"Creaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long, he has long guided thy young hand towards the excellence which is yet far from thee, but which thou canst attain if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, 'midst gloom and despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last effort before thou departest, the little stout man whose face is very dark, and whose eye is vivacious; that man has attained excellence, destined some day to be acknowledged, though ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... grieved than we can express, Sarah," the old devil concluded in her creaking voice; "more especially on your account, who are a Christian woman. It is solely out of regard for you that we are prepared to take him as a servant, provided he repents and mends his ways. We cannot have him associating with men like ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... those who brought them a respite from alarms and anarchy. Under the mild administration of the American generals the streets resumed their wonted aspect. The great markets teemed with busy crowds. Across the long causeways rolled the creaking waggons, laden with the produce of far-distant haciendas. Trade was restored, and even the most patriotic merchants were not proof against the influence of the American dollar. Between the soldiers and the people was much friendly intercourse. Even the religious orders did not disdain ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... change on the face of all things. The sky turned to a brighter blue. At the very first glance I seemed to see the dust of long summers on the leaves of the firs, six thousand feet above the sea, in the virgin atmosphere of the mountain-tops: and I was very near taking the creaking of my loosely fixed seat for the southern melody ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... creaking as the door was shut. Mr. Grimm's nerveless hands closed involuntarily, and his lips were set together tightly. Was it to be a knife thrust in the dark? If not—then what? He expected the flare of a match; instead ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... his toes as fingers, the tipped mainyard of a Nile boat and framed himself in the window. Then, because he felt happy, he sang, all among the wheeling kites. And beneath our balcony rolled very Nile Himself, golden in sunshine, wrinkled under strong breezes, with a crowd of creaking cargo-boats waiting for ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... was fresh in the morning, and the shepherds went out in their sheepskins already; and in our garden the dew did not dry off the asters all day long. There were plaintive sounds all the time, and one could not make out whether they came from the shutters creaking on their rusty hinges, or from the flying cranes—and one's heart felt light, and one ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... stretch. Ricky's early-morning energy was apt to be a little irksome and Val had not had a good night. When one lies and stares up at a ceiling, one sometimes hears strange noises which cannot be accounted for by wind or creaking boards. ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... the friend of the white man, the friend of the black man; the man whose heart, like the Christ's, was large enough to bring within the range of its sensibilities every human being beneath the stars. The man who, when God's clock struck the hour, swung back on its creaking hinges the door of opportunity that the slaves might walk over its portals into the army and into new fields of usefulness in ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... remain in Petropavlovsk and begin our northern journey from there, so we still regarded the brig as our home and returned, every night to our little cabin. The first night in port was strangely calm, peaceful, and quiet, accustomed as we had become to the rolling, pitching, and creaking of the vessel, the swash of water, and the whistling of the wind. There was not a zephyr abroad, and the surface of the miniature bay lay like a dark mirror, in which were obscurely reflected the high hills which formed its setting. A few scattered lights from the village threw long streams ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... began to roar, and great masses of snow, dislodged from the tall trees above the cabin, fell upon its roof with sounds like those of soft, slow footfalls. Strange noises of creaking and groaning and rasping penetrated to Alice's ears, and she cowered half in fear, half in joy of her shelter and her male protector. Men were fine animals ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... asked permission to walk with her. She said she was going to Harlow House, and would be glad of my company. As we walked she told me they intended to return there; she said she felt its large rooms with their faded magnificence to be far more respectable than the little modern villa with its creaking floors and rattling windows in which ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... difference between grinding along a bad road in a four-wheeler, and riding well to hounds in a close country on a good hunter. I was horribly tired for about five days, but now I rather like it, and never know whether it blows or not in the night, I sleep so soundly. The noise is beyond all belief; the creaking, trampling, shouting, clattering; it is an incessant storm. We have not yet got our masts quite safe; the new wire-rigging stretches more than was anticipated (of course), and our main-topmast is shaky. The crew have very hard work, as incessant ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... capers, olives, and carrots. Akhineyev glanced at the sturgeon and heaved a sigh of relief. His face became radiant, his eyes rolled. He bent down, and, smacking his lips, gave vent to a sound like a creaking wheel. He stood a while, then snapped his fingers for pleasure, and ...
— The Slanderer - 1901 • Anton Chekhov
... sailor true That in the sunshine floats, beneath the blue, Glad skies. And through the deep, all sparkling, slip A thousand insect-swarms, that, rippling, dip Amid the merry waves. Bright voyagers That roam the sultry seas! Look, the wind stirs Our creaking sails! Thy pinnace flying o'er The ocean's swell, fast leaves the fading shore; Yet faster still the Nautilus sails by, And darts the spider quick. And swifter fly The insect-fleets among the foam; yet think Not when among the billows wild doth sink Thy bounding boat, I fear. Nor ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... by cries of alarm and the sound of cracking glass. The walls and roof were shuddering and creaking, and the concrete floor was heaving under ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... daughter disappeared through a door in the corner of the room. The guest heard them ascend the creaking ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the creaking little garden gate, and, leaving it open, knocked on the door and entered the house. He had hardly more than come within the room when Miss Doc ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... jumped on the instant, hauled on a rough-frieze pea-jacket, thrust my unstockinged feet into their contrary slippers, and followed Harry, on the tips of my toes, along a creaking passage, guided by the portentous ruckling snorts, which varied the ilk profundity of the fat man's slumbers. When I reached his door, there stood Harry, laughing to himself, with a small quiet chuckle, perfectly inaudible at three feet ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... stopped, with a loud creaking of brakes and groaning of wheels, Bob jumped from the caboose and accompanied the burly conductor to the head of ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... Where are we going? What's about to happen?" he exclaimed, in a weak voice, which I could barely hear amid the uproar caused by the seas dashing against the vessel's sides and deck, the creaking of the bulk-heads, the whistling of ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... waited for his return, but he did not come. The old, creaking clock on the rustic ledge ticked away the minutes and the hours until midnight, but still no crunching of gravel relieved his anxious ears, still no gigantic form of the grizzled, bearded trapper showed in the doorway. One o'clock came and went. Two—three. Houston still waited. Four—and a ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... they spied an open door below, beyond which a dim light shone, and whence rose the snoring of wearied sleepers. Ever and anon a wind-gust smote the ancient mill and a broken shutter rattled near by, what time they crept a pace down the creaking stair until at last they stood upon the threshold of a square chamber upon whose broken hearth a waning fire burned, by whose uncertain light they espied divers vague forms that stirred now and then and groaned in their sleep as they sprawled upon the ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... of properly. The project of the cool and calculating Maso would therefore have failed entirely, but for another wheeling of those airy squadrons, and a second wave which lifted the groaning bark until the loosened yards swung creaking above their heads. The canvass flapped, too, in the darkness, like some huge bird of prey fluttering its feathers ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... it—that?" she asked, indicating the creaking white garment. "What were you doing ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... sill before Captain Elisha's greeting caused them to turn and see the three already there. Mrs. Dunn, who was in the lead, stopped short in her majestic though creaking march of entrance, and her florid face turned a brighter crimson. Her son, strolling languidly at her heels, started violently and dropped his hat. The lawyer, bringing up in the rear, closed the door and remained ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on this blessed morn No tired ox moans, No creaking wheel groans, At rest is the plough; No noise is heard now, Save the sound of ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... just six feet of piled wet earth between us. We only whispered and could hear them muttering and the sound of their belts creaking and of ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... the creamy violet wake behind us; We but see the creaking of the labored oar; We have stopped our ears,—mad were we not to blind us, Lest our eyes ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his hands were empty, and the delicious dream over. He waked also to find that it was still dark, and that the Sixth Army Corps was to march to a place called Taneytown, where General Meade had headquarters. He made ready and presently was riding by his general at the head of a creaking column, under the starry sky. In the great hush and cool that is before a July dawn, God showed himself to the men, and they sang the "Battle-hymn of the Republic," but it sounded sweetly and yearningly, as if sung ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... cart went creaking on, Lecorbeau looked over his shoulder, with an inscrutable gaze, and watched the retreating figure of ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... evening; the little street looked dreary and dismal; and the mahogany countenance of the noble and gallant marquis seemed to wear a more sad and melancholy expression than it was wont to do, as it swung to and fro, creaking mournfully in the wind. The blinds were pulled down, and the shutters partly closed; of the knot of loungers that usually collected about the door, not one was to be seen; the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... the great copper gates did slowly swing open, creaking upon their massive hinges, it was as if the flood-gates of a mighty sea had been suddenly let loose. In they poured, thousands upon thousands of them, scrambling, pushing and jumping, scurrying and hurrying, falling and tumbling, ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... taint of infection from the letters, he started about four o'clock. The evening was most melancholy. For, though no rain any longer fell, there was a continual pattering of drops from the trees and a ghostly creaking of branches in a light and almost imperceptible wind. The day, too, was falling, the grey overhang of cloud was changing to black, except for one wide space in the west, where a pale spectral light shone without ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Lydia's room woke Gannett from a troubled sleep. He sat up and listened. She was moving about softly, as though fearful of disturbing him. He heard her push back one of the creaking shutters; then there was a moment's silence, which seemed to indicate that she was waiting to see if the ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... were of no avail, and that she could not move the great inert mass under which Mrs. Jocelyn's chair was creaking, the neighbor from across the way snatched the money and retreated to her room. This stratagem had the desired effect, for the woman was not so intoxicated as to lose her greed, and she followed as hastily as her unsteady steps permitted. A moment later the red-faced woman dashed in, seized the dead ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... dream. Was this the latter half of the nineteenth century....was he in the heart of London? Then suddenly he realized his position, tried to suppress his very breathing and the beating of his heart, for there was a sound of footsteps upon the creaking stairs, some one else entered the room, there was the scratching of a match, and a pale thread of light crept under the door of his prison, showing that the lamp had been relighted. He listened intently, jealously, straining every nerve to hear and to understand. Voices whispered; he ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... thought I was out there. I will explain—but first I'll make amends. Here are the keys by which your durance ends. The gate is somewhere in this corridor, And so good-bye to this interior! [Exeunt SAV. and LUC. Noise, a moment later, of a key grating in a lock, then of gate creaking on its hinges; triumphant laughs of fugitives; loud slamming of gate behind them. In SAV.'s cell the GAOLER starts in his sleep, turns his face to the wall, and snores more than ever deeply. Through open door comes ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... a low, long, musical shouting; then with creaking and straining of wagons, four great black mules dashed into sight with twelve bursting bales of yellowish cotton looming and swaying behind. The drivers and helpers were lolling and laughing and singing, but Miss Taylor did not hear nor see. She had ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Trask undressed and put on his pajamas. Then he opened the door of his room, and rolled into his bunk, purposely accentuating the creaking of the boards under his mattress so that any listener might be assured he had turned in for ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... villagers came out and danced to cymbal and psaltery. When Tharagavverug heard the cymbal and psaltery, hunger and anger came upon him, and he felt as some lord might feel who was held by force from the banquet in his own castle and heard the creaking spit go round and round and the good meat crackling on it. And all that night he attacked Leothric fiercely, and oft-times nearly caught him in the darkness; for his gleaming eyes of steel could see as well by night as by day. And Leothric gave ground slowly ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... Popple. She went to a vast wardrobe painted white, and pulled the creaking doors wide open. "Wedge the man into one dress," she said, "pad the boy into another. Send 'em off in a taxi. Now, boy. Is this Bubbles? Pleased to meet you. I'm old enough to ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... The casements, old and creaking, Shook in the angry blast; And the pale, thin face grew paler, As the shrieking winds went past; For hovering fiends seemed clutching His treasures from his grasp, And unseen fingers tight'ning On his throat ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... garden and on the pavement of the street, a formidable posse of police! He started to the full possession of his powers and courage. Escape, and escape at any cost, was the one idea that possessed him. Swiftly and silently he redescended the creaking stairs; he was already in the passage when a second and more imperious summons from the door awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor had the bell ceased to jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill of the parlour and was lowering himself into the garden. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the big river that day. There was no let-up in the steady creaking of the long sweep. Even in the swifter currents David could hear the working of it, and he knew he had seen the last of the more slowly moving raft. Near one of the partly open windows he heard two men talking just before the bateau shot ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... spoke to his heart in a way that it speaks to but few; the sounds of the earth gave up their sweets to him; the musical fluting of owls, the liquid notes of the cuckoo, the thin pipe of dancing flies, the mournful creaking of the cider-press, the horn of the oxherd wound far off on the hill, the tinkling of sheep-bells—of all these he knew the notes; and not only these, but the rhythmical swing of the scythes sweeping through the grass, the flails heard through the hot air from the barn, the clinking ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the low, wailing cry of the sea-gull, mingled with the deep growl of far-off thunder, told that the night was a fearful one for those at sea. Wet through and shivering, I sat still, now listening amidst the noise of the hurricane and the creaking of the cordage for any footstep to approach, and now relapsing back into half-despairing dread that my heated brain alone had conjured up the scene of the day before. Such were my dreary reflections when a loud crash aboard the schooner ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... by a Spaniard, who are said to be scouring the country; who are said to be, for just now, seeing is believing, and few reports are worth attending to. However, we took two servants on horseback, by way of escort, and rattled off, the coach creaking ominously, the postilions swinging from side to side, and our worthy housekeeper, whom we had carried off from the smoking city, screaming out her last orders to the galopina, concerning a certain green parrot which she had left in the charge of that tender-hearted damsel, who, with her ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... I am sure," said Ghyrkins gruffly, though yielding. "If you will, you will, and there's no holding you; but we are all very sorry. That's all. Mahmoud! bring fire, you lazy pigling, that I may smoke." And he threw himself into a chair, the very creaking of the cane ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... lover persevered. Finding herself locked in with iron bars, while gratings, bolts and creaking hinges were all about her, and unable to return to her people, the fairy first thought out a plan of possible escape. Then she agreed to become the man's wife. She resolved, at least, that, without touching it, she should oil all the iron work, ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... little hill where the road dipped at the edge of the hamlet here sounded clink of steel on rock, suggesting that men labored there with trowel and drill. There was complaining creaking of cordage—the arm of a derrick sliced a slow arc across ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... sons threw their weight on the handle of the windlass, and after considerable creaking and groaning Ned was brought to the surface and helped out on the ground. His face and hands were blue and his ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... desert beyond the last palms of the oasis. A haze hung round about, shimmering in the heat and blurring the outline of the distant hills. A tiny breeze brought the acrid smell of camels closer to her, and the creaking whine of the tackling over the well sounded not very far away. Diana gave a little sigh. It had all grown so familiar. She seemed to have lived no other life beside this nomad existence. The years that had gone before faded into a kind of dim remembrance, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... pain on movement, tenderness on pressure over the affected tendon, and a sensation of crepitation or friction when the tendon is moved in its sheath. The crepitation may be soft like the friction of snow, or may resemble the creaking of new leather—"saddle-back creaking." There may be swelling in the long axis of the tendon, and redness and oedema of the skin. If there is an effusion of fluid into the sheath, the swelling is more marked ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... hundred and fifty-one,— Ten years after the deed was done,— And folks had forgotten the galleon: The divers plunged in the Gulf for pearls, White as the teeth of the Indian girls; The traders sat by their full bazaars; The mules with many a weary load, And oxen, dragging their creaking cars, Came and went ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... from the capstan turned a creaking wooden wheel that set a series of leather belts into motion. Some of them vanished through openings into a large stone building, while the strongest strap of all turned the rocker arm of what could only be a counterbalanced pump. This all seemed like ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... of Holland. For a right understanding of the period of Dutch history with which we are about to deal, it is necessary to define clearly what was the position of the stadholder and of the council-pensionary in this cumbrous and creaking machinery of government that has just been described, and the character of those offices, which conferred upon their holders ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... stock and shirt-frill can be, the relic of a hat very gayly cocked over one eye, and a patch to take away somewhat from the brightness of the other—these are the principal pieces of his costume—a snuff-box like a creaking warming-pan, a handkerchief hanging together by a miracle, and a switch of about the thickness of a man's thigh, formed the ornaments of this exquisite personage. He is a compound of Fielding's "Blueskin" and Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs." He has ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he passed through the creaking gate, up the lime-tree avenue, heedless of the ghost-like shadows of the tombstones, and the ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly
... abstracted, almost as if he was depressed. No one else saw it; eyes and tongues were heavy at bedtime on the ranch. Sadie, dragging up the stairs to be awake tomorrow at sunrise, might have been depressed but she wasn't. And the farmer and his wife, creaking about in their stuffy room over the kitchen, their old bones stiff ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... him a moment and then laughed; and he laughed so rarely that it distorted the yellow parchment of his face as if it must crack it. The sound of his laughter was something like the creaking of a cart imitated by a ventriloquist. But Padre Francesco knit his bushy brows, for he thought the sailor was making game of him, who had been ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... fires hurriedly lighted in front of many tents and houses, and in the larger farms shepherds were driving the cattle and slaughtering the oxen and sheep which were unable to go with the people. The blows of axes and hammers and the creaking of saws were heard in front of many a house; for litters to transport the sick and feeble must be made. Carts and wains were still to be loaded, and the heads of families had a hard task with the women; for a woman's heart often clings more closely to things apparently worthless ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the engines were at work again, and their heavy thud, thud, was mingled with the swash of water, as the Bengali boys washed down decks, while a rattling of spars and creaking of cordage showed that sails ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... flapping; breakers roaring; ropes snapping and beating; masts creaking; hull thumping; men shouting! The captain and his wife were on deck in the wink of an eye. Every one issued an order and no one obeyed. At last, the lady shouted—"let go the anchor!"—the worst command that could be given,—and down went the best bower and the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... intently over the ground. The last of the climbing dacoits was vanishing through the window, high above his head, and one stood motionless below. He, clearly, had been left on guard to keep the foot of the ladder. Now Jack heard plainly a shuffling and creaking and straining above. The Kachins were trying to force the door which he had ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... rise as "ce jeune homme" came down from the dais. Now was the interval between the two parts of the programme. There was a general creaking and scraping of pushed-back chairs as the audience rose and went forth into the night. The noise aroused from sleep the good Warden, who, having peered at his programme, complimented the Duke with old-world courtesy and ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... child, Better that its waves should bear thee, than the land thou hast reviled; Better in the stifling cabin, on the sofa thou shouldst lie, Sickening as the fetid nigger bears the greens and bacon by; Better, when the midnight horrors haunt the strained and creaking ship, Thou shouldst yell in vain for brandy with a fever-sodden lip; When amid the deepening darkness and the lamp's expiring shade, From the bagman's berth above thee comes the bountiful cascade, Better ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... only a ten-foot drop at the end," said Jim, casting his eye up at the creaking sails. "But it certainly was a nasty moment while one wondered if the old affair would hold. I don't believe it ever was made in Germany—it's too ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... the Prime Minister here interposed in a creaking rusty voice, "that her Highness is set against the pilgrimage and will put every obstacle in the way of ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... and delay he fitted the key with a steady hand and moved the wooden bolt creaking and jolting from its slot. Then flinging the clumsy door wide open, he ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... bewildered Mr. Flynn by the coat, she led him into the house and waved him upstairs, and stood below listening until a slight creaking of the bed announced that he had obeyed orders. Then ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... but scarcely knew where I was going, as the wind seemed to be blowing all ways at once, and there came to me an echo here and an echo there, misleading rather than guiding. In a few moments I felt my foot upon wood, and there was a loud creaking and rattling, as of chains, a groaning, splitting, and great uproar going on, as well as a motion as if I ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... decrepit board fence I indulged my rural and unclerical tastes. I could look up from my homely tasks and cast a potato almost in the midst of that cataract of marble steps that flows out of the north wing of the patriotic pile. Ah! when that creaking and sagging back gate closed behind me in the evening, I was happy; and when it opened for my egress thence in the morning, I was not happy. Inside that gate was a miniature farm, redolent of homely, primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and implements ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... could shame them all, despite his creaking and crackling and the nasty hacking cough he had developed. Early and late, on trail or in camp beside the trail he was ever in evidence, ever busy at something, ever responsive to the hail of "Father Christmas." Weary back-trippers ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... off early, but we didn't come up with the wagons until almost camping-time. The great heavily-loaded wagons were creaking along over the heavy sands. The McEttricks were behind, Aggie's big frame swaying and lurching with every jolt of the wagon. They never travel without their German socks. They are great thick things to wear on the outside of their shoes. As we came up behind them, ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... breakfast. Outside, her worthy spouse could see the very tree upon which cousin Wendell Phillips had not been hanged; and his mouth relaxed as he saw his grandson Harley coming across the Common, and heard the portentous creaking that attended Mrs. Bowdoin's progress down the stairs,—the butler supporting her arm, and her maid behind attending her with shawl and smelling-salts. The old lady was in a rude state of health, but had not walked a step alone for several years. As she entered, Harley ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... of our men were up her sides and on board in a moment, and we could hear the cheers with which they were greeted as they sprang on deck. No time was to be lost. The wreck was creaking in every timber, and each wave that burst over her, deluging us on the other side, threatened to break her in pieces. One mast already was broken short, and hung helplessly down, held only by her rigging to the deck. The other looked ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... means been fitted into a round hole! Knowing this, Prince Bladud felt no anxiety as to the management of the craft, and gave himself up to contemplate the grandeur of the storm, for the howling blast, creaking spars, and bursts of rattling thunder, rendered conversation out ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... sight; and on her poop, flooded with moonlight, the stately black mate walking up and down with measured, dignified steps, preserving an awful silence, and that grotesquely mean little figure in striped flannelette alternately creaking and droning of "personal intercourse beyond ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... at length to the creaking sign of the "Red Slipper." A great noise came from the place. A large company was roaring out a chorus. Without many words I was introduced into the room in which the disturbance was proceeding. It was blue with smoke, and the thundering chorus was still unfinished. I sank ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... to a ruined cabin after awhile; it was buried in deep shade; the logs were worm-eaten, and the clay chimney had fallen down. They climbed by a creaking ladder into the loft and laid Paul upon a ragged bed. A young negro woman and her child were there, and the boy saw that her foot was shackled to the floor, for the chain rattled as she moved. They gave him a piece of beef and a corn-cake, and ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... creaking down the aisle of the church, and the following slam of the heavy door behind him; there was a ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... other caller would appear; a female face would have been welcome to her, even that of foolish Mrs. Morton, who might possibly look in before six o'clock. To her relief the door did presently open, but the sharp, creaking footstep which followed was no lady's; ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... there was a creaking of wheels and the "train" had started. The roar of the crowd died away and was succeeded by the sound of ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... are often happier than other people,' answered the friend. Then they walked on in silence. Nothing was heard but the creaking snow under their feet. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... accordingly erected, and he was hung there, exhibiting an object of much greater terror to the natives, than to the white people, many of whom were more inclined to make a jest of it; but to the natives his appearance was so frightful—his clothes shaking in the wind, and the creaking of his irons, added to their superstitious ideas of ghosts (for these children of ignorance imagined that, like a ghost, this man might have the power of taking hold of them by the throat), all rendering him such an alarming ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... footstep pass my door. I slipped out of bed, and opening the door a little, looked out. I saw Mr. Turold, fully dressed, a light in his hand, turning down the passage which led to his son's room. Then I heard the sound of a creaking door, the murmur of a low conversation, cut short by the shutting of the door. I stood there for a few minutes, and then went back to my ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... more about it; and perhaps he was moved with a lonesome feeling, as the creaking ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... aside, I at length devoted myself entirely to the noble art of music," began Theodore, "need excite nobody's astonishment, for whilst still a boy I would hardly do anything else but play, and spent hours and hours strumming on my uncle's old creaking, jarring piano. The little town was very badly provided for music; there was nobody who could give me instruction except an old opinionated organist; he, however, was merely a dry arithmetician, and plagued me to death with obscure, unmelodious toccatas and fugues. But I held on bravely, without ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... they heard the musical jangle of sleigh-bells, First far off, with a dreamy sound and faint in the distance, Then growing nearer and louder, and turning into the farmyard, Till it stopped at the door, with sudden creaking of runners. Then there were voices heard as of two men talking together, And to herself, as she listened, upbraiding said Hannah the housemaid, "It is Joseph come back, and I wonder ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the alternate murmur of the skipper's and Bainbridge's voices: but they were speaking in ordinary conversational tones, and the multitudinous sounds of the ship—the faint rustle of canvas aloft, the patter of reef-points, the creaking of the yards and timbers, the wash of water alongside, and the subdued hum of many voices on deck—prevented us from catching a word of what was being said. However, we gathered that Captain Roberts had been protesting against turning so many people adrift in the longboat alone, for presently we ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... "Only the creaking of the sycamore," said the Superior. And then the mysterious shadows took them; they passed into the house, the door was closed, and she was alone ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the cool brown shadows within, Selah Adams was standing upon the teacher's rostrum. She was speaking in low terms which could not be heard from the door, which had been left open for coolness. Fifty women sat below her in creaking split-bottom chairs, with faces as rapt and attentive as if they had been listening to a revival sermon. Some of them were mature maidens of thirty years; some were young wives who had reached that stage of feminine dissolution when women cease to curl their ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... smote each other in my mouth. It was as he had said: there was no breath stirring; a windless stricture of frost had bound the air; and as we went forth in the shine of the candles, the blackness was like a roof over our heads. Never a word was said; there was never a sound but the creaking of our steps along the frozen path. The cold of the night fell about me like a bucket of water; I shook as I went with more than terror; but my companions, bare-headed like myself, and fresh from the warm hall, appeared not even conscious of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rumbling cityward, went by him, squeaking, creaking, and rattling in its uneasy joints—and out of the noise, almost at his elbow it seemed, a voice spoke his name—and in that instant intuitively he KNEW, and it thrilled him, stopped the beat of his ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... to the wine-cellar, he found them not so empty, but peopled with the vague and shifting images of the many beings, young and old, who had filled the house with life in brighter days. Then, if ever, did noise of creaking stair or sound as of human breath, or, perchance, momentary vision of flitting face against the dark, betray the present ghost of some old-time ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... me from the ward-room was built after the completion of the ship, and had a way of creaking like a thousand or more squeaky boots in simultaneous action. Every time we rolled, each board rubbed against its neighbor and waked the echoes of the cabin. The first time I slept in the room the partition seemed talking in Russian, and I distinctly ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... I am getting rusty. That any attempt to think, would be accompanied with a creaking noise. That there is nothing, anywhere, to be done, or needing to be done. That there is no more human progress, motion, effort, or advancement, of any kind beyond this. That the whole scheme stopped here centuries ago, and laid down to rest until ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... chain, which raises the trucks with the empty baskets at the same time the full ones make their descent into the cellars. What with the incessant thud of the corking machines, the continual rolling of iron-wheeled trucks over the concrete floor, the rattling and creaking of the machinery working the lifts, the occasional sharp report of a bursting bottle, and the loudly-shouted orders of the foremen, who display the national partiality for making a noise to perfection, the din becomes at times all but unbearable. The number ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... turned the bay; the town revealed a light or two; a bird screamed on the ebb shore. Something of all he saw and heard touched a fine man in his cloak, touched a decent love in him; his heart was full with wholesome joyous ichor; and he sang softly to the creaking saddle, sang an air of good and clean old Gaelic sentiment that haunted his lips until he came opposite the very walls ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... could bear the wheels of our heavy-laden hay-cart creaking as the big farm horse plodded on. Its occupants were silent, and thanks to the moon and the lantern which hung up high behind, I could see Julie and Madame Guix nodding ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... of arms, the rough archers and seamen took to their knees, with bent heads and crossed hands, listening to the hoarse mutter from the file-leaders. It was strange to mark the hush; so that the lapping of the water, the straining of the sail, and the creaking of the timbers grew louder of a sudden upon the ear. Many of the bowmen had drawn amulets and relics from their bosoms, while he who possessed some more than usually sanctified treasure passed it down the line of his comrades, that all might ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pegs as if inhabited by dancing ghosts. Somewhere, crockery rattled. There was an alarming creaking, as if great timbers were grinding together. And there was, over all, a shrill, menacing, unceasing howl—the same dread sounds that had made part of ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... important creaking of Deacon Abel's boots down the aisle. Agnes flashed a look over her shoulder. The stern old deacon was ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... and always shot a whisper like a bullet just in time. Colt took it, and glided away from incipient error imperceptibly, and with a tact you can have no conception of. The jury did not detect the creaking of this machinery; Serjeant Saunders did, and grinned satirically; so did poor Julia, and her cheeks burned and her eyes flashed indignant fire. And horror of horrors, Alfred ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... up and the cold winter moon lay on the girl's bed. The General came in tip-toe, trying to avoid creaking on the bare boards, which Nelly preferred to carpets. But his precaution was unnecessary. She was lying wide-awake. The darkness of her eyes in her face, unnaturally white from the moonlight, frightened him. He had a memory of Nelly's ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... dingy cafe The old men sit muffled in woollens. Everything is faded, shabby, colorless, old... The chairs, loose-jointed, Creaking like old bones— The tables, the waiters, the walls, Whose mottled plaster Blends in one ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... back and forth in such a wild way that it seemed as if it must fall and crush every prism, tiny light, and bell. I felt sure whenever a quake began that I should not live through it. The flying fragments across the room, the creaking hard-wood doors, the nauseating feeling that everything under foot was falling away,—it was a frightful experience then, it is a sickening memory now. One never gets used to these shocks no matter how many occur; the more, the worse. They ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... sprang to the floor, and, groping about in the obscurity, began drawing on some of his clothes. He rapped on the window during the process, to show that the house was astir, and a minute afterward made his way out of the room and down the stairs, the boards creaking under his stockinged ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... the upheaving motion of the ship, and the peculiar sensation as she rushed down the watery declivity into the deep valley between the seas, I fell asleep. The creaking of the bulkheads, the whistling of the wind in the rigging, the roaring of the seas, and their constant dash against the sides, were never out of my ears, and oftentimes I fancied that I was on deck witnessing the tumult of the ocean—now that the Flying ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... and once more stirred up his impatience with his mother's disregard of hygiene. He tiptoed into the room and decided to remove the lamp and open the high, small window to admit a little air. He moved noiselessly and had stooped for the lamp when there came a creaking and a heavy sigh from the bed, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... every one is wise: We can be only wise on Saturday. There you are waiting, little friendly house: Those are your chimney-stacks with you between, Surrounded by old trees and strolling cows, Staring through all your windows at the green. Your homely floor is creaking for our tread; The smiling tea-pot with contented spout Thinks of the boiling water, and the bread Longs for the butter. All their hands are out To greet us, and the gentle blankets seem Purring and crooning: 'Lie in ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... silence while his Minister of Culture made a pile of gold coins four feet high. When the floor timbers began creaking, Nick made another similar heap; then, others, till the ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... the cavalry returned passing the white mansion on the hill. They brought in their dead and wounded on hay wagons; and the boy, pale as a spectre, looked on, while the creaking wagons passed by ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... this soft and moving web of silence. No, not quite silence, for past his ear the splendid hyacinths drifted with a musical creaking, leaf on leaf, the buoyant bulbs brushing each other. The islets joined and parted; once he saw open water and plunged for it—and over his shoulders there surged a soft coverlet. He turned and beat it; he churned his bed into a furious welter, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... further notice of me. I looked longingly at the box-seat, but he did not respond to the appeal. I flung my carpetbag into the chasm, dived recklessly after it, and—before I was fairly seated— with a great sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and harshly expostulating axle, we moved away. Rather the hotel door slipped behind, the sound of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its shadows moved solemnly ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... and gloomy day in April, and the sleety storm was beating, in fitful gusts, against the broken and creaking casements, and the disjointed, loose, and leaky covering of an old, dilapidated log-house, standing by the road-side, in one of the thousand little dales, which, with their corresponding hills, so beautifully diversify the face of the town we have been describing. But ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... and then another and then by a heartfelt sigh of relief—as Roddy kicked off his boots—and followed by the tapping of a pipe against grate-bars, the squeal of a window lowered for ventilation, the click of an electric-light, and the creaking of bed-springs. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... friend set foot cautiously on deck. The prospect was not reassuring. The ship rolled heavily, and from the creaking it seemed that the timbers of the hull were strained. The sailors looked fagged out, and there was a set, stern look on the face of the captain, whom, nevertheless, Mr. ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... seems to be not religion, but merely beauty, as real saints seem to be not good, but merely charming. And there are people to whom his beauty does not seem to be art, because it is just beauty; they think that he had the trick of it and could turn it on as he chose; they prefer the creaking of effort and egotism. His gifts are so purely gifts and so lavish that they seem to be cheap; and The Magic Flute is an absurdity which he wrote in a ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... fanlight, over which the remembered title of "St. Charles," in gilded letters, was now reinforced by the too demonstrative legend, "Apartments and Board, by the Day or Week." Was it possible that this narrow, creaking staircase had once seemed to him the broad steps of Fame and Fortune? On the first landing, a preoccupied Irish servant-girl, with a mop, directed him to a door at the end of the passage, at which he knocked. The door was opened ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... wind through the rigging came to the ear muffled like the distant rumble of a train crossing a trestle or the surf on the beach, while the loud crash of the seas on her weather bow seemed almost to rend the beams and planking asunder as it resounded through the fo'castle. The creaking and groaning of the timbers, stanchions, and bulkheads, as the strain the vessel was undergoing was felt, served to drown the groans of the dying man as he tossed uneasily in his bunk. The working of the foremast against the deck beams caused a shower of flaky powder ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... was the suspense that a creaking board made the Ravens jump; a shutter slamming somewhere in another part of the building almost precipitated a panic. After an interval that seemed hours each Raven sat with a white ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... my great regret, for they are the best substitute we have for rooks. At Shady Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than their creaking clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of the day. Their port ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... and yet in all this vast immensity of fertile land and ripening fruit there is no sign of human toil, no sound of beast or creaking waggon, no sign of human life ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a vigorous indorsement to this last remark, and Cappy went on: "Do you think any proud and arrogant skipper of a German submarine would ever suspect an American citizen of such a harebrained scheme as the sending out of a rusty, creaking old rattletrap of a steamer that can't get out of her own way, for the avowed purpose of destroying him and his sub? No sir! His microphones will tell him, while he is still totally submerged, that his approaching prey is a slow poke and cannot possibly outrun him; then he'll come up, take ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... sat, for a time very straight, looking out of the window at the streets and the people, but when they had drawn away from the old city and left its grey stone houses behind and taken to the roads where slowly moving carts were creaking and snatches of talk from slow-tongued country people were heard and lost in the same moment, she sank back. The roads were dark. They were lined by tall, bare trees which seemed to challenge this swift passage and then ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... were returning to the tavern one night, after a visit to a rakish-looking vessel in the offing, when a squall broke in such force as to give their skiff a leeway to the place of executions. As they rounded that lonely reef a creaking noise overhead caused Vanderscamp to look up, and he could not repress a shudder as he saw the bodies of his three messmates, their rags fluttering and their chains grinding ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round, and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round window and left it streaming. I jumped into my ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... the evil face of the broken-nosed buccaneer. What was Daggs doing in New York? Just then there was a faint sound as of creaking cordage from beyond the side. Jeremy's bunk was near the open port and by leaning over a little he could see the river. Barely a boat's length away, in the dark, a tall-masted, schooner-rigged craft was slipping past on ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... way through the dancers toward Leah. As he watched the progress of that slight gray-haired figure Gordon refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. The thing was too utterly absurd—yet Gordon was positive that the strong oak floor of the dancing space was visibly swaying and creaking ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... the time of day with the saloon man had disappeared over a ridge and out of sight; Thornton consequently rode swiftly to overtake the stage. Before the four running horses had drawn the creaking wagon after them a half mile Hap Smith stopped his horses in answer to the shout from behind him and ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... that he made that backward jump; for, at the crack of his rifle, El Feroz made such a tremendous lunge toward him, that the creaking limb bent nearly double, and, with a sound like the report of a gun, broke off close to the trunk and crashed to the ground ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... followed, but spoken so low that the boys could not understand them. They heard a faint creaking of the flooring of the old ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... wind do howl without, And turn the creaking weather-vane; What if the arrows of the rain Do beat against the window-pane? Art thou not armored strong and fast Against the sallies of the blast? Art thou not sheltered safe and well Against the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... back, and drew his revolver. As the door flew open, the sound beat out at us, with an effect impossible to explain to one who has not heard it—with a certain, horrible personal note in it; as if in there in the darkness you could picture the room rocking and creaking in a mad, vile glee to its own filthy piping and whistling and hooning. To stand there and listen, was to be stunned by Realization. It was as if someone showed you the mouth of a vast pit suddenly, and said:—That's Hell. And you knew that they had spoken ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... Individual stood on the lower one in a meditative mood for a while, and then gave a jump by way of test, thinking it best to go through the one nearest the ground, if she must go through any. An ominous creaking and swaying and cracking followed, but no actual rupture. The second step was tested with the same result; then the third and fourth; and, reflecting that appearances are deceitful, and recollecting the rocking-stone at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the tower ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Gamelin?" broke in a tenor voice; it was the citoyen Blaise just come back to his shop. He advanced, boots creaking, charms rattling, coat-skirts flying, an enormous black cocked hat on his head, the corners of ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... sounds are of the Autumn weather; The urchin rock'ng in the trees Shakes silver laughter with the apples down,— And wading to the knees Among the stubble and the husks so brown, The oxen keeping every patient step together, Bring in the creaking wain, High-piled with yellow maize and sheaves of ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... sure, a clumsy window, but the glass was thick like the bottom of a bottle, and the lead which held the panes in place took so much room that the opening seemed intended to intercept the light rather than admit it. As soon as Mademoiselle de Verneuil had turned the creaking hinges of the lower door she smelt an intolerable ammoniacal odor, and saw that the beasts in the stable had kicked through the inner partition which separated the stable from the dwelling. The interior of the farmhouse, for such it was, did not ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... sound as is made when the sails and yards are lowered. I have heard it over and over again when out at night on the lagoons near the port. There is no mistake in the creaking of the blocks as the halyards run through them. I am sure, that since I have been here several vessels have brought up inside the mouth of the harbour. Some of the sailors have heard the same noises, so there cannot ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... creaking of the wheels the heavy train came to a stop, and at the same moment the four chums, listening with considerable apprehension, caught the sound of many loud and excited voices just outside ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... how, and I don't know where it is," replied Lennox; "but I do know that they have a hiding-place somewhere here amongst the rocks. This Boer was not here one minute; then we heard the creaking and grinding of a stone door close at hand, and he was ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... minute in finding a couple that would write. Then Captain Runacles turned the hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons on the roof, and the creaking of the gilded ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... these beggars to remove friction from the wheels of life, and give opportunity. Conversation, character, were the avowed ends; wealth was good as it appeased the animal cravings, cured the smoky chimney, silenced the creaking door, brought friends together in a warm and quiet room, and kept the children and the dinner-table in a different apartment. Thought, virtue, beauty, were the ends; but it was known that men of thought and virtue ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... came only a very faint creaking in the topmasts, as both standing gears momentarily entangled became disentangled without the least damage; the shock, very gentle in such a calm had been almost wholly deadened; indeed, it was so feeble that it really seemed as if the other ship had no substance, that ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... silence was broken by a shrill sound like the creaking of a rusty spring. It startled Don Juan; he all but dropped the phial. A sweat, colder than the blade of a dagger, issued through every pore. It was only a piece of clockwork, a wooden cock that sprang out and crowed three times, ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac |
