"Fright" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creature?" he said, at last, with a burst of admiration. "It took a fright like this, to prove how precious she was to ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... feeble-mindedness, alcoholic heredity, syphilitic heredity, and consanguineous marriages are found to be the chief etiological factors. Bourneville claims that 48 per cent. of the idiots and imbeciles are the offspring of alcoholic parents.... Acute and chronic diseases in the parents, fright, shock, injuries, parental neglect, faulty education, poverty, malnutrition, social dissipation and lack of proper control are all well-known factors in the production ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... returned to England, watched the departure of Lord Melbourne with satisfaction. If all went well, the Prince should now wield a supreme political influence over Victoria. But would all go well?? An unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright. When the dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade adieu to her beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though it would be inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to correspond. Never were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's character ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... the right stealthily.] — Do you know what? That man's raving from his wound to-day, for I met him a while since telling a rambling tale of a tinker had him destroyed. Then he heard of Christy's deed, and he up and says it was his son had cracked his skull. O isn't madness a fright, for he'll go killing someone yet, and he thinking it's the man has ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... row over and see, Eben," said Stair, preparing to depart. "If they are lying in their rabbit-hutches we might give them a rare fright!" ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... the third mate, who sang out, in a tone of alarm, "Where is that boy?" making sure that I had been carried overboard, he not having seen the cook lift me into the galley. When he found me there—though I fancied that I deserved commiseration, for my teeth chattered with cold and fright, and I looked like a drowned rat—he rated me soundly for having gone along the lee side. Medley, however, who had come with the rest, took me down below and made me shift into a dry suit of his clothing. He then persuaded Domingo to mix a fresh pudding, ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... kloof in the mountains where the oxen were in charge of the other two native boys—since on this upland there was no pasturage to drive them back to the waggon. For, as he explained to her, in such tempests cattle are apt to take fright and rush away for miles, and without cattle their plight would be even worse ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... are reeling, When storms are roaring, And thunders pealing, I feel no fright! What I'm enduring Is wilder, stranger Than thunder's ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... brought to me just now. But you have so much discomposed me, that I have no heart to look into the trunks. Why, why, my dear, will you fright me with your flaming love? discomposure gives distress to a weak heart, whether it arise from friendship ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... honour's sarvice,' says my father (as well as the fright id let him, for he was more dead than alive), 'an' it's proud I am to see your honour ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... greeted him as he entered the door of the restaurant, and hailed him with a cry of mingled fright and pleasure. ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... him: that's his way. What but his coming spoilt all Conway's plan? The King must take his counsel, choose his friends, Be wholly ruled by him! What's the result? The North that was to rise, Ireland to help,— What came of it? In my poor mind, a fright Is no prodigious punishment. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... four days," knew better than meddle with Prince Karl. So that Prince Karl, "in twenty-one marches," disturbed only by the elements and bad roads, reached Waldmunchen 26th September, in the Furth-Cham Country; [Ranke, iii. 187.] and was heard to exclaim: "We are let off for the fright, then (NOUS VOILA QUITTES POUR LA PEUR)!"—Seckendorf, finding nothing to live upon in Ober-Pfalz, could not attend Prince Karl farther; but turned leftwards home to Bavaria; made a kind of Second "Reconquest of Bavaria" (on exactly the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... such a dreadful look on his face that I really thought he must be ill or even dead. I rushed at him and shook him, and told him to wake up; and wake up he did, with a scream. I assure you the poor boy seemed almost beside himself with fright. He hurried me away to the house, and was in a terrible state all that night, hardly sleeping. Someone had to sit up with him, as far as I remember. He was better very soon, but for days I couldn't get him to say why he had been in such a condition. It came out at last that he had really ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... not fool enough to mix up in such a matter, and look here, you'll have to work it pretty slick if you get yourself out. The man will be caught as sure as fate; then knowingly or through fright he'll incriminate you." ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... while the mouse ventured to come out of its shelter, though its heart still beat painfully from its recent fright. "I will be an owl, and in that way be safe," thought the mouse, and with the wish it was changed into ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... them with milk and cookies and after the children had recovered from their fright, ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... out in fright and stopped speaking; then, after a moment of dazed effort, she came back to reality and looked at us as before out of her sunken eyes, a plump little kindly faced woman ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... pale head to the Queen, We said—she'll remember it well. She looked from the bars of her prison, And shriek'd as she saw it, and fell. We set up a shout at her screaming, We laugh'd at the fright she had shown At the sight of the head of her minion; How she'd tremble to part with ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... terrible thing happened. Jesus was crucified. In their fright and panic all his friends at first forsook him, some of them, however, gathering back, with broken hearts, and standing about his cross. But never was there a more hopeless company of men in this world than the disciples of Jesus that Good ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... fell to swimming with might and main, roaring out that he was drowning. His wife and his neighbours ran to him with lights, and found him striking out lustily with his legs and arms. "Help! help!" he cried; "I am suffocating;" and he really was not far from it, such was the effect of his excessive fright. They seized and rescued him from his deadly peril. When he had recovered a little, he told them the trick the gipsy woman had played him; and yet for all that, he dug a hole, more than a fathom deep, in the place pointed out to him, in spite of all his neighbours ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "It was a fright, Richard," he said. "That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in that way. You heard what she said. And these old women know. I'll tell you what it is. It's this, Richard!—it's because you've got a fool for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... do not want thy life, Tell, but the shot. Thy talent's universal! Nothing daunts thee! Thou canst direct the rudder like the bow! Storms fright not thee when there's a life at stake. Now, savior, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... far more perilous than was anticipated. Unconscious of this additional obstacle, the rider set off in a canter. The banker was high in air, his loins bent back, his rein slackened, his right hand raised knowingly—when the horse took fright at an object crouched by the haystack—swerved, plunged midway into the ditch, and pitched its rider two or three yards over its head. The banker recovered himself sooner than might have been expected; and, finding himself, though bruised and shaken, still whole and sound, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that though his acquaintance with me had been short, he was much mistaken in me, if I was a person to be deceived by the imagination; and he said he much regretted that I had not mentioned the cause of my fright before we left the old church, as it was always best to ascertain at once the true nature of any ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... the place and the skill of the French. "Such damned cowards and villains," he declared, "he had never seen before." The men at the advanced posts carried on, what he called, "a diabolical good understanding" with the enemy, and the workmen would sometimes take fright and run away. "I make the best I can," said he, "of the degenerate race I have to deal with; the whole means of guns, ammunition, pioneers, &c., with all materials, rest with them. With fair promises to the men, and threats of instant death ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... looks so dreadful!" Her speech was faint as she begged to be taken away from that place. Merthyr put his hand to her arm-pit, sustaining her steps. As they neared the level where men were, she looked behind her and realized the black terrors she had just been blindly handling. Fright sped her limbs for a second or two, and then her whole weight hung upon Merthyr. He held her in both arms, thinking that she had swooned, but she murmured: "Have you heard that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... father, and seated beside a wife I never married. I think I can feel wrinkles furrowing my brow. The fire before which I am placed crackles, as if in derision, the room is ancient in its furniture; I shudder with sudden fright as I lay my hand upon my heart, and ask myself: "Is that, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Ridgely. A few miles out the cry was raised, "The Indians are in sight." Immediately the whole party halted. Allen went over the bluff far enough to see down to the bottoms of the river. Soon he returned very much frightened saying, "The valley is full of Indians." This caused such a fright that notwithstanding our protest, the whole party returned pell-mell to Fort Ridgely, except Steele and myself. The party was so panic stricken that Allen was nearly left. He had to jump on behind. We determined to go on. A mile or so further on, we saw a man crawling ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... "Even if you weren't hurt so badly, you'd die of fright before I could get you home. Well, of course I'm sorry venison is out of season, but a man must eat!" He put his gun to the delicate head, and an hour later Pard was snorting under a gunny-sack of venison. Douglas lighted a cigarette and, whistling ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... this at the time. But it was getting on my nerves to be put in the infant class all the time. The Xmas before they had done it, and I had had my revenge. Although it had hurt me more than it hurt them, and if I gave them a fright I gave myself a worse one. As I said at ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... pursuers would pass him by. With a determined grip Ree clung to the bridle of the lead horse, though he was nearly jerked to the ground. With his other hand he sought to check his own animal, but the skittish young thing had taken fright and was now running ahead ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... shoulder, wagged his tail, and tried to evince his happiness. Occasionally, however, the panther caused a little alarm to the other inmates of the castle, and the poor woman who swept the floors, or, to speak technically, the pra-pra woman, was made ill by her fright. She was one day sweeping the boards of the great hall with a short broom, and in an attitude nearly approaching to all-fours, and Sai, who was hidden under one of the sofas, suddenly leaped upon her back, where he stood in triumph. She screamed so violently as to summon the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... throng to sit And passe it'h Croud amongst them for a Wit. Apollo knows me not, nor I the Nine, All my pretence to verse is Love and Wine. By your leave Gentlemen. You Wits o'th' age, You that both furnisht have, and judg'd the Stage. You who the Poet and the Actors fright, Least that your Censure thin the second night: Pray tell me, gallant Wits, could Criticks think There ere was solaecisme in FLETCHERS Inke? Or Lapse of Plot, or fancy in his pen? A happinesse not still ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... scissors, and captured them, Tommy kicking and struggling meantime. Then she waked up the babies, tied on Belinda's shoe, collected the unhappy pigtails, and said they must all go home. Home! The very idea made her sick with fright. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... wet soaking sack heavily, burden it so that it is an institution in fright and in climate and in the best plan ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... Josephine found her own room she discovered her maid Jeanne, waiting for her, fright still in ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... looking-glass rested on the sill inside. I suppose it was meant for the people's use, but their appearance was so wretched, and so miserable, that I'm certain they never could have plucked up courage to look themselves in the face a second time, if they survived the fright of doing so once. There was two or three chairs, that might have been worth, in their best days, from eightpence to a shilling a-piece; a small deal table, an old corner cupboard with nothing in it, and ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... no wild animals large enough to injure the child. The most he could suffer would be exposure to the night air; that and the fright of finding himself alone. Oh! it is a terrible thing though; and little Willie is all his poor father has left. It would kill him if anything happened," declared the good lady, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... incorruptible, but in proportion a she excels in the manufacture of sonorous phrases, and the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defences against them. Our politics thus degenerates into a mere pursuit of hobgoblins; the male voter, a coward as well as an ass, is forever taking fright at a new one and electing some mountebank to lay it. For a hundred years past the people of the United States, the most terrible existing democratic state, have scarcely had apolitical campaign that ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... unspeakable wonder. Mrs. Paton began to play on the harmonium, and sang a simple hymn in the old woman's language. Manifestly charmed, she drew nearer and nearer, and drank in the music, as it were, at every pore of her being. At last she ran off, and we thought it was with fright, but it was to call together all the women and girls from her village "to hear the bokis sing!" (Having no x, the word box is pronounced thus.) She returned with them all at her heels. They listened with dancing eyes. And ever after the sound of a hymn, and the song of the bokis, ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... the true believers," said the grand vizier, "if you should go in, and Scheich Ibrahim chance to know you, he would infallibly die with the fright." "It is that which hurts me," replied the caliph, "and I should be loth to be the occasion of his death, after so many years service. A thought is just come into my head, that may succeed; stay here with Mesrour, and wait for me in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... new, but Gertrude persisted, the bar yielded, and to her great fright things began to hiss. The engine moved like a roaring leviathan, and the author of the mischief screamed, tried to stop it, and being helpless appealed to the unshaven man to help her. Glover, however, was nearest and ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... the effect of these impassioned words upon the auditors of the empress. They quaked as they thought how they had voted, and their awe-stricken faces were pallid with fright. Uhlefeld and Bartenstein exchanged glances of amazement and dismay; while the other nobles, like adroit courtiers, fixed their looks, with awakening admiration, upon Kaunitz, in whom their experienced eyes were just discovering ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... forces at Savannah; but when they reached the frontier they scattered out to plunder and ravage. A body of Americans fell on one of their parties and crushed it; whereupon the rest returned home in a fright, save about seventy, who went on and joined the British. At the same time three hundred Chickamaugas, likewise led by the resident British commissaries, started out against the Carolina frontier. But Robertson, at Chota, received news of the march, and promptly sent warning ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... I have the most remarkable intuition at times! Have I ever told you that I'm fright- ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... surged and drifted almost at will, for we were compelled to hold them loose to avoid milling. Before ten o'clock the lightning was flickering overhead and around us, revealing acres of big beeves, which in an instant might take fright, and then, God help us. But in that night of trial a mercy was extended to the dumb brutes in charge. A warm rain began falling, first in a drizzle, increasing after the first hour, and by midnight we could hear the ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... an adventure worth reading, in the days to come; and it must be recounted—though were I to live to a hundred years I do not think I could ever forget it. Tanty Rose (she has not yet stopped scolding everybody for the fright she has had) is in the next room with Madeleine, who, poor dear, has been made quite ill by this prank of mine; but since after the distress caused by her Molly's death she has had the joy of finding ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... with fright and all she could do was to wring her hands and cry, "Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do? Oh, ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... was ghastly, but I attributed this pallor to fright and not to pain, for I believed from my heart that the wound was no more than a slight prick. I left the hotel, took a cab to my lodgings, and after reading a light Spanish novel in order to change the current of my thoughts, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... a far Country, the Custom House Officers found some Goods on Board, which were Controband, and for which they pretended the Ship and Goods were all Confiscated; the Skipper, or Captain in a great Fright, comes up to the Custom-House, and being told he must Swear to something relating to his taking in those Goods, reply'd in his Country Jargon, Ya, dat sall Ick doen Myn Heer; or in English, Ay, Ay, I'll Swear.——- But finding ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... you been about, Mary?" she said, in a tone of attempted reproof. "You have made a perfect fright of the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... stood still with fright. Paul was in the mud; it would suck him down till it closed over his head, unless some one saved him, and there was no time to be lost. What could she do, without a single creature there to help her? "Mike," she called, "run home as fast as ever you can, and tell them ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... ride one of those horrid, frisky little beasts! They roll their eyes and bounce about so, I should die of fright," cried Rose, ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... isle, a light Burnt fair an' clearly ilka night; But at the service I took fright, As sune's I saw, An' being still ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to bar the way. The priest makes one last appeal, uselessly; but, unperceived, the nurse has slipped out, and going to the bedside of the dying woman announces the advent of the holy man. The patient screams in agony: "I am dying!" and she does die, from fright. Bernhardi is enraged, though he never loses his air of sardonic politeness. The act ends. The result of the incident, magnified by a partisan press, is serious. A great lady, an archduchess, refuses to head the list of the Elizabethinum annual charity ball. She also ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... "It's a terrible fright you have given me!" he exclaimed, when he could find words. "I have been breaking my heart all night. Sure I thought you were at the bottom of ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... ordered that I should go to service. I was able to do but very little service wherever I was to go, except it was to run of errands and be a drudge to some cookmaid, and this they told me of often, which put me into a great fright; for I had a thorough aversion to going to service, as they called it (that is, to be a servant), though I was so young; and I told my nurse, as we called her, that I believed I could get my living ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... the next morning; the Dean would take a walk and the pair would meet, as it was to seem, accidentally; nothing had been said to Sir Winterton, nothing was to be said at present to Mr. Quisante. The Dean was, in fact, most carefully unofficial, and in no small fright besides; yet he was also curious to know how this new phase of the fight was ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... we were coming. It was not because of any rumour of the French, for we knew nothing of that till we met the people on the road, and the colonel said in a moment the news was false. Buonaparte is not even at Boulogne just now. I was anxious to know how you had borne the fright, so I hastened to Overcombe at once, as soon as I could get out ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... forward to catch a last fleeting glimpse of a lovely girl standing in the doorway of an ancient farmhouse, giving food to chickens so near the course of the railroad train that it would seem we should disperse them with fright. "I wept when I must see my good friend, Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, depart from our ship in one of those tug boats. It was a pain in my breast that he must leave me to go into ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... acute. Of an evening, in the yellow drawing-room, when Granoux's growl was rendered indistinct by fright, he would draw near to Felicite and whisper in her ear: "Come, little one, the fruit is ripe—but you ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... see Townsend last night, Escort to their chairs, with his staff, so polite, The "three maiden Miseries," all in a fright; Poor Townsend, like Mercury, filling two posts, Supervisor of thieves ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... awaken them; she went quietly into the house, and was welcomed by Eglantine with kisses and reproaches for the fright she had given her by her delay. Though in the end persuaded that she had not been murdered by the lawyer and the detective, she had begun to fear lest she were lost in the wood. She received Pollyooly's account of the pleasant day she had spent with many expressions of pleased ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... few days wore heavily on with the widow. What to do she did not know. At night she scarcely slept at all. When she did drop into a sleep, she dreamed that her children were starving, and woke in fright. Then she slept again, and dreamed that a one-eyed robber had gotten in at the window, and was carrying off Susie and George. At last morning came. The last of the food was eaten for breakfast, and Widow Martin sat down to wait. ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... Where? and Hannah's teeth chattered with fright, as she thought of living all her life in a house which held a buried secret in the ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... they do not even nibble," he soliloquized, still looking at the ceiling. "They have taken fright for some reason. They may have an inkling of the awful truth. She is nineteen. Next year she will be twenty—the year after that twenty-one. Then it would be too late. A desperate experiment is better than inaction. I have much to gain and nothing to lose. I must exhibit Kalora. ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... yell of fright that I kin hear yit, the boat was hurried past me on that water that boiled like yeast in a kittle, and in a flash it had disappeared round another bend. What became of it I never knew, but it must have been upset and the man in it drowned. No boat could have lasted long in that water, ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... now and running for the mill, where there was a fire that would warm them. They were half frozen, with the chilling of the water and with the fright. Even Colonel Witham, mindful now of the situation, was there to let them in and allow them the warmth ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... don't be silly." The fright in her voice was overlaid with a sharpened tenderness. "You know perfectly well I didn't mean that. You're only proving that in the human problem you're raised to— Stop looking darning-needles at that coffee-pot and listen here!" Billy Louise leaned over ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... with profound contempt. "I am unarmed, too. There lies my sword, on the table. But since you are the King as well as my brother, I make all excuses to your Majesty for having been the cause of your fright." ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... things to tell you. 2. There were none to deliver. 3. He had an ax to grind. 4. It was a sight to gladden the heart. 5. It was a din to fright a monster's ear. ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... her name was Chloris, and that she always looked a fright with her hair arranged as it was to-day, and that he was a strangely impudent fellow. So he in turn confessed to her he was King Jurgen of Eubonia, drawn from his remote kingdom by exaggerated reports as to the beauty of Queen Helen. Chloris agreed with him that rumor ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... dropped his light banter and began to discourse on more serious subjects. He attempted to widen the distance between them, but in vain. A second glance showed him Mr. Walters close behind, with a face like that of two destroying angels rolled into one. Trembling with fright he quickened his pace and looked round eagerly for means of escape. His glance fell on a confectioner's window, and muttering the word "Ice" he dashed in, followed in a more leisurely fashion ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... coward, madam, and insults 20 But on our weaknesse, in his truest valour: And so our ignorance tames us, that we let His shadowes fright us: and like empty clouds In which our faulty apprehensions forge The formes of dragons, lions, elephants, 25 When they hold no proportion, the slie charmes Of the witch policy makes him like a monster Kept onely to shew men for servile money: That false hagge often paints him in her cloth ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... in the silence. Kitty, seized with nervous fright, turned and ran down the broad staircase by which she had come, through the series of deserted rooms in the piano nobile, till she ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and yet not alone. A rabbit scurries across your pathway. A faint little squeak voices the fright of a mouse. There is a swoop of wings which you neither distinctly hear nor clearly see, yet you are aware, in a less marked degree than was the mouse, that an owl was near. You feel certain that the downy woodpecker ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... beds, in the negro-quarters. The fact that it had been thrown away by himself, had no barrel attached to it, and was picked up by a colored boy who had a passion for carving, hardly prevented the man from giving the innocent author of his fright a round "nine-and-thirty." When I was in Florida, a peculiar set of marks, like the technical "blaze," were found on certain trees in that and the adjoining State westward. The people were alive in an instant. There were editorials and meetings. The Southern heart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Jiddah, where Burton was well received, although everyone knew the story of his journey to Mecca, and on rejoining their ship they found on board eight hundred pilgrims of a score of nationalities. Then a storm came on. The pilgrims howled with fright, and during the voyage twenty-three died of privation, vermin, hunger and thirst. Says Mrs. Burton: [285] "They won't ask, but if they see a kind face they speak with their eyes as an animal does." At Aden Burton enquired after his old Harar companions. Shahrazad was still in Aden, the coquettish ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... effect her conversion? For the first time Masterton realized the value of expediency; while his whole nature impelled him to seek her society frankly and publicly and exhort her openly, he knew that this was impossible; still more, he remembered her unmistakable fright at his first expression of faith; he must "be wise as the serpent and harmless as the dove." He must work upon her soul alone, and secretly. He, who would have shrunk from any clandestine association with a girl from mere human affection, saw no wrong in a covert ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... have shared the combination with some one else!" There was fright in Viola's eyes, and ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... "but I thought that was from fright or a sort of startled awe, which would soon go off. I'm sorry I didn't have a look at those spars before we cast them off; we might have learned the name of the ship to which he belonged. Don't you think, Seth, though, that he will recover his speech and ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... perceived that they were fixed. It seemed that he was unconscious of life. Two streams of tears trickled from his eyes, and yet his features remained the same. He was literally a weeping statue. The spectators were seized with fright, and, although gamesters, they melted ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... the porter had spoken the truth and that all the servants had left the house, as the rats leave a sinking ship. One must really have seen an old ship sink in harbour to know how the rats look, black and grey, fat and thin, old and young, their tiny beads of eyes glittering with fright as they scurry up the hatches and make for every deck port and scupper, scrambling and tumbling over each other till they flop into the water and swim away, racing for safety, each making a long forked wake on the smooth surface, with ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Bippo and Pedros crept from the wood, the picture of quaking terror. They had been roused at the beginning of the tumult, but deeming discretion the better part of valor, scrambled farther back into the forest, where they remained almost dead with fright, until sure the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... take long to change Bob's fright into the happiest anticipations. Red Pepper Burns was at his best with children; he had what their mothers ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... Jinni's pate which she was tired of supporting and placed it upon the ground; then standing upright under the tree signed to the Kings, "Come ye down, ye two, and fear naught from this Ifrit."[FN14] They were in a terrible fright when they found that she had seen them and answered her in the same manner, "Allah upon thee[FN15] and by thy modesty, O lady, excuse us from coming down!" But she rejoined by saying, "Allah upon you both, that ye come down forthright, and if ye come ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... you've got to do is to follow my lead, and not take fright at anything. Caw may not be alone in the house. It is even possible that he may have the company of some wretched lawyer fellow who has been nosing around all day. Come, buck up! You'll feel fitter after a ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... not shun the ford; for full in view Fierce lions rush behind and force him thro. Long ladders heaved on end, with banded eyes He mounts, and mounts, and seems to gain the skies; Then backward falling, tranced with deadly fright, Finds his own feet and stands restored to light. Here all dread sights of torture round him rise; Lash'd on a wheel, a whirling felon flies; A wretch, with members chain'd and liver bare, Writhes and disturbs the vulture feasting ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... like the 600 Austrian corpses on Monte Nero—almost awe-inspiring of heights. They had fallen in the snow which had covered them. In the summer they reappeared one morning in strange attitudes, frozen hard and lifelike, and gave the Italian garrison their first fright." ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... married," she said abruptly out of pure fright, and wrenched at her bead chain when Leonie leapt ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... carried her to Peggy's room, and laid her on the bed. It was really more fright and distress than actual fainting, for she soon opened her eyes, and looked eagerly at Peggy, but closed them again with a faint cry, at ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... have seen him shiver When they pulled him from the river. He was in a sorry plight! Dripping wet, and such a fright! Wet all over, everywhere, Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair: Johnny never will forget What it is ...
— Struwwelpeter: Merry Tales and Funny Pictures • Heinrich Hoffman
... a stupenjus drive in the back, and over I wint on the line, mid-betwixt the rails. The engine came up an' wint half over me widout givin' me a scratch, bekase av my centraleous situation, an' then the porther-men pulled me out, nigh sick wid fright, sor, as ye may guess. A jintleman in the crowd sings out: 'I'm a medical man!' an' they tuk me in the waitin'-room, an' he investigated me, havin' turned everybody else out av the room. There wuz no bones bruk, glory be! and the docthor-man he was tellin' me so, after feelin' ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... tended. A young girl, who served as Laurence's maid, was seated in the vestibule, on the lower stair, weeping bitterly. Several domestics were there also, frightened, motionless, not knowing what to do in all this fright. The drawing-room door was wide open; the room was dimly lighted by two candles; Mme. Courtois lay rather than sat in a large arm-chair near the fireplace. Her husband was reclining on a lounge near the windows at the rear of ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fleet enough, in the open field, to keep pace with them; especially as they pulled me along at the end of the rope; but, on reaching the woods, I was speedily thrown into a distressing plight. The animals took fright, and started off ferociously into the woods, carrying the cart, full tilt, against trees, over stumps, and dashing from side to side, in a manner altogether frightful. As I held the rope, I expected every moment to be crushed between the cart and the huge trees, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... of the fishers wait on shore With faces full of fright, And the waves roll in with deafening din Through the tempestuous night; The boats of the fishers meet the wind Cast up by a scornful sea; But the fishermen come not again, Though the wives ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... used to beg upon the streets, and so he could the better beg he was taught to sing. This rough, early experience wore off all timidity, and put "stage-fright" forever behind. He could not remember a time when he could not sing a song ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... get off. To stay seemed sure death. Dumb with fright, for a moment he stood in speechless terror. Then there rang across the wild, black river and through the quiet streets of the village, such a yell of abject fear as only a lusty lad of that age can give. It was a cry that chilled the heart of every one ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... all about?" asked the bewildered Pamela, catching hold of Betty. "Moppet dashes into the kitchen, damp and moist, and says she has been at the bottom of the pond, and orders hot posset, and you, Betty, have an air of fright"— ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... him stand like that?" said one. "Because," answered the other, "that is his own idea of himself." The truth suggested in that picture strikes one aghast; for in looking about us we see constant examples of attitudinizing in one's own idea of one's self. There is sometimes a feeling of fright as to whether I am not quite as abnormal in my idea of myself as are those ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... commotion at the front door. Their master, returning from the club, had stumbled and fallen down the stoop. Oku picked him up, and Stafford, luckily unhurt, staggered unaided to his room. Half an hour later the stillness of the night was again disturbed—this time by a woman's shrill scream of fright and a man's voice raised in tones of angry command. To the servants it seemed as if the sounds came from ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... I'd be after him," said Tom grimly, and so that incident was closed for the time being, but it was a long time before Tom and Ned got over their fright. ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... Big Louie's horses. And Big Louie was a dreamy incompetent—he had left them for a moment, that was all, and they had become frightened and bolted. But Big Louie never neglected his team . . . they were not wet . . . they had not been running far. And their fright became less when she dismounted and approached them, soothing them with her voice until they let her touch their sleek ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the best of a bad business, I guessed, and hoped somehow to justify himself to the police. But though he was gray with fright, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... idea darted through his brain: "Can I be already dead that they did not see me?" A hideous impression roused him from his lethargy: in looking at the wall against which his face was pressed, he imagined he beheld two fierce eyes watching him! He flung his head back in a sudden frenzy of fright, his hair fairly bristling! Yet, no! No. His hand groped over the stones: it was the reflection of the inquisitor's eyes, still retained in his own, which had been refracted from ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... fright, Bessie divined at once what the old rascal was trying to do. He was playing the part of the green and unsuspicious countryman, the farmer on a trip, usually the easy prey of sharpers of all sorts, and he was doing it for a purpose—to win the sympathy of the crowd. In her new clothes Bessie looked ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... not only charming in itself, it is so also from its romance. A passion without adventure is like a mistress without caprice. I was seated upon my bed. 'Is it you, Jacqueline?' I said, affecting fright. 'It is I,' said the count, falling upon his knees. 'You, sir! Your letter was not a joke then?' 'My horses are at hand; there is no time to lose; leave this sad prison: my hotel, my fortune, my heart, all are at your service.' At that moment a light ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... hillside, startled by the sound, looked round; those who were in a position to see what was happening below, shouted to their companions, who speedily began to leap down the rocks; most of those on the platform, in their hurry and fright, springing down a distance by which they ran an imminent risk of breaking their necks; others bounded down the pathway in a mode terror alone could have prompted them ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the bridge,' but it was like deef and dumb talk in a boiler shop, while a wilder howl went up from the water front as they seen what they'd done and smelled victory. There's an awfulness about the voice of a blood-maddened club-swingin' mob; it lifts your scalp like a fright wig, particularly ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... ails you, Dazed and white and shaken? Has the chill night numbed you? Is it fright ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... thousand men; and probably more had been destroyed had not the night came on and prevented it, and broken off the fight; so the Benjamites returned to the city with joy, and the Israelites returned to their camp in a great fright at what had happened. On the next day, when they fought again, the Benjamites beat them; and eighteen thousand of the Israelites were slain, and the rest deserted their camp out of fear of a greater slaughter. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... throat. We were under the gas jet. My hand struck the screw, and the light leaped to full blaze. At that instant the pistol fired and the old man fell, I wheeled about and was in the hall; I sprung the lock after me, and in a second I was in my own room—just as my wife, dazed with fright, had jumped out of bed. "Come," I cried, "something must have happened." And together we ran into the ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... said Fred; and his voice actually trembled. Whether he was shivering from cold or fright, I ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... The black astrologer Night! Night is the world!—I shiver with fright:— The air is full of evil things, The coil and glitter of snaky rings, And, the tremor of vast invisible wings, That are not heard but felt: They touch my hair, my hand, my cheek, They mope and mouth, but they never speak To utter their awful history. ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... might weaken. It was quite natural that a young person, in a moment of excitement and pique, should figuratively raise her sword in air and vow a vow; but it was also quite natural, when the excitement and pique had cooled down, that the young person should experience what might be called a "vow-fright," and feel unable to go through with her part. In a case such as Dora's, this was very possible indeed, and all that Miss Panney had planned to say on her present visit was intended to inspire the girl, if it ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... any time in forming his bundle, for there were some things about the pocket that he did not care to see. He wanted to get out of sight of every thing that reminded him of his terrible fright. He put all his bacon, hard-tack, and coffee into his blanket, strapped his pot to his belt behind, set his pick, spade, and pack-saddle up where they could be easily found, shouldered his rifle, and, with a farewell glance at the bronco, which had carried his ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... I 'm a rich novice? Then from to-day I would be poor. Last night I could not get to sleep, I wandered down a, garden walk; In the dead silence of the night, I heard one mourn. A bitter cry, As one who sought and prayed for death. On every side I looked about, My hair almost on end with fright, Trembling, I cried, 'Who canst thou be?' Then the voice murmured these sad words: 'O Sun, release me from this place!' And this, amidst such sighs and groans! I searched about, but nothing found— The grass ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... I have never witnessed such an exhibition of panic fright as I now beheld. Cassim was less than ten yards away—and I could ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... can't!" gasped Miss Harrow. And now the youth saw that she was almost paralyzed from fright. She clung desperately to the window sill, evidently unable to move. Clinging to the ladder with his left hand, Tom placed his right foot on the window sill, and then he reached down and caught ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... degree little realized until her diplomacy again slipped and the present war followed—such a war as was planned for by nobody and not expected even by herself. She was giving long credits and dominating the trade of South America. She had given free trade England a fright by the stamp, "Made in Germany." She was pushing forward through Poland into Russia to the extent that her merchants dominated Warsaw and were spreading out even over the Siberian railroad. Her finance was intertwined with that ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... attendants. Four of them immediately sprang forward, when Mr Mawson, suspecting their intentions, took to flight. Round and round the deck he ran, pursued by the tritons, to escape from whom he sprang below; but in his fright he went down forward, so that he could not reach his own cabin, and he was soon hunted up again and chased as before, till at length, exhausted, and nearly frightened out of his wits, he was caught beneath ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... short petticoat, and a flaming pair of red stockings; myself in the body of the cariole, covered from head to foot with mire, my beard flying out in every direction, and my hair still standing on end from the effects of recent fright—a very singular spectacle to meet in the middle of a public highway, even in Norway. The road was very narrow at the point of meeting. It became necessary for one of the vehicles to pull up the side of the hill a little in ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... trust you with anything," answered Mehetabel hastily. "Indeed, it is not that, but somehow I fell, and I suppose with fright, and a blow I got in falling, every event got so mixed with fancies and follies that I don't know where truth begins and fancy ends. For that reason I do ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould |
