"Ticking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the unwelcome, old-fashioned remedy that night. He slipped away early—presumably to bed. Janice was not long in going to her room; but she did not lie down to sleep. When the house was dead-still, all save the mice in the walls and the solemn ticking of the hall clock, the girl arose ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... life-belt may be made of holland, ticking, canvas, or similar materials, in the following manner, and might be used with advantage by the crew of a vessel aground some way from the mainland, who are about to swim for their lives:—Cut out two complete rings, of 16 ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... no sound in the house save the ticking of an invisible clock. It might have been a place bewitched, so intense and so uncanny was the silence, broken only by that grim ticking that sounded somehow as if it had gone on exactly the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... quiet game for the schoolroom. A loud ticking clock is necessary for the game. All of the pupils are sent from the room. One of their number is selected to hide the clock. The others, upon coming back, try to locate it by its ticking. The one succeeding has the privilege of next hiding ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... of heavy silence and expectation passed over them. The howl of a distant watch-dog was heard, and all was again still. The low, monotonous ticking of the great clock at the head of the gallery made the silence still more oppressive. It seemed to be measuring ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... carol of a bird, the rippling of a clear stream flowing swiftly through the valley, and at intervals the distinct notes of the little bells and cymbals upon the clocks which his Majesty brought with him. Even their ticking is often audible. At certain hours the ringing of the monastery bells blends solemnly and softly with the silence. The Hieronymites in the monastery are pious monks. His Majesty sometimes listens to their choir. Its music is ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... seemed endowed with peculiar qualities. They heard the little clock ticking upon the mantelpiece, the tinkle of a hansom bell outside, the muffled sound of motor horns in the distance. Very slowly her head drooped back once more to the shelter of ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one of these swoons had fallen on her, and no means of restoration availed to bring her back to anything but a gasping condition, in which she lay supported in Rachel's arms. The doctor had his hand on her pulse, the only sounds outside were the twittering of the birds, and within, the ticking of the clock, Alick's deep-drawn breaths, and his uncle's prayer. Rachel felt a thrill pass through the form she was supporting, she looked at Mr. Harvey, and understood his glance, but neither moved till Mr. Clare's voice finished, when the doctor said, "I feared she would ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ticking, the train stopped at West Newton, and we stepped out upon the platform. The station nearest to the Watch-Factory is that at Waltham upon the Fitchburg Railroad; but by taking the Worcester cars to West Newton, you secure a pleasant drive of a mile or two across the country. If you can ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... away; I had been on station duty so often. The rickety country station lit by one large lamp; the thirteen waiting V.A.D.'s; the long wooden table loaded with mugs of every size; kettles boiling; the white clock ticking on; that ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... only by the ticking of the clock-work which gave diurnal motion to the instrument. The stars moved on, the end of the telescope followed, but their tongues stood still. To expect that he was ever voluntarily going to end the pause by speech was apparently ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... certain it is that my young friend could never be induced to any further essays in this kind. He affirmed that it was to him like writing in a foreign tongue,—that Mr. Pope's versification was like the regular ticking of one of Willard's clocks, in which one could fancy, after long listening, a certain kind of rhythm or tune, but which yet was only a poverty-stricken tick, tick after all,—and that he had never seen a sweet-water ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... the black-fellow suddenly, as he stooped to examine a footprint in the trail they were following. He counted the different footprints, and announced to the horsemen that seven dingoes had followed the trail they were following at that moment. "Five and two," the black-fellow called it, ticking the number off on the fingers of one hand. He explained that these dingoes, led by the "blurry big warrigal" aforesaid, must have been terribly badly in want of food; and that he did not think much of the chances of the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... and got into bed. But not to sleep. She lay there with wide-open eyes, every sense alert, listening for the least sound which might herald Tony's return. She could hear the loud ticking of the tall old clock on the staircase—tick-tack, tick-tack, tick-tack. Sometimes the sound of it deceived her into thinking it was a footstep on the stairs, and she would sit up eagerly in bed, listening intently. But always the hoped-for ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... that particular moment, was sitting in her little room in the dormitory, with the old watch ticking on the stand so she would not over-stay her off duty. She was aching with fatigue from her head, with its smooth and shiny hair, to her feet, which were in a bowl of witch hazel and hot water. And she was crying over ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... should suppose one of your true lovers to be than you did just now: for, beside your speechless attitude, which was absolutely picturesque and significant, you were positively pale and red, and red and pale, almost as fast as the ticking of my watch. And even yet you are absolutely provoking. I cannot ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... find continual rewards without excitement. This atmosphere of his father's sterling industry was the best of Archie's education. Assuredly it did not attract him; assuredly it rather rebutted and depressed. Yet it was still present, unobserved like the ticking of a clock, an arid ideal, a tasteless stimulant ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... outside air looked in so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de Maletroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... suffered as the afternoon faded and the ticking of the clock thudded on his senses, no ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... assumed by the domestic cat when in a state of semi-watchfulness, approaching to a doze. The senses of the matron were strung to an almost painful acuteness. The moonlight streaming in at the window was to her eyes like the glare of the sun at noonday: the ticking of the clock on the wall fell on her ears, each tick like a sharply pointed hammer seeming to bruise the nerve. A keen thrill ran like a knife through her tense frame when the infant stirred and moaned in his sleep. The lion roused himself in an instant, and fixing his eyes upon the bed came ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... obvious relation to the interests of the better land he did not apparently deem it necessary to expound it on that demand; he said nothing—merely stared. There were long moments of silence broken by nothing but the measured ticking of the clock, which seemed somewhat slower than usual, as if it were civilly granting them an extension of time in which ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... tiny room in an unpretentious cottage with the commander, I followed the preparations which were being made for the assault. The ticking of the instruments gave news from the front, the line of which was visible from the windows by flares and rockets and burning villages. By midnight ten breaches had been made in the barbed wire, each approximately twenty paces ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... Edna, and they all raced down to the beach, where the accident had happened. The watch still lay, gleaming in the sunlight, where it had fallen, ticking as unconcernedly as if no adventure had befallen it. Fortunately, it had alighted on a particularly soft bit of ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... its having been stopped at all. A tiny arm holds the wheel firmly, and then lets it escape. Therefore, the fifth wheel and its accompaniments are called the "escapement." This catching and letting go is what makes the ticking. ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... half-way round and looked the timepiece full in the face. Already the seconds had begun ticking off the last hour of his official life. On the stroke of twelve another man would be Governor of the State. He sat there watching the ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... crew, with the exception of the watch, were asleep either on deck or down below, and so deep was the universal silence, that, as the vessel rose and fell with a slow, quiet motion, the pattering of the reef points on her sails forcibly attracted the listener's attention, as does the ticking of a clock in the deep silence of night. A few sea-birds rested on the water, as if in the enjoyment of the profound peace that reigned around; and, far away on the horizon might be seen the tops of the palm-trees that grew on one of those coral islands which lie scattered ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... a part of your own body; then a crash of something that has fallen,—blown over, very likely—-Pater noster, qui es in coelis! for you are damp and cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed trembling so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped ticking! ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... the ticking of the clock in the hall seemed to grow loud; and he turned a little aside to remove the mask. She breathlessly awaited the operation, which was one of some tediousness, watching him one moment, averting her face the next; and when it was done she shut her eyes at ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... find in the house and conducted me to the sitting-room, a large apartment, with a home-woven carpet on the floor. A turkey wing, used for a fan, hung beside the enormous fire-place, and on the broad mantelpiece, trimmed with paper cut in scollops, an old Yankee clock was ticking. The woman shook a cat out of a hickory rocking chair and urged me to sit down. She knew that I must be tired after my long ride, and she said that if I would only excuse her for a moment she would go down to the ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... onward their life in common became more and more difficult. From one week's end to the other the noise of slaps filled the air and resembled the ticking of a clock by which they regulated their existence. Through dint of being much beaten Nana became as pliable as fine linen; her skin grew delicate and pink and white and so soft to the touch and clear to the view that she may be said to have grown more good ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... out, shut the box-lid down, turned the key, and fled. She thought some one called her name as she went upstairs, and she stopped and listened; but all she heard was the clock ticking and her father snoring and her heart beating. Then she kept on to her own chamber, and put out her candle, and crept into her feather-bed under the patchwork quilts. There she lay all night, wide awake, with the gold ring clasped ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ticking of his mother's knitting needles to relieve the oppressive silence. Suddenly the worried pucker disappeared from his brow, and his face brightened ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... upon the busily ticking little clock on the table. As she looked, her gaze became fixed and she sat up in bed with ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... the word Kitzel signifies both itching and tickling and is likewise used to denote both sexual desire and sexual gratification. Consult my note "Itching, Ticking, and Sexual Sensibility," in the English edition of Bloch's The Sexual Life of Our ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... the door of the Cottage in a state of hurry and excitement; but the empty kitchen seemed to act on it like a sort of emotional cold douche. The varnished walls, the neatly set chairs, the clock ticking so loudly above the mantel-shelf, all seemed somehow unnatural, with the unnaturalness of empty houses where steps go echoing—echoing—though ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... her above the sickening thudding of her heart as she crept forward round that terrible bend. She heard with an acuteness that made her marvel the long sweet note of the nightingale swelling among the bushes above. She also heard a watch ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward. There was no resisting that steady pressure. She crept on step by step because she could not do otherwise; and when she had rounded that awful corner at last and ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... What boyish uncontrol To be so racked. Then felt his ticking watch. In half an hour Grootver would know the whole. And he would be returned, lifting the latch Of his own gate, eager to take Christine And crush her to his lips. How bear delay? He broke into a run. In front, a line Of candle-light banded the cobbled street. Hilverdink's tavern! Not ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... there for a minute or two, his face resting on his hands, his spirit abandoned to weakness, he heard the steady ticking of the clock on the chimney-piece behind him. He counted the strokes, and all of a sudden they recalled him to the present. He pulled himself together, stood up, and, reaching down a clothes-brush from its hook beside the door, walked over to ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high cold empty gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... early years, but he lost his reckoning many times a day upon what was going on in the town. He loved to tell stories, and Paul was a willing listener. Pleasant winter-evenings they had in the old kitchen, the hickory logs blazing on the hearth, the tea-kettle singing through its nose, the clock ticking soberly, the old Pensioner smoking his pipe in the arm-chair, Paul's mother knitting,—Bruno by Paul's side, wagging his tail and watching Muff in the opposite corner rolling her great round yellow eyes. Bruno was always ready to give ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... hand slowly opened the table-drawer, and softly slipped into it. The harsh grating noise of something heavy that he was moving unseen to me sounded for a moment, then ceased. The silence that followed was so intense that the faint ticking nibble of the white mice at their wires was distinctly audible where ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... rope round his waist and looked to see that his iron-shod stick and his ax, which served to cut steps in the ice, were in order. Then he waited. The fire was burning on the hearth, the great dog was snoring in front of it, and the clock was ticking in its case of resounding wood, as regularly ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... together sometimes between classes. But more often no one speaks. All are tired after the teaching hour, and prefer to smoke in silence. At such times the only sounds within the room are the ticking of the clock, and the sharp clang of the little pipes being rapped upon the edges of the hibachi to empty ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... the candle as he spoke, and quickly scrambled into bed. A long hush followed, broken only by the sound of breathing, and an occasional ticking as of some long-legged creature on the wall and window-blind. Mrs. Murphy could never remember if she actually went to sleep, but she is sure her husband did, as she distinctly heard him snore—and the sound, so detestable to her as a rule, was so welcome to her then. She was lying ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... to and fro the recollections of the day turned and turned in her brain, ticking loudly, and she could see each event as distinctly as the figures on the dial ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... off and was whisked through a quick succession of fantastic dreams. Then he awoke suddenly, and as though someone had spoken to him. Listening intently, he only heard the low murmur of the machinery below and the ticking of the many clocks and ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... cause I know not, just as it used to be in the old days that the feverish child might be the better served, a peep of gas illuminated a narrow circle far below me. But where I was, all was darkness and silence, save the dry monotonous ticking of the clock that came ceaselessly up to ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soaked, let them dry in a hot sun for six or seven successive days, shaking them up well, and turning them over each day. They should be covered over with a thick cloth during the night; if exposed to the night air, they will become damp, and mildew. This way of washing the bed ticking and feathers, makes them very fresh and light, and is much easier than the old-fashioned way of emptying the beds, and washing the feathers separately, while it answers quite as well. Care must be taken to dry the bed perfectly, before sleeping on it. Hair mattresses that have become hard and ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous
... milk, butter and bread, placed it on the table, and deliberately sat down to eat,—the little girl observing all that passed, in silent stillness. When they had satisfied their hunger, they arose, scalped the woman and boy, plundered the house—even emptying the feathers to carry off the ticking—and departed, dragging the little girl by the hair, forty or fifty yards from the house. They then threw her over the fence, and scalped her; but as she evinced symptoms of life, Schoolcraft observed "that is not enough," when immediately ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... consider the fact that during the period of the hallucination I had been utterly motionless. There was not the slightest doubt of my being awake. My friend in the adjoining bed was breathing regularly, the ticking of my watch was plainly audible, and I could feel my heart beating with unusual ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the inventor's, in her hands was still the mysterious package. She carried it gingerly, then raised it to her ear. From within it there came a faint ticking sound. What ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... his own desolate house—the house that he had built with such loving thoughts. The fire was dead, like his own false hopes, and the very ticking of the clock seemed to taunt him with his loss. The last time he had been here she was with him. It was there beside the window that she had told him about this man; it was there she had kissed him, and he had held ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... constitution was recovering well from a nasty blow—it was merely as though all his mind had been set a little faster, like a newly-regulated clock, a clock set to work backwards; and he could hear its ticking through all the sounds of everyday life that, hushed as much as might ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... air of the room grow stifling. A big clock was ticking on the wall, and it seemed to him the second-beats were minutes apart. His downcast eyes just caught the shape of the hands opposite him, and in fancy he felt them already tightening upon his throat. Like a drowning man, scenes ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... great many more dottings, which I shall not insert here. During the whole time I was dotting the most marvellous silence prevailed in the room, broken only by the occasional scratching of the dog against the inside of the door, the ticking of the clock, and the ruttling of the smoker's pipe in the chimney-corner. After I had dotted to my heart's content I closed my book, put the pencil into the loops, then the book into my pocket, drank what remained of my ale, got up, and, after another look at the apartment and its furniture, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Edna Lyalls, Elizabeth Gaskells, Thackerays, Charlotte Yonges, Charlotte Brontes, a Thomas Hardy or so, and some old school-books. She looked at the pictures, including a sampler worked by a deceased aunt, at the loud-ticking Swiss clock on the mantelpiece, at the higgledy-piggledy photographs there, at the new Axminster carpet, the piece of linoleum in front of the washstand, and the bad joining of the wallpaper to the left of the door. She missed none of the details which she ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... dining with one of their county acquaintance, and Dr. May had undertaken to admit them on their return. The fire shone red and bright, as it sank calmly away, and the timepiece and clock on the stairs had begun their nightly duet of ticking, the crickets chirped in the kitchen, and the doctor sat alone. His book lay with unturned pages, as he sat musing, with eyes fixed on the fire, living over again his own life, the easy bright days of his youth, when, without much pains on his own part, the tendencies ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... turning, showing different lights and seeming to be in motion as the position of the watch is changed; the round spot in the ring where the spring was pressed for the case to fly open and show the face with its Roman numerals; and then the ticking—that peculiar metallic sound like nothing else. Words will not describe the satisfaction we boys felt as ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... swiftly and stood looking into the night. The man called again and was not answered. The two women were motionless. There was no sound in the room, save the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Two ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... They know that poor Cosmo's time will come, and they are glad to be alone, for they have much to say that is for no other mortal ears. Some of it is sure to go into the diary; indeed if we were to put our ear to the drawer where the diary is we could probably hear its little heart ticking in ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... from the sight of my blankets, and the sound of my watch ticking—things which seemed to link me to other people; but the screaming of the wood-hens frightened me, as also a chattering bird which I had never heard before, and which seemed to laugh at me; though I soon got used to it, and before long could ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... then?" she asked, and when I answered that it was not she did not seem to hear, so I stopped talking, and for some time there was silence in which I heard nothing but the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, the barking of a sheep dog a long way off, and the husky breathing in my ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the waves, and the heat and the yellow light came in upon their eyes, and set the flies buzzing all about them. And even the women, who had slept out their time, and talked quietly, like the clock ticking, were vexed with the sun, which kept their kettles from good boiling, and wrote upon their faces the years of their life. But each made allowance for her neighbor's appearance, on the strength of the troubles she had been ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... was intense valleyward. Boylan felt the need of thinking further and dashed into the headquarters' stairway. There were excited voices above, and he made haste to see. Kohlvihr was wild-eyed in the center of the upper room—the telegraph ticking nervously, half of his staff bending with extraordinary intensity over the birth of a certain message.... What they wanted came ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... trench, and, thirty-five feet away, another blue-gray tangle of barbed wire and a low ripple of the brownish earth. As I looked, one of the random silences of the front stole swiftly into the air. French trench and German trench were perfectly silent; you could have heard the ticking of a watch. ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... They seem to be very fond of shrimp-paste, which they spread on their bread-and-butter instead of jam. In every room there is always a loud noise like the wash of waves; that is made up of hundreds of busy little instruments ticking away hard all at once. It seems wonderfully quiet when we leave it behind, and step out into the street again where the lamps are ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... this visit, all of science that man can grasp, a terminology to wit. Lavrille, the worthy man, was very much like Sancho Panza giving to Don Quixote the history of the goats; he was entertaining himself by making out a list of animals and ticking them off. Even now that his life was nearing its end, he was scarcely acquainted with a mere fraction of the countless numbers of the great tribes that God has scattered, for some unknown end, throughout the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... was yesterday or two years ago? Since she loves but one at a time what does it matter whether it is during an interval of two years or the course of a single night? Are you a man, Octave? Do you see the leaves falling from the trees, the sun rising and setting? Do you hear the ticking of the clock of time with each pulsation of your heart? Is there, then, such a difference between the love of a year and the love of an hour? I challenge you to answer that, you fool, as you sit there ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... was now drawing near for our departure and at last word was sent round that General Hughes wished to meet all the chaplains on the verandah of his bungalow. The time set was the cheerful hour of five a.m. I lay awake all night with a loud ticking alarm clock beside me, till about half an hour before the wretched thing was to go off. With great expedition I rose and shaved and making myself as smart as possible in the private's uniform, hurried off to the General's camp home. There the other chaplains were assembled, ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two dozen slips—I love a big pillow—and I've been saving up wild-duck feathers for weeks, the downiest feathers you ever sank your ear into, Matilda Anne; and if pillows will do it I'm going to make this house look like a ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... clicked the key as though in a futile effort to send, then leaving it open, thus holding the instruments on the table "dead," began ticking his foot against the impromptu ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... splash of light showed the night watchman preparing his supper. Some snored loudly, but none so loud as Bowers; others talked in their sleep, the more so when some nasty experience had lately set their nerves on edge. There was always the ticking of many instruments, and sometimes the ring of a little bell: to this day I do not know what most of them meant. On a calm night no sound penetrated except, perhaps, the whine of a dog, or the occasional kick of a pony in the stable ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... from his face and two grey streaks grew around his mouth. The ticking of the watch in his hand rose and swelled and filled the room—one, two! ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... followed. The rain beat against the windows, the ticking of a clock became audible, but still Mr. Nott sat with vacant eyes fixed on his daughter's face, and the constrained smile on his lips. He was conscious that he had never seen her look so pretty before, yet he could not tell why this was no longer an unalloyed satisfaction. Not but that he had ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... where the soft, slow ticking of the clock could guide his thoughts. This morning he had left London by the earliest train, and after a night in Exeter would travel westward by leisurely stages, seeing as much as possible of the coast ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... watchman dozed on his post of observation; a porter slept on a baggage truck under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table close to the silent instrument. She listened to the ticking of a clock in the ticket office, but could not see its face; wondered how late it was, and how long she had been absent. Feeling very lonely and restless she closed the door, and sat down in the deserted waiting-room, glad of the companionship ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... the crowded street we dived into a den of plate-glass windows, of scraps of paper, of rattling, ticking machines, more voluble and excited than the careworn, abstracted men who leaned over them. But "Johnnyboy"—I started at the familiar name again—was not there. He was ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... chests of drawers, &c., made at London; as also looking-glass; bedding, &c., the curtains, suppose of serge from Taunton and Exeter, or of camblets, from Norwich, or the same with the hangings, as above; the ticking comes from the west country, Somerset and Dorsetshire; the feathers also from the same country; the blankets from Whitney in Oxfordshire; the rugs from Westmoreland and Yorkshire; the sheets, of good linen, from Ireland; kitchen utensils ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... rang the bell and asked if nothing had been seen of the Corporal and the children. The answer was "Nothing;" and she waited in growing anxiety, listening for the trample of the ponies or the sound of the children's voices, but hearing only the ticking of the clock; until unable to endure the suspense, she went out and walked first into the yard and then into the road by which they should come. The night was fine, but overcast by light clouds of grey mist, through which ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... was wearing away, and thoughts of home and the warm supper awaiting them began to stir in the children's thoughts, and many glances were turned to the clock which was busily ticking the minutes away. ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... thought at last that he had thoroughly succeeded in enlightening the Maori about his new acquisition. Tama departed with ill-concealed glee, stopping every now and then, as he went, to listen to the watch ticking. ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... people came crowding to welcome her, bringing lavish gifts of food-yams and salt and fish and fowl. There were even fifty yams, and a goat from the back of Okoyong. Dan with his English clothes was the centre of admiration, and grave greybeards sat and listened to the ticking of his watch, and played with ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... paper, and written my evening letters. The fire has burned low, and been replenished. Jennie sits by my side engaged in that modern imitation of Penelope's task, the darning of stockings. And for half an hour, only the ticking of the clock and the sighing of the wind outside have disturbed the silence of ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... meanest bedstead of the meanest beggar was broken up as well as the most costly furniture from the apartments of the opulent. After they had slept upon the beds in the bivouacs, as they could not carry them away, they ripped them open, consigned the feathers to the winds, and sold the bed-clothes and ticking for a mere trifle. Neither the ox, nor the calf but two days old; neither the ewe, nor the lamb scarcely able to walk; neither the brood-hen, nor the tender chicken, was spared. All were carried off indiscriminately; whatever had life was slaughtered; and the fields ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you; Then the blanketing tickles—you feel like mixed pickles—so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking. Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle! Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching. But your slumbering teems ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... final ticking of inverted commas, and Charles Langholm inscribes the autograph for which he is importuned once in a blue moon, and which the printer will certainly not set up at the foot of the last page; but the thing is done, ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... listened to detect any possible ticking of some hidden clock mechanism, and then, as no sound came from the object, he picked it up. Rapidly tearing off the paper, he disclosed ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... silence that fell upon the company at these words, the ticking of the clock under its classic pediment on the mantel was painfully audible, and had the effect of intimating that time now had its innings and eternity was altogether out of it. Several minutes seemed ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... done he made up the fire, and went back to his work, sitting at the corner of the table, having the fire to his left. For a little while the rats disturbed him somewhat with their perpetual scampering, but he got accustomed to the noise as one does to the ticking of a clock or to the roar of moving water; and he became so immersed in his work that everything in the world, except the problem which he was trying to ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... its screens glowed. Figures and descriptions shimmered, and there was a rapid ticking. A sheet flowed out toward them, and Banasel tore it off as the ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole
... Beneath you on the floor Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store Of tacks and battens and protruded springs. Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt, Mute proofs and mournful of your weight ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... gradually followed their example, the whole party was soon condensed in one, silent, and wondering group. Notwithstanding the impression of a supernatural agency was very general among the travellers, the ticking of gun-locks was heard, and one or two of the bolder youths cast their rifles forward, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bird is hated for faults not his own. But prejudices of taste, likings and dislikings, are not always vanquishable by reason; so, to escape the serenade from the tree, which promised to be of considerable duration (when once that eternal song begins, on it goes ticking like a clock)—to escape that noise I determined to excite another, and challenged Lizzy to a cowslip-gathering; a trial of skill and speed, to see which should soonest fill her basket. My stratagem succeeded completely. What ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... so still, gazing upon her, that even the ticking of the watch seemed too loud.' Tom arrived with the doctor. The house was aroused—'lights were seen, footsteps heard, anxious faces thronged the veranda, and looked tearfully through the glass doors; but St Clare heard and said nothing; he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... from the reader as her eyes ran along the penciled lines. Then there was silence, broken only by her hard breathing, and the ticking of the clock on the mantel. Then while the father still sat with bowed head, the girl arose softly, came up to him, kneeled before him, placed a hand on each of his cheeks, kissed him, ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... shape from the interior, so that it is slightly flattened and as quickly released; it will immediately regain its original convexity owing to the elasticity of the nervures. From this oscillation a ticking sound ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... his mouth. Presently he got up and stole out of the room. He was back again in a trice, a flask in one hand, a soda siphon in the other, and a small glass balanced on his thumb. When Burns, at the sound of a clock ticking somewhere, rubbed his eyes with his fists striking in and reluctantly opened them, Macauley ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... response among different races has, for example, been examined. There have proved to be, in regard to these, slight differences in the effectiveness and accuracy of response. There are racial differences in hearing, as tested by the ticking of a watch or clock artificially made. In this test, Papuans, to take an instance, were inferior to Europeans. The sense of touch has been similarly tested, and comparatively negligible differences have been found. In regard to the five senses, their ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... was a dreadful hour. A couple of humble-bees zoomed against the window pane, and the sound, with the ticking of the schoolroom clock, took possession of her brain. Z-zoom! Tick-tack, tick-tack! Would lesson-time never come to an end? She went about automatically correcting sums, copies, exercises, because the sight of the pencilled words or figures steadied her faculties, whereas she felt ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thinking, at last! what good is it? oh, and what evil! Oh, what mischief and pain! like a clock in a sick man's chamber, Ticking and ticking, and still through each covert of slumber pursuing. What shall I do to thee, O thou Preserver of Men? Have compassion! Be favorable, and hear! Take from me this regal knowledge! Let me, contented ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... decidedly pleasant in her ears. Gingerly she picked up one of the revolvers. Kitty Conover with shooting irons in her hands, like a movie actress! She heard a whistle. After this an interval of silence, save for the ticking of the alarm clock on the stand. She eyed the blindfolded men speculatively, swung out of bed, and put on her stockings and sandals; then she sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the sequence. Kitty Conover was ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... pocket-handkerchiefs, and a white towel, with an intimation that we were going, as the king had expressed his desire of sending us to Gani. Her majesty accepted the present, finding fault with the watch for not ticking like the king's, and would not believe her son Mtesa had been so hasty in giving us leave to depart, as she had not been consulted on the subject yet. Setting off to attend the king at his appointed time, I found the ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... so powerful that it exaggerated all the noises, confused them and prolonged them, and the powerful, regular ticking of a great clock, the cries of a paroquet kept in one of the lower rooms, the clucking of a hen in search of a lost kernel of corn, were all Monsieur Gardinois could hear when he applied his ear to the tube. As for voices, they reached him in the form of a confused buzzing, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... thought best. As I thought best!! I remember I did not sleep all night afterwards: I was in agonies of indecision. I was sorry to lose the watch—I had laid it on the little table beside my bed; its ticking was so pleasant and amusing ... but to feel that David despised me (yes, it was useless to deceive myself, he did despise me) ... that seemed to me unbearable. Towards morning a determination had ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... her face.... The lovely thing slipped away upstairs with unimaginable, ravishing grace. She vanished. There was silence. After a moment George could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen below. He stood motionless, amid the dizzying memories of her glance, her gestures, the softness of her body. What had happened to him was past belief. He completely forgot the existence of the old ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Lieutenant in your Guard! By the device your soldiers bore I know it, Father, who gave me victories for sisters! 'Twas not in vain you wished me to possess The alarm-clock of King Frederick of Prussia, Which you magnificently stole from Potsdam, For here it is! 'Tis ticking in my brain! It is the clock which wakes me every morning, Drives me exhausted by my midnight toil Back to my narrow table, to my toil, To be more fit by ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... exclaimed at length, "there's something interesting, the WXY call—Seaville station—from some one on the Lucie only a few minutes ago, sending a message to be relayed by Seaville to the station at Beach Park. It seems impossible, but buzzing and ticking forth is this message from some one off this very houseboat. It reads: "Miss Valerie Fox, Beach Park. I am suspected of the murder of Mrs. Edwards. I appeal to you to help me. You must allow me to tell the truth about ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... is heard in the Convent; The Vesper Chant is sung, The sick have all been tended, The poor nun's toils are ended Till the Matin bell has rung. All is still, save the Clock, that is ticking So loud in the frosty air, And the soft snow, falling as gently As an answer to a prayer. But an Angel whispers, "Oh, Sister, You must rise from your bed to pray; In the silent, deserted chapel, You must kneel till the dawn of day; For, far on the desolate moorland, So ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... Hawthorne's long sarcastic address to Judge Pyncheon (in "The House of the Seven Gables"), as the judge sits dead in his chair, with his watch ticking in his hand. Occasionally a chance remark reminds one of Dickens; this for example: He is talking of large, black old books of divinity, and of their successors, tiny books, Elzevirs perhaps. "These little old volumes impressed me as if they ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... controlled and quiet tone. In the silence that followed the word they could hear the little clock on the mantel ticking monotonously. Noel was trying hard, as they stood thus alone in the stillness and half-darkness, to gather up his suddenly-weakened forces, so that he might tell her, in the hope of giving her comfort, of the resolute purpose he had entered into. But in the moment which he ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder |
