"Crackling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a most exhilarating splutter, flaring and crackling all along the edge of the wood, and even attracted the attention of the Boers. All of a sudden there was a furious rush and roar overhead; two or three little cassarina trees and a shower of branches fell to the ground. What on earth could ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... domes! Thy fruitful fields and peaceful homes. The hunter, thus, who long has toil'd O'er mountain rude, and forest wild, Turns from the dark and cheerless way, Where howls the savage beast of prey, To where yon curls of smoke aspire, Where briskly burns his crackling fire; Towards his cot delighted moves, Cheer'd by the voice of those he loves, And welcom'd by domestic smiles, Sings cheerly, and forgets ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the day all too short, too fleeting. And by night about the crackling camp fire our happy voices, all united, are uplifted in song and roundelay. So, at length, wearied but happy, we seek repose in refreshing slumber until the rising sun or orb of day summons us to fresh ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... through the crackling underbrush till the trees hid her and the noise of her going died away, till she was so far off that we heard the rain drops drip from the boughs and the horses ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... pounds are we nearer the string-bean state of existence, Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the blouse, in the nicest voice in the world, fairly crackling with friendship and good humor and hateful things like that. Why I should have wanted him to huff over that letter is more than I can say. But I ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of this sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur's rowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which in spite of its matter-of-fact reality the obscurity lent a ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... was gone, and before the crackling logs on the andirons in the library Mary Cary, on her knees, held out her hands to their blaze and nodded ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... fifty yards of them, when the fire was opened upon them; the fire was answered by loud yells, and the savages had already reached to the bottom of the sloping pile of faggots, when the yells and the reports of the muskets were drowned by a much louder report, followed by the crackling and breaking of the cocoa-nut trees, which made both parties start with surprise; another and another followed, the ground was ploughed up, and the ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... the doctor laughing. "Perhaps it would go better, my boy, if the dampers were not shut up tight. All it needs is a little draught,—see?" And in a moment there was a comfortable crackling sound ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... ledge beneath her, and at once perceived that she stood directly over the object of her search. A hole through its roof afforded a passage to the smoke, which, as it blew aside, showed her a clear and cheerful fire crackling and snapping on a rude hearth of stone. The approach to the front of the hut was by a winding path around the point of the rock on which she stood, and by this, she ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... these strips was held closely against the ear, and a loud sound proceeded from it whenever the other slip was touched with the other hand. The strips of brass were next held one in each hand. The induced currents occasioned a muscular tremor in the fingers. Upon placing my forefinger to my ear a loud crackling noise was audible, seemingly proceeding from the finger itself. A friend who was present placed my finger to his ear, but heard nothing. I requested him to hold the strips himself. He was then distinctly conscious of a noise (which I was unable to perceive) ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... bacon into a frying-pan. The weight of his loss was in the tired packer's eyes and face and the listless droop of his shoulders. John Aldous, with three hours between the blankets to his credit, was as cheery as the crackling fire itself. He had wanted to whistle for the last half-hour. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... could see a deep, valley whence arose the bluish glare of what seemed to be a countless number of enormous, burning mounds; and after drawing nigh, I knew by their howling that they were men piled mountains high with terrible flames crackling through them. "That hollow," said the Angel, "is the abode of those who after committing some heinous deeds, exclaim: 'Well, I am not the first—I have plenty of companions,' and thus thou see'st they have plenty, to verify their words and add to their affliction." Opposite this was a ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... invisible reproducer came a sharp, metallic crackling like machine-gun bullets rattling on a tin roof. The sparks on the screen became violently agitated, pushing around in erratic circles and ellipses. They glowed constantly in shades of bright green through the blues into the deep ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... crackling in the telephone, like twigs under a pot, and it seemed as though a tiny voice were speaking ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... pointed to the line of the horizon, which had hitherto been of grey, lead-coloured vapour. It was now becoming reddish in the south-west quarter, and the vapour had taken the appearance of smoke. At the same time we heard a sort of distant crackling, like a heavy running-fire of musketry, and which was repeated at short intervals. Each time it was heard, our horses appeared ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... "O'er crackling ice, o'er gulfs profound, With nimble glide the skaters play; O'er treacherous pleasure's flow'ry ground Thus lightly ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... for a loud crackling sound came from the place he had so lately left, and, to his horror, he saw the wreck crumble away and begin to sink steadily beneath the surface, long rafters raising their ends in the air and then diving down out of sight, while several shot by him, one of which he seized and held on to, ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... into the apartment in stately fashion, her black silk gown crackling pleasantly as she walked, and seated herself very primly, as befitted her ancestry and bringing-up, in one of the stiff, high-backed chairs. And presently the parson, his garden clothes off and his best coat on, came in hurriedly to ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... rifle on the hill Rang in his ears: and stung to headlong flight, He started to his feet; and through the brake He plunged in panic, heedless of the sun That burned his cropped head to a red-hot ache Still racked with crackling echoes of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... flying snow, and leave us staring blindly into vacancy. A long fringe of icicles hung round the visor of my cap, and my clothes, drenched with the heavy rain of the previous day, froze into a stiff crackling armour of ice upon my body. Blinded by the snow, with benumbed limbs and chattering teeth, I mounted my horse and let him go where he would, only entreating the guide to hurry and get down somewhere off from this exposed ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... stones for his own palaces. Even in his descriptive passages the dream-character of his scenery is notorious; it is not the clear, recognisable scenery of Wordsworth, but a landscape that hovers athwart the heat and haze arising from his crackling fantasies. The materials for such visionary Edens have evidently been accumulated from direct experience, but they are recomposed by him into such scenes as never had mortal eye beheld. "Don't you wish you had?" as Turner said. The ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... Moss, Rotha was then sitting alone, save for the silent presence of the unconscious Mrs. Ray. The day's work was done. It had been market day, and Willy Ray had not returned from Gaskarth. The old house was quiet within, and not a breath of wind was stirring without. There was no sound except the crackling of the dry boughs on the fire and the hollow drip ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... him, there was a moment of silence. The steps of the child and his companion were heard on the frozen gravel, and dying away, left no sound save the crackling of the fire, the chirps of the sparrows on the eaves, the distant pianos, and an indistinct murmur of voices—the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... it was gone. From somewhere in another direction came a sharp, continual, crackling fusillade, like the snapping of dry bamboo-joints in a fire. The unstirring night grew heavier with the smell of burnt gunpowder. But Rudolph, sitting in the mud, felt only that his eyes were dry and leaden ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... least breath of air drove waves of gold. The light was so intense that the golden tone of the grain whitened in places and became silvery. In the rich mud of the Nile the grain had grown strong, straight, and high like javelins, and never had a richer harvest, flaming and crackling with heat, been outspread in the sun. The crop was abundant enough to fill up to the ceiling the range of vaulted granaries which ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... and I had a very soft and pleasant bed, so I soon fell into a heavy sleep. But I waked up at the slightest noise. Once Miss Laura turned in bed, and another time Miss Bessie laughed in her sleep, and again, there were queer crackling noises in the frosty limbs of the trees outside, that made me start up ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... conflagration of 1872; to my own congregation in the fiery downfall of the Tabernacle. Some saw in the flames that roared through its organ pipes a requiem, nothing but unmitigated disaster, while others of us heard the voice of God, as from Heaven, sounding through the crackling thunder of that awful day, saying, "He shall baptise you with the Holy ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... everything—both my husband's luggage and mine—was being taken into the large bedroom. A maid asked if she ought to put a light to the fire, and I said "Yes . . . no . . . yes," and presently I heard the fire crackling. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... and the hemlocks began to sob they had not returned. The little man sat close to his companion, the campfire, and encouraged it with logs. He puffed fiercely at a heavy built brier, and regarded a thousand shadows which were about to assault him. Suddenly he heard the approach of the unknown, crackling the twigs and rustling the dead leaves. The little man arose slowly to his feet, his clothes refused to fit his back, his pipe dropped from his mouth, his knees smote each other. "Hah!" he bellowed hoarsely in menace. A growl replied and a bear paced into the light ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... were a nobler occupation; weaving ropes of sand were better sport. The only things that are worth writing are inexpressible, and can't be written. The only things that can be written are obvious and worthless—the very crackling of thorns under a pot. Oh, why ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... body is left for our inspection. A mere suicide would not have caused him to send for me. As to the release of the lady, it would appear that she has been locked in her room during the tragedy. We are moving in high life, Watson, crackling paper, 'E.B.' monogram, coat-of-arms, picturesque address. I think that friend Hopkins will live up to his reputation, and that we shall have an interesting morning. The crime was committed before twelve ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting little tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor, and its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a comfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights as these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping their wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... amended it (though no such lack would have been noted or resented by Johnny himself). Bref, he knew what they all were without going to see. And as for "society," it rustled flimsily, like tissue-paper; bright, in a way, but still thin and crackling. ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... floundering through the snow, she reached the spot. A large pile of dry wood had already been collected by her husband and was ready for lighting, and in a few moments the heroic woman was warming her shivering limbs before a fire which blazed far up through the crackling branches and lighted the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... sacred word of honour," said the beast, casually scorching an eagle that flew by into ashes. The cinders fell, jingling and crackling, round the prince ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... pines at the very edge of the river forming as picturesque a camp-ground as I have ever seen. A brilliant moon hung over the canyon, lighting up the foam of the water in strong contrast to the red fire crackling its accompaniment to the roar of the rapid. A lunar rainbow danced fairy-like in the mists rising from the turmoil of the river. The night air was calm and mild. Prof. read aloud from Hiawatha and ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... was the very world of the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and bubbling with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed in fantastic painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob, parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and sputtering under the hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. Tony, agape, shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, spite of the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no undercurrent of clownishness, ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... Wabigoon soon followed their companion's example, and half an hour later nothing but the crackling of the fire disturbed the stillness of the camp. Mukoki was as regular as clockwork in his rising, and an hour before dawn he was up and preparing breakfast. When his young comrades aroused themselves they found the ducks they had shot the preceding day roasting on spits over the fire, and ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... condemned cell maintained his firmness, resolutely asserting his innocence of any capital crime and persistently refusing to give up his band. As a last motive of confession, the paper written by Gabriel Le Noir upon his death-bed was shown him. He laughed a loud, crackling laugh, and said that was all true, but that he, for his part, never had intended to harm a hair of Capitola's head; that he had taken a fancy to the girl when he had first seen her, and had only wanted to carry her off and force her into a marriage with himself; ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... was at its height about midnight, and had reached a large tree in a line with our house, when the wind from the lake caught and drove it back. The underbrush soon burnt out, but the trees were like pillars of flame, crackling and roaring in the silent night, till they fell with a crash to the ground. Half roused by the noise, old Cahill would mutter something about keeping watch until the master came home. The old fellow had wrapped himself in his great-coat, and was sitting on a chair in the yard ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... abuse of NERO, that when Rome was in flame he accompanied the crackling of doors and rafters with his very best fiddle. We grant this showed a want of fine sympathy on the part of NERO; there was, nevertheless, a boldness, an exhibition of nerve, in such instrumentation. Any way, it leaves us with a higher respect for NERO than if he had been found playing on the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... dwell; Neglected, or unfortunate, they called me; Of joy incapable, or ignorant, To think my lot the common lot of all, Mankind, the partner in my misery. At length, amid the odor of cigars, The crackling sound of dainty pastry, and The orders loud for ices and for drinks, 'Midst clinking glasses, and 'midst brandished spoons, The daily light of the gazettes flashed full On my dim eyes. I saw and recognized The public joy, and the felicity Of human destiny. The lofty state ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... Richard pushed the crackling, stiffly-folded parchments, the letters frayed and yellow with age, the broken-backed, discoloured diaries and order-books, away from him, and sat, his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands, thinking. And the travail of his spirit was great, as it needs must ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... counted ten and threw up the sponge. The voice at the telephone became louder and more insistent. Flushed, hot and flurried, the G.S.O.3 thrust the receiver into the hands of the G.S.O.2, who handed it on to the General, who dropped it. Nobody spoke. Only the crackling and cackling voice could be heard from the receiver as it hung face downwards at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... to laugh sometimes—wisely if one can; if not, quocumque modo! There are seasons when even "the crackling of thorns under a pot" has its uses. It seems to warm the pot—all the pots—and all the emptiness thereof, if they ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... only their appearance and their character to his satire, but also their work. I despaired of ever expressing myself with such aptness or with such fluency. In those days conversation was still cultivated as an art; a neat repartee was more highly valued than the crackling of thorns under a pot; and the epigram, not yet a mechanical appliance by which the dull may achieve a semblance of wit, gave sprightliness to the small talk of the urbane. It is sad that I can remember nothing of all this scintillation. But I think the conversation never ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... daughter Mary stayed to guard the little children, because it was not safe there from wolves. We therefore made a blazing fire, sat ourselves around it, and heard the little folks say the Ten Commandments, when there was a rustling and crackling behind us, and my daughter jumped up and ran into the cavern, crying, "Proh dolor hostis!" [Our author afterwards explains the learned education of the maiden.] But it was only some of the able-bodied men who had stayed behind in the village, and who now came to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... on the water and a long drive are excellent preparatives for a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp and brown before the crackling hickory fire, of smoking spare-ribs and luscious tripe, of rich, fragrant Java coffee with boiled milk and cream; nor does a sound night's sleep unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition of the same, substituting link sausages and black pudding ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether displeasing to him. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... distant sounds from the village street round the corner, the chiming of the church clock, the crackling of the fire close beside her—she heard everything there was to hear, with unusual sharpness of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... around the crack in the door and the air was hot and suffocating. Somewhere the sound of crackling, snapping wood, the lurid ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... seized his horn, which lay near, and blew thereon three shrill notes that echoed against the trees. A moment of silence ensued, and then was heard the rustling of leaves and crackling of twigs like the coming of many men; and forth from the glade burst a score or two of stalwart yeomen, all clad in Lincoln green, like Robin, with good Will Stutely and the widow's three ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... way for the on-coming storm. Drop by drop, spattering, dashing, and at last crashing, comes the storm, the gathering gloom rent with the lightning, the "fire that ran along upon the ground," and the music fairly quivering and crackling with the wrath of the elements. But the storm passes, the gloom deepens, and we are lost in that vague, uncertain combination of tones where voices and instruments seem to be groping about, comprised in the marvellously expressive chorus, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... entered my room with a lighted candle in my hand, there came an awful crash at the window—the glass and framework were shivered to atoms, and in the current of air that rushed through the room, my light went out. Then there came a crackling, breaking sound from the branches of the old apple tree beneath my window; then a scraping on the bricks and window-ledge; then more splintering of glass and window-frame: the blind broke away at the top, and my toilet ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... it off and handed it to him. He took it and read the words, "You—told—a—lie." This was the bitterest moment in his life. He was only to know one more bitter, and it would come soon. He weighed the ring up and down in his palm and laughed a dry, crackling laugh. ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... his hand; perhaps meditating on the same subject. He had ceased drinking at a point below irrationality, and had neither stirred nor spoken during two or three hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed. It was very, very sad: and while I read I sighed, for it seemed ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... to the chair for murder, what good will it do Eve?" asked Smith. His lips were crackling ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... forest thick about him Bobby realized that he was no longer alone. A crackling twig or a loose stone struck by a foot might have warned him. He went slower, glancing restlessly over his shoulder. He saw no one, but that idea of stealthy pursuit persisted. Undoubtedly it was the detective, Howells, who followed him, hoping, perhaps, ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... under the covers, and all the shades were down, Jane stepped into the school-room, leaving the door slightly ajar. She snapped on the lights above the school-room table. Then Gwendolyn heard the crackling of a news-paper. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... slew with his two forefeet and trunk. Indeed, the beast moved like the wheel of Death. Slaying men adorned with steel coats of mail, along with their horses and foot-soldiers, the chief of the Magadhas caused these to be pressed down into the earth, like thick reeds pressed down with crackling sounds, by means of that mighty and foremost of elephants belonging to him. Then Arjuna, riding on that foremost of cars, rushed quickly towards that prince of elephants in the midst of that host teeming with thousands ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... to do," said Archie, "is to let me go and see him, taking the stuff in crackling bills. I'll roll them about on the table in front of him. That'll fetch him!" He prodded Mr. Brewster encouragingly with a roll. "I'll tell you what to do. Give me three thousand of the best and crispest, and I'll undertake to buy that shop. It ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... step, as though fearful they would be stopped and punished, one or the other turned his head. But no one halted them. With quickening footsteps the bears, now almost at a gallop, plunged forward. The next instant they were lost to sight, and only the crackling of the underbrush told that they ...
— The Nature Faker • Richard Harding Davis
... Pot boiled and bubbled over the crackling flames. Fat and lean, sweet and bitter, had gone to fill it, and all seethed merrily together. "Hubble ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... snapped above him, he stepped aside and barely from under the feet of the leaders as a long team wound by with the freight wagon creaking and swaying and rumbling behind it. The driver leaned from his seat in passing and volleyed a few crackling remarks in the very ear of Terry. It was strange that he did not resent it. Ordinarily he would have wanted to, climb onto that seat and roll the driver down in the dust, but today he lacked ambition. Pain numbed him, ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... this morning, and it is well that my banana clump has all the shelter of the gunyah, or its graceful leaves would suffer. The big cabbage palm outside the verandah makes a curious, dry, parchment-like crackling in the wind. But the three silver tree-ferns have a cool, swishing note, very pleasing to the ear; while for the bush trees beyond, theirs is the steady music of the sea on a sandy beach. I fancy this wind must be a shade too boisterous to be good for ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Cintimba and the San Pedro, on the 28th of September 1789, a whole tract of ground, from three to four miles in extent, surged up like a foam-bubble, or the swell of a wave, to a height of upwards of 500 feet. Flames, lurid and crackling, broke forth over a surface of more than half a square league; and the earth, as if softened by heat, was seen to rise and sink like the rolling tide. Vast chasms opened in the earth, into which the two rivers poured their waters headlong; reappearing afterwards at no great distance ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... quite dusk when they entered the house again, and when the little girl returned to the study, after Chloe had taken off her wrappings, she found her father seated in an easy-chair, drawn up on one side of a bright wood fire that was blazing and crackling on ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... sound in the room. Even the coals in the fireplace seemed to take that instant to hush their blithe crackling. Smith's listeners might have been absolutely breathless, they were so rigid. Each had the grotesque fear that he was about to point his finger at Hetty Glynn and call upon her to aaswer to ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the beeches, passing at once on to a crackling carpet of old beech-mast and half rotten leaves, while all around him the great trees sent up their wonderfully clean, even-lined trunks, and boughs laden with dark green leaves, and the bronzy brown-red cases of the tiny triangular nuts, the former ready now ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... "HOOD heard a noise as of quickly moved musket-balls, and a slight crackling sound during an aurora. He also noticed the same noise on ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... the left the ribbon of road glistened white between the sentinel poplars silhouetted against the sky. The hot smell of the earth filled the air like spice. A thousand elfin sounds, the vibration of leaves, the tiny crackling of cornstalks, the fairy whirr of ground insects, melted ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... rocked and danced. The four hosemen staggered as the stream ripped from the nozzle, crackling like pistol discharges. There was no question as to Uncle Trufant's ability to get the most out of the ancient pride of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... was sitting on the edge of my bed cudgelling my brains, I heard without a crackling of whips and pounding and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... de Gloria, I could not persuade myself to go as far as the Plaza, to see the Iscariots explode. At a distance we listened to the hissing and crackling of the fireworks, the ringing of all the bells, and the thundering of artillery; and knew by the hum of busy voices, and the rolling of carriages, that the Holy Week was numbered with ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... to invite volunteers amongst our respected readers to send in little statements of the lies which they know have been told about themselves: what a heap of correspondence, what an exaggeration of malignities, what a crackling bonfire of incendiary falsehoods, might we not gather together! And a lie once set going, having the breath of life breathed into it by the father of lying, and ordered to run its diabolical little course, lives with ...
— English Satires • Various
... and what materials could fancy find so effective as the exciting experiences of the last Autumn? Sitting before the great open fireplace in the evenings, while her mother dozed in the chimney corner, and the silence was only broken by the purring of the cat, the crackling of the fire, the ticking of the clock, and the low noise heard through the partition, of men talking over their cups with her father in the back room of the store, she fell into reveries from which she would be roused by the thick, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... himself on a truss of straw beside his father, and thought he had never enjoyed a meal so much, in his life, as the bread and cold chicken, eaten as they were in the open air in front of the crackling fire. Each was provided with a horn, and these ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... through the underscrub, until we finally reached a spot where, peering out from behind the trunk of a big baobab, we were able to catch an occasional glimpse of an enormous grey mass moving slowly among the trees, while the sound of swishing and snapping branches, the crackling of the undergrowth as the creature moved from time to time, and an occasional low grunt of satisfaction told us how near we were to our quarry. Luckily, too, for us, the wind was in exactly the right direction—that is to say, it was blowing from the elephant toward us, so that instead of him ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... their heads, and covered their faces with their hands; the yellow flames began to climb upward among the snapping and crackling faggots, and wreaths of blue smoke to stream away on the wind; the clergyman lifted his hands and began a prayer—just then two young girls came flying through the great gate, uttering piercing screams, and threw ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there was a crackling and trampling of heavy feet coming up toward us through the under-wood in a deep dip of the ground. I knew that step as well as she knew it. 'Here I am,' she said, in a faint little voice. I kept behind the trees a few yards off, in some doubt on which side Armadale would come out of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... say what—caused her to bend still lower, and put her ear to his chest. She heard within that mysterious box a rapid succession of thin, dry, crackling sounds: sounds such as she would have produced by rubbing her hair between her fingers close to her ear. The crepitation ceased, then recommenced, and she perceived that it coincided with the intake of his breath. He coughed; the sounds were intensified; ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... dark, cool, and quiet. The heavens were starry bright. A faint breeze brought the tiny crackling of the wheat. From far distant came the bay of a hound. The road stretched away pale and yellow into the gloom. In the silence and loneliness and darkness, in all around him, and far across the dry, whispering fields, there ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... against the ever-invading gloom, flickered for an instant over the brighter and more prominent objects in the room, then dropped back again into darkness. The profound silence was only interrupted by those weird house-noises which live in the death of night and die in the life of day; by that sudden crackling in the wall, by that mysterious creaking in the furniture, by those still small ghostly sounds from inanimate bodies, which we have all been startled by, over and over again, while lingering at our book after the rest of the family are asleep in bed, while waiting up ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... could not be said, there was seen to be a serpent of flame swiftly stealing along the Elevated's track. A tiny frill of fire, under a feathery cloud of smoke, ran down the wooden ties; sharp crackling sounds were heard; and a moment later the frame roof of the raised depot burst into light. One would hardly have thought that there was here sufficient fuel to jeopardize greatly the stout stone walls of the South Station itself; even to the firemen, skilled in such matters, risking their ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... forever. There was nothing unmaidenly in that. Mark would understand her. Mark had always understood her. And so she cheered her heavy heart through the breakfast hour, and the foolish jesting of the two that sounded to her anxious ears, in the language of scripture, like the "crackling of thorns ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... first and then more boldly upon the young flame, which was daintily nursed and fed, and fed more plentifully when it gained good strength. At last a whole armful of dry bushes was piled up over the fire, and presently, with a loud cheery crackling and crackling, a royal tall blaze shot up from the earth and showed me once more the shapes and faces of my men, and the dim outlines of the horses and mules that stood ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... roars of the jungle were seldom heard from our camp. Every day saw new phalanxes of splendid primeval trees fallen, or half suspended in their rigging of lianas. The leaves withered, the flower petals fell and we heard no more the crackling of bamboos in the wind. Then the pitiful survivors of the destruction were brought to us; now a baby flying lemur, flung from its hole by the falling of some tree; young tupaias, nestling birds; a few out of the thousands of creatures ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... again in crisp and crackling language. When at last his vocabulary was exhausted, he turned savagely upon ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... knelt, for there was plenty of dead wood lying about. As the blaze grew I rose to my feet and, dragging larger wood, piled it on. A sort of joyful mania took possession of me as I watched the great tongues of flames shooting skyward and listened to the crackling of the burning wood, and I stood back and laughed. I had triumphed over fate and the elements. Our arms, our clothing, nearly all our food, our axes and our paddles, and even the means of making new paddles were gone, but for ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... herself like a child, listening to this dust crackling under her little feet, wished to hold ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... boisterous, and rough. Nothing had settled into the conventional grooves of habit. The whole community was fearless in its gayety. It had not learned to affect the sobriety and demureness of stupidity lest its frivolity should be likened to the crackling ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... indication of the waning moonlight outside the red-curtained, circular windows high above him, and a fainter speck of glowing cinder, left behind in the recently emptied furnace. He heard nothing, either, save a very faint crackling of the expiring ashes in that furnace. Presently even that minute sound died down, the one speck of light went out, and the silence and ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... been, I think, about the middle of October, for I remember that the sycamores were almost bare in the Luxembourg Gardens that morning, and the terrace about the queens of France were strewn with crackling brown leaves. The fat red roses, out the summer long on the stand of the old flower woman at the corner, had given place to dahlias and purple asters. First glimpses of autumn toilettes flashed from the carriages; wonderful little bonnets nodded at ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the bushes about twenty feet below, and Wilier, who directed the defense, whispered that Tayoga and he would take aim, while Robert held his fire in reserve. Then the Onondaga and he picked their targets in the darkness and pulled trigger. Shouts, the fall of bodies and the crackling of rifles came back. A half dozen bullets, fired almost at random, whistled over their heads and then Robert sent his own lead at a shadow which appeared very clearly among the bushes, a ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sanctifies all honest betrothals. Possible calamity weighed lightly upon her. We know that when the columns of battle-smoke leave the field, they journey through the heavy air to a thousand quiet homes, and play about the crackling blaze of as many firesides. But Lizzie's vision was never clouded. Mrs. Ford might gaze into the thickening summer dusk and wipe her spectacles; but her companion hummed her old ballad-ends with an unbroken voice. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... a crescendo of booming, crackling noises behind. Something else exploded dully. But he should be far enough away ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... for the crackling of the fire. Not a man cried out. All waited in hopeless expectancy. And then came a mighty yell from Northerner and Southerner alike, for Johnnie came crawling out of the end of the covered way—he had actually passed through that frightful place—and his clothes were ablaze, and ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... on which Darby Dene's eyes rested when the party halted at the hollow where the Satellite Circus Company had made their headquarters for the night. Within the shelter of the firs a fire of crackling sticks was burning brightly. Hanging over the flame, suspended by an iron chain from the centre of three crossed metal bars, swung a big black pot, from which there came such a savoury smell that, in spite of his disappointment over the break in their journey, ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... truth of old, when, amid thoughts of thee, I asked, 'Loves she, loves she not?' and the poppy petal clung not, and gave no crackling sound, but withered on my smooth forearm, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... fire. The generous hickory logs seemed to open their arms to them. In a few seconds great panting streams of fire leaped up and rushed out of our sight, bearing with them all that was perishable of Esther Wynn's letters. Just as the crackling shadowy shapes were falling apart and turning black, my uncle sprang to an Indian cabinet which stood near, and seizing a little box of incense-powder which had been brought from China by his brother, he shook a few grains of it into the fire. A pale, ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... from the huge rocks. A strong breeze sprang up, and we were delighted—when we saw, fast approaching, a dense black and white cloud rolling, as it were, along the ground. As it got nearer there were such loud crackling and explosions that it seemed like the volleys of musketry in a battle. My horses and mules pricked up their ears, lifting their heads high—sniffing, neighing, and braying. They became restless. Before we had time to realize what was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... he stepped through the door into the darkness; then her head dropped into the support of her hands. There was silence except for the crackling of the fire, until Neb moved uneasily. At the sound the girl looked up, seeing clearly the good-natured face ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... piercing cries, flapping the air as if with great leathern bat-like wings, or bestriding black, monstrous, misshapen steeds. Fantastical and grotesque were these objects, yet hideous and appalling. Now and then a red and fiery star would whiz crackling through the air, and then exploding break into numerous pale phosphoric lights, that danced awhile overhead, and then flitted away among the ruins. The ground seemed to heave and tremble beneath the footsteps, as if the graves were opening to give forth their dead, while toads and hissing ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... could reach the prairie. I had chosen to pass the hours of waiting in the wagon, feeling that I could better protect my dear little baby in this way. So when all the tired ones were still, and the silence only broken by the crackling of the burning fagots, the occasional falling of a dry twig or branch from the bare, ghostly looking trees about us, the hooting of an owl, the dismal howlings of the wolves in the forest, I sat there looking at the weary forms so illy protected from the cold, ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... of the windows, the trio found their host, already in evening dress. Bristow was idling on the hearth with no more immediate concern than a cigarette and the enjoyment of the crackling logs, ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... the crackling of twigs on his left, and once he fancied that he could hear the Malays coming on behind him; but he was not sure, and he toiled on, bathed in perspiration, thinking how wonderfully still everything was out there, and how loud the rustling noise was ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... thousands of armed Americans by whom he was threatened and encircled, could fire upon the flag of their own native Country. He and his garrison of seventy men, were soon to learn the bitter truth, amid a tempest of bursting shot and shell, the furnace-heat of crackling walls, and suffocating volumes of dense smoke produced by an ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... exquisites were whispering like pigeons in a dovecot, exchanging snuff-boxes, and ogling the women. So intolerable it grew that the Doctor paused in his discourse and sternly rebuked them, speaking of the laughter of fools which is as the crackling of thorns under a pot. This silenced them for a little, but the noise broke out during the last prayer, and with the final word of the Benediction my gentlemen thrust their way through the congregation, ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... the galley and get into the open water beyond. This course brought the pirates ever closer and closer to the man-of-war, which now began to add its thunder to the din of the battle, and with so much more effect that at every discharge you might hear the crashing and crackling of splintered wood, and now and then the outcry or groaning of some man who was hurt. Indeed, had it been daylight, they must at this juncture all have perished, though, as was said, what with the night and the confusion and the hurry, they escaped entire destruction, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... silence reigned; not a sound broke the awful solemnity of the occasion, excepting the crackling of the fragrant pine limbs used as fuel, and the seething of the flesh as ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... ivory handle Which will have to be turned by hand, through a thousand revolutions, And through a thousand circles it moves the pivot. When you put a kernel in, you will turn the handle with quick hand— No delay—and you will wonder how the crackling kernel is With much grinding quickly reduced to a powder. Once only the lower compartment receives on its kindly bosom The crushed grains, which are placed in the very ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the left, and the Lancers, breaking into a trot, began to cross the Dervish front in column of troops. Thereupon and with one accord the blue-clad men dropped on their knees, and there burst out a loud, crackling fire of musketry. It was hardly possible to miss such a target at such a range. Horses and men fell at once. The only course was plain and welcome to all. The Colonel, nearer than his regiment, already saw what lay behind the skirmishers. He ordered, 'Right wheel into ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... suddenly heard close to me staggering footsteps and a stifled groan, accompanied by the hard panting of a man who laboured with a heavy load. That they were coming my way was evident by the crackling of the underwood and the impatience of the horse. What a year did those two minutes seem as I waited there, sword ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... having a good time with their toys in front of the fireplace in the sitting room. On the hearth blazed a snapping, crackling ...
— The Story of a Lamb on Wheels • Laura Lee Hope
... and his frenzied cries were at last answered. The great bell overhead ceased ringing suddenly,—and its cessation created an effect of silence even amid the noise of the crackling fire and the continued grave music of the organ. Then came a quick tramp of many feet—a hubbub of voices—and loud battering knocks at the chapel door. Ambrosio ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... crashing of small twigs, the thing was gone. In childhood, Bruce had been told many stories of ghosts and goblins by his Irish nurse. He had never overcome his dread of them. But it was with the utmost difficulty that he suppressed a shout. Then he laughed softly, for the crackling twigs told him he had seen a creature of flesh and blood, no ghost. He chuckled again and far in the dark a hoot-owl seemed to answer him and his company was a ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... overcoats waited hungrily about for a job or scraps of food. After leaving Wolvehoek, we entered on Commandant De Wet's hunting-ground and the scene of his recent exploits. There, at almost every culvert, at every ganger's house, were pickets of soldiers, all gathered round a crackling fire at that chill morning hour; and at every one of these posts freshly constructed works of sandbags and deep trenches were in evidence to denote that their sentry work was no ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... His promise at the end of time in all His heavenly glory, and which will be sudden 'as lightning flashing from east to west.' No, He visited His children only for a moment, and there where the flames were crackling round the heretics. In His infinite mercy He came once more among men in that human shape in which He walked among men for three years fifteen centuries ago. He came down to the 'hot pavements' of the southern town in which on the day before almost a hundred heretics had, ad majorem ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to think, threw the packet on the fire; even turning aside, lest the flames, while destroying, should reveal anything of the secret. Only once, forgetting herself, the crackling fire made her start and turn, and she caught a momentary glimpse of some curious foreign ornament; while near it, twisted in the flame into almost life-like motion, was what seemed a long lock of black ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked the door, and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an overcoat, took an armchair by the crackling logs, and awaited patiently the arrival of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... about eleven o'clock at night ... but I strolled on still with the people.... Suddenly upon the left side of our road, a crackling was heard among the bushes; all of us were alarmed, and in an instant a tiger, rushing out of the jungle, pounced upon the one of the party that was foremost, and carried him off in the twinkling of an eye. The rush of the animal, and the crush of the poor victim's bones in his mouth, and his ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Priam's noble son were met in arms, And aided, this the Trojans, that the Greeks. High tow'rd the tents uprose the surging sea, As with loud clamour met th' opposing hosts. Less loud the roar of Ocean's wave, that driv'n By stormy Boreas, breaks upon the beach; Less loud the crackling of the flames that rage In the deep forest of some mountain glen; Less loud the wind, to wildest fury rous'd, Howls in the branches of the lofty oaks; Than rose the cry of Trojans and of Greeks, As each, with furious shout, encounter'd ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... almost instantly a volume of smoke rolled up, followed by long tongues of eager flame, which looked strangely pallid and cruel in the afternoon sunshine. A yell broke from the Indians, and then there fell a silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames. The English troops, realizing in a moment what was to occur, bent to their oars with redoubled vigor, thinking to put a stop to the shameless work. And the name of Le Loutre was straightway ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... stone and iron to demolish the walls, but flaming balls of inextinguishable combustibles designed to set fire to the houses. One of these, which passed high through the air like a meteor, sending out sparks and crackling as it went, entered the window of a tower which was used as a magazine of gunpowder. The tower blew up with a tremendous explosion; the Moors who were upon its battlements were hurled into the air, and fell mangled in various parts of the town, and the houses in its vicinity were ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... says, Mary, 'for as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool;' and thee can think of this the next time thee hears the chatter, and then thee can say to thyself, 'It may be nothing but ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... at hand, recalled him to himself, and turning, he beheld the marquis approaching with mincing manner, the paint and pigments cracked by the artificial smiles wreathing his wrinkled face. In that vast assemblage, amid all the energy, youth and surfeit of vitality, he seemed like a dried and crackling leaf, tossed helplessly, which any foot might crush to dust. The roar of the multitude subsided, a storm dying in the distance; the ladies sank in their seats—butterflies settling once more in the fields—and Leduc, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... would," said Lord de la Poer; and though Lady Barbara eagerly exclaimed, "Oh! do not think of it; the child does not know what she is talking of. Pray excuse her—" he took out his purse, and from it came a crackling smooth five-pound note, which he put into the hand, saying, "There, my dear, cut that in two, and send the two halves on different days to Mr. Wardour, with my best wishes for his success in his good works. Will ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were next prepared. A mattress composed of palm-leaves was covered with native cloth made of the paper mulberry-tree, in the same manner as in Otaheite; the sheets were of the same material; and it appeared, from their crackling, that they were quite new from the loom, or rather the beater. The whole arrangement is stated to have been comfortable, and inviting to repose; one interruption only disturbed their first sleep; this was the melody of the evening ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... in those days of feudal magnificence. An immense furnace was fed by huge blocks of wood, which the ravening flame seized and in a moment enveloped in its embrace. Forms, grisly and indistinct, flitted past this devouring blaze, by the sputtering and crackling of which, mingled with the hissing delicacies before it, and the shrill scream of the presiding fury, a stranger might be warned of his approach to this pandemonium some time ere its wonders were ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... in answer to his soliloquy, there rose above the crackling of the fire, the muffled distant thud of galloping hoofs. A few moments later a well-built, sturdy lad astride a mettlesome pony dashed into ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... were fairly well educated, and told what they had to tell in a very interesting way. Every once in a while those about the fire would leave to replace some of their companions who had been watching some time, and the men thus relieved would have a new batch of stories to relate. Around the crackling, roaring fire it was very warm and comfortable, and time flew by faster than the boys realized. They had never felt more wide awake in their lives, and they were much surprised when the first faint streaks of dawn in the eastern sky told of ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... little rest, while Maria and I sat up and watched with the old man. All was still except our whispers and his heavy breathing; there was a lamp burning in the next room; when all of a sudden a light shone into the windows, and about the same time we heard a roaring and crackling sound. We looked out, and saw the night all lighted up, as if by some great fire. As it appeared to be on the other side of the house, we ran to the door, and there what did we see but the old meeting-house all in flames! Some fellows had set fire to it to spite Jedwort. It must have been burning ...
— The Man Who Stole A Meeting-House - 1878, From "Coupon Bonds" • J. T. Trowbridge
... almost to the sliding ground when a bush caught at his feet and yanked them from under him with a crackling of branches, and the bottom tread of a flight of stairs swung at his head like a gigantic club. Among the sudden splintering of branches and snapping of vines was a crunching thud which ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... sheep waking and coughing when there is a great wind from the north. (Shak- ing herself loose. Conchubor makes a sign to Soldiers.) I'm going, surely. In a short space I'll be sitting up with many listening to the flames crackling, and the beams breaking, and I looking on the great blaze will be the end of Emain. [She goes out. CONCHUBOR — looking out. — I see two people in the trees; ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... took effect—and then we were upon her. With scarcely any perceptible shock we struck her fair and square amidships, right in the wake of where I judged her boiler-room would be; there was a horrible crackling and rending of wood and iron as our stem sheared into and through her deck, a clamour of yells from the crew as they fought with each other in their mad haste to lower the boats, and the destroyer heeled over until she was almost ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... dense growths of impeding bushes and crackling underbrush, their feet sinking into a thick carpet of soggy, fallen leaves, the two at last reached the top of a steep, rocky elevation. From there, in the fast fading light, they could look down into a narrow valley, formed by the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... instructive political economist and the truant mechanic. But that trick of truly logical behavior seems harder to the man than to the child. For example, I climbed up to my den under the eaves last night—a sour, black sea-fog lying all about, and the December sleet crackling against the window-panes—in order to varnish a certain fly-rod. Now rods ought to be put in order in September, when the fishing closes, or else in April, when it opens. To varnish a rod in December ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... spotted, but after a wait, when we started again, we crawled within a few feet of the real target, now lifeless; he was in khaki and apparently he had strayed from his outfit. During our wait we saw a boche passing through the trees. From the crackling of the brush there seemed to be others. With my lips I made the words "Don't fire" to my runners, and then covered him, in case he saw us. He went by. Realizing that we might have something of a time of it getting through, I motioned the runners to ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... watched the slow torch as it fell. John gave the keeper two whole sous, And Jeanne that smile with which she woos John Brown to folly. So they lose The Paris train. But never mind! — All-Saints are rustling in the wind, And there's an inn, a crackling fire — (It's 'deux-cinquante', but Jeanne's desire); There's dinner, candles, country wine, ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... was just about to join a cavalry regiment; and I could well imagine, when military dignity was added to that gait, how grandly he would go. This young man, of whom I heard nothing more after our half-hour's conversation among the crackling fireworks and roaring cannon, left upon my mind an indescribable impression of dangerousness—of 'something fierce and terrible, eligible to burst forth.' Of men like this, then, were formed the Companies ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... streaming swarm Whistling in their tempest flight; Snap the tall yews 'neath the storm, Like a pine flame crackling bright. Swift though heavy, lo! their crowd Through the heavens rushing loud Like a livid thunder-cloud With its bolt ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo |
