"Rustling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and pears, and what other provisions we had. Now and again the wind carried to us the sound of water turning some hidden, lazy wheel. Those who would prefer a well-served lunch in a comfortable room to our simple meal in the meadow-corner under the rustling leaves should never go on a voyage down ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the sparrows made their home; the rustling of the leaves and twigs commingled with the chirp and joyous noise of the birds; in the eaves of the house the doves had built their nests, and the place was filled with their speech, cooing and calling to each other, entreating and discussing as is ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... morning, as the first faint rays Of sunlight through the rustling lindens played, Two children sent to seek the conjurer's aid, Gazed on the sight, with horror and amaze, Of Gray Cloud's lifeless body rolled in blood. Fast through the village spread the news, and stirred With mingled fear and wonder ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only expansion their minds know is from the unfolding of the pages of his character. They are proud of that baba, and proud of themselves for being his. What a sight it is, the ayah coming in at the dessert, in her rustling silks and transparent muslins—so stately in her humility, so smilingly self-satisfied—surrounded by the children, and holding in her dark, smooth, jewelled arms the son and heir of the family, whom she presents to papa to get a bit of cake ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... myriad of tongues were babbling at once. But the noise waxed broader and deeper until it resembled a tornado sweeping through the oak and making one great utterance out of the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue had caused by its rustling. And now, though it still had the tone of a mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also like a deep bass voice speaking, as distinctly as a tree could be expected ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... They make noises when they wish to excite the attention of those who have not the gift of seeing them. These noises consist of sounds in the air, sometimes sudden and sharp, and causing a shock. Sometimes the sounds are plaintive and musical; at other times they resemble the rustling of silk, the falling of sand, or the rolling of a ball. The better spirits are brighter than the bad ones, and their voice is not so strong. Many, particularly the dark, sad spirits, when I uttered words of religious consolation, sucked them in, as ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... "grassy carpet," parted ever and anon by a gliding, gurgling brooklet; the wild flower peeping up near the feet; a landscape of even surface, or at times pleasingly undulated. The atmosphere is freighted with a delightful fragrance; and from rustling bough, from warbling bird, from rippling brook, and from the joyous hum ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... even food in plenty for hungry men. They killed oxen and goats, and made ready a feast for themselves, and a sacrifice for the gods. The repast was prepared, and AEneas and his comrades were about to enjoy it, when a sound of rustling wings was heard all round them. Horrible creatures, half birds, half women, with long talons and cruel beaks, swooped down on the tables and carried off the food before the eyes of the terrified banqueters. These were the Harpies, who ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... cat-like steps, to put out the light. Possibly the eyes of the sleeper vaguely perceived the passage of a shadow; possibly Gothon, with her big, awkward figure, made a board in the floor creak. Fougas partially awoke, heard the rustling of a dress, dreamed it one of those adventures which were wont to spice garrison life under the first empire, and held out his arms blindly, calling Clementine. Gothon, on finding herself seized by the hair ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... them to inform the Dooty that a lion was approaching the village, and I hoped he would allow me to come within the gate. I waited for an answer to this message with great anxiety; for the lion kept prowling round the village, and once advanced so very near me, that I heard him rustling among the grass, and climbed the tree for safety. About midnight the Dooty, with some of his people, opened the gate, and desired me to come in. They were convinced, they said, that I was not a Moor; for no Moor ever waited any time at the gate of a ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... her position she could not see Melanie. From the rustling of garments she suspected that Melanie was taking off her dress. Now with quiet steps she approached the table, on which the candle was burning. She had a white dressing-gown on, her hair half let ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... the mandrake's dreadful groans, By the lubrican's[12] sad moans, By the noise of dead men's bones In charnel-houses rattling; By the hissing of the snake, The rustling of the fire-drake[13], I charge thee thou this place forsake, Nor of ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... The rustling of a dress caused her to look round, and Rosalind Merton stood by her side. Rosalind was by no means one of the "students" of the college. She attended as few lectures as were compatible with her remaining there, but French ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... still autumn evening. The males were sitting dotted about among the reeds, peering on every side with their prominent eyes, and when one approached another too closely, the two would rush at each other till their transparent wings, like delicate plates of silver, and their scaly bodies, made a tiny rustling when they met in conflict. Then all was still again among the rushes, until the arrival of a female dragon-fly. She would come slowly and carelessly humming along from some other part of the garden, and when she got near the pond would ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... and Music. When the rapid motions which produce sound are irregular, we hear noise; when the motions are regular and definite, we have a musical tone; the rattling of carriage wheels on stones, the roar of waves, the rustling of leaves are noise, not music. In all these illustrations we have rapid but irregular motion; no two stones strike the wheel in exactly the same way, no two waves produce pulses in the air of exactly the same character, no two leaves ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... of the fruit I have described came falling down thickly about our heads. We quickly ran from under it, when, looking up, my uncle shouted loudly, and immediately a loud chattering was heard, and away scampered a whole tribe of monkeys, making an enormous rustling as they leaped among the dead palm-leaves. One would have fancied that some huge beast was rushing through the wood, so ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... something rustling around in the closet, or else they imagined they heard something. Walter was frightened. He was a perfect ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... much-needed rain; now the coming night threatened one of those angry tempests of the autumn. It was already dark and the street was deserted as if every one had hurried to find cover. The lighted windows suggested warmth and protection; but outside the dust and flying, rustling leaves, the dancing shadows on the pavements, the wail of the wind, the tossing treetops in the park, the musty odor of the death of the year all bore down upon the spirit and awoke that superstitious uneasiness which we inherit, I suppose, from ancestors ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... many years now since he had heard the rustling of the breeze in the trees, for nothing grew on his cliff, and the only thing in the world he longed for was to hear once again the whispering of the wind in the branches of the ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more and more silent. She heard something rustling on the matting and when she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and watching her with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because he was a harmless little thing who would not hurt her and he seemed in a hurry to get out of the room. He ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a tolerably open place, dotted with willow-like trees rising from amongst the thick grass; and they had not gone far before, after a good deal of rustling about among the reeds and grass, Caesar started something, which, however, refused to come into sight, but kept running from cover to cover, till at last, as Caesar was diligently hunting it by scent, Dick caught sight ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... A rustling of skirts and the sound of whispers was heard in the waiting-room. In answer to the doctor's invitation, the door was slowly opened, and Hannah put her head in at the crack, Frieda's appearing just below it, and ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... administrative boundary still extends into the Sudan, creating the "Ilemi Triangle"; Kenya has acted as an important mediator in Sudan's north-south civil war; Kenya and Uganda are working together to stem cattle rustling and violence by Lord's Resistance Army ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... branch broke with her weight. She had made a wide leap, and with the snap of the wood I was overwhelmed with the sickening consciousness of falling through space, the pair of us. The forest and the sunshine on the rustling leaves vanished from my eyes. I had a fading glimpse of my father abruptly arresting his progress to look, and ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... little Manu, and even the soft rustling of the parting shrubbery where Sheeta passed before either of these ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the brickfield!' they cried. It was many miles off. The road fed by a never-to-be-forgotten drop, to a river broad as the Orange at Norval's Pont, rustling between mud hills. An old Scotchman, in the very likeness of Charon, with big hip boots, controlled a pontoon, which sagged back and forth by current on a wire rope. The reckless motors bumped on to this ferry through a foot of water, and Charon, who never relaxed, bore us statelily across ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... up the alleys again, beginning to be half afraid, for they seemed to me full of something strange, unusual sound, rustling motion,—whether it were a waving bough, a dropping o'er-ripe pear, a footstep on adjacent walks. Nay, indeed, I saw now! I leaned against the beach-bole there, all wrapt in shade, and looked at them where they inadvertently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... civil-suited Morn appear, Not tricked and frounced, as she was wont With the Attic boy to hunt, But kerchieft in a comely cloud While rocking winds are piping loud, Or ushered with a shower still, When the gust hath blown his fill, Ending on the rustling leaves, With minute-drops from off the eaves. And, when the sun begins to fling His flaring beams, me, Goddess, bring To arched walks of twilight groves, And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves, Of pine, or monumental oak, Where the rude axe with heaved stroke Was ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... of the seat for two or three minutes, listening intently in the misty darkness. She heard nothing except for a moment a rustling which sounded like a bird moving in ivy. Then she began to walk softly up and down passing and repassing the seat. When she came up to the seat for the fourth time in her walk, an ugly memory—she knew not why—rose in her mind like a weed ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... feeling unready for an encounter, and therefore couldn't be sure the author of "Shadowmere" noticed him. At all events he didn't come over though Miss Fancourt did as soon as she saw him—she almost rushed at him, smiling rustling radiant beautiful. He had forgotten what her head, what her face offered to the sight; she was in white, there were gold figures on her dress and her hair was a casque of gold. He saw in a single moment that she was happy, happy ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... the pilgrim bending over his staff. Her eye wandered wildly around the hall, as if she expected some phantom to start from its recesses. A richly-fretted screen, behind which the minstrels and lookers-on occasionally sat at the festival, stood at the lower end of the apartment. A slight rustling was heard; she was about to rush towards the spot, when the voice was again audible, and apparently at her side. Slowly the hood of the pilgrim was uplifted. He threw off his disguise; but oh, how changed was the once athletic form of Sir William ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Soon as the beaters set to work cocks began to fly about in all directions, but we had an instinct that something more important would turn up, so took no notice of feathered game. I was watching close, trying to look through almost impenetrable brushwood, when I heard a rustling sort of noise near me, and suddenly I caught sight of something which almost made my hair stand on end—a great tiger leopard, creeping, stealthily as a cat, out of the wood, within twenty yards ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... slowly, and it was hot. The heat-waves rose in dark, wavering lines and veils from the valley. The wind blew almost a gale. Thin, curling sheets of sand blew up over the crests of the slopes, and the sound it made was a soft, silken rustling, very low. The sky was a steely blue above and copper close over the ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... now uncovered by the loss of both kerchief and cap, he crept back into the alcove that had originally protected them from the stones cast in by the Indians. Along with the splinters something else came past Walt's face, making a soft, rustling sound; it had a smell also that told what it ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... then was I almost fancied it such; and the restless tide of thought within me took a new direction; the tears sprung into my eyes, and I turned away, wit a softer feeling at my heart than I had known there for a long while. As I moved towards the door, the rustling of my gown disturbed Edward; he called to me to come and admire the glowing colours of the sky, where clouds over clouds of red and purple hue were floating in an atmosphere of burnished gold. I went to him, and we stood together for several minutes, till the sun descending ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... ploughlands were dappled with faint fawn-coloured tints, a little wood, in the centre of which was a reed-fringed pool. The new rushes were beginning to fringe the edges of the tiny lake, but the winter sedge stood pale and sere, and filled the air with a dry rustling. The water was as clear as a translucent gem, and Hugh saw that life was at work on the floor of the pool, sending up rich tresses of green-haired water-weed. The copse was green under foot, full of fresh, uncrumpling leaves. He sat down beside the pool; the silence of the wide ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... points, where the moonlight found its way through open spaces in the verdure, the grassy path which he was now following wound onward in shadow. How far he had advanced he had not noticed, when he heard a momentary rustling of leaves at some little distance in advance of him. The faint breeze had died away; the movement among the leaves had been no doubt produced by the creeping or the flying of some creature of the night. ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... properly do? I sat on my gravestone with my wonder, and my now-dawning desire to help him (if improbably I could), to get him out of it, if he were really in it; and he sat on his gravestone opposite, with the path between us, and the little noiseless breeze rustling the white irises, and bearing hither and thither the soft perfume of the roses. His boy face, lean, high-strung, brooding, was full of suppressed contentions. I made myself, during our silence, state his possible problem: "He doesn't love her any more, he won't admit this to himself; he intends ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... But he's on the fight—and a mule's a sheep alongside him when he's got his back up. He left the hide where he found it. Haze this steer and ride over there and see what there is to his talk. If you find a hide cached in the willows, put it outa sight. We don't want any rustling scraps started on this range; that's bad medicine always. If he can't produce any hide, he can't start anything ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... herself with a heavy cloak, stepped from the window. The damp earth struck a chill to her delicately-shod feet, but she did not notice it. The mist and fog dampened her hair, unheeded. She went swiftly down the shaded path, the dead leaves of the linden trees rustling mournfully as she swept through them. Past the garden and its deserted summer-house, and the grapery, where the purple fruit was lavishing its sweets on the air, and climbing a stile, she stood beside a group of shading cypress trees. Just before her was a square enclosure, fenced by a hedge of ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... at her, frowned for a moment, and went on reading a letter. She turned, and went deliberately out of the room. He still might have turned her back, but she had reached the door, he was still silent, and the only sound audible was the rustling of the note paper ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... billows of the main In boundless darkness roll'd. O'er land and sea, it was silence all, No breezes waved the pine-wood tall, Or swept the lonely wold: The murmurs of the lake had died, The reeds upon its plashy side No rustling motion felt; But o'er the world, as life were fled, As Nature thro' her world were dead, Portentous ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... sparkling and darkling course she followed. When but a few hundred yards down the path, someone called her. She thought it was a fancy and went onward, nevertheless feeling a sudden silence and trouble. Immediately she heard footsteps and the rustling swish of parting ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my ...
— Le Corbeau • Edgar Allan Poe
... before he had been startled, flew back from the direction of the village gardens; and he quickly decided, while watching their flight, that somehow it must be connected with the dull, but now plainly audible, thud of approaching footsteps on the meadow-path. The buck "drummed" again, then the rustling "pat, pat" of the rabbits ceased in the wood, and one by one the adult voles feeding in the reed-bed slipped silently into the shallows ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... a mile the distance remained the same, and the silence was unbroken except by the rhythmical beating of hoofs through the rustling, matted mesquite. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... said, dark, and they had happened to reach a spot in among some tall trees, whose leaves stirred by a gentle breeze made a low ominous sound; so that, what with the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water, and the rustling of the leaves, everything inspired awe and dread; more especially as they perceived that the strokes did not cease, nor the wind lull, nor morning approach; to all which might be added their ignorance as to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... many a malediction. Traffic and other intermittent noises are very trying, as the victim waits for them to recur. Townsmen who seek rural quiet have got so used to town clatter, that barking dogs, rippling streams, lowing cows, rustling leaves, singing birds or chirruping insects keep them awake. Too much light, eating a heavy supper, all tend to banish repose, as do also violent emotions which produce toxins, torturing the ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... and the "chuck me" chameleon, the harbinger of the early dawn, began his morning challenge. Our progress was very cautiously made through the cane-fields, banana groves, and bamboo jungles, halting and investigating the slightest noise, the rustling of a leaf or the breaking of a twig not escaping our attention. First, I would take the advance and then the Sergeant. When we passed through cane-fields we found the plowed grounds but little less than marshes, for the rainy ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... a warning from above," said the porter, solemnly. "I had dreamed of Cabrion—I was to suffer by Cabrion. Here was I sitting quietly before the table, thinking of an alteration that I wished to make in this boot confided to me, when I heard a noise, a rustling at the window of my lodge—was it a presentiment—a warning from above? My heart beat; I raised my head, and through ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... spoke them again, holding out my arms and crying aloud. All my heart seemed to go out in the cry, but only the hollow winds answered me as they piped mournfully through the yellowing leaves, a throng of which went rustling down the walk as though stirred by the footsteps of a ghost. Then my eyes grew blind with tears and I wept silently for a time as if ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... knew were burning on his inquisitive lips; but after a few moments of further enjoyment before the grate, and having duly turned himself as on a spit, so as to absorb every ray of heat possible, he betook himself to an arm-chair and a book, near the drop-light on a corner table, the soft rustling of the turning leaves of which had a most soothing ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... with the lights shining on her satin-smooth hair and white neck, with the coral comb and the carved bracelets making bright spots of color. Do you remember how her wide green skirts spread about her as she made her deep curtsy? Do you remember her smile? Or were you rustling your program until you heard that deep contralto ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... and played with the children in the garden. It is a sober wind when it gets back to sea, worn and weary, leaving the Dutchman laughing behind his everlasting pipe. There are canals in Holland down which you pass as though a field of wind-blown corn; a soft, low, rustling murmur ever in your ears. It is the ceaseless whirl of the great mill sails. Far out at sea the winds are as foolish savages, fighting, shrieking, tearing— purposeless. Here, in the street of mills, it is a civilized wind, crooning ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... our memory dwells, Our grateful tribute shall not be denied,— The wreath, the cross of rustling immortelles; And willing hands shall clear each darkening bust, As year by year sifts down the clinging dust On Shirley's beauty ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a gentle rustling of skirts. Softly she rose to her feet. He felt her warm breath upon his cheek, the perfume of her hair as she leaned over him. He did not look up, so he did not know that in her other hand she held a glass ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... silver-sweet, but passing cold. Just then there was a rustling among the pine branches, and Lesbia looked round ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... at him. The wind howled drearily in the chimney; all that was economic, grim, and cheerless in the room seemed to gather as flitting shadows around that central figure. Suddenly she arose with such a quick rustling of her skirts that he lifted his eyes with a start; for she was standing immediately before him, her hands behind her, her handsome, audacious face bent smilingly forward, and her bold, brilliant eyes within a foot of ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... are twittering drowsily in the tree-tops, and then in a flood of golden splendor "the morning sun comes peeping over the hills." Instantly all nature is alive, the birds pour forth their sweet melodies, the drowsy hum of the bees floats lazily on the air; there is a pleasant rustling among the tall swaying pines. Dew-drops glisten on the grass, the flowers nod gayly in the morning breeze, and we feel ...
— Silver Links • Various
... of home as he rode leisurely along the winding forest road, when suddenly he was startled by a rustling sound among the trees. ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... go on, dying as it goes. When, as it dies, my stringed instruments come in. These to the left of the orchestra break into a soft slow movement, the music swaying drowsily from side to side, as it were, with a noise like the rustling of boughs. It must not be much of a noise, however, for my stringed instruments to the right have begun the very song of the morning. The bows tremble upon the strings, like the limbs of a dancer, who, a-tiptoe, prepares to bound into her ecstasy of motion. Away! The song soars ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... lightning flickered and thunder growled,—watching through drowsy half shut lids the speckled broods of partridges scurrying with frantic haste through the wild poppies of ripe wheat fields, the brown covey of shy doves ambushed among purple morning glories swinging in the dense shade of rustling corn; listening as in a dream to the laughter of reapers, whetting scythes in the blistering glare of meadow slopes, yet hearing all the while, the low, sweet babble of the slender stream that trickled through pine roots, down the hillside, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... crocodiles. It is true that he had never lived there. He only went there and mooned by himself sometimes, when he was "out" with the world. It had occurred to him, since his rencontre with Gay, that he would go there very shortly. But now this rustling, softly perfumed lady made him remember his beloved lampposts. It was a year since he had been ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... which he portrayed Pope Leo, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, and Cardinal de' Rossi. In this the figures appear to be not painted, but in full relief; there is the pile of the velvet, with the damask of the Pope's vestments shining and rustling, the fur of the linings soft and natural, and the gold and silk so counterfeited that they do not seem to be in colour, but real gold and silk. There is an illuminated book of parchment, which appears more real than the reality; and a little bell of wrought ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... days, we meet once more! Once more I stand thine aged boughs beneath, And hear again the rustling music pour, Along thy leaves, ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... sign "Employment Agency" and went in. Many girls were sitting against the wall in chairs. Several well-dressed ladies were looking them over. One white-haired, kind-faced old lady in rustling black silk hurried up ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... and external decoration. A dignified and manly magnificence would not be unsuitable to the proceedings of the sanctuary of british laws, and the seat of unrivalled eloquence. What would a perfumed french legislator say, accustomed to rise in the rustling of embroidered silks, and gracefully holding in his hand, a cap of soft and showy plumes, to address himself to alabaster statues, glittering lustres, grecian chairs, festoons of drapery, and an audience ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... stopped abruptly. The blaze died down, and the twinkle came instead into her bright eyes. She laughed her little rustling laugh, and turned to go. "Good-by, Jinny," she said; "you don't mean to be funny, but you are. Ethan Tree is in heaven; but if you think he would come back from the pit to see you—te hee! Good-by, ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... in the murky dell, But till your harvest hill at morn; Stoop to no words that, rank and fell, Grow faster than the rustling corn. ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... came the notorious Dr. Oates, rustling in the full silken canonicals of priesthood, for ... he affected no small dignity of exterior decoration and deportment.... His exterior was portentous. A fleece of white periwig showed a most uncouth visage, of great length, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... safe retreat, had heard a rustling sound. And, looking in the direction from which the sound came, he saw a big ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... theatre was intensified. An aproned attendant seemed to Emmy's sensitiveness to look them up and down and superciliously to disapprove them. She moved with indignation. A dull murmur, as of single voices, disturbed the air somewhere behind the rustling attendant: and when the doors were quickly opened Emmy saw beyond the darkness and the intrusive flash of light caused by the opening doors a square of brilliance and a dashing figure upon the stage talking staccato. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... the church clock far away. A step so quick, so light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew fiercely now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she came, and ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... I visited the same spot, in hope to see again this awakening, but without avail. The leaves show me their silky completeness, rustling above the stream in softest tree talk; the curious staminate flower-clusters hang like bunches of inverted commas; the neat little burs, with their inoffensive prickles, mature and discharge the angular nuts—but I am not again, I fear, to be present at the hour of the leaf-birth ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... prerogative. "It isn't as if we had any he-cousins fit to look at—I'll cut a better figger than either Tom or Pete Stansbury, and what right has either of them to give you away, I'd like to know?" Ellen had miserably suggested Sam Huxtable, but Joanna had fixed herself in her mind's eye, swaggering, rustling and flaming up Pedlinge aisle, with the little drooping lily of the bride upon her arm. "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" Mr. Pratt would say—"I do," Joanna would answer. Everyone ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... had passed the statue of Achilles she had the rapt look of one brushing through crowds on a summer's afternoon, when the trees are rustling, the wheels churning yellow, and the tumult of the present seems like an elegy for past youth and past summers, and there rose in her mind a curious sadness, as if time and eternity showed through skirts and waistcoasts, and she saw people passing tragically to destruction. Yet, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... heated Rector with that iron-grey eye, out of which the sparkle of incipient light had not faded. Mr Morgan naturally said a great deal more than he meant to say, and after it was said he was sorry; but he did not show the latter sentiment except by silence and an uneasy rustling about the room just before the Miss Wentworths rose to go—a sign apparent to his wife, though to nobody else. He gave Miss Wentworth his arm to the door with an embarrassed courtesy. "If you are going to stay any time ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Tess arrived at the scene of operations only a rustling denoted that others had preceded them; to which, as the light increased, there were presently added the silhouettes of two men on the summit. They were busily "unhaling" the rick, that is, stripping off the thatch before beginning to throw down the sheaves; and while this was in progress Izz ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... tomorrow. Mary was bent on trimming them all as usual, and I was deluded enough to believe she would, till last evening I found just one and a half done! I did as many as I could at night, till papa heard me rustling about and thumped. Those went early this morning; and these are the rest, which I have ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... violent effort I summoned up my courage; and while I resolved to limit the few words I should say merely to my vindication, I prepared to advance. Just at this instant, however, a shadow crossed the path; a rustling sound was heard among the branches, and the tall figure of a man in a dragoon cloak stood before me. Lucy turned suddenly at the sound; but scarcely had her eyes been bent in the direction, when, throwing off his cloak, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Sue stood there, wondering what to do, there came a rustling, cracking sound in the bushes back of them. They quickly turned, and saw their dog, Splash. He had been roving about in the woods, and had now come back ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-A-While • Laura Lee Hope
... show themselves to their kind hosts in decent attire! On a sudden was heard from afar a sound, which drew nearer and nearer, the usual sign that the guests were approaching; and soon there was a great rustling in the air. First came a flock of birds flying over the forest, then more and more, until at last the whole field was quite overshadowed by the winged guests, who alighted in large ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... Arion of Lesbos, Anacreon, and Stesichorus, {121b} whom I saw there along with them, and who at length is reconciled to Helen. When they have finished their songs, another chorus begins of swans, {122a} swallows, and nightingales, and to these succeeds the sweet rustling of the zephyrs, that whistle through the woods and close the concert. What most contributes to their happiness is, that near the symposium are two fountains, the one of milk, the other of pleasure; from the ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... autumn leaves which his father, with proud paternal indifference to the immaculate surface of the silken carriage blanket, had bestowed upon him. I now became the rival—the successful rival—of the rustling autumn leaves. At my instigation his mother freed him from his equipage and a little anxiously yet resolutely laid him in my arms. I dandled him, I chirruped to him, I hummed to him, I encouraged him to gnaw my watch and to claw my mustache, and presently I began to toss him up in ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... stair, the misgiving increased. Did venerable lemurs inhabit the Basque mountains? Could so magnificent; an old age be of this earth? An ancestral shudder from the Steppes came over me. It was her ruddy train rustling round the turns ahead that aroused these atavistic superstitions. But when we stood together on the landing all doubts fell away; a broad ray of sunlight that struck through an open doorway showed her spectral beauty to be after all reassuringly corporeal. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... would not remain behind, but swept clearly into her thinking. Something was queer about it. Yes, the havoc of loneliness and suffering was gone.... And there seemed a rustling in the far shadows of the little room. Could it be the Shadowy Sister returning? And that instant, with a realism that haunted her for years, there came—to her human or psychic sense, she could never tell—a tiny cry!... Beth almost ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... direction of the house, which for the last few moments had been slowly etching itself as a soft vignette in a tinted aureole of walnut and maple upon the steel blue of the river. He was hesitating whether to take this short cut or continue on by the road, when he heard the rustling of quick footsteps among the fallen leaves of the variegated thicket through which it stole. He stopped short, the leafy screen shivered and parted, and a tall graceful figure, like a draped and hidden Columbine, burst through its painted foliage. ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... up Tartar, and the dog was howling. The pig grunted impatiently. A rat raced across the floor. Cockroaches came out in the darkness and stirred, making a strange rustling like ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... them, so as to elude the strictest search. The neighbours continued the whole day looking for me, and several times many of them came within a few yards of the place where I lay hid. I then gave myself up for lost entirely, and expected every moment, when I heard a rustling among the trees, to be found out, and punished by my master: but they never discovered me, though they were often so near that I even heard their conjectures as they were looking about for me; and I now learned from them, ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... A rustling of the leaves of hymn-books interpreted the meaning of this mystical utterance, which otherwise might have been taken as announcing a discourse upon the prophetic numbers. The piano confirmed the interpretation; and then the company burst into one of those joyous and unanimous singings ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... described as being about two feet in diameter; and the lower about eight inches. It advanced rapidly towards the ship, when it was deemed expedient to alter the course, and to take in all the sails, except the foresail; soon after which it passed within ten yards of the stern, making a rustling noise, but without their feeling the least effect from its being so near. The rate at which it travelled was judged to be about ten miles per hour, going towards the west, in the direction of the wind; and in a quarter ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... told off to dress Mary, and "great was the pains which she took to fix my shepherdess hat on one side, as it was intended to be worn, and to arrange my hair, which was long and hanging in curls; but what would I not have given to have got rid of the rustling tiffany!" Mary describes her consternation when she reached the drawing-room in this array, and found "a number of great people" there, but no other child to consort with. When everybody went to walk in the shrubberies after dinner, and a gentleman offered her his arm, as ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... to have been connected with the greater cold indicated, and perhaps with a different position of the magnetic pole. Ibn Fozlan's account of the aurora is very striking:—"Shortly before sunset the horizon became all very ruddy, and at the same time I heard sounds in the upper air, with a dull rustling. I looked up and beheld sweeping over me a fire-red cloud, from which these sounds issued, and in it movements, as it were, of men and horses; the men grasping bows, lances, and swords. This I saw, or thought ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... believer in temperance and woman suffrage, and before she was through, she had every one with her—as one man put it, he'd like to see the woman vote, if for nothing else than to get Pearl Watson into parliament, for there would sure be hides on the barn door if she ever got there, and a rustling of dry bones." ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... body for more comfort, slept again. And through her sleep and dreams and wakeful moments she heard the quiet voices of the men who had no beds to go to; that monotonous sound and an occasional clink of glass and bottle neck or the rustling of shuffled cards. Once she got up and looked through a hole in the canvas; she had taken off her shoes and made no noise to draw attention to her spying. It must have been chance, therefore, which prompted Thornton to lift his head quickly and look toward her. ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... 'mid shady willows, I sat myself down within this greeny bower and fell to watching the hurrying waters of this brook and hearkening to its drowsy murmur. And lying thus, with the good green world around me, the sunny air blithe with the mellow piping of birds and the soft wind rustling the leaves about me—what must I have in mind but bloodshed and the destruction of my enemy, insomuch that reaching a stone from the brook I drew the knife from my girdle and set ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... overhanging the shaggy forest of cork-trees and willows, the glaring marble of Pentelicus, the banks of the Rhine, the glaciers of Clarens, the sweet Lake of Leman, the dell of Egeria with its summer-birds and rustling lizards, the shapeless ruins of Rome overgrown with ivy and wall-flowers, the, stars, the sea, the mountains, all were mere accessories, the background to one ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 'Midst rustling of leaves in the rich autumn air, At eve when man's life is an unuttered prayer, There came through the dusk, each with torch shining bright, From far and from near, in his sorrow bedight, The old earth's lone pilgrim o'er land and o'er wave. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... because it is for ever shaking its leaves; the slightest wind sets them all rustling. They move so easily because each leaf-stem is like a thin, flat strap set on edge; while the leaf-stem of such as the oak is nearly round and scarcely rustles at all. Why does the Quaking Asp do this? No doubt, because it lives in places where the ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... you don't like mills and manufactories, and all those kind of things,' said Fanny, in a half-whisper, as she rose to accompany her mother, who was taking leave of Mrs. Hale with rustling dignity. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of wine on the encircling peaks. Camp for the night was always near water for the horses; and every {32} star was etched in replica in river or lake. Sunrise steals in silence among the mountain peaks. There is none of that stir of song and vague rustling of animal life such as are heard at lower levels. Nor does the light gradually rise above the eastern horizon. The walled peaks cut off the skyline in mid-heaven. The stars pale. Trees and crags are mirrored in the lake so clearly that one can barely ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... procession, in a well-upholstered little wagon, drawn by two merry Peschiera urchins, Silvio might be seen, beaming with satisfaction like a triumphant victor; and last of all followed mother Menotti, very much moved and affected, in a rustling wedding-dress; behind her the servant lad, with a nosegay that covered his whole shirt-front; and after them streamed all Peschiera, with the very noisiest kind of participation, for they all wanted ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... day,' thought Madame Astier, as she took her seat, her best dress rustling as she did so. She was a little surprised at not receiving the compliment with which her husband never failed to welcome her 'Wednesday' costume, shabby as it was. Reckoning that this bad temper would go ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... long slope rushing Through the rustling corn, Showers of dew-drops from the broad leaves ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... things, in their bearing upon life and health. The woman who believes it takes no strength to bear a little noise or some disagreeable announcements, and loses patience with the weak, nervous invalid who is agonized with creaking doors or shoes, or loud, shrill voices, or rustling papers, or sharp, fidgety motions, or the whispering so common in sick-rooms and often so acutely distressing to the sufferer, will soon correct such misapprehensions by ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... from it, wetted them and laid them on his shoulder. Presently the door was closed, and he heard a heap of brushwood thrown against it, an effectual way of preventing an attempt to escape, for as the door opened outwards the slightest movement would cause a rustling of the bushes and arouse the Arabs who were sleeping in the court-yard. There was no window. Edgar, seeing that escape was out of the question, laid himself down and tried to sleep, but the pain of his arm was so great that it was some hours ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... slowly, a muscle at a time and with great precautions to avoid rustling the leaves or twigs of the bed on ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... French muslin, fell apart, and revealed a white embroidered skirt, from beneath which obtruded one small foot, in an open-work silk stocking; the slipper having fallen to the ground. Thus absorbed, she took no note of time, and might have remained until summoned to dinner, had not a slight rustling disturbed her. She looked up, and saw a coarse face peering at her between the pine boughs, with a most disgusting expression. She at once recognized the man they had met during their ride; and starting to her feet, she ran like a deer before the hunter. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... immensely fond. Who can resist the thought of that express by which, night after night, England is torn up its centre? I love well that cab-drive in the chill autumnal night through the desert of Bloomsbury, the dead leaves rustling round the horse's hoofs as we gallop through the Squares. Ah, I shall be across the Border before these doorsteps are cleaned, before the coming of the milk-carts. Anon, I descry the cavernous open jaws of Euston. The monster swallows me, and ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... formed, when a slight rustling noise shook the curtains of the bed, and the next moment a tall figure in white glided across the room. It drew nearer, and Elinor, in spite of the wish she had just dared to whisper to herself, struggled with the vision, as a sleeper does with ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... flowed about her, Kendal noticed that every one seemed to be, first of all, conscious of her neighbourhood, of her dress rustling past, of her voice in all its different shades of ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... until all was quiet I returned to the house of my friend, and passing through the door went out on the porch. I sat down and was slipping off my socks, to put on dry ones, when I heard a rustling in the room behind me. The next moment Col. Tucker had his gun leveled on me, but it flashed in the pan. He then whirled up the butt of it to fell me ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee |
