"Muttering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... went out, but as we passed them I saw the doctors muttering together, for they were ill-pleased and foreboded evil. Also they were jealous of me, and wished to smite me through the heart of him ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... was as solid standing there as this," he tapped lightly with his knuckles the wall beside his chair. "It was as though I had heard it all, seen it all, gone through it all twenty times already. I wasn't afraid of them. I drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering— ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... shook hands with Jack, muttering a word or two in broken English, expressive of his pleasure over ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... away muttering something about the poor always remaining poor with their foolish notions of throwing away money; and Margaret MacLean went back to the book of faery-tales. But as she was looking for the place Sandy ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... tucked into a closed taxicab, half-heartedly muttering expostulations and protests to which I paid not the least heed. During my strolls I had observed in what would have been Regent Street at home a rather good-class shop with an English name, and to this I now proceeded with my charge. I am afraid ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... his feet in an access of fury, and seemed about to summon his guard. But at Dick's persuasion he seated himself again, though he was much too excited for the moment to listen to his white visitor, muttering over to himself ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... spend an evening with Lena and stayed late, the Polish violin-teacher across the hall used to come out and watch me descend the stairs, muttering so threateningly that it would have been easy to fall into a quarrel with him. Lena had told him once that she liked to hear him practice, so he always left his door open, and watched who ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... gasped the foreman. "Say, Mister Cock-o'-the-walk—where do you hide all that muscle?" And without waiting for an answer he piled a dozen of his men upon the engine and followed them, still muttering. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... the cabman's attention, and bade him drive to Baker Street. There was a short silence, Dymes glaring and muttering inarticulately. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... sat chipping a sharp edge to the singular flint, and looking strangely at her. Then he bound the perforated flint on to the stick with strips of rabbit skin. And afterwards he walked up and down the ledge, striking with it, and muttering to himself, and thinking of Uya. It felt very fine ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the long jetty and the silent streets, rain driving at our backs. We trod on air, I think; I remember no fatigue. Davies sometimes broke into a little run, muttering 'scoundrel' ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... sometimes quickly, then of a sudden turned and stood—"She was fair," she continued, as she kept looking at the wall; "but so am I. He got as good a bargain in me as in her." Then she made devious movements, turning and returning, muttering to herself, but so thickly that I only caught words much disjointed—"Remorse!—yes, yes!—no, no!—not till I am to be hanged; but that cannot be; no one saw me. Say nothing, nothing!—mix the draught—away to bed. 'Tis late, late! ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... wished her to stay entirely in bed, but she would get up, muttering that she was well; and the doctor said it was useless to hinder her. She had no specific disease. Only the years were taking their last toll of her. So she was placed in her chair each day by the fire, and sat there till evening, muttering with those dry lips. The stiff folds of ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... Do you wish to frighten the child? Or do you want him to take sick?" interposed Anfisa, and that was sufficient for Ignat to rush off hastily, muttering: ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... wish. The Pope, in his impatience, asked him one day when he would be ready with the Chapel, and he answered: 'When I shall be able.' To which his Holiness replied in a rage: 'You want to make me hurl you from that scaffold!' Michelangelo heard and remembered, muttering: 'That you shall not do to me.' So he went straightway, and had the scaffolding taken down. The frescoes were exposed to view on All Saints' day, to the great satisfaction of the Pope, who went that day to ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... anxiety as to what Raffles might say in his raving, which had taken on a muttering incoherence not likely to create any dangerous belief. At any rate he must risk this. He went down into the wainscoted parlor first, and began to consider whether he would not have his horse saddled and go home by the moonlight, and give up caring for earthly ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... know, and Jupiter Ammon had vanished. What other court of appeal was known to man? So I submitted as cheerfully as if the learned Doctor, instead of kicking me out of court, had been handing me in. Yet, for all that, as I returned musing past Rydal Water, I could not help muttering to myself—Ay, now, what rebellious thought was it that I muttered? You fancy, reader, that perhaps I said, 'But yet, Doctor, in spite of your wig, I am in the right.' No; you're quite wrong; I said nothing of the sort. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... it had been brewing long, showed unmistakable signs that it was not going to keep us waiting very much longer, for the sheet—lightning was flickering almost incessantly, while a low, deep muttering of distant thunder occasionally made itself heard. The storm seemed to be working up astern of us, for presently a dazzlingly vivid flash of chain-lightning rent the darkness over our weather quarter, quickly followed by a deep, hollow, reverberating peal of thunder that ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... gently from her hand without listening to any more of her thoughts, and the woman left the room muttering something about jelly and my lady, Helena went to the side of her mother's bed, determined to wait there till she awakened, then to give her the key, and tell her the circumstance. Notwithstanding the real simplicity of this little girl's character, she was, as her ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... away muttering: "Ill-minded conspirator, indeed!" But before I left, he had found me out. He was half out of his wits; he could neither question, nor answer, nor write, nor walk, nor wait. He had his eyes continually upon me, he rubbed his hands, and addressing himself to every one near him; "Sior ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... there, murderously intent, ever the fixed obsession burned in his fever brain, stirring his thin lips to incessant muttering,—a sort of soundless invocation, part ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... opened the door for her, and she passed on, bowing to him, and muttering some word ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... parents to get a better view; dogs, filled with uneasiness by this strange silence, whined. The stillness was unnatural. Distant cries of a mina-bird floated to this strained audience; the river, muttering its plaints to the listening rushes, sounded like a cataract in ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... at the door as though listening, and then delivering a brief monologue. In the interval before her appearance, an hour and a half at least, while they were moving about on the stage reading their parts, drinking tea and arguing, she did not leave my side, and was all the time muttering her part and nervously crumpling up the manuscript. And imagining that everyone was looking at her and waiting for her appearance, with a trembling hand she smoothed back her hair ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the same lion would come again, the lesson was not lost on us, and we resolved to have a large fire blazing, and to keep watch during the night. As I sat up during my part of the watch, constantly keeping my eyes around me, I could hear the lions muttering and calling to each other with sounds very unlike the roar they utter when they are quarrelling over a carcass or about to spring on their prey. There were, too, the cries of jackals, the laughing of hyenas, the occasional trumpeting ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... had been always so with his gallant friend and tutor in arms." This speech affected all present very much; with the exception of the old General, who only bowed and did not speak: but when he went home he was heard muttering "Magny sans tache, Magny sans tache!" and was attacked with paralysis that night, from which he never ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a clout —what do you think, I saw? —why thunder alive, man, his stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on second thoughts,"I guess I won't kick you, old fellow." "Wise Stubb," said he,"wise Stubb;" and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of his own gums like a chimney hag. seeing he wasn't going to stop saying over his "wise Stubb, wise Stubb," I thought I might as well fall to kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could hear her muttering "I'll give it to our cure up home, to say some masses ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... window, and from the scene that mocked him, muttering: "I will see her alone, let come what will. I will make one struggle to regain my power over ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... some angry muttering from the crowd, and young Charles Yuill exclaimed, 'Dagon you, would you lord it ower us on week-days as well as ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... above an hour before the sky became overcast; and, all at once, a rushing, sweeping wind came over the country. Far-off in the distance where the hills could be seen, a thick, misty appearance almost hid them from sight. There was a low, muttering sound, then another, seemingly nearer; then came a dazzling blue flash of lightning that made all the party stationed at the dining-room window start back; and then came a long, rolling, rattling peal of thunder, that sounded as though it had come bellowing through ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... soon speeding away from the pier, and the sharp prow of the Norma was turned in the direction of Cliff Island. Clouds were rapidly gathering and there was an occasional muttering of thunder. ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other. He came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, "Oh, the Duchess! the Duchess! Or, won't she be savage ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... habitation, suddenly one would come upon a fortress, frowning with heavy guns, and surrounded by the log-built barracks of the soldiery, who, in the intervals of siege and combat, passed their days impatiently, thinking of the distant homes from which they came, and muttering their discontent at inaction and uncertainty. The region round the junction of Lake George and Lake Champlain, where stood the strongholds of Fort Edward and Fort William Henry, of Crown Point and Ticonderoga, was the scene of many desperate conflicts, between ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... man with a frightened face stood before me, his hat on the pavement, his eyes staring. We looked at each other in astonishment. I started to speak. Then he reached for his hat quickly, and brushed by me, muttering ...
— The Chamber of Life • Green Peyton Wertenbaker
... concluding that he had been detained on American soil, his pursuers would follow him north, and when daylight came a mounted man's view would command a wide sweep of level prairie. The storm passed away, muttering, into the distance; the rain ceased, and the air was fresh and cool until the sun sprang up. It was on his right hand, he thought he had kept his line; but he stopped to consider on the edge of a ravine. The sides of the hollow were clothed with tall, wet grass and ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... this interview, he ground his teeth with rage and mortification, muttering, "A white man! a white man! So I am a black man. Yes, I am a greaser. Curse this whole race ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... closer, still watched by the anxious eye of William; until he thought (as it almost reached him, angrily muttering, with the subdued murmur of the flood, its disappointed expectations of a victim) that he was safe. But his self-gratulation, at this moment, was very inopportune; for, just as he uttered an exclamation ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... sore spot. Miss Bodine, you would not be ostracized at the North. You would be treated with the courtesy and cordiality to which every one would see you to be entitled. Practically I am ostracized here by the class to which you belong. When you spoke I stalked away like a sulky boy, muttering, 'Why shouldn't I be a gentleman?' Even the girls in this town are taught to look upon Northerners as boors. I had only to pick up an old woman, and face a bully, when, as if in utter surprise that one of my ilk should be so grandly heroic, I heard the words, 'You are a gentleman.' ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... the others, and, followed by them, walked slowly along the terrace; the while Boisrose, who had risen to his feet, stood looking after him like one demented, shaking, and muttering that it was a cruel jest, and that he had bled for the king, and the ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... he exclaimed, recoiling. "The father of that beautiful girl!" He turned homeward, and trudged along with his head bent, muttering, "All rotten to the bone. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... together, while the defender of the law stood irresolute, watching them disappear through the storm, and muttering to himself, "I'm a soft-hearted fool. I ought to 'a' been born a female hospital ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient thundershowers which often take place in mountain heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a small [v]amphitheater, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... suffered through a trick of false surrender by German soldiers. It is best described by one of our boys who was lying on a table in a base hospital, waiting his turn to be operated upon, when he heard another who was being wheeled out from the operating room and was muttering through ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... words that might sound like an answer, while the addressers, occupied with what they had themselves been saying, would always take it for granted that a proper answer had been returned. The Queen saw that idleness alone dictated such a proceeding, and that as the practice even of muttering a few words showed the necessity of answering in some way, it must be more proper to reply simply but clearly, and in the best style possible. Sometimes indeed, when apprised of the subject of the address, she would write down ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... state that he belonged to a band of performers to which his presence was indispensable, that he had been accidentally detained behind, and much to the same purpose. But the warder was inexorable, and kept muttering and murmuring something betwixt his teeth, which Wayland could make little of; and addressing betwixt whiles a refusal of admittance, couched in language which was but too intelligible. A specimen of his speech might run ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Muttering "What she-mountebank have we here?" he sank into a chair behind the door, and fell into an absorbed revery. From this he was aroused by the cessation of the music and the hum of subdued approbation by ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... white form disappear in one of the holes as we swiftly approached, but that was all we beheld of the inhabitants. But the spectacle of the shafts of light rising all around us was amazing. When we were in the midst of it Edmund hesitated for a moment, muttering that we had been too hasty and should have remained longer to study the peculiarities of this wonderful world of night; but finally he decided to keep on, and soon afterwards we saw the last of the caverns. ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... justly punished; my children were good, and I have spoiled them; on my head be their sins. I alone am guilty; but guilty through love." Eugene tried to soothe the old man by saying that he would go himself to fetch his daughters; but Goriot kept muttering in his semi-delirium. "Here, Nasie! here Delphine, come to your father who has been so good to you, and who is dying! Are they coming? No? Am I to die like a dog? This is my reward; forsaken, abandoned! They ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... for his intelligence told him clearly it was absurd; but it was stronger than intelligence, an incorporeal shape through which passed harmlessly the sword-cuts of his reason. It was a little devil curled up in his heart, muttering to all his arguments, ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... inaudible murmuring as he pronounced these last words. From the direction and expression of his eyes, I suspected that he was speaking to the apparition. If I had beheld it myself at that moment, it would have been, I think, a less horrible sight to witness than to see him, as I saw him now, muttering inarticulately at vacancy. My own nerves were more shaken than I could have thought possible by what had passed. A vague dread of being near him in his present mood came over me, and I moved back a step ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... stand, by that dread place, He lifts his radiant face, And looks to heaven with reverent love and fear; Then, while the welkin quakes, The muttering thunder breaks, And lightnings shoot and ominous meteors drear, And all the daunted earth doth moan, He from the doors of death rolls ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... parties. One evening several of the most disaffected came to me with a complaint that they had not enough meat, and that they must be allowed to make a razzia upon the cattle of the natives to procure some oxen. This demand being of course refused, they retired, muttering in an insolent manner their determination of stealing cattle with or without my permission. I said nothing at the time, but early on the following morning I ordered the drum to beat and the men to fall in. I made them ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... up his masquerading attire and left the room muttering, 'I never will play the fool ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... de Boeuf Through mob and maelstrom to the guillotine. Chateaus up-blazing torch the doom of France, While human wolves howl ruin round their walls. Contention hisses from a million mouths, And from ten thousand muttering craters smokes The smell of sulphur. Gaul becomes a ghoul; While Parlez-Tous in hot palaver holds Hubbub ad Bedlam—Pandemonium thriced. There, voices drowning voice with frantic cries, Discord demented flaps her ruffled wings And shrieks delirium to her ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... blew and poured! The trail was really impassable. Again and again our horses went down. At fist the cowboy Uncle John had loaned me with the horses protested, then he followed stolidly in the rear, shaking his head, and, I know, muttering over and over that I was pupule. The pack horse was abandoned at Kukuihaele. We almost swam up Mud Lane in a river of mud. At Waimea the cowboy had to exchange for a fresh mount. But Hilo lasted through. From daybreak ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... myself keeping time to the slow tramp of the horse's feet with the slow utterances of these words, repeated over and over again: "Jeromette is dead. Jeromette is dead." But my will was still my own: I was able to control myself, to impose silence on my own muttering lips. And I rode on quietly. And the pillar of mist ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the Saracen, laughing, for the first time, at the unmitigated astonishment with which Sir Kenneth looked on the wild gestures and heard the wayward muttering of Theodorick, who, after swinging his flail in every direction, apparently quite reckless whether it encountered the head of either of his companions, finally showed his own strength, and the soundness of the weapon, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... and to complain of, our inarticulate mode of speaking, as we have of theirs—indeed much more—for monkeys speak the same, or nearly the same, language all over the habitable globe, whereas men, ever since the Tower of Babel, have kept chattering, muttering, humming, and hawing, in divers ways and sundry manners, so that one nation is unable to comprehend what another would be at, and the earth groans in vain with vocabularies and dictionaries. That monkeys and men are one and the same animal, we shall ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... came forward bearing a wooden bowl, carved about with strange signs, and a flint knife, and bade me bare my arm. He cut my flesh with the knife, so that blood ran from it into the bowl. Some drops of this blood he emptied on to the ground, muttering invocations the while. Then he turned and looked at Cuitlahua as though in question, and Cuitlahua answered ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... doing so a thick voice from inside could be distinguished, muttering words about the capture of Brent and Zita just before Balcom was killed, the escape of Zita, the rescue of Brent, the killing of Dora, who had evidently come to betray something in jealousy. It was all incoherent and Doctor Q and Quentin hastened ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... fact, thoroughly and consistently bad. Round and round he went, over and over, top-side, down-side, restlessly. For at this moment he was hearing those familiar evening sounds which no human ear can discern: the muttering of the day-birds about to seek cover for the night. In the field at the right of the road stood a lonely tree. It was covered with brilliant scarlet leaves and blossoms, and justly the natives call it the Flame ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... Were his opponents convinced? Not a jot. Though they had seen with their eyes and heard with their ears, the full light of heaven shining upon them, they went back muttering and discontented to their musty old volumes and their garrets, there to invent occult reasons for denying the validity of the observation, and for referring it to some unknown ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... back to the post, instead of wasting time by hunting her as she likes to run. Police were round his house. The General chattered and shouted of the desperate lawlessness and larcenies of that Jew—the things that Jew would attempt. He dragged her indoors, muttering of his policy in treating her at last to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not an expert on study of wounds, such as was Kennedy, who was examining Murtha's body with minute care, now and then muttering under his breath at the rough and careless handling it had received in its various transfers about the city. But there were some terrible wounds and disfigurements on the body, which added even more to the ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... but with still flashing eyes. The moment her mother had finished the letter, she walked swiftly to the fire, tearing the letter as she went, and thrust it between the bars, pushing it in fiercely with the poker, and muttering— ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature in the ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the nurse. "She lieth huddled in a heap, staring and muttering, and she would leave me no peace till I promised to say to you, 'For the sake of poor little Daphne, whom you will sure remember.' She pinched my hand and said it ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to talk aloud, to himself, apparently; but after a moment of this muttering, grew silent again. He had come to the mouth of a black pit which seemed to descend into great depths. In reality the depth was not so great; yet to anyone within it escape was impossible without help from above. Into this hole Ferd peered, ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... a pace or two nearer muttering hoarsely, "They've broken out in the village again," ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... said Collins, and suddenly knocked the wits out of me by muttering that at least we'd both had sense enough to know that Miss Valenka ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... reasoning. Soon the two great men, whose fame may be said to fill the earth, were asleep in the same bed in that little box of a room and snoring in a way that suggested loud contention. I had to laugh as I listened. Mr. Adams would seem to have been defeated, for, by and by, I heard him muttering as he ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... I said to myself; "he is a brave, true fellow;" and then it was on my lips to say in a whisper, "Quick! this way," when I turned cold, for there was a low muttering, and I awoke to the fact that Salaman was talking to some one away there ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... to find no one on whom to vent his wrath, or shake his thirst for revenge, looked on the blaze as it rose with gloomy satisfaction, muttering that he only wished the witch of a woman was ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... for one could plainly infer of whom he was speaking. He characterized him as unjust and vicious, and all without other foundation than his having declared that the judge-conservator was legal, contrary to what the fathers of St. Dominic claimed. The muttering and commotion among the audience were very marked. It is a fact that many of us think that the preacher had no other aim or motive than to disturb and rouse the crowd so that there should be an uprising, as there had been in Nueva Espana. And as I have already begun this matter of sermons, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... witch-hazel sticks around the said circle, for the purpose of keeping off the evil spirits. Within this circle he made another, of about eight or ten feet in diameter. He walked around three times on the periphery of this last circle, muttering to himself something I could not understand. He next stuck a steel rod in the centre of the circles, and then enjoined profound silence, lest we should arouse the evil spirit who had the charge of these treasures. After we had dug a trench of about five feet in depth around the ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... last he returned to the camp he kept beyond the circle of firelight. Hurriedly he rolled up in his blankets for the night, muttering something about his head and his need of rest for the next day's work. The others accepted the explanation without question. They formed a cheerful domestic group about the fire from which he was shut out ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the filth and slovenliness outside. There was no bed in the room—no table. On a broken chair by the chimney sat a miserable old woman, fancying that she was warming her hands over embers which had long been cold, shaking her head, and muttering to herself, with palsied lips, about the guardians and the workhouse; while upon a few rags on the floor lay a girl, ugly, small-pox marked, hollow eyed, emaciated, her only bed clothes the skirt of ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... an old woman passed by. She walked rapidly, muttering to herself, as if terribly incensed over something: "Aye, aye, their happiness shall last no longer than from daybreak to rosy dawn. When the trial comes, their faith will be broken as though it were a rope spun from moss, and their lives shall ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... the door and stood in it for a second, looking back at them over his shoulder. "They don't make them any better than that," he reiterated gravely, and disappeared in the direction of the horses, shaking his head and muttering his astonishment and delight. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... persons, who armed for the suppression of rebellion. The more distrusted of the Irish prisoners were conveyed to Norfolk Island; there, some months after, a conspiracy was detected to massacre the officers, and seize the island. On the night fixed for action, the plot was discovered. An Irish servant, muttering words of compassion, was overheard by his master: he was induced to explain, and was immediately taken to Major Foveaux, the officer in command. The danger was imminent: the warmth of the season (December) had tempted the soldiers to slumber with open doors, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... have been absent for ten minutes, which seemed half an hour. Then, when Lady Turnour had begun muttering to herself that she was freezing, Sir Samuel bustled back, in a cheerfulness put on awkwardly, like an ill-fitting suit of armour in ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... silence. I thought the company seemed to be startled and even a little annoyed by the emotion so suddenly shot into their midst. The Bishop looked vexed, my father looked uncomfortable, and my husband, who had been drinking glass after glass of brandy, was muttering ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... stormy and utterly incomprehensible, filled the child with a growing sense of terror. Accusations, quick pleadings, angry retorts, attempts at explanation, all formed a dreadful muttering background out of which shot, like sharp streaks of lightning, occasional clearly-caught phrases: "Charlie White came home dead drunk, I tell you—" "—You know I'm mad about you, Helen, or I wouldn't—" "—Oh, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... the flow of words on his tongue, but sat rocking back and forth in glee muttering, "Golly, only a monkey. A poor, old, he-monkey," until the irate captain chased him ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... inaudible in the noise of the train, but for a long time he goes on muttering, sighing and clearing his throat.... The cold air in the railway van grows thicker and more stifling The pungent odor of fresh dung and smoldering candle makes it so repulsive and acrid that it irritates Yasha's throat and chest as he falls ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the hat. Carefully he felt through pocket after pocket. His search was rewarded by a short-stemmed clay pipe and the half of a match—nothing more. With an effort he explored the pockets of his trousers. Then again he searched the coat; muttering to himself broken sentences, not the less expressive because incomplete: "Where the divil—Now don't that bate—Well, I'll be—" With a temper not improved by his loss he threw down the garment in disgust and looked ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... who was despatched to the Rue du Cirque, and who went off muttering, though he had received five francs to take a carriage, and five francs ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... within the Church leading their flocks dangerously near the brink, and recommending for adoption the honour paid to saints, the claim of infallibility for the Church, the superstitious use of the sign of the cross, the muttering of the liturgy so as to disguise the language in which it was said, with the recommendation of auricular confession and the administration ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... the darkness, shaking the torch to make it burn better and beckoning impatiently, and King hurried after him, leaving behind a savage at the cave mouth who fingered his sores and wondered, muttering, leaning on a rifle, muttering and muttering again as if he had ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... are still exceedingly decorous, but our tongues are loosened a little, and we exchange amiable remarks, under whose genial influence we begin to feel that the worst is over. Unfortunately, however, with the spread of sunshine among us there is the muttering of a storm at our backs: the butler pushes his female assistant aside with deep rumbling growls, and presently explodes with open rage at her stupidity. The diners turn and stare incredulous and amazed. The butler rushes madly from the room. The female assistant, agitated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... with a dismal countinants—he seamed to think that his pa's visit boded him no good. I heard him muttering at his brexfast, and fumbling among his hundred pound notes; once he had laid a parsle of them aside (I knew what he meant), to send 'em to his father. "But no," says he at last, clutching them all up together again, and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... side, it was only among the lowlier people of the English congregation. When, on a certain occasion, a stranger fell asleep in the middle of one of Mr. Stewart's best sermons, and snored louder than was seemly, an individual beside him was heard muttering, in a low whisper, that the man ought to be sent up to "the Gaelic," for he was not fit to be among them; and there might be a few other similar manifestations; but the parties were not on a sufficiently equal level to enact the part of those rival congregations that are for ever ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... abated, she may come down and take up her abode in a little compartment that is made for her in the darkest corner of the hut. In the morning she may cook her food, but it must be at a separate fire and in a vessel of her own. After about ten days the magician comes and undoes the spell by muttering charms and breathing on her and on the more valuable of the things with which she has come in contact. The pots and drinking-vessels which she used are broken and the fragments buried. After her first bath, the girl must submit to be beaten by her mother with thin rods without uttering ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... of his hat abruptly, ceased talking, grabbed the hat and jammed it on his head, muttering; then started on a ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled, And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled; And ere three shrill notes the pipe had uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling— Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... made an inarticulate response, which he nevertheless seemed to comprehend, for, brightening up immediately, he turned from her, came down the steps with tremulous haste, muttering to himself meanwhile, seized a spade that stood leaning against the steps, passed by the carriage without a glance, and began digging furiously at one side of the yard. The old woman watched him for a while, with a self-absorption ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... pedestal in the building up of a throne. It was to establish in Europe a party for James Stuart as strong as the party of Hanover. But so much was known to everyone in that room; to Wogan the marriage meant more. For even while he found himself muttering over and over with dry lips, as white and exhausted he leaned against the door, Clementina's qualifications,—"Daughter of the King of Poland, cousin to the Emperor and to the King of Portugal, niece to the Electors of Treves, Bavaria, and Palatine,"—the image of the girl herself rose ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... hour later I was disturbed by the same creaking of boots, and saw Karl come out, and disappear up the stairs, wiping away a few tears from his cheeks with his pocket handkerchief as he went and muttering something between his teeth. Papa came out behind him and turned ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Muttering these disconnected words, Rogojin began to make up the beds. It was clear that he had devised these beds long before; last night he slept on the sofa. But there was no room for two on the sofa, and he seemed anxious that he and the prince should be close to one another; therefore, he now ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... that the man must be harmless, whatever his peculiarities. She rode forward, bent on asking him how far she had strayed from the river. As she drew near, she heard him muttering and declaiming, illustrating his arguments of protestation with clenched fist and tossing head, his long hair lifting from ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the letter in his hand and paced up and down the hall, muttering to himself. I turned and rubbed Sultan's nose to keep him quiet and happy. The old servant took charge of the lantern again, and followed his master up and down ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough |
