"Footfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bracken, and the twitter of birds silent in the coppice, and hardly a leaf astir in the huge beeches that fling their cool shade over the grass. Afar off a gilded vane flares out above the grey Jacobean gables of Knoll, the chime of a village clock falls faintly on the ear, but there is no voice or footfall of living thing to break the silence as I turn over leaf after leaf of the little book I have brought with me from the bustle of town to this still retreat, a book that is the record of a broken life, of a life "broken ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... sat in his own quiet room at the back of this enduring building, a very splendid room that any Secretary of State might have envied, but arranged in excellent taste. Its walls were panelled with figured teak, a rich carpet made the footfall noiseless, an antique Venus stood upon a marble pedestal in the corner, and over the mantelpiece hung a fine portrait by Gainsborough, that of a certain Miss Aylward, a famous beauty in her day, with whom, be it added, its present owner ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... the murderer, the forger, and the mulatto sat stricken into silence until the last crisp footfall had died away. Then amidst a torrent of curses Roach made for the door. Trail plucked him back. "Where are you ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... And if his footfall crush the flower, How sweet the spicy perfume springs! His mildew stain upon the tower ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... had become my suspicions that I was already preparing to unroll my blanket, rise, and creep after the Siwanois, when his light and rapid footfall sounded on the leaves close to my head; and, as before, while again I feigned sleep, far in the thicket somebody moved, cautiously retreating into tangled depths. But whether I really heard or only guessed, I do not know down ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... was again. A distinct footfall. She raised herself on her elbow and peered into the shadows. Far over at the other side of the chamber—it seemed an infinite distance just then—stood a figure. Grace looked at it calmly. She had never been a coward and she was not frightened now, only she wondered who could ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... for him to pass. With a lowering countenance he turned from them, and they continued silent till they had heard his last heavy footfall as he ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... fascination. The illuminating power of restraint had developed new forces in his sensitive mind. How marvelous she seemed, walking toward his cell with gentle yet triumphant footfall, her face aglow with tenderness and love, and how his soul leaped those bars ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... painful pleasures, that she had chosen as her share in the household where accident had thrown her. She had that genius of ministration which is the special province of certain women, marked even among their helpful sisters by a soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheering smile, and a ready self-surrender to the objects of their care, which such trifles as their own food, sleep, or habits of any kind never presume to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... I stole to the door, on tiptoe, step by step, afraid to awaken the echo of a footfall. I touched the wooden bolt with a finger tip; I pressed my ear against the panel. And now, every fibre of my being at tension, my senses quickened by the unseen but certain presence of danger, I could hear at the other side of the thin boards the eager ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... had two years ago heard from Tom? There was no time, for the next moment she heard him hurrying down-stairs, she saw him speeding up the garden. There was nothing for her to do but to dress as fast as possible, and as she was finishing she heard his tread slowly mounting, the very footfall warning her what to expect. She opened the door and met him. 'Thank God,' he said, as he took her hand into his own, ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... aside the brambles, then he crept in and took his way along a low, narrow passage. It had many windings, but was without intersections or intricacy. He heard his own steps echoed like a pursuing footfall. His labored breathing returned in sighs from the inanimate rocks. It was an uncanny place, with strange, sepulchral, solemn effects. He shivered with the cold. A draught stole in from some secret crevice known only to the wild mountain winds. ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... a beautiful dream in my youth, and I awoke and found it true. My silver bride they called her just now. The frost is upon my head, indeed; hers winter has not touched with its softest breath. Her footfall is the lightest, her laugh the merriest in the house. The boys are all in love with their mother; the girls tyrannize and worship her together. The cadet corps elects her an honorary member, for no ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Tower Green, where in the sunlight two sparrows were frivolously flirting. Even as she watched, the sparrows grew dim, her ridiculously tiny purse slipped from her hand, her head with its thick dark hair dropped against the pillar, and her lashes touched her cheek. After awhile a cautious footfall sounded in the chapel, then somewhere a heavy door ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... short, possibly to listen again, possibly to assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound. Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as I stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was no answering cessation of movement. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... glad to feel that, unknown to him, she was his guardian angel. She began to think about the future, and almost to forget Andy and the possible and very great peril of the present, when, shortly before the hour of one, all her senses were preternaturally excited by the sound of a footfall. It was a very soft footfall—the noise made by a bare foot. Nora heard it just where the shadow was deepest. She stood up now; she knew that, from her present position, the one who was making this dead sort of heavy sound could not possibly ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... sort uv tenderly, Upon its cherished dead; And I reckon that, through all the years That little boy wich died Sleeps sweetly 'nd contentedly Upon the mountain-side; That the wild flowers of the summer time Bend down their heads to hear The footfall uv a little friend they Know not slumbers near; That the magpies on the sollum rocks Strange flutterin' shadders make. And the pines 'nd hemlocks wonder that The sleeper doesn't wake; That the mountain brook sings lonesomelike ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... run out of the house without being noticed. Alas, how quickly Martin had at other times followed her steps! He had always heard her softest footfall, her very breath in the dark passage, every movement of her hand as it glided over his door. To-day nobody had followed her. A feeling of bitterness overpowered the lonely woman; without knowing it hot tears ran down her cold face, ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... followed His steps wherever He went on earth. The journeys of the Divine Philanthropist were marked by tears of thankfulness, and breathings of grateful love. The helpless, the blind, the lame, the desolate, rejoiced at the sound of His footfall. Truly might it be said of Him, "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me." (Job, xxix. 11.) All suffering hearts were a magnet to Jesus. It was not more His prerogative than His happiness to turn tears into smiles. One of the ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... started for church without her. It was barely five minutes' walk, but she had to smooth her hair, and find some gloves, and make herself fit for Mrs Forrest's critical eye, and all this took some time. When she pushed open the heavy door and entered timidly, her footfall sounding unnaturally loud, the usual sprinkling of evening worshippers was already collected, and her uncle had begun to read the service. Anna crept into a seat. She knew that she had committed a very grave fault in Mrs Forrest's sight, and she half wished that she had made up her mind to ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... gathered his feet up in readiness for a spring, and grasped one of his shoes, which as usual he had placed behind the clothes-bag that served as his pillow. Several of the sleepers were snoring loudly, and intently as he listened he heard no footfall. In a few seconds, however, a dark figure arose against the wall at the foot of the bench; it stood there immovable for half a minute and then leaned over Mikail, placing one hand on the wall as if to enable him to stretch as far over as possible without touching ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... broad-and-high- shouldered type; one of those imported female servants who are known in public by their amorphous style of person, their stoop forwards, and a headlong and as it were precipitous walk,—the waist plunging downwards into the rocking pelvis at every heavy footfall. Bridget, constituted for action, not for emotion, was about to deposit a plate heaped with something upon the table, when I saw the coarse arm stretched by my shoulder arrested,—motionless as the arm of a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... better, my lord, if you would take your place on the other side of the open space, for although I, being small, can escape notice, you might well be seen by those approaching the door. It will be necessary, too, that you should put on sandals of soft leather or cloth, so that your footfall should not be heard. Then, as I follow him, I would run to where you are posted, and you could follow me, so that you could keep me in sight and yet be beyond his view, for all our plans would be foiled should he suspect that he was ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... charm of the surrounding country. It was like a dark spot set in the midst of the rolling splendours of the moorland proper. There were boulders of rock of unknown age, dark patches of peat land, where even in midsummer the mud oozed up at the lightest footfall, pools and sedgy places, the home and sometimes the breeding place of the melancholy snipe. Of colour there was singularly little. The heather bushes were stunted, their roots blackened as though with fire, and even the yellow of the gorse shone with a dimmer lustre. But in the distance, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disused quarry. Mallalieu, as Stoner well knew, was a great man for walking on these moors, and he always walked alone. He took these walks to keep his flesh down; here he came, swinging his heavy oak walking-stick, intent on his own thoughts, and he and Stoner, neither hearing the other's footfall on the soft turf, almost ran into each other. Stoner, taken aback, ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... footsteps, to see other faces and to feel that he was not alone on such a cold and dark night—alone save for the unknown who watched him. At the thought he looked about again, but there was nothing, not even the faintest echo of a footfall. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... glass with ironical invitation, while I sat aghast and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This intolerable colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I should do if we were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the soft creak of a plank I felt that I might lose all control and leap up and brain him with the heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane desire to spring at his throat and throttle his infamous bravado, tumble him ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shut just so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight, as from a room that held the dead. But into it ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... attempt, abortive attempt, abortive efforts; flash in the pan, "lame and impotent conclusion" [Othello]; frustration; slip 'twixt cup and lip &c. (disappointment) 509. blunder &c. (mistake) 495; fault, omission, miss, oversight, slip, trip, stumble, claudication|, footfall; false step, wrong step; faux pas[Fr], titubation[obs3], bvue[Fr], faute[Fr], lurch; botchery &c. (want of skill) 699[obs3]; scrape, mess, fiasco, breakdown; flunk [U.S.]. mishap &c. (misfortune) 735; split, collapse, smash, blow, explosion. repulse, rebuff, defeat, rout, overthrow, discomfiture; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... crawled back to the face of the cliff behind him, and crouched behind a rock with his cocked rifle across his knees. The man must climb over the ledge; there would be a bare, level floor of rock between them-the Lewallen would be at his mercy—and Rome, with straining eyes, waited. There was a footfall on the other side of the ledge; a soft clink of metal against stone. The Lewallen was climbing slowly-slowly. Rome could hear his heavy breathing. A grimy hand slipped over the sharp comb of the ledge; another appeared, clinched about a Winchester—then the slouched ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... a temple of art. In one, the soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the sunshine and the shower; in the other, no sound but the passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals in through high and dusky windows; and the damps of the gloomy vault lie heavy on the heart, and leave their stain upon the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... explore or to see—with the eyes of a man who can rebuild a mighty past. Solitude in the halls and marble stairways, ruin of time in the fretted screens, and broken cisterns holding nothing but dry earth. Nothing there now but the lion and the lizard, not even the ghost of a light footfall, or the tinkle of glass bangles on ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... burning dimly, and the girl's white face was lost in the shadow, when the young man first glanced at her, so he had no suspicion of the truth, though a most indefinable sensation crept over him as he heard the timid footfall, and the rustling of female garments as Adah Hastings drew near with her boy in her arms. He knew she stopped before him; he knew, too, why she stopped, and for a brief instant his better nature bade him be a man and offer her what he knew she wanted. But only for an instant, ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Every footfall echoed the horrible, unbelievable word. The man was incapable of feeling—every other pain was deadened in this great suffering which ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... Go you, and see if you're good at keeping watch. Inside the arch. And if you let a footfall past, I'll break your back. (AINSLIE retires.) Steady with the light. (At work with centre-bit.) Hand up number four, George. (At work with picklock.) That ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... approach, being much more modern; but I was convinced, from the observations I had made as to the situation of my room, that I was bordering upon, if not within, the oldest portion of the pile. In sudden horror, lest I should hear a light footfall upon the awful stair, I withdrew hurriedly, and having secured both the doors, betook myself to my bedroom; in whose dingy four-post bed, with its carving and plumes reminding me of a hearse, I was soon ensconced amidst ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... it is not my intention to enter; as I journey on an occasional arrow may be shot to the right or to the left at men and things; but I will leave to others the details of a petty provincial quarrel, while-I have before me, stretching far and wide, the vast solitudes which await in silence the footfall of the future. ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... step, yet not that of thief or burglar; a fairy footfall, rather, which was music to his ear. His heart leaped up to tell him that on the other side of the door was Harry Trevethick. He held his breath, and trembled—not for fear. Was it possible that, knowing he was sitting there alone, she had come down of her own choice to bear him ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Elmendorf go up the echoing stairway, and then, reaching the second floor, he saw fit to saunter, and that, too, with noiseless footfall. He approached the familiar door-way, and the anteroom—the scene of his discomfiture when Donnelly presented Mart's liquor-bill—stood invitingly open. But the door to the private office beyond was closed, and it was barely five o'clock. She was there; he felt assured of that. He could ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... Everglades. There was heavy timber about the camp and more than once during the night the boys heard the tread of a wild animal. Once it seemed to be the step of a deer in shallow water near the camp, then it was the soft footfall of some catlike animal and when Ned raised himself on his elbow to listen to a heavier tread, the "wouf" of the startled beast told that Bruin had caught the offensive scent of the white man's camp. As the boys lay awake and talked while they watched the stars peeping ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... lord, the town is quiet, and the moon Divides the whole long street with light and shade. No footfall—no Fitzurse. We ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... longer! My father waits. Methinks I see him there, Now looking from the window, and now watching Each sound of wheels or footfall in the street, And saying, "Hark! she comes!" ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... bare thirty seconds' start. Then, rising with strange energy for so dazed and broken an invalid, he left the room and followed him toward the head of the stairs. His light footfall was soundless on ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the long passages as veiled figures slowly and noiselessly passed towards the chapel to their private devotions. Scarcely a footfall reached the ear, nor sound of any kind, except the sweet voice of Mere Madelaine de St. Borgia. Like the flow of a full stream in the still moonlight, she sang her canticle of praise to the guardian of the house, before she retired ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... so silent that I thought I had convinced her. I urged her to her feet. But suddenly I heard a stealthy footfall close at hand, between the cave ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... become mentally oblivious of her presence, to concentrate again solely on the matter in hand. A long, long interval passed. Chug! chug! the engines continued to grind. How far away they sounded. Another sound, too, at length broke the stillness—a stealthy footfall on the deck. It sent him at once softly to the window; he ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... activity which they have conferred, but they have furnished new methods of measuring the rate of movement of projectiles to the artillerist. Again, the microphone, which renders the minutest movements audible, and which enables a listener to hear the footfall of a fly, has equipped the sense of hearing with the means of entering almost as deeply into the penetralia of nature, as ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... footfall was approaching down the passage. It stopped at the door of the room in which we were confined, and a key was inserted in the lock. Next moment the door swung open and a tall man entered the room. A ray of sunlight, penetrating between the boards that covered the window, fell upon him, ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... a lull in the activities of this minor Cerberus when the light and swinging footfall of one coming up the dim stairway several steps at a time aroused his ready suspicions. He bristled forth to the rail to meet a tall and rather elegant young man whom he greeted with a growl to ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... convey them to the nearest station. A hearty cheer accompanied each coach as it rolled off with its heavy and excited freight; by nine o'clock not a boy was left behind. The great buildings of Saint Winifred's were still as death; the footfall of the chance passer-by echoed desolately among them. A strange, mournful, conscious silence hung about the old monastic pile. The young life which usually played like the sunshine over it, was pouring unwonted brightness into many ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... rifle-shots like the crack of a ball on a cricket bat broke through the thickets. They separated, spreading like beaters in a long line: "Soon," Trenchard told me, "I was quite alone. I could hear sometimes the breaking of a twig or a stumbling footfall but I might have been alone at the end of the world. It was obvious that the regimental sanitars had been there before us because there were many new roughly made graves. There were letters too and post cards lying about all heavy with wet and dirt. I picked up some of these—letters ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... into the very jaws of their destroyer. Such particularly was the fate of the agoutis, which had either forgotten the experience of past seasons or had failed to inherit the cunning of the other wild folk. When the Jaguar approached, noisily announcing her coming with voice and footfall, they sat stock still and waited. Only their noses twitched and their large, black eyes stared dumbly in the direction from whence the sounds came. They never had long to wait. With a growl, Suma pounced upon them, mauled them into bits and ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... And, save for the far shriek of trains, the less remote and more frequent clanging of passing tramcars along the road edged with the skeleton cottages, and, startlingly near, the vain munching and dull footfall of the old horse, all was still. Compared with home and Budge Street, it was the reposeful quiet of the tomb. Barney Bill smoked for a time in silence, while Paul sat with clenched fists and a beating heart. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... A mossy footfall in this wood A peal of thunder were, Or autumn tempest-shriek, compared With the unwhispered stir Of massy fluids lift in air, To build these leafy ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... Lopez, starting off at a quick pace. They were then close to the turn in the park, and Lopez went on till he had nearly reached the park front of the new offices. As he had walked he had listened to the footfall of his friend, and after a while had perceived, or had thought that he had perceived, that the sound was discontinued. It seemed to him that Wharton had altogether lost his senses;—the insult to himself had been so determined ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... of the column, his eye being applied to the end of a large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening. The only effect produced upon him by her footfall was an impatient wave of the hand, which he did without removing his eye from the instrument, as if to ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the city the Piazza of St. Peter's was silent and deserted. Not the sound of a footfall, not the rattle of a carriage-wheel; only the swish-swish of the fountains, whose waters were playing in the lamplight through the falling snow, and the echoing hammer of the clock of ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... on the gravel. This time another footfall joined the first. She gripped her husband's shoulders and shook ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... like silence all unvexed, Though wild words part my soul from thee. Thou art like silence unperplexed, A secret and a mystery Between one footfall and the next. ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... Ray's footfall is soft as a kitten's as he creeps out upon the prairie; Dandy stepping gingerly after him, wondering but obedient. For over a hundred yards he goes, until both up- and down-stream he can almost see the faint fires of the Indians in the timber. Farther out he can hear hoof-beats ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... hearing caught a footfall, and she was looking eagerly at the door when Giovanni Sansevero entered. At once her face became transfigured. "Ah, there thou art, my mouse!" she said, pulling out the chair beside ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... that added largely to the wild and supernatural aspect of the scene. If any spoke, it was in a tone so low and gentle, as to carry the sound no farther than to the ears that were listening; two never spoke at the same time and in the same group, while the moccasin permitted no footfall to be audible. Nothing could have been more unearthly than the picture presented in that little, wood-circled arena, of velvet- like grass and rural beauty. The erect, stalking forms, half naked, if not even more; the swarthy skins; the faces fierce in the savage conceits which were intended to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... camels fled east, all night the soft footfall of the woman's beast pursued them; all night the wind freshened until Laodice's bared face stiffened with the cold and the breath of the mute that sat upon her camel's neck steamed in the moonlight. Up and up, by steep and winding wadies they ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... Cummings seemed to feel some presence near him. He thought he caught the sound of a footfall on the deck. To make sure he left the wheel for a few seconds, peering out along the deck, on both sides of the ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... that this colonnade was reared; and therein, again, one finds the whole Roman spirit. However, Pierre at last turned into the Via di Sant' Offizio, and passing the sacristy of St. Peter's, found himself before the Palace of the Holy Office in a solitary silent district, which the footfall of pedestrians or the rumble of wheels but seldom disturbs. The sun alone lives there, in sheets of light which spread slowly over the small, white paving. You divine the vicinity of the Basilica, for there is a smell as of incense, a cloisteral quiescence as of the slumber ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... arrangements having been made and Neranya hoisted into his cage, the rajah emerged upon the balcony to see him for the first time since the last amputation. Neranya had been lying panting and helpless on the floor of his cage, but when his quick ear caught the sound of the rajah's footfall he squirmed about until he had brought the back of his head against the railing, elevating his eyes above his chest, and enabling him to peer through the open-work of the cage. Thus the two deadly enemies faced ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... Then at a soft footfall, a rustle, and a moving shadow Joan's mingled emotions merged into a poignant sense of the pain and suspense and ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... restaurants or theaters close by. And then the theater itself! To walk from the street to the gaily lighted lobby, its walls paneled from floor to ceiling with great mirrors that reflect lovely women and distinguished men. Then in the theater where the rich carpet deadens every footfall and you feel rather than hear the murmur of many voices speaking softly—the subtle rustle of a crowded place—the lights—the music—oh, girls, it was wonderful, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of faded yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing,—nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor, just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen,—nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand; just as I was descending ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... present two sisters who kept themselves alive (it is quite inaccurate to use any other phrase in such instances) by doing all manner of skilful needlework; they were middle-aged women, gentle-natured, and so thoroughly subdued to the hopelessness of their lot that scarcely ever could even their footfall be heard as they went up and down stairs; their voices were always sunk to a soft murmur. Just now no infant wailing came from the Byasses' regions. Kirkwood enjoyed a sense of restfulness, intenser, perhaps, for the momentary ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... district between the springs of the Mohawk and the rivers which empty into the St. Lawrence. There was one settler on the lake, from whom I could, when necessary, get a loaf of bread, but the solitude for nine days out of ten was not broken by a strange footfall. My camp was a shelter of bark, raised on poles, open in front to the morning sun, just sufficing to shed the rain, while my bed was a layer of the branches of the fir-trees that grew around. Trout from the lake, broiled on the coals of the camp-fire, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the door was closed and the sound of their light footfall had died away; then again approaching the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... stirred, and the architect once more addressed himself to blessed sleep, feeling that morning must soon put an end to his tribulations. How long he slept he had no means of knowing. It was still dark when he awoke: dark but not still. A distant footfall tinkled on the matted floor, followed by another and another in rapid, measured succession. Could there be a cat or a dog in the room? He could see nothing. The moon was gone and the room was dark as Egypt. Possibly some animal escaped from a traveling menagerie ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... danger to Colina, who was strong and brave. Was it her father? Reaching the foot of the stairs he heard a velvet footfall above. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... nor ever regretted, shall wave the Egyptian palms and the Italian pines. Untrodden by me, the Forum shall still echo with the footfall of imperial Rome, and the Parthenon unrifled of its marbles, look, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... days in succession last year I spent a half-hour observing his frisky gambols on the hillside across the dingle below my porch, as he jumped apparently for mice in the sloping rowen-field. How quickly he responded to my slightest interruption of voice or footfall, running to the cover ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... Whose footfall made thee fairer, [Ant. 7. Whose passage more divine, Whose hand, our thunder-bearer, Held fire that bade thee shine With subtler glory and rarer Than thrills the ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... as though some strayed reveler of a breeze had left his comrades in the Kentish uplands and had entered the town by stealth. The pavements are a little damp and shiny. Upon one's ears that at this late hour have become very acute there hits the tap of a remote footfall. Louder and louder grow the taps, filling the whole night. And a black cloaked figure passes by, and goes tapping into the dark. One who has danced goes homewards. Somewhere a ball has closed its doors and ended. Its yellow lights are out, ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... heart is eased with hearing, Only mine eyes are soothed with seeing, A face brought nigh, a footfall nearing, Till hopes take form and ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Made these walls and arches ring With their high-sung hopes of Heaven, And the glories of its King; Now my footfall sounds alone On the aisle's long path of stone, Save that yonder from the loft, With a solemn tone and soft, Beating on with muffled shock, Conscience-waking, speaks the clock. Holy scene, and dear ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... on, and it fell That the palmer straight was well, Straight was hale—and comforted, And he rose up from his bed, And went back to his own place, Sound and strong, and full of face! My sweet lady, lily white, Sweet thy footfall, sweet thine eyes, And the mirth of thy replies. Sweet thy laughter, sweet thy face, Sweet thy lips and sweet thy brow, And the touch of thine embrace. Who but doth in thee delight? I for love of thee am bound In this dungeon underground, All for loving thee must ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang
... part of our confinement we felt a cold chill at our hearts every time we heard a footfall near the cave, dreading lest it should prove to be that of our executioner. But as time dragged heavily on we ceased to feel this alarm, and began to experience such a deep, irrepressible longing for freedom that we chafed and fretted ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... was hardly audible on the grass, but Michael heard it, recognised it. We never forget the footfall, however light, that has ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Arthur started, and almost exclaimed, when, from a pine tree close to him, issued a report sharp as a pistol shot. It was only the violent contraction of the wood from the severe frost, as he knew in a moment; and the deer browsing yonder on branch tops never winced, though a whisper or a footfall would have sent them bounding away. Presently the crack of Argent's rifle was followed by the spring of a buck high into the air, all four feet together, poor animal, as the death-pang pierced ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... not avail to tell him what form of animal life was palpitating there. Far away a mocking-bird throbbed out a note or two, grew quiet, and again became tunefully clamorous. A night owl hooted. The sound of a soft footfall rolling a pebble brought him to taut alertness. Eyes and ears became automatic detectives keyed to ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... unchanging faces, and neither spoke. Some people know that dead silence which descends while fate's great hand is working in the dark, and men hold their breath and shut their eyes, listening speechless for the dull footfall of ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... shoulders followed. Then slowly the whole figure of a man in complete plate-armor emerged on the deck. In his gauntleted hand he carried a heavy steel mace. With this uplifted he moved toward his enemies, silent save for the ponderous clank of his footfall. It was an inhuman, machine-like figure, menacing and terrible, devoid of all ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that she had lost her son and the hope of seeing him once more. That night was hideously silent. Once, for the Countess, there was an awful interval, when the battalion of conscripts entered the town, and the men went by, one by one, to their lodgings. Every footfall, every sound in the street, raised hopes to be disappointed; but it was not for long, the dreadful quiet succeeded again. Toward morning the Countess was forced to return to her room. Brigitte, ever keeping watch over her mistress's movements, did ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... I that I ventured to take a nap, knowing that the slightest movement or sound would wake me. I suppose I slept until six o'clock, when I was aroused by a footfall. I sprang up, and saw before me one of our native servants. He was trembling and his face was ashen beneath the black. Moreover he could not speak. All he did was to put his head on one side, like a dead man, and keep on pointing downwards. Then ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... beautiful but still tearful Uzcoque maid stood thus revealed before the astonished senator, and his enraptured and speechless son, the approaching footfall of a horse at full speed was heard, and in an instant there darted round the angle of a cliff the martial figure of a Turk, mounted upon a large and powerful steed, of that noble race bred in the deserts eastward of the Caspian. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... neither is it shown to day, By sunlight nor by starlight is it shown, Nor to the full moon's eye nor footfall known, Their world's untrodden and unkindled way. Nor is the breath nor music of it blown With sounds of winter or with ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... A fond, a devoted, a trusting wife waiting at home, watching the hands of the clock as they neared the mark of twelve, and listening for thy footfall! Thou, trusting in thine own strength, but to learn thy weakness, lying senseless among thy drinking mates in the ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... enemy shells bursting so constantly that we seemed to breathe splintered metal. Yet very few were hit. The din was so great that it seemed to be silence. We were phantom men, going forward without sound of footfall. I could neither feel nor think for the first two hundred yards, but ran with my bayonet out in front of me. And then I did feel. A German bayonet barked my knuckles. After that there was fighting such as I hope never to ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... the thousand yards and more which separated the station from the little bridge. And, as a rule, she perceived and recognized him far off; but on that particular night, such was the deep silence that she could distinguish his footfall on the echoing road long before his dark, slim figure showed against the pale ground. And he found her there, erect under the stars, smiling and healthy, a picture of all that is good. The milky whiteness of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... occurrence. After hearty meals it is always the time of the heart beat, unless there be "in the air" some more impressive stimulus; as, for example, when on shipboard, the beat is with me invariably that of the engine throbs. When walking it is the rhythm of the footfall. On one occasion a knock of four beats on the door started the Marseillaise in my ear; following up this clew, I found that at any time different divisions of musical time being struck on the table ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... and crept out of the hut to see what it might be that stirred, for the night drew on, and it was needful to be wary, since a dog might bark at the stirring of a leaf, or perhaps it might be the distant footfall of an impi that ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... to take no advantage, to let her pass him if she wished to do so. Audrey could read this determination in his averted face. Most likely he wished her to think that his abstraction was too great to allow him to notice her light footfall; he would make it easy for her to pass him—a man's eyes can only see what they are looking at. But this time Audrey's prudence counselled her in vain; her soft heart would not allow her to go past him as a stranger. She stopped ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was scarcely placed in the boat when, somewhat to his surprise and pleasure, he saw this old man carefully depositing the duenna of his young friend in a seat near him; and in another moment there was a light footfall on the ladder, a waving of white garments, and she was herself placed beside him, whilst the sailors, pushing off from the side of the vessel, made all speed towards the shore. Both turned round hastily, and their eyes met in a glance of recognition. "It would seem ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... There was a footfall at the door, and Basil entered. He was carelessly clad, walked with head bent, and had the look of one who spends his life in wearisome idleness. Without speaking, however, he threw himself upon a couch and lay staring ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the deep of your heart? At every footfall of yours, will not the harp of the road break out ...
— Gitanjali • Rabindranath Tagore
... not mean to go again. He did not mean to watch the wistaria vine. He went, he told himself wildly, to evade the summons that was sure to come from Adam Craig. But when the glimmer of wistaria swayed beneath a footfall, madness came upon him and he went stealthily through orchard and forest, stalking the flutter ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... they can but wander here; That is their destiny and also mine; The fuel that I was, the flames they were, Are vanished down the lost horizon line. Likewise the stars have died; the silence hears Only the footfall ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... sound of a dull, heavy blow, a hoarse gasp, a momentary commotion in the shrubbery, and—again silence. Barnes's blood ran cold. He waited for the next footfall of the passing man. It ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the air. Twelve o'clock boomed softly from Westminster, and made the heavy atmosphere drowsily vibrate with the volume of the strokes. The reverberation of the last had scarcely died away when a light, measured footfall made him sit up. It came nearer and nearer, and then, after a moment's hesitation, sounded on his own doorstep. With that there came the tap of a cane on the window. With thought and expectation resolutely suspended, Lefevre swung out of the room and to the hall-door. ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... and the rich fragrance of rushy dingles. Ere the night falls the wayfarer will push the familiar gate open, and see the lamplit windows of home, with the dark chimneys and gables outlined against the green sky. Those that love him are awaiting him, listening for the footfall to ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... outside the door, and now he entered gently as a mouse. No sound came from his footfall, nor was there in his face that look of pain which it had worn for the last fifteen minutes. But he was not the less abashed, ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... her suddenly she heard a footfall, a new footfall, not that of the long, stealthy stride of Martha, who was called the Mare, and swung round upon her ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... glow in his faded eyes. These were his blond mistresses; he took a fearful joy in listening to their rustling, muffle laughter as he drew them towards him with eager hands. If at that instant a blind chanced to slam, or a footfall to echo in the lonely court, then the withered old sultan would hurry his slaves back into their iron-bound seraglio, and extinguish the light. It would have been a wasted tenderness to pity him. He was very happy in his own ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... wolf" to Mr Stoddart's room, when the drawing-room door opened, and Miss Oldcastle came half out, but seeing me drew back instantly. A moment after, however, I heard the sound of her dress following us. Light as was her step, every footfall seemed to be upon my heart. I did not dare to look round, for dread of seeing her turn away from me. I felt like one under a spell, or in an endless dream; but gladly would I have walked on for ever in hope, with that silken vortex of sound following me. Soon, however, it ceased. She had ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... emerge as something sublime from an immense mirage, and we see the deep meaning in our struggles, in our victories and defeats; we begin to find pleasure in the rhythm of passion and in its victim in the hero's every footfall we distinguish the hollow echo of death, and in its proximity we realise the greatest charm of life: thus transformed into tragic men, we return again to life with comfort in our souls. We are conscious ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... nature alone can achieve. At one spot a tiny rivulet, arrested by the ice-king in its course from a field and down a bank, hung in long glistening icicles from jutting stones and frozen earth. Now and again her own footfall struck sharp and metallic on the hard road. The sky was cloudless, a clear, cold blue. A robin trilled its sweet, sad song to ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... knew he must be suffering acute pain in his eye. A far lighter blow had kept me sleepless a whole night. A fear possessed me that I might have permanently injured his sight. The splash of water ceased. His footfall stopped beside me. I could feel he was within touching distance, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... some said was "water" and some thought was "mother." Then a figure with a dissipated face a little dignified by death, and with some of the softness of childhood glimmering in it, like the bright footfall of the good angel whose mission was done and whose flight was taken—this figure lay upon its back amongst the bushes, under the sunshine, peeped at by distant hills, contemplated by idlers as if it were the body of a slain game-chicken, and the drunken "surgeon" was idiotically ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... and men implies alienation between them. The history of the race shows this to be true. The time was when they were one; when not a feeling or a shadow came between them. The bliss of Eden reached its daily acme when the footfall of God was heard amid its bowers. The hour that He joined their company was that of supreme joy. But man sinned, and then the presence of God was shunned. That which was delightful before is painful now. Such is the principle of congeniality; and such the consequences of sin—to make of heaven ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... murmur of his criticism went away, faded and died out together with the soft footfall of his bare feet ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... silver-mounted even, and yet connoisseurs pronounced it worth a hundred and fifty dollars. Not one of these is worth ten. He smokes again, and looks at the cannel coal as it leaps into flame. The room is very still; not a footfall can be heard in the house;—partly because the doors are hung with a view to silence and the floors thickly carpeted, and partly because there are only two servants in-doors, and those men. The cook cannot speak English, and Fred's own man, a jewel in his way, is taciturn to a fault. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery, there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room from under the door. Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... he heard the gate close, the soft footfall on the brick walk, and a waft of voices from within. Then it occurred to him that he, Frederic De Woolfe Lawrence, had been rejected by this little girl upon whose head he had meant to shower the blessing of marital protection, the ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... rustling of leaves, a slight crackling of stems or branches, brought the eyes of both watchers in another direction; and before they could hear a footfall, they saw, above them on the course of the brook, a figure of a man coming towards them, and Diana knew it was the minister. Swiftly and lightly he came swinging himself along, bounding over obstacles, with ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... Mary was alone. She remained standing as long as she heard the footsteps of Frank's mother on the stairs; not immediately thinking of what had passed, but still buoying herself up with her hot indignation, as though her work with Lady Arabella was not yet finished; but when the footfall was no longer heard, and the sound of the closing door told her that she was in truth alone, she sank back in her seat, and, covering her face with her ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... flowers weave their burning nets about the white marble of the balustrades, and rend them slowly, block from block, and stone from stone: the thin, sweet-scented leaves tremble along the old masonry joints as if with palsy at every breeze; and the dark lichens, golden and gray, make the footfall silent ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... sweet mistress, must I follow thee? For when I hear thy distant footfall nearing, And wait on thy appearing, Lo! my lips are silent: no ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... thought her timid, afraid of the night and all threatening things. But as I listened to the sound of her soft footfall at the door, I realized that even her breast could grow strong under the influence of a real or fancied passion. It was a shock—but I did not cry out—only set my teeth together and turned a little so that what light there was would fall on ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... the broad staircase which I had lately mounted—a slim man, who stepped gently. He did not turn, but continued his way, disappearing in the gloom of the large entrance hall. I gathered a quick impression of litheness and a noiseless footfall, of a sleek, black head, and something stirring within me, which was stronger than curiosity. I wondered why he was quitting the Vicomte's service. Such was my first sight of Charles Miste, and my first knowledge ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... for some time, when Sal's quick ear caught a footfall on the soft carpet, and, turning rapidly, she saw a tall figure advancing down the room. Madge saw it too, and started up in surprise on recognising her father. He was clothed in his dressing-gown, and carried some papers ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... flash, the glittering peaks of ice, and the solitary eagle. There seemed more wonder in a blade of grass than in all these things, but all was blotted in a dizzy swoon, and it needed his utmost effort to understand that a light sound hard by, rapidly growing more distinct, was indeed a footfall. With a violent effort he steadied himself by grasping a tree, and had hardly accomplished so much when a tall dark maiden, straight as an arrow, slim as an antelope, wildly beautiful as a Dryad, but ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... freckled face was clean, and had apparently escaped bruising in her conflict with the dragoon. She wore a short grey skirt of woollen homespun. The sleeves of her bodice were rolled up, and displayed a pair of muscular red arms. The girl was more than commonly tall, and anyone listening to her heavy footfall, and noting her thick figure and broad shoulders, would have understood that she was well able to carry a young man, even of Neal's height, up a flight of stairs. The dragoon might easily have come to the worst ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... camphor-wood trees rising in towering columns high above where the graceful festoons of liana and moss imparted an imposing scene of vastness and tropical beauty. In such places the ground was clean and springy to the footfall and the impression of a splendid solitude was such as one feels in a great deserted cathedral. At times we crossed matted and snaky-looking little streams that trickled through the decaying vegetation, where the feet ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... it had an air of neatness and order as if unused. Even the forlorn little bed of straw looked as if no one had slept on it. Laura was so disappointed that she knew not what to do; but, too tired to make any search, she was about turning away when a light footfall arrested her, and she saw the figure of a weeping child coming towards the hut. Evidently this was the elder of the two children, for she had the same brown hair Grim had spoken of, but she was so much overcome by sorrow that she did not see Laura until she came quite to the ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... was the response, but the dull lights remained where they were, and again there was a long spell of silence, as far as the voices were concerned. Then the lights went out. The Hunter stooped forward, listening, but he could hear no footfall. He put the gun down, and grasped the knife in his right hand, for he could use it with better effect in ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... he retreated, Timokles with a last hope kept one hand pushing against this wall. But they reached the other corner, and turned, without any revelation of an opening. The leopard walked leisurely, but steadily. Softly the footsteps of Timokles and the beast sounded in the room, one footfall answering another. Backward, backward, went Timokles—now a turn of a corner—backward, backward. Another corner. This was the wall by which the leopard had slept. Backward, backward! The lad could not pause, but now, as he neared the end of the wall and looked up once beyond the ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... took my stand near a table, upon which there were some writing materials and a pair of richly embroidered gloves. The sight of the gloves brought old Camus back to my mind, and I was about to take one up, to look at the workmanship, when I heard a footfall; the curtains were set aside, and ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... clock in the church tower had struck eleven, and Harry heard the cry of the watch, "all's well." He still stood where he had parted with his sister; as her last footfall upon the stairs died away, and the house was hushed for the night, the plans which he had matured long days ago, for this night's execution, laid fast hold of him. Can it be possible that the boy is about ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... more so, for the solitude is somehow more apparent. The last theatre-goer has disappeared inside his hall door, the last dull roll of the brougham, with its happy laughing load, has died away—there is not so much as a single footfall. The cropped holly hedges, the leafless birches, the limes and acacias are still and distinct in the moonlight. A few steps farther out on the highway the copse or plantation ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... noise made by a cat's footfall, nor have I seen the roots of stones nor the beards of women. But use what things you will, ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... combination. Twelve o'clock at night outside a house is an immoral hour, inside a house it is non-moral, but respectable. There is nothing in the street at that time but dubiety. Who would be a husband listening through the tolling of midnight for a muffled footfall?—And he had told her not to go: had given an order, formulated his imperative ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the camp was perfectly still, and the only sounds that broke the silence were the tinkling of a neighbouring rill and the footfall of the sentinels. Van Dyk and Considine were lying uneasily on the bare ground, and thinking of the tragic fate that awaited them on the morrow, when they observed the dim figure of a man approaching from the innermost ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... not done quickly. Amidst all the magnificence she had noted on her journey through the long suite of reception-rooms—the littered treasures of amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver—she had seen only an empty wine-flask; so with quick footfall she ran down the wide, shallow stairs to the lower floor, and here she found herself in a labyrinth of passages opening into small rooms and servants' offices. Here there were darkness and gloom rather than splendour; though in many of those ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... their flat, and every step seemed to be his. Ah, he had come earlier than he had fixed. Vera had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found waiting any longer impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall; she knew it so well. There, now he was turning towards the door; there was a pause; soon there would be the tinkle ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... "A footfall there Suffices to upturn to the warm air Half-germinating spices, mere decay Produces richer life, and day by day New pollen on the lily-petal grows, And still more labyrinthine buds ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... as he heard her footfall. "Been watching the people drive by. Pretty smart traps, some of them, too. The old families that came over in the Ark with Moses—er, Noah, I should say." There was deep concern in the remark, but she was confident that he vaguely ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... moment the boys stood listening intently for some indication of the presence of their comrade. Once Ned thought he heard a soft footfall. He put out his hand to ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... were heavy logs suspended by boughs overhanging the path by means of light but strong wires. An unwary footfall would release a catch which in turn would cause the baulk of timber to crash to the earth. There were old muskets, charged to bursting point with slugs and nails, which were fired by similar devices, while on three occasions fougasses, or land-mines, were exploded, fortunately without causing ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... but still in perfectly smooth water, for I was unable to detect the slightest heave, or rising and falling motion in her. There was an intermittent faint murmur of voices overhead, an occasional footfall on the deck, and now and then the creak and clank of the wheel-chains following a call from the forecastle, all of which led me to the conclusion that the brigantine was effecting the passage of the creek on ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... eclipse of noon when joy was hushed Like the bird's song beneath unnatural night, And Terror's footfall in the darkness crushed The rose imperial of our delight, Then, even then, though no man cried "He comes," And no man turned to greet him passing there, With phantom heralds challenging renown And silent-throbbing drums I saw the King of England, hale and ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... were to happen in the flat before long. The air of the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or when a footfall sounded ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... at the door, then waited a little. There was no response. She knocked again, harder and longer, but still silence unbroken by any footfall, reigned within. After pounding upon the door at intervals for at least ten minutes, she turned and walked dejectedly away from the house of denial, speculating as to what could possibly have ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... for a moment, but no more signals came from the window. Instead a heavy footfall sounded outside the door and a man they had not seen before ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... feeble footfall was heard upon the steps, and a gentle knocking called me to the door. It was no other than little Issie's grandfather ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... here and there flowers and weeds entwined; while its front, turned to the south's warm breath, is enlivened by a few statues, round the pedestals of which creep the vine and honey-suckle. Though the footfall of time is scarcely heard on the soft moss, which oozes in patches from the broad terrace where princes trod, the hand of desolation seemed to be busy here; and as I looked around me, and observed how each relic of antiquity was crumbling into dust, the oblivion of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross |
