"Crackled" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was always smoking, therefore the flames crackled so frequently. Yes, I was there too," said the Wind. "Let it go, I sang down through the chimney: it will end in smoke, air, coals and ashes! You will burn yourself! Hu-uh-ush! drive away! drive away! But Waldemar Daa did not ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... chintz curtains flamed and blazed into nothingness while she was looking at them. The wood-work round the windows crackled and blistered, but the flame died out into ashes. Only the intolerable smoke remained, and the ever-increasing glow of the fire below, more vivid with every moment. She made one mad rush for the balcony. Great Heaven, what a scene greeted her eyes as ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... to stay in one of the inner rooms, where there was a fire-place; out of sight and sound of the road. Marie made a fire on the disused hearth of what had once been an infirmary cell. The logs crackled merrily; and presently the rain streamed down again ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... she turned over a log, and out of the willow basket on the hearth took another and laid it carefully on the top. As it sputtered and crackled she sat down on the rug and clasped her hands over her knees, looking with half-shut eyes in the dancing flames, unmindful of their heat or ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... it was as if she had guessed, by a subtle feminine faculty, that his professional career was nothing to boast of. There was a simplicity in him which permitted him to wonder whether she had not improved. The lamp-light was soft, the fire crackled pleasantly, everything that surrounded him betrayed a woman's taste and touch; the place was decorated and cushioned in perfection, delightfully private and personal, the picture of a well-appointed home. Mrs. Luna had ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... assuring himself that the man understood the directions for reaching their camp with supplies late that afternoon, and then fell into step with the other scouts for their all-day hike. Beneath their feet the broken shells of the road crackled, overhead the towering palms waved, near the roadside the stiff grass bent noisily in the breeze, and around them momentarily day grew clearer ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... Alpheian stream. Then he turned his herd to feed on the grassy plain, while he gathered logs of wood, and, rubbing two sticks together, kindled the first flame that burned upon the earth where dwell the sons of men. The smoke went up to the heaven, and the flame crackled fiercely beneath it, as Hermes brought forth two of the herd, and, tumbling them on their back, pierced out the life of both. Their hides he placed on the hard rock; their flesh he cut up into twelve portions; and so Hermes hath the right of ordering all sacrifices ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Immediately the thicket burst out into flame; for the ambush took the shot for a signal, and fired off their whole volley. Drake received several hail-shot in his body. Many of the men were wounded, and one man fell sorely hurt. As the volley crackled out its last few shots, Drake blew his whistle, as a signal to his men to fire. A volley of shot and arrows was fired into the thicket, and the company at once advanced, "with intent to come to handy strokes." As they ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... into camp the spoils of the forest and the treasures of the sea, while the grinning negress exerted herself to prepare the parting feast. Deep in the recesses of the wild swamp our camp-fire crackled and blazed, sending up its flaming tongues until they almost met the dense foliage above our heads, while seated upon the ground we feasted, and told tales of the past. Poor Saddles tried to be cheerful, but made a miserable failure of it; and his pale face was the skeleton ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... his easy-chair, facing the fire, upon which he put some more wood, which snapped and crackled. ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... I think that in those days I never forgot the fact of my elevation for five consecutive minutes. I fancy it kept me warm, even in my slumbers, better than the high pile of blankets, which positively crackled with frost as I threw them off in the morning. And I would get up early for no reason whatever except that I was in sole charge. The new captain had not been ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... and the logs merrily crackled on the great brass andirons, while the flames went singing up the chimney. A glass of Burgundy was at the rector's hand, and he lifted it from the silver tray and sipped it as he waited. At last the old man spoke, bending forward from his station ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... guide beside him, and Kaspar following him close in mute terror. Then Herbert Le Breton felt the rope straining, straining, straining, upon the sharp frozen edge of the rock; for an inappreciable point of time it strained and crackled: one loud snap, and it was gone for ever. Herbert and the chief guide, almost upset by the sudden release from the heavy pull that was steadily dragging them over, threw themselves flat on their faces in the drifted snow, and checked their fall by a powerful ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... fearless as a young lion. He caught up a watering-pot, which the gardener had deposited while he expostulated with his late tyrant and struck the man across the face with it so violently and so suddenly, that he fell back over the beds, and the glass crackled and shivered under him. Philip did not wait for the foe to recover his equilibrium; but, taking up his grapes, and possessing himself quietly of the disputed nectarine, quitted the spot; and the gardener did not think it prudent to pursue him. To boys, under ordinary circumstances—boys who have ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bailed out," said Ike, who had devoured the residue of the paragraph, and laid the paper in a pan of liquid custard that the dame was preparing for Thanksgiving, and sat swinging the oven door to and fro as if to fan the fire that crackled and blazed within. ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... being full of sunshine the window was open, and only the dark- green blind which crackled and rustled with every passing breeze made the darkness of the room. Harold was dressed and lay on a sofa placed back in the room, where the few rays of light thus entering could not reach him. His eyes and forehead were bandaged as ever. For some days the Doctor, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... bleak roared the fierce wintry blasts through the broad, dense forest that stretched away to the north of Wimbledon. The stars sparkled with unwonted brilliancy over the clear blue firmament, as a quick step crackled along the narrow, icy path, and a dark form was seen hurrying toward a faint light that gleamed dimly through a dense clump of cedars. Then there was a sound as of bars withdrawn, and a bright, blazing hearth was revealed for a moment as the dark form entered, when all ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... brother's return had shaken the dew with the bloom from her young heart. It was the evening of Christmas-day, and the tide of wassail, the blaze of yule, were high at Ridgeley. Without, the fall of snow that had commenced at sundown, was waxing heavier and the wind fiercer. In-doors, fires roared and crackled upon every hearth; there was a stir of busy or merry life in every room. About the spacious fire-place in the "baronial" hall was a wide semicircle of young people, and before that in the parlor, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... crackled softly on the clean hearth. The teakettle sung a song of welcome and cheer. The oysters sent out an agreeable atmosphere. The snowy table, set out in pretty china and glassware, looked invitin', and I set there comfortable and happy and so ...
— Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... The match crackled, startling in the silence; the clerical person turned in his chair and directed at the prospective customer a stare so baleful that the cigar was forgotten. The flame nipped Johnson's thumb; he dropped the match on the tiled floor and stepped upon it. The clerk hesitated ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... his private transmitter-receiver and beamed out a code call through the automatic scrambler. Seconds later, the loud-speaker crackled ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... now—held in the iron hand of the frost the very leaves on the ground seemed to be made of metal; the bare twisted branches of the trees shone with frosty—the earth crackled beneath his foot and in the wood's silence, when he broke a twig with his boot the sound shot into the air and ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... ankle is not so serious," declared Grace from her nest among the sofa cushions. It was the Monday after the game. Her various sympathetic classmates were seated about the Harlowe's comfortable living room. A wood fire crackled cheerfully in the big, open fireplace, while a large plate of chocolate fudge circulated ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... intended, he looked anxiously toward the fire before depositing his armful of driftwood. The blaze had died down, but a good bed of coals remained; and upon this the young man expertly built up a new fire. It crackled and blazed into life, throwing a ruddy glow over the shingle, the rocks behind, and the figure lying on the balsam couch. James's face was waxen in its paleness, save for two fiery spots on his cheeks; and as he lay he stirred constantly in a feverish unrest. His bare feet were ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... time I saw Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. He had invited Miss Sullivan and me to call on him one Sunday afternoon. It was early in the spring, just after I had learned to speak. We were shown at once to his library where we found him seated in a big armchair by an open fire which glowed and crackled on the hearth, thinking, ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... The fire crackled musically. From it swelled light smoke. Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves, with their faces turned toward the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver, often edged with red. Far off to the right, through ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... occupied him for at least forty minutes, and by the time the process was over the hawk was perfectly motionless. I don't think he was dead,—but he was very soon, however, for the old gentleman put him into a coil or two and crackled up every bone in the hawk's body. He then gave him another sliming, made a big mouth, distended his neck till it was as big round as the thickest part of my arm, and down went the hawk like a shin of beef into a beggar-man's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... as she entered, and was vigorously stirring the fire, which blazed and crackled merrily in the open grate. She accepted thankfully my mother's efforts to relieve her of her wet wraps, but the little girl drew back haughtily when she was approached, and refused obstinately to slip out of her cloak, from which the water ran in ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled "like ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... tastefully selected carpets were not tapestry, but cheap ingrain; the snowy curtains were of plain dimity, with rose-colored borders, and the tea table held, instead of costly Sevres, simple white china, with a band of gilt. A bright fire crackled and glowed in the chimney, and, as Beulah stood on the hearth and glanced round the comfortable little room, which was to be both parlor and dining room, she felt her heart ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... impression it gave was one of spaciousness. Panels of carved and blackened wood lined the walls higher than his head; above them, Spanish leather gleamed here and there with flickerings of red and gilt, reflecting dimly a small but brisk wood fire which crackled in a carved stone fireplace. His feet slipped on the floor of polished tiles and wandered from silky rugs to lose themselves in great black bear skins as in unmown sward. He went from the portrait of a "cinquecento" cardinal to a splendid tryptich set over a Gothic chest, from a cabinet sheltering ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... one of the pieces of apparatus along the opposite wall of the room. It was an intricate arrangement of finely wound coils with wires leading to scores of needle-like points which constantly shimmered and crackled with tiny blue-white flames. Thick cables ran to a bank of concave reflectors of some gleaming ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... a low undertone, as if fearful of being overheard, and her eyes wandered round the room with an uneasy light shining in their depths. The fire-flames leaped and crackled, the pretty room was full of warmth and comfort; yet the girl shivered violently, and gave a scared glance towards the window as the wind went wailing round the house like a sobbing child. What gave her that strange, restless feeling—that weariness of heart? She could hardly tell; ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... compared notes, and laid plans for the glorious future, as the cheery fire crackled ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... question, yet growing decidedly moved by the playful pathos of her attitude when, by chance, searching his pocket for his handkerchief, something crackled, and he felt there an unopened letter, which had arrived at the moment he was leaving his house, and he had slipped into his coat to read in the cab as he drove along. Pierston drew it sufficiently forth ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... collar crackled round his expanding throat, and his voice became richly resonant as under the influential suggestion of ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the next leaf, and saw a big picture of a clown, dressed in green and red and yellow, and having a very white face with three-cornered spots of red on each cheek and over the eyes. While she looked at this the book trembled in her hands, the leaf crackled and creaked and suddenly the clown jumped out of it and stood upon the floor beside her, becoming instantly as big as ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... down to St. George, past Liberty in her soft robe of light, carrying theatred commuters, dazed with weariness and blinking at the raw fury of the electric bulbs. Overhead the night was a superb arch of clear frost, sifted with stars. Blue sparks crackled stickily along the trolley wires as the cars groaned over ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... store-roof popped and crackled now and then as a sheet of "galvanized," expanding, strained on a nail and buckled. And yet from further down the township road there came the whirr and shriek of Smart's buzz-saw rending its way through hard-wood logs; the clang and ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... stairway. When she opened the door to ascend, a thick, black smoke rushed down, almost overpowering her. The opening of the door seemed to aid the fire, too, and there was a sort of explosive eagerness in the new start it took as it now crackled and roared above her. Then she recognized in the sickening smoke a smell of burning feathers, and she felt faint and weak as she thought that it might be his bed that was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... dining room! For the time being the elders dropped their cares and became as young in spirit as the boys and girls. Jokes, stories and good-humored banter passed back and forth until with one accord everybody rose from the table and sauntered into the library where a great blaze of logs glowed and crackled. ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... little clearing in the bamboo forest and pitched our tents on ground that sloped down like the roof of a house. The clearing was barely fifty yards long, yet our twenty or more tents were pitched, our horses tethered in the middle, and the camp-fires crackled merrily as the chill air of night came down upon us. From the forest came the multitude of sounds that told of strange birds and animals that were out on their nocturnal ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... emphasise this, an automatic pistol crackled at the far end of the Garden, and frantic crowds pushed for the doors in abject terror. There was ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... planks and rafters took fire, and their situation was terrible. A small trap-window in the roof on the side of the house was knocked open, and gave them a temporary relief; but now the rafters burned and crackled, and the smoke burst on them in thick columns. They could not see and with difficulty could breathe. Fortunately the room below that which had been fired was but one out of four on the attics, and, as the loft they were in spread over the ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... bathed her face and hands and passed into her sitting-room, where her tea awaited her. A bright fire crackled there, and her favourite chair was drawn up to it. The kettle hissed ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... offence. He was divested of his clothes, except his shirt, whipped, and tied to a large tree in front of the house. It was a stormy night in winter. The wind blew bitterly cold, and the boughs of the old tree crackled under falling sleet. A member of the family, fearing he would freeze to death, begged that he might be taken down; but the master would not relent. He remained there three hours; and, when he was cut down, he was more dead than alive. Another ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... out and crackled among the vines. He saw gaps in the Prussian ranks, he saw the men waver, surprised at the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... blowing inshore, we had feared she would drag her moorings and ground immovably on the swamps. The land, indeed, was so flat and low that, whenever the sea rose at all, it threshed the very plains and crackled in the moss; and we were glad, despite the risk, to leave ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... and continued long in that frantic flight through the thick woods. As the branches of the underbrush crackled behind her, it seemed to her that it was the noise of pursuit, and the horror of that unexpected vision was before her, for to face it again seemed to her worse than death. She was strong of soul naturally; her nerves were not such as give way beneath the ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... woods as a monster might eat food when starving. Grasses, shrubs, bushes, thickets of undergrowth and the great trees, which stood in groves over the level plain on either side of the stream, disappeared at its touch as if swallowed up. The evergreens crackled and flamed fiery hot. The smoke eddied up in rushing volumes. Overhead, and far in advance of the on-rolling line of fire, the air was darkened with black cinders, amid whose sombre masses fiery sparks and blazing brands shone and flashed ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... effect produced upon the troop, when strange noises came from the woods to the right: the floundering of steeds, the cries and curses of men, and the ringing of steel striking steel. Directly the boughs crackled, the leaves quivered, and a horse and rider plunged into the road, not five rods from my feet. The man was bareheaded, and his face and clothing were torn with briars and branches. He was at first riding fairly upon our troops, when he ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... began to penetrate the vertical gallery which widened as we went up. Right and left I could see deep channels, like huge tunnels, out of which escaped dense volumes of smoke; tongues of fire lapped the walls, which crackled and ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... this that I saw Aggie, who had made no complaint about Tish falling on her, furtively testing her own tissues to see if they crackled. ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the arts they had used, took fire at once. The flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall, and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. At first they crowded round the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks; but when it grew hotter and fiercer—when it crackled, leaped, and roared, like a great furnace—when it shone upon the opposite houses and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation—when, through the deep red heat and glow, the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... Porcupines, who are never long without raising their quills, and they are fond of heat. Now there was in the cave much hemlock bark, and this she began to heap on the fire. Then it blazed, it crackled and roared; but Pulowech sat still, and said naught, neither did his eyes change. And he called unto himself all his might, the might of his magic did he awaken, and the spirit came unto him very terribly, so that ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Herr Baron," was the unruffled answer. "I do not need them. My hands are enough. You are a man, a big, strong man, with all a man's worst passions. Have you never felt that you could tear your enemy with your nails, choke him till the bones of his neck crackled, and his tongue lolled out like a panting dog's? That is how I too may feel if you deny my request. And I will kill you, Marcus Bauer! As sure as God is in Heaven, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... power; they kept the national traditions in trust, and claimed the second sight and the power of prophecy. Much has been said of their human sacrifices in colossal images of wicker-work—the "immani magnitudine simulacra" of Caesar—which were filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested with ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... been intensely hot and dry, so that the long reedy grass crackled and rustled as they passed along, and in places the tramp of the horses' hoofs sent the dust flying ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... her friend said as much. There was a long pause. The cheek of Alice rested on Ellen's head which nestled against her; both were busily thinking, but neither spoke; and the cricket chirped and the flames crackled ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... the action to the word, and dashed back toward the American trenches. From behind a volley a rifle fire crackled after them. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... the two boys looked into each other's eyes, squinting painfully in the acrid smoke. The flames crackled and roared in their ears. The strained, terror-stricken look passed from Grafton's face. His eyes lighted and ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... ere he found him, foaming with indignation at a repulse he had anew sustained from the fair Jewess. "The unthinking," he said, "the ungrateful, to scorn him who, amidst blood and flames, would have saved her life at the risk of his own! By Heaven, Malvoisin! I abode until roof and rafters crackled and crashed around me. I was the butt of a hundred arrows; they rattled on mine armour like hailstones against a latticed casement, and the only use I made of my shield was for her protection. This did I endure for her; and now the self-willed girl upbraids me that I did not leave her to perish, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... brave fellows, who sprang forward right into the fire and smoke; but they were beaten back, scorched and blinded, and an awful silence fell upon the crowd, while the woodwork crackled and sputtered and the gas-main sent forth its great waving pillar of flame, roaring with a sonorous note; and all felt that the scarlet-coated figure they had seen leap in had ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... sailed into the west; while golden sunbeams played at hide-and-go-seek among its pretty furnishings throughout the midway hours. Even on cold, cloudy days there was still good cheer, for a big log fire crackled on the ample hearth beneath the oaken mantel, whereon a glowing iron had etched Cowper's invitation (who ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... now in full view, sat on a log near a tripod, beneath which crackled a bright fire, burning under a black pot. The leaping flames revealed a shrewd, weather-beaten face which turned sharply towards the bushes as the visitors appeared; they also lighted up the tinker's cart in the background, the browsing pony close by, the implements of the tinner's trade strewn ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... out. It was frostier than ever. The snow crackled and snapped, the stars were keen and bright, but to Bertie, running down the street with William John's sled thumping merrily behind him, the world was aglow with rosy hope and promise. He was quite sure he could never ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... there were two whole barrels, and one of them had had tar in it, so we were sure of a splendid fire. Then we all went home, and after it was dark we all came back again. The fire was lighted; the bright-colored flames of the driftwood played together and grew and streamed up above our heads, crackled and roared and sent up torrents of black smoke mixed with golden sparks. For a little while nobody was tired of feeding it and watching it, but by and by we let a few attend to keeping it up, while the rest of us made a very little fire among the ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... the Spaniards heaped more wood upon the fire. The logs crackled and blazed merrily, casting long tongues of flame across the glade, and sending a grateful heat into the veins of the warm-blooded Southerners. The flurries of rain ceased, and the skies brightened a little. A ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... over extensive grounds to the blue hills beyond. In the pale evening sky the crescent moon hung like a silver boat, the trees in the quiet air looked black as if drawn in ink. In the grate a large wood fire crackled, which the elder lady seemed much to enjoy as she rubbed her hands one over another on her knee, and spoke in a low, purring tone. The younger occupant of the room was a girl about twenty years of age; she was fair and fragile-looking compared with her portly companion, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... McGregor appeared arrayed in the black suit he had purchased for his mother's funeral. His flaming red hair and rude countenance arrested the attention of all. About him on all sides crackled talk and laughter. As Margaret had been alarmed and ill at ease in the crowded court room where a fight for life went on, so he among these people who went about uttering little broken sentences and laughing ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... direction, take on strange shapes, while it cut out, sharp and distinct against the background of light, the silhouettes of the solemn and unmoving burros, standing in a row behind the fence. Our camp fire blazed and crackled and the crimson and orange flames mounted high in the air and showed our little party, sitting or half lying about it on blankets. Old Dan, sitting on a great chunk of wood, his lap full of cats, his violin beside him, and his usual bodyguard of cats and dogs around him, went far back into his ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... the spinning-wheel for support. The fire crackled. The baby was counting aloud the grains of corn popping from the ashes. "Six, two, free," he babbled. The ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Skeat that they were going in one of the finest yachts afloat, with the Duke and his sister, her companion fairly crackled with joy. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... fellow-creatures, and being in imminent peril of being killed one's self, I have found, that blunts for a while the souls of those who survive and makes them careless of death's awful mystery. As the fire crackled and blazed, giving out a plentiful warmth that in that chill place was most grateful to our aching bodies, our spirits seemed to brighten with its brightness; and when the rich smell of strong coffee mingled with the smell of stewing meats told that ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Clendenning waited the next morning for Oliver in her little boudoir that opened out of the library. A bright fire blazed and crackled, sending its beams dancing over the room and lighting up the red curtains that hung behind her writing-desk, its top covered with opened letters—her morning's mail: many bore foreign postmarks, and not a few were emblazoned with rampant crests sunk in little dabs ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upstairs to change her dress, and Ellesborough put the fire together, and shut the windows. For the sun had sunk behind the hill, and a bitter wind was rising. When Rachel came down again, the wood-fire glowed and crackled, the curtains drawn, and she stared in astonishment at a small ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Mrs Frank Darvell entered with a heavy, tired tread was a good-sized kitchen, one end of which was entirely occupied by a huge open fireplace without any grate; on the hearth burned and crackled a bright little wood-fire, the flames of which played merrily round a big black kettle hung on a chain. A little checked curtain hung from the mantel-shelf to keep away the draught which rushed down the wide open chimney, on each side of which was a straight-backed wooden settle. The dark ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... dampness increased, and a passing car got his mud-guard. It was a big car which crackled with language as it whizzed on its way, and Mr. Twist, slewed by the impact half across the road, then perceived on which side he ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... came back into his body, Johnnie's first thought was a grateful one: how cool to his cheek was the old, crackled oilcloth on the table if he rested that cheek a moment, now here, now there! His second thought, too, was one of thankfulness: How good it was to be lying there so quietly after those rending blows which had driven the breath out ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... was cold, biting mid-winter for her, and such as her—for those poor beggars almost a season of death; but to Miss Duncombe and her companions, a happy, merry time, when flowers still bloomed, and fires crackled, and comforts and luxuries were piled around them like fairy gifts. What did they know of the meaning of the word, so terrific to the poor? What was winter to them? But Ruth fancied that Mr Bellingham looked as if he could understand the feelings of those removed from him by circumstance ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Escombe regained his senses it was night, or so he supposed, for all was darkness about him, save for such imperfect illumination as came from a small wood fire which flickered and crackled cheerfully in one corner of the apartment in which he found himself. The apartment! Nay, it was far too large, much too spacious in every dimension, to be a room in an ordinary house, and those walls—or as much as could be seen of them in the faint, ruddy glow of the firelight—were ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... (relais) are erected for the travellers; in one of these we drank our coffee. The passengers sat on benches and tables around the great fire-place, where the pine logs crackled. More than a thousand names were written on the walls. I amused myself by writing mamma's, yours, Sophie's, and Eva's; now they stand there, and people will fancy that you have been on the Simplon. In the lobby I scratched in that of Mamsell, and added 'Without her workbox.' Otto was thinking ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... peeped down at them from a clear, cold sky that crackled with stars. A chilling breeze swept down the valley. And sometime during the night Turkey Proudfoot woke up and found himself a-shiver. He sidled along the rail and huddled against his ...
— The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... under the kindness of her friendship, was puzzled by her capriciousness, but he did not question her. He was learning to accept mysteries calmly and to work at them in his head. She shuffled her feet and he pretended not to hear: she crackled her programme and he smiled down at her. This was maddening, yet it was a tribute to her power. She could do what she liked and Charles would love her; he was a great possession; she did not know what she ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... and the fire crackled joyously. "Don't say we shall have to leave these to the Hun, doctor!" I said in shocked tones, picking up four copies of his adored 'Saturday ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... vessels of the Union fleet. Two such rafts were prepared; one of which, an immense affair, carrying cords of blazing pine-wood, was sent down in the early morning at a time when the vessels were utterly unprepared to defend themselves. Luckily it grounded on a sandbar, and burned and crackled away harmlessly until it was consumed. This warned Commander Porter of the danger in which his mortar-vessels were of a second attack of the same nature; and accordingly he put in readiness one hundred and fifty small boats with picked ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... crackled in Owen's trembling hand. So the Baskinelli incident had gone a little too far. Harry Marvin had sense enough to know that he would not have to fight three murderous Italians and a rabble of Chinese unless there had been a plot ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... father, but nevertheless ran away from him, and how badly he fared in the world until he returned to his father. During the reading Palko made many beautiful remarks, as he usually did. They all loved to hear him. When he closed, only the fire crackled, and the stars in the heavens were sparkling like a multitude of eyes. The moon lit up the tops of the mountains and woods. Often one of the sheep rang its bell ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... with propter hoc?" said the Bee Master. "Wax-moth only succeed when weak bees let them in." A third frame crackled and rose into the light. "All this is full of laying workers' brood. That never happens till the stock's ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... he was in the midst of his morning meal. A white frost covered the ground and crackled under his feet as he went out to bring in the horses. He saw fresh deer tracks. Then he went back to camp for his rifle. Keeping a sharp lookout for game, he continued his search for ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Laurence, standing upright within it, could make out three seated figures, the shimmer of their head-rings and the occasional shine of eyeballs being the only distinct feature about them. Then somebody threw an armful of dry twigs upon the fire which burned in the centre, and as the light crackled up he saw before him the king and the two ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... with rain and east winds, and Rainham, a naturally chilly mortal, as he handed his coat to Lady Garnett's butler, and followed him into the little library, where dinner was laid for three, congratulated himself that a seasonable fire crackled on the ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... in deep reverie, his head supported on his hands, leaning over a gilt and inlaid table which was covered with letters and papers. Behind this figure glowed a vast fireplace alive with leaping flames; great logs of oak blazed and crackled on the polished brass andirons whose flicker shone upon the superb habiliments of the lonely tenant of the room, which was illumined grandly by twin candelabra rich ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seated at an old desk, going over old papers, looked up as Cary entered the library. A fire of hickory crackled and flamed on the hearth, making a light to play over the portrait of Henry Churchill and over the swords crossed beneath. An old hound named Watch slept under the table, the tall clock ticked loudly, and through the glass doors, beyond the leafless trees, ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... her chair, glanced round the room. There was not much furniture in it, but, though this was unusual on the prairie, door and double casements were guarded by heavy hangings. The big brass lamp overhead shed down a cheerful light, the birch billets in the stove snapped and crackled noisily, and its pipe, which was far too hot to touch, diffused a drowsy heat. One could lounge beside it contentedly, knowing that the stinging frost was drying the snow to dusty powder outside. That heightened the contrast, for Agatha pictured the little schooner bound fast in the Northern ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... white with frost when Miss Foster left the tent in the morning, but a fire of branches crackled cheerfully near-by and Kermode was busy with a frying-pan. A light cloud of smoke rose into the still, cold air, and day was breaking ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... on the front porch of her little cottage, looking out in the gathering dusk. Back of her the lights twinkled gayly. A big wood fire crackled in the sitting-room and shone through the soft muslin curtains. A small maid was busily setting the table for supper in the dinning room, and there was a delicious smell of freshly baked rolls coming through the kitchen ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... to make the turf blaze up when the praties were put on to boil." Saying this, Dan threw himself on the ground, and began blowing away with a vehemence which soon made the sparks fly, speedily followed by a flickering flame. The sticks caught and crackled, and the smoke rose ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... at her, and involuntarily listened to the beating of his heart and the strange sounds coming from the river. There, on the misty river some incessant, slow work was going on. Now something snuffled, then it crackled, and again the thin layer of ice resounded like a ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... came and bade us follow him, and we were led into the abbey hall and there waited for a little. There were a few monks about, passing and repassing, but they paid no attention to us, and we, too, were silent in that quiet place. Only a great fire crackled at one end of the hall, else there would have been no noise at all. It was, I thought, a strangely peaceful place into which to bring news ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... been flaring a steady torrid white flame. Now it began to come in puffs and whirls that beat the air to dust of ashes and sent the sand foaming in the wave lines of a yellow sea. The mule no longer ambled ahead with ears pointed. He shuffled through the ash with dragging steps; and the sage brush crackled brittle where the trail led out from the silt across the baked earth. The heat waves writhed and throbbed through the atmosphere, a flame through a sieve, with a scorch of burning from the ground and clouds of ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... he gathered up the pieces of wood and cast them into the stove. As the remains of that frightful minister of death crackled and spit with defeated venom, Elias Droom calmly pulled on his worn dressing gown, lighted his pipe and cocked his feet upon the stove rail, a serene look in his eyes, a chuckle ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... who threw nuts into the fire, and from the way in which they cracked, or burned, foretold all kinds of happiness or misery for themselves. The nuts that burned brightly prophesied prosperity to their owners, but those that crackled or burned black denoted misfortune. In olden times, when people were more superstitious than they are now, they attached great importance to these omens and customs, but happily the young people of our times have ceased to believe ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... The arquebuses crackled from the boat in front. What were those dull thuds which answered from behind? Echoes? No. Over his head the caliver-balls went screeching. The governors' guard have turned out, followed them to the beach, fixed their calivers, and are firing ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and glancing round we saw that a man in a brown coat and scratch wig had followed so closely at our heels, that the footmen had let him pass under the impression that he was of our party. His face was very red, and the folded blue paper which he carried in his hand shook and crackled ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... morning, but autumn was in the air and a pale sun lacked the necessary heat to melt a skin of ice which, during the night, had covered stagnant pools. The damp moss which carpets northern forests was hoary with frost and it crackled underfoot. Winter was near and its unmistakable approach could ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... such as he had seen in England, for it looked more like a thick layer of softened hailstones, which he could scoop up and let fall separately, or scatter at large to glisten in the sun, while upon trying it the particles crackled and crushed under their feet, but felt ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... had had some slight experience with small target rifles, made a good shot at a fine stag, and we were all very cheerful. The fire burned brightly before the tent she shared with Susie, and the dry dead pine with logs of long-burning birch crackled merrily. Over the little lake, behind the dark conifers and the distant hills, the sun had gone down in a glory of ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... big fires burning in the clearing outside the hut, the whole scene was very bright and cheerful. The wood crackled briskly, the flames lit up the green foliage, and the moving figures of our attendants gave animation to the picture. Amongst ourselves there were a few snatches of song, and from up the hill where the Wallacks were camped came a chorus of not ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... intense flame broke out, and sizzled and crackled. With bated breath we watched. It was almost incredible, but that glowing mass of powder seemed literally to be sinking, sinking right down into the cold steel. In tense silence we waited. On the ceiling we could still see the reflection of the molten mass in the cup which it had burned for itself ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... his eyes thoughtfully upon the wood-fire that crackled in the wide-open fireplace, and soon signified that he was ready ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... all sides so perfect a horizon, that an astronomical observation might have been taken as well as at sea. From the excessive dryness of the air, the blankets and barracans emitted electric sparks, and distinctly crackled on being rubbed. The horses' tails, also, in beating off the flies, had ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Country folk. The two erstwhile comrades in arms were overjoyed to encounter each other again, and Findlay spent the winter of 1768-69 in Boone's cabin. While the snow lay deep outside and good-smelling logs crackled on the hearth, they planned an expedition into Kentucky through the Gap where Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky touch one another, which Findlay felt confident he could find. Findlay had learned of this route from cross-mountain ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... unusual trepidation, declaring that the tortoise-shell of her lorgnette gave forth a crackling sound. She appealed to Don Francesco to explain the meaning of this extraordinary circumstance; it crackled most distinctly, she declared. Not far from the little bay where only yesterday the streamlet of Saint Elias still trickled into the sea, a fisherman had caught a one-eyed lamprey—a beast, unquestionably, of ill repute. The bibliographer, strolling ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... best of it," said the visitor. With that he got up, carefully lifted an iron piece in the back of the stove, turned a key thus disclosed in the pipe, and so materially altered the mood of the fire that in a few moments it stopped smoking and crackled nicely. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... flung his on the floor and crunched it beneath his heel, then he thrust his hands in his pockets, and, leaning back, scowled darkly up at the rain as it crackled on the skylight. ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... there motionless, till his breathing assured her that he still slept. With swift noiseless movements she went on building up the dying fire. The wood crackled; a little flame leapt up, and Mr. Rickman opened his eyes. For a moment he kept them open, fixed in sleepy wonder on the woman who knelt beside him by the hearth. He was obscurely aware that it was Lucia Harden, but his wonder was free from the more vivid and ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... temporary breastworks of saplings and dirt; beyond this, they were unprotected. The question now was, which would succeed in driving his adversary from these defences, almost within a few yards of each other, and from behind which crackled the musketry. Never was sight more curious. On the low line of these works, dimly seen in the thicket, rested the muzzles spouting flame; from the depths rose cheers; charges were made and repulsed, the ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... an immense furnace, told his nearness to the great crater. He penetrated the sombre tabernacle, and stood on the very brink of a huge basin, formed by a wall of rocks around a sunken plain, the midst of which rose the black cone of the subterraneous furnace, which crackled and roared and from time to time spit up burning stones and cinders or oozed out slow ropy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... inclined, and a china tile or two on little legs to go under the coffee and tea pots. The china pudding dish, with its tray and its heat-proof baking pan, is a pretty and convenient accessory, saving the bother of veiling the crackled complexion of the ordinary baking dish with a napkin, These cannot be had for less than $3.50 and are made in silver also, minus the tray and plus a cover. The teapot, true symbol of hospitality, has come down from the high estate to which it was formerly ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... the fire crackled, and the wind shook the windows and doors. But suddenly, through the other sounds, Margaret was aware of an intermittent knocking—a low, hesitating sound, as of some one outside afraid, and yet eager, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unsympathetic. Here, least of all places, could she escape from herself, from her hateful thoughts. It was a chilly day, and a bright fire crackled on the hearth. The square was almost deserted, though the sun illuminated it, and showed all the delicate tracery of the branches and twigs. It was a December sun. Her easy-chair was drawn to the fire and her book-stand by it, with the novel ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Miss Henderson's Home was all aglow. The long kitchen, which, by the outgrowth of the house for generations, had come to be a central room, was flooded with the clear blaze of a great pine knot, that crackled in the chimney; and open doors showed neat adjoining rooms, in and out which the gleams and shadows played, making a suggestive pantomime of hide and seek. It was a grand old place for Christmas games! And three little bright-faced girls sat ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... of those which Jackie had called forbidden rooms—for there was quite a big hole in one corner where the floor had given way. There was a wide open fireplace with a high carved stone mantel-piece, and on the hearth a fire of sticks crackled away under a black pipkin which stood on legs; from this there came a strange and savoury smell. A woman was crouching on the ground in front of it with her back to the door, and a tall dark man leant against ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... Sand with all haste. A furious wind had sprung up. Large drops crackled on the ground. In a few moments the squalls of wind would become unbearable. Soon one of those cones which stood on the plain was reached. No matter how threatening the termites might be, the human beings must not hesitate. If they could not drive the insects ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... attack and heard a faint cheer from his friends on the hill. Then he saw a barrel, blazing from end to end, roll out from the place he had so carefully covered with mounds. It gathered speed and bounded over the rough ground, flashed between two rocks and leaped into the trench, where it crackled and ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... confusion. The flames kept spreading from one pavilion to another, glaring upon the rich armor and golden and silver vessels, which seemed melting in the fervent heat. Many of the soldiers had erected booths and bowers of branches, which, being dry, crackled and blazed and added to the rapid conflagration. The ladies of the court fled, shrieking and half dressed, from their tents. There was an alarm of drum and trumpet, and a distracted hurry about the camp of men half armed. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... rifling of my rooms by the devoted vandals in their efforts to make this lady cosy and comfortable that they did not overlook a silver-framed photograph of my dear mother! Her sweet face met my gaze as it swept the mantel-piece, beneath which a coal fire crackled merrily. I am not quite sure, but I think I repeated "by the Lord Harry" once if not twice before ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... look up and the man busied himself with the pack. A few minutes later she felt his fingers upon her shoulder. He pointed toward a fire that crackled cheerfully from the depths of a bull pine thicket. "I fixed you up a shelter tent and spread your blankets. The tarp kep' 'em tolerable dry. Go over there an' get off those clothes. You must be wet through—nothin' short of a divin' suit would have ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... the uproar of Nature; the sea dashed its frothy, mound-like waves with terrible noise on the shore; the rain poured down from the skies in immense torrents, and everything around was veiled in mists of dampness and smoke. And amid all this, crackled, thundered, and hissed the shells which were directed against Little Gibraltar, or whizzed from Toulon, to bring death and ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... midsummer's heat at high noon. The car into which they got had come the past night from Albany, and had an air of almost conscious shabbiness, griminess, and over-use. The seats were covered with cinders, which also crackled under foot. Dust was on everything, especially the persons of the crumpled and weary passengers of overnight. Those who came aboard at Rochester failed to lighten the spiritual gloom, and presently they sank into the common ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the chest and leaned over it. The fire crackled—and he leaped back! Then, loathing himself for his weakness, he knelt before the treasure trove and tried the ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... had offered resistance, but had been thrown into a panic at the first danger from fire. Then it was quickly over. Doubtless there had been something of a parley with the usual promise of life if they came out. The fire crackled overhead, the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... experimentally, and the spittle crackled in the air. "And the thermometer is certainly working. It's falling all the time. An hour ago it was only fifty-two. Don't tell me ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... up; the snow crackled under his feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he could not bring himself ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... made itself evident in most unexpected ways and places. Points of dull iron about the steamer would suddenly break into a soft glow, like an astral lamp silently lighted by unseen hands; certain fabrics crackled fiercely at the touch, and soft waves of light flitted over exposed surfaces, only half perceived till gone. The slow moving waves of the sea glowed and sparkled in phosphorescent fire, and the sky ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... crackled it, ran his fingers over his smooth chin, folded the check and extended it toward ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... rifles crackled and flashed at the lines, but the men below came on quite steadily, picking their way over the furrows and appearing utterly unconscious of the seven thousand rifles that were calling on them to halt. They were advancing directly toward a little sugar-loaf hill, ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis |
