace, if possible,' said Philpot. 'Sh!!' he added, hoarsely, suddenly holding up his hand warningly. They listened intently. It was evident from the creaking of the stairs that someone was crawling up them. Philpot instantly disappeared. Harlow lifted up the pail of whitewash and set ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... means particularly well-filled purse, which the crone eagerly clutched and stuck into her pocket. The firm ring now opened; but as the young man started off, the crone called after him: "Ay, run, run thy ways, thou Devil's bird! To the crystal run—to the crystal!" The squealing, creaking voice of the woman had something unearthly in it, so that the promenaders paused in amazement, and the laugh, which at first had been universal, instantly died away. The student Anselmus, for the young man was no other, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... firmly to the frame. Ulrich braced his foot against the wall and pulled with all his strength, but it resisted one jerk after another; at last it suddenly yielded and flew open, making a slight creaking and rattling, but the monk on guard did not wake, only ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the teapot, Emil the bread, Rob the milk, and Teddy insisted on carrying the sugar basin, which was lighter by several lumps when it arrived than when it started. Some women might have found it annoying at such a time to have boys creaking in and out, upsetting cups and rattling spoons in violent efforts to be quiet and helpful; but it suited Mrs. Jo, because just then her heart was very tender; and remembering that many of her boys were fatherless or motherless, she yearned over them, and found comfort ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... tray in the passage—someone coming with food you would love to look at, and presently perhaps to eat ... when you feel better. But again and again your eyes open on the cold dumb darkness, and there is nothing but the wind and strange sinister emptiness creaking on ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... in the air began. Men rode upon the whirlwind that night and slew and fell like archangels. The sky rained heroes upon the astonished earth. Surely the last fights of mankind were the best. What was the heavy pounding of your Homeric swordsmen, what was the creaking charge of chariots, beside this swift rush, this crash, this giddy triumph, this headlong ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... those ages have something of this power of making the dead Past a living Present in my mind. What curious figures are emblazoned on the creaking parchment, making its yellow leaves laugh with gay colors! You seem to come upon them unawares. Their faces have an expression of wonder. They seem all to be just startled from their sleep by the sound you made when you unloosed the brazen clasps, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... de Cardoville exchanged these few words, a heavy gate had turned creaking upon its hinges, and the carriage had entered a court-yard. The physician got down first, to ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... men, priest and servant, bent all their strength to the task, and inch by inch they moved the great, creaking structure. When at last they had succeeded, and paused to take breath, the light in the distance had become stronger and more apparent. Together the three men watched it grow; master and servant, with breathless eagerness, the ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... branches as arms, and drew up their roots out of the ground as feet under them and moved hither and thither. And the knots and bosses and gnarls upon them became faces, dark, eagle-like and keen, and the creaking and crackling of the boughs and twigs under the piercing blast that swept by, became articulate and like the voices of old men talking angrily together. There were sudden changes from day to night and from night to day. In dark chambers crouching men took counsel of blood together ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... stood in the open, shivering slightly in the sweet coldness of the coming dawn, and inhaling the fragrance of awakening unseen flowers. She knew of a gap in the hedge by means of which she could leave the garden without opening the big farm-gate which moved on rather creaking hinges—and she took this way over a couple of rough stepping-stones. Once out on the old by-road she paused. Briar Farm looked like a house in a dream— there was not enough daylight yet to show its gables distinctly, and it was more like the shadowy suggestion of a building ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... door of the tower swung on its massive hinges, banging and creaking mournfully when a swirling gust set it swinging. The man who had slept out on the Lolo trail and bivouacked alone in the canyon of the Colorado, laughed the howling storm to scorn. "Better than being out in a blizzard in the Bad Lands!" ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... blackness of the wall sides where the grille was there came the sound of a terroring lock and a creaking door. ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... a wide gateway and had come from suburban America, at a step, into rural Holland. The prim gravelled drive led between acres of prosaically regular flower-beds, flanked on one side by a domed green house and on the other by a creaking Dutch windmill ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... imagination to emphasize the new terror which had overtaken the world. There was enough of fear in the air already. All this spurious gaiety—what was it? Nothing but the chatter of lonely children who were afraid to listen to the silence—afraid lest they might hear the creaking footstep of death upon the stairs. And these candles, lighting up the fringes of the night—they were nothing but a vain pretence that ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... through the creaking oaks; the horses stirred complainingly, the bells on their backs crying out querulously; the heads of the fortunates inside were shadowed outside on the snow, and the restless young men amused themselves betting on which head ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the train had come to a crashing halt. The locomotive reared upon its forward wheels and then settled back on a slant, creaking at every joint. Ralph had swung the air lever or there ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... strained to the danger point. The walls seemed to bulge outward with the pressure of the room, the aluminite braces straining and creaking. And our heat was radiating away; the deadly chill of space ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... also, and sighed, but made no other reply, keeping her eyes steadfast on the stone steps beneath her. Once descended, she gave the order in a low voice, and quickly the gates were thrown wide, creaking grumblingly on their hinges, long unused. Konrad stood before the opening with the sword of Bernstein in his hands, swinging it this way and that to get the hang of it, and looking on it with the admiration which a warrior ever feels for a well hung, trusty blade, while the men-at-arms nodded to ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... before me. Here and there through the gloomy cabin lay the victims of the fell malady, in every stage of suffering, and in every attitude of misery. Their cries and lamentings mingled with the creaking of the bulk-heads and the jarring twang of the dirty lamp, whose irregular swing told plainly how oscillatory was our present motion. I turned from the unpleasant sight, and was about again to address myself to slumber with what success ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... Delorier," and the little cart advanced again. As we rode on, we soon heard the wagon of our confederates creaking and jolting on behind us, and the driver, Wright, discharging a furious volley of oaths against his mules; no doubt venting upon them the wrath which he dared not direct ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... and sounds are of the Autumn weather; The urchin rock'ng in the trees Shakes silver laughter with the apples down,— And wading to the knees Among the stubble and the husks so brown, The oxen keeping every patient step together, Bring in the creaking wain, High-piled with yellow maize and sheaves of ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... the silence came to us, over no great stretch of water as it seemed, the sound of a creaking block, the fall of a yard on deck, and a voice raised in some sharp order. Then I thought I heard an anchor plunge, and there was silence. Very ghostly it seemed to hear these familiar sounds and to see naught, and it was the more so that we might by no means judge ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... and there was nothing to be done. I laid some hay on the creaking sorrow of a bed, and endeavoured to bend to safety the wilderness of torn and rusty wire. I spread my blanket over the whole and gingerly committed my body to the comfortable-seeming couch. Imagine how the bed became an unsteady hammock of wire and how the contrivance creaked ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... crash and roll of the thunder followed in quick succession; the stentorian voices of the officers of the vessel, shouting their orders to the crew, the heavy hasty tramp of the men's feet, the whistling of the wind through the rigging, the creaking of the cordage, the booming of the sea, mingling with the terrific thunder claps and the down-pouring of the rain, combined in an uproar fit to cause ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... pictures, wherein he and his mates sat eating salt beef with sheath-knives and fingers, or scooping thick pea-soup out of pannikins by means of battered iron spoons. The stench of bad beef was in his nostrils, while in his ears, to the accompaniment of creaking timbers and groaning bulkheads, echoed the loud mouth-noises of the eaters. He watched them eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he would be careful here. He would make no noise. He would keep his mind upon it all ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... certainly overhauling us. The superior skill of the men in charge of her gave them the advantage. I told Vallington of the fact, and soon the roaring of the furnaces and the creaking of the boat assured me he was in earnest. But in spite of his renewed exertions, the Champion was gaining a little, and I was sure that she would overtake us long before we could reach Parkville. I headed her for The Sisters, therefore, determined to put in force the plan I had devised ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... a tremendous amount of unnecessary confusion and trouble, the oxen were inspanned, and with the usual unearthly yells and loud cracking of the long whip by Jantje, mounted upon the wagon box, the creaking, lumbering vehicle was got under way, Ramoo Samee following close behind and leading the horses, while the dogs and Leo came to heel and trotted along close behind Grosvenor and Dick, as was their wont when their ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... navigator, supporting himself, with folded arms, against the creaking tiller, absorbs the scene through his deep-set eyes in silence. Many a haven had he visited in his time; he had been within ten degrees of the North Pole; he had seen the cliffs of Spitzbergen loom through the fog, and had heard the sound ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Instead of going toward the cave, they towed the globe, which floated a few inches from the earth, toward the side of the hill farthest from where the doctor stood. Three of them held it, while the fourth went forward and bent over some controls on the ground. A creaking sound came through the night and the men moved forward with the globe. Presently its movement stopped and men reappeared. Again came the creaking sound and the glow faded out as though a screen had been drawn in front of it. The four men walked toward ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... minutes everything was in confusion; horse bells and hobbles jingling and clanging, harness rattling, as horses shook themselves free, and pack-bags, swags, and saddles came to the ground with loud, creaking flops. Every one was lending a hand, and the Fizzer, moving in and out among the horses, shouted a medley of news and instructions ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... pursuit of the boy, calling on Bunks to intercept him, but Bunks would not stir hand or foot, and Jim could not quit the helm, for the wind had increased to a gale; and as there was too much sail set, the schooner was flying before it with masts, ropes, and beams creaking ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... sojourn in "The Imperial Crown," the best inn of Poltava, Countess Drentell continued her journey towards her country-seat at Lubny, where the carriage arrived just before nightfall. With the creaking of the wheels upon the gravel path leading to the house, Jacob awoke and gazed ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... chaps were conspicuously new, and his movements were heralded by the creaking of ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... pictures, flower-stands occupied, at a man's height, the spaces on the walls, and a silver teapot with a samovar cast their reflections in a mirror on the background. There arose a murmur of hushed voices. Pumps could be heard creaking on the carpet. He could distinguish a number of black coats, then a round table lighted up by a large shaded lamp, seven or eight ladies in summer toilets, and at some little distance Madame Dambreuse in a rocking armchair. Her dress of lilac taffeta had slashed sleeves, ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... utensil I presently applied to the purpose of a horn, viz. sounding an alarm, and knocked and knocked—but no hoary-headed seneschal nor armed warder appeared at my summons. After a moment's hesitation, I gave the door a push with all my strength: it yielded, creaking on its hinges, and I stepped over the raised threshold. I found myself in a low dark vaulted hall which appeared at first to have no communication with any other chamber: but on advancing cautiously to the end I found a low ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... time, Wagner went to Pillau, where he embarked on a sailing vessel bound for London. He was accompanied by his wife and by a huge Newfoundland dog, and during this journey learned to know the sea, and became familiar with the sound of the sailors' songs, the creaking of the rigging, the whistling of the wind, and the roar and crash of the waves. This journey made a deep impression upon his imagination. He had read Heine's version of the legend of the Flying Dutchman, and questioned the sailors, who told him many similar ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... Doctor turned his head vaguely away. The house was so still that the creaking of the stairs as his weight shifted from one foot to another, sounded horribly loud; he noticed it, and regretted having moved. The idea of Fifi's dying had of course never occurred to him. Something ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... rudest. The plough with its short and almost perpendicular handles, its flat and arrow-shaped share, barely scratches the ground; the coarse but sweet grasses are mown with a stubbed scythe; and the wains are heard creaking through the hills on revolving axles, with wheels hewn out of solid pieces of wood, and in every respect as primitive as those used by Priam and his Trojans. Nor less so are the sledges for transporting hay down from the upper mountains; for they ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... remembering the highly compromising nature of her own existing position sitting not only in the lively little Farge's bed- chamber, but actually upon his bed, she rose with embarrassment and haste, and made her way downstairs to the offices—treading circumspectly in dread of creaking boards—to interview Frederick. But from that ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... the caw of a crow struck the ear. All that was audible was the report of jingling and tinkling, and the sound of the gold bells and jade ornaments slightly rocked to and fro. Besides these, the creaking noise made by the shoes of the inmates, while getting up and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Barmby, as he stood swaying forward upon his toes, his boots creaking. Nancy and Jessica listened to him. They were ready to start on the evening's expedition, but Horace had not yet come home, and on the chance of his arrival they would wait ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... separating me from the ward-room was built after the completion of the ship, and had a way of creaking like a thousand or more squeaky boots in simultaneous action. Every time we rolled, each board rubbed against its neighbor and waked the echoes of the cabin. The first time I slept in the room the partition seemed talking in Russian, and I distinctly ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... o'clock, the tramp of men about the capstan gave notice that the anchor was being brought to the catheads. Soon the creaking of cordage, and the snapping of the sails, told that the fresh breeze was being caught by the spreading sails. Then the waves rippled about the bow of the ship, and the "Ranger" was fairly ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... and maids The creaking ox-cart slowly wades Twixt stalks and stubble, sacked and torn ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... macaws, and other strange-looking birds which we have elsewhere mentioned, there were long-tailed light-coloured cuckoos flying about from tree to tree, not calling like the cuckoo of Europe at all, but giving forth a sound like the creaking of a rusty hinge; there were hawks and buzzards of many different kinds, and red-breasted orioles in the bushes, and black vultures flying overhead, and Muscovy ducks sweeping past with whizzing wings, and flocks of the great wood-ibis sailing in the air on noiseless pinions, and hundreds of ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... funeral with the clergyman riding, the mourners riding, and the coffin creaking as it swings between the bearers, is one of the most depressing things on this earth, particularly when the procession passes under the wet, dank dip beneath the Rockcliffe Hotel, where the sun is shut out and all the hill streams are wailing and weeping ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... disputed her power or her general superiority. As on the arrival at Offendene, so always, the first thought of those about her had been, what will Gwendolen think?—if the footman trod heavily in creaking boots, or if the laundress's work was unsatisfactory, the maid said, "This will never do for Miss Harleth"; if the wood smoked in the bedroom fireplace, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak eyes suffered much ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and sympathy, had driven away all power of forming a conclusion—he was no longer the doctor—he was only the anxious listener for the faintest sound from the room above, but none reached him save the creaking of the floor under ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Retreat," there was a farmyard in which hens laid eggs for the bungalow breakfast table, and black Berkshire pigs slowly ripened and matured in the bright June sunshine. A stone sun-dial stood upon one of the velvet lawns, engraved with the legend "Tempus fugit," and various creaking basket and beehive chairs stood about, while no tennis net was permitted to desecrate the appearance of complete repose that the green garden presented ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... A peculiar, grinding, creaking and jolting noise came from the road. Only one cart in all the world could produce that sound. Ditte opened her eyes, and a feeling of joy went through her—her father! She tried to call, but no sound came, and each time she tried to rise ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Riding-Hood, with a pink wolf, set primly opposite a striped Bo-peep and a sky-blue lamb. There were pebbles and shells and pieces of coral, and baskets of beadwork, and many other ornaments dear to Miss Arabella's heart. She closed the old, creaking door, placed the one chair against it, and trembling as though she were about to commit a burglary, she stealthily opened the lowest drawer of the dresser and took from it a large parcel. She sat down on the low ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... began to roar, and great masses of snow, dislodged from the tall trees above the cabin, fell upon its roof with sounds like those of soft, slow footfalls. Strange noises of creaking and groaning and rasping penetrated to Alice's ears, and she cowered half in fear, half in joy of her shelter and her male protector. Men were fine ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... were half a minute in finding a couple that would write. Then Captain Runacles turned the hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons on the roof, and the creaking of the gilded vane ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... glittering day when all the waves wore flags And the ship Wanderer came with sails in rags; That curlew-calling time in Irish dusk When life became more splendid than its husk, When the rent chapel on the brae at Slains Shone with a doorway opening beyond brains; The dawn when, with a brace-block's creaking cry, Out of the mist a little barque slipped by, Spilling the mist with changing gleams of red, Then gone, with one raised hand and one turned head; The howling evening when the spindrift's mists Broke to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... little lull between storms; the enforced quiet of wearied and worn-out powers. She sat mazily taking in the sunlight, and the view of the sunlighted earth and water, the breath of the sweeping fresh air, the creaking of the sloop's cordage, in the one consciousness that Winthrop kept his place at her side all this time. How she thanked him for that! though she could not ask him to sit down, nor make any sort of ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... [Footnote 22: Or, "the creaking of the oar." (The word kaji to-day means "helm";—the single oar, or scull, working upon a pivot, and serving at once for rudder and oar, being now called ro.) The mist passing across the Amanogawa ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... of these wayside public-houses would be a jest after his own heart possibly remains to be seen. But it would be much more melodious and fitting an end than any of the sublime euthanasias which his enemies provide for him. That old sign creaking above him as he sat on the bench outside his home of exile would be a much more genuine memory of the real greatness of his race than the modern and almost gimcrack stars and garters that were pulled in Windsor Chapel. From modern knighthood has departed all shadow of chivalry; ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... horse's hoofs without, a stumbling against the door- scraper, a tethering to the window-shutter, a creaking of the door on its hinges, and a voice which Swithin recognized as Mr. Torkingham's. He greeted each of the previous arrivals by name, and stated that he was glad to see them all ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... dipped, bent, and the dory moved off. The sound of the creaking thole pins shot a chill through Ellery's veins. His knees shook, and involuntarily a cry for them to come back rose to his lips. But he choked it down and waved his hand in farewell. Then, not trusting himself to look longer at the receding boat, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the limited space of the platform deck he heard a distant creaking. It was a sound that he well knew—the hoisting ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... the creaking gate unclose? The gleaming latch uplifted? No—'twas the wind that, whirring, rose, Amidst the poplars drifted! Adorn thyself, thou green leaf-bowering roof, Destined the bright one's presence to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... attendants should be gentle and noiseless. Shutting doors violently, creaking hinges, and all unnecessary noise, should be avoided. Most persons refrain from loud talking in the sick chamber, but are not equally careful to abstain from whispering, which is often more ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... old Alexander Windsor, as he shut the creaking door of the store after a vanishing figure, and turned to the big iron stove with outstretched hands; hands that were cold both summer and winter. He was of lean and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the east, heralding the coming day. The slack breeze flapped lazily in the sails overhead and scarce ruffled the drowsy ocean. The stars one by one put out their little lights and vanished into the blue. There was no sound but the creaking of the yards and the gentle plash of the water on the hull; only these and the music of a maiden's song. It went hard with me, that night. For a while, as I sat there, gazing into her face and listening ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... of morning had found its way into the cabin when I awoke. All was then quiet; the only sounds which reached my ears being the heavy tread of the men on deck, the occasional creaking of a block, and the ripple of the water against the sides of the vessel. By this I knew that the vessel was under weigh. Feeling much better, I managed to get out of my bed, and throwing a cloak over my shoulders, crawled up on deck. We were standing down the Scheld, ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... their half-way shelter and put up there for the night. Once when Rolf went out to glimpse the skies before turning in, he heard a far tree creaking and wondered, for it was dead calm. Even Skookum noticed it. But it was not repeated. Next ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the stair. His father was at last coming to bed. He was a little relieved, though he had been quite prepared to go to sleep and leave his father below. Why not? The steps died at the top of the stair, but an irregular creaking continued. After a pause the door was pushed open; and after another pause the figure of his father came ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... three deep. Did he tackle it as an initial, on the other hand, his tongue seemed to cleave to his palate, and to yield only an "l." This quaint defect caused some merriment at the start, but was soon eclipsed by a more striking oddity. The speaker had the habit of, as it were, creaking with his nose. After each few sentences he paused, to give himself time to produce something between a creak and a snore—an abortive attempt to get at a mucus that was plainly ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... sleep soundly. The place was too new, and yet too familiar, and the rattling of the windows, the roaring of the wind in the chimney, and the creaking of the vane, without absolutely wakening her, kept her hearing alive continually, weaving the noises into some harassing dream that Humfrey's voice was calling to her, and hindrances always keeping ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... same feeling," replied Alexander; "this wide-extended plain, of which we cannot yet discern the horizontal edge; these brilliant stars scattered over the heavens, and shining down upon us; no sound to meet our ears but the creaking of the waggon-wheels in the slow and measured pace, is to me delightful. They say man is formed for society, and so he is; but it is very ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... decorated with the heads of the English archbishops, surrounding Hogarth's modern midnight conversation. There was not a book in the room; but there were six or eight newspapers. With these we amused ourselves for some time, till the approach of the bishop was announced by the creaking of his shoes, the rustling of his silk apron, and the repeated hems with ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the huge waves and sending them in spindrift hurtling across the deck like showers of shot that cut the face like the lash of a whip. The uproar was terrific, the shrieking and howling of the wind blending with the creaking and straining of the timbers of the labouring ship. Crash succeeded crash aloft, but they could distinguish nothing of what was happening because of the intense blackness. Yet the motion of the ship was becoming steadier, for the reason that the wind ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... seemed honestly to be in need of me. I almost clutched at this consideration. It was an admirable excuse, when I reached my office that day, for a resigned study of the Continental Bradshaw, and an order to Carter to unroll a great creaking wall-map of Germany and find me Flensburg. The latter labour I might have saved him, but it was good for Carter to have something to do; and his patient ignorance was amusing. With most of the map and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... abreast the Boston Light At anchor; she had just come in, turned head, And sent her hawsers creaking, clattering down. I was so near to where the hawse-pipes fed The cable out from her careening bow, I moved up on the swell, shut steam and lay Hove to in my old launch to look at her. She'd come in light, a-skimming ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... in good repair; a large red barn with white trimmings surmounted by a creaking windmill; a long, low machine shed filled with binders, seeders, disc-harrows—everything that is needed for the seed-time and harvest and all that lies between; a large stone house, square and gray, lonely ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... train stopped, with a loud creaking of brakes and groaning of wheels, Bob jumped from the caboose and accompanied the burly conductor to the head of ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... themselves in his head. They were very comforting. They occupied his thoughts. He said them to himself again and again. Meanwhile his free hand was fumbling very carefully with the fastening that held the wooden shutter over a window. The shutter opened a very little, creaking loudly, louder than the patter of rain on the roof of the shack. A stream of water from the roof was ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... a horse at the livery stable, and for two hours rode in silence, save for the easy creaking of his stirrup leathers and the soft thud ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... weapons on an heap, And placed a guard about them, while the moon Silvering the rolling seas for many a mile Glanced on the huddled Spaniards' rich attire, As like one picture of despair they grouped Under the splintered main-mast's creaking shrouds, And the great swinging shadows of the sails Mysteriously swept the gleaming decks; Where many a butt of useless cannon gloomed Along the accoutred bulwarks or upturned, As the ship wallowed in the heaving deep, Dumb mouths of empty menace ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... nodded its head and expanded its wings, and the squire, whose recent experience had prepared him for any wonder, fully expected to hear it speak, but it only croaked loudly and exultingly, or if it laughed, the sound was like the creaking of rusty hinges. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... if the wind do howl without, And turn the creaking weather-vane; What if the arrows of the rain Do beat against the window-pane? Art thou not armored strong and fast Against the sallies of the blast? Art thou not sheltered safe and well ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... was never finished. There was a step on the creaking stairs outside, and with a guilty cry of alarm, Miss Pendleton rushed from the room and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... full steam, and rimy with frozen breath about their indignant nostrils. As he comes and goes, he talks to his team for company; his conversation is monotonous as the talk of lovers, but it has a cheerful ring through the solitude. The logs are chained and dragged creaking along over the snow to the river-side. There the subdivisions of Pinus the Great become a basis for a mighty snow-mound. But the mild March winds blow from seaward. Spring bourgeons. One day the ice has gone. The river flows visible; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... and a half of the establishment of the ambush, the creaking of ungreased wheels was heard and the loud nasal singing of some jovial soul. Down the silent deserted road came three bullock-carts piled high with boxes and escorted by a ragged regiment of ex-sepoys, ex-police, mutineers, almost a ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... erected his head, and sprang forth in an uncontrollable gallop. Up hill and down hill I pricked my gallant gray; and when the forest was past, and his hoofs glinted on the stones of a street leading through a small village, I felt an animation that I cannot well describe. A creaking signboard, swinging in the wind on rusty irons, directed me to the only inn of the village. It was a two-story brick building, standing a little back from the road. I drew rein at the door, and dismounted my weary nag. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... down—down in the cellars. It is a creaking sound. My God, it is the opening of the great, oak trap. What can be doing that? The scratching of my pen deafens me ... I must listen.... There are steps on the stairs; strange padding steps, that come up and nearer.... Jesus, be merciful to me, an old man. There is something fumbling ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... on a time there was a pool Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool And spotted with cow-lilies garish, Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish. Alders the creaking redwings sink on, Tussocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln. Hedged round the unassailed seclusion, Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian; And many a moss-embroidered log, The watering-place ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... against the idea that any apology had been due. There was but one line which could be considered even mildly significant. "The little net," wrote Blakely, "has now a value that it never had before." Yet Angela was snuggling that otherwise unimportant billet to her cheek when the creaking stairway told her portentously of a solemn coming. Ten minutes more and the note was lying neglected on the bureau, and Angela stood at her window, gazing out over dreary miles of almost desert landscape, of rock and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... be imagined, therefore, how electrified was the village by the apparition, on a bright June day, of an automobile creaking and wheezing its slow way to the old tavern. The irritated elderly gentleman who stepped out and began blaming the chauffeur for the delay announced himself to Zadok Foster, the tavern-keeper, as Josiah Camden, of Chicago, and was electrified ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... inevitably to each of us, when the creaking gates of subterranean passages far down in our consciousness open of themselves, and ghostly inhabitants steal out of awful vaults and force us to look again into their faces ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... mill, in which you can bruise the useful fruit of the Roasted bean and crush it with frequent rubbing; A revolving pivot in the middle, on an easy wheel turning, Twists its metal joints on a creaking stem. The top of the wheel, you know, is pierced with an ivory handle Which will have to be turned by hand, through a thousand revolutions, And through a thousand circles it moves the pivot. When you put a kernel in, you will turn the handle with quick hand— No delay—and ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Mrs. Bowdoin had not yet come down to breakfast. Outside, her worthy spouse could see the very tree upon which cousin Wendell Phillips had not been hanged; and his mouth relaxed as he saw his grandson Harley coming across the Common, and heard the portentous creaking that attended Mrs. Bowdoin's progress down the stairs,—the butler supporting her arm, and her maid behind attending her with shawl and smelling-salts. The old lady was in a rude state of health, but had not walked a step alone for several years. As she entered, ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... The servants were crowding round the door with terrified faces; in the hall some one was asking in a thick voice: 'Have they sent for the doctor?' In the yard outside, a horse was being led from the stable, the gates were creaking, a tallow candle was burning in the room on the floor, my mother was there, terribly upset, but not oblivious of the proprieties, nor of her own dignity. I flung myself on my father's bosom, and hugged him, faltering: 'Papa, papa...' He lay motionless, ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... I hear the rusty hinges of my beloved's door give me creaking invitation. My heart creaks and throbs with respondent trepidations: Whimsical enough though! for what relation has a lover's heart to a rusty pair of hinges? But they are the hinges that open and shut the door of my beloved's bed-chamber. Relation ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... "flexibility of use," would involve the examination in detail of all the rubrics of the Prayer Book, and for this there is no room. It is enough to say that unless the rubrics, the hinges and joints of a service-book, are kept well oiled, much creaking is a necessary result. There are turning-points in our public worship where congregations almost invariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because there is nothing to tell them whether they are expected to stand or to sit or to kneel. It is easy to sneer at such ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Instantly a great creaking of saddles took place as the men eased their positions, and conversation began again. The Spanish soldiers filed off through a break in the barbed wire fence, the defiant trumpeters playing their pretty march-call ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... Norris Vine's apartments. The lights were very dim on the landing. There were no servants or any one about. She watched the closed door with fascinated eyes. What if it should open before the lift came! She rang again, kept her finger upon the bell; then with a great sense of relief she heard the creaking of the wire rope, and saw the top of the lift beginning to ascend. It drew level with her, and the page-boy threw open the iron door. Almost at that moment she saw the door of Norris Vine's apartment softly opened from the inside. She sank down upon ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shrieked in unison when Miss Susan Timmins' niece cast herself out of the haymow upon the plank door and swung as far as the door would go upon its creaking hinges. Ruth seized Tom's wrist in a nervous grip, but did not utter a word. Aunt Kate turned away and covered her eyes with her hands that she might not see the reckless child fall—if ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... stiff, distended bodies of their comrades that have broken down on the way. At times there ambles along a long row of working animals a colt, curious and restlessly sniffing. In the midst of this movement of the legs of animals, of waving arms, of creaking and swaying loaded vehicles of manifold origin, there climbs upward the weighty iron of an Austrian motor battery, with an almost incomprehensible inevitableness, flattening out the broken roads like ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... of an hour after this, she was startled by the creaking sound of a footstep on the uncarpeted floor of the corridor. She rose hastily and softly from her chair, crept to the door, and peeped put into the passage. As she did so, she saw a man approaching, dressed like a countryman, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... o'clock they heard the creaking of wheels and a murmur of voices. Shortly into their range of vision drew a pair of bullocks, pulling a tiger trap toward the clearing. This cage was of stout wood with iron bars. The rear of the cage was solid; the front had a falling door. The whole structure ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... it happened, a little company of rustics, who had just issued from the low hatch-door of the village inn, stood for a moment under the sign of the Crown and Mitre, which swung huskily creaking from the bough of an ancient thorn tree, then passed on to the road, and ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... had evidently worked it down through a hole in the ceiling, just as ordinary presses are worked down on the substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus moved without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as it came down; there was now not the faintest sound from the room above. Amid a dead and awful silence I beheld before me—in the nineteenth century, and in the civilized capital of France—such a machine for secret murder by suffocation ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... that chandelier swayed back and forth in such a wild way that it seemed as if it must fall and crush every prism, tiny light, and bell. I felt sure whenever a quake began that I should not live through it. The flying fragments across the room, the creaking hard-wood doors, the nauseating feeling that everything under foot was falling away,—it was a frightful experience then, it is a sickening memory now. One never gets used to these shocks no matter how many occur; the more, the worse. ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... The slight creaking and whizzing of a sledge upon the crackling snow was now heard; it came nearer and nearer, and then there was a knocking at the palace gate. The porter opened, and two sledges drove into ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... really cordially, and I took my way down the creaking stairs in a whirl of happiness that I was quite at a ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... approached and swept them away to the south, leaving night to settle down upon the dwellers of the prairie city, starlit and calm, while the distant glow of the prairie fires rose luridly against the eastern sky. But all night long the creaking moan of the ox-carts went on, giving the prairie a yet closer resemblance to "an ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... darkness; through gloomy patches of pine, out again into open spaces, and along the brinks of fearful precipices; over rickety wooden bridges, and through foaming torrents that dashed out over the road, the wild girl clinging fast behind, the little pony flying along madly in front, the cariole creaking and rattling as if going to pieces, myself hanging on to the reins in a perfect agony of doubt whether each moment would not be our last. I declare, on the faith of a traveler, it beat all the dangers I had hitherto encountered summed up together. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... wide gilt frames, and were protected from ravaging flies by mosquito netting. He hoped that Ma would not hang them in the hall or the living-room. And that rocker, for which she yearned, was probably the one with the creaking coiled springs—the one that had leaped after him and clashed its jaws ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... weary horses floundered in front of it, a thin white steam rising from them into the nipping air, and Okanagan swayed half asleep upon the driving-seat, growling inarticulate objurgations when the vehicle sank creaking into a hollow he could not see. He had, wearing out several horses during the journey, driven close upon a hundred miles through the frost and snow, and had ceased to encourage his companions during the last hour or so. In fact, he was almost as incapable of speech just ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... tree cricket.) A popular name for insects, like the grasshopper, locust, and cricket, which make a creaking or ...
— The Insect Folk • Margaret Warner Morley
... the dash-board. But we set to work upon it with a will. We tightened up the nuts and screws all over it, and wound the broken pole with wire. We nailed together the box so that the rope could be taken off, and oiled the creaking springs. We had no trouble in finding a top, as half the people in the country had come in wagons provided with covers only a year or so before. We got four bows and attached them to the box, one at each end, and the other two at equal distances between. These bows were made of hard-wood, ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... a prolonged but faint quivering ran through the "Bertha Millner" from stem to stern, and from keel to masthead. There was a barely audible creaking of joints and panels. The oil in the deck-tubs trembled. The vibration was so fine and rapid that it tickled the soles of Wilbur's feet as ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... "Herat Gate." The crowds in the streets, attracted by this unusual turnout at this unusual hour, followed in their wake to the scene of disturbance. There was a click of locks, the clanking of chains, and the creaking of rusty hinges. The great doors swung open, and a crowd of expectant faces received ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... sobbing in her solitude, when a creaking noise struck her ear and the door of the court was flung open. Who came out, is not yet ascertained; but, reader, should you wish to know, the next chapter ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... an empty house greeted her discordantly. A rattling window was answered by a creaking stair, a rafter groaned dismally, and the scurrying feet of mice ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... picturesque old Cornish cottage, whilst the wife stands in the open doorway, arms a-kimbo, listening as the foreigner tells of the things that he has seen across the Channel since last he visited this coast. And up the hill there, on the rickety old settle, beneath the creaking signboard of the village inn, is another such group. As I gaze upon these masculine but kindly faces I am half inclined to withdraw my too hasty admission that onions have nothing about them of sentiment, poetry, ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... ragged as stock and shirt-frill can be, the relic of a hat very gayly cocked over one eye, and a patch to take away somewhat from the brightness of the other—these are the principal pieces of his costume—a snuff-box like a creaking warming-pan, a handkerchief hanging together by a miracle, and a switch of about the thickness of a man's thigh, formed the ornaments of this exquisite personage. He is a compound of Fielding's "Blueskin" and Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs." He has the dirt and dandyism of the one, with the ferocity ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... permission to return. The only woman in the whole city was Mrs. Cumming. The Mormons had been ordered indoors early that morning by the guard; every flag on a public building had been taken down; every window was closed. The regimental bands and the creaking wagons alone disturbed the utter silence. The peace commissioners rode with General Johnston, and the whole force encamped on the river Jordan, just within the city limits. Two days later, owing to a lack of wood and pasturage there, they were moved about fifteen miles westward, near the foot of ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... but such as blows is favourable; and with infinite creaking all sail is set. The sound wakes up emigrant sorrow afresh; the wildly contagious Irish cry is raised, much to the discomposure of the captain, who stood on ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round, and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... without a word among themselves, gathered their horses and struck down the valley out of Alder. The padding and swish of the sand about the feet of their mounts; the very creaking of the saddle leather seemed to alarm them, and they were continually turning and looking back. That is, Gus Reeve and Ronicky Joe manifested these signs of trouble, but Sliver Waldron, riding in the center of the trio, never moved his head. They were hardly ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... and his voice was heard in conversation with that of another man; then the lifting up of the sluices broke the stillness, and the creaking of the lock-gate as it opened. After that Rowles came in again, ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... acacias, mulberry trees, date trees, and dom palms, growing in some places in lines along the pathways, in others distributed in groups among the fields. Half a dozen saqiyehs, ranged in a line along the river-bank, raise water day and night, with scarcely any cessation of their monotonous creaking. The inhabitants do not allow a foot of their narrow domain to lie idle; they have cultivated wherever it is possible small plots of durra and barley, bersim and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... then Semyonov, then Molozov.... There was a great silence but I felt that every one was busily occupied in making ready for some affair. This was with half my consciousness—with the other half I was perfectly aware of the actual room, of Trenchard, the creaking cradle and the rest. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... rapidly approaching cart and barked in that direction. Tom sent him into the house and shut the door behind him, whereupon the dog grew frantic. The cart approached almost noiselessly over the flowery carpet, but soon the creaking and squeaking of the leather harness and the snorting of the horses became ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... odd ones kept on their head coverings during the entire meeting. For 45 minutes, not the least effort in any lingual direction was made; no one said a word for three-quarters of an hour. There was a good deal of stirring on the forms, and creaking sounds were periodically heard; the whole indicating that the sitting posture had become uneasy, and that the paint, through warmth, had got tenacious. There was, however, neither talking nor whispering indulged in. The elderly Quakers, with their broad- brimmed, substantial ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... sun has poured his wealth of sunshine all the summer long, and into it the kindly clouds have distilled their treasures. In it we find the glory of the sunrise, the sparkling dewdrop, the song of the robin, the gentle mooing of the cows, the murmur of the brook, and the creaking of the mill wheel. In it we read the poetry of the morning and of the evening, the prophecy of the noontide heat, and the mighty proclamations of Nature. And it tells us charming stories of health, of rosy cheeks, of laughing eyes, of happiness, of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... rid of them—were thrown over the parapet, and fell near us in the water. To these short shrift was given. As they came to the surface, our fellows instantly finished them with a spear-thrust or two. Then we heard the sound of a windlass creaking, and the clanking of chains; and as we looked through the opening in the wall we saw the grating that closed its farther end rise slowly until the way before us was free. Two of our boats already were in the passage, so that no time ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... direction, and lent to my failing courage a renewed strength which made flight at that moment seem nothing more nor less than an impulse of cowardice. This was nothing more nor less than a faint creaking, such as had followed my own lifting of the board which hid the domino and mask; a noise that was speedily followed by one yet more distinct and of a nature to convince me beyond a doubt that my own action was being repeated by some unknown hand. Whose? ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... and they locked the kitchen door behind them. It was a relief to get up again. In the hall there was more light than before, for the moon had travelled a little further down the stairs. Cautiously they began to go up into the dark vault of the upper house, the boards creaking under their weight. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... crowded the afternoon of the funeral. The decent black-clad village people, with reddening eyes and mouths drooping with melancholy, came in throngs into the snowy yard. The men in their Sunday gear tiptoed creaking across the floors; the women, feeling for their pocket-handkerchiefs, padded softly and heavily after them, folded in their black ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... banker, Arrived to-day at Premium Court— I would not, for the world, cast anchor In such a horrid dangerous port— Such dust and rubbish, lath and plaster, (Contractors play the meanest tricks) The roof's as crazy as its master, And he was born in fifty-six— Stairs creaking—cracks in every landing, The colonnade is sure to fall— We sha'n't find post or pillar standing, Unless we make great haste ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 352, January 17, 1829 • Various
... heard a noise, as of persons entering by the back way, and walking gently across the kitchen floor. Alarmed as to who it could be, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong not being expected home for several days, she gently closed her door, and locked it. A few minutes after, she heard stealthy steps ascending the creaking stairs, and presently her door was tried, and a voice in a low hurried whisper said, "Mary, are you there?" She was positive it was Mr. Armstrong's voice, but was too terrified to answer. Then Mrs. Armstrong—she was sure it was she—said also in a whisper, and as if addressing her husband, "She ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... boatmen, sweetmeat venders; newsboys crying the names of Greek papers that sound like "Hi hippi hippi hi," "Teyang Teyang Teyah"; by the tin horns of the trolley-cars, the sirens of automobiles, the warning whistles of steamers, of steam-launches, of donkey-engines; the creaking of cordage and chains on cargo-hoists, and by the voices of 300,000 men speaking different languages, and each, that he may be heard above it, adding to the tumult. For once the alarmist was right. There were no rooms in any hotel. Early in the rush John McCutcheon, William G. Shepherd, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... even while they danced to the tune of various and appalling noises. Above the ascending roar of the earthquake Alexina heard the crashing of steeples, the dome of the City Hall, of brick buildings too hastily erected, of ten thousand falling chimneys; of creaking and grinding timbers, and of the eucalyptus trees behind her, whose leaves rustled with a shrill rising whisper that seemed addressed to heaven; the neighing and pawing of horses in the stables, the sharp terrified yelps of dogs; and through all ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... of the English archbishops, surrounding Hogarth's modern midnight conversation. There was not a book in the room; but there were six or eight newspapers. With these we amused ourselves for some time, till the approach of the bishop was announced by the creaking of his shoes, the rustling of his silk apron, and the repeated hems with which he collected ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... hurried through the hotel, from one dirty room to another, with their loose and creaking floors, rotten and filthy, sagging as we walked, covered with matting that was rotting away. Damp and unventilated, the air was heavy and filled with foul odours of tobacco, perfumery, and cheap disinfectants. There seemed to have been no attempt ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... decaying vegetation, of the harvest grown old. There had been a drought, and now the dust rose thick and heavy, making the mules and travellers cough, and the latter cover their faces. Out of the darkness came not the least sound: save the creaking of the dead boughs on trees, whose dim tracery could just be distinguished against the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... looking into black caves, peeping over steep cliffs, and at last reaching the wind-swept summit to look off through miles of emptiness. An adventure, coming home from a picnic as evening was falling, to sit snug in that creaking capacious wagon which belonged to Stouty's father, and to watch the lights and shadows that darted in and out of the pines as the ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... not consider how sound is carried over the water. There! did you hear the creaking of their bamboo mast and the crackling of the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too, but that lock went desperately hard; yet the key did open it. Then they thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed; but that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking, that it waked Giant Despair, who, hastily rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them. Then they went on, and came to the King's highway, again, and ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... raised himself to one knee and looked intently over the ground. The last of the climbing dacoits was vanishing through the window, high above his head, and one stood motionless below. He, clearly, had been left on guard to keep the foot of the ladder. Now Jack heard plainly a shuffling and creaking and straining above. The Kachins were trying to force the door which ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... this pursuit of Helena, baffled as I had been by her, unhappy as I now was over her own unhappiness, fierce as was my love for her, still and notwithstanding, some trace of my old self clung to me even now when, her hand on my arm, I guided Helena in silence over the creaking planks of the dock, and saw, at last, dim beyond the edge, the boom of the Mississippi's tawny flood, rolling on and onward to the sea. Here was a task, a problem, a chase, an endeavor, an adventure! To it, I ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... with them. The old mare, with snarling head and backward ears, broke into a lumbering trot, snatching at her daughter's tail. The wain began to gather weigh, creaking, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... its head and expanded its wings, and the squire, whose recent experience had prepared him for any wonder, fully expected to hear it speak, but it only croaked loudly and exultingly, or if it laughed, the sound was like the creaking of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the Prime Minister here interposed in a creaking rusty voice, "that her Highness is set against the pilgrimage and will put every obstacle in the way ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... Temperley's music, which used to make the wild scene so unspeakably beautiful. Now there was no music, no music anywhere, only this fierce and mournful rush of the wind, which seemed as if it were trying to utter some universal grief. At sunset, braving the cold, she would mount the creaking staircase, pass along the silent upper corridors, and on through the empty rooms to the garret in the tower. The solitude was a relief; the strangeness of the scene appealed to some wild instinct, and to the intense melancholy that ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... all shod for silence in the best blood of the Turk! While in its banks our fiery tide of War serenely slept, Their subtle serpentry unrolled, and up the hill-side crept. In the Ruins of the Valley do the birds of carnage stir? A creaking in the gloom like wheels! feet trample—bullets whir— By God! the Foe is on us! Now the bugles with a start Thrill—like the cry of a wronged queen—to the red roots of the heart; And long and loud the wild war-drums with throbbing triumph roll— A sound to set the blood on ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... individual members' betaking themselves to the pump or well, immediately on getting home, even before attempting to unharness. About five o'clock, on circus-afternoon, there would be a general rumbling of buckets and creaking of sweeps, while a chorus rose to heaven, "My! I ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... yard I heard a sound like the creaking of an open door on its hinges. The gate of the north entrance I had just closed with my own hand. I went round to the west entrance, at the back of the stables. It opened on a field crossed by two footpaths in Mr. Fairbank's grounds. The nearest footpath led to the village. The ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... a dismal night, With creaking beams and ribs that groan, A black lee-shore and waters white: Dropped on the reef, the pair lie prone: O, the breakers dance, but ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... children meet and escort the music on its homeward trip. In one of the crooked streets near the river its journey comes to an end. A battered door opens to let it in. A tallow dip burns sleepily on the creaking stairs. The water runs with a loud clatter in the sink: it is to keep it from freezing. There is not a whole window pane in the hall. Time was when this was a fine house harboring wealth and refinement. It has neither now. In the old parlor downstairs a knot of hard-faced men ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... she heard his heavy panting, groaning almost; the creaking and straining of the rope, the scraping of his hands and body. She opened her eyes and saw the bulky, swaying shadow not twenty feet above the garden. Slowly it drew nearer the grass-covered floor—foot ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... that, while a gloom as of death settled over the ocean, broken only by the plash of waves and the constant creaking of the yawl as it rolled and pitched in ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... amount of the best. And they all say the same thing—rest, be careful, no sudden excitement, no strain, and I may live for ever—a creaking door." ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... high-bottomed, worm-eaten seat, With a creaking old back and twisted old feet; But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there, I bless thee and ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... the instant, hauled on a rough-frieze pea-jacket, thrust my unstockinged feet into their contrary slippers, and followed Harry, on the tips of my toes, along a creaking passage, guided by the portentous ruckling snorts, which varied the ilk profundity of the fat man's slumbers. When I reached his door, there stood Harry, laughing to himself, with a small quiet chuckle, perfectly inaudible at three feet distance, the intensity of which could, however, be ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... trifling nature of these objections to the dramatic merits of the School for Scandal, it will be seen, that, like the criticism of Momus on the creaking of Venus's shoes, they only show how perfect must be the work in which no greater faults can be found. But a more serious charge has been brought against it on the score of morality, and the gay charm thrown around the irregularities of Charles is pronounced to be dangerous ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... in confusion; horse bells and hobbles jingling and clanging, harness rattling, as horses shook themselves free, and pack-bags, swags, and saddles came to the ground with loud, creaking flops. Every one was lending a hand, and the Fizzer, moving in and out among the horses, shouted a medley of news and instructions ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... dining-room, and I ate in my own company, which had become lively and full of intelligent impressions. These I sat recording later in my journal, when a hesitating knock came at my bedroom, and two young men in cowboy costume entered like shy children, endeavoring to step without creaking. ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... never hear a fiddler fiddle? I have. I heard a fiddler fiddle, and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the happy days of my boyhood. The old field schoolhouse with its batten doors creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great, yawning fireplace, cracking and roaring and flaming like the infernal regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the trees. The limpid spring bubbled ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... sounded the important creaking of Deacon Abel's boots down the aisle. Agnes flashed a look over her shoulder. The stern old deacon was aiming straight for ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Natasha listened attentively to the sounds that reached her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under her, then Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sonya's gentle breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a Time and oft have Charles Diodati and I discust fond Legends, such as this, over our Winter Hearth; with our Chestnuts blackening and crackling on the Hob, and our o'er-ripe Pears sputtering in the Fire, while the Wind raved without among the creaking Elms. . ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... and now so loud, The minister paused (though his head was bowed). Rappety-rap! This will never do, The girls are peeping, and laughing too! So the sexton tripped o'er the creaking floor, Lifted the ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Guy waited; perhaps a mouse ran across the floor, and made him start. And then there was a sound of footsteps at the door, a whispering and a creaking of boots, and before he had time to do anything he found himself surrounded by soldiers, and knew that all was over; that the least he could hope for was death, which he had richly deserved, for he had intended to murder hundreds of men who ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... burden of the correspondence entailed by the Quarterly Review now fell on Mr. Murray, for Gifford had become physically incapable of bearing it. Like the creaking gate that hangs long on its hinges, Gifford continued to live, though painfully. He became gradually better, and in October 1816 Mr. Murray presented him with a chariot, by means of which he might drive about and take exercise in the ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... ravitaillement. To avoid this, the ravitaillement wagons start at different hours after dark, now at dusk, now at midnight. Sometimes, close by the trenches on a clear, still night, the plashing and creaking of the enemy's wagons can be heard through the massacred trees. I remember being shelled along one bleak stretch of moorland road just after a drenching December rain. The trench lights rising over The Wood, three miles away, made ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... of the dragging night, whose minutes were as iron and hours like lead, he was constantly starting up in nervous terror; the moan of the sea, the cry of some belated sea-gull, the plunge of a fish in the water, nay even the creaking of the boat's own timbers, with each and all of which Dick was perfectly familiar, alike arousing his ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... apology had been due. There was but one line which could be considered even mildly significant. "The little net," wrote Blakely, "has now a value that it never had before." Yet Angela was snuggling that otherwise unimportant billet to her cheek when the creaking stairway told her portentously of a solemn coming. Ten minutes more and the note was lying neglected on the bureau, and Angela stood at her window, gazing out over dreary miles of almost desert landscape, of rock and shale and sand and ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the lawn and paused at the side of the house, leaning against the veranda, where, on a night long past, a boy had hid and a girl had wept. A small creaking sound fell upon her ear, and she made out an ungainly figure approaching, wheeling ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Peter thought that he saw a face at the window. If so, it vanished and returned no more. Now from behind their heads came faint sounds, like those of stifled breathing, like those of naked feet; then a slight creaking and scratching in the wall—a mouse's tooth might have caused it—and suddenly, right in that ray of moonlight, a cruel-looking knife and a naked arm projected through ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... spring-house girl at Hope Springs Sanatorium for fourteen years. My father had the position before me, but he took rheumatism, and as the old doctor said, it was bad business policy to spend thousands of dollars in advertising that Hope Springs water cured rheumatism, and then have father creaking like a rusty hinge every time he bent over to fill a glass ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her,—then she stood in the open, shivering slightly in the sweet coldness of the coming dawn, and inhaling the fragrance of awakening unseen flowers. She knew of a gap in the hedge by means of which she could leave the garden without opening the big farm-gate which moved on rather creaking hinges—and she took this way over a couple of rough stepping-stones. Once out on the old by-road she paused. Briar Farm looked like a house in a dream— there was not enough daylight yet to show its gables distinctly, and it was more ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... bubbles came chuckling up light-heartedly from this or that submerged conflict and tragedy; now and again were crocodiles like a stranded fleet of logs basking in the sun. Still it was by day, a dreary stillness broken only by insect sounds and the creaking and flapping of our progress, by the calling of the soundings and the captain's confused shouts; but in the night as we lay moored to a clump of trees the darkness brought a thousand swampy things to life and out of the forest came screaming and howlings, screaming and ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... know. Something is moving through the water! I can hear a gurgle and a creaking noise. Do you think it could be a boat bearing down on us? Oh! what if they ran us down in this fog? I say, Frank!" called Bluff, also ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... her shoe; it was the first time the manoeuvre gave him any pleasure, and an association was thus established which led to shoe-fetichism (Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's creaking shoes against the stairs, produced by her efforts to accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to follow ladies whose shoes creaked, ejaculation being thus produced, while to obtain complete satisfaction ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... in Vagg Hollow, Little boy, when you go In the morning at five on your lonely drive?" "—I see men's souls, who follow Till we've passed where the road lies low, When they vanish at our creaking! ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... Old Un, and snapping bony finger and thumb under Joe's massive chin, turned and went on up the stairs, his smart straw hat cocked at a defiant angle, his brilliant shoes creaking loudly at every step. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... crawling noiselessly out of the window, when he was startled by the creaking of the stairs, as if some one was descending them; and, at the same time, hasty footsteps sounded under the window. Frank saw that he had been discovered, and, hastily climbing back into the room, he closed the window and threw himself on the floor, ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... and millions of people live within the limits of its influence. It stands at the heart of America almost within sound of the creaking green leaves of the corn in the vast corn fields of the Mississippi Valley. It is inhabited by hordes of men of all nations who have come across the seas or out of western corn—shipping towns to make their fortunes. On all sides men ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... berth, she suddenly awoke with a singular feeling of dread and suspense. She listened silently, but for some time distinguished none other than the small sounds of night on shipboard—the indistinct orders, the dragging of ropes, the creaking of timbers, the dull, regular jar of the engine, and the shuffling noise of feet overhead. But, ere long, she seemed to catch faint, distant sounds, that seemed like cries; then came hurry and confusion on deck; then voices in the cabin, one of which said: "they never ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... child of sorrow with clouds of dust, whispered in his ear, Fly! fly!—follow my example and rush madly backward! Misfortune advances to meet you, and a river of tears flows down the path you are blindly following. Turn your head and flee, before this broad, deep stream overtakes you. The creaking wheels seemed to sob out. Fly! fly! we are rolling you onward to a dark and eternal prison! Do you not hear the clashing of chains? Do you not see the open grave at your feet? These are your chains!—that is your grave, already prepared for the living, glowing heart! Fly! then, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... fled in sheets before the whooping wind. The lightning-play was hidden behind the drifting cloud-bank, for no glint of it penetrated the gloom; but the cavernous thunder-bellow roared intermittently, and a fury of rain drove slantwise against sodden earth and creaking wagon-tops. ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... well, and she and Mary send you their best love. The house is pervaded by boys; and every boy has (as usual) an unaccountable and awful power of producing himself in every part of the house at every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... were making such a noise that they never heard the creaking of the floor overhead, or the giggles of the girls as they glued their eyes to the ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... The creaking of the wheels, when the vehicle approached within a few hundred paces of the encampment, attracted the watch-dogs, and their fierce and continued barking drew the attention of the emigrants in the direction indicated. Several men with guns in their hands ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... through there—oh, I guess it was a couple of years ago. Anyway, it was in the night and everything was as dark as licorice bars. Maybe you never ate those, but they're mighty good, they're black. All of a sudden we heard a kind of a creaking noise and we couldn't make out where it was. Sometimes it sounded just as if ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard it—with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:—That's ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... point four hundred miles off the Irish coast, the ship-of-the-line turned back, and the three vessels held their way alone in a turbulent sea. Two of them beat stoutly against the gale, but the Edward and Ann hove to for a time, her timbers creaking and her bowsprit catching the water as she rose and fell with the waves. And so they put out into the wide and wild Atlantic—these poor, homeless, storm-tossed exiles, who were to add a new chapter to Great ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... beneath the shadow of their dim old woods, is a running brook whose deep waters were not always as merry and frolicsome as now; for years before our story opens, pent up and impeded in their course, they dashed angrily against their prison walls, and turned the creaking wheel of an old sawmill with a sullen, rebellious roar. The mill has gone to decay, and the sturdy men who fed it with the giant oaks of the forest are sleeping quietly in the village graveyard. ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... I know not how long, into her eyes, her face so transfigured and her lips smiling, and they, as it were, neither of them breathing, but hearing, as in another far-distant place, the outlandish jargon of the crew talking together in the warm, bright sunlight, or the sound of creaking block and tackle as they hauled upon ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... off across the creaking floor and down the stairs, and Neale leaned out of the dismantled window and stared into the garden beneath. Was it possible, he wondered, that there was anything in the old fellow's suggestion?—possible that the missing bank manager was really concealed in that mysterious ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... here—oh, Elly Precious, I shall send you to college! Of course, to college. You shall be a doctor—" Was that the chair creaking, or a door? It was a door. On the doorsill stood the Reformed Doctor, gazing in. The blanket had slipped away and it was a beautiful, bare Elly Precious in Miss Theodosia's arms, against her breast. The little ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... sound of creaking axles, and then a slow cloud of dust, and then a bull-cart bearing Ransie Bilbro and his wife. The cart stopped at the Justice's door, and the two climbed down. Ransie was a narrow six feet of ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... them securely together, and twisting them into a rope strong enough to sustain my weight. The bed-post served to secure one end; the other I dropped down the interior of the chimney. A glance from the window exhibited a double line of canvas-covered wagons creaking past, mules toiling wearily in the traces, under close guard of a squad of infantry. The judge and the girl were still outside. I was back instantly, and clambered recklessly ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... so unreal that I felt as if I were looking at a picture. It did not seem as if it could be Ben Lathrop who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Neddie Benson and old Davie. There was running and calling on all sides and aloft. Blocks were creaking as the men hauled at braces and halyards; and when the ship rolled I saw that the men on the yard-arms were shaking the courses from the gaskets. Although our crew was really too small to work the ship and fight at the same time, it was evident that Roger intended so ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... across the band of light that shone from the windows of the bar, and into the shadow of the Red Oak. There he buttoned his great coat tightly about him, put on his shoes, and started softly down the avenue of maples. Scarcely a sound disturbed the silence of the night, save the lazy creaking of the windmill as it turned now and then to the puff of a ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... ten-foot drop at the end," said Jim, casting his eye up at the creaking sails. "But it certainly was a nasty moment while one wondered if the old affair would hold. I don't believe it ever was made in Germany—it's ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... I heard the Maid's iron tread pass down the creaking wooden stairs, and soon I heard the sound of singing birds, for my window looked out on ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... ne'er resting beaches of Phineus, [and] the marine shore, running o'er the surge of Amphitrite,[59]—where the choruses of the fifty daughters of Nereus entwine in the dance,—[although] with breezes that fill the sails, the creaking rudders resting at the poop, with southern gales or the breezes of Zephyr, to the bird-haunted land, the white beach, the glorious race-course of Achilles, near the Euxine Sea. Would that, according to my mistress' prayers, Helen, the dear daughter of Leda, might ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the mayor, pleasantly. "They're creaking about as loud as Squire Despeaux's new shoes." There was a snarl of ire from the shoes every time the retreating chairman lifted a foot. "I hope they won't pinch us, Doddridge! Good day!" He sat ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... pay? I have nothing but my feathers, nothing but my feathers!" So the crocodile goes away till next year. There are not many singing birds in Borneo besides this thrush. The soft voices of many doves and pigeons may always be heard, and often the curious creaking noise made by the wings of rhinoceros hornbills as they fly past. More musical is the voice of the Wawa monkey, a bubbling like water running out of a narrow-necked bottle, always to be heard at early dawn, and ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... John, with creaking footsteps, tiptoed to the front of the stage, and stooping down, began to mix a concoction in a plate. Many stood up to see what he was doing, and conjecture was rife. Mephisto and Faust were forgotten until Jake struck a heroic pose, and ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... it at the dungeon door, and turned the bolt with ease. He then led Hopeful to the iron gate of the castle, and though the lock went desperately hard, yet the key opened it. But as the gate moved, it made such a creaking that ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... windy, blustering day. The dry leaves were flying, and the weather cocks turned, creaking, around, and Gustave had to hold his head low for he was only a little boy and the wind nearly pushed him down. A bent old gentleman, walking with a cane, passed them. Puff, whisk, the wind took the old gentleman's hat and sent it racing ahead ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... so: with God and the People on my side, I will dare, though a Roman, to be just. The bell ceases—you are already too late." So saying, Rienzi threw open the casement; and by the staircase of the Lion rose a gibbet from which swung with a creaking sound, arrayed in his patrician robes, the yet palpitating ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... steep-pitched roof, upon which the heavy rain beat again with a sound like that of distant drums. Gusts of rain and the water from the roof beat against the south windows, while the wailing wind played its mournful cadences about the eaves, and the stanch timbers added their creaking notes ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... hated everything in life, Hamilton walked slowly down the street. The air was heavy, and the sun beat down furiously on the yellow cotton awnings stretched over his head. Clouds of dust rose in the roadway as the white bullocks shuffled along, drawing their creaking wooden carts, and swarms of flies buzzed noisily in the yellow, dusty sunshine. Hamilton went on aimlessly; he was hot, he was tired, his eyes and head ached, he was thirsty; but all these disagreeable sensations were nothing beside the intense mental nausea that filled ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... herself immured in this damp and crumbling house, with no society but a drinking and crime-haunted husband, and the ignorant negroes who served him,—society varied now and then by one or two men revolting enough in speech and aspect to drive Hitty to her own room, where, in a creaking chair, she rocked monotonously back and forth, watching the snapping fire, and dreaming dreams of a past that seemed now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... house stepped Ruth Fielding, in her very bravest manner. The hall was dark, but the door into a room at the left—toward the back of the house—was open and through this doorway she ventured, the old, rough boards of the floor creaking beneath ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... when he touched his harp and sang, the song sounded like the wind blowing, the sea roaring, and the trees creaking; then it grew very soft, and sounded like a trickling brook dripping on stones and running over little pebbles; and while the king and queen and all the court listened in surprise, Harmonius' song grew sweeter, sweeter, sweeter. It was as ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... this was an idle threat. The vessel was lying head to the tide, and only a small gun or two in the stern could be brought to bear, and already the ship was lost to sight in the mist. There was much shouting and noise heard astern, and then the creaking of blocks. Ned made his ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... proud Stands, a peopled solitude, 'Mid the harvest shining plain, Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe, And the milk-white oxen slow With the purple vintage strain Heap'd upon the creaking wain." ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... do most er they 'ere shows, I expect. The wild beastises 'ud run into a shilling may be."—The old postboy made a joyless, creaking sound, bearing but slightest affinity to laughter. "But you 'ud see your way round more'n a shilling, Sir Richard. A terrible, rich, young gentleman, by what they ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... as possible they finished dressing, while the creaking and swaying continued. Then they rushed into the living room of the house and found Lady Aurex, ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... flatcars with truck-wagons full of market-stuff; flat-cars loaded with reapers and binders, all red and green and gilt under the sizzling electric lights; flat-cars piled high with strong-scented hides, pleasant hemlock-plank, or bundles of shingles; flat-cars creaking to the weight of thirty-ton castings, angle-irons, and rivet-boxes for some new bridge; and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of box-cars loaded, locked, and chalked. Men—hot and angry—crawled among and between and under the thousand wheels; men took flying jumps through ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... hall, as it stood there on the low ground midway between the head-quarters houses on the ridge to the south, and the even less commodious cottages of the puny garrison. There was a boardwalk of creaking pine, leading across the shallow ravine, for it sometimes rained up here in the mountains, though it never seemed to in the deep, arid valleys to the east. Then there was a gravel path stretching away toward the garrison houses north and north-east, and one, still narrower ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... have been bloodshed. But suddenly the dark shadows at the other end of the room swayed with a strange motion; a great creaking sound arose, and the warping-bars tottered forward and fell upon the floor ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the voice; "the slightest drop takes effect and causes him to appear intoxicated when he is not." Then there came from the stairs the almost incoherent announcement that a stormy passage was to be experienced. Then the voice fluttered away, and left only the sound of creaking timbers and the weird moan of the wind. Munroe was riveted with dumb terror, and when speech came to him he remarked: "That's darned funny," and proceeded on deck to attend to his duties. In a short time he was joined by the captain, who was promptly ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... bosh these "poets" write, about this humbug pet! Firstly, they're not true "Robins," but a base, inferior set; Second, there is no music in their creaking, croaking shriek; Third, they are slow and stupid—common birds from tail to beak! Tis said, "they come so early." Well, I'd rather they'd come late. They're simply made for pot-pies, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... off early, but we didn't come up with the wagons until almost camping-time. The great heavily-loaded wagons were creaking along over the heavy sands. The McEttricks were behind, Aggie's big frame swaying and lurching with every jolt of the wagon. They never travel without their German socks. They are great thick things to ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about, resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the horses, staring ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... Democracy formed themselves in his head. They were very comforting. They occupied his thoughts. He said them to himself again and again. Meanwhile his free hand was fumbling very carefully with the fastening that held the wooden shutter over a window. The shutter opened a very little, creaking loudly, louder than the patter of rain on the roof of the shack. A stream of water from the roof was pouring into ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... the sleepy voice of a caravan man calls out "Salameleko" to my coachman, and "Salameleko" is duly answered back; otherwise we rattle along at the speed of about four miles an hour, bumping terribly on the uneven road, and the diligence creaking in a ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stairs three at a time, down the creaking passage. The room was dark and silent, and with trembling fingers he struck a match. Two wide eyes looked up at him from a wretched ball of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... waiting-room, a little dark at best, grew dimmer. Sunlight faded from the ruined floor. The glorious afternoon was drawing in. The men did not speak. And then in the lengthening silence, there floated up small noises: a door creaking open; quiet feet upon the stairs; a faint swishing ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
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