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More "Creaking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not slept so soundly, they might have heard a considerable confusion of noises throughout the night. What with barking and growling, and yelping and howling, and snapping and snarling, and the creaking of branches and the rattling of twigs, there was a constant medley, that ought to have awakened the three sleepers long before daylight. It did awake them, however, at last; and as the light streamed through the apertures ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... a sound of creaking axles, and then a slow cloud of dust, and then a bull-cart bearing Ransie Bilbro and his wife. The cart stopped at the Justice's door, and the two climbed down. Ransie was a narrow six feet of sallow brown skin and yellow hair. The imperturbability ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... of the Saracens, accoutred like a gypsy, with a crimson turban, dried by the white sun, turning the creaking ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... edge of the piazza by the direct process of barking my shins against it, and helped her up on to the creaking boards. My sanguine statement that we should be out of the rain proved not quite true. There was a roof above us, but it leaked. I unfurled the wet umbrella and ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of these wayside public-houses would be a jest after his own heart possibly remains to be seen. But it would be much more melodious and fitting an end than any of the sublime euthanasias which his enemies provide for him. That old sign creaking above him as he sat on the bench outside his home of exile would be a much more genuine memory of the real greatness of his race than the modern and almost gimcrack stars and garters that were pulled in Windsor Chapel. From modern knighthood has departed all ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... the leaping wood-fires. It was a cold and stormy autumn, with many shipwrecks, and mourning in the village for drowned husbands and sons, whose little fishing boats had been sucked into the boiling surges. The roar of the wind and the roar of the waves made a perpetual tumult in the air, and the creaking and lashing of the forest trees aided the wild confusion. There were nights when the crested battalions of the waves stormed the hill-sides and foamed over the Abbey graves, and weltered about the hearthstones of the high-perched fishing village. When ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... really cordially, and I took my way down the creaking stairs in a whirl of happiness that I was quite at a loss to ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... blustering day. The dry leaves were flying, and the weather cocks turned, creaking, around, and Gustave had to hold his head low for he was only a little boy and the wind nearly pushed him down. A bent old gentleman, walking with a cane, passed them. Puff, whisk, the wind took the old gentleman's hat and sent it racing ahead ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... in good repair; a large red barn with white trimmings surmounted by a creaking windmill; a long, low machine shed filled with binders, seeders, disc-harrows—everything that is needed for the seed-time and harvest and all that lies between; a large stone house, square and gray, lonely and bare, without a tree or a shrub around it. Mr. Motherwell ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... high, Low in the wave the leeward [3] cannon lie. The master calls to give the ship relief, The top-sails [4] lower, and form a single reef! [5] Each lofty yard with slacken'd cordage reels; Rattle the creaking blocks and ringing wheels. Down the tall masts the top-sails sink amain, Are mann'd and reef'd, then hoisted up again. More distant grew receding Candia's shore, And southward of the west Cape Spado bore. 140 Four hours the sun ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... delicate piece from the small of the back, and was just on the point of putting it to his mouth, when a tree close by made a creaking noise. He seemed vexed at the sound. He raised the morsel to his mouth the second time, when the tree ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... "that it would be a dangerous business. The creaking of that rear wheel would put them on our track at once. Couldn't we grease the wheel?" Tom was ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... as it happened, a little company of rustics, who had just issued from the low hatch-door of the village inn, stood for a moment under the sign of the Crown and Mitre, which swung huskily creaking from the bough of an ancient thorn tree, then passed on to the road, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... "they will say I ate him sideways." He then went to the hind-quarter. "No!" said he, "they will say I ate him toward the head. I will begin here, say what they will." He took a delicate piece from the rump, and was just ready to put it in his mouth, when a tree close by made a creaking sound, caused by the rubbing of one large branch against another. This annoyed him. "Why!" he exclaimed, "I cannot eat while I hear such a noise. Stop! stop!" said he to the tree. He was putting the morsel again to his mouth, when the noise was repeated. He put it down, exclaiming, "I cannot ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... new leaves, bright blooms, Green grass, and cries of plow-time." So they rode Into a land of wells and gardens, where, All up and down the rich red loam, the steers Strained their strong shoulders in the creaking yoke, Dragging the plows; the fat soil rose and rolled In smooth dark waves back from the plow; who drove Planted both feet upon the leaping share To make the furrow deep; among the palms The tinkle of the rippling water rang, And ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... summer breeze stirred the great branches of the elms, causing the crisp leaves to mutter a long-drawn hush-sh-sh in the stillness of the night. From far away came the appealing call of a blackbird chased by some marauding owl, while on the ground close by, the creaking of tiny branches betrayed the quick scurrying of a squirrel. From the remote and infinite distance came the subdued roar ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... was in full swing. Even with so small a craft as the Lizzie there was commotion. Orders flew from lip to lip. Creaking cables strained at unyielding bollards. Gangways clattered out from deck, and ran down on to the quay with a crash. Hatches were flung open and the steam ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... stair I know she is coming, Bare-footed, lifting her train; It creaks not—she hears it creaking Where once ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of the plodding hoofs! O creaking wheels, O tinkling pots and pans, had I but possessed the wisdom to understand your oft-repeated message, how much of doubt, of grief and pain I ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... it in both hands, like a young knight receiving the pommel of his sword from him who has just given the accolade, and stared down at it until the creaking of the opened French windows startled him ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... the repeated warnings of the spinster against any familiarity with the tavern or tavern people, he came in time to reckon the old creaking sign-board of Mr. Boody, and the pump in the inn-yard, as the pivotal points of all the town wickedness, just as the meeting-house was the centre of all the town goodness; and since the great world was very wicked, as he knew from overmuch iteration at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... was one that followed her With some unhappy curse called "love": Last night, though winds beat loud above, She shrank! Hark, on the creaking stair, What stealthy ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... in his dream of those far-off days, moved other agile forms—young lovers like Myra and himself, their feet creaking on the glittering snow. They stepped slowly, though the bells called and called. The moonlight was not more clear and untouched of baleful fire than Myra's sweet eyes looking up at him, and now he was walking the wet pavement of the ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the occasional tramp of feet, as the mutineers passed, one by one, down the ship's side into the boats. A few minutes more and these sounds ceased. He lifted up his head, listening eagerly; but he could hear nothing, save the dismal creaking of the bulkheads, the moaning of the wind, the monotonous swish, swish of the water washing across the deck outside with the roll of the ship, and the dull hum and crackling of the flames as they slowly ate their destructive way further ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... great navigator, supporting himself, with folded arms, against the creaking tiller, absorbs the scene through his deep-set eyes in silence. Many a haven had he visited in his time; he had been within ten degrees of the North Pole; he had seen the cliffs of Spitzbergen loom through the fog, and had heard the sound of Greenland glaciers breaking ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the cry of the frogs on the moor, or like the creaking of great boots when some one is marching,—always the same tone, so monotonous and wearing, that little Tuk at length fell fast asleep, and then the sound could not annoy him. But even in this sleep came a dream or something ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... am told," the Prime Minister here interposed in a creaking rusty voice, "that her Highness is set against the pilgrimage and will put every obstacle in the way ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... and the tiniest sounds were exaggerated: a board creaking at the head of the stairs, and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking, the ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent sounds, but the silence became a listening hush because of them: listening harder and harder. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... castle crossed the drawbridge over the moat and approached the narrow doorway, which was protected by a tower on each side. If he was admitted, the iron grating ("portcullis") rose slowly on its creaking pulleys, the heavy, wooden doors swung open, and he found himself in the courtyard commanded by the great central tower ("keep"), where the lord and his family lived, especially in time of war. At the summit of the keep rose a platform whence the sentinel surveyed the country ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... remember, and that was why thereafter he had called her the marquise. Then had come that silly quarrel and, instead of to the altar, she had gone back to Happy Valley to teach again. Now he would see her once more and his hopes were high. Outside he heard the creaking of wheels. A big spring wagon loaded with Christmas things drew up in front of his door and amidst them sat the superintendent's daughter and two girl friends, who shouted cheery greetings to him. He ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... offered up in any church such ardent prayers for success, and never were hopes so cruelly disappointed. The prince waited till after sunset, starting in expectation at every sound which approached the chapel, and at every creaking of the church door. Seven full hours passed, and no Greek lady. I need not describe his state of mind. You know what hope deferred is, hope which one has nourished unceasingly for seven days ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... became at once more significant to him—the tangle of tenacious roots that thrust through the greensand soil of the lane they entered, the suave, gray columns of the beeches above, the blurred mauves and russets of the woods, the swift, awkward flight of a pheasant that crossed their way with a creaking whir of wings, the amethyst stars of a bush of Michaelmas daisies, showing over a whitewashed cottage wall, the far blue distance before them, framed in the tracery of the beech-boughs. He knew that she loved it all ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... no voice nor any that answered. There was no sound at all but the creaking of the harness, and the soft breathing of the horses, for we had been coming over heavy ground. The world was as ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... and seats himself cross-legged against the trunk of the big chestnut. Back of the house the vineyard slopes away toward the distant woods in straight, green, trellised alleys. A dim haze hangs over the landscape sleeping so quietly in the midsummer afternoon. Down the road comes heavily, creaking and swaying, a wain loaded with a huge tower of empty casks and drawn by two oxen, their heads swinging to the dust. Yes, it is hard to ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... of ice, a mile in breadth and perhaps ten in length, was being torn from its holdfasts by the current beneath; was creaking, grinding, shoving along, crunching up against the shore in masses, block over block ten or fifteen feet high, yielding slowly and reluctantly to the pressure of the deep tide below, which sometimes with ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... morning she covered some of the books with brown paper and pasted labels on their backs. She tried not to listen for the creaking of the great gates as they swung open, for the grating of wheels against the stones, for Jean's voice calling to his brother, for his quick step upon the stair, but she heard all as she wrote Vita Nuova on the slip intended for an early edition of ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... to her eyes, and a minute later went out of the room and up the stairs. Mr. Fenelby heard her cross the floor above him, and heard the creaking of the bed as she threw herself upon it. He looked sternly out of the dining room window awhile. Never, never had his wife spoken such words to him before. If she wished to act so it was very well—she should be taught a lesson. ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... creaking stairway, shaped like a ladder, and in a first-story room a maid servant brought wine and biscuits to them. On the mantelpiece, at one of the corners of the room, was an oval mirror in a flower-covered ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a period of time, filled only by the clicking of the pawls and the sounds of the creaking parrel and the running gear. Then the Second Mate's voice ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned: "Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... to be passing, a creaking, mud-bespattered disreputable affair with a driver to match, and briskly drove a bargain with him. He announced when she told him the address that the fare would be a dollar and a half. She offered him seventy-five cents, which he, with the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... woe which I must eternally regret Milton could not have heard before he described the sufferings of the lost souls in purgatory. The cries of fiendish joy were only the loving words of cheer addressed by the charioteers to the patient oxen drawing the creaking, rumbling, rolling wagons on over the ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... He learned, in bitterness and unshed tears, that it is the descent that breaks the heart and shatters the already broken frame. That down-climb with your toes crashing through your boots at every step; with your knee-brakes refusing to work, your thighs creaking, your joints spavined. The views were wonderful. But, oh, the price he paid! The air was intoxicating. But what, he asked himself, was wine to a dead man! Miserable little cockney that he was he ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... at the door, although no sound of steps on the creaking wooden staircase had been heard, and a wheedling voice asked for admittance. The occupier of the room, Madame Legrand, rose, and admitted a man of about six-and-twenty, at whose appearance the four friends exchanged glances, at once observed by the new-comer, who affected, however, not to see them. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... are you?" asked a creaking voice, and near the Elephant a big wheel of wood began slowly turning. "Anybody want a ride?" asked the Wheel. "I'm a spinner, I am, and I'm making believe I'm a Merry-Go-Round! Any ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... spoken the truth as to what she had heard, but had been deceived by some peculiar effect of sound. Noises are propagated about a huge irregular edifice of the kind in a very deceptive manner; footsteps are prolonged and reverberated by the vaulted cloisters and echoing halls; the creaking and slamming of distant gates, the rushing of the blast through the groves and among the ruined arches of the chapel, have all a strangely delusive effect at night. Colonel Wildman gave an instance of the kind from his own experience. Not long after he had taken up his residence at the ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... branches as arms, and drew up their roots out of the ground as feet under them and moved hither and thither. And the knots and bosses and gnarls upon them became faces, dark, eagle-like and keen, and the creaking and crackling of the boughs and twigs under the piercing blast that swept by, became articulate and like the voices of old men talking angrily together. There were sudden changes from day to night and from night to day. In dark ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... bright days, especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about, resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... knowing glances were telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair ringlets over her knitting. How her heart beat as Joseph appeared—Joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots—Joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and blushing behind his wadded neckcloth. It was a nervous moment for all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more frightened than even ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not. Beside, the Coquette is the only sailing boat—except a canoe—that we have at present. The other cat is loaned for a week. And I heard the hoops creaking on the mast as a heavy ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... blusterous wind and faintly phosphorescent, foam-capped sea; of flying clouds amid which the stars twinkled mistily and vanished, to re-appear presently with the tall spars and swelling canvas of the ship swaying dizzily and black among them; a night full of unaccustomed sounds of creaking and groaning timbers, of the splashing and roaring of water under the ship's bows, along her bends, and about her rudder; of strange sighings and moanings aloft; and of the low murmur of men's voices as the watch clustered ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... by the colonel's bedside. It is my theory that Mrs. Maynard was restless after the colonel finally fell asleep, that she heard your tumble, and took her little lamp, crossed over into Miss Renwick's room, opened the door without creaking, as I can do to your satisfaction, found her sleeping quietly, but the room a trifle close and warm, set her night-lamp down on the table, as I did, threw her shadow on the wall, as I did, and opened the shade, as you thought her daughter did. Then she withdrew, and left ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... Eugene opened the creaking door, and tried to light one of the lanterns; but the gusty wind blew out every match, and we finally had to close the outer doors before we could get a light. At last we had all the lanterns going, and I began to look around curiously. We were in a long, vaulted passage, partly carriageway, ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... The creaking of the wheels, when the vehicle approached within a few hundred paces of the encampment, attracted the watch-dogs, and their fierce and continued barking drew the attention of the emigrants in the direction indicated. Several men with guns in their hands came ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... face of the broken-nosed buccaneer. What was Daggs doing in New York? Just then there was a faint sound as of creaking cordage from beyond the side. Jeremy's bunk was near the open port and by leaning over a little he could see the river. Barely a boat's length away, in the dark, a tall-masted, schooner-rigged ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... know, child?" her grandmother asked. "Seems to me he's got a highfalutin' name enough. Here you, Granville—if that's your name—don't you know any better than to—" But the boy was gone, his sled creaking on the hard snow at his heels, and a faint whoop sounded ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... thoroughfares, as a poor ghost may gaze at familiar scenes while those it has loved are dreaming. By-and-by the city seemed to stir in its sleep. Along the waterside he could hear the clatter of some belated or too early wayfarer; a weird, intermittent creaking told him that the milk-cart of provincial towns was on its beat; from a distant freight-train came the long, melancholy wail that locomotives give at night; and then drowsily, but with the promptness of one conscientious in his duty, a cock crew. Ford knew that somewhere, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... from the very jaws of the cash-box. We dived into cellars, and crouched and crept into subterranean dens. We threaded muddy lanes, and wandered among bewildering wharfs, and mounted lofts and sheds, and squeezed ourselves into all sorts of out-of-the-way slums. We climbed ladders leading up into creaking timber galleries, and got into regions of old planks and cobwebs, dim with dust and odorous with ancient smells. We assailed the scholar at his studies, and the craftsman at his labour, and from all and each we met with a courteous reception, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... set in at midnight, and had become confirmed at dawn, extended itself through the long day. The ship drifted idly, keeping no course, her yards creaking lazily as she slowly rose and fell at the movement of the ocean-undulations. Hour after hour passed, and the day ended, and night ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... thunderbolts fell, shivering the huge trunks of the forest monarchs; and the lightning crimsoned the faces of the forlorn party with its glare. Then the heavens cleared; the sun came out; and the ox-cart went rumbling and creaking onward. No doubt the first days of that weary tramp had in them something of pleasurable excitement; the breezes of spring fanned the brows of the wayfarers, and told of the health and freedom of woodland life; the magnificence of the forest, the summits of the mountains, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... morning sprang up from sleep, Saying, "Now for a frolic! now for a leap! Now for a madcap, galloping chase! I'll make a commotion in every place!" So it swept with a bustle right through a great town, Creaking the signs, and scattering down The shutters, and whisking, with merciless squalls, Old women's bonnets and gingerbread stalls. There never was heard a much lustier shout As the apples and oranges tumbled about; And urchins, that stand with their thievish eyes Forever on watch, ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... followed him down the, creaking stairs to the morning room. I could not suppress a start as I passed over the threshold. In front of our heavy mahogany table, attentively examining some maps and charts that had been scattered there, was ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... did not falter. Her humble and faithful admirer, Ned, appeared at the attic door, when summoned by Goody Pearse, to help her downstairs. Ned made short work of it; he lifted Mary in his arms, and trudged down the creaking steps with her without a single halt, and placed her by her desire on the settle, where her leg could rest. Mary's smile was a sufficient reward for Ned. But when Mary held out her hand, and said she owed him more than tongue could tell for going to London, Ned was speechless with emotion. At last ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... to slink away from it. I don't. I face the thing, and what's more, I'll show you yet what I think of a dog that can't stand his ground and help his old master out with some show of courage. Creaks, does it? Well, let it creak! I don't mind its creaking, glad as I should be to know whose hand—Halloo! You've come, have you?" This to me. I had just stepped up ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... away the soughing of the breeze swept towards him, and in a moment all the twigs about him were quivering and rustling and the boughs creaking with a gust of wind. It seemed to urge him away from her. The faded dead leaves that had once been green and young sprang up, raced one another, leapt, danced and pirouetted, and then something large struck him on the neck, stayed ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... there—oh, I guess it was a couple of years ago. Anyway, it was in the night and everything was as dark as licorice bars. Maybe you never ate those, but they're mighty good, they're black. All of a sudden we heard a kind of a creaking noise and we couldn't make out where it was. Sometimes it sounded just as if ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... further notice of me. I looked longingly at the box-seat, but he did not respond to the appeal. I flung my carpetbag into the chasm, dived recklessly after it, and—before I was fairly seated— with a great sigh, a creaking of unwilling springs, complaining bolts, and harshly expostulating axle, we moved away. Rather the hotel door slipped behind, the sound of the piano sank to rest, and the night and its shadows ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... gale, whereas they will drift for miles before a sou'-wester. The trees bent almost flat before the hot breath of this hurricane, and although the house was built of cob, and its walls were very thick and solid, the creaking and swaying of the shingled roof kept me in perpetual alarm. The verandah was a great protection; and yet the small river-pebbles, of which the garden-walk was made, were dashed against the windows like hailstones by each gust. We amused ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... attendant on the doze of an inside passenger, is the great chance of being suddenly aroused by the entrance of company. O tell me, ye of the fine nerve, what is more vexing than to be startled from your nest by the creaking slam of the steps, the bleak winter gales galloping along your face, and a whole bundle of human beings pushing themselves into your retreat! There is no rose without its thorn, as myriads have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... the home of school-boy life, With creaking stair and wind-swept hall, And, scarred by many a truant knife, Our old initials on the wall; Here rest—their keen vibrations mute— The shout of voices known so well, The ringing laugh, the wailing flute, The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... the front garden and on the pavement of the street, a formidable posse of police! He started to the full possession of his powers and courage. Escape, and escape at any cost, was the one idea that possessed him. Swiftly and silently he redescended the creaking stairs; he was already in the passage when a second and more imperious summons from the door awoke the echoes of the empty house; nor had the bell ceased to jangle before he had bestridden the window-sill of ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... get them to take me over in a crazy punt, half full of water, and the horses swam across. Before we reached the top of the ravine, the last redness of twilight had died from off the melancholy ocean, the black forms of mountains looked huge in the darkness, and the wind sighed so eerily through the creaking lauhalas, as to add much to the effect. It became so very dark that I could only just see my horse's ears, and we found ourselves occasionally in odd predicaments, such as getting into crevices, or dipping off from steep banks; and it was in dense darkness that we arrived above what ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... these objections to the dramatic merits of the School for Scandal, it will be seen, that, like the criticism of Momus on the creaking of Venus's shoes, they only show how perfect must be the work in which no greater faults can be found. But a more serious charge has been brought against it on the score of morality, and the gay charm thrown around the irregularities of Charles is pronounced to be dangerous ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... occasional infringements on its empire, solitude, dark, comfortless, and unrelieved, fell around the creaking footsteps of Mr. Morris Brown. "I wish," soliloquized the worthy broker, "that I had been able advantageously to dispose of this cursed umbrella of the late Lady Waddilove; it is very little calculated for any but a single lady of slender shape, and though ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... came a low, long, musical shouting; then with creaking and straining of wagons, four great black mules dashed into sight with twelve bursting bales of yellowish cotton looming and swaying behind. The drivers and helpers were lolling and laughing and singing, but Miss Taylor did not hear nor see. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... The crowds in the streets, attracted by this unusual turnout at this unusual hour, followed in their wake to the scene of disturbance. There was a click of locks, the clanking of chains, and the creaking of rusty hinges. The great doors swung open, and a crowd of expectant faces received us in ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... rocky staircases into the old city and walk into his son's workshop to see how business went. There stood the presses in their places; the one apprentice, in a paper cap, was cleaning the ink-balls; there was a creaking of a press over the printing of some trade circular, the old type was still unchanged, and in the dens at the end of the room he saw his son and the foreman reading books, which the "bear" took for proof-sheets. Then he would join David at dinner and go back to Marsac, chewing the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Nic lay puzzling his weary, confused head as to the meaning of a strange creaking, and a peculiar rising and falling, and why it was that ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... phenomena along icy streams in Sikkim, and around muddy buffalo-wallows in steaming Malay jungles. And I can recall many years ago, leaning far out of a New England buggy to watch clouds of little sulphurs flutter up from puddles beneath the creaking wheels. ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... engine was a clumsy and apparently a very painful process, accompanied by an extraordinary amount of wheezing, sighing, creaking, and bumping. When the pump descended, there was heard a plunge, a heavy sigh, and a loud bump: then, as it rose, and the sucker began to act, there was heard a croak, a wheeze, another bump, and then a strong rush of water as it was lifted and poured out. Where ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... in the middle of the common, is the red-roofed meeting-house, with tall spire, and in its shadow the humble belfry of the town academy. Opposite these there comes into the main street a highway from the east; and upon one of the corners thus formed stands the Eagle Tavern, its sign creaking appetizingly on a branch of an overhanging sycamore, under which the stage-coach dashes up to the tavern-door, to unlade its passengers for dinner, and to find a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Creaking of Bedsteads:—If a bedstead creaks at each movement of the sleeper, remove the slats, and wrap the ends of each ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... the night, and rack; Hear, in the woods, what an awful crack! Wildly the owls are flitting, Hark to the pillars splitting Of palaces verdant ever, The branches quiver and sever, The mighty stems are creaking, The poor roots breaking and shrieking, In wild mixt ruin down dashing, O'er one another they're crashing; Whilst 'midst the rocks so hoary Whirlwinds hurry and worry. Hear'st ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... like the present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures stem the water, which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; and now we lose them ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... not stir. Impassive, remorseless, sinister, it was content to wait, well aware that all suspense was in its favour. Then I said to myself that I would cross the room and so attain my object. I made a step and drew back, frightened by the sound of a creaking board. Absurd! but it was quite a minute before I dared to move another step. I had meant to walk straight across to the other door, passing in my course close by the occupied chair. I did do not so; I kept round by the wall, creeping on tiptoe, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... the knee-deep mud and moss, bearing slightly to his right, counting upon the confusion to mask his approach. He timed it to that of the gravel-train, which came slowly creaking nearer, rocking over the uneven tracks, then down upon the half-submerged rails which terminated near the opposing grade. It stopped finally, with headlight glaring into the faces of Denny and his troops, and from the high-heaped flat cars tumbled an army of pick-and-shovel ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... is full to brimming of Thy mercy. It takes faith to see that; it takes a deeper and a firmer hold of the thought of a present God than most men have, to feel that. For the most of us, the world has got to be very empty of God now. We hear rather the creaking of the wheels of a great machine, or see the workings of a blind, impersonal force. But I believe that all that is precious and good in the growth of knowledge since the old days when this Psalmist ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... are so rapid, that all annual crops require irrigation during the whole period of their growth. As fast as the water retires by the subsidence of the annual inundation, the seed is sown upon the still moist, uncovered soil, and irrigation begins at once. Upon the Nile, you hear the creaking of the water-wheels, and sometimes the movement of steam-pumps, through the whole night, while the poorer cultivators unceasingly ply the simple shadoof, or bucket-and-sweep, laboriously raising ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... chandelier swayed back and forth in such a wild way that it seemed as if it must fall and crush every prism, tiny light, and bell. I felt sure whenever a quake began that I should not live through it. The flying fragments across the room, the creaking hard-wood doors, the nauseating feeling that everything under foot was falling away,—it was a frightful experience then, it is a sickening memory now. One never gets used to these shocks no matter how many occur; the more, the worse. They are more frequent in the night than in the ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... by on their way to the sacristy, stopping to make genuflections before each image; and in the distance, invisible in the darkness, you could still divine the presence of the bell-ringer, like a restless hobgoblin, by the rattle of his bunch of keys and the creaking of the doors ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... A creaking and shaking in the timbers of the old house, very early this morning, must have half awakened me; then there was a muffled rap on my door. "Be 'ee ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... green woods, all amidst lilies-of-the-valley, violets and buttercups, lettuce-leaves, nettles, and ferns, marching over hill and dale, in a sparkling sunshine, and with a blue sky overhead,—and withal the toil and efforts of the little wights, the creaking of wheels, the cracking of whips, the word of command resounding through the ranks, the music and singing when the path was smooth and easy, and the cries and shrieks upon the bad roads,—how pretty and animated and merry the whole scene must have been! ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... thunder ran. Here long they knock, but knock or call in vain, Driven by the wind, and batter'd by the rain. At length some pity warm'd the master's breast, ('Twas then his threshold first received a guest) Slow creaking turns the door with jealous care, And half he welcomes in the shivering pair; 100 One frugal faggot lights the naked walls, And Nature's fervour through their limbs recalls: Bread of the coarsest sort, with eager[1] wine, (Each hardly granted) served them ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... wanted to use them that very day; but realized the heel plates must be fitted to his boots first. After a few moments he stuffed the skates back into the stocking, put on his bedroom knit slippers, and stole shivering down the steep, creaking stairs. The door to his parents' room stood slightly ajar. He pushed it open cautiously and peered in. The blinds were drawn, and the room was very dim, so Bobby could make out only the dark shape of the great four-poster bed, and could not tell whether or not his father and mother ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... ways With creaking cries, That no loud praise May climb the skies; And on my laboring chest ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... I heard the Maid's iron tread pass down the creaking wooden stairs, and soon I heard the sound of singing birds, for my window ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... feet should press too heavily upon some loose board and cause it to rattle beneath him, he reached the door. It was not wholly closed, and with utmost gentleness he essayed to pull it open. With all his care he could not prevent it from creaking sharply. His nerves were again shaken, and a new tremor assailed him. Tears filled his eyes. His heart was like ice, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... word, but he, with his axe uplifted, kept Parlo at a distance, and then cut again into the keel, till a loud creaking was audible. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... raises the trucks with the empty baskets at the same time the full ones make their descent into the cellars. What with the incessant thud of the corking machines, the continual rolling of iron-wheeled trucks over the concrete floor, the rattling and creaking of the machinery working the lifts, the occasional sharp report of a bursting bottle, and the loudly-shouted orders of the foremen, who display the national partiality for making a noise to perfection, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... laid in the cold earth, in the dark and narrow grave! I had a friend once who was everything to me in early youth. She died. I followed her hearse; I stood by her grave when the coffin was lowered; and when I heard the creaking of the cords as they were loosened and drawn up, when the first shovelful of earth was thrown in, and the coffin returned a hollow sound, which grew fainter and fainter till all was completely covered over, I ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... again. Now that she was so near to him they impressed her less with a sense of fear and anxiety than with one of pity and of love. He was her child, and therefore to be protected and caressed. She found it difficult not to leave her room in the night, and grope her way along the creaking corridors to the room in which she knew he was sleeping. She wanted to kiss him and hold him in her arms. She placed the poems on the table at her bedside and blew out the candle. It was unfortunate for her bewilderment that Arthur ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... what's the matter!' said the gentleman for whom the door was opened; coming out of the house at that kind of light- heavy pace—that peculiar compromise between a walk and a jog-trot- -with which a gentleman upon the smooth down-hill of life, wearing creaking boots, a watch-chain, and clean linen, MAY come out of his house: not only without any abatement of his dignity, but with an expression of having important and wealthy engagements elsewhere. 'What's the matter! ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... lights marked the outskirts of the city a wall of darkness shut them in, permitting nothing to be seen that lay more than a few paces away. A grey drift of clouds, luminous in comparison with the gloom about them, moved slowly overhead, and out of the night the raving of a farm-dog or the creaking of a dry bough came to the ear ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... River now, and Fannin began to show anxiety about the fort. But the Panther was watching the ammunition wagon, which was sinking deeper and deeper into the mire. It seemed to him that it was groaning and creaking too much even for the deep mud through ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... quarts of stout were ordered; they kept filling the tumbler with the other hand as they drank; and in less time than it takes me to write these words the four quarts were finished—another round was proposed, discussed, and negatived—and they were creaking out of the village with ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... heavily at Furneaux. He waited until Fenley's hurried footsteps across a creaking ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... grotesque resemblance to a gallows. The uncouth monsters planted themselves along the hillside, where they breathed forth smoke and emitted strange noises. Amberley could hear the rattling of chains, the creaking of timbers; a hoarse shout would sometimes come ringing across the Gulch through the thin frosty air, if the wind was ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... that Mark was abstracted, almost as if he was depressed. No one else saw it; eyes and tongues were heavy at bedtime on the ranch. Sadie, dragging up the stairs to be awake tomorrow at sunrise, might have been depressed but she wasn't. And the farmer and his wife, creaking about in their stuffy room over the kitchen, their old bones stiff with ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... on Trunion Pike in Winesburg there is a great stretch of open fields. The fields are owned by farmers who live in town and drive homeward at evening along Trunion Pike in light creaking wagons. In the fields are planted berries and small fruits. In the late afternoon in the hot summers when the road and the fields are covered with dust, a smoky haze lies over the great flat basin of land. To look across it is like ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... her sitting room, locked the door, threw herself upon the couch. Round lunch time there came a creaking in the corridor, a knock. It was David in his wheel chair, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... Chamber, the Bourse, or the Palais de Justice came in the news of the day, and there it was proclaimed freely in loud tones, to the accompaniment of the clashing of swords and sticks, shouts for the waiter, resounding slaps on bare backs, creaking of wheel-chairs for rheumatic patients, heavy plunges re-echoing under the reverberating roof of the swimming-bath, while above the various sounds of splashing and spurting water rose the voice of worthy Dr. Keyser, standing on ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... great regret, for they are the best substitute we have for rooks. At Shady Hill(1) (now, alas! empty of its so long-loved household) they build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than their creaking clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) as they gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy politics, or to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of the day. Their port is grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that of a second-rate ghost ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... Gusterson got out his .38 and cleaned and loaded it, meanwhile concentrating on a chess problem with the idea of confusing a hypothetical psionic monitor. By the time he had hid the revolver again he heard the elevator creaking back up. ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... morning we have the genial sunshine again, and a clear, bracing atmosphere. With a solitary exception, the Cape pigeons, true to their natures, have departed. There is still some roughness of the sea left, however, and the ship is rolling and creaking her bulk-heads, as usual. Wind moderate ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... still. Nothing was audible except the sniffing of Savely and the slow, even breathing of the sleeping postman, who uttered a deep prolonged "h-h-h" at every breath. From time to time there was a sound like a creaking wheel in his throat, and his twitching foot ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... her letter, he glanced surreptitiously at the rigid form in the chair and a wave of pity mixed with a half conscious pride that she belonged to him, rose within him. Then Birnier started as he was brought back to a realization of the passing of time by a harsh voice that told of creaking nerves: ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... shaking, With tears that are blinding my eyes, With bones that are creaking and breaking, Unjoyful of rest... merely taking A seat; hoping ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... and, with much creaking and swaying Mrs. Kipp was got into the back seat, where the big bonnet gloomed like a thunder-cloud. Polly, in a high state of indignation, which only made her look ten times prettier, sat in front with Toady, who was a sight to see as he drove off with his short legs planted against the boot, ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... playfellows, Ulysses discovered a new enchantment in the garret life. The silence haunted by the creaking of wood and the scampering of invisible animals, the inexplicable fall of a picture or of some piled-up books, used to make him thrill with a sensation of fear and nocturnal mystery, despite the rays of sunlight that came filtering in through the skylights; but he ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Un, and snapping bony finger and thumb under Joe's massive chin, turned and went on up the stairs, his smart straw hat cocked at a defiant angle, his brilliant shoes creaking ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... of the war had just passed. Again summer was upon us, like in those days of mobilization. The atmosphere was full with memories of the beginning of the campaign. Out of Galicia an endless column rolled to the north into Poland. The old picture: the creaking road, overloaded with marching troops, with artillery lustily rolling forward, with caravans of supply trains. Repeating itself a thousandfold, the sum total of the mass deepened the impression and made ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... though your drink were Tanais, Your husband some rude savage, you would weep To leave me shivering, on a night like this, Where storms their watches keep. Hark! how your door is creaking! how the grove In your fair court-yard, while the wild winds blow, Wails in accord! with what transparence Jove Is glazing the driven snow! Cease that proud temper: Venus loves it not: The rope ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... statue of the Virgin Mother of God? Was it a dream that she saw here? And what she felt—the anguish, the revenge, the terror—was all this only a dream? Do such feelings come in waking moments? The creaking of the door recalled her consciousness. She looked out, and what she saw gave back ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... the tenth time started up to stride angrily up and down the gallery, I heard the creaking of wheels, and around the corner of the house came a little French charrette, its wooden wheels making a great noise, drawn by one ox and Narcisse walking beside it, driving. I was filled with dismay, for to me it seemed not a mode of conveyance ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... something, down—down in the cellars. It is a creaking sound. My God, it is the opening of the great, oak trap. What can be doing that? The scratching of my pen deafens me ... I must listen.... There are steps on the stairs; strange padding steps, that ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... which the great trunks meet its shocks and answer vibrating through innermost fibres; the smooth, muscular boles of the beeches, shaking their auburn boughs; the stiff, rough hornbeams and thorns isolated among the pastures; the ashes whose leaves strew the roads with green rushes; the creaking, shivering firs and larches. The West Wind tells us of the way how the branches spring outwards, or balance themselves, or hang like garlands in the air, and carry their leaves, or needles, or nuts; and of their ways of ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... slowly, the weight of his tread creaking the polished wood. Before the threshold of the judge's room again he hesitated, his hand upraised. The house was so still that it seemed to be untenanted, and he shivered suddenly, as if the wind that rustled the dried ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... hear the hoarse shouts from the tug-boat of 'Breakers ahead!' 'Goodwins under your lee!' and then the rattling and the thunderous noise of the sails, and the creaking of the yards and braces, as the vessel swings round on ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... great piteous eyes. It was in the springtide, and one night as he lay sleepless in the dark, listening to the long murmur of the wind in the swaying pines, he heard overhead sharp cries and trumpetings, and the creaking ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... not last. It was only a little lull between storms; the enforced quiet of wearied and worn-out powers. She sat mazily taking in the sunlight, and the view of the sunlighted earth and water, the breath of the sweeping fresh air, the creaking of the sloop's cordage, in the one consciousness that Winthrop kept his place at her side all this time. How she thanked him for that! though she could not ask him to sit down, nor make any sort of a speech ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... The ice pressed at the stern at 5 o'clock this morning for about an hour. I lay in my berth and listened to it creaking and grinding and roaring. There was slight pressure again in the afternoon; nothing to speak of. No slackening ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... a good woman—a very good woman—and I am, I think, not quite all criminality, but we do not pull together. I am a piece of machinery which, not understanding, my mother winds up the wrong way, setting all the wheels of my composition going in creaking discord. ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... association was thus established which led to shoe-fetichism (Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's creaking shoes against the stairs, produced by her efforts to accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to follow ladies whose shoes creaked, ejaculation ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that they brought him into the wild places of the wilderness, among the thick beds of brambles, that all his body was torn. After that they took him and beat him with iron whips; and after that they brought him on their creaking wings between the cold ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... just begun, and yet he had been ruthlessly stricken down. Norvin shuddered at the memory. He saw the road to Martinello stretching out ahead of him like a ghost-gray canyon walled with gloom; he heard the creaking of saddles, the muffled thud of hoofs in the dust of the causeway, the song of a ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... debarkation completed in rapidity and silence. This done, the fog once more appeared to rise from the water and softly encompass the ship, until she seemed to be obliterated from its face. In this vague obscurity, from time to time, the faint rattling of chains was heard, the soft creaking of blocks, and later on, the regular rise and fall of oars. And then the darkness fell heavier, the sounds became more and more indistinct and were ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... nodded a vigorous indorsement to this last remark, and Cappy went on: "Do you think any proud and arrogant skipper of a German submarine would ever suspect an American citizen of such a harebrained scheme as the sending out of a rusty, creaking old rattletrap of a steamer that can't get out of her own way, for the avowed purpose of destroying him and his sub? No sir! His microphones will tell him, while he is still totally submerged, that his approaching prey is a slow poke and cannot possibly outrun him; then ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Mesrur said to him, O Commander of the Faithful, arise now and go to the terrace-roof of the palace and look upon the canopy of heaven and upon the twinkling stars and the brightness of the moon, while listening to the music of the rippling streams and the creaking norias as they are spoken of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... remained all day in her room, thinking only of the strange thing that had happened to her, of the misery of a life with no one to love. Mary's image remained persistently in her mind, while the bitter wind without made strange noises in the creaking zinc chimney- pots, and rattled the window and hurled furious handfuls of mingled dust and sleet against the panes. And yet she felt no anger in her heart; unspeakable grief and despair precluded anger, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... defined as the minor morality of life. No observances, however minute, that tend to spare the feelings of others, can be classed under the head of trivialities; and politeness, which is but another name for general amiability, will oil the creaking wheels of life more effectually than any of those unguents supplied by mere ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... spoken so low that the boys could not understand them. They heard a faint creaking of the flooring of the old mill, but ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... such social affairs as he could not avoid; with Agnes Elliston; with Biff Bates; in an occasional game of billiards at the Idlers'; but his days, from early morning until the evening whistle, he spent amid the clang of pick and shovel, the rattling of the trams, the creaking of the crane. It was an absorbing thing to see that enormous groove cut down through the big hill, and to watch the growth of the great mounds which grew up out of the marsh. The ditch that should drain off all this murky water was, ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... with straw, driven by unwilling peasants and escorted by a surly commissary and a few dusty dragoons, made their appearance, the patient oxen pushing and straining forwards in obedience to the goad that tormented their flanks, the clumsy wheels, solid circles of wood, creaking round their ungreased axles. In the distance were the enemy's watch-fires; nearer were those of the advanced posts; and, at more than one point of the surrounding country, a cottage or farmhouse, set on fire by careless or mischievous marauders, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... may be, Built in the old Colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality; A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, With weather-stains upon the wall, And stairways worn, and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... June morning, and the little town was crowded, like some old-time immigrant ship. Women in plaid shawls and frilled caps, men in somber black as befitted a monthly occasion. Squawking of ducks and hens, trudging of donkeys, creaking of carts, unbelievably stubborn bullocks and heifers being whacked by ash-plants, colts frisking. Girls with baskets of eggs and butter; great carts of hay and straw. Apple-women with bonnets of cabbage-leaves against the sun. Herring-men bawling like auctioneers. Squealing ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... boy of two and a half years, seems also noteworthy as an onomatope independently invented, because it was used daily for months in the same way merely to designate the whistle. The voice of the hen, of the redstart, the creaking of a wheel, were imitated by my child of his own accord long before he could speak a word. But this did not go so far as the framing of syllables. It is not easy in this to trace so clearly the framing of a concept as attaching itself directly ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... seemed a certainty that either the old windlass would break or the Chinaman's arms give out. Slowly, slowly, the limp wet figure ascended the shaft, while Hugh supported himself in the water, by gripping the logs at the side of the well, praying that the tackle would hold. The creaking of the windlass ceased, and the ascending body stopped—evidently the Chinee was pausing to get ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... said Ada, and a few minutes later, with a light mantilla over her shoulders, she was walking by his side over the creaking gravel of the avenue and then over the ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... and a cricket sang creaking monotony in the grass. Once there was the distant thunder of a rocket blast from the launching station six miles to the west, but it faded quickly. An A-motored convertible whined past on the road, but Hogey ...
— The Hoofer • Walter M. Miller
... grin, 'True, sister, God increase my patience and your discretion. I wonder (added he) what sort of sonata we are to expect from this overture, in which the devil, that presides over horrid sounds, hath given us such variations of discord — The trampling of porters, the creaking and crashing of trunks, the snarling of curs, the scolding of women, the squeaking and squalling of fiddles and hautboys out of tune, the bouncing of the Irish baronet over-head, and the bursting, belching, and brattling of the French-horns in the passage (not to mention the harmonious peal ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... stay here the forehorse to a smock, Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry, Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn But one to dance with! By heaven, ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... lumbering ride it was, the cars creaking and rocking, reeling from side to side as if they too were ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... feet were on the shafts and one had a view of every rag and shoelace the harness was patched with. Creaking, groaning, with wabbling of wheels, grumble of inside passengers, cracking of whip and long strings of oaths from the driver, the coach lurched out of town and across a fat plain full of gurgle of irrigation ditches, shrilling of toads, falsetto rustle of broad leaves of the sugar cane. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... to a crisp; the body fell back limp upon the red-hot iron, and then shot up again in fresh agony; cry after cry, the most awful in the world, rang out with deadened sound between the four walls; and again the panel slid back creaking, and revealed the ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... building, filled with bright daylight and the buzzing of countless flies. Women, who had volunteered for the service, passed swiftly over the creaking boards, or knelt beside the pallets as they bathed the shattered limbs with steady fingers. Here and there a child held a glass of water to a man who could not raise himself, or sat fanning the flies from a pallid face. None was too old ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... was turning of keys, and creaking of locks, As he stalked away with his iron box. Oh, ho! oh, ho! The cock doth crow, It is time for the fisher to rise and go. Fair luck to the abbot, fair luck to the shrine! He hath gnawed in twain my choicest line; Let him swim to the north, let him swim to the south, The pirate ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... resembled a low, melancholy chant, and then was quickly changed to a loud, broken, demoniac laugh. It continued thus, with little intermission, for about a quarter of an hour, when it died away, and was succeeded by a heavy, creaking sound, as if of some large waggon, amidst which the loud tramp of horses' footsteps might be distinguished, accompanied with a strong, rushing wind. This strange noise proceeded round and round the house two ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... of crinoline, the rattling of keys, the creaking of stays and of shoes, will do a patient more harm than all the medicines in the world will ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... delicious rattle of china on a tray in the passage—someone coming with food you would love to look at, and presently perhaps to eat ... when you feel better. But again and again your eyes open on the cold dumb darkness, and there is nothing but the wind and strange sinister emptiness creaking on ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... of the tower swung on its massive hinges, banging and creaking mournfully when a swirling gust set it swinging. The man who had slept out on the Lolo trail and bivouacked alone in the canyon of the Colorado, laughed the howling storm to scorn. "Better than being out in a blizzard in the Bad Lands!" he gayly cried, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... first of them the singing upstairs ceased. For a moment there was something almost oppressive in the sudden change from noise to silence. I suppose my nerves must have been overwrought. The next sound in the house—nothing more remarkable than the creaking of a man's boots descending the stairs—made me shudder all over. The man was no doubt the singing-master, going away after giving his lesson. I heard the house door close on him, and started at the familiar sound as if it were something terrible which I had never heard before. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... into which the wheels had cut for themselves. Then with the snow squall driving on before them leaving the trampled snow ahead freshly smoothed, and lighting the darkness of the night, there was a dull, grinding, creaking sound of wheels and yielding snow as it was trampled down into a better road, and good progress was made, for the slope in advance was more gradual, and the hollows and pitfalls between the rugged stones that strewed the way were ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... asleep, and often I would be awake again for short snatches only, just long enough to hear the regular creaking of the wainscot, or to open my eyes to settle the shifting kaleidoscope of the darkness, to savour, in an instantaneous flash of perception, the sleep which lay heavy upon the furniture, the room, the whole surroundings of which I formed but an insignificant part ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... which no one relishes. Each day the other fellow's artillery tries to lay down a fire which will keep these boys from getting back. They travel to where their supply company has dumped the food from mule carts—the point nearest front where creaking wheels may go. The man in the center is carrying a string of French loaves, the round black variety common before we got our ...
— "I was there" - with the Yanks in France. • C. LeRoy Baldridge
... no reply. She had fallen into a silence which frightened him more than her words. It was then that he went out for that walk on the creaking snow, in the sunshine and fierce wind, taking the bag of nuts along for the squirrels. Elizabeth, alone, her head on her arms on the table, went over and over his threats and entreaties, until it seemed as if her very mind ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... brought to the wind on the other tack, she was so close to them that they could distinguish the men on board: they could see the foaming water as it was hurled from her bows; hear the shrill whistle of the boatswain's pipes, the creaking of the ship's timbers, and the complaining of her masts; and then the gloom gradually rose, and in a few seconds ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... o'clock in the evening and the vigilantes were due back in the village before midnight. What would be their news? What——? She paused, listening fearfully. But the sound she heard was only a creaking of the frame of her ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... was shut up in that small room there doing some writing, when I heard a pair of feet in this passage doing a dance that was as queer as the dance of death. First came quick, funny little steps, like a man walking on tiptoe for a wager; then came slow, careless, creaking steps, as of a big man walking about with a cigar. But they were both made by the same feet, I swear, and they came in rotation; first the run and then the walk, and then the run again. I wondered at first idly and then wildly why ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... word among themselves, gathered their horses and struck down the valley out of Alder. The padding and swish of the sand about the feet of their mounts; the very creaking of the saddle leather seemed to alarm them, and they were continually turning and looking back. That is, Gus Reeve and Ronicky Joe manifested these signs of trouble, but Sliver Waldron, riding in the center of the trio, ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... and crime-haunted husband, and the ignorant negroes who served him,—society varied now and then by one or two men revolting enough in speech and aspect to drive Hitty to her own room, where, in a creaking chair, she rocked monotonously back and forth, watching the snapping fire, and dreaming dreams of a past that seemed now but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... languid wet fronds of the palms, upon the trunks of trees and the hanging moss. It lighted up the tunnellike vista, painting rosy the shell path underfoot and revealing the Swastika beyond. In the morning stillness Payne heard light, swift steps creaking crisply upon the crushed shells of the path. Then, from his place in the shadows beneath a palm, he saw the girl. She came to the open space before the sea, whistling softly to herself an irrepressible, tuneless matin song of ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... the black slaves of Ollomand had struck the four hundred gates of brass, the gates began to move, and the harsh creaking of the hinges sent forth a noise which alone had chilled the hearts of all the armies of Misnar, could they have ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... in end a dismal night, With creaking beams and ribs that groan, A black lee-shore and waters white: Dropped on the reef, the pair lie prone: O, the breakers dance, but ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... The wind wailed, and the rain dashed and beat again and again upon the window. He imagined that all his thoughts of home, of the old rectory amongst the elms, had conjured into his mind the sound of the storm upon the trees, for, tonight, very clearly he heard the creaking of the boughs, the noise of boughs moaning and beating and weeping on the walls, and even a pattering of wet, on wet earth, as if there were a shrub near the window that shook off the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... sending them in spindrift hurtling across the deck like showers of shot that cut the face like the lash of a whip. The uproar was terrific, the shrieking and howling of the wind blending with the creaking and straining of the timbers of the labouring ship. Crash succeeded crash aloft, but they could distinguish nothing of what was happening because of the intense blackness. Yet the motion of the ship was becoming steadier, for the reason that ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... rest about it. She knew then it would not last. It was only a little lull between storms; the enforced quiet of wearied and worn-out powers. She sat mazily taking in the sunlight, and the view of the sunlighted earth and water, the breath of the sweeping fresh air, the creaking of the sloop's cordage, in the one consciousness that Winthrop kept his place at her side all this time. How she thanked him for that! though she could not ask him to sit down, nor make any sort ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... at Banana and their chief excitement is the arrival of the steamer. Most of them indeed came off to dinner and held a kind of concert in the saloon afterwards. All night long winches and men were creaking, groaning, and shouting, as some of the cargo was put overboard into two large lighters. It was not however, destined for Banana and was transshipped here only to lighten the Leopoldville so that she could pass a certain ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... gently, chaffinches twittered everywhere; two doves sat cooing on a tree; the note of a solitary cuckoo was heard first in one place, then in another; the friendly cawing of rooks was carried from the distance beyond the mill pond, sounding like the creaking of innumerable cart wheels. Light clouds floated dreamily over this gentle stillness, spreading themselves out like the breasts of some ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... Instantly a great creaking of saddles took place as the men eased their positions, and conversation began again. The Spanish soldiers filed off through a break in the barbed wire fence, the defiant trumpeters playing their pretty ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... Lord kept up an almost continuous clapping of hands—the noise was not loud, but sufficient to aid in hiding any rustle of the Medium's dress, or creaking of a chair. The Medium ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... cedars on the slope just south of the assembly hall, as it stood there on the low ground midway between the head-quarters houses on the ridge to the south, and the even less commodious cottages of the puny garrison. There was a boardwalk of creaking pine, leading across the shallow ravine, for it sometimes rained up here in the mountains, though it never seemed to in the deep, arid valleys to the east. Then there was a gravel path stretching away toward the garrison ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... came creaking into the station. Andrews ran forward and shouted: "Run down until you clear the switch." The engineer nodded. "Tom, get down there and ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... from his task, his hand going to his back as if to keep it from creaking. "Yes, Miss Tresslyn, quite sure." He hesitated for a moment. "I think he said that he intended to give himself the pleasure of a call—ahem! I beg pardon. Yes, he is quite out—I should say, I'm quite ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... true, like the nerves in a human body. There was no need to steer her enormous bulk to avoid the waves or pass them by; it was enough to let her crush them with all her weight, let her grind them down and push them before her like drifts of snow. Groaning and creaking she ploughed straight on through all that came against her, heeling before the wind right down to her gunwale and leaving behind her a long furrow in the sea. High above the deck of this magnificent vessel, between two curved iron pillars, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... became sensible of a hoarse shouting above me. I rubbed my eyes and lay listening to the noise, doubtful for a little while of my whereabouts. Then came a sudden pattering of bare feet, the sound of heavy objects being thrown about, a violent creaking and the rattling of chains. I heard the swish of the water as the ship was suddenly brought round, and a foamy yellow-green wave flew across the little round window and left it streaming. I jumped into my clothes and ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... awoke with a singular feeling of dread and suspense. She listened silently, but for some time distinguished none other than the small sounds of night on shipboard—the indistinct orders, the dragging of ropes, the creaking of timbers, the dull, regular jar of the engine, and the shuffling noise of feet overhead. But, ere long, she seemed to catch faint, distant sounds, that seemed like cries; then came hurry and confusion on deck; then voices in the cabin, one of which said: "they never can ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... They went up the creaking stairway, shaped like a ladder, and in a first-story room a maid servant brought wine and biscuits to them. On the mantelpiece, at one of the corners of the room, was an oval mirror in a flower-covered frame. Through the ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... screeching harshly; then follow three or four flute-like notes, which seem to indicate that the bird could be a musician if it would only persevere. But it will not take the trouble. It goes on repeating its 'Lor-e-oh!' just as its tree-top companions, the cicadas, keep up their monotonous creaking. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the boys were still at breakfast when the early morning train came creaking into the station, and the first person to come towards the inn ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... rheumatic, to speak metaphorically,—that is to say, when every act of self-determination costs an effort and a pang. We become more and more automatic as we grow older, and if we lived long enough we should come to be pieces of creaking machinery like Maelzel's chess player,—or what that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... breeze: but such as blows is favourable; and with infinite creaking all sail is set. The sound wakes up emigrant sorrow afresh; the wildly contagious Irish cry is raised, much to the discomposure of the captain, who stood on the quarterdeck with ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... his steps toward the conservatory and had reached the main hall when the creaking of the stairsteps brought him up with a start. Some one was descending, slowly and cautiously. For a second time and with grateful appreciation of Muriel's forethought, he carefully avoided the ferocious jaws of the bear, noiselessly continued ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... sweet gardens, the white roads and green fields of Queningford, to live in a side street in Camden Town, in a creaking little villa built of sulphurous yellow ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking hinge or a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could not be tolerated, and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the dormitory-planks sustain my tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a board is loose, and will avoid ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... lazily above it, apparently within a stone's throw of him; he knew it was at least a mile away. Thirty feet above him ran the stage road; he could hear quite distinctly the slow thud of hoofs, the dull jar of harness, and the labored creaking of the Pioneer Coach as it crawled up the long ascent, part of which he had just passed. He thought of it,—a slow drifting cloud of dust and heat, as he had often seen it, abandoned by even its passengers, who sought shelter ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... cooling my temples as with a myrtle wreath of love! Amidst the din of battle, on the waves of life, I rested in thine arms, breathing lightly as a growing boy. When tempests whistled through the leaves and boughs, when the summits of the lofty trees swung creaking in the blast, the inmost core of my heart remained unmoved. What agitates thee now? What shakes thy firm and steadfast mind? I feel it, 'tis the sound of the murderous axe, gnawing at thy root. Yet I stand erect, but an inward shudder runs through my frame. Yes, it prevails, this treacherous ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... there are many other lands Where you can take your creaking boots and eke your dirty hands; And we think you'll have discovered, ere you reach your next address, That in England German Waiters aren't the Censors ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... we went through there—oh, I guess it was a couple of years ago. Anyway, it was in the night and everything was as dark as licorice bars. Maybe you never ate those, but they're mighty good, they're black. All of a sudden we heard a kind of a creaking noise and we couldn't make out where it was. Sometimes it sounded just as if it ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... little square would hear unearthly noises as though the brother were throttling the sister; a moment's listening would show that they were only yawning. These two human mechanisms, having nothing to grind between their rusty wheels, were creaking and grating at each other. The brother talked of marrying, but only in despair. He felt old and weary; the thought of a woman frightened him. Sylvie, who began to see the necessity of having a third person in the home, ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... entered the dark hallway of the tenement. The doors were void of locks and swung to and fro, creaking on rusty hinges, as the wind blew them. There was a damp and unpleasant smell in the house, and now and then came queer sounds, that ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... times the gifted bard found life a pathway rough and hard. Starvation often was his goad, and some dark garret his abode, and there, when nights were long and chill, he sadly plied his creaking quill. He wrote of shepherds and their crooks, of verdant vales and babbling brooks, displaying artfully his lore—while bailiffs threatened at the door. And having wrought his best, he took with trembling hands his little book to lay before ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... affect him. [6066]Lis est cum forma magna pudicitiae, beauty and honesty have ever been at odds. Abraham was jealous of his wife because she was fair: so was Vulcan of his Venus, when he made her creaking shoes, saith [6067]Philostratus, ne maecharetur, sandalio scilicet deferente, that he might hear by them when she stirred, which Mars indigne ferre, [6068]was not well pleased with. Good cause had Vulcan to do as he did, for she was no honester than she ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... crossed the Somme with its memories of blood, on across northern France, and now we have passed the Belgian frontier and are in the historic fields of Flanders, where the creaking windmills are still grinding the peasants' corn, and the little church spires stand guard over the sleeping villages. A turn of the road brings us close within sound of the guns, which by night ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... a prolonged but faint quivering ran through the "Bertha Millner" from stem to stern, and from keel to masthead. There was a barely audible creaking of joints and panels. The oil in the deck-tubs trembled. The vibration was so fine and rapid that it tickled the soles of Wilbur's feet as he ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... four, amid a stillness so intense that the creaking of my slippers seemed a loud disturbance, I crossed the room and pushed open the door of Smith's bedroom. It was in darkness, but as I entered I depressed the switch immediately inside the door, lighting the lamp which swung form ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... chaise, creaking and groaning on its way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It was Pantaloon who drove it, an obese and massive Pantaloon in a tight-fitting suit of scarlet under a long brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose. Beside him on the box sat Pierrot ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... of the Autumn weather; The urchin rock'ng in the trees Shakes silver laughter with the apples down,— And wading to the knees Among the stubble and the husks so brown, The oxen keeping every patient step together, Bring in the creaking wain, High-piled with yellow maize and sheaves of ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... the Poet. The rooms were too small even for a Deputy-Director-General, and he knew that not one of the silk-stockinged, short-skirted, starling-voiced young women with bare arms and regimental badges, who acted as secretaries to Deputy-Director-Generals, would consent to walk up four flights of creaking, uncarpeted stairs to the dusty sparrows' nest on the housetop that was ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... further happened, although once the ray of moonlight was cut off, and for an instant Peter thought that he saw a face at the window. If so, it vanished and returned no more. Now from behind their heads came faint sounds, like those of stifled breathing, like those of naked feet; then a slight creaking and scratching in the wall—a mouse's tooth might have caused it—and suddenly, right in that ray of moonlight, a cruel-looking knife and a naked arm projected through ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... when the boys went on board the Susan, and as soon as supper was over they lay down, as she was to start at daybreak the next morning. As soon as they were roused by the creaking of the blocks and the sound of trampling of feet overhead they went up on deck. Day had just broken; the sky was overspread ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... and yellow macaws, and other strange-looking birds which we have elsewhere mentioned, there were long-tailed light-coloured cuckoos flying about from tree to tree, not calling like the cuckoo of Europe at all, but giving forth a sound like the creaking of a rusty hinge; there were hawks and buzzards of many different kinds, and red-breasted orioles in the bushes, and black vultures flying overhead, and Muscovy ducks sweeping past with whizzing wings, and ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... with me really cordially, and I took my way down the creaking stairs in a whirl of happiness that I was quite at ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... and dearest claimed the first honor, so Franz bore the teapot, Emil the bread, Rob the milk, and Teddy insisted on carrying the sugar basin, which was lighter by several lumps when it arrived than when it started. Some women might have found it annoying at such a time to have boys creaking in and out, upsetting cups and rattling spoons in violent efforts to be quiet and helpful; but it suited Mrs. Jo, because just then her heart was very tender; and remembering that many of her boys were fatherless or motherless, she yearned over them, and found comfort ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... enrichment." A full discussion of the allied topic, "flexibility of use," would involve the examination in detail of all the rubrics of the Prayer Book, and for this there is no room. It is enough to say that unless the rubrics, the hinges and joints of a service-book, are kept well oiled, much creaking is a necessary result. There are turning-points in our public worship where congregations almost invariably betray an awkward embarrassment, simply because there is nothing to tell them whether they ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... approaching storm would make necessary. I shortly heard the raindrops falling on deck thick and fast, and the watch evidently had their hands full of work, for I could hear the loud and repeated orders of the mate, trampling of feet, creaking of the blocks, and all the accompaniments of a coming storm. In a few minutes the slide of the hatch was thrown back, which let down the noise and tumult of the deck still louder, the cry of "All hands ahoy! tumble up here and take in sail,'' saluted ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... in the following summer, Captain Seth laid aside his easy every-day clothes, and transformed himself into a stiff broadcloth image, with a small silk hat and creaking boots. So attired, he set out in a high open buggy, with his wife, also in black, but with gold spectacles, to the funeral of an aunt. As they pursued their jog-trot journey along the Salt Hay Road, and came to Ephraim Morse's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... hear the bell jangle somewhere in a distant part of the house. Nobody came in answer to his summons, not even after his third ring. At length the creaking, iron-barred gate in the area warned him that the main door at which he rang was not in use at that hour of the day. A woman in a house dress as ugly as the street itself, and with untidy gray hair and a bar of smut on her cheek, craned her neck from this opening ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... And the decline in population once more set in. Men forsook the place—all save the peasantry who tilled the surrounding fields. Towers and battlements crumbled to earth; roadways heaved uneasily with grassy tufts that sprouted in the chinks of the old paving-blocks. Sometimes at decline of day a creaking hay-waggon would lumber along, bending towards a courtyard in whose moss-grown recesses you discerned stacks of golden maize and pumpkins; apples and plum-trees, nodding drowsily over walls, littered the streets with snowy blossoms ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... surroundings. Mrs. Bowdoin had not yet come down to breakfast. Outside, her worthy spouse could see the very tree upon which cousin Wendell Phillips had not been hanged; and his mouth relaxed as he saw his grandson Harley coming across the Common, and heard the portentous creaking that attended Mrs. Bowdoin's progress down the stairs,—the butler supporting her arm, and her maid behind attending her with shawl and smelling-salts. The old lady was in a rude state of health, but had not walked a step alone for several years. ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... mangrove-swamp follows the general rule for West Africa, and night in it is noisier than the day. After dark it is full of noises; grunts from I know not what, splashes from jumping fish, the peculiar whirr of rushing crabs, and quaint creaking and groaning sounds from the trees; and—above all in eeriness—the strange whine and sighing cough ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... with sheath-knives and fingers, or scooping thick pea-soup out of pannikins by means of battered iron spoons. The stench of bad beef was in his nostrils, while in his ears, to the accompaniment of creaking timbers and groaning bulkheads, echoed the loud mouth-noises of the eaters. He watched them eating, and decided that they ate like pigs. Well, he would be careful here. He would make no noise. He would keep his mind upon it ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... consternation;—sails flapping; breakers roaring; ropes snapping and beating; masts creaking; hull thumping; men shouting! The captain and his wife were on deck in the wink of an eye. Every one issued an order and no one obeyed. At last, the lady shouted—"let go the anchor!"—the worst command that could be given,—and down went the best bower ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... of light that shone from the windows of the bar, and into the shadow of the Red Oak. There he buttoned his great coat tightly about him, put on his shoes, and started softly down the avenue of maples. Scarcely a sound disturbed the silence of the night, save the lazy creaking of the windmill as it turned now and then to the puff of a ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... and weasels threaten to extirpate in the North Island. Over the English grasses which now cover the hills round Akaroa sheep and cattle roam in peace, and standing by the green bays of the harbour you will probably hear nothing louder than a cow-bell, the crack of a whip, or the creaking wheels of some passing dray. Then it is pleasant to remember that Rauparaha's son became a missionary amongst the tribes which his father had harried, and that it is now nearly a generation since Maori blood was shed in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... and the greatness of little 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 herself experiencing a ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... weapons on an heap, And placed a guard about them, while the moon Silvering the rolling seas for many a mile Glanced on the huddled Spaniards' rich attire, As like one picture of despair they grouped Under the splintered main-mast's creaking shrouds, And the great swinging shadows of the sails Mysteriously swept the gleaming decks; Where many a butt of useless cannon gloomed Along the accoutred bulwarks or upturned, As the ship wallowed in the heaving deep, Dumb mouths of empty menace ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... thousand chimneys rose straight into the still frosty air five thousand columns of smoke, in token that, though frost was king outside, the good folk of Winnipeg lay snug and warm in their virtuous beds. Everywhere the white streets lay in silence except for the passing of a belated cab with creaking runners and jingling bells, and of a sleighing party returning from Silver Heights, their four-horse team smoking, their sleigh bells ringing out, carrying with them hoarse laughter and hoarser songs, for the frosty air works mischief with the vocal chords, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... important creaking of Deacon Abel's boots down the aisle. Agnes flashed a look over her shoulder. The stern old deacon was aiming ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Darlin' Dear, Mum-Mum's here—oh, Elly Precious, I shall send you to college! Of course, to college. You shall be a doctor—" Was that the chair creaking, or a door? It was a door. On the doorsill stood the Reformed Doctor, gazing in. The blanket had slipped away and it was a beautiful, bare Elly Precious in Miss Theodosia's arms, against her breast. The little picture stood out, distinct. But so soon it faded. She was on her feet and facing that ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... forward, I looked again from the window and wished I might hurry the creaking, grinding revolution of the wheels. We were climbing higher and higher among the mountains. The chestnuts, growing scanter, were replaced by dark firs and pines. Streams came winding down like icy crystal threads; the little rivers we crossed ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... not another edifice in England with so many creaking boards. They shrieked beneath me at every step. At the top of the stairs I put down the luggage and listened carefully. As yet there were no lights burning, and it was more than dusk in the hall below. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, and began the descent. At ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... long halt, they were overtaken by two families fleeing from the burning village. It needed no question to tell them what they were. There were old men and women, heavy-eyed and outwardly uncomplaining, trudging beside creaking bullock-carts loaded with all the little bits of property they had been able to save from their burning homes. There were white-faced, frightened children, too, tucked in the corners of the carts or perched upon the piled-up goods, and their faces seemed ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... the door opened, creaking, on its rusty hinges. A puff of humid vapor escaped from this hole, which was as dark ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... lay on their oars, and all listened intently. Presently the creaking of a pulley was heard in the still night, at a distance of a few hundred yards. This was enough. It was clear that the vessel was getting up sail. The boat's head was turned in that direction; the crew rowed steadily but noiselessly, and ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... night in the cabin. The steward had brought him a glass of hot grog, as soon as he had changed his clothes and, in spite of the din, he presently fell off to sleep. When he woke the rain had ceased; but the uproar caused by the howling of the wind, the creaking of the spars, and the dashing of the waves was as ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... He could hear the groaning and creaking of those thin-wheeled springless carts which had carried all his fortunes on that night thirteen years ago, the noise of them vibrating for miles in the air of that still spring night! What terror they had caused him! ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... inexpressibles, fastened at the knee with brass buckles; gaiters, which, reaching no higher than the calf of the leg, set up independent claims to eccentricity and exact consideration on their own account; creaking, square-toed shoes; and a hat, broad in front, pinched up at the sides, verging to an angle behind, and worn close over the forehead, with the lower part resting on the nose. His manner is equally peculiar; it cannot be called vulgar, nor yet genteel—for it is too passive for the one, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... raging And rending the shrouds; The ocean is waging A war with the clouds; The cordage is breaking, The canvas is torn, The timbers are creaking— ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... aspects of nature, all weathers, and above everything the liberty of wide horizons. To others the cry of "Back to the land" would have a somewhat dreary and mocking sound in such a place, like that curious cry, half laughter and half wail, which the peewit utters as he anxiously winnows the air with creaking wings above the pedestrian's head. But it is not all of this character. From some black hill-top one looks upon a green expanse, fresh and lively by contrast as the young leaves of deciduous trees in spring, with black again or dark brown of pine and heath ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... on the plateau it is different. No firs adorn the mountain flanks, no foliaged trees throw their shade over the road. No creaking carts, laden with timber and drawn by buffaloes and oxen, enliven the way. The villages are scattered, and the houses are low cabins of stone or sun-dried clay. The Turkish population is blended with Armenians. The road becomes worse and more neglected as the traffic falls ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... John, with creaking footsteps, tiptoed to the front of the stage, and stooping down, began to mix a concoction in a plate. Many stood up to see what he was doing, and conjecture was rife. Mephisto and Faust were forgotten until Jake struck a heroic ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... all the aeroplane rose together. One plane, it is true, gave one final c-c-r-rack! as the last whole rod on that side gave way; but the rest, twisted all out of shape and creaking and groaning, held together in ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... extremely low backed and cushion less seats, beside tiny, shade less windows, sit the passengers. And such passengers! We mentally ejaculate something about "Cruikshank's caricatures come to life." With much preliminary clanking of chains, a most dolorous groaning and creaking of the strange vehicle, a shudder and jar, the train is in motion, and slowly proceeding through densely wooded and wild country,—a coal and lumber district, where only an occasional log house relieves the monotony of the scene,—log huts which look as if ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... a sudden jerk, and fell backward with the once square tin case upon them, lying still and horrified, for there was a dull creaking and crushing noise as if the snow was being pressed down to fill up the vacancy they had made, and then crick, crack, sharply; there was the sound of breaking, as portions of the sledge gave way ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... then, and crept Down, down the creaking narrow stair; The milk-pans caught my candle's flare And mice walked soft and spiders slept. I spoke the spell, and stood the magic space, Dearest—and in the glass I ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... and dreary as the exterior. The rooms, for the most part, were too large for comfort. When one spoke, a dozen ghostly echoes answered, and at twilight the smaller children huddled around the kitchen fire and seldom went beyond that cheerful room until bed time. Often, in the dead of night, the creaking of timber and the voices of the wind startled the little ones from sleep, and a sense of something unreal and mysterious ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... brown shadows within, Selah Adams was standing upon the teacher's rostrum. She was speaking in low terms which could not be heard from the door, which had been left open for coolness. Fifty women sat below her in creaking split-bottom chairs, with faces as rapt and attentive as if they had been listening to a revival sermon. Some of them were mature maidens of thirty years; some were young wives who had reached that stage of feminine dissolution ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... another knob, and I began to hear the tread of the horse and the creaking of the saddle and the chink of the armour, as well as a rising breeze which now came sighing through the wood. Like a cinema, you will say, of course. Well, it was; but there was colour and sound, and you could hold it in your hand, and it wasn't a photograph, but the live thing which you ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... and shouting as they run, the children, the sons and daughters of the slaves. Be industrious, little children, and learn your lessons, that when the time comes you may be ready to take from our hands the creaking oar, to slip into our seat at the roaring loom. For we shall not be slaves for ever, little children. It is the good law of the land. So many years in the galleys, so many years in the fields; then we can claim our freedom. Then we shall ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... infinite tidiness. He had seen a real deer park, it had rather tumbledown iron gates between its shield-surmounted pillars, and in the distance, beyond all question, was Bracebridge Hall nestling among great trees. He had seen thatched and timbered cottages, and half-a-dozen inns with creaking signs. He had seen a fat vicar driving himself along a grassy lane in a governess cart drawn by a fat grey pony. It wasn't like any reality he had ever known. It was ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... all through the day—not even his brother. He heard the hurried comings and goings on the deck, the creaking of the big winches as bag after bag of wheat, bale after bale of cotton, was swung over and lowered upon the brick quay. The little French children who made the neighborhood a bedlam with their gibberish and the outlandish clatter of their wooden ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... and roaring through a speaking-trumpet, when his ordinary voice could have had no effect amidst the awful noises of a hurricane, and the sea and the breakers under his lee? Nothing could be fitter than his attitude on the creaking paddle-box, and the thunderous sound that issued from the tube. But wouldn't it be absurd for the commander of the Hugh Frazer, amid the quiet waters of Loch-Lomond, to give orders to the little boy that holds the helm, or point out the beauties of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... in amongst some corn in order to pluck some ears and make herself a wreath of the red poppies. And there she had been seized by the "Zagak," a big man with a cudgel in his hand and a hat full of holes on his head, and with shoes through which all his toes were peeping. If a cart with creaking wheels had not [Pg 42] happened to drive past at that moment, in which a farmer was sitting, singing a hymn, the "Zagak" would not have let her go. But she got off that time with a fright and a torn skirt. She still shook when she thought of the "Zagak"—ugh! How fortunate ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... lumberman's dam, broad-based, solid, and ugly, a work of infinite labour, standing lonely, deserted, here in the heart of the wilderness. Now we must carry across it. But it shall help while it hinders us. Pry up the creaking sluice-gates, sending a fresh head of water down the channel along with us, lifting us over the shallows, driving us on through the rocky places, buoyant, alert, and rejoicing, till we come again to a level meadow, and the long, ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... every family, this unbending fealty resulted in the individual members' betaking themselves to the pump or well, immediately on getting home, even before attempting to unharness. About five o'clock, on circus-afternoon, there would be a general rumbling of buckets and creaking of sweeps, while a chorus rose to heaven, "My! I ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... music of the middle century, and it was written for the time, it suited the time, and when the time passed, the music with the men grew stale, sour, and something to be avoided, like the leer of a creaking, senescent beau, like the rouge and grimace of a debile coquette. My advice then is, enjoy the music of your epoch, for there is no such thing as music of the future. It is always music of the present. Schumann has had his day, Wagner is having his, and ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... shawl, and, leaving my note on the dressing-table, prepared to go downstairs. But I turned back when I got to the door, to look once more at my sister Lucy. And, Rosalie darling, as I looked, I felt as if my tears would choke me. I wiped them hastily away, however, and crept downstairs. Every creaking board made me jump and tremble lest I should be discovered, and at every turning I expected to see some one watching me. But no one appeared; I got down safely, and, cautiously unbolting the hall door, I stole quietly out into the ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... in a capote or blanket coat, a bright silk handkerchief knotted round his head, and his feet shod with moccasins or strong rawhide sandals. If young, he walked or rode a shaggy pony; if older, he drove his creaking, springless wooden cart, untired and unironed, in which his family sat ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to the left; the path here is steep and muddy. He stops in front of a blurred circle of yellow light; by this can one faintly perceive the outlines of a building. Above the narrow doorway hangs a creaking sign which announces to all it may concern that this is the "Loup Noir," much sought after for its nearness to the racecourse ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... fell to his long, racing stride, an easy, stretching gallop. And ever he gained upon the sorrel, creeping up inch by inch, crupper and withers and nose; and thus we raced awhile, neck and neck. And now above quick-thudding hoofs and creaking leather I heard Anthony's voice urging his animal to fiercer effort, for slowly but surely, we were drawing away; slowly the sorrel's great crest and flaring nostrils fell to the rear, back and back, level with my gloved hands, my knee, my elbow, out of my view, and presently, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... great black patch, which came slowly nearer and nearer. The patch turned into a lazy, slow-stepping ox, with a jolting, creaking waggon, in which sat a little old man who gazed stupidly in front of him into the dark distance. The cart dragged along wearily, creeping through the sand, and first the ox, then the little fellow, then the waggon ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... the stars in the high Himalayan solitudes I have already described. And a great stillness would be over all—a silence even completer than the silence among the mountains, for there it was often broken by creaking of the ice, whereas here in the desert it was so profound that, when at the end of many weeks I arrived at a patch of grass and trees, the twittering of the birds and the whirr of insects sounded like the ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... and death might be controlled by instruments the most unnoticeable and seemingly the most feeble, the Indian lived in perpetual fear. The turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a bird, the creaking of a bough, might be to him the mystic signal ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... see in Vagg Hollow, Little boy, when you go In the morning at five on your lonely drive?" "—I see men's souls, who follow Till we've passed where the road lies low, When they vanish at our creaking! ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... in high glory, obeyed by walking upon creaking tip-toe, apparently borrowed from her aunt, and whispering at a wonderful rate about her eagerness to see dear, dear mamma, and the ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Valley; all night long and all day long the miners worked in the mines, and all through the night and the long day the great cement factory and the glass factories belched forth their lurid fumes. The trolley cars went creaking and moaning around the curves through the mean, dirty, squalid, little streets of the mining and manufacturing towns. They whined impatiently as they sailed across the prairie grass under the befogged sunshine ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... landed and four men got out. Instead of going toward the cave, they towed the globe, which floated a few inches from the earth, toward the side of the hill farthest from where the doctor stood. Three of them held it, while the fourth went forward and bent over some controls on the ground. A creaking sound came through the night and the men moved forward with the globe. Presently its movement stopped and men reappeared. Again came the creaking sound and the glow faded out as though a screen had been drawn in front of it. The ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... up a cliff in a basket, when the rope on the creaking windlass above slipped a few inches. Well, it is like that, or like taking a false step on the edge of a precipice. Is the clock about to strike twelve or not? Not this time! The burst was thirty yards away, along the path we had just traversed, and the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... it occurred to him that all the wisdom of all the schools that ever existed can't reconcile man or boy to a bad position—the moment there is a fair opportunity of letting him out of it. Accordingly, without more ado, he lifted up the creaking board, and Lenny Fairfield darted forth like a bird from a cage, halted a moment as if for breath, or in joy; and then, taking at once to his heels, fled, as a hare to its form, fast ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... through the world, glorying in it as if thou wert its lord. In vain did the sleet beat round thy temples; it lighted only on thy impenetrable, felted or woven, case of wool. In vain did the winds howl,—forests sounding and creaking, deep calling unto deep,—and the storms heap themselves together into one huge Arctic whirlpool: thou flewest through the middle thereof, striking fire from the highway; wild music hummed in thy ears, thou too wert as a "sailor of the ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... cars ground past. The brakemen waved their hands to him and then the train disappeared into the grove of trees that grew beside the creek along which the tracks of the road were laid. In Turner's Pike a creaking farm wagon appeared and then disappeared along the tree-lined road that led to Bidwell. The farmer turned on his wagon seat to stare at Hugh but unlike the railroad men did not wave his hand. Adventurous ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... and his son Felix. They were near to him, every word they spoke reached his ears, and penetrated to his heart. They seemed more beautiful, more perfect than any young creatures he had ever beheld. He listened to them unfastening the chain which secured the boat, and to the creaking of the row-locks as they fitted the oars into them. It was as if one of his own long-lost days was come back again to earth, when he had sat where Felix was now sitting, with Felicita instead of Hilda dipping her little white hand into the water. He had scarcely eyes ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... crazy punt, half full of water, and the horses swam across. Before we reached the top of the ravine, the last redness of twilight had died from off the melancholy ocean, the black forms of mountains looked huge in the darkness, and the wind sighed so eerily through the creaking lauhalas, as to add much to the effect. It became so very dark that I could only just see my horse's ears, and we found ourselves occasionally in odd predicaments, such as getting into crevices, or dipping off from steep banks; and it was in dense darkness that we ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
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