"Watcher" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... protested, argued. Winthorpe, calmly, smilingly, restated his purpose and his motives. John pleaded, implored, appealed (so the watcher read his gesture) to earth, to heaven. Winthorpe took his arm, and calmly, smilingly, tried to soothe, tried to convince him. John drew his arm free, and, employing it to add force and persuasiveness to his speech, renewed his arguments, pointed out how unnecessary, inhuman, impossible the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... of Kings had given a hall-watch, As men heard recounted: for the king of the Danemen He did special service, gave the giant a watcher: And the prince ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... that hour when all things have repose, O lonely watcher of the skies, Do you hear the night wind and the sighs Of harps playing unto Love to unclose ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... in the weeds and soon began to snore. His comrade stirred him once or twice and he became quiet. Presently the watcher began to nod; his head drooped lower and lower, both ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... International Trench, of which a part is ours and another part German. Between the French and German sections there is no barricade or division. There is merely a sort of neutral zone, at the two ends of which sentries watch ceaselessly. No doubt the German watcher was not at his post, or likely he hid himself when he saw the four shadows, or perhaps be doubled back and had not time to bring up reinforcements. Or perhaps, too, the German officer had strayed too far ahead in the neutral zone. In short, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... to her liking happen to pass, forthwith the watcher darts from her tall tower, swift as an arrow from the bow. With a dagger-thrust in the neck, she stabs the jugular of the Locust, Dragon-fly or other prey whereof I am the purveyor; and she as quickly scales the donjon and retires with her capture. ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... again after they had been milked, the aged step on the creaking stair—old Peggy's, as she knew. It came to her door; it stopped; the person outside listened for a moment, and then lifted the wooden latch, and looked in. The watcher by the bedside arose, and went to her. Susan would have been glad to see Peggy's face once more, but was far too weak to turn, so she lay ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... light flashed out from the windows of an upper room. A moment, and the watcher saw the form of a woman framed in the casement against the bright background. For some time she stood there, her face, shaded by her hands, pressed close to the glass, as if she were trying to see into the darkness of the night. Then she drew ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... She had seen Jenny already at her brother's Bible-class, and she had been drawn to her. Something in the character of the labourer's daughter seemed to make a special appeal to the delicate and mystical temper of the vicar's sister, in whom the ardour of the "watcher for souls" was a natural gift. Jenny seemed to be aware of it. She was flushed and a little excited, alternately shy and communicative—like the bird under fascination, already alive to the signal of its captor. At any rate, Margaret Shenstone kept both her companions ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a spirit of mischief abroad upon that mountain slope. It embodied itself in a puff of wind that stirred gratefully the curls above the girl's brow. Also, it fanned the neck of the watcher below and cunningly moved his hat from his side; not more than a few feet, indeed, but still far enough to transfer it from the shade into the glaring sun and into the view of the girl above. The owner made no move. ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... dauntless effort of man, never flagging, never broken, persisting to its goal. He had not been able to thus persist, the spirit had not reached far enough to know its aim and grasp it. He knew his weakness, his incapacity to cope with the larger odds of life, a watcher not an actor in the battle, and understanding that his failure had come from his own inadequacy he wished ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... therefore, I gained my feet, only to see that my watcher did the same; cautiously I advanced toward him, finding that by moving with a shuffling gait I could retain my balance as well as make reasonably rapid progress. As I neared the brute he backed cautiously away ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have been my reward for just such cautious play, and often as we sat, there flitted past, in the dim light, the silent shadowy forms of the campfire ghosts. Swift, not twinkling, but looming light and fading, absolutely silent. Sometimes approaching so near that the still watcher can get the glint of beady eyes or even of a snowy breast, for these ghosts are merely the common Mice of the mountains, abounding in every part of ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... with a scornful smile. "I would drink the whole with readiness; but the juice of this Indian gum will bring sleep on the healthy man as well as upon the patient, and the business of the leech requires me to be a watcher." ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... he told me, glancing up at the third story of the house of the Gilded Shears. No watcher was visible. From the archway, which was entrance to a court of tall houses, I could well command Peyrot's door, myself in deep shadow M. Etienne nodded to me and walked off whistling, staring full in the face every one ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... enough in the middle of the room. There was still the newspaper parcel; he had put it down on one of the walnut-tables. He now removed the paper; it fell at Pocket's feet, a newspaper and nothing more; and nothing had come out of it but the stereoscopic camera, that either watcher ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... and swayed a trifle with the movement of the body of the watcher stretched along it. Taug had halted now and was preparing to make a new stand. His lips were flecked with foam, and saliva drooled from his jowls. He stood with head lowered and arms outstretched, preparing for a sudden charge to close quarters. ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... long. Medlicott told me she noticed a preternatural sensitiveness of ear in Madame de Crequy, induced by the habit of listening silently for the slightest unusual sound in the house. Medlicott was always a minute watcher of any one whom she cared about; and, one day, she made me notice by a sign madame's acuteness of hearing, although the quick expectation was but evinced for a moment in the turn of the eye, the hushed breath—and then, when the unusual footstep turned into ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... path which leads to the summit of Saint-Sulpice. The two companies were therefore advancing on parallel lines. The trees and shrubs, draped by the rich arabesques of the hoarfrost, threw whitish reflections which enabled the watcher to see the gray lines of the squads in motion. When Hulot reached the summit of the rocks, he detached all the soldiers in uniform from his main body, and made them into a line of sentinels, each communicating ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... hour a man climbed up out of the gorge and sat in the westward door of the hut. This lonely watcher of the west and listener to the silence was Duane. And this hut was the one where, three years before, Jennie had nursed ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... advanced. Miss Danton took his arm, and together they walked up and down, talking earnestly. Once or twice Kate looked up at the darkened windows; but the watcher was not to be seen, and they walked on. Half an hour, an hour, passed; the hall clock struck one, and then the two midnight pedestrians disappeared round the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... silent house the moments for the one anxious watcher went slowly by. Her novel was not interesting—she let it fall on her knees, and looking at the little clock on the mantelpiece, counted the moments until eleven should strike. She quite expected that Jasper would be home at eleven. It did ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... later the jam of the drive reached the dam at Redding. Orde took Carroll downtown in the buckboard. There a seat by the dam-watcher's little house was given her, back of the brick factory buildings next the power canal, whence for hours she watched the slow onward movement of the sullen brown timbers, the smooth, polished-steel rush of the waters through the chute, the graceful ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... never took his eyes off him when he was outside of his house. Afterwards you went to the place where the men used to fight, and the man who was watching you went in, and had beer, and saw you talking with the big man you used to fight with, in the parlor behind the bar. The watcher went out to follow you, but left another to watch this man. We found that both Mr. Chetwynd and he went to a shipping office in Tower Street, and we then guessed that you intended to take the bracelet at once ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... faded watcher by thy pillow, I, a statue on thy chapel-floor, Pour'd in prayer before the Virgin-Mother, Rouse no ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... foot, the bedclothes put in order, a few pleasant commonplaces exchanged, and the trio adjourned for consultation. Trained to their work of self-repression, not one of them had given the slightest hint of what was feared, but their precautions were undone by the thoughtless haste of the watcher outside. ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... room was large and somewhat grimly bare. When his wife died he would have taken out every luxury. But a great fire burned on the hearth and gave a touch of redemption. A couch, too, had been brought in for the watcher at night, and a great flowered chair. In this now sat Mrs. Grizel Kerr, a pleasant, elderly, comely body, noted for her housewifery and her garden of herbs. Behind her, out of a shadowy corner, gleamed the white mutch of Tibbie Ross, the best ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Bloom" George Gordon Byron To Mary Charles Wolfe My Heart and I Elizabeth Barrett Browning Rosalind's Scroll Elizabeth Barrett Browning Lament of the Irish Emigrant Helen Selina Sheridan The King of Denmark's Ride Caroline E. S. Norton The Watcher James Stephens The Three Sisters Arthur Davison Ficke Ballad May Kendall "O that 'Twere Possible" Alfred Tennyson "Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead" Alfred Tennyson Evelyn Hope Robert Browning Remembrance Emily Bronte Song,"The linnet in the rocky dells" Emily Bronte Song of the Old Love ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... but distance and obscurity made recognition impossible. And yet, somehow, every quivering instinct within her was telling her that the crouched and shadowy watcher ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... nod and smile back. Then that happened on which she had counted. The stranger came up into the path, and without seeing the watcher, walked swiftly away. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... or under native rulers. The Ammonites too, were put down for ever by Nebuchadnezzar, and he came home puffed up with the pride of conquest. Then came another warning dream, of a tree, great and spreading, the rest and stay of bird and beast, till a watcher and a holy one came down and bade that it should be cut down, and only a stump to be left, to be wet with the dew of Heaven until it should recover. It was no wonder that Daniel was astonished for one hour ere he explained the vision, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... borne one another an interesting message, for Honor's guardian spirit had noted the happy smile creeping over her face, as in her dreams she saw the noble hero of her waking reverie—and Guy, as he tossed restlessly on his pillow, betrayed to his "silent watcher" a heart overflowing with a new-born love for a creature to whom he had yet spoken no word. And how those angels must have smiled, knowing, as they did, that 'ere another day had passed those two would have met, to recognize in one ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... but she had lost Katie, that was a great deal. Last night she had thought that she might find the girl's resentment gone and her sense of justice, if not her affection, ruling her. At least there was this comfort, thought the watcher, she had not broken Katie's heart, it had only been her own—that was better, after all, than breaking anyone's else. Yet a sudden choking came into her throat, she found her eyes grown dim, steadied her vision, heard a few words of what Sir Temple was saying ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... column and came flying back, rising towards the German left. The squadrons of the latter came about, facing this oblique advance, and suddenly little flickerings and a faint crepitating sound told that they had opened fire. For a time no effect was visible to the watcher on the bridge. Then, like a handful of snowflakes, the drachenflieger swooped to the attack, and a multitude of red specks whirled up to meet them. It was to Bert's sense not only enormously remote but singularly inhuman. Not four ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... doctor of the People of the White Kendah, greet you, O Watcher-by-night, whom we have travelled far to find," said ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... is a large, grave, sullen-looking dog, with a wide chest, noble head, long switch tail, bright eyes, and a loud, deep voice. Of all dogs this is the most vigilant watcher over the property of his master, and nothing can tempt him to betray the confidence reposed in him. Notwithstanding his commanding appearance, and the strictness with which he guards the property of ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... shadows on the oaken floor and the dark panelling of the low walls. The carved furniture stood distorted and grotesque. The woodwork creaked as it cooled from the heat of the day, and a mouse that scuttled sharply across the floor brought the watcher to his feet with an exclamation of alarm. His nerves were strung to respond to every sight and sound. Again and again he resolved that he would not sit up or have further dealings with the plotters. Loyalty and manliness ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... figure of the lady of the tree step out. He heard her cry "Luigi!" with a voice full of joy and gladness. The two met in quick embrace, and the desolation of the watcher was complete as he heard her speak lovingly to the officer who had at last come back into her life. She spoke in French and—was it because of the language used or of the unusual excitement?—her voice took on a strange elusive quality utterly unlike ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... crossed the Red Sea with Moses, this new and glittering star, who had but just "made good," or "got over," or "clicked" (my new acquaintance used all these phrases indiscriminately when referring to his own Herschellian triumphs as a watcher of the skies), walked confidently to a distant table which was being held in reserve for her party, and drew off her gloves with the happy anticipatory assurance of one who is about to lunch a little too well. (All this, I should ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... did so, he was just in time to see a face vanish from view. In fact, he barely caught a fleeting glimpse of it, and yet Hugh felt perfectly sure that he had not alarmed the watcher ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... Street and the house was Julia's. Inside the house, in the library, sat Mr. Atwater, trying to read a work by Thomas Carlyle, while a rhythmic murmur came annoyingly from the veranda. The young man, watching him attentively, saw him lift his head and sniff the air with suspicion, but the watcher took this pantomime to be an expression of distaste for certain versifyings, and sharing that distaste, approved. Mr. Atwater sniffed again, threw down his book and strode out to the veranda. There sat dark-haired Julia in a silver dress, and near by, Newland ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... eternal stillness all about was oppressive. Two watched while the other two slept. John appeared in his element. At the least sign of disturbance in any quarter, his hand was up, and to further attract attention his hand would be laid upon the arm of his fellow watcher. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... at intervals almost the whole of that day. Waking late in the afternoon, her eyes fell on the silent watcher by her side, and she ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... an animal," gasped the watcher. "A bear!" she added in an awed whisper, as a faint mountain breeze fanned the campfire into ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... than serious. Would she, as the darky had affirmed, leave when the tide was once more at its full? Her lying in the outer, instead of in the inner harbor, seemed significant. Time passed; the person on the platform regained the deck and disappeared. In the bushes the watcher ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... so loudly, it is not for her. It is bound for the white tent on the shore, shunned even here, where sits a solitary watcher gazing wistfully all day toward the city that has passed out of his life. Perchance it may bring to him a message from the far-away home where the birds sang for him, and the waves and the flowers spoke to him, and "Unclean" ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... up a chair and sat down in it at his side, as if she were the watcher by a sick-bed or the partner ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... flicker of light. Then they swarmed about the oily water, shifting and swaying on their course like a cluster of fireflies, alternately dark and luminous in the dip and rise of the ground-swell. Within each small aura of radiance the watcher at the rail could see a dusky and quietly moving figure, the faded blue of a denim garment, the brown of bare arms, or the sinews of a straining neck. Once he caught the whites of a pair of eyes turned up towards the ship's deck. He could also see the running and wavering ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... The watcher turned from the White City across the Potomac and slowly walked into his rose garden. Even in September the riot of color was beyond description. In the splendor of the full Southern moon could be seen all shades from deep blood red to pale pink. All sizes from the tiniest four-leaf wild flowers ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... there gleamed a brighter, more intimate star than the constellation above. While Luis sang, the watcher in the rocks fixed his eyes wistfully on that gleaming pin point of light, and wondered what Helen May was doing. Her lighted window it was; her window that looked down through the mouth of the Basin and out over the broken mesa land that was ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range. The spreading field, the human scene, is the "choice of subject"; the pierced aperture, either broad or balconied or slit-like and low-browed, is the "literary form"; but they are, singly or together, as nothing without the posted presence of the watcher—without, in other words, the consciousness of the artist. Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell you of what he has BEEN conscious. Thereby I shall express to you at once his boundless ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... done, And patient waiting at thy master's side, For well-selected morsel of each meal; Thy pleadings, far more eloquent than words Of mine could ever chronicle, thy sweet Low whinings of inquiry or desire, All will be long remembered, watcher true, Good, ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his idol should be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the sentence he cannot avert, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the door and entered without knocking. He and Queeker stood in the passage and saw the bed, the invalid, and the watcher through an inner door which stood ajar. They could hear the murmurings of the old woman's voice. She appeared to wander in her mind, for sometimes her words were coherent, at other times she ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... Here, almost at his feet, was a man, also looking out along that slumbering waste. He was dressed in skins, his arms were folded across his breast, his chin bent low, and he gazed up and out from deep eyes shadowed by strong brows. Lawless saw the shoulders of the watcher heave and shake once or twice, and then a voice with a deep aching trouble in it spoke; but at first he could catch no words. Presently, however, he heard distinctly, for the man raised his hands ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... jumped on top of the benches and desks or crawled beneath them, tugging, rolling, wrestling, accomplishing in a minute a depth of disorder and din unbelievable save by a Scottish scholar. We even carried on war, class against class, in those wild, precious minutes. A watcher gave the alarm when the master opened his house-door to return, and it was a great feat to get into our places before he entered, adorned in awful majestic authority, shouting "Silence!" and striking resounding blows with his cane on a desk or ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... back to his book,—the watcher nodding on his spear,—and all the stormy scenes he expected soon to realize in his own life, when the sword of conscription had numbered his old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... That watcher among the clouds would have seen a great distribution of khaki-uniformed men and khaki-painted material over the whole of the sunken area of Holland. He would have marked the long trains, packed with men or piled with great guns and war material, creeping slowly, alert for train-wreckers, along ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... close of Howland Wade's discourse, Bernald, charged with his prodigious secret, had felt the need to escape for an instant from the liberated rush of talk. The interest of watching Pellerin was so perilously great that the watcher felt it might, at any moment, betray him. He lingered in the crowded drawing-room long enough to see his friend enclosed in a mounting tide, above which Mrs. Beecher Bain and Miss Fosdick actively waved their conversational tridents; then he took refuge, at the back of the house, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... health had been in appearance only. The injured, weakened brain was the organ which suffered most, and in spite of the physician's best efforts his patient speedily entered into a condition of stupor, relieved only by low, unintelligible mutterings. Jim Wetherby became a tireless watcher, and greatly relieved the grief-stricken parents. Helen earnestly entreated that she might act the part of nurse also, but the doctor firmly forbade her useless exposure to contagion. She drove daily to the house, yet Mrs. Nichol's ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... observer overlooks, and they encourage the reader to seek entertainment in fields and woods. Most of his nature writings are suitable for pupils in grades from the fifth to the eighth. Some of his books are Beyond the Pasture Bars, A Watcher in the Woods, Roof and Meadow, and Where Rolls the Oregon. ("Wild Life in the Farm Yard," from Beyond the Pasture Bars, is used by permission of The ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... invariably malignant in his dispositions as the Cromarty one is benevolent, and died in a prison, to which he was committed for killing a poor half-witted associate. Yet another idiot of the north of Scotland had a strange turn for the supernatural. He was a mutterer of charms, and a watcher of omens, and possessed, it was said, the second sight. I collected not a few other facts of a similar kind, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. On a triangular shelf across the corner stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was supplied from a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute, whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely watcher to beguile a tedious hour. The house was ventilated by two round holes, like the lights of a ship's cabin, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... to test the loyalty of his true love, he told the executioners to hang up his mantle, saying that it would be a pleasure to him if he could see the likeness of his approaching death rehearsed in some way. The request was granted; and the watcher on the outlook, thinking that the thing was being done to Hagbard, reported what she saw to the maidens who were shut within the palace. They quickly fired the house, and thrusting away the wooden support under their feet, gave ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... with a sudden horror, and I, in my different way, felt a new horror also; for, it was on the stroke of One, and I felt that the second watcher was yielding to me, and that the curse was upon me that I must ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... gravely. "I have been a watcher with her by your sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:—nay, I must confess that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me. You have inspired that poor girl with ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a god as this one comes very near to monotheism. The conception of an almost solitary deity, recognized as watcher of wrong, guardian of right, and primitive creator, approaches more closely to unitarianism than does the idea of any physical ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... which we hardly dare utter, have wonderful power, in great sorrows, to change the whole current of the feelings; for while that soft shower was heard, falling on the grave, it seemed as if a heavenly watcher was in care of the place; and so, leaving them together, it was easy and pleasant ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... free expression of his choice for representatives, and to the majority their right to govern. One of these is the SECRET BALLOT. At the polls each voter enters a booth by himself to mark his ballot, or to operate the voting machine, and need have no fear that a possible "watcher" may cause him to lose his job or otherwise suffer for voting as he thinks best. The secret ballot also reduces the likelihood that votes will be bought, for there is no way of telling whether the man who sells his vote will vote as he has agreed; and ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... come thick and fast from the grim watcher on the rocks above, and troop after troop of Mounted Infantry go scouring away to the attack. It is a running fight. Kopje after kopje, as the Boers push on, breaks into fire and is left extinct behind. But still they keep their flank unbroken and ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... prepared to labor with success. He had taken her from home, from loved scenes, to die amid strangers; and the responsibility of his position made him, in that period of anguish, a most tender nurse and a most faithful watcher. ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... to the notch in the canon walls. Stepping through it, he continued on up the stream. A few paces beyond the notch, and a face appeared in the cleft rock, watching him. The watcher seemed in doubt. Collie's action had been natural enough. Had he seen the horse? The hidden face grew crafty. The eyes grew cold. The watcher tapped the side of the cliff with his revolver butt. The noise was slight, but ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... room. When they landed clatteringly, he stepped quietly through the door. In three steps he was on the opposite side of the corridor. He hugged the wall and moved back away from the spot where the watcher would ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off— The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already. The doctor put him in the dark of ether. He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... his bed, but not to sleep, only to turn restlessly from side to side, over and over again, with a weary monotony which was even more wearisome to the watcher ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... to and fro on the sunny lawn and how, all of a sudden, she had broken out into a peal of laughter and had run down the sloping curve of the path. Now, as then, he stood listlessly in his place, seemingly a tranquil watcher ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... buffalo-driver or bandit may not ere now have seen processions of these Poseidonian phantoms, bearing laurels and chaunting hymns on the spot where once they fell each on the other's neck to weep? Gathering his cloak around him and cowering closer to his fire of sticks, the night-watcher in those empty colonnades may have mistaken the Hellenic outlines of his shadowy visitants for fevered dreams, and the melody of their evanished music for the whistling of night winds or the cry of owls. So abandoned is Paestum in its solitude that we know ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... not be more than one watcher for each table. When there are two, or more, confusion is apt to result and no one of the watchers can devote his attention to the game as it should be devoted. Two watchers are also likely to bump into each other ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... that on the opposite side of the road an ill-dressed man had for a full hour been lurking in a doorway, or that when he came down the doctor's steps, the mysterious midnight watcher strolled ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... Circumstantial Selection: that is to say, of a method by which horrors having every appearance of being elaborately planned by some intelligent contriver are only accidents without any moral significance at all. Suppose a watcher from the stars saw a frightful accident produced by two crowded trains at full speed crashing into one another! How could he conceive that a catastrophe brought about by such elaborate machinery, such ingenious preparation, ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... to indicate that events were breeding in that peaceful scene, and that adventure was creeping close upon the watcher. He went in from his fourth or fifth inspection, and ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... for protection and guidance, and afterward were returned to the room. Some of them are very curious; a favourite one represents a pregnant woman, the idea being that a woman with a child is a good watcher, as the infant cries and keeps her awake. That the child is not yet born is of no consequence. In my possession is a kapatong of the head-hunters which represents a woman in the act of bearing a child. Among the Dayaks the ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... found my mother in the same place, and as dry-eyed as ever. So she continued until after Gregory was born; and, somehow, his coming seemed to loosen the tears, and she cried day and night, till my aunt and the other watcher looked at each other in dismay, and would fain have stopped her if they had but known how. But she bade them let her alone, and not be over-anxious, for every drop she shed eased her brain, which had been in a terrible ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... started for the door, but shrank into the shadow at sight of a blue-clothed watcher sharply outlined on the crest of a distant rise. Escape was cut off, and the hunted soldier turned to Virgie in ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... unseen watcher he presented the appearance of a man not impressed by stage settings. After all he was now in the seller's space boots, and it was a ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher. ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... was in bed at night, often sat by his side till a late hour, singing to him old songs, or telling Bible stories until he fell away to sleep. Then if he awoke, as he frequently did, there was a cry for Maddy, and the soothing process had to be repeated, until the tired, pale watcher ceased to wonder that her grandmother had died so suddenly, wondering rather that she had lived so ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... easily enough, and the underbrush closed behind them, so that, had they been seen, the watcher might have been ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... woman and the ennobling of the race was first seen by Wyoming, on the crest of our continent, and the clarion note was sounded forth, "Equality before the law." For a quarter of a century she was the lone watcher on the heights to sound the tocsin of freedom. At last Colorado, from her splendid snow-covered peaks, answered back in grand accord, "Equality before the law." Then on Utah's brow shone the sun, and she, too, exultantly joined in the trio, "Equality before the law." And now Idaho completes the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... tried in vain to see what was going on inside the railings, but everything beyond the brightly lighted road was wrapped in gray darkness. Some one suddenly held up high a flaming torch, and the watcher at the window saw that the shadowy crowd which had managed to force its way into the Park hung together, like bees swarming, on the farther lawn through which flowed the Serpentine. With the gleaming of the yellow, wavering light there had fallen a sudden hush and silence, and Mr. Tapster wondered ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... reading of the first and second letters, had carried him to extraordinary heights of rapture was proved by the immensity of his suffering now. The sun blazing into his face would have shown a close watcher that a horizontal line, which he had never noticed before, but which was never to be gone thereafter, was somehow gradually forming itself in the smooth of his forehead. His eyes, of a light hazel, had a curious look which can only be described by the word ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the sentinel had heard something unusual, but in each case he lay flat and silent, while the wind continued to shriek down the valley, driving the chill rain before it. Each time the suspicions of the watcher passed and Henry moved slowly on, infinite patience allied with infinite skill. If there was anything in heredity and reincarnation he was the greatest tracker and hunter in that old primeval world, where such skill ranked ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... its solemn responsibilities still met him; its earnest duties still confronted him, and, though he sometimes felt like a weary watcher at the gates of death, longing to catch a glimpse of her shining robes and the radiant light of her glorified face, yet her knew it was his work to labor ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... the only watcher; for at the sound of the carriage wheels the ancient portress took up her position in the doorway, with her eyes fixed on the face of the young lady. When the two women had ascended the stairs, a sudden inspiration seized ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... his knightly head uncovered, his handsome face as calm as though he were a guest at a festival instead of a patient and interested watcher at a funeral-pyre. His birth, his breeding, his genius even, asserted themselves in that mortal hour. He was calm, collected, serious, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... into the court and Matthew was there the moment the horses stopped. The Director was there, too; not to lose any time and yet not be tardy, he had put a watcher at the door to let him know when the carriage was approaching. The Director was very polite and lifted his cousin out of the carriage, greeting her heartily. Then he helped Miss Grideelen to dismount, thanking her warmly ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... overshadowed the land. The birds of passage, which follow ministerial sunshine through every clime of political faith and manners, flocked to your branches; and the beasts of the field (the lordly possessors of hills and valleys) crowded under your shade. "But behold a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven, and cried aloud, and said thus: Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches; shake off his leaves, and scatter his fruit; let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... not love John Everard no one understood more clearly than Ellice Brand. She had watched them when they were together, she had watched the girl apart; and the watcher's body might be that of a child, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman, as ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... offer them insult first; and a few, a very few, offered me shelter and provision. But as I neared the city, and began to come upon muddy beaten paths, I passed through governments that were more thickly populated, and here appeared strong chance of delay. The watcher in the tower which is set above each village would spy me and cry: "Here is a masterless man," and then the people that were within would rush out with intent to spoil me of my weapons, and afterwards to appoint me as ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... though in answer to the man on the barrow. It seemed to me very curious. I nudged Hugh's arm, and slipped into the shelter of the cave. For a few moments we watched the signaller. Then, suddenly, the watcher at the road-bend came running back from his little tour up the road, waving his arms, and flashing his bright plate as he ran. We saw him spring to his old place on the wall, and jump from his perch into the ditch. He had some shelter there, ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... The watcher stopped the film and silently reset it. It began again with the chairman on the screen rapping the ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... man, that was certain—face dark and clear cut, complexion swarthy, figure at once lithe and muscular, and some years under thirty. There was a turn of the throat, a trick of movement, when he presently changed his position restlessly, that perplexed the watcher. The Doctor fancied that he must have seen this man before, but he could ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... when engaged on any dealings with supernatural powers, is insisted on in the tales and practices of the Russians, Eskimos, Zulus, and the Khonds of Orissa. In Russia the watcher for the golden fern-flower must seize it the instant it blossoms and run home, taking care not to look behind him: whether through fear of giving the demons, who also watch for it, power over him, or whether through a dread of the flower losing its magic ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... some apparition start up from the shadowy corners. The search was apparently fruitless, for presently he crammed the papers back into the drawers with the same feverish haste, and, walking rapidly across the room, passed out of the view of the watcher on the other side, for the picture which hung on the inside wall prevented Colwyn seeing beyond the foot of the bed. Although the innkeeper could not now be seen, the sound of his stealthy quick movements, and the flickering ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... Watcher was there, and the purse was made of calf's skin, greased with your hands, for you had been rolling butter; so the dog swallowed it, having got no dinner. Kill the dog, therefore, and you will ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... these upper works was scarcely attained, when the bow, where we had stood but a minute before, and the whole hull of the "Flying Cloud" with it, blended together in one mass of surging fire. The appearance in the heavens of this strange sight, to a watcher at some rancho, or in the not distant city of San Francisco, if such there were, must have afforded a more vivid illustration of the fall of a blazing star or meteoric wonder than astronomer has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... drunken recklessness. He felt like one who watches a fly washing his face on the cylinder of an engine—the huge steel slides along bearing the tiny life towards enormous death—another moment and it will be over; and yet the watcher cannot interfere. The supernatural thus lay, perfect and alive, but immeasurably tiny; the huge forces were in motion, the world was heaving up, and Percy could do nothing but stare and frown. Yet, as has ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... rolls out many empty milk-cans at every halt.) Then a body came to life with intolerable pricklings. Limb by limb, after agonies of terror, that body returned to him, steeped in most perfect physical weariness such as follows a long day's rowing. He saw the heavy lids droop over her eyes—the watcher behind them departed—and, his soul sinking into assured ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... Though my heart bemoans thine absence. From her grave awakes the mother, To Kullervo speaks these measures: "Thou has still the dog remaining, He will lead thee to the forest; Follow thou the faithful watcher, Let him lead thee to the woodlands, To the farthest woodland border, To the caverns of the wood-nymphs; Kullerwoinen's Victory and Death There the forest maidens linger, They will give thee food and shelter, Give my hero joyful greetings." Kullerwoinen, with his watch-dog, Hastens onward ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... watching by the bed of sickness, and it is blessed to have such a watcher! anticipating every want; relieving, not in a cold, uninterested way, but with the quick perceptions, the tenderness, the gentleness ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... this a favourable moment to proceed; for, whilst it afforded us a sufficiency of light to enable us to avoid such obstacles as roots of trees and twigs and branches of shrubs, it would dazzle the eyes of the lonely watcher, and effectually prevent his seeing anything ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... by the keeper is saturated with a solution made from a strong-smelling herb, to which the animals have great antipathy; and even though they may approach and smell the skin, they soon turn away, without hurting the watcher. ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... Browning understood this well, when she wrote her beautiful poem interpreting the thoughts of "the Virgin Mary to the Child Jesus." Hopes and fears, joy and pity, are alternately stirred in the heart of the watcher, as she bends over the tiny face, scanning every change that flits across it. Each verse suggests a subject for ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll |
