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More "Creak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... through the lower bowels, dead he fell. Then hurl'd Sarpedon in his turn a lance, But miss'd Patroclus and the shoulder pierced Of Pedasus the horse; he groaning heaved His spirit forth, and fallen on the field 565 In long loud moanings sorrowful expired. Wide started the immortal pair; the yoke Creak'd, and entanglement of reins ensued To both, their fellow slaughter'd at their side. That mischief soon Automedon redress'd. 570 He rose, and from beside his sturdy thigh Drawing his falchion, with effectual stroke Cut loose the side-horse; then the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and our children may now be born of free women. Our sisters have been recognized as having brains as well as hearts, and as being capable of transacting their own business affairs. New avenues of self-support have been found and profitably entered upon, and the doors of our colleges have ceased to creak their dismay at the approach of women. Twelve States have extended limited suffrage through their Legislatures, and three Territories admit all citizens of suitable age to the ballot-box, while from no single locality in which it has been tried comes any ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... noiselessly in the lock; he raised the latch, and the door swung open with never a creak. ...
— Aunt Hannah and Seth • James Otis
... enough. Drawing the door to behind him he went down the stairs. He had been careless of noise in ascending; now each creak of the warped boards was an agony. The snorer had turned over in bed; the awful house had a graveyard stillness. He held his breath till he was clear of it and again in the hushed and ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... complete silence, broken only by the soft melancholy murmur of the forest. They refilled the magazines of their carbines, built up the tinder fire, and stretched their ears to catch the first warning note of danger. Then the whisperings swarmed in upon them. A creak of a branch, the turn of a leaf, the scraping of creeping insects, the whizzing of moths, and the murmur of the forest, all seemed to them the whisperings of stealthy foes. Every now and again they moistened their lips, which dried after the repeated spells during which they held ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... hear the door, which has been for some time silent, creak again in opening. Footsteps sound along the aisle. I look up. Yes, it is he! walking as quickly and noiselessly as he can, and looking rather ashamed of himself, while patches of red, blue, and golden light, from the east window, dance on his Sunday coat and on the smooth darkness of his hair. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... finger on his nose—lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, elles se cassent les reins—they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old things, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... tonight, lying in this grassy ditch beneath the stars, I shall slumber as sweetly as ever I did between the snowy sheets." Saying which, I rose and began to look about for some likely nook in the hedge, where I might pass the night. I was thus engaged when I heard the creak of wheels, and the pleasant rhythmic jingle of harness on the dark hill above, and, in a little while, a great wagon or wain, piled high with hay, hove into view, the driver of which rolled loosely in his seat with every jolt of the wheels, so that it ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... boat carried up to him an impression of mixed doubt and discomfort—ultimate disbelief in his possession of arms, an energetic oath or two, and another creak ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... upon the purple-tinted sheaves standing with their heads together. The Titan-strewn rocks felt it likewise with all their heather and broom. There was no husbandman in the plain, no song of the solitary goat-girl, no creak of the plough, no twitter even of a bird. It was not yet the hour when Virgil says every field is silent, but the repose of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... of his inference brought a brief smile to his lips when he crossed the creek that skirted the orchard, and heard a stable door creak softly behind him. He was to be followed again—and watched, but he did not look back or pause to listen for the hoofbeats of his unsolicited escort. On the soft mud of the road, he would hardly ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... watch upon the manoeuvres of the lieutenant—saw him drop over the side of the stage, heard a thump of feet as he landed in a boat, and a subsequent creak ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... fallen asleep, the beds began to creak, and amid this creaking the empress fancied she heard words ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... stood motionless for a few minutes, thinking and listening. At first all was still. Footsteps above her head,—Elizabeth was going to bed; then the familiar creak of the good woman's bed; then silence again. Rita's room was across the hall, and she could hear no sound from there. Through the open window came the soft night noises: the dew dripping from the chestnut leaves, a little sleepy ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... from the scene of the crime. And who was with him in that house? Who was there to observe and testify to his going forth and his coming home? No one. He was alone in the house. On that night, of all nights, he was alone. Not a soul was there to rouse at the creak of a door or the tread of a shoe—to tell as whether he slept or whether he stole forth in the dead of ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... the cliff brink. At a signal from the Navaho he again vanished. The hoist rope tautened. With a creak, the cage scraped on the ledge and began to swing up the cliff face above the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... care a pin for their chattering, and as evening drew on, he walked up the hillside to the outlying field. There he went inside the barn and sat down; but in about an hour's time the barn began to groan and creak, so that ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... potlids, goodly servant. You creak like a roasting-jack.' He smiled at her with an engrossed air, and hurried himself to pull tight the headstrap of a great barb that was fighting with ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... marred only by creak of gear and flap of idle sails. The schooner barely moved now, though the western sky held promise of a breeze later on. Then came a cry from one of the negro crew forward, and its tenor stirred the party into ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... "It can creak and groan when it gets dry for a little oil. And it will be like a camel if you put too heavy a load on it," ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... massive form, colour is lost in shadowy but closer at hand are the dark pervading greens of the trees and vegetation, palms and tree ferns and banana trees helping by their graceful form to provide the truely tropical features, while the equally graceful clumps of bamboo sway and creak in the light breeze, their pointed leaves supplying that perpetual flutter and movement which one associates with the birches and beeches of one's native land. The cultivated patches on hillside and valley are rich in ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... along the corridor on tiptoe, every creak of the boards as they went causing their hearts to beat quickly. They had to pass Dr. Hunter's bedroom, and Marjory fancied that she could hear some movement within. Full of apprehension, she hurried on, Blanche following ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... then I could find no words to say. Only vague yearnings and emotions and a heartfelt wish to put my shoulder to the great wheel of good. What could I say? Every prayer seemed based on the idea that God was a magnified man—that He needed asking and praising and thanking. Should the cog of the wheel creak praise to the Engineer? Let it rather cog harder, and creak less. Yet I did, I confess, try to put the agitation of my soul into words. I meant it for a prayer; but when I considered afterwards the "supposing ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... stop! I've found out that work is a kind of self-oiler. If you're used to it, the minute you stop you begin to get rusty, and your hinges creak and you clog up. And the next thing you know, you break down. Work that you like to do is a blessing. It keeps you young. When my mother was my age, she was crippled with rheumatism, and all gnarled up, and quavery, and all she had to look forward to was death. Now me—every time the ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... follow his own suggestion, for when he heard the front door creak on its hinges, he laid down his revolver and covered his ears with his hands. This made Rodney turn as white as a sheet and get upon his feet again, fully expecting to hear the roar of a shotgun, followed by the ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... he cautiously rose from the bed, and pulled off his boots, which a proper respect for his host or the bed had not prompted him to do before. The house was old, and the floors had a tendency to creak beneath his tread. With the utmost care, he crawled on his hands and knees to one of the doors of the lumber hole, which he succeeded in ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... with which Zenobia had inspired her, our guest showed herself disquieted by the storm. When the strong puffs of wind spattered the snow against the windows and made the oaken frame of the farmhouse creak, she looked at us apprehensively, as if to inquire whether these tempestuous outbreaks did not betoken some unusual mischief in the shrieking blast. She had been bred up, no doubt, in some close nook, some inauspiciously sheltered court of the city, where the uttermost rage of a ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seat in front of her, moved away to the smoking car; and the woman in gray listened to the creak and whirr of the wheel of torturing dread, upon which some malignant fate once more bound her. Bertie had been safe in his mountain fastness, until her ill-starred advertisement coaxed him within reach of the police Briareus. Could she discern the hand of merciful warning ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "was coming along as cool as a cucumber. Sometimes she'd sit down to tickle her neck with her hind-feet. Then she'd give a big jump, casual-like, to one side of the path, and sit down again, with her ears twitching and turning as if she thought there was mischief in every flutter of a leaf or creak of a bough." ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... could hear the thud and creak as Commodus threw himself back on the bed—then writhing again and groans of agony. Between the spasms Commodus ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... put on her tennis shoes, and now stole very softly out of the room and down the passage. Janie went to bed again, though certainly not to sleep. She heard the stairs creak, and wondered if anyone else were awake in the house, and would notice the ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... was carefully closed and they soon heard the slight creak of the weighted wheel as Droop set off with the trunks ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... government. But from that hour little hope of such an agreement remained. The Parliament could put no trust in the king. The air at Westminster, since the discovery of the army conspiracy, was full of rumours and panic; the creak of a few boards revived the memory of the Gunpowder Plot, and the members rushed out of the House of Commons in the full belief that it was undermined. On the other hand, Charles put by all thought of reconciliation. If he had given his assent to Strafford's ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... felt that the dreaded phantom came ever nearer and nearer—that he could not exorcise the Lady in White! Now she was close to him, her white garment grazed his bowed head, and the soldier shuddered and shrank within himself. It was as if he heard a door creak and turn softly on its hinges, then all ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... instance, I am loved by women. I don't call them, I don't lure them, they come to me of themselves." He seated himself on a bag of flour and told us how the women loved him and how he handled them boldly. Then he went away, and when the door closed behind him with a creak, we were silent for a long time, thinking of him and of his stories. And then suddenly we all began to speak, and it became clear at once that he pleased every one of us. Such a kind and plain fellow. He came, sat awhile and talked. Nobody came to us before, nobody ever spoke to us ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... vine tighten, heard it creak and groan under his weight, and finally it lifted him clear of the island, swinging him far out over the abyss like a weight at the ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... inn weathers the winters down here pretty middlin' well; but it's gettin' kind o' broken down, and its doors creak in a storm like bones that's got the rheumatiz. I wish I could afford to give it a ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... she forgot every thing but the desire to show her new shoes; and away she went marching primly along as vain as a little peacock, as she watched the bright buttons twinkle, and heard the charming creak. Kitty saw her coming; and, being an ill-natured little girl, took no notice, but called ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... two copying-clerks and the engrosser, whose pens forthwith began to creak over the stamped paper, making as much noise in the office as a hundred cockchafers imprisoned by ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... wished to assist him, but Peter declined. The Portier was noisy. There was to be a moment when Peter, having admitted himself with extreme caution, would present himself without so much as a creak to betray him, would stand in a doorway until some one, Harmony perhaps—ah, Peter!—would turn and see him. She had a way of putting one slender hand over her heart ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... remembered. I told myself, in a premonition of things to come, that I should always remember Captain Riggs and the Rev. Luther Meeker and Trego and Rajah, and the very pattern of the parti-coloured cloth on the table, the creak of the pivot-chairs and the picture of the Japanese girl in the mineral-water calendar which swayed on the bulkhead opposite ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... oxygen and the dizziness of hunger, Jon was a bit delirious. But he answered honestly enough: "My guts feel as if they're chewing each other up. My bones ache. My joints creak. I can't ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... the dell they could now hear the whistling creak of cranks, repeated at intervals of half-a-minute, with a sousing noise between each: a creak, a souse, then another creak, and so ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... standing at the dressing-room door; she started and swung round on her heels as there came a knock at the door of the bedroom, the creak of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... was cold and dreary, each plank of its thin walls rattling in the gale with a dismal creak; the wind blew the smoke down the chimney, and finally it ended on our bringing everything into the cosey parlor, and using the hearth fire, where Jeannette made coffee and baked little cakes ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... There was a kind of croft on one hillside, and from a hut the smoke of breakfast was beginning to curl. Stumm's gunners were awake and apparently holding council. Far down on the main road a convoy was moving—I heard the creak of the wheels two miles away, for ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... to find a rope, and fastened together quite a complicated piece of machinery, as I thought, by which I managed to pump the ice-cold water upon my devoted head. The effect was not as immediate as I had hoped. But I had faith if a little was good, more must be better. Creak—creak—creak—went the pump-handle, which did more work that afternoon than in half a ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... a bonnet the same color, and she used to say she matched the church. I bought it with the very first money I earned. Part of it came from weeding, and the weather was warm, and I can feel the way my back would sting and creak, now! I would want to stop, often, but I thought of mother in church with that bonnet, and I kept on! There's the place where Seeds, the grocer that used to trust us, had his store; it was his children had the scarlet fever, and mother went to nurse them. My! but how dismal it was ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... button and the stone will do the rest," said Bert, with a grim attempt at humor. He pressed the diamond-shaped stone as he spoke, but there was no answering creak, nor ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... still; the wise ones always do, when a dog says "Stop!" They waited. After a few minutes it came again—merely the long-drawn creak of a tree bough, wind-rubbed on ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... basket, and suit-cases were carefully arranged, and they were off,—off in the beautiful Harmer,—off to the country,—to the mountains and canyons,—to climb one of the sunny slopes that had beckoned to them so enticingly. Almost they held their breath at first, afraid the first creak of the car would waken them from the ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... expense of your father's practice, which he himself has given you the ability to undermine," said the doctor, in his cold voice. "I bid you both good-evening. You, my son, can come home within a half-hour, or you will find the doors locked." With that the doctor went out; there was a creak of cramping wheels, and a lantern-flash in the window, then a ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the stairs, terrified at every creak they made under his weight. Did he hear anything? No; it was only the pattering of the rain-drops outside. Stealthily he peeped into the kitchen; no one was there, the few smouldering ashes in the grate being the only token of recent ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... the twins in the darkness. It was soft and steady as the falling of tiny ripples upon the beach. But presently she was aware of a louder sound in the kitchen. It was regular and even, like the ticking of a clock. There was a roll and a creak in it, as if somebody was sitting in the rocking-chair and balancing back ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... Few travelers passed by their cabin in the winter, but he was sure that he heard a faint noise in the distance. It sounded like the creak of wheels. The noise came again—this time much closer. A man's voice was ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... verses, rising above the creak of the wheels, a fierce, droning chant that drummed upon the nerves and inflamed the brain. Much of its power came from its persistency upon the same beat and theme, until the great chorus became like the howling of thousands of ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a sound did come—when the wind swept over the fir-trees, and made the branches which hung over the caravan creak and sway to and fro—Rosalie trembled with fear. Poor child! the want of sleep the last few nights was telling on her, and had made her nervous and sensitive. At last she found the matches and lighted a candle, that she might not ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... and most of its impressiveness, for I remembered when to my boyish fancy it seemed a greater triumph of engineering than the Victoria bridge at Montreal. And the same old thrill went through me as I started to run—just as I did when a boy—and felt the planks loosen and creak under my feet. Here was a home-coming worth ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... stretching away to right and left of you, with the constant roar of sluice boxes and cradles, the creak of windlasses, and the perpetual noise of human voices. There's the excitement of pegging out your claim and sinking your first shaft, wondering all the time whether it will turn up trumps or nothing. There's the honest, manly labour from dawn to dusk. And then, when daylight ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... his wide white hands, his broadcloth—there he was planted on his massive feet as on a pedestal! She did not see him; she was aware of him. And she was aware of the closed door behind them. One of the basket-chairs, though empty, continued to creak, like a thing alive. Faintly, very faintly, she could hear the piano—Mrs. Boutwood playing! Overhead were the footsteps of Sarah Gailey and Hettie—they were checking the linen from the laundry, as usual on Saturday afternoon. And she was aware ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... as everywhere, we were given freely of such things as we required. We left in the early morning of June 26, after Pennell had done some hours' magnetic work with the Lloyd Creak and Barrow ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... already heavily encumbered pockets could not be persuaded to receive more than a small portion of the manuscripts. He gathered them in his hand, and prepared to redescend the perilous stairs. He walked as lightly as possible, dreading that every creak would bring Mrs. Wilson from her parlour. A few more steps, and he would be in the passage. A smell of dust, sounds of children crying, children talking in the kitchen! A few more steps, and, with his eyes on the parlour door, Hubert had reached the ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... to creak and crack under the engine when it was new. McNally was nearing it now. It lay, however, just below a deep rock cut that had been made in a mountain crag and beyond ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... his back with a dull thump, rasping away a red line of flesh. Now Eric knew for the first time the awful reality of intense pain; he had determined to utter no sound, to give no sign; but when the horrible rope fell on him, griding across his back, and making his body literally creak under the blow, he quivered like an aspen-leaf in every limb, and could not suppress the harrowing murmur, "Oh God, help ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... feel lonesome right at home entertainin' guests! but I was gettin' acquainted with the sensation. There's no musical doings, no happy groups and gay laughter about the house; nothing but now and then a whisper from dark corners, or the creak of ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... the hound sprang to his feet, with a fierce growl, at the same time glaring upward into the thick recesses of a towering pine-tree. For a moment the sharp eye of the hunter could discern no object of alarm; but he soon heard the branches creak, as with the movements of some wild creature. He presently heard a growl among the tree-tops, and discerned two flaming globes of fire, which he knew to be the eyeballs of some animal, illuminated by the flashes of his camp-fire. In an instant ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... hear the cold creak of the sledge-runners now, and a moment later the patter of many feet outside the door. In a single leap Philip was at the door. Another and he was outside, and an amazed Eskimo was looking into the round black eye of ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... went up, and "The Purple Slipper" glided on the stage with never a creak or a careen. The lights scintillated and glared on the wonderful costumes and scenery, and the sparkling dialogue began to unwind itself into the startling plot. For the first ten minutes the author glowed ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... held back. At last Tom rose slowly and softly, and started alone. But the first step he made wrung such a hideous creak from the crazy floor that he sank down almost dead with fright. He never made a second attempt. The boys lay there counting the dragging moments till it seemed to them that time must be done and eternity growing gray; and then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bull Hunter impart his great tidings. He had not yet climbed into that real saddle; Diablo had not yet heard the creak of the stirrup leathers under the weight of his rider. Indeed, there was still much to be done before the happy day when he saddled the black stallion and took down the bars of the corral gate and rode him out. And rode him without a bit! ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... promised faithfully that we would do so; the tongue indeed swore, but the mind was unsworn. It was agreed that we should keep pinching one another to prevent our going to sleep. We did so at frequent intervals; at last our patience was rewarded with the heavy creak, as of a stout elderly lady labouring up the stairs, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... above mining towns are magnificent. The long valleys, cut and slashed by the railroads and made ugly by the squalid little houses of the miners are half lost in the soft blackness. Out of the darkness sounds emerge. Coal cars creak and protest as they are pushed along rails. Voices cry out. With a long reverberating rattle one of the mine cars dumps its load down a metal chute into a car standing on the railroad tracks. In the winter little fires are started along the tracks by the workmen who are ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... was starting to return to Neeland, but that young man motioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in the passage creak open a little way, then ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... brought his chair so suddenly and heavily back to its four-legged condition that the frail thing responded with an ominous creak. "What on earth ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... again, and he drew near the door once more. He became certain that something was moving stealthily on the stairs. He heard the boards creak again, and once the rails of the balustrade rattled. The silence and suspense were frightful. Suppose that the something which had been Fletcher waited for him ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... continued, and a voice called, 'Claude, Claude!' He still remained quite still, debating with himself, however, with ashen lips and downcast eyes. Deep silence reigned, and then footsteps were heard, making the stairs creak as they went down. Claude's breast heaved with intense sadness; he felt it bursting with remorse at the sound of each retreating step, as if he had denied the friendship of his ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the window, "I'll creak." So the window creaked. Now there was an old form outside the house, and when the window creaked, the form said: "Window, why do you creak?" "Oh!" said the window, "Titty's dead, and Tatty weeps, and the stool hops, and the broom sweeps, the door ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... certain wet night, in the spring of the year 1587, the rain was doing its utmost to sweeten the streets of old Paris: the kennels were aflood with it, and the March wind, which caused the crowded sign-boards to creak and groan on their bearings, and ever and anon closed a shutter with the sound of a pistol-shot, blew the downpour in sheets into exposed doorways, and drenched to the skin the few wayfarers who ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... by the shoulders, and you will shake him, applying the ear to the chest, so as to recognize on which side the sign occurs'. This sign is still used by physicians and is known as Hippocratic succussion. In another passage in the same work the symptoms of pleurisy are described and 'a creak like that of leather may be heard'. This is the well known pleuritic rub which the physician is accustomed to seek in such cases, and of which the creak of ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... the old door leading on to the side-porch creak stealthily, then pause, and creak again. Perhaps Annie was ill, and she ought to follow her. She softly tiptoed back to her room and peeped from her window. Her sister was stealing down through the orchard, her light summer dress plainly visible against its dim greenness. ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... inside the old horse showed signs of starting. You almost heard the wooden joints CREAK as he lurched forward, like an old propped-up humpy when the rotting props give way; but at the sound of Mary's voice he settled back on his foundations again. It must have been a very poor selection that couldn't afford a better spare ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... for the electric light from the street. We heard the creak and rattle of the empty commissariat wagons returning from the barracks. We fell silent, feeling ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... a dull bang, and from the entrance hallway came a sound of voices. She stood petrified in dread till the voices fell and she heard stairs creak under an ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... white hand which somehow had found its way inside his own. The sharp eyes of the old negress snapped. She gave a grunt as she withdrew her head. It was speedily to develop, though, that she had not entirely betaken herself away. Almost immediately there came to the ears of the couple the creak-creak of a rocking-chair just inside the hall, but out of view from ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... things by the grace of the wind, which sometimes blew them about him in a chorus, and again shut off all except that lonely calling of the grouse, and often whisked away every murmur and left Gregg, in the center of a wide hush with only the creak of the pack-saddle and the click of the burro's accurate ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... carrying on agin, and 'e was out o' that door and 'arf-way downstairs afore he stopped to take breath. He stood there trembling for about ten minutes, and then, as nothing 'appened, he walked slowly upstairs agin on tiptoe, and as soon as they heard the door creak Peter and Ginger made that bed do ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... overhauled for the corn, which is shucked as gathered, while the pumpkins are still accumulating sunshine for the golden Thanksgiving pie. From the barn yards come the pounding of the steam thresher or the creak of a windlass, suggesting that the hay crop is being baled. Everything is busy but the cows, who evidently do not like frosting on their cake and, having the day before them, can afford to wait till the good sun comes along to undo the work which has kept Jack ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... while the little girl still held the parasol aloft and looked down with a great wonder at the frowsy, unkempt creature, trying to reconcile it with the little part of life that she knew. To her ears came the cries of men, the stamp of hoofs on the bridge, and the creak and groan of wagons heavy laden. It was a breathless California Indian summer day. Light fleeces of cloud drifted in the azure sky, but to the west heavy cloud banks threatened with rain. A bee droned lazily by. From farther thickets came the calls ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... hatch, and paused to turn the slide of his lantern. The shaft of light fell down the companion as into a pitch-dark well. He could feel his heart thumping against his ribs as he began the descent, and jumping with every creak of the rotten boards, while always behind his fright lurked a sickening sense of the ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... custom for a gentleman to envelope his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park; and lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party battle it out among themselves. ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... and rustle of silk by the door—Mrs. Polkington did not wear silk skirts, only a silk flounce somewhere, but she got more creak and rustle out of it than the average woman does out of two skirts. An imposing woman she was, with an eye that had once been described as "eagle," though, for that, it was a little inquiring and eager now, by reason of the look-out she had been ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... withering. One hears within the hollow dreary space Across the grove, made fresh by summer's grace, The wind that ever is with mystic might A spirit ripple of the Infinite. The glass restored to frames to creak is made By blustering wind that comes from neighboring glade. Strange in this dream-like place, so drear and lone, The guest expected should be living one! The seven lights from seven arms make glow Almost with life the staring eyes ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... hill at Gangley's Mills the pace grew even greater. From the west prong of the road fork at the bottom a taxicab shot into view. There was a shout of warning, a rattle and creak as the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... were fast approaching. Presently they were abreast of Duane's position, so near that he could hear the creak of saddles, the ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... greyish dust rising like smoke the regiments marched with a steady tramp. Gun carriages moved slowly down the roads in a glare of sun which sparkled upon the steel tubes of the field artillery and made a silver bar of every wheel-spoke. I heard the creak of the wheels and the rattle of the limber and the shouts of the drivers to their teams; and I thrilled a little every time we passed one of these batteries because I knew that in a day or two these machines, which were being carried along the highways of France, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... sprang up, spurred to desperate effort. She would storm the all but hopeless attic chambers. Up the twisting turnpike stairs on the outer wall she ran, to where the swallows wheeled about the cornices, and she could hear the iron cross of the Knights Templars creak above the gable. Then, all the way along a dark passage, at one door after another, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... rusty creak; Once, parting there, we played at pain; There came a parting, when the weak And fading lips ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... changed their minds on the subject. There was something decidedly wrong, but what it was they could not discover. They were both awakened by a rustling sound in the hallway, outside of their room, and this time there was a creak on the ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... five men and women, and here and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... The fetters creak—and his ebon beak Croaks to the close of the hollow sound; And this is the tune by the light of the moon To which the witches dance their round— Merrily, merrily, cheerily, cheerily, Merrily, speeds the ball: ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the terrace below. His nerves quivered as he sat astride the window-sill but he set his jaw and lowered himself from the window, catching the iron gutter-pipe with bare fingers and toes. The spout seemed to creak horribly, and for a moment he thought that it was swaying outward with him. But the sensation was born of his own weakness. The pipe held and slowly he descended, reaching the ground, his knuckles bruised and ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... Corbett had hit it with his closed fist. My blood turned to melted ice. I drove the spade down as fiercely as though it was a dagger. It sank into rotten wood. I had made no sound; for I could hardly breathe. But the slight noise of the blow had reached Edgar. I heard the springs of the hack creak as he vaulted from it, and the next moment he was towering above me, peering down into the pit. His eyes were wide with excitement, greed, and fear. In his hands he clutched the two suit-cases. Like a lion defending his cubs ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... sprang to his feet, with a fierce growl, at the same time glaring upward into the thick recesses of a towering pine-tree. For a moment the sharp eye of the hunter could discern no object of alarm; but he soon heard the branches creak, as with the movements of some wild creature. He presently heard a growl among the tree-tops, and discerned two flaming globes of fire, which he knew to be the eyeballs of some animal, illuminated by the flashes of his camp-fire. In an instant his rifle was poised ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... vapour thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan. The roots upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms them all, While through the desolate abyss, Sweeping the, wreck-strewn precipice, The raging storm-blasts howl and hiss! Aloft strange voices dost thou hear? Distant ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep,—or, it may be, broad awake,—with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hair, smiling. He jumped as high as ever he could, twined his legs behind her back, and hugged. He heard her gasp, and felt her hugging back. His eyes, very dark blue just then, looked into hers, very dark brown, till her lips closed on his eyebrow, and, squeezing with all his might, he heard her creak ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... your Keats letter if the signature was traced over to make it last longer? It's just because I love the past that I want this house to look back on its glamourous moment of youth and beauty, and I want its stairs to creak as if to the footsteps of women with hoop skirts and men in boots and spurs. But they've made it into a blondined, rouged-up old woman of sixty. It hasn't any right to look so prosperous. It might care enough for Lee to drop a brick now ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... and so she finished her labours, stopping every now and then to listen, and humming tunes very loud, in fits and starts. Then it came to her turn to take her candle and go up stairs; she was a good half-hour later than Moggy—all was quiet within the house—only the sound of the storm—the creak and rattle of its strain, and the hurly-burly of the gusts over the roof ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... I'd sell myself body and soul to the devil, for that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: "SOAMES, ENOCH" endlessly—endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena, biographies'—but here he was interrupted by a sudden loud creak of the chair at the next table. Our neighbour had half risen from his place. He was leaning towards ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... so close that we were nearly swamped in the surges produced by their wheels. I breathed easier when the boats had passed, for I knew how reckless they were under the excitement of a race. I could hear them creak and groan under the pressure, as ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... for the cousin of Red Feather, the wise man who might help us. I heard the rattle of the bar as the helper lifted it, then the creak of the gate. Then a furious outcry, a confusion of howls and screams, a war-whoop and a rush of feet. The Indians were within the stockade. A moment later they burst into the shop and advanced upon us, uttering blood-curdling whoops and brandishing their hatchets ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... touched that bridge and shot off into space on the other side like a hurdler clearing an obstacle. With a creak and a thud the big car landed, reeled drunkenly, and straightened out in earnest, Maclaren craned his head to see the speedometer, but had not the heart to look; he began ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... might wait On the poor labouring man with kindly looks, And minister refreshment to the tired Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn bench The sweltry man had stretched him, and aloft 150 Vacantly watched the rudely-pictured board Which on the Mulberry-bough with welcome creak Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid Learnt more than Schools could teach: Man's shifting mind, His vices and his sorrows! And full oft 155 At tales of cruel wrong and strange distress Had wept and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... was afterwards a leader in his profession, well known in the county of Essex. It was in reference to this gentleman, that an ambitious colored person of that day instructed the shoemaker he employed, that he wanted "his boots to have as much creak in them as Squire Moses's." On the day before the services were to take place, the orator repaired to the meeting-house appointed for the purpose, in order to rehearse his performance, and having mounted the stairs to the ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... the Fight—but if I have dreamed aright, 'Twas a loud one and a long, as ever thundered through! Right stiffly, past a doubt, the Dragon fought it out, And his Angels, each and all, did for Tophet their devoir— There was creak of iron wings, and whirl of scorpion stings, Hiss of bifid tongues, and the Pit in full uproar! But, naught thereof enscrolled, in one brief line 'tis told (Calm as dew the Apocalyptic Pen), That on the Infinite ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... The occasional creak of an oar, a whispered oath of dismay, the heavy breathing of toilers, the soft blowing of the mist-that was all; no other sound on the broad, still river. It was, indeed, a night fit for the undertaking ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was instantly on the alert, darting out of its hiding place, and slipping noiselessly up the stairs as quietly as the shadow it imitated; pausing to listen with anxious mien, stepping as a cloud might have stepped with no creak of stairway or sound of ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... but as she knew the creak of every board in the room overhead she became aware shortly afterwards that the Rector had either diverged slightly from the path of which he was the ordained finger-post, or that he had suddenly taken to keeping his pocket-handkerchiefs in the far corner of the ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... partitions were provided with bars across the top, and whose grated iron door was locked every evening and unlocked every morning under the surveillance of a Father, who assisted at our going to bed and getting up. The creak of the doors, turned with singular celerity by the dormitory porters, was one of the peculiarities of the school. In these alcoves we were sometimes shut up for months on end. The scholars thus caged fell under the stern eye ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... hard work to keep crawling along there, inch by inch, lest the bamboos should creak. They bent and yielded to his weight over and over again, and twice over they gave so loud a noise that Ali paused, listening for the movement of his guards, meaning then to spring up and flee. Still no one moved, and in spite of his intense desire to make a bold ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... desert, revealing an infinite perspective of summits and escarpments in echelon one behind another to the furthest plane of the horizon, like motionless caravans. The now confined river rushes on with a low, deep murmur, accompanied night and day by the croaking of frogs and the rhythmic creak of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... had rested there in solid masonry. And still, during the day, there was little sign of change, beyond an indefinable presence of busier life, even in the hush of the hot autumnal noon. But at night the drawbridges rose and the portcullises descended—each with its own peculiar creak, and jar, and scrape, setting the young rooks cawing in reply from every pinnacle and tree-top—never later than the last moment when the warder could see anything larger than a cat on the brow of the road this side the village. For who could tell when, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... gun! Quick!" shouted Lieutenant Bishop. The brave tars seize the ropes, the trucks creak, and the great eleven-inch gun, already loaded, is out in a twinkling. Men are bringing up shot and shell. The deck is clearing of ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Rishis, I never expected that Suyodhana would win success and prosperity or that thou thyself wouldst be afflicted with the fear of Karna! Thou ridest upon an excellent car constructed by the celestial artificer himself, with axles that do not creak, and with standard that bears the ape. Thou bearest a sword attached to thy belt of gold and silk. This thy bow Gandiva is full six cubits long. Thou hast Keshava for thy driver. Why, then, through fear of Karna hast thou come away from battle, O Partha? If, O thou of wicked soul, thou hadst ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... and paused to turn the slide of his lantern. The shaft of light fell down the companion as into a pitch-dark well. He could feel his heart thumping against his ribs as he began the descent, and jumping with every creak of the rotten boards, while always behind his fright lurked a sickening sense of the guilty ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... majesty was somewhat lessened by the creak of stays, but her instinct for unpleasantness was always good. She said nothing as she left them, and she plodded up-stairs ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... without more than one creak, which, I must confess, sent a tingle through my nerves, I reached the upper landing, found myself in front of a closed door, and beside this door encountered the warning hand ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... spasm of pain break over Harold's face; but when I paused and glanced inquiringly, he motioned me to go on with my venturesome task. There was no turning back now. We had almost got him up when the rope at the edge began to creak ominously. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... suspect, sometimes in their own nakedness, sometimes in the stolen garb of the Madonna or the saints. Who knows whether they do not exist to this day? And, indeed, is it possible they should not? For the awfulness of the deep woods, with their filtered green light, the creak of the swaying, solitary reeds, exists, and is Pan; and the blue, starry May night exists, the sough of the waves, the warm wind carrying the sweetness of the lemon-blossoms, the bitterness of the myrtle on our rocks, the distant chant of the boys cleaning out their nets, of the girls sickling the ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Things that creak watch their opportunity whenever they hear silence. So the Earl's gentle exit ends in a musical and penetrating arpeggio of a door-hinge, equal to the betrayal of Masonic secrecy if delivered at the right moment. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the road home. But the track lay bare behind her, and ahead Cecil had quite disappeared. By the time she was five miles out of Cunjee she seemed the only person in the whole landscape, and the only sound that met her ear was the steady beat of the cantering hoofs, mingled with the creak of the saddle leather. ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... been a cannon-ball; and though she sat with her book in her lap by the fire in Mary's room, all the dear old furniture and pictures round her, her head was weaving an unheard-of imagination, about robbers coming in rifling everything—coming up the stairs—creak, creak, was that their step?—she held her breath, and her eyes dilated—seizing her for the sake of her watch! What article there would be in the paper—"Melancholy disappearance of the youthful Countess of Caergwent." Then Aunt Barbara would be sorry she had treated her ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beyond you, Lake Michigan. And when the melodious winds of March Wrinkle you and drive on the shore The serpent rifts of sand and snow, And sway the giant limbs of oaks, Longing to bud, The boats put forth for the ports that began to stir, With the creak of reels unwinding the nets, And the ring of the caulking wedge. But in the June days— The Alabama ploughs through liquid tons Of sapphire waves. She sinks from hills to valleys of water, And rises again, Like a swimming gull! I wish a hundred years to come, ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... the mighty trees knock their naked arms together, and creak and cry wildly in the wind. In Forty-nine's cabin, by a flickering log-fire, Carrie sits alone. The wind howls horribly, the door creaks, and the fire snaps wickedly; the wind roars—now the roar of a far-off ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller
... A creak, a yell, and the "Pollard" started. How the cheering redoubled and made the shed's rafters shake. Lieutenant Jackson, of the Navy, tried to look unconcerned, but he couldn't, wholly. A launching of any kind of important craft is a ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... and mignonette stood on the ledge of his window. He walked over to see that they were watered before he went to bed. And between the time when he got down on his knees to fish out his bath-slippers from beneath the bed-stead and the creak of the springs when he lay down for the night, he was so long and so still that one might have believed ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... are hot and damp, and my legs are stiff with cramp, And the office punkahs creak! And I'd give my tired soul, for the life that makes man whole, And a whiff of the jungle reek! Ha' done with the tents of Shem, dear boys, With office stool and pew, For it's time to turn to the lone Trail, our own Trail, the far Trail, Dig out, dig out on the old ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... self-deception, and terminated in inveterate avarice. She laid on external things the blame of her mind's internal disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold. She often went her daily rounds through a series of deserted apartments, every creature in the house vanishing at the creak of her shoe, much more at the sound of her voice, to which the nature of things affords no simile; for, as far as the voice of woman, when attuned by gentleness and love, transcends all other sounds in harmony, so far does it surpass all others in discord, ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... door swung wide, with creak and din; A blast of cold night-air came in, And on the threshold shivering stood An aged man, with cloak and hood. Dead rides ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... vaulted passage, her firm, quick step falters. As she approaches the door, she is visibly agitated. Her hand trembles as she places it on the heavy outside lock. The lock yields; the door opens with a creak. She draws aside a heavy ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... not sleep much, there were such strange noises, and the sentry made the veranda creak all night outside my room; but this is a splendid climate, and one is refreshed and ready to rise with the sun after very little sleep. The tropic mornings are glorious. There is such an abrupt and vociferous awakening of nature, all dew-bathed and vigorous. ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... wind and creak of bough And rustle of the frost, And winter's inner voice—avow The holy hour is crossed, And far, mysterious music sounds, Sweet like ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... There wasn't anything to be seen, but it seemed to him that the sheet made a queer noise in the blocks. It was a new manilla sheet; and in dry weather it did make a little noise, something between a creak and a wheeze. I looked at it and looked at the man, and said nothing; and presently he went on. He asked me if I didn't notice anything peculiar about the noise. I listened awhile, and said I didn't notice anything. Then he looked rather sheepish, but said he didn't ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams The village gleaner oft pursues her toil, So, to where modest shame appears, thus low Blue pinch'd and shrin'd in ice the spirits stood, Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork. His face each downward ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... yard, and reached the back door of Skarbolov's little store. She felt out with her hands and found the padlock, and her fingers pressed on the link in the chain that Gypsy Nan had described. It gave readily. She slipped it free, and opened the door. There was faint, almost inaudible, protesting creak from the hinges. She caught her breath quickly. Had anybody heard it? It—it had seemed like a cannon shot. And then her lips curled in sudden self-contempt. Who was ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky. The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... clarified noises that can make a night seem so long. The distant click of the elevator, depositing a night-hawk. A plong of the bed spring. Somebody's cough. A train's shriek. The jerk of plumbing. A window being raised. That creak which lies hidden in every darkness, like a mysterious knee-joint. By three o'clock she was a quivering victim to these petty concepts, and her pillow so explored that not a spot but what was rumpled to the aching lay of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... outburst the man slept gently on, while the little girl still held the parasol aloft and looked down with a great wonder at the frowsy, unkempt creature, trying to reconcile it with the little part of life that she knew. To her ears came the cries of men, the stamp of hoofs on the bridge, and the creak and groan of wagons heavy-laden. It was a breathless California Indian summer day. Light fleeces of cloud drifted in the azure sky, but to the west heavy cloud banks threatened with rain. A bee droned lazily by. From farther ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... four mules trotting swiftly, a squad of troopers riding hard behind. It was merely a lumping shadow sweeping swiftly past; he could perceive the dim outlines of driver and guard, the soldiers swaying in their saddles, heard the pounding of hoofs, the creak of axles, and then the apparition disappeared into the black void. He had not called out—what was the use? Those people would never pause to hunt down prairie outlaws, and their guard was sufficient to prevent attack. They acknowledged but ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the keel. Presently the 'Endurance' listed heavily to port against the gale, and at the same time was forced ahead, astern, and sideways several times by the grinding floes. She received one or two hard nips, but resisted them without as much as a creak. It looked at one stage as if the ship was to be made the plaything of successive floes, and I was relieved when she came to a standstill with a large piece of our old "dock" under the starboard bilge. I had the boats cleared away ready for lowering, got up some ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... With a creak and a bump the train started, and the Colonel ran it slowly up until the locomotive stood on the tracks exactly where Buck Ogilvy had been cutting in his crossing; whereupon the Colonel locked the brakes, opened his exhaust, and blew the boiler down. And when the last ounce of steam had ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... a distant network of mauve twigs melting into the woodland haze. And in the silence just such fine gradations of sound became audible: the soft drop of loosened snow-lumps, a stir of startled wings, the creak of a dead branch, somewhere far off ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... did this he did not know. He didn't wish to wake her up, and the slight creak of the broad bedstead had sounded very loud to him. He turned round apprehensively and waited for her to move, but she did not stir. While he looked at her, he had a vision of himself lying there too, also fast ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... klop-klop of a pair of sabots—then the creak of a heavy key as it turned over twice in the rusty lock, and his faithful Marie cautiously opened the garden door. I do not know how old Marie is, there is so little left of this good soul to guess by. Her small shrunken body ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... eyes and sprang up, spurred to desperate effort. She would storm the all but hopeless attic chambers. Up the twisting turnpike stairs on the outer wall she ran, to where the swallows wheeled about the cornices, and she could hear the iron cross of the Knights Templars creak above the gable. Then, all the way along a dark passage, at one door after another, she knocked, ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... altogether unconventional, which I propose to hold with the readers of this modest volume have to do with certain sub-laws which are so often overlooked that—to return to the figure of the building—the wind finds its way through chinks; the floors creak and the general impression is that of bare homeliness. House and Home go together upon tongue and upon pen as naturally as hook-and-eye, shovel-and-tongs, knife-and-fork,—yet the coupling is rather a trick learned through habit than an act of reason. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... child were in, since in all likelihood Lem would sleep but a few minutes, she slid open the window and looked out upon the dark river in search of help. Splashes of rain pelted her face, while a gust of wind caused the scow to creak dismally. Scraggy could see no human being, only the lights of Albany blinking dimly through the raging storm. Another shrieking whistle warned her that the yacht was still near. Sailors' voices shouted orders, followed by the chug, chug, chug of an ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... set!" is finally heard from some teamster— "All's set," is directly responded from every quarter. "Stretch out!" immediately vociferates the captain. Then the "heps!" to the drivers, the cracking of whips, the trampling of feet, the occasional creak of wheels, the rumbling of the wagons, while "Fall in" is heard from head-quarters, and the train is strung out and in a few moments has started ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... agitated servant lest it freeze between kitchen and dining room. Even while Belding carved it the gravy began to stiffen. Behind Clark was a glowing fireplace, ineffectual against the outside temperature, the windows were white with frost and the whole house seemed to creak. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... was the garden, heavy-scented with the odour of flowers, and the hum of the night insects was everywhere in the air. Close to the wall I saw the figures of my scouts. The noise of the tramp of feet, the creak of waggons, and the voice of command came to ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery—a world of matter for solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation. The extensive inclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the play-ground. It was level, and covered ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... her veil and took a seat. A heavy step made the narrow stairs creak, and Adeline could not restrain a piercing cry when she saw her husband, Baron Hulot, in a gray knitted jersey, old gray flannel trousers, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... we were given freely of such things as we required. We left in the early morning of June 26, after Pennell had done some hours' magnetic work with the Lloyd Creak and Barrow Dip Circle. ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... advanced toward its fall, and laden with the fruit and foliage of the season, with bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its myriad clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and creak in the blasts of ages. We cannot escape the impression that the Muse has stooped a little in her flight, when we come to the literature of civilized eras. Now first we hear of various ages and styles of poetry; it is pastoral, and lyric, and narrative, and didactic; but the poetry of runic monuments ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... "Creak! Creak! Creak! Nearer 'It' came, and our floor was reached. Clutching his revolver, Doctor Matthai sprang out of bed and ran to the door. Then a horrible scream of terror and anguish rang through the house. An invisible hand seemed to drag the unfortunate ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... heart; so Priam's child Wailed in the hands of foes. Down streamed her tears As when beneath the heavy sacks of sand Olives clear-skinned, ne'er blotched by drops of storm, Pour out their oil, when the long levers creak As strong men strain the cords; so poured the tears Of travail-burdened Priam's daughter, haled To stern Achilles' tomb, tears blent with moans. Drenched were her bosom-folds, glistened the drops On flesh ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... small events of your life; they amuse him immensely; tell him who has been to see you, whom you have been calling on, what you had for dinner, how the horses are, how the servants behave, if the doors creak and the windows are firm—in short, facts and events. Besides this, he does not like to be called papa, he dislikes the expression. ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... candle in her hand and softly unhasped her door. It was a well-oiled lock and made no click or noise of any kind as she turned the handle. When she opened the door wide it did not creak. The long corridor outside had a stone floor and was richly carpeted. No fear of treacherous, creaking boards here. Priscilla prepared to walk briskly down the length of the corridor, when she was arrested by seeing a light streaming out of Maggie ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis is ...
— The Tin Box - and What it Contained • Horatio Alger
... It must be now or never. With a tremendous effort he went quickly up the remaining steps, stood on tiptoe to unlatch the door, and pushed it open. It swung back with a creak upon its rusty hinges, and a cold wind rushed in Ambrose's face, for the window was open. The room was faintly lighted, not with glowworms, but by the pale rays of a watery moon, which made some of the objects ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... began, when all were seated on the visionary camp-stools—which, by the way, are far superior to those in use in a world of realities, because they do not creak in the midst of a fine point demanding absolute silence for appreciation—"I do not know why I have been chosen to preside over this gathering of phantoms; it is the province of the presiding officer on occasions of this sort to say pleasant ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... slammed with the wind, contrasting its rude sound with the rusty creak of the "invisible" iron fence just ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 363, Saturday, March 28, 1829 • Various
... above peered over the cliff brink. At a signal from the Navaho he again vanished. The hoist rope tautened. With a creak, the cage scraped on the ledge and began to swing up the cliff ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... Everything was still in the empty room dimly lighted by the little glass lamp which he had managed to hang up and light before the ikon in the corner.... He let his head sink; again he thought he heard the gate creak ... then a faint snapping sound from the fence.... He could not refrain from jumping up; he opened the door of the room and in a low voice called, "Fyodor! Fyodor!" No one answered.... He went out into the passage and almost fell over Fyodor, who was lying on the ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... chaise. There are now two in the place. His is green-bottomed. It has a most agreeable leathery smell, and a gentle creak which is very pleasant. The minister's is dark blue. They are set high, and the tops tip forward, serving to keep out both sun and rain. Poor Mrs. Scott ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... Plash'd sapping its worn ribs (the while without, And close above us, sang the wind-tost pine, And shook its earthly socket, for we heard, In rising and in falling with the tide, Close by our ears, the huge roots strain and creak), Eye feeding upon eye with deep intent; And mine, with love too high to be express'd Arrested in its sphere, and ceasing from All contemplation of all forms, did pause To worship mine own image, laved in light, The centre of the splendours, all unworthy Of such a ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... unexpected interruption to the skipper's plan of which we have spoken. The steward heard the door of the state room creak softly behind him, and, knowing what was coming, he made a quick jump to one side to get out of the skipper's way and leave him a clear field for his operations; but he was so badly frightened that he hardly knew what he was about, and consequently he did the very thing he tried ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... ten o'clock, Caleb Rivers was walking stolidly along the country road, when his ear became aware of a strangely familiar sound,—a steadily recurrent creak. It was advancing, though intermittently. Sometimes it ceased altogether, as if the machinery stopped to rest, and again it began fast and shrill. He rounded a bend of the road, and came full upon a ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... Craig nodded and replaced his pipe between his teeth. The noise became multisonous. With the clangor of the pounding wheels came the stertorous gasping of the engines, the creak and clatter of protesting metal. The uproar ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... it will be of little use," replied the Major; "creak they will. I don't know whether the oxen here are like those in India; but this I know, that the creaking of the carts and hackeries there is fifty times worse than this. The natives never grease the ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... run down our backs, 'that yon paper was your finger, one finger only of your hand, and it burned like that for ever and ever, and think of your hand and your arm and your whole body all on fire, never to go out.' We shuddered that you might have heard the form creak. 'That is hell, and that is where ony laddie will go who does ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... of a kind like spiritalism. You ask any of the servants. As soon as he gets drowsy at the table, the table begins to tremble, and creak like that: tuke, ... tuke! All the servants have ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... us that it means the sound of the shaking of a house during an earthquake. But the word used to mean the noise of the shaking of a house moved by a goblin; and the invisible shaker was also called Yanari. When, without apparent cause, some house would shudder and creak and groan in the night, folk used to suppose that it was being shaken from without ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... Parfitt had seen him, passed into the corridor. Dormitory X was in the room next to that occupied by Mr. Weevil, on the floor above. Paul crept up the stairs. They seemed to creak horribly, but it was the silence of the building that magnified the sound to Paul's ears. He glanced along the passage. A light was still burning in Mr. Weevil's room. He could see it stealing faintly through ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... chill moisture gathered to his brow. While he stood irresolute and in suspense, striving to collect his thoughts, his ear, preternaturally sharpened by fear, caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps—he heard the stairs creak. The sound broke the spell. The previous vague apprehension gave way, when the danger became actually at hand. His presence of mind returned at once. He went back quickly to the fireplace, seized the poker, and began stirring the fire, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the place was ready. It was a rich, loose way of life, and went on lazily and loosely, like the fashion of some roomy old vehicle, not quite run down, but advancing now and then with a groan or a creak at ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... they chattered with fear. We heard a loud scream overhead. "What was that?" cried he. I confess that I was as much alarmed as Tom. The scream was repeated, and it had an unearthly sound. It was no human voice—it was between a scream and a creak. Again it was repeated, and carried along with the gale. I mustered up courage sufficient to look up to where the sound proceeded from; but the darkness was so intense, and the snow blinded me so completely, that I could see ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... two hundred years ago appear to modern eyes, their lines were finely moulded under water and with a favoring wind they could log a fair distance in a day's run. It goes without saying that this tall brig was shoved along for all she was worth before a humming breeze that made her creak, and during the night she was reckoned to be a few miles to seaward of the sandy islands which extended like a barrier outside of Cherokee Inlet. Jack Cockrell stood a watch of his own, dead weary but with no thought of sleep until he could hear the ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Murree has a merry ghost, and, now that she has been swept by cholera, will have room for a sorrowful one; there are Officers' Quarters in Mian Mir whose doors open without reason, and whose furniture is guaranteed to creak, not with the heat of June but with the weight of Invisibles who come to lounge in the chairs; Peshawur possesses houses that none will willingly rent; and there is something—not fever—wrong with a big bungalow in Allahabad. The older Provinces ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... horses to rest. Only the wind in the great trees above them, the chatter of a squirrel remonstrating against this intrusion into his solitude, a strange sad bird-note farther up the mountain, and the occasional fall of a leaf or creak of a limb as it rubbed shoulders with its neighbor, broke the silence. Once in a clearing a deer and her fawn gazed at them with wondering eyes before leaping through the ferns into the safe shelter ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase
... dreary thing to pass a night quite alone in that solitary tower. I was much flattered by Mr. Bartlett's politeness to a total stranger, but, summoning all my courage, replied that I was not in the least afraid. Thereupon they all took their leave; I heard the door creak, the bolt was drawn, and the ladder removed, and I was left to ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... stepped to a switch attached to a stanchion of white metal, surmounted by a huge opaque glass dome, and threw it over. Instantly the hum and whir of machinery became audible, the sound of footsteps, the voices of the workmen, and the creak of boards beneath ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... the complaining creak of the elevator could he heard, and presently two orderlies appeared at the end of the corridor ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... other possessions in a business-like manner. By the time that his chest was packed, such things as he meant to leave at home folded into cupboards, and what was useless destroyed, it was past two o'clock. Then he went to bed, so softly that only the creak of one weak stair revealed his passage upward. At the moment that he passed Anne's chamber-door her mother was bending over her as she lay in bed, and saying to her, 'Won't you see him ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... if I die for it," said Deborah, and whirled up the wooden steps in a silent manner surprising in so noisy a woman. Paul heard the trap-door drop with a stealthy creak. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... every tree was clad in the witching beauty of a silver thaw, or sweep across the wide stretching country in the very poetry of motion, or hear the soft swish of the tall grass as it fell in fragrant rows before the mower, or the creak of the vans as they bore its ripened sweetness towards the great barns, while bird and bee and locust joined in the harmony of the Harvest Home, until the sun sank to rest amidst cloud draperies of royal purple and crimson and gold and the sweet-voiced ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... and stood craning over the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life, had not a sudden disquietude seized upon me, and made me turn my head. Perhaps I had heard a creak, or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye; perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but, sure enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, already halfway toward me, with the dirk in his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... was about to go on when she coughed and turned on her creaking bed, and his heart fell, and he stood immovable for about five minutes. When all was quiet and she began to snore peacefully again, he went on, trying to step on the boards that did not creak, and came to Katusha's door. There was no sound to be heard. She was probably awake, or else he would have heard her breathing. But as soon as he had whispered "Katusha" she jumped up and began to persuade him, as if angrily, to ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... be nigh as good as I ever was, Scattergood. J'ints creak some, but what I got inside my head it don't never creak ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... stairs, as Chad started up the front stairway toward the garret, where he had passed many a happy hour playing with Margaret and Harry and the boy whom he was after as an enemy, now. The door was open at the first landing, and the creak of the stairs under Dan's feet, heard plainly, stopped. The Sergeant, pistol in hand, started to push ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... when he was studying the law at Thoulouse, he was lodged near a house where an elf never ceased all the night to draw water from the well, making the pulley creak all the while; at other times, he seemed to drag something heavy up the stairs; but he very rarely entered the rooms, and then he made ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... was very low, but I recognised that some one was opening the door from the outside. Another creak, and then silence. Very quietly I reached for my sword and prepared to spring from the bed. Presently, as if satisfied that the sound had not disturbed me, my uninvited guest pushed the door ajar and slipped into the room. I could ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... It shall be a part of growing of the grass to us, and shall be as water and food and sleep. It shall be to us as the shouts of boys at play in the field and as the crying of our children in the night. To most men Employers are the great doors that creak at ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... perchance, the cat Should mischief thee, imponderable pat. Ah, mine no more! for lo! 'tis noised around How thou wilt soon cost seven bob a pound. As well demand thy weight in radium As probe my 'poverished poke for such a sum. Wherefore, farewell! No more, alas! thou'lt oil These joints that creak with unrewarded toil; No more thy heartsick votary's midmost riff Wilt lubricate, and, oh! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... of the blame rests on such individuals as X-101, who, when lubricated with Moon Glow, insists upon dancing around on large, cast-iron feet to the hazard of all toes in his vicinity. He is thin and long jointed, and he goes "creak, creak," in a weird, sing-song fashion as he dances. It is a ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... carefully closed and they soon heard the slight creak of the weighted wheel as Droop set off with the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... where the lights of the lighthouse are supposed to be, borrow the captain's glasses, but see nothing.... Half an hour passes, then an hour. The mast sways regularly, the devils creak, the wind makes dashes at my cap.... It is not pitch dark, but ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... that rock there hangs a tree, And chains do creak thereon; And in those chains his memory hangs, Though all ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... of Pepito,' repeated the Inglez, 'tidings of Pepito—wait—' So I did wait, congratulating myself on the success of my scheme, and handling my knife with a confident expectation of making sure work of my man, when I heard the floor creak, and looking through the key-hole, I saw the confounded Inglez cocking a pistol and putting a fresh cap on it. And do you know, General, it somehow happened that when he opened the door, I was at the bottom ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... on one of the anchor ropes," said Mr. Bobbsey, for the Bluebird was anchored out in the lake by two anchors and ropes, one at each end. "The wind blows the boat a little," the children's father explained, "and that makes it pull on the ropes, which creak on the wooden posts with ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... but no knob came to view. But a bent nail was handy, and this he inserted into the hole sideways, and pulled with all his force. There was a slight creak, and a small door came open, revealing a dark closet about a ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... But at that minute I heard the stiff outer glass door open heavily with a creak and slam violently; the sound ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... long Peterby will be?" he said to himself. But here came the creak of the waiter's boots, and that observant person reappeared, bearing the various articles which he named in turn as he ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... said no more; but angry, fiery rays, From scars his visage bore, seemed suddenly to blaze. Four times he turned his heel upon, Then bade the door stand wide, or ere his foot he stayed; With one long creak the door obeyed, And lo! ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... and gained her room in safety. It was an instant's work to throw off her cloak and compose herself rigidly under the single white sheet. But though she lay still her heart was beating to suffocation as she heard the creak and thud of a heavy step coming up the stairs. Then the door was opened in a stealthy way and Henson came in. He could see the outline of the white figure, and a sigh of satisfaction escaped him. A less ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... unaccountable feeling of restlessness and of vague apprehension had him in its grip. Hour after hour he lay, listening irritably to the snoring of his fellow-shepherd, Borthwick, starting nervously at every scraping of rat or creak of timber. At last, long after midnight, he rose and looked out. The wind had fallen, but snow still fell; there was nothing abnormal in the night, and the weather might have been described as merely "seasonable." But away in the northern sky, low down, appeared a strange ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... he had heard the peculiar creak given by an oar rubbing against wood, and this was repeated ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... thrusting his arm through, he reached the lock, turned the key, and the door swung open with a dismal creak. ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... sorts of odd nooks and crannies. A bed, antique and worm-eaten, stood in one recess, a black oak chest in another, and at right angles with the door, in another recess, stood a wardrobe that used to creak and groan alarmingly every time Letty walked a long the passage. Once she heard a chuckle, a low, diabolical chuckle, which she fancied came from the chest; and once, when the door of the room was open, she caught the glitter of a pair of eyes—the same pale, malevolent eyes that had so frightened ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... a projection so narrow that it seemed to grudge him foothold. Some of the ledges, however, were wider, and occasionally a dwarfed huckleberry bush, nourished in a fissure, lifted him up like a helping hand. He quaked as he heard the roots strain and creak, for he was a pretty heavy fellow for sixteen years of age. They did not give way, however, and up and up he went, every moment increasing the depth below him and the danger. His breath was short; his strength flagged, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... the one to object to you keeping your mouth shut," he returned. "Jammed logs"—the phrase stuck in his mind—"jammed logs don't creak any; but when it comes to joining forces, like two jams together for instance, there's got to be, in the nature of things, some demonstration. What I'm aiming at is this. Has this here Myst. meant business ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Raquin and Camille went downstairs, Therese bounded from her chair, to silently, and with brutal energy, press her lips to those of her sweetheart, remaining thus breathless and choking until she heard the stairs creak. Then, she briskly seated herself again, and resumed her glum grimace, while Laurent calmly continued the interrupted conversation with Camille. It was like a rapid, blinding flash of lightning in ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... to say you are going to make a lady of her!" gasped Annabel, upsetting her treasures as she fell back with a gesture that made the little chair creak again, for Miss Bliss was as ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the loft a glimmer of light through a crack seemed to indicate a door. Cautiously Alex rose to his knees, and began creeping forward to investigate. When half way a loud creak of the boards brought him to a halt with his heart in his mouth. But the loud conversation below continued, and heartily thanking the drumming rain on the roof overhead, Alex moved on, ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... down in the water as he could. These pieces of rock were instantly plunged in the saltwater of jars which we had brought with us for the purpose. When as much had been collected as we could carry away— my Father always dragged about an immense square basket, the creak of whose handles I can still fancy that I hear—we turned to trudge up the long climb home. Then all our prizes were spread out, face upward, in shallow pans of ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... hear anything?" said the young man, raising his head. "A cry, a little cry? No? I can hear footsteps moving up and down. Doctors' boots always creak. There! Listen! It was ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... I had begun to fear that it was a false alarm, when a stealthy step was heard upon the other side of the hut, and a moment later a metallic scraping and clinking. The man was trying to force the lock! This time his skill was greater or his tool was better, for there was a sudden snap and the creak of the hinges. Then a match was struck, and next instant the steady light from a candle filled the interior of the hut. Through the gauze curtain our eyes were all ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... four hundred, in a year.'" Here he laid his finger on his nose—lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, elles se cassent les reins—they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old things, they are of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... was black as Egypt; but out in the middle the outlines of the pond could be followed vaguely by the heavy cloud of woods against the lighter sky. The stillness was intense; every slightest sound,—the creak of a bough or the ripple of a passing musquash, the plunk of a water drop into the lake or the snap of a rotten twig, broken by the weight of clinging mist,—came to the strained ear with startling suddenness. Then, as I waited and ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... the folding doors and passed into the inner room, accompanied by Jessie. Julian waited for her. He found himself listening to her movements in the other room, to the creak of wood, as she pulled out drawers, to the rustle of a dress lifted from a hook, the ripple of water poured from a jug into a basin. He heard the whole tragedy of preparation, as this girl armed herself for the piteous battle of ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... interruption to the skipper's plan of which we have spoken. The steward heard the door of the state room creak softly behind him, and, knowing what was coming, he made a quick jump to one side to get out of the skipper's way and leave him a clear field for his operations; but he was so badly frightened that he hardly knew what he was about, and consequently ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound of ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... remembered when to my boyish fancy it seemed a greater triumph of engineering than the Victoria bridge at Montreal. And the same old thrill went through me as I started to run—just as I did when a boy—and felt the planks loosen and creak under my feet. Here was a home-coming worth ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... heard the stairs creak and a soft padding footstep coming slowly down them; with it the brush of a light garment and intermittently a faint human sound between a sigh and a sob. He did not reflect that he could not really have heard such slight sounds through a thick stone wall and a closed door. He heard them. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... little that night, since she was watching not for daylight but for that first stirring in the streets which tells that daylight is approaching. Having neither watch nor clock the stirring was all she had to go by. When it began to rumble and creak and throb faintly in and above the town ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... could receive my first bar, but a full-fledged captain, with fifty men under him to care for and discipline and lead into battle. There was not a man in my troop who was not at least a few years older than myself, and as I rode in advance of them and heard the creak of the saddles and the jingle of the picket-pins and water-bottles, or turned and saw the long line stretching out behind me, I was as proud as Napoleon returning in triumph to Paris. I had brought with me from the Academy my scarlet sash, and wore it around my waist under my sword-belt. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy sometimes as she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding noiselessly among the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in their cheerless dormitory, I fancy an old ghost with a snuff-box that does not creak. "There, Goody, take of my rappee. You will not sneeze, and I shall not say 'God bless you.' But you will think kindly of old Queen Charlotte, won't you? Ah! I had a many troubles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner almost so much as you are. I had to eat boiled mutton every day: entre ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Fair, jest by little and little, as she could gether up her failin' strength." Fanny could not promise the napkins, since, luckily for her, she was past speech from exhaustion, as I was with indignation; and Miss Truman, hearing the Doctor's boots creak below, showed the better part of valor, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... the door of the front room; he placed his ear against the keyhole, and listened. Within all was silent. A fresh terror seized him. Why was no sound to be heard?...He opened the door cautiously lest it should creak. There sat his father asleep in the arm-chair, his head bent on his bosom, his arms hanging limp ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... it, or the rudimental street of a new settlement which is sprouting on this otherwise barren soil. Half a century ago, the most frequent token of man's beneficent contiguity might have been a gibbet, and the creak, like a tavern-sign, of a murderer swinging to and fro in irons. Blackheath, with its highwaymen and footpads, was dangerous in those days; and even now, for aught I know, the Western prairie may still ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... intimation that in fashioning them the composer has liberated himself. On the contrary, they seem icy and brain-spun. They are like men formed not out of flesh and bone and blood, but out of glass and wire and concrete. They creak and groan and grate in their motion. They have all the deathly pallor ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... down I saw a spasm of pain break over Harold's face; but when I paused and glanced inquiringly, he motioned me to go on with my venturesome task. There was no turning back now. We had almost got him up when the rope at the edge began to creak ominously. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... stole across the floor and laid a hand lightly on the knob of the door of the captain's private room. It turned easily without any creak, and the door opened a few inches. There sat Henshaw with his back to McTee, leaning over a table. Gold pieces were spilled loosely across the surface of the wood—possibly the contents of three or four of those small canvas bags—and Henshaw leaned forward with his forehead resting ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep,—or, it may be, broad awake,—with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... opened the door, and went, with cat-like steps, to put out the light. Possibly the eyes of the sleeper vaguely perceived the passage of a shadow; possibly Gothon, with her big, awkward figure, made a board in the floor creak. Fougas partially awoke, heard the rustling of a dress, dreamed it one of those adventures which were wont to spice garrison life under the first empire, and held out his arms blindly, calling Clementine. Gothon, on finding herself seized by the hair and shoulders, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... precisely three minutes and twenty-two seconds past seven by the clock on the tower—the astronomical time for the sun to go down on the 30th of April. Crack went all the combination locks on all the faery raths, spilling the Little People over all the world; and creak went the gates of Tir-na-n'Og, swinging wide open for wandering ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... of rubbers and making Fandor remove his boots, the two men entered the room. Juve's first precaution was to test the two halves of the window. Finding that their hinges did not creak, he fastened the ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... lung, my liver is a swelling sponge, eating crowds my waistband like a balloon, I have a swimming in my head and a sinking at my heart, and I can not say litany for happy release from these for my knees creak with rheumatism. The devil has done his worst, Robert, for these are his—plague and pestilence, being final, are the will of God—and, upon my soul, it is an absurd comedy of ills!" At that he had a fit of coughing, and I gave him a glass of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fellow-spooks," the Doctor began, when all were seated on the visionary camp-stools—which, by the way, are far superior to those in use in a world of realities, because they do not creak in the midst of a fine point demanding absolute silence for appreciation—"I do not know why I have been chosen to preside over this gathering of phantoms; it is the province of the presiding officer on occasions of this sort to say pleasant ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... us, if we had but the wit to see it, and the humility to adopt it? What can be more manifest than the desire of children for intellectual sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can—"Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming—"Mamma, see what a curious thing," "Mamma, look at this," ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... relates[283] that when he was studying the law at Thoulouse, he was lodged near a house where an elf never ceased all the night to draw water from the well, making the pulley creak all the while; at other times, he seemed to drag something heavy up the stairs; but he very rarely entered the rooms, and then he ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... was a mess, from Sid's point of view. We came in at a weird angle and heated up to beat hell before there was enough atmosphere for our rudder to swing us around straight. He bounced us off twice after that as we slowed down, but the creak of heating metal was all about us each time we dropped in. He cussed me plenty all ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... in the night and the empty building of the bank was as still as death. Pupkin could hear the stairs creak under his feet, and as he went he thought he heard another sound like the opening or closing of a door. But it sounded not like the sharp ordinary noise of a closing door but with a dull muffled noise as if someone had shut the iron door of a safe in a room under the ground. For a moment ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... for my future, I renounced all hopes, at that time. When suffering reaches the point of making our whole being creak and groan, like an overloaded cart, it ought to cease to be ridiculous ... but no! laughter not only accompanies tears to the end, to exhaustion, to the impossibility of shedding more—it even rings and echoes, where the tongue is dumb, and complaint ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... just given the horse a contemptuous shove in passing. For he was rocking gently when I chanced to see him. Nor did he cease to rock, with a slight creak upon the pavement, so long as I watched him. A particularly black and bitter north wind was blowing round the corner of the street. Perhaps it was this that kept the horse in motion. Boreas himself, invisible to ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... soul to the devil, for that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: "SOAMES, ENOCH" endlessly—endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena, biographies'—but here he was interrupted by a sudden loud creak of the chair at the next table. Our neighbour had half risen from his place. He was ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... success and prosperity or that thou thyself wouldst be afflicted with the fear of Karna! Thou ridest upon an excellent car constructed by the celestial artificer himself, with axles that do not creak, and with standard that bears the ape. Thou bearest a sword attached to thy belt of gold and silk. This thy bow Gandiva is full six cubits long. Thou hast Keshava for thy driver. Why, then, through fear of Karna hast thou come away from battle, O Partha? If, O thou of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... for a minute or two, then drew a deep breath, and pressed it ever so slightly inward. The door did not budge. Tommy was annoyed. If he had to use too much force, it would almost certainly creak. He waited until the voices rose a little, then he tried again. Still nothing happened. He increased the pressure. Had the beastly thing stuck? Finally, in desperation, he pushed with all his might. But the door remained firm, and at last ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... after eight, as I was sitting reading, the house began shaking with a very gentle, but rapidly increasing motion. I sat still enjoying the novel sensation for some seconds; but in less than half a minute it became strong enough to shake me in my chair, and to make the house visibly rock about, and creak and crack as if it would fall to pieces. Then began a cry throughout the village of "Tana goyang! tana goyang! "(Earthquake! earthquake!) Everybody rushed out of their houses—women screamed and children ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... would allow him to mount, still standing with that indifferent droop to his head. But one who was sharp would observe that he was rolling his old white eyes back to see, tipping his sharp ear like a wildcat to hear every scrape and creak of the leather. Then, with the man in the saddle, nobody ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... supper, an' didn't see us when we clumb aboard the Lass. When it was pitch-black we cast off the lines, an' she drifted out on the ebb tide, which just there runs easy a knot an' a half. Then we got up our headsails so as to get steerage-way on her, and bless my soul if the blocks made a creak! Might have been pullin' silk thread through a fur mitten, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... did come—when the wind swept over the fir-trees, and made the branches which hung over the caravan creak and sway to and fro—Rosalie trembled with fear. Poor child! the want of sleep the last few nights was telling on her, and had made her nervous and sensitive. At last she found the matches and lighted a candle, that she might ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... slammed the lattice and went yelling around the corner of the house like a jocular demon. I began to dress, thinking, as I had often thought before, that the place had a kind of fantastic kinship with the sea; every timber in it seemed to strain and creak to the repeated onsets of the storm, like those of any ship. The house stood steady enough, yet our position, open to all the winds of heaven, and within a few hundred paces of the furious water, was surely such as none but a sailor would have chosen. We rode out the weather ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... stood watching, was made tremulous by the first faint breath of the moon. From the sea came the red glare of the Wolf and the cold pure beam of the Bishop; in the north Charles' Wain gave the first twinkle of its lights; while from the roads came the creak of the terrestrial waggons beginning to lumber slowly home. It was time for supper, for lamps, for that meeting within walls which enforces a sudden intimacy after a day spent in the open, for beginning real life, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... behind him, within six feet of him, he heard the staircase creak. A bomb bursting could not have shaken him more rudely. He swung on his heel and found, blocking the door, the giant bulk of Prothero regarding him over the barrel of ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... the cold blasts swirled dreamily through the leafless branches of the Langaffer beeches, causing them to creak and moan; when the snow lay thick upon the ground, and the nights closed in apace, and the villagers relished the comforts of the "ingle-nook," then—alas!—there was no fireside enjoyment for poor Dame ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... were gaunt, tattered, and thirsty-looking, weary of crying for moisture to the pitiless skies. At last the ceaseless ripple of talk ceased, crew and passengers slept on the hot deck, and no sounds were heard but the drowsy flap of the awning, and the drowsier creak of the rudder, as the Kilauea swayed sleepily on the lazy undulations. The flag drooped and fainted with heat. The white sun blazed like a magnesium light on blue water, black lava, and fiery soil, roasting, blinding, scintillating, and flushed the red rocks of Maui into ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... end of ten minutes, however, the wind carried with it the creak of rowlocks. A moment later a light, flat duck-boat shot around the bend and drew ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... her mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet the creak of the opening door; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor - But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turned its ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... behind him, as the door began to bulge and creak. There was plainly a tremendous struggle in the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... the blame of her mind's internal disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold. She often went her daily rounds through a series of deserted apartments, every creature in the house vanishing at the creak of her shoe, much more at the sound of her voice, to which the nature of things affords no simile; for, as far as the voice of woman, when attuned by gentleness and love, transcends all other sounds in harmony, so far does it surpass all others in ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... you, Artamo; open this door a tiny bit; easy, don't make it creak. (Artamo obeys) That will do. (to Nicobulus) Step up here, you. See that ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... so very lonely," Bella sighed. We could hear the creak of Jim's shirt bosom that showed that he had sighed also. Aunt Selina had gripped me by the arm, and I could hear her ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... heavy mode of progress, wandered from one room to another until at last the sound of voices guided her to the pretty little boudoir, where Annie Forest and Nora had taken shelter, and where Nan was now standing, pouring out her tale of woe. A slight creak which the door made caused the girls to turn their heads, and there stood Susy, shedding articles of her wardrobe, as usual, as she walked. Her flaxen hair was partly unpinned and lay in a rough coil on her fat neck. ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... the slightest warning, there was a heavy grating creak; a door was thrown open; and what to his eyes seemed to be a dazzling light shone into the place, revealing a narrow passage not ten feet from where he lay, but which he had passed over in ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... the cold creak of the sledge-runners now, and a moment later the patter of many feet outside the door. In a single leap Philip was at the door. Another and he was outside, and an amazed Eskimo was looking into the round black eye of his revolver. It required ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... the open country. The night was still and clear, though there was no moon. Lavretsky rambled a long time over the dewy grass. He came across a little narrow path; and went along it. It led him up to a long fence, and to a little gate; he tried, not knowing why, to push it open. With a faint creak the gate opened, as though it had been waiting the touch of his hand. Lavretsky went into the garden. After a few paces along a walk of lime-trees he stopped short in amazement; he recognised ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... meeting. With unbending dignity, Captain Stephens let his left eyelid droop slowly, while a boyish grin spread widely over his face. Simultaneously, orders rang sharp and fast from the bridge, the crew broke into feverish life, the creak of booms and the clank ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made by negroes, and makes ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Unaccustomed to such severe toil, with a burning sun overhead, they feared that a few days would terminate their existence. An ominous silence pervaded the ocean; so calm lay the vessels that neither the bulkheads nor masts were heard to creak. The heat grew, if possible, still more oppressive. Then came on a sudden and slow upheaving of the deep, followed quickly by a loud rushing noise. A mass of boiling froth flew sweeping over the hitherto tranquil sea. The vessels, as it struck their broadsides, ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Creak, creak, creak—the sound of the chain of the outer door gently shaken. Hira was astonished. One person only, the gatekeeper, sometimes shook the chain to give warning at night. But in his hand the chain did not speak ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... stones down an unfathomable well and hears ages afterward the faint sound of disturbed waters. When I look back at that time I figure myself as forever sitting with uplifted pen, waiting for a word that would not come, and that I did not much care about getting. The panels of the room would creak sympathetically to the opening of the entrance-door of the house, the faintest of creaks; people would cross the immense hall to the room in which they plotted; would cross leisurely, with laughter and rustling of garments that after a long time reached ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... wind shook the farmhouse and danced and howled to its crazy castanetting. There was a creak in the hallway beyond. Last night, too, when he had been talking to Wherry, there had been such a creak and for the moment, he recalled vividly, there had been no wind. Then, disturbed by Dick's utter collapse, he had carelessly dismissed it. Now with his brain dangerously edged by the whiskey ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... woke me, and Le Marchant's whisper in my ear—"Carre, there's something wrong. Don't speak! Listen!"—brought me all to myself in a moment, and I heard what he heard,—the hushed movement of people in the outer room off which our bedroom opened, the soft creak of a ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... that for the last few days there has been no occasion for forgiveness of sins. Every vessel has hastened into harbor, or cast anchor in mid-stream, and the watchmen can sleep in peace as long as this wind makes the joints of their wooden huts creak. No ship can travel now, and yet the corporal of the Ogradina watch-house has a fancy that ever since day-break, amidst the blustering wind and roaring waters, he can detect the peculiar signal tones ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... last guest-night the Adjutant said he should mark me down for the job of Physical Training Officer; but I hope he was only joking. I am not built for the work. My frame is puny and my countenance irresolute. I hate bending and stretching my arms; they creak and frighten me. I never could squat on my heels like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... passed the wide entrance to one illimitable room whose walls were clothed with warnings in gigantic letters: 'Silence.' And he had noticed that all chairs and couches were thickly padded and upholstered in soft leather, and that it was impossible to produce in them the slightest creak. At a casual glance the place seemed unoccupied, but on more careful inspection you saw midgets creeping about, or seated in easy-chairs that had obviously been made to hold two of them; these midgets were the members of the club, dwarfed into dolls by ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... downstairs, but what they talked of is not known. And then came silence. Had I been at home I should have been in the room again several times, turning the handle of the door softly, releasing it so that it did not creak, and standing looking at them. It had been so a thousand times. But that night, would I have slipped out again, mind at rest, or should I have seen the change coming while ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... were blotted out behind them, the hum of voices ceased, and they were alone in the primeval silence of the bush. The thud and splash of tired hoofs only served to emphasize it, the thin jingle of steel or creak of pack-rope was swallowed up and lost, for the great dim forest seemed to mock at anything man could do to disturb its pristine serenity. It had shrouded all that valley, where no biting gale ever blew, from the beginning, majestic in its solitary ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... returned the man; but almost as he spoke a slow shambling step made the floor-boards of the old piazza creak and a heavy hand ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... chair gave a creak, and began to move out of the cottage, and into the forest, the very way Dame Frostyface had taken, where it rolled along at the rate of a coach and six. Snowflower was amazed at this way of travelling, but the chair never stopped nor stayed the whole ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... look at these walls!—papered with two or three kinds of paper, the bare spots hung with tapestry moth-eaten and filled with spiders! And what have we for table?—a board laid on cross-bars! And the oaken chairs are rush-bottomed, and so straight the backs are a persecution! The door hinges creak in these inns, the ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... heard the key turn in the lock as they left the cabin. Then, as he strained at his bonds, he heard their footsteps pass up the companion and along the quarter-deck to where the dinghy hung in the stern. Then, still struggling and writhing, he heard the creak of the falls and the splash of the boat in the water. In a mad fury he tore and dragged at his ropes, until at last, with flayed wrists and ankles, he rolled from the table, sprang over the dead mate, kicked his way through the closed door, and rushed ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... if it were originally put there to be cooked, and the fire had long gone out. A windmilly country this, though the windmills are so damp and rickety, that they nearly knock themselves off their legs at every turn of their sails, and creak in loud complaint. A weaving country, too, for in the wayside cottages the loom goes wearily—rattle and click, rattle and click—and, looking in, I see the poor weaving peasant, man or woman, bending at the work, while the child, working ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... reverberated afar through the still, moveless void. She could hear Mrs. Clover stridently counselling her Ephraim at the house, the quarter of a mile away. Later, she heard the hollow tramp of two pair of feet, one heavy and one light, on the plank-walk; the creak of rowlocks with the dip and splash of oars; and, after a little pause, the sudden, sharp, explosive rattle of a motor exhaust, as rapid, loud and staccato as the barking of a Gatling, yet quickly hushed——almost as ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... happened so fast I didn't even have time to get my head under the clothes. First there was a creak, then a crash, then we felt a shake as if a giant pushed his shoulder up through the floor and shoved us. Then we doubled up. And then we began to fall. The floor opened, and we went through. I heard the bed-post ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... gulls as they flutter Like snowflakes and fall down the sky, To swoop in the deeps of the hollows, Where the crow's-foot tosses awry; And gnats in the lee of the thickets Are swirling like waltzers in glee To the harsh, shrill creak of the crickets And the song of the ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... and heavily from his horse (almost as though "by numbers") the General, followed by his smart and dapper Brigade-Major and the perspiring Colonel Dearman, strode with clank of steel and creak of leather, through the Headquarters building and emerged upon the parade-ground where steadfast stood seven companies of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteers in quarter ...
— 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
... our terminology, and then, after all, perhaps we should not understand one another. Men have an idea that they are thinking when they operate the mechanism of language which they have at command. When somebody makes the joints of language creak, they say: "He does not know how to manage it." Certainly he does know how to manage it. Anybody can manage a platitude. The truth is simply this: the individual writer endeavours to make of language a cloak to fit his form, while, contrarywise, the purists attempt to mould their bodies ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... in her room. Poor Nora could scarcely restrain herself from calling out, "Oh, do be quick, Linda! What are you staying up for?" but she refrained from saying the fatal words. Presently she heard the creak of Linda's bed as she got into it. This was followed ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... thunder and lightning is raging within a few miles of us? Hark, how the thunder rumbles! and for summer rain, I never saw such broad downright flat drops fall out of the clouds; the oaks, too, notwithstanding the calm weather, sob and creak with their great boughs as if announcing a tempest. Thou canst play the rational if thou wilt; credit me for once, and let us home ere the storm begins to rage, for ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... while she raised the window slowly and without a creak, and a current of cool air rushed in and over her before she could reach ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... pearl-embroidered stomachers, and complicated oaths. They were upraised in the days "when men knew how to build." The hard red bricks have only grown more firmly set with time, and their oak stairs do not creak and grunt when you try to go down ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... after all,' said the Owl sententiously. And then there came by a British manufacturer, in a gold watch-chain and patent creaking leather boots, warranted to creak everywhere without losing tone. ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... counsellors are rogues, Perdie! While men of honest mind are banned. To creak upon the Gallows Tree, Or squeal in prisons over-mann'd; We want a chief to bear the brand, And bid the damned Burgundians dance; God! Where the Oriflamme should stand If Villon were ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the book I take to be Rose; I cannot hesitate in selecting him. He is so lifelike with the world's conventional life that you hear his footsteps when he walks, and, indeed, I think his boots were apt to creak just the soupcon of a creak, just as a gentleman's boots might, and he is excellently consistent, even down to the choice of a wife whom he could patronise. I hope you like your own Mr. Rose, and that you ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... foggy strip of clearing I do not know. The mist had thickened to rain when I heard the door creak; and, turning in my tracks, caught the lantern's sparkle on the threshold, and the dull gleam of her ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... stood craning over the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide before the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life, had not a sudden disquietude seized upon me and made me turn my head. Perhaps I had heard a creak or seen his shadow moving with the tail of my eye; perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but, sure enough, when I looked round, there was Hands, already halfway toward me, with the dirk ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... attempt was not so futile as to betray her; and the dinner passed over, and the hot water came in, without anything arising especially to excite her alarm. At last she heard the front door open, and she listened with apprehension to every creak the rusty hinges made as Biddy vainly endeavoured to close it without a noise; but the sounds, which, in her fear, seemed so loud and remarkable to her, attracted no notice from her father or brother. Then she mixed their punch. Had Thady been looking at her he might have seen a tear drop into the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... the creak of cables and the cries Of seamen. Clouds the darkened heavens have drowned, And snatched the daylight from the Trojans' eyes. Black night broods on the waters; all around From pole to pole the rattling peals resound And frequent flashes light the lurid air. All nature, big with instant ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... on? It must be now or never. With a tremendous effort he went quickly up the remaining steps, stood on tiptoe to unlatch the door, and pushed it open. It swung back with a creak upon its rusty hinges, and a cold wind rushed in Ambrose's face, for the window was open. The room was faintly lighted, not with glowworms, but by the pale rays of a watery moon, which made some of the objects whitely distinct, and left others dark and shadowy. Standing motionless on the ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... temptation and material enough for as many musical love stories, as there are novels in the handwriting of Sir Walter Scott, but this being a limited work, the covers already begin to bulge and creak, and it will be necessary to crowd into one swift mail-coach such other composers as we can hardly afford to ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... overpowered me that I fell back, involuntarily, behind a cask which stood upon the deck. It was rather lethargy than sleep, for I plainly heard the sea beat against the side of the vessel, and the sails creak and whistle in the wind. All at once I thought I heard voices, and the steps of men upon the deck. I wished to arise and see what it was, but a strange power fettered my limbs, and I could not once open my eyes. But still more distinct ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... had consulted his feelings and probably his health, by retiring to the top of the bank, a rod or more distant. We watched night after night, and at last were gratified to find that none went nearer the Creak than the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... wooden latch of the inner room. The door opened with a dismal creak, and Ellen entered. There was one old, broken-backed chair, which he offered her, and sat down himself on a rough bench, with a sorrowful, embarrassed expression on his pale, interesting features. Ellen, still noticing Willie's painful confusion, knew not what to do after placing her ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... gesture, that he remained rooted to the spot, holding his breath. The knocks continued, and a voice called, 'Claude, Claude!' He still remained quite still, debating with himself, however, with ashen lips and downcast eyes. Deep silence reigned, and then footsteps were heard, making the stairs creak as they went down. Claude's breast heaved with intense sadness; he felt it bursting with remorse at the sound of each retreating step, as if he had denied the friendship of ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... tented valley stretching away to right and left of you, with the constant roar of sluice boxes and cradles, the creak of windlasses, and the perpetual noise of human voices. There's the excitement of pegging out your claim and sinking your first shaft, wondering all the time whether it will turn up trumps or nothing. There's the honest, manly labour from dawn to dusk. And then, when daylight fails, and the lamps ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... not care a pin for their chattering, and as evening drew on, he walked up the hillside to the outlying field. There he went inside the barn and sat down; but in about an hour's time the barn began to groan and creak, so that it ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... the horseman was within a few perches of the crossroads. At this moment an unusual gust of wind, accompanied by torrents of rain, burst against the house with a violence that made its ribs creak; and the stranger's horse, the shoe still clanking, was distinctly heard to turn in from the road to Ned's door, where it stopped, and the next moment a loud knocking intimated the horseman's intention to enter. The company now looked at each other, as ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... only by the plodding hoofs of Diogenes, the creak of harness and rattle of wheels, while Diana grew lost in thought and I in contemplation of Diana; the stately grace of her slender, shapely form, the curve of her vivid lips, the droop of her long, down-swept lashes, her resolute chin and her indefinable air of ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... board, no smoking, no other lights in cabin or saloon. There was scarcely a sound to be heard on the ship, save the throbbing of her engines, the long, splintering crash of heavy seas, and the dull creak of her steel vertebrae tortured ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... a creak meant for a whisper: "I'm right glad she's took to religion for onct, an' is givin' us somethin' about them Crusaders. They was in Palestine, you know. She's been away to boardin' school all winter, an' I guess it'll be a high-falutin' account of ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... burrowing owl or the bawling of a range cow; any of these usual sounds of the open failed to rouse him; but invariably he knew when a man was dangerously near. If the menace was upwind and within reasonable distance, his nose detected it. At times the creak of saddle leather reached his ears or the sound of the ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... no louder than a whisper from without—the creak of a board. Andrew Lanning slipped to the door and turned the key in the lock. When he rejoined her in the middle of the room he ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... strike, both Franks and Arrabies, Breaking the shafts of all their burnished spears. Whoso had seen that shattering of shields, Whoso had heard those shining hauberks creak, And heard those shields on iron helmets beat, Whoso had seen fall down those chevaliers, And heard men groan, dying upon that field, Some memory of bitter pains might keep. That battle is most hard to endure, indeed. And the admiral calls upon Apollin And Tervagan and Mahum, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... the candle and slipped the end into his pocket, as he tiptoed after Dan down the stairs. At every step the old boards seemed to creak as though in pain. As they paused breathless half-way down on the landing, they heard no sound save the loud ticking of the clock in the hall below and the gentle whispering of the breeze without. ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... A sluggish creak meanders among the trees, some two hundred yards from the spot. At about a like distance below, it discharges itself into the stagnant reservoir ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the five were frozen into utter silence, and beyond the door an equal quiet prevailed for a long minute; then a great force made the door creak and a weird scratching sounded high up upon the old fashioned panelling. Bridge heard a smothered gasp from the boy beside him, followed instantly by a flash of flame and the crack of a small caliber automatic; The Oskaloosa Kid had ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... out of Concho glittering in his new-found glory of shining bit and spur, wide-brimmed Stetson, and chaps studded with nickel-plated conchas. The creak of the stiff saddle-leather was music to him. His brand-new and really good equipment almost made up for the horse—an ancient pensioner that never seemed to be just certain when he would take his next step and seemed a trifle surprised when he had taken it. He was ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... threatens rain. In his absence, I will ask you to listen while I walk about in his room. One can't be too particular, when rest is of such importance to your young lady—and it has struck me as just possible, that the floor of his room may be in fault. My dear, the boards may creak! I'm a sad fidget, I know; but, if the carpenter can set things right—without any horrid hammering, of course!—the sooner he is sent for, the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... moulded under water and with a favoring wind they could log a fair distance in a day's run. It goes without saying that this tall brig was shoved along for all she was worth before a humming breeze that made her creak, and during the night she was reckoned to be a few miles to seaward of the sandy islands which extended like a barrier outside of Cherokee Inlet. Jack Cockrell stood a watch of his own, dead weary but with no thought of sleep until he could hear ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... great height and waved a long green scarf. From one of the galleys behind the screen of rocks a trumpet rang out in immediate answer to that signal; it was followed by the shrill whistles of the bo'suns, and that again by the splash and creak of oars, as the two larger galleys swept out from their ambush. The long armoured poops were a-swarm with turbaned corsairs, their weapons gleaming in the sunshine; a dozen at least were astride of the crosstree of each mainmast, all armed with ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... semi-darkness. She expected to see no one; looked for no one. A moment she paused by the door that led into the garden, and in that pause she heard a slight sound. It might have been anything. It probably was a creak from one of the wicker chairs that stood in a corner. Whatever its origin, it startled her to greater haste. She fumbled at the door and pulled ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... so—behind the scenes. Our arms a Baylen Have been smirched badly. Twenty thousand shamed All through Dupont's ill-luck! The selfsame day My brother Joseph's progress to Madrid Was glorious as a sodden rocket's fizz! Since when his letters creak with querulousness. "Napoleon el chico" 'tis they call him— "Napoleon the Little," so he says. Then notice Austria. Much looks louring there, And her sly new regard for England grows. The English, next, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the most part silently, but the inanimate fabric of the farm complained with many a creak and crack and groan in the night watches, while Time's servant the frost gnawed busily at old timbers and thrust steel fingers into brick and mortar. Only the hut-circles, grey glimmering through the snow on Metherill, laughed at those cruel nights, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... beneath the sod, When he has made his winter bed; His creak grown fainter but more broad, A film of Autumn o'er ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... his brow. While he stood irresolute and in suspense, striving to collect his thoughts, his ear, preternaturally sharpened by fear, caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps—he heard the stairs creak. The sound broke the spell. The previous vague apprehension gave way, when the danger became actually at hand. His presence of mind returned at once. He went back quickly to the fireplace, seized the poker, and began ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... white hands, his broadcloth—there he was planted on his massive feet as on a pedestal! She did not see him; she was aware of him. And she was aware of the closed door behind them. One of the basket-chairs, though empty, continued to creak, like a thing alive. Faintly, very faintly, she could hear the piano—Mrs. Boutwood playing! Overhead were the footsteps of Sarah Gailey and Hettie—they were checking the linen from the laundry, as usual ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... raised the window slowly and without a creak, and a current of cool air rushed in and over her before she could ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... look at the numerous books. But Phater held him back by his garment, "Don't go in," he said; "the place is full of traps and snares. The guardian of the library sits concealed in the middle of the hall, and guards his treasures jealously. He has had the floor made of dried willow-withes, which creak when they are trodden upon. He hears anyone stealing in, and he hears if a scribe touches the forbidden books. He has heard us, and he is feeling after us! Don't you feel as if cold snake-tongues were touching your cheeks, your forehead, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... the vine tighten, heard it creak and groan under his weight, and finally it lifted him clear of the island, swinging him far out over the abyss like a weight at the end ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... I tiptoed back up the steps and tried the door. I opened it slowly and without noise till I could thrust in my head. The fellow was nowhere to be seen in the hall. I whipped in, and closed the door after me. Every board seemed to creak as I trod gingerly toward the stairway. In the empty house the least noise echoed greatly. The polished stairs cried out hollowly my presence. I was half way up when I came to a full stop. Some one was coming down round the bend of the stairway. Softly I slid down ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... patience in its lines. Duty! Here was duty, surely, with tenderest happiness. She was leaning toward him—her hand was seeking his, when she heard through the fragrant silence a sound from her mother's room—the faint creak of her light rocking chair. She could not sleep—she was sitting up with her trouble, bearing it quietly as ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Charlevoix, who writes in 1720, describe this district as the most beautiful in the city. Instead of the crowded quays of to-day there was a terraced lawn bordered with flower gardens; and where now the winches creak and rattle, and the railway engines hiss and scream, birds sang among willow-trees, and the Angelus echoed through a quiet woodland. Across the St. Charles lay the well-ordered grounds of the Jesuit monastery, and farther to the west the lonely spire of the General Hospital ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the bed creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, repeated as regularly as the breath might come and go in a ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... stood easy chairs, with such high backs, and so carved out, and with arms on both sides. "Sit down! sit down!" said they. "Ugh! how I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like the old ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... coming along as cool as a cucumber. Sometimes she'd sit down to tickle her neck with her hind-feet. Then she'd give a big jump, casual-like, to one side of the path, and sit down again, with her ears twitching and turning as if she thought there was mischief in every flutter of a leaf or creak of ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... said, "you'd turn any fellow into a brick. If there were more girls like you in the world I shouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of good men too; and the world could be oiled on all its hinges, so to speak, so that it wouldn't creak and jump and fret one at every turn as it seems to have an unpleasant habit of doing at the ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... fastened in their places, and the maddened sea seems to roar defiance to the howling blast, and all things movable on deck are swept away as if they were straws, and many things not meant to be movable are wrenched from their fastenings with a violence that nothing formed by man can resist, and timbers creak and groan, and loose furniture gyrates about until smashed to pieces, and well-guarded glass and crockery leap out of bounds to irrecoverable ruin, and even the seamen plunge about and stagger, and landsmen hold on to ring-bolts and belaying-pins, or cling to bulkheads ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... which struck him as he mounted the servants' staircase, that he was divided but by thin walls from the object of all these strivings and diplomacies—that for the second time in his life he was under her home roof with Annette. It was a firm, old house. Their footsteps made not the slightest creak on the thick-carpeted stairs. At the door of her room, Rosalie stopped and put ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... spurred to desperate effort. She would storm the all but hopeless attic chambers. Up the twisting turnpike stairs on the outer wall she ran, to where the swallows wheeled about the cornices, and she could hear the iron cross of the Knights Templars creak above the gable. Then, all the way along a dark passage, at one door after ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... cicale chirps to a lass making hay, "Why creak'st thou, Tithonus?" quoth she. "I don't play; It doubles my toil, your importunate lay, I've earned a sweet pillow, lo! Hesper is nigh; I clasp a good wisp and in fragrance I lie; But thou art unwearied, and ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... cat was purring about the mat, But her Mistress heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The Dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet the creak of the opening door; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor— But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turn'd its skirt of ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... window. His sleepy eyes seemed to make out a face just disappearing from sight outside. He dismissed his suspicions as the manufactures of sleep, and was about to fall back again on the comfortable divan when he heard footsteps outside, and the creak of his door-knob. He ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... You've not the hard heart of the young cockrobin That's got no use for parents, once he's mated: But I'm, somehow, out of place within four walls, Tied to one spot—that never wander the world. I long for the rumble of wheels beneath me; to hear The clatter and creak of the lurching caravan; And the daylong patter of raindrops on the roof: Ay, and the gossip of nights about the campfire— The give-and-take of tongues: mine's getting stiff For want of use, ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... his own suggestion, for when he heard the front door creak on its hinges, he laid down his revolver and covered his ears with his hands. This made Rodney turn as white as a sheet and get upon his feet again, fully expecting to hear the roar of a shotgun, followed by the clatter of buckshot in the hall; ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... that gun! Quick!" shouted Lieutenant Bishop. The brave tars seize the ropes, the trucks creak, and the great eleven-inch gun, already loaded, is out in a twinkling. Men are bringing up shot and shell. The deck is clearing of all ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... manifest than the desire of children for intellectual sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can—"Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming—"Mamma, see what a curious thing," "Mamma, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... It used to creak and crack under the engine when it was new. McNally was nearing it now. It lay, however, just below a deep rock cut that had been made in a mountain crag and ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... and shot off into space on the other side like a hurdler clearing an obstacle. With a creak and a thud the big car landed, reeled drunkenly, and straightened out in earnest, Maclaren craned his head to see the speedometer, but had not the heart to look; he began to curse ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... their work and over the creak of the leather in the rowlocks the rumble and fume of the seven mile beach came mixed with the yelping and mewing of the gulls. The boat made slow progress, then a few yards from the surf line it hung for a moment till the rowers suddenly gave way and moving like a relieved ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... landlady appeared with the tray, laid it down upon a chair beside the closed door, and then, treading heavily, departed. Crouching together in the angle of the door, we kept our eyes fixed upon the mirror. Suddenly, as the landlady's footsteps died away, there was the creak of a turning key, the handle revolved, and two thin hands darted out and lifted the tray form the chair. An instant later it was hurriedly replaced, and I caught a glimpse of a dark, beautiful, horrified face glaring at the narrow opening ...
— The Adventure of the Red Circle • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the little private gate under Georgiana's window I keep rusty; this enables me to note when any one enters my garden. By-and-by I heard the hinges softly creak, whereupon I feigned not to believe what Jack was telling me; whereupon he fell into an harangue of such affectionate and sustained vehemence that when the hinges creaked again I was never able to determine. Was ever such usage made before ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... himself opens the case, and helps in placing the goddess on her pedestal. Again, as two hundred years before in Florence, the resurrected goddess, Aphrodite, emerges from the grave. The cords stretch, the pulleys creak; she rises higher and higher. Peter is almost of the same superhuman height as the statue. And his face, close to that of Aphrodite, remains noble: the man is ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... October 13. — The wind is blowing hard from the northeast, and the Chancellor, under low-reefed top-sail and fore-sail, and laboring against a heavy sea, has been obliged to be brought ahull. The joists and girders all creak again until one's teeth are set on edge. I am the only passenger not remaining below; but I prefer being on deck notwithstanding the driving rain, fine as dust, which penetrates to the very skin. We have been driven along in this fashion for the best part of two days; the "stiffish breeze" ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... a few strokes of his wings he was out of the cage; but at the same moment the door, which was only ajar, and which led to the next room, began to creak, and supple and creeping came the large tomcat into the room, and began to pursue him. The frightened Canary fluttered about in his cage; the Parrot flapped his wings, and cried, "Come, let us be men!" The Clerk ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... said Mr. Gwynn, with a hesitating creak, "always of course, sir, with your consent, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... the Labour Members creak And a terrible ghastly pallor is On the Wee Free face as it tries to speak; But ah! what a change to each sunken cheek If you put a bit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... the poet, with a smile, "I peeped through the keyhole, before going to bed, and I beheld the most delicious dame in her shift that ever made a bed creak under ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... see if it were securely bolted, then slept until about twelve o'clock. Between twelve and one o'clock, when I as a child had always been most afraid because this was a ghostly hour, my mother, who compelled herself this night to remain awake, heard my door creak slightly. She watched and saw the following: I went out in my nightgown softly to the door and to the window on the passage, which I opened. I swung myself upon that rather high window and remained there a while without ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... certain elasticity, and an imperceptible increase followed by an imperceptible relaxation of pressure on the surface of the table will alter the tension of the wood, the molecules of which in springing back to their prior position will emit a creak or a tap, just as a piece of extended elastic will when let go again. Both the raps and the movements, then, are in essence phenomena of the same order: simple results of muscular pressure, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... sang them as they journeyed over the long heaths and through the mountain-forests, fishers and raftsmen sang them on the rivers. He composed the Song of the Sickle which cuts at a stroke the corn in its ripeness and the wild flower in its bloom, and the Song of the Mill-wheel, with its long creak and quick clap, and the melodious rush of water from the buckets of the wheel, and many another which it would take long to tell of; but that which to himself was sweetest and dearest was Golden Apples and Roses Red, ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... away! — for the scenes we leave behind us Are barren for the lights of home and a flame that's young forever; And the lonely trees around us creak the warning of the night-wind, That love and all the dreams of love are away beyond the mountains. The songs that call for us to-night, they have called for men before us, And the winds that blow the message, they have blown ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... gave up their final hopes. Slowly they all went out in the storm and night, shutting the door on the Christmas celebration now abandoned to darkness, the creak of the hinges, the long line of snow inside that pointed to ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... know for yourselves. I taunted her with cowardice to make her rise to the occasion, but that wouldn't work, and time was passing, so I turned to bribery, but by good fortune I'll keep my racket yet. At this very moment she will be feeling her way cautiously down that stair, and he'll be hearing the creak, and coming forward to see the cause. All bluey white they'll be, and each one so scared by the sight of the other that they'll hardly dare to breathe. Listen now while I open the door, and you may hear ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... out to the barn to get some hair for a slipping-noose. Kate, the raw-boned cultivator horse, standing idle in her stall, turned her head and nickered when she heard the door creak open, expecting a nibble of sugar-bread. But the little girl had nothing for her. Instead, she rolled a dry-goods box into an adjoining stall, climbed upon it, and, reaching over the rough board side, got hold of Kate's long ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... enchanted trunk, for as soon as the lock was pressed it could fly. He pressed it, and away he flew in it up the chimney, high into the clouds, further and further away. But whenever the bottom gave a little creak he was in terror lest the trunk should go to pieces, for then he would have turned a dreadful somersault-just think ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... with creak and din; A blast of cold night-air came in, And on the threshold shivering stood A one-eyed guest, with cloak and hood. Dead rides Sir ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... agricultural enterprises. Occasionally, also, he went out to sea with the sailors of Yport. On several occasions he went fishing for mackerel and, again, by moonlight, he would haul in the nets laid the night before. He loved to hear the masts creak, to breathe in the fresh and whistling gusts of wind that arose during the night; and after having tacked a long time to find the buoys, guiding himself by a peak of rocks, the roof of a belfry or the Fecamp lighthouse, he delighted to remain ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... bed and the water runs swiftly over shallows. As the banks are very high, the wheels are necessarily huge contrivances in order to reach the level of the fields, and their very rough construction causes them to creak and groan as they turn with the current. In a convenient place in the river several of these are sometimes set up side by side, and the noise of their combined creakings can be heard from a great distance. Some idea of what one of these machines looks like can ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... if listening. From the rear of the house had sounded the creak of the windmill crank. The man turned, entered the hall, and crossed to the window. Then he shook his head ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... burdensome to him, and a chill moisture gathered to his brow. While he stood irresolute and in suspense, striving to collect his thoughts, his ear, preternaturally sharpened by fear, caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps—he heard the stairs creak. The sound broke the spell. The previous vague apprehension gave way, when the danger became actually at hand. His presence of mind returned at once. He went back quickly to the fireplace, seized the poker, and began stirring the fire, and coughing loud, and indicating as vigorously ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... barrel dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... boyhood, I maintain that travelling by coach is by no means the least of our sublunary pleasures. Man is a wheelable animal as well as walking one. Winter is the time for a nice inside jaunt. What divine evaporations from the coachman's muzzle! What a joyous creak in the down-flying steps!—and, oh! that comfortable alertness with which we deposit ourselves in the padded corner, and fold our coatflaps over our knees, glance at the frosty steam of the window; and then, quite la Tityre, repose our recumbent bodies at our ease! Such moments ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... booted men. There were tents on the ground and tents on floors and tents on log walls. And farther on began the lines of cabins-stores and shops and saloons—and then a great, square, flat structure with a flaring sign in crude gold letters, "Last Nugget," from which came the creak of iddles and scrape of boots, and hoarse mirth. Joan saw strange, wild-looking creatures—women that made her shrink; and several others of her sex, hurrying along, carrying sacks or buckets, worn and bewildered-looking women, the sight of whom gave her a pang. She saw lounging ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Honour? The Cygnet is your ship." None answering him, his eyes travelled to others of the company. "You, Darrell, and you, Black Will Cotesworth, were of the Phoenix. What do you here?... The water rushes by and the timbers creak and strain. Whither do we go under press ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... slowly from one striped parasol-mushroom to the next—the men, in their bathing suits or white flannels seemed as unimportant if necessary furniture as slaves in an Eastern court. The women dominated, from the jingle of the bags in the hands of the dowagers and the faint, protesting creak of their corsets as they picked their way as delicately as fat, gorgeous macaws across the sand, to the sound of their daughters' voices, musical as a pigeon-loft, as they chattered catchwords at each other and their partners, or occasionally, ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... to listen. Few travelers passed by their cabin in the winter, but he was sure that he heard a faint noise in the distance. It sounded like the creak of wheels. The noise came again—this time much closer. A man's ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... water, while the rough meal had hardly come to an end, and I had placed myself close to Walters, to see if I could be of any use in tending him, when a faint breeze sprang up, making the sails of the ship flap to and fro, and the yards swing and creak, though she hardly stirred. With us though it was different, for giving orders to Bob Hampton to trim the sails, Mr Brymer told me to take hold of the sheet of the mizzen, and he seized the rudder, so that the next minute we ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... kind like spiritalism. You ask any of the servants. As soon as he gets drowsy at the table, the table begins to tremble, and creak like that: tuke, ... tuke! All the servants have ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... well they strike, both Franks and Arrabies, Breaking the shafts of all their burnished spears. Whoso had seen that shattering of shields, Whoso had heard those shining hauberks creak, And heard those shields on iron helmets beat, Whoso had seen fall down those chevaliers, And heard men groan, dying upon that field, Some memory of bitter pains might keep. That battle is most hard to endure, indeed. And the admiral calls upon Apollin And Tervagan and Mahum, prays and speaks: "My ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... The Nest was not built so well as we thought, for the rain came in at the sides, and we had good cause to fear that the wind would blow the roof off. Once the storm made such a rush at it that we heard the beams creak, and the planks gave signs that there was more strain on them than they could bear. This drove us from our room to the stairs in the trunk, on which we sat in a state of fear till the worst of the storm was past. Then we went down to the shed we had ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... the word," said he, with another hateful chuckle. And then suddenly I heard, amidst the roar of the storm, the creak and whine of the winch-handle turning and the rattle of the grating as it passed through the slot. Great God, he was letting loose ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that moment the great iron gate was heard to creak on its hinges. Other wretches were being pitched inside to await ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... in for the first time to see her, Rose knew. Harriet was living here now, running the house for Rodney, while Rose was laid up. Doing it beautifully well, too, through all the confusion of nurses and all. Not the slightest jar or creak of their complex domestic machinery ever reached Rose in the big chamber ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... she heard someone moving in the room. There was the rustling of a paper and the creak of ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... he makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelope his head in a periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... ancient convent, whose interior had crumbled away, its walls now forming one vast hall, well adapted for the purpose to which it was about to be applied. Laubardemont did not deem himself safe until he was within the building and had heard the heavy, double doors creak on their hinges as, closing, they excluded the ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... piece," remarked the Colonel. "The neglect is in a fashion systematic." He laid his hand on the chain of the bell-pull, but the bell had lost its clapper. The two friends heard no sound save the peculiar grating creak of the rusty spring. A little door in the wall beside the gateway, though ruinous, held good against all their efforts to ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... Underhill. His ideal of a woman is one who has no nerves, no sentiment, no backaches, no headaches, who will see that the wheels of his household machinery are kept well oiled, so that he need never hear them creak, and who, in addition to her other accomplishments, believes in him and will be kind enough to live forever for his private accommodation. This expose of his sentiments he has made to me in a loud, cheerful, pompous way, and he has also ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... in his stateroom and went back. For the moment I was alone with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through the darkening sky. The Sylph was running smoothly, with the wind almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... to end of the long verandah of his bungalow with clank of steel, creak of leather, and groan of travailing soul. As the top of his scarlet, blue and gold turban touched the lamp that hung a good seven feet above his ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... paper, the bare spots hung with tapestry moth-eaten and filled with spiders! And what have we for table?—a board laid on cross-bars! And the oaken chairs are rush-bottomed, and so straight the backs are a persecution! The door hinges creak in these ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had got out on Shooter's Hill; Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of Good and Ill Where London streets ferment in full activity, While everything around was calm and still, Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he Heard,—and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... wind tears along in a mad fury. The forest tops sway as with the roll of some mighty sea swept by the sudden blast of a tornado. In the rage of the storm the woodland giants creak out their impotent protests. The wind battles and tears at everything, there is no cessation in ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... mid ocean? Still the sail swells to the voiceful breeze; the high mast bends with hideous creak, and every separate rib in the huge fabric quivers. Yet the ship on the unmoved waters motionless struggles, as one, who in a feverish dream nervelessly fleeing o'er a haunted waste, strives horribly to shun some fiendish shape, with straining sinews, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... would win success and prosperity or that thou thyself wouldst be afflicted with the fear of Karna! Thou ridest upon an excellent car constructed by the celestial artificer himself, with axles that do not creak, and with standard that bears the ape. Thou bearest a sword attached to thy belt of gold and silk. This thy bow Gandiva is full six cubits long. Thou hast Keshava for thy driver. Why, then, through fear of Karna hast thou come away from battle, O Partha? If, O thou of wicked soul, thou hadst ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... heavy-scented with the odour of flowers, and the hum of the night insects was everywhere in the air. Close to the wall I saw the figures of my scouts. The noise of the tramp of feet, the creak of waggons, and the voice of command came to me from ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... law, that for the last few days there has been no occasion for forgiveness of sins. Every vessel has hastened into harbor, or cast anchor in mid-stream, and the watchmen can sleep in peace as long as this wind makes the joints of their wooden huts creak. No ship can travel now, and yet the corporal of the Ogradina watch-house has a fancy that ever since day-break, amidst the blustering wind and roaring waters, he can detect the peculiar signal tones which the speaking-trumpet sends ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... suspense and anxiety. Twice or thrice as I looked down I saw a spasm of pain break over Harold's face; but when I paused and glanced inquiringly, he motioned me to go on with my venturesome task. There was no turning back now. We had almost got him up when the rope at the edge began to creak ominously. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... make sure that no door or window in her patient's room shall rattle or creak; that no blind or curtain shall, by any change of wind through the open window, be made to flap—especially will she be careful of all this before she leaves her patients for the night. If you wait till your patients tell you, or remind you of these things, where is the use of their ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... confidence with which Zenobia had inspired her, our guest showed herself disquieted by the storm. When the strong puffs of wind spattered the snow against the windows and made the oaken frame of the farmhouse creak, she looked at us apprehensively, as if to inquire whether these tempestuous outbreaks did not betoken some unusual mischief in the shrieking blast. She had been bred up, no doubt, in some close nook, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... then Porthos. Afterward Mme. Coquenard filled her own plate, and distributed the crusts without soup to the impatient clerks. At this moment the door of the dining room unclosed with a creak, and Porthos perceived through the half-open flap the little clerk who, not being allowed to take part in the feast, ate his dry bread in the passage with the double odor of the dining room ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... up the stream, the silence was broken by the quick rattle and creak of oars; my enemies were in hot pursuit. I put my best leg foremost and ran on. After a break of a couple of minutes I looked back, and by a gleam of light through the ragged clouds I saw several dark forms climbing the bank behind me. The wind had now begun to rise, ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... room and landed with a heavy crash on the floor. Instantly, Torlos leaped at him. There was a trickle of blood from his left shoulder, but he gripped the man in his giant arms, pinning him to the floor. The struggle was brief. Torlos simply squeezed the man's chest in his arms. There was the faint creak of metal, and the man's chest began to bend! In a ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... the wrought-iron gates at the end of the avenue. Through these they beheld the waiting yellow chaise which had brought Andre-Louis. From near at hand came the creak of other wheels, the beat of other hooves, and now another vehicle came in sight, and drew to a stand-still beside the yellow chaise—a handsome equipage with polished mahogany panels on which the gold and azure of armorial ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... nothing. Then I was suddenly conscious of an odor of tobacco, as though some one smoking a cigar had entered the room, and an instant later I heard that chair before the desk creak as though it had been swung around. I switched on the light at once. The chair had turned. It had been facing away from the desk, and it was ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... edge of the counter, behind which the woman slept in her lair. He peeped over to assure himself of her complete somnolence. Satisfied that Mex would not likely be roused by any slight disturbance, he stole to the front door and undid the fastenings so softly that not a creak of the bolt sliding from its staple was heard even by his own quick ear. But when he swung the door open, providing for his ready escape, the hinges gave out a complaining sigh. The sound was faint, but ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... of the Madonna or the saints. Who knows whether they do not exist to this day? And, indeed, is it possible they should not? For the awfulness of the deep woods, with their filtered green light, the creak of the swaying, solitary reeds, exists, and is Pan; and the blue, starry May night exists, the sough of the waves, the warm wind carrying the sweetness of the lemon-blossoms, the bitterness of the myrtle ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... the iron gate, which opened with a creak, and I shut it after him. I felt somewhat uneasy as I followed B., who crossed the garden with a rapid stride. I felt uneasy at the thought of his essentially military eloquence, and of the use to which he proposed to put it. But I knew, too, that he was not easily ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... black silk stockings never exhibited a wrinkle; they might as well have said that he waddled because his shoes creaked, for these last, which were always without a speck, and polished as his crown, though of a different hue, did creak, as he walked rather slowly. I cannot say that I ever saw him ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... French window to lay my flowers down, in that instant Jimmie had sprung upon that slanting edge of my poor, frail little box, and in that instant the mischief was done. The box tilted and flung Jimmie forward against the curving trellis, which began to creak and groan alarmingly. All my precious nasturtiums were pitched headlong into the flower-beds below, and for once Jimmie shrieked my name in accents of the ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... piteously out of his own shop, and went into a back parlour. Dyson heard his trembling fingers fumbling with a bunch of keys, and the creak of an opening box. He came back presently with a small package neatly tied up in brown paper in his hands, and, still full of terror, handed ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... reason and effort to the contrary, opened upon a long, dark corridor, that led the Lord knows whither, and seemed just made for ghosts to air themselves in, when they turned out of their graves at midnight. The wind would spring up into a hoarse murmur through this passage, and creak the door to and fro, as if some dubious ghost were balancing in its mind whether to come in or not. In a word, it was precisely the kind of comfortless apartment that a ghost, if ghost there were in the chateau, would single out for its ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... weakness come? It is not from ignorance, for I have noticed the same thing as in the others, in several clerics who have studied in the university for ten or twelve years. One day I was in a convent where the boards of the floor began to creak because of dryness, and the coadjutor became so frightened that he went away to sleep in another house; and the Christian reflections, jests, and anger of the Spanish cura could not restrain him.... The Filipino cura, Don J. Severiano Mallares, committed and caused to be committed fifty-seven ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... semblance of rotation was maintained. The bobs' crews settled themselves with the deftness of long practice. Then bending to his task the pusher at the rear dug his toes in, while the others hunched. With a creak the runners gave way their hold on the frozen snow; the bobs began slowly to move. As momentum and the downward curve of the hill exerted their influence, the pusher found his task easier and easier. His then the nice decision ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... action and his own indecision. At last he took up the candle and again approached the door with the revolver held up in readiness; he put his left hand, in which he held the candle, on the doorhandle. But he managed awkwardly: the handle clanked, there was a rattle and a creak. "He will fire straightway," flashed through Pyotr Stepanovitch's mind. With his foot he flung the door open violently, raised the candle, and held out the revolver; but no shot nor cry came from within.... There was no one in ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... men; and I was one with them destroying your exquisite hope." She heard the creak of the basket chair as he leaned forward, his face masked in darkness. "Perhaps you think ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... it puzzled Nic exceedingly, for it seemed to be impossible that he should be going round and round in the salmon-pool, to be sucked under the falls, and feel the water come thundering upon his head with a crash and creak and groan, and in the midst of it for a lanthorn to come slowly along till it was quite close to him, and voices to ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... slipped by almost unnoticed. It was not until eleven o'clock that a halt was made. He could just discern in the darkness the dim outlines of what appeared to be a large farm-house, surrounded by barns and outhouses. Some transport had got jammed in the yard. He could hear the creak of wheels, the stamping of hoofs, and shouts. There was not a light anywhere, and they waited for half-an-hour that seemed interminable, for they were drenched through, and tired, and were longing for any cover out of the wet. Sounds of shuffling were heard in ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... steed of copper color, Hitches quick his fleet-foot courser, Puts his racer to the snow-sledge, Straightway springs upon the cross-seat, Snaps his whip adorned with jewels. Like the winds the steed flies onward, Like a lightning flash, the racer Makes the snow-sledge creak and rattle, Makes the highway quickly vanish, Dashes on through fen and forest, Over hills and through the valleys, Over marshes, over mountains, Over fertile plains and meadows; Journeys one day, then a second, So a third from morn till evening, Till the third day evening brings ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... ships lay side by side along the wharf with their bows shoreward. The great dragon stem heads towered over us, shining strangely in the moonlight, and the gentle send of the waves into the harbour made them sway and creak as though they were coming ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... feet A lake, whose frozen surface liker seem'd To glass than water. Not so thick a veil In winter e'er hath Austrian Danube spread O'er his still course, nor Tanais far remote Under the chilling sky. Roll'd o'er that mass Had Tabernich or Pietrapana fall'n, Not e'en its rim had creak'd. As peeps the frog Croaking above the wave, what time in dreams The village gleaner oft pursues her toil, So, to where modest shame appears, thus low Blue pinch'd and shrin'd in ice the spirits stood, Moving their teeth in shrill note like the stork. His face each downward held; ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... however, try as he might, sleep would not come that night; an unaccountable feeling of restlessness and of vague apprehension had him in its grip. Hour after hour he lay, listening irritably to the snoring of his fellow-shepherd, Borthwick, starting nervously at every scraping of rat or creak of timber. At last, long after midnight, he rose and looked out. The wind had fallen, but snow still fell; there was nothing abnormal in the night, and the weather might have been described as merely ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the dining-room. Mrs. Thorne knocked, in a whisper as it were. There was no answer. She softly unlatched the door, and a draft of air crept through, widening it with a prolonged and wistful creak. The sleeper did not stir. She had changed her pillows to the foot of the bed, and was lying in the full light, with her window-curtains drawn. In all the room there was an air of abandonment, an exhausted ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... seconds from my mark—mark!" Mac tightened his grip, and then sagged backward as the main motors fired. The vibrations shook him slightly but deeply, and he fought to keep his hold. He felt his back creak and pop with the sudden surge of weight. Then the motors shut off, and Mac skidded several feet up the ladder. No matter how fast a man's reactions were, they couldn't be applied quickly enough to keep him from ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white. Never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funeral gloom. Never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously. Never did bough creak so mysteriously, and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... midnight, the bookcase behind me cracks. I start and turn. Nothing. There is a creak of a board ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... movement of the mastiff; but he never stirred. I was glad enough, however, on reaching the stairs, to find them newly built and the carpet thick. Up I went with a glance at every step for the table which now hid the brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircase till I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loose stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my heart for a moment, and then set it ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... because in the Capital nearly all the doors need oiling before they are opened. Maybe the castle gate will creak a little, but then——" The inn-keeper rubbed one palm against ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the glistening lanes; His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins; Hearing the saddle creak, He'll wonder if the frost will come next week. I shall forget him in the morning light; And while we gallop on he will not speak: But at ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... of this room opened with a plaintive creak, and a little woman, on the elderly side of middle ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... detached it. Then he cut out a pane of glass—it was all A.B.C. to him—put his hand in and raised the sash a little; then it was simple to push it up from below. But the sash had not been raised for years; it stuck; when it yielded to his efforts, it gave a loud creak. He flung one leg over the window-sill and sat poised there, listening. The room was lighted up; but if there were anyone in it, he must be asleep, or very hard of hearing, or that creak would ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... could not have seen her. Sylvia leaned her head against the panels of the door and concentrated all her powers so that not a movement in the house might escape her ears. She listened for the sound of some one else moving in the room below, some one who had been left behind. She listened for a creak of the stairs, the brushing of a coat against the stair rail, the sound of some one going stealthily to his room. She stood at the door, with her face strangely set for a long while. Her mind was quite made up. If she heard her father moving from that room, she would just ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... Hastings Mill I lingered in my going To smell the smell of piled-up deals and feel the salt wind blowing, To hear the cables fret and creak and the ropes stir and sigh (Shipmate, my shipmate!) ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... in tolerable possession of his faculties at the moment, and that what he was relating to me actually occurred, he told me that he remembered at once that he had heard that peculiar creak, a few moments before Euphra and he discovered that they were left alone in this very chamber. He had ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... me," whispered Romeo Augustus; and he held out Elias's jacket and trousers. Elias took the hint, also the clothes. Down the stairs crept the two. Out the front door, which would creak, into the moon-lit yard stole they. Elias's eyes were snapping with excitement; for, as I said, Elias was poetical, and, like all poets, he was always expecting something to turn up. At this present he was on the look-out for what ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... lock, and it was followed by a slight pressure upon the door itself, as if to ascertain the security of the lock. The person, whoever it might be, was probably satisfied, for I heard the old boards of the lobby creak and strain, as if under the weight of somebody moving cautiously over them. My sense of hearing became unnaturally, almost painfully acute. I suppose the imagination added distinctness to sounds vague in themselves. I thought that I could actually hear the breathing of the ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of the Dutch, is approached by an exquisite railway, curving round the purple heights of forest-girt Salak. The usual afternoon deluge weeps itself away, palm plumes and cassava boughs, overhanging the silvery Tjiligong, drop showers of diamonds into the current, and giant bamboos creak in the spicy wind, redolent of gardenia and clove. The hills, scaled by green rice-terraces, each with tiny rill and miniature cascade, are vocal with murmuring waters. Lilac plumbago, red hybiscus, and golden allemanda mingle with pink and purple lantana, yellow daisies, and ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... of greyish dust rising like smoke the regiments marched with a steady tramp. Gun carriages moved slowly down the roads in a glare of sun which sparkled upon the steel tubes of the field artillery and made a silver bar of every wheel-spoke. I heard the creak of the wheels and the rattle of the limber and the shouts of the drivers to their teams; and I thrilled a little every time we passed one of these batteries because I knew that in a day or two these machines, which were being carried along the highways ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... house with black windows— blind house begging moonlight to put out the shadows— why do you want so much light? You creak when the wind steps on you— you cough up dust and your beams ache— you know you will soon fall, the moon just pities you! Don't waste yourself moon— come on my bed and play with me. Wrap me up in blue light, you who are cool. ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... off short, and held up his hand for silence. Both men listened intently, and from the river bank they heard the steady, lumbering creak ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... to be seen under normal conditions. From the street below rises the sound of clatter and creak as the rude oxen wagons bump over the cobblestones. Morning, noon, and night they rumble along unceasingly, and whenever I look down I see martial figures clad in tattered, muddy, and blood-stained uniforms, with rudely bandaged body or head or foot. Every now and then a woman breaks from the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... moment, he makes a vertical incision in the cloth of the tent, on the spot where he happens to be, and just large enough to admit him. He glides through like a phantom, without making the least grain of sand creak beneath his tread. He is perfectly naked, and all his body is rubbed over with oil; a two-edged knife is suspended from his neck. He will squat down close to your couch, and, with incredible coolness and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... would be four or five men and women, and here and there one would be playing a musical instrument and they would all be singing, while the creaking of the wagon came in with an orchestral quality which seemed grotesquely suitable. The mules, too, looked as though they ought to creak, and an inspection of the harness suggested that it was held together, not so much by the string and wire with which it was mended, as by the fingers of that especial Providence which watches over all kinds of absurd repairs made ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... making a clean breast of the ownership of Hester. Now, as he sat still, the trouble grew upon him. He started a new sheet, and ruined that: Once he got as far as his feet, and sat down again. But at length he had quieted to the extent of deciphering ten lines of Mr. Whipple's handwriting when the creak of a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... carried along over miles of space we never gave them a thought. Even the most wonderful car ever made by man rumbles and creaks and shakes, so that we cannot help knowing it is moving; but this beautiful travelling carriage of ours called the earth makes never a creak or groan as she spins in her age-long journey. It is always astonishing to me that so few people care to look out of the window as we fly along; most of them are far too much absorbed in their little petty daily concerns ever ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... answered, with a rough haughtiness all her own. She heaved herself up from the gilt chair, which seemed to creak a sigh of relief; and the trio went out in the midst of ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... and he brought his chair so suddenly and heavily back to its four-legged condition that the frail thing responded with an ominous creak. "What on earth ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... come to a city, for I could hear the passing of many wagons and the murmur of a crowd. Some were shouting, "Shoot the d—d Yankees!" and now and then a missile struck among us. There is nothing so heartless and unthinking as a crowd, the world over. I could tell presently, by the creak of the evener and the stroke of the hoofs, that we were climbing a long hill. We stopped shortly; then they began helping us out. They led us forward a few paces, the chain rattling on a stone pavement. When we heard the bang of an iron door behind us, they unlocked ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... luck, too. Marry! I trow, neighbors, we will have a tempest," cried Louder, as he and his companions entered the old house. A burst of thunder shook the earth; the wild winds raged about the house, making the rickety old structure creak and groan, while the air about seemed on fire. For a moment all were awed to silence; ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... I ask myself, ma mere. Many things are done to me and I sit in the centre looking on, like the weathercock on our castle at home, who sees himself turning this way and that way and can only creak." ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... courtesied in an unconcerned, wooden way, as if they were moved by some ingenious piece of Swiss clock-work. The stiff old curee, too, had an air of having been wound up and set a-going. I could almost hear the creak of his mainspring. I was smiling at that, perhaps, and thinking how strongly the scenery of some portions of our own country resembles this ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of Gloucester fishermen, some of the men of the navy, some of the smugglers—in all such is the smack of the salt-laden wind; the rattle and creak of ships' tackle; the dull boom of pounding surf, or the hissing crash of the breakers. But there are the other stories of sport and adventure ashore of which Mr. Connolly ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... sitting their blowing horses a rod away, made their saddles creak as they shifted to see this little dash of melodrama. Macdonald's face was swept by a sudden paleness, as if a sickness had come over him. He clenched his lean jaw hard; the firmness of his mouth was grimmer ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... hills above mining towns are magnificent. The long valleys, cut and slashed by the railroads and made ugly by the squalid little houses of the miners are half lost in the soft blackness. Out of the darkness sounds emerge. Coal cars creak and protest as they are pushed along rails. Voices cry out. With a long reverberating rattle one of the mine cars dumps its load down a metal chute into a car standing on the railroad tracks. In the winter little fires are started ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... prelate's breast, almost touching his doublet; furthermore Garnet's sword was in its scabbard, and at the first attempt to draw it, he, in all probability, would be run through the body. Was there no alternative but to yield? A gust of wind caused the door at his back to creak. In an instant the Jesuit had sprung for the portal, but the soldier, perceiving his purpose, lunged with his weapon, and so true was the aim, that the prelate's cloak was pinned fast to the wooden frame. ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... dingy old warehouse, with narrow, dark, cobwebbed windows, and wide, rusty iron shutters, which, as the bleak October wind swept up old Long Wharf, swung slowly on their hinges with a sharp, grating creak. I heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I used to listen, in the long winter nights, to those strange, wild cries, till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take the vacant ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... reading-room, just for this one afternoon! I'd sell myself body and soul to the devil, for that! Think of the pages and pages in the catalogue: "SOAMES, ENOCH" endlessly—endless editions, commentaries, prolegomena, biographies'—but here he was interrupted by a sudden loud creak of the chair at the next table. Our neighbour had half risen from his place. He was leaning towards ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... the distant noises of the city, which filtered in like a pale sound; it was as quiet as in a remote hamlet; now and then a dog would bark, some cart would creak as it bumped along the road, then silence would be restored and in the kitchen nothing would be heard save the glu glu of the pot, like a ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... very low, but I recognised that some one was opening the door from the outside. Another creak, and then silence. Very quietly I reached for my sword and prepared to spring from the bed. Presently, as if satisfied that the sound had not disturbed me, my uninvited guest pushed the door ajar and slipped into the room. I could not perceive him, yet I knew he was creeping closer ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... flung himself down with a little groan of relief, and shut his sun-seared eyes. The voices of the others came to him. There was little conversation. He heard Jessie's accursed halloo. Then the soft thud of the pack-horses' hoofs, the creak of the saddles. He must get up and follow now. In a minute. In a minute. In ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... the elements a shout sounded in the night. The Deputy raised his head, and glanced towards the woman. A moment later they heard the gate creak, and steps upon the path that led to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... the officers for the secret of the Indian Empire they said: "We try to be fair to the natives!" which means that they are just and even-tempered. An enormous, loose-jointed machine the British Empire, which seems sometimes to creak a bit, yet holds together for that very reason. Imperial weight may have interfered with British adaptability to the kind of warfare which was the one kind that the Germans had to train for; but certainly some Englishmen must know ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... Juan had got out on Shooters' Hill Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity; While everything around was calm and still Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he Heard—and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... have sat in its boughs and looked seaward for hours. I remember the creak of its branches, the scent of the flowers That climbed round the mouth of the cave. It is odd I recall Those little things best, that I scarcely took heed ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the three of them depart through the passageway that led to the street entrance. I heard the creak of the hinges, and the clang of the bars as they fell back into place. Then a strong, sweet odour of crushed blossoms turned me faint. I loosed my hold of the screening vines and stepped backward with a sudden ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... the roll of the ship caused the canvas to flap heavily against the masts, and anon freshening up again for a few minutes, quite to a seven-knot breeze. Then it would drop once more; and nothing would be heard but the heavy flap of the canvas, the creak of the spars, the swish of the water as it lapped in over our bulwarks—the craft rolling gunwale-under—and a low weird moaning of pent-up wind, which teemed to be imprisoned in a heavy cloud-bank rapidly piling itself up on the north-western horizon. The sky, which ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... creep unheard at dead of night along a marble floor, "Nor foot-fall make, nor tell-tale creak, ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... they all could hear the one great straining breath; the creak of wood slowly yielding; the wrench of iron; the mighty fall of the ponderous gates. Fanny stood up tottering—made a step or two towards her mother, and fell forwards into her arms in a fainting fit. Mrs. Thornton lifted her up with a strength ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... were confined. It was necessary to use the utmost caution, to avoid being heard by the sentinels. Bertram fitted the false key into the great iron lock of the outer door. The door opened, but with such a creak that Maude shuddered in terror lest the sentinels should hear it. She was reassured by a peal of laughter which came from beyond the wall. The sentinels were awake, but were making too much noise themselves to be easily roused to action. Then the party went silently up into the Beauchamp Tower, unlocked ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... four o'clock, the church is plunged in shadow and silence. The confused rumble of the vehicles without hardly penetrates this dwelling of prayer, and the creak of one's boots, echoing in the distance, is the only human noise which ruffles the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... woe distills, as I see, down your cheeks? and what punishment is on you that so sparkles?" And one of them replied to me, "The orange hoods are of lead so thick that the weights thus make their scales to creak. Jovial Friars[2] were we, and Bolognese; I Catalano, and he Loderingo named, and together taken by thy city, as one man alone is wont to be taken, in order to preserve its peace; and we were such as still is apparent round about the Gardingo." I began, "O Friars, your evil"—but more ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... again the girlish laughter and concluded she could not be over sixteen. There was silence for a space while only the creak of the grindstone cut the stillness. Whoever she was, she had given him a brief illuminating vision of the tactics of Conrad, the manager for the ranches of Granados and La Partida, the latter being the Sonora end of the old Spanish land grant. Even a girl had noted that ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... heard what he had heard first—they heard the tonk-tonk-tonk of a cowbell, coming near and nearer toward them along the hallway without. It was as though the sound floated along. There was no creak of footsteps upon the loose, bare boards—and the bell jangled faster than it would dangling from a cow's neck. The sound came right to the door and Squire Gathers ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... an' then his eyes would sadden as he thought of all the good eatin' he had missed by not knowin' the proper kind o' diplomacy to use in handlin' a cook. An' me!—say, I mowed away until my skin begun to creak under the strain an' I couldn't roll my eyes more'n two degrees. Then I got up an' I ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... his shoulder in between the two bars which were fixed perpendicularly, and being strongly built he only found room to introduce his two thumbs within that which pressed against his chest. He slowly straightened his arms and the iron gave an audible creak. It was a hundred years old, all rust-worn ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... her In a mouthful of strange moans,—will bring from far, Her ears being keen, the lowing and the mad Masterful tramping of the bison herds, Tearing down headlong with their bloodshot eyes, In savage rifts of hair; the crack and creak Of ice-floes in the frozen sea, the cry Of the white bears, all in a dim blue world Mumbling their meals by twilight; or the rock And majesty of motion, when their heads Primeval trees toss in a sunny storm, And hail their nuts down on unweeded fields. No holidays," quoth she; "drop, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... the gallery upstairs. She looked at the sleeping roses, the velvet lawns, the tall trees; and her eyes were very peaceful. The golden moonlight transfigured the scene; from the dreaming river came the creak of oars moving gently in their rowlocks; and the nightingale's song was dying softly, tenderly, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... freeze between kitchen and dining room. Even while Belding carved it the gravy began to stiffen. Behind Clark was a glowing fireplace, ineffectual against the outside temperature, the windows were white with frost and the whole house seemed to creak. ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... say something more until I began to wonder, then to get impatient, that he let the horse jog along, the soft creak of the gig keeping time with the leisurely motions of the pampered beast, the master's eyes fixed upon the wheel he was tapping with his whip, as if he had forgotten ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... man, after all,' said the Owl sententiously. And then there came by a British manufacturer, in a gold watch-chain and patent creaking leather boots, warranted to creak everywhere without losing tone. ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep—or, it may be, broad awake—with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, would become ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... them was an abstract light. He could talk about Persia and the Trade winds, the Reform Bill and the cycle of the harvests. Books were on his shelves by Wells and Shaw; on the table serious six-penny weeklies written by pale men in muddy boots—the weekly creak and screech of brains rinsed in cold water and ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... three light and active men—archers—to attempt the enterprise. These stripped off their steel caps and breastpieces, so that they might move more quickly, and when the French fires burned low and all was quiet save the creak of the machine and the dull heavy blows of the stones against the wall, the three men were lowered by ropes at different points, and started on their enterprise. A quarter of an hour later the garrison heard shouts ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... as she slid through the door, drawing her rich draperies ruthlessly after. Her fingers were trembling so that she scarcely could fit the key in the lock again and turn it, and every click of the metal, every creak of the door, sounded like a gong in her ears. Her heart was fluttering wildly and the blood seemed to be pouring in torrents behind her ear-drums. She could not be sure whether there were noises in the room she had just left or not. ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... the oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house, is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. The toll is paid,—creak, creak, again go the wheels, and the huge haymow vanishes into the morning mist. As yet, nature is but half awake, and familiar objects appear visionary. But yonder, dashing from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, which ...
— The Toll Gatherer's Day (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... be cooked, and the fire had long gone out. A windmilly country this, though the windmills are so damp and rickety, that they nearly knock themselves off their legs at every turn of their sails, and creak in loud complaint. A weaving country, too, for in the wayside cottages the loom goes wearily—rattle and click, rattle and click—and, looking in, I see the poor weaving peasant, man or woman, bending at ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... shuffling footstep in the room above, and then a creak from the steps, and then another creak, and another. I saw Jim's face as if it had been carved out of ivory, with his parted lips and his staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the stair opening. He still held the light, but his fingers twitched, and with every twitch the shadows sprang ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the Fight—but if I have dreamed aright, 'Twas a loud one and a long, as ever thundered through! Right stiffly, past a doubt, the Dragon fought it out, And his Angels, each and all, did for Tophet their devoir— There was creak of iron wings, and whirl of scorpion stings, Hiss of bifid tongues, and the Pit in full uproar! But, naught thereof enscrolled, in one brief line 'tis told (Calm as dew the Apocalyptic Pen), That on the Infinite Shore their place was found no more. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... l'Intendant. La Potherie, who visited Quebec in 1698, and Charlevoix, who writes in 1720, describe this district as the most beautiful in the city. Instead of the crowded quays of to-day there was a terraced lawn bordered with flower gardens; and where now the winches creak and rattle, and the railway engines hiss and scream, birds sang among willow-trees, and the Angelus echoed through a quiet woodland. Across the St. Charles lay the well-ordered grounds of the Jesuit monastery, and farther to the west the lonely spire of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... that can make a night seem so long. The distant click of the elevator, depositing a night-hawk. A plong of the bed spring. Somebody's cough. A train's shriek. The jerk of plumbing. A window being raised. That creak which lies hidden in every darkness, like a mysterious knee-joint. By three o'clock she was a quivering victim to these petty concepts, and her pillow so explored that not a spot but what was rumpled to the aching lay ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the house, jangled on, and, in a series of after-tinkles, died away. There was no immediate answering sound; the silence persisted, and having waited for some time, he rang again. Then, in the distance, he heard a door creak; soft, cautious footsteps crept along the passage; a light moved; the glass window in the upper half of the door was opened, and a little old woman peered out, holding a candle above her head. On seeing ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... fend off all shadows, did the midnight find him in his solitary hangar in the moonlit woods, a deeply desponding figure again. Beside him, swung the huge machine which represented a life of power and luxury; but he no longer saw it. It called to him with many a creak and quiet snap,—sounds to start his blood and fire his eye a week—nay, a day ago. But he was deaf to this music now; the call went unheeded; the future had no further meaning, for him, nor did he know ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the lamp to his own room, shaking his fist at himself for allowing his mother's door to creak. He pulled up his blind. The town lay as still as salt. But a steady light showed in the south, and on pressing his face against the window he saw another in the west. Mr. Carfrae's words about the night-watch came back to him. Perhaps it had been on such a silent night ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... because, being the leader, he is the only one who would walk that way at such a time. I think he wants to see for himself or rather feel just where they are. Now he too stops, and some one walks forward to join him. It is a Frenchman, because he has on boots. I can hear just the faintest creak of the leather. ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as usual, making things neat; and whereas, five minutes sooner, he would have hated the notion of any one coming near him, he now only hoped that his mother would bring Mr. Cope up; and presently he heard the well- known creak of the stairs under a manly foot, and his mother's voice saying something about ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you will hurl. A murky vapour thickens night. Hark! Through the woods the tempests roar! The owlets flit in wild affright. Hark! Splinter'd are the columns that upbore The leafy palace, green for aye: The shivered branches whirr and sigh, Yawn the huge trunks with mighty groan. The roots upriven, creak and moan! In fearful and entangled fall, One crashing ruin whelms them all, While through the desolate abyss, Sweeping the, wreck-strewn precipice, The raging storm-blasts howl and hiss! Aloft strange voices dost thou hear? Distant ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... eaves, and a stone chimney was embedded irregularly in its log side. The windmill, towering its conical roof and rusty weather-vane a little distance off, and stretching out its gray skeleton arms as if to creak more freely in the sweep of gales from the river, was one of those rembrandtesque relics which prove so picturesquely that Time is an artist inimitable by man. A clay oven near the cot completed this group of erections, around and behind which the silver birches ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... looked to me like Red-Head Sammy Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor." How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more, With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos Stirred in my brain by crows and robins And the creak of a wind-mill—only these? And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... Hardy, whom he had left fast asleep, and whom he now was extremely afraid of awakening. All the apples were emptied out of Loveit's pockets, and lodged with Tarlton till the morning, for fear the smell should betray the secret to Hardy. The room door was apt to creak, but it was opened with such precaution, that no noise could be heard, and Loveit found his friend as fast asleep as when he ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... out on Shooters' Hill Sunset the time, the place the same declivity Which looks along that vale of good and ill Where London streets ferment in full activity; While everything around was calm and still Except the creak of wheels which on their pivot he Heard—and that bee-like, babbling, busy hum Of cities, that boil over with ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... early to bed, and offered to sleep in a separate room if his return late was likely to disturb her. She agreed that, perhaps, that would be best. So, at about eleven-thirty that night, Dion made his way to their spare room, walking tentatively lest a board should creak and ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... come away! — for the scenes we leave behind us Are barren for the lights of home and a flame that's young forever; And the lonely trees around us creak the warning of the night-wind, That love and all the dreams of love are away beyond the mountains. The songs that call for us to-night, they have called for men before us, And the winds that blow the message, they have blown ten thousand years; But this ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... mother nature has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes in her dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows us upstairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... fastened to an upright stick just in front of me in the canoe. In the shadow of the shores all was black as Egypt; but out in the middle the outlines of the pond could be followed vaguely by the heavy cloud of woods against the lighter sky. The stillness was intense; every slightest sound,—the creak of a bough or the ripple of a passing musquash, the plunk of a water drop into the lake or the snap of a rotten twig, broken by the weight of clinging mist,—came to the strained ear with startling suddenness. Then, as I waited and sifted the night sounds, ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... was dumbfounded. Scared and attentive, she listened in a maze for the sound of the front door. She heard it open. But was it possible that she heard also the creak of the gate? She sprang to the bow window with surprising activity, and pulled aside a blind, one inch.... There was Rachel tripping hatless and in her best frock down the street! Inconceivable vision, affecting Mrs. Maldon with palpitation! A girl ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... second machine ground deeper into the mud and loose stones, throwing them and the water up into the air and even onto the cover of the machine. The towing-rope continued to creak ominously. ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... a sharp creak and a swish of branches as the tree came down, and the boys now rushed over to help tie up ...
— Christmas Holidays at Merryvale - The Merryvale Boys • Alice Hale Burnett
... flesh. Now Eric knew for the first time the awful reality of intense pain; he had determined to utter no sound, to give no sign; but when the horrible rope fell on him, griding across his back, and making his body literally creak under the blow, he quivered like an aspen-leaf in every limb, and could not suppress the harrowing murmur, "O God, help me, ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... shook the farmhouse and danced and howled to its crazy castanetting. There was a creak in the hallway beyond. Last night, too, when he had been talking to Wherry, there had been such a creak and for the moment, he recalled vividly, there had been no wind. Then, disturbed by Dick's utter collapse, he had carelessly dismissed it. Now with his brain dangerously ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... stream gave up its scent of crushed marigolds strongly enough to pierce through the smells of the ship and the smells of the crowded chattering negroes on the fore-deck, and the old steamer began to groan and creak as she lifted to the South Atlantic swell. The sun went down, and night followed like the turning out of a lamp. The lighthouse flickered out on the Portuguese shore away on the port bow, and above it hung the Southern Cross, a pale faint thing, ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... were absorbed in a discussion of the utter impossibility of bringing next month's allowance or salary within speaking distance of last month's bills, a subject which admitted of no argument but which interested them deeply. So after all they did not hear the rumble and creak of the rustic stairway, nor the quick steps crossing the garden on the roof of the sun parlor for Nolan was forgotten until his sharp tap on the glass was followed by the instant appearance of his head, and his pleasant voice said in tones of ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... they would creak less," snapped Miss Panney. "How are things going on at Cobhurst? What ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... noise," returned the man; but almost as he spoke a slow shambling step made the floor-boards of the old piazza creak and a heavy hand was laid ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... never expected that Suyodhana would win success and prosperity or that thou thyself wouldst be afflicted with the fear of Karna! Thou ridest upon an excellent car constructed by the celestial artificer himself, with axles that do not creak, and with standard that bears the ape. Thou bearest a sword attached to thy belt of gold and silk. This thy bow Gandiva is full six cubits long. Thou hast Keshava for thy driver. Why, then, through fear of Karna hast thou ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... gate; Still resists its iron weight, And still, all deadly aimed and hot, From every crevice comes the shot; 940 From every shattered window pour The volleys of the sulphurous shower: But the portal wavering grows and weak— The iron yields, the hinges creak— It bends—it falls—and all is o'er; Lost ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... answer or seem to hear, and now Judith gave up asking questions. Carried along at his side in silence, she listened to the muffled creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, hushed by the steady and sleepy sound of it, half closing her eyes. His left arm was behind her shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel it there, warm and strong. Breathing when he breathed, her heart beating in time with his, swinging far to ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... things requires it. I, for instance, I am loved by women. I don't call them, I don't lure them, they come to me of themselves." He seated himself on a bag of flour and told us how the women loved him and how he handled them boldly. Then he went away, and when the door closed behind him with a creak, we were silent for a long time, thinking of him and of his stories. And then suddenly we all began to speak, and it became clear at once that he pleased every one of us. Such a kind and plain fellow. He came, sat awhile ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... suit-cases were carefully arranged, and they were off,—off in the beautiful Harmer,—off to the country,—to the mountains and canyons,—to climb one of the sunny slopes that had beckoned to them so enticingly. Almost they held their breath at first, afraid the first creak of the car would waken them from the ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... more, and in a few minutes she tripped down stairs, and when her mamma followed soon after, she heard the creak of Fay's little rocking chair, and the words, "Sleep, baby, sleep," which told her as she peeped through a crack in the door, that Susy was getting her last lullaby from the fond little mother, who at the proper time presented Susy all dressed ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 2, February 1888 • Various
... of old print and old bindings, and looked up into the high, light vaults that hung over quiet book-laden galleries, alcoves and tables, and glazed cases where rarer treasures gleamed more vaguely, over busts of benefactors and portraits of worthies, bowed heads of working students and the gentle creak of passing messengers—as he took possession, in a comprehensive glance, of the wealth and wisdom of the place, he felt more than ever the soreness of an opportunity missed; but he abstained from expressing it (it was too deep for that), and in a moment Verena had ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... Bechamel went back to the dining-room. They heard a chair creak under him. Interlude of ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... a belated carrier who, since his cart was empty and he upon his return journey, dared to be upon the road at night. There was no moon, and in the starlight Walter Skinner could see but imperfectly. "And who art thou?" he demanded loftily, "that thou shouldest creak and rumble along over the road and block the way of a rising man? The sun doth rise, and why not I? Only the sun riseth not in the middle of the night, and neither will I. Nay, verily, but I will wait to rise till I be come to London town. And so I bid thee, whoever thou art, make place ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... said Dorothy, "and he's remembering more of it all the time. But I wonder why there are no people here. I do hope we meet some before night." But no person did they meet. As it grew darker, Sir Hokus' armor began to creak in a quite frightful manner. Armor is not meant for walking, and the poor Knight was stiff and tired, but he ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... short seas. There wasn't anything to be seen, but it seemed to him that the sheet made a queer noise in the blocks. It was a new manilla sheet; and in dry weather it did make a little noise, something between a creak and a wheeze. I looked at it and looked at the man, and said nothing; and presently he went on. He asked me if I didn't notice anything peculiar about the noise. I listened awhile, and said I didn't notice anything. ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... held our breath. There was a minute of silence, but it was broken by the creak of a board as one of ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... a perforated lung, my liver is a swelling sponge, eating crowds my waistband like a balloon, I have a swimming in my head and a sinking at my heart, and I can not say litany for happy release from these for my knees creak with rheumatism. The devil has done his worst, Robert, for these are his—plague and pestilence, being final, are the will of God—and, upon my soul, it is an absurd comedy of ills!" At that he had a fit of coughing, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... on into the dining-room. Mrs. Thorne knocked, in a whisper as it were. There was no answer. She softly unlatched the door, and a draft of air crept through, widening it with a prolonged and wistful creak. The sleeper did not stir. She had changed her pillows to the foot of the bed, and was lying in the full light, with her window-curtains drawn. In all the room there was an air of abandonment, an exhausted memory of the night's despairing heat. Mrs. Thorne stepped across the matting, and ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... each suffered horribly, and each was well aware of the other's real feelings. Sometimes there was a lull, and they could almost believe that the whole thing was over. And then the old machine gave a creak, and the rusty cog-wheels took one more turn, and they both felt the horrid thing which ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... in his hairy grasp, than turn and die of the seeing. The night was dark—no moon and many clouds. Not a sound came from the close. The cattle, the horses, the pigs, the cocks and hens, the very cats and rats seemed asleep. There was not a rustle in the thatch, a creak in the couples. It was well, for the slightest noise would have brought his heart into his mouth, and he would have been in great danger of scaring the household, and for ever disgracing himself, with a shriek. Yet he longed to ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... said nothing; but as she knew the creak of every board in the room overhead she became aware shortly afterwards that the Rector had either diverged slightly from the path of which he was the ordained finger-post, or that he had suddenly taken to keeping his pocket-handkerchiefs in the far ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... maddened by that evil sight, Dark, horrible, confused, and strange, A chaos of wild, weltering change, All power of check and guidance gone, Dizzy and blind, his mind swept on. In vain he strove to breathe a prayer, In vain he turned the Holy Book, He only heard the gallows-stair Creak as the wind its timbers shook. No dream for him of sin forgiven, While still that baleful spectre stood, With its hoarse murmur, "Blood for Blood!" Between him ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... again and went out with Kirillovna. Lizaveta Prohorovna walked up and down the room once or twice and rang the bell again. This time a page appeared. She told him to fetch Kirillovna. A few moments later Kirillovna came in with a faint creak of ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... had a cubicle six feet square, the partitions consisting at the top of open bars. The doors, fitted with gratings, were locked at night and opened in the morning under the eye of the Father whose duty it was to superintend our rising and going to bed. The creak of these gates, which the college servants unlocked with remarkable expedition, was a sound peculiar to that college. These little cells were our prison, and boys were sometimes shut up there for a month at a time. The boys in these coops ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... to me: "These orange cloaks Are made of lead so heavy, that the weights Cause in this way their balances to creak. ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... has been no occasion for forgiveness of sins. Every vessel has hastened into harbor, or cast anchor in mid-stream, and the watchmen can sleep in peace as long as this wind makes the joints of their wooden huts creak. No ship can travel now, and yet the corporal of the Ogradina watch-house has a fancy that ever since day-break, amidst the blustering wind and roaring waters, he can detect the peculiar signal tones which the speaking-trumpet sends for many miles, and which are not drowned even by the voice ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... rest my busy wheel?" the spinner seemed to creak, "when I know my children are without stockings? Who keeps me here idle ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the dressing-room door; she started and swung round on her heels as there came a knock at the door of the bedroom, the creak of the handle turning. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... stirred. I was glad enough, however, on reaching the stairs, to find them newly built and the carpet thick. Up I went with a glance at every step for the table which now hid the brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircase till I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loose stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my heart for a moment, and then set ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... jackets, stubby little shoes, and go-to-meeting hats all in a row. From below came up the sound of childish voices chattering, childish feet trotting to and fro, and childish laughter sounding sweetly through the Sabbath stillness of the place. From a room near by, came the soothing creak of a rocking-chair, the rustle of a newspaper, and now and then a scrap of conversation common-place enough, but pleasant to hear, because so full of domestic love and confidence; and, as she listened, Christie pictured Mrs. Wilkins and her husband taking their rest together after ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... well! In another moment the whole floor, with a great, sobbing creak, swayed, gave way, and fell into the burning gulf of fire below. The flames with a horrible roar rushed up, filling the upper space where the chamber floor had been; seizing on the window-shutters, mantel-piece, door-frames, and all the timbers attached to the walls; and finally streaming ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... level with his window, everything was prepared for his escape. The executioner was got out of the way; a hole contrived under the floor of his apartment; I myself was beneath the funeral vault, which I heard all at once creak beneath ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... bed creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, repeated as regularly as the breath might come and ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... the stairs had ceased to creak under the departing feet did Grandma again open her lips. She had seemed to be thinking intently, as if making up her mind how to begin. Perhaps she was praying for guidance, Barrie told herself; but the morning and evening prayers in the dining-room with a few servants ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he laid his finger on his nose—lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, elles se cassent les reins—they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... met for a parle on some plan To better ail-stricken mankind; I catch their cheepings, though thinner than The overhead creak of a passager's pinion ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... came in for the first time to see her, Rose knew. Harriet was living here now, running the house for Rodney, while Rose was laid up. Doing it beautifully well, too, through all the confusion of nurses and all. Not the slightest jar or creak of their complex domestic machinery ever reached Rose in the big chamber where she lay. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... this, having escaped so many dangers of the kind last autumn, but by degrees the pressure increased alarmingly. We were jammed against a great ice-field which was still fast to the shore. In a few moments the sides of our little vessel began to creak and groan loudly. The men laboured like tigers at the ice-poles, but in vain. We heard a loud report in the cabin. No one knows what it was, but I suppose it must have been the breaking of a large bolt. At any rate it was followed by a series of crashes and reports that ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... heard no more of that Than if it had been a boatswain's cat; And as for the clock the moments nicking, The dame only gave it credit for ticking. The bark of her dog she did not catch; Nor yet the click of the lifted latch; Nor yet the creak of the opening door; Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor - But she saw the shadow that crept on her gown And turned its skirt of ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... and Mr. Guppy tries to compose himself before the fire for waiting a long time. But in no more than a minute or two the stairs creak and Tony comes ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... said Mary's voice behind him, as the door began to bulge and creak. There was plainly a tremendous struggle in the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... quite alone in that solitary tower. I was much flattered by Mr. Bartlett's politeness to a total stranger, but, summoning all my courage, replied that I was not in the least afraid. Thereupon they all took their leave; I heard the door creak, the bolt was drawn, and the ladder removed, and I was left to my meditations for ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... emperor had fallen asleep, the beds began to creak, and amid this creaking the empress fancied she heard words ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... Her appearance of majesty was somewhat lessened by the creak of stays, but her instinct for unpleasantness was always good. She said nothing as she left them, and she plodded up-stairs with a ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... lair. He peeped over to assure himself of her complete somnolence. Satisfied that Mex would not likely be roused by any slight disturbance, he stole to the front door and undid the fastenings so softly that not a creak of the bolt sliding from its staple was heard even by his own quick ear. But when he swung the door open, providing for his ready escape, the hinges gave out a complaining sigh. The sound was faint, but it startled Mex. She raised her drowsy ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... The great gulf storm had not yet reached its climax, and none could tell what pitch of fury that might mean. The dull jar of the boat as she time and again was flung down by the waves, the shiver and creak and groan of the sturdy craft, told us that the end might come at any instant, though now the anchor held firm and our crawl on to the shoal had ceased. All around us was water only four or five feet deep, but water whose waves were twice as high. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... and watching. They used to be great friends of her grandmother's. Oh no; if I could go to see them they would insist upon my going into the best room, and we should all be quite uncomfortable. It is much better to sit here and think about them and hear their flat-irons creak away over the little boys' jackets ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... easy chairs, with such high backs, and so carved out, and with arms on both sides. "Sit down! sit down!" said they. "Ugh! how I creak; now I shall certainly get the gout, like ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... this sense, even where it is wrong; because at least it does give a system, and therefore forces its opponents to present an alternative system, instead of simply cutting a hole in the shoe when it pinches, or striking out the driving wheel because it happens to creak unpleasantly. And I think so the more because I cannot but observe that whenever a real economic question presents itself, it has to be argued on pretty much the old principles, unless we take the ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... might, sleep would not come that night; an unaccountable feeling of restlessness and of vague apprehension had him in its grip. Hour after hour he lay, listening irritably to the snoring of his fellow-shepherd, Borthwick, starting nervously at every scraping of rat or creak of timber. At last, long after midnight, he rose and looked out. The wind had fallen, but snow still fell; there was nothing abnormal in the night, and the weather might have been described as merely "seasonable." But away ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will hear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem to be alive. Crack! That is the old chest of drawers; you never hear it crack in the daytime. Creak! There's a door ajar; you know you shut ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... are making the floor creak, and stopping there. I open my eyes. A woman is before me. Ah! the sight of her throws me into infinite confusion! She is the woman of my vision. Was it true, then? I look at her with wide-open eyes. She ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... Dickie, and when everybody was asleep, Edred got up and dressed. He put his bedroom candle and matches in his pocket, crept down-stairs and out of the house and up to Beale's. It was a slow and nervous business. More than once on the staircase he thought he heard a stair creak behind him, and again and again as he went along the road he fancied he heard a soft footstep pad-padding behind him, but of course when he looked round he could see no one was there. So presently he decided that it was cowardly to keep looking round, and besides, it only made him ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... on one sheave of his deck winch. He took out a cigarette and lighted it, swung one foot back and forth. He did not make haste to reply. An expectant hush fell on the crowd. In the slow-gathering dusk there was no sound but the creak of rubbing gunwales, the low snore of the sea breaking against the cliffs, and the chug-chug of the last stragglers beating into ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... smoke, whose billows rise and swell, Thrust through by seething swords of flame that roar like blasts from hell; A floor whose charring timbers groan and creak beneath the tread, With starting planks that, gaping, show long lines of sullen red; Great, hissing, scalding jets of steam that, lifting now, disclose A crouching figure gripping tight the nozzle of a hose, The dripping, ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... slowly, but steadily, my guide seeming to know the way, and presently he opened a door with only a slight creak, and then ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... the floor, but no knob came to view. But a bent nail was handy, and this he inserted into the hole sideways, and pulled with all his force. There was a slight creak, and a small door came open, revealing a dark closet about a foot ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield
... there scarcely came the distant noises of the city, which filtered in like a pale sound; it was as quiet as in a remote hamlet; now and then a dog would bark, some cart would creak as it bumped along the road, then silence would be restored and in the kitchen nothing would be heard save the glu glu of the pot, ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... repeated the Inglez, 'tidings of Pepito—wait—' So I did wait, congratulating myself on the success of my scheme, and handling my knife with a confident expectation of making sure work of my man, when I heard the floor creak, and looking through the key-hole, I saw the confounded Inglez cocking a pistol and putting a fresh cap on it. And do you know, General, it somehow happened that when he opened the door, I was at the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... at last with a sigh, oppressed by the creak of the banister where Adam had sat, sinister and silent in his wheel-chair, listening to the music. Memories were crowding thick upon him. Again and again he wished that he had never opened the door of the sitting room that other night and caught the old man off his guard. It had left a specter ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... cheeks would dimple with the gladness o' the moment, an' then his eyes would sadden as he thought of all the good eatin' he had missed by not knowin' the proper kind o' diplomacy to use in handlin' a cook. An' me!—say, I mowed away until my skin begun to creak under the strain an' I couldn't roll my eyes more'n two degrees. Then I got up an' I ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
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