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More "Gruff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... came in, and Hawley introduced me to him. He was a gruff old gentleman, and seemingly anxious to have Froude become an eligible, and I judged from the rather fierce manner in which he handled a club he had in his hand, that there were one or two other men of prominence still living he was anxious to meet. ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... from France, and giving him the control of affairs. A sudden flight back to Stirling only saved him from seizure at Doune; and a few months later, as James hunted at Ruthven, he found the hand of the Master of Glamis on his bridle-rein. "Better bairns greet than bearded men," was the gruff answer to his tears, as his favourite fled into exile and the boy-king saw himself again a tool in the hands of ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... To the great astonishment of the town the young man hardly went out at all, and when he called upon him in his lodgings at Fairport, Mr. Oldbuck was astonished at the change in his appearance. Lovel was now pale and thin, and his black dress bore the badge of mourning. The Antiquary's gruff old heart was moved toward the lad. He would have had him come instantly with him to Monkbarns, telling him that, as they agreed well together, there was no reason why they should ever separate. His lands were in his own power of gift, and there was no reason ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... many different barks! Just as many as there were dogs,—deep or squeaky, smooth or creaky, rough or happy, gruff or snappy, and one that Marmaduke knew the very minute ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... Sudden knew he couldn't be far away, and would ring until he did answer. He unfastened the door again, cursing to himself and wondering if the Rolling R people were in the habit of calling Johnny Jewel every ten minutes or so. He stumbled over a box that he had missed before, swore, and called a gruff hello. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... delay of a week or ten days in the harbor, owing to head winds or inclement weather we set sail; and I remember well that the pilot, Fowler by name, as he was about to leave the vessel, throwing his leg over the bulwarks, said in his gruff voice to our skipper, "I will give you twenty-eight ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... a fob set under the cuff of her left sleeve and brought forth a small gold badge and held it cupped in her gloved hand for him to see. As he bent his head and made out the meaning of the badge the gruff air ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... and put the primroses among it. I ran across the road outside of our gates—for I could run in those days—and soon filled my basket with as many primroses as I wanted. As I was standing under a large tree, I heard all at once, exactly over my head, a loud, gruff cry of 'Cuckoo.' I was so startled, the cry was so near, that I thought it must be a rude man, and I dropped all my primroses and ran ...
— Woodside - or, Look, Listen, and Learn. • Caroline Hadley
... looked dark and moody, and, taking up a book, was silent. The next time the door opened, it was Lionel who entered. He frowned and gazed up, perceiving the figure but not able to make it out. "Ha, Lionel! How d'ye do?" said Elliot in a short, gruff, indifferent voice; without moving or attempting to shake hands, without any token that he thought ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... volunteered recently for a certain hazardous duty. He knew, too, how quickly his dear wife would know the full extent of the peril with which he felt himself surrounded. And so his reply was short and seemingly gruff, as many another man's has been ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... my hand its final adjustment to the pistol, when suddenly a man dashed out of the covert at one side of the hollow, and ran toward us, calling out in a gruff voice: ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare Of flickering horror in the sectors where We raid ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... leisure to ponder over the difficulties confronting our expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the presence of danger, and could never be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... disposition to move on. It was as if that series of gruff barks from the unseen dog had acted as a sort of challenge; and having a duty to perform he meant ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... hair with a silk motor veil, and the stout boots which she had surveyed so ruefully when Bower brought them to her on the previous evening after interviewing the village shoemaker, were by no means so cumbrous in use as her unaccustomed eyes had deemed them. Even the phlegmatic guide was stirred to gruff appreciation when he saw her vault on to a large flat boulder in order to examine an iron cross that ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the forest for wood, she warned them against the Wolf; if he came, they were not to open the door to him on any account. Presently the Wolf came, and knocked, and asked to be let in; but the little Kids said, "No, you have a gruff voice; you are a wolf." So the Wolf went and bought a large piece of chalk, and ate it up, and by this means he made his voice smooth; and then he came back to the cottage, and knocked, and again asked to be let in. The little Kids, however, saw his black paws, and they said, "No, your feet are ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... the Scottish archers, their escort, they could not tell; they only heard a tumult of shouts and cries, and found rude hands holding them on their horses and dragging them among the trees. Their screams for help were answered by a gruff voice from a horseman, evidently the leader of the troop. 'Hold that noise, Lady! No ill is meant to you, but you must come with us. No; screams are useless! There's none to come to you. ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out with a gruff, "No sense in letting one fellow have all the money. I said so from the first. Look in ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... a Caiarara monkey (Cebus albifrons). Both these lively members of the monkey order seemed rather to court attention, but the Mycetes slunk away when anyone approached it. When it first arrived, it occasionally made a gruff subdued howling noise early in the morning. The deep volume of sound in the voice of the howling monkeys, as is well known, is produced by a drum-shaped expansion of the larynx. It was curious to watch the animal while venting its hollow cavernous roar, ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... all went to the shore. Mr. Wolf looked after them very sadly from the door of his kennel, where he was chained, and barked a gruff goodbye; but Quick informed them that he intended going also, took matters into his own hands, and started to run down the road ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... in the darkness at the edge of the wood and listened, but not a sound came to our ears, and in a moment or two Mac whispered "Now, Jack," and we made a dash across, when to our utter amazement three figures sprang up right in front of us and we found ourselves looking into three rifle barrels. A gruff German voice called, "Halt! Who goes there?" and we threw up our hands and grunted a reply. Immediately the guns were lowered and the men came toward us, but instead of finding two helpless prisoners, they were met by good hard blows delivered in true ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... After my gruff refusal, the company begins to disperse; they prepare to go out, some to have a row on the lagoon, others to saunter before the cafes at St. Mark's; family discussions arise, gruntings of fathers, murmurs of mothers, peals of laughing from young girls and ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... to do something, he was again disobedient. This time he was forced to appear before Magistrate Hillier of the Hudson's Bay Company and was condemned to gaol. As there was really no such place, a log-house was built for Findlay, and he was imprisoned in it. A gruff-noted babel of dissent arose among his kinsfolk, supported by the men from Glasgow. A gang of thirteen, in which both parties were represented, put a match to the prison where Findlay was confined, and rescued its solitary inmate out of ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... So he was both gruff and disagreeable when Patsy, after buying a lot of ribbons of him, broached the subject of politics. He told her plainly that her cousin hadn't a "ghost of a show," and that he ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... looked at his watch for the fiftieth time, and found that it indicated nearly half-past eleven, there was a heavy knock at the door. As it opened, Colston heard a rattle of arms and a clinking of chains. Then there was a sound of gruff guttural voices in the entrance-hall, and the next moment the door of the room was thrown open, and Soudeikin walked in, followed by a young man in the uniform of a lieutenant of the line, and after them came two soldiers, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... spent thus along the rocky defiles of the little stream, eating their lunch beside a cold spring at the head of a miniature gulch, the trio of engineers were about to leave the spot when a gruff voice hailed them from the hilltop. Looking up they saw another group of three: an oldish man, a slim young fellow who was almost a grown man and a girl in her middle teens. The young people seemed to be quarreling, to judge from the black looks they gave ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... him in a strange place, among strangers ... he leaned upon the rail in a sudden excess of yearning for those whom he loved, summoned the spirits of those who loved him. They came to him through the night—Susan fretting, Ellis affectionately gruff, Enrico boisterously cheerful, Father Jennings wise, patient, watchful. Another, fairer, unutterably dear, hovered near him: he strove, as of old, to bridge the gap—and ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... adviser, and went on, hearing the sound of the tinkling bells, but unable to see any thing. In a little while I saw a light ahead, and was glad to see it. Driving up in front and halting, I repeated the traveler's "halloo" several times, and at last got a response in a hoarse, gruff voice. ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... English, French, Dutch and Danes had factories here, though few European merchants remain at the present day. I found the streets crowded with gayly-dressed, vivacious Mohammedans and Hindoos and solemn, gruff-looking Afghans. Some were on foot; some on horseback, astride splendid horses brought from the Deccan; many rode in eckas, a few in baillies—two varieties of native vehicle. The dwellings in the city, built of mud with tiled roofs, were mostly but one story in height. In those of two stories ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... he had spoken so harshly, and was about to make amends for his severity, when Mr. Lord's gruff voice recalled him to the fact that his time was not his own, and he therefore commenced his day's work, but with a lighter heart than he had had since he stole away from ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... onward moved Like Peter following his angel guide Deeming he saw a vision. As the bolts Drew gratingly to let them pass, he seem'd To gather consciousness, and restless grew With an unspoken fear, lest at the last Some sterner turnkey, or gruff sentinel Might bar their egress. When behind them closed. The utmost barrier, and the sweet, fresh air So long witheld, fill'd his collapsing lungs, He shouted rapturously, "Am I alive? Or have I burst the gates of death, and found A second Eden?" The unwonted sound Of his ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... not long been set straight when steps were heard on the stone stair, and, the door opening wide, Captain Falconnet's gruff voice was heard, 'This way, Monseigneur; ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then a gruff voice became audible on the outer side of the door. "Present, sir," growled ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... thereafter four of us went, through a drizzling rain, I riding a blind horse, the others on foot. Night overtook us soon after leaving camp, and when, within a mile of our destination, we asked at a house by the roadside for directions as to the way, a gruff voice informed us that an intervening creek was too high to cross, and insisted on our coming in and spending the night. We declined this, and the man said, "Well, I'll send a negro boy with you; but you'll have to come back," which proved to be the case. On our return we were boisterously welcomed. ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... before I go," returned the other gruffly. Indeed his voice was more than gruff: it ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Lucky One became the hero of the hour. With all its stubbornness, Eric's pride could not but be gratified. He began to show signs of relenting. Gradually he ceased to avert his face. One day, he even worked himself up to making a gruff ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... to be a regular miser," declared Helen, earnestly. "And he is so gruff and grim! ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... with Mr. Rolls, serving as a clerk at that gentleman's sugar wharf, a tall, broad-shouldered, strapping fellow, with red cheeks, and thick red lips, and rolling blue eyes, and hair as red as any chestnut. Many knew him for a bold, gruff-spoken man, but no one at that time suspected that he had it in him to become so famous and renowned as he ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... of letters like that: a lot of words, evasion of coming to the point about anything; just conventional letters. Benda was the last man to write a conventional letter. Yet, it was Benda writing them: gruff little expressions of his, clear ways of looking at even the veriest trifles, little allusion to our common past: these things could neither have been written by anyone else, nor written under compulsion from without. Something had ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... norther before their eyes. We stopped at the house of the "Marine Monster," Don Leonardo Mata, before crossing the bar, took up our shells, and had the felicity of making his acquaintance. He is a colossal old man, almost gigantic in height, and a Falstaff in breadth—gruff in his manners, yet with a certain clumsy good-nature about him. He performs the office of pilot with so much exclusiveness, charging such high prices, governing the men with so iron a sway, and arranging everything so entirely according to his own fancy, that he is a complete sovereign ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... the while, and evidently longing to be away from a scene that distressed her. Margaret came in upon this scene. She stood for a moment at the door—then, her finger on her lips, she stole to a seat on the squab near Bessy. Nicholas saw her come in, and greeted her with a gruff, but not unfriendly nod. Mary hurried out of the house catching gladly at the open door, and crying aloud when she got away from her father's presence. It was only John Boucher that took no notice whatever who came in and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not seem to frighten the strange creature. He laughed in my face, and then said in a gruff voice, "You must give me gold, for it was I who turned your horse aside ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... down his whip and began loosening the large pack of toys that were upon his shoulders. As the sack was laid down in front of the old fireplace, a rubber ball rolled out upon the rug, whereupon Edwin heard him say in a gruff tone: ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... better," answered another, as a strong, red flash followed close after the sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of the watch gave some command in muffled tones, and immediately afterwards the man at the helm muttered in a gruff voice, ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... A gruff voice bawling "All for shore," wakened them the next morning and, mounting to the deck they found the steamer was just entering the picturesque little bay. The sun was gilding the line of rugged hills that surrounded the bay and glinting on the water, and they both exclaimed ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... suggested that singing might 'improve the conditions;' on which Mr. C. struck up 'Power of Love Enchanting' in maudlin spiritualistic words. Things looked dull. All at once we were hailed by one of the most tremendous gruff bass voices that ever hailed a man-of-war. John King, the favourite spirit of Mr. A., had appeared with a grumbling announcement of his presence. 'Who is this John King?' inquired the Liverpool man, who, if he was a confederate, acted peculiarly well. 'He lived about three hundred years ago,' said ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... smiled again, and rose up to take the cup from this fair bearer, and at that moment there was a sort of scuffle, unseemly enough, at the lower end of the hall near the door, and gruff voices seemed to be hushed as Ina glanced up with the cup yet ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... "Nonsense." Seymour's gruff tone concealed emotion. Hargraves' face betrayed death's indelible sign. "You'll pull through, once you're back at ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the ducks, the baa-ing of the sheep, the grunting of the pigs,—possibly discussing the novelty of their position. And, nearly all through the night, just outside my cabin, two or three of the seamen sit talking together in gruff undertones. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... of the Baker Street to Victoria route, and when they recognized him he became purple with content. A short youth was making notes near a tank in the corner. Mr. Trew, nudging Gertie, went to him and, in a gruff voice, asked what the deuce he was doing there; the youth turned to ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... great success. Matilda laughed for very delight, as well as at the fun of the thing. David, who personated the poor man who had come to sell a piece of ground, talked so admirably like a countryman, and was so oddly crochety and cross and gruff and impossible to make terms with; and then Norton, who was the rich man he had come to see and who wanted the land, coaxed him so skilfully, and ordered all sorts of good things to be brought to him, when he found he had come a good ...
— Trading • Susan Warner
... said one of the fellows in a gruff, but good-humored tone, "don't let's have any of your tantrums; one would have thought that you had had swing enough for this bout. Come, it's high time to leave off harlequinading, and go home to ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... wished that he might faint away, even for a moment, but his nerves were too sound for that. He was recalled to outer things by feeling a hand laid gently on his leg, and immediately afterwards he heard a man's voice, in a quietly gruff tone that scarcely rose or fell, reciting a whole litany of the most appalling blasphemies that ever fell from human lips. For an instant, in his suffering, Zorzi fancied that he had died and was in the clutches of ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... is talking," said Craig. "Good—he is gaining time. He is a trump. I can distinguish that all right. He's asking the gruff-voiced fellow if he will have another bottle of wine. He says he will. Good. They must be at Prince Street now—we'll give them a few minutes more, not too much, for word will be back to Albano's like wildfire, and they will get Gennaro after all. Ah, they are drinking again. What ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... only sees the superficial aspect of the Englishman, to think of us as a brutal nation. He was an odd mixture of awkwardness and complacency, a desire to be courteous struggling with a desire to show his independence; he had no ease of manner, no bonhomie, but a gruff and ugly kind of jocosity, which I am sure was not really natural to him, but was his protest against the possibility of my considering him to be shy. He seemed anxious to show that he was as good a man as myself, which I was quite ready to take for ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... diagram. He saw no one; but half way up the cliff was a huge bowlder, over which peered a pair of eyes that were closely watching every move he made; and, when Arthur whistled twice, the eyes disappeared, and a man stepped from behind the rock, and said, in a gruff voice: ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... They were sitting on chairs opposite the doorsteps; Julian with one little leg over the other, in a nonchalant attitude; Una also in negligent position. They were discussing their prisoners, Hopeful and Christian, in very gruff and unamiable voices. "Well, what had we better do with them?" "Oh, beat them pretty well, every day!" The air of the two figures, and their tones, in comparison with the faces and forms, were very funny. I heard Una telling ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... have revived it, unless Charity had been talking. He had not thought of any one's punishing him for neglecting her. But if Dyckman had enlisted in her cause—well, Cheever was afraid of hardly anything in the world except boredom and the appearance of fear. He answered Zada with a gruff: ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... discourteous, inurbane, rude, uncivil, disrespectful, saucy, insolent, impertinent, churlish, brusque, unamiable, surly, gruff, boorish. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... not takin' holt of his hand and climbin' on agin. Till finally she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz humbly and gruff and she got along all right, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... criticizing my fellow-guests, the Mayor had got up to propose another toast; and listening rather inattentively to the first sentence or two, I soon became sensible of a drift in his Worship's remarks that made me glance apprehensively towards Sergeant Wilkins. "Yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving a decanter of Port towards me, "it is your turn next"; and seeing in my face, I suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpractised orator, he kindly added,—"It is nothing. A mere acknowledgment will answer the purpose. The less ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... here," he said, "what I have got to say won't take long and we can do the roses afterwards when Mrs. Grant is about. I guess you could help me a bit if you only chose to," he went on, his voice curiously gruff and unready, "but you won't, you won't even look at me. I suppose those great grey eyes of yours hate the sight of me, and I am a damned fool to put my heart into words. But I have got to," she heard him move close to her and how quickly he was breathing, "I love you, you pale, ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... not likely to, either, Cadet Corbett!" said a gruff voice above them. They turned to see a heavy-set man wearing the uniform of a major in the Solar Guard, standing on the floor above them. The slidestairs carried them to his level and Captain Strong hopped off and extended ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come to concerning them ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... number of days, but failed to get work, and as I failed this time I asked if I had better continue calling for work. He replied, 'You had better call again.' As I was passing out of the door his partner, Michael Walsh, came to me (in a gruff, commanding tone), 'What is that you say, Lacy?' 'Nothing to you,' I replied; 'I was speaking to Captain Salles.' At this he gave a stab, and as I turned to see what he was hitting me for, he added two stabs more with cursing. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... a shadow fell upon the grass, and a deep, gruff voice was heard, saying, "Star, ahoy!" The child started up, and turned to meet the newcomer with a joyous smile. "Why, Bob!" she cried, seizing one of his hands in both of hers, and dancing round and round him. "Where did you come from? Why ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... and burst into tears," said Schlorge, speaking in the gruff tone an anxious doctor uses toward an excitable patient. "I'll have my hands full mending your baby here, without having to mend you. He has no internal injuries," he added, turning the Kewpie upside down and peering down the stumps of his legs (which were hollow) into a perfectly pink and smooth ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... what's doing. Within half a minute I was besieged by tossing hair and excited hands, and an avalanche of talk about shop, what they were doing, where they were this week, where next, future openings, and so forth; all of which was cut short by the good-humouredly gruff ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... sir! Here, shepherd, call your dog. Shepherd. Be not affrighted, madame. Poor Pierrot Will do no harm. I know his voice is gruff, But then, his heart is good. Traveler. Well, call him, then. I do not like his looks. He's growling now. Shepherd. Madame had better drop that stick. Pierrot, He is as good a Christian as myself And does not like a stick. Traveler. Such a ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... Karembwe's village. The mountains east of him are called Makunga. We went yesterday to the shore, and by protraction Rua point was distant thirty-three miles. Karembwe sent for us, to have an audience; he is a large man with a gruff voice, but liked by his people and by strangers. I gave him a cloth, and he gave me a goat. The enthusiasm with which I held on to visit Moero had communicated itself to Tipo Tipo and Syde bin Alle, for they followed me up to this place to see the Lake, and remained five days while ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... who occasionally find their way into the ranks of even the most enlightened constabularies, they would undoubtedly shift the settee and drag him into a publicity from which his modest soul shrank. He was enchanted, therefore, a few moments later, to hear a gruff voice state that th' mutt had beaten it down th' fire-escape. His opinion of the detective abilities of the New York police ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building. Then the lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr. Warlock, entered. It was at that moment that Maggie had a revelation. The faces around her seemed to be suddenly gathered in front of her, and it was with a start of surprise ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... he was his old self, except that he was perhaps a trifle gruff when he spoke and a good deal inclined to silence, and harmony came and abode for a season with ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... Paul through his trumpet, in a rapid off-hand tone, as though he were a gruff sort of friend, impatient at being ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... lad. Were it not for the desperate urgency of his errand he never would have dared to enter. As it was, the fumes of alcohol and steaming, dirty clothes nearly choked him, and he could scarce stammer the name of "citizen Rateau" when a gruff ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... little paler, the eyes were slightly more bloodshot; but he did not attempt to speak. Zu Pfeiffer rose. The sergeants stood to attention and saluted. As he left the room towards the Court House, he smiled with slight satisfaction as the gruff voice of Sergeant Schneider barked: "Prisoner, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... would be very hard to please if she could not be happy. And after about an hour's talk Beauty began to think that the Beast was not nearly so terrible as she had supposed at first. Then he got up to leave her, and said in his gruff voice: ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... toilette made its first impression upon the surly-looking Irish porter, who, like a gruff and faithful watch-dog, guarded the entrance to the editorial rooms of the Bugle. He was enclosed in a kind of glass-framed sentry-box, with a door at the side, and a small arched aperture that was on a level with ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were following the right course after all, and that he had never felt any fear ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... him?" the county official asked in gruff good humor. He at least seemed not at all awed by the solemnity of ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... whistle. "Here's the boy himself! Going along wi' us, sonny?" he asked, looking down on me and speaking down in a voice which seemed to me unnaturally gentle—for I remembered him as a gruff fellow and irascible. The outside passengers at once broke off their talk to lean over and take stock of me; and this ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... it's all up with her, and she might as well engage a permanent suite in Jarvyse's little hotel up the river," he says, very sharp and gruff. "I've staved that off for a month now, but they can't see it and they're bound to try it: Jarvyse himself half advises it. And I'll risk my entire reputation on the result. If she can't fight it ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Soon again her little feet were lagging; and once more her eyes turned curiously upon the pail she carried and again she said, "Oh, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder." "Why do you wonder, little maid?" said a deep, gruff voice. On looking up once more Alice saw close beside her, not her friend the tawny lion, but a shaggy black bear. At first she was afraid; but the great beast, looking kindly upon her, placed his great paw softly on her arm and once more ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... horses and wagons. He walked slowly, scanning every inch of the ground and clay pavement in front of him, but when he drew near the well-remembered building he had not caught sight of the prize. He was within a few paces of the steps of the porch of the store, when he was suddenly startled by a gruff voice: ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... it made her withdraw from comforts she might have had. She never went to North Farthing House, where she could have talked about Martin with the one person who—as it happened—would have understood her treacheries. Lawrence came to see her once at the end of September, but she was gruff and silent. She recoiled from his efforts to break the barriers between life and death; he wanted her to give Martin her thoughts and her prayers just as if he were alive. But she "didn't hold with praying for the dead"—the Lion and the Unicorn would certainly disapprove of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... his gruff, austere, and soldier-like personality there issued words of a plain, homely philosophy that marks the path of success for all men. "The way to get honour is to go to work and be ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... lightened. He listened, however, to Stratton's brief explanation and in a few gruff words agreed that in the unlikely event of any inquiry he would say that the new hand was off riding fence or something of the sort. Then he swept out the offending ashes and proceeded methodically to get supper, declining any assistance ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... gruff heartiness, and the others now began to remove their goggles. Locke, however, did not do the same. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... in a deep, gruff voice which was the very essence of heartiness. "You also are getting off at Merryweather, young ladies? I beg the privilege of assisting you with your parcels; I insist upon it! Permit me, madam!" ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... me this time of night?" he grumbled, in a deep gruff voice; "any young scamp prowling after the maids shall have sore bones ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... back then," growled a gruff voice. "Your family will never believe your story, never believe that you came again and stayed at Lustgarten's against your will. Why," the voice taunted with a harsh laugh, "if they knew the truth, they would turn you from the door, instead ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... "I'll try my hand," said she. "The secret is plenty of pins; you don't use enough of them. Pins, I expect, are scarce in the pa." She had fastened up one long coil, and was holding another in place with her white fingers, when a gruff voice roared through ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Ledyard put in; "a regular little marplot!" Then he gave that gruff laugh of his that Helen knew to be a ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... the gruff voice angrily bade her be silent. Far from obeying him, the girl shouted louder than ever; and now, out of the entrance to the cave, close behind the scene of the disaster, came a number of men with lamps and tapers. They were the same daimons whose song she had heard in the street; she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a gruff voice exclaimed, and Chester beheld a large German soldier with his rifle pointed squarely ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... home she groped her way into the living-room, which was lighted only by the low, red gleam of the coals on the hearth. Her father's gruff voice called out from the bedroom beyond: ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... all the same to me," was the gruff answer. "I'm a hardshell Baptist myself, but I've only good feelings to your kind. My old captain was one of you, and never a better man walked the deck. Now, duck, my lads, while I swing out the sail and ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... cutting the grass there, and begin an animated conversation with him. Bobby curled himself up well out of sight, and presumed upon his position, for when Mr. Mortimer came down to his corner and stopped for a moment under the tree, the little scamp again said, in as gruff a voice as he ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... a book on Fanny's bird, and it's dead. She asked me to come and tell you," said Norman in a gruff voice; "and, granny, she wants you to go to her. I wish I had not done it, that's all I have got ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... for them," returned January, in his gruff voice; "there are no strawberries under ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... horses arrived, four besides Shag's, and the rest of the outfit. The onlookers regarded Shag with the mournful interest due to the undertaker at a funeral. Shag felt it and acted accordingly. He gave short, gruff orders to his men; called attention to straps and buckles that every one knew were in as perfect order as they could be; criticized the horses and his men; and every one, even the horses, bore it with perfect composure. They were all showing off and felt the importance ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... Then this young lieutenant must be a prince. If so, some princes were likable. Wharton and Carstairs and he had outwitted a prince once, but it could not be von Arnheim. He turned his full gaze back to the general, who continued in his deep gruff ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... disheartening; tall warehouses, dingy brick houses, a ceaseless roar of carts and waggons in the main streets, and a population of which all the better dressed march at double quick time, with care-brent brows, and if pausing, only to exchange gruff monosyllables and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... lunch time, she neither went to her room to freshen up nor sought her nephew to make a hasty report on the result of her embassy. She betook herself instead to the study, and there was a malicious twinkle in her eye as she tapped on the closed door. She obeyed a gruff command ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... man, acknowledging him as a son-in-law prospective, addressed him now with gruff kindness, and had Lester shown the slightest gain in managerial ability he would have been content—glad to share a little of his responsibility with a younger man. In his uncouth, hairy, grimy fashion Blondell was growing old, and feeling it. As he said to his ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... things changed," the gruff voice rose. "The whole d—n house is open. I can't shut it with these people here. Your men will have to move in closer—but keep under cover. Can ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... captain was going to leave the lad his money, and had therefore a right to speak; but no one knew. He was closer-mouthed than ever, though not so gruff and ugly as he used to be; Archie had softened him, they said, taking the place of that boy of his he "druv out to die a good many ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... moonlit heights and hollows rolled by on either hand. On, at the same time, went Mr. Guilderaufenberg with his stories of rivers and cities and countries that he had seen, and of battles fought along rivers and across them. Then, suddenly, the gruff voice grew deep and savage, like the growl of an angry ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... under the mistletoe."... And there was Edward's gruff undertone. Then Nancy had come in, with feet that had hastened up the stairs and that tiptoed as they approached the open door of Leonora's room. Branshaw had a great big hall with oak floors and tiger skins. Round this hall there ran a gallery upon which Leonora's ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... singularly unlike in aspect to the patrons who were accustomed to frequent it. One of them was a weather-beaten man in a rough pilot jacket; the other was an odd old woman bundled up in a threadbare coat of the cheapest imitation fur. The man, with a gruff shyness, blurted out, "I should like to see a diamond necklace." The salesman with some hesitation put a necklace before him of no very precious kind. The man eyed it askance and said, dubiously, "Is that the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... place in Trinity Church. As the youthful pair was standing in front of the altar, surrounded by a few sympathetic friends, the rector reached the words, "Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" when, to the astonishment of the assembled group, a gruff, loud voice in the rear of the church shouted "I do." Old John Watts had opposed his daughter's marriage with all his might, but when he learned by chance that she was to be married clandestinely, he graciously accepted the inevitable and without the ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... him walking back and forth along the river bank, smoking, and seemingly thinking out some problem. Nor did he appear until I had the evening meal ready, and called to him down the arbor. He was always gruff and bearish enough when we were alone, seldom speaking, indeed, except to give utterance to some order, but this night he appeared even more morose and silent than his wont, not so much as looking at me as he took seat, and began ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... a boy," he said nervously, "not a big six-foot fellow with a gruff voice, and—my dear Dick. Why, then, it ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... attained to the dignity of a private drawing-room, and on bright days she spent many hours here, delighting to feast her eyes with the rich coloring of the flowers and to inhale their fragrance. For however gruff Jane Merrick might be to the people with whom she came in contact, she was always tender to her beloved flowers, and her nature invariably ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... strolled out to invite the other guests. A few minutes' walk brought us to the domicile of Thomas Ringwood, Esq., known amongst his intimates as the Bully, a sobriquet he owed to his gruff voice, blustering tone, and skill as a pugilist and cudgel-player. He was member of a well-known and highly respectable English family, who had done all in their power to keep him from disgracing their name by his disreputable propensities. In dress and manner ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... had been tempted to draw, and was passing on, when Ishmael turned in his lair, and demanded roughly who was moving before his half-opened eyes. Nothing short of the readiness and cunning of a savage could have evaded the crisis. Imitating the gruff tones and nearly unintelligible sounds he heard, Mahtoree threw his body heavily on the earth, and appeared to dispose himself to sleep. Though the whole movement was seen by Ishmael, in a sort of stupid observation, the artifice was too bold and too admirably ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... sleep, and numbed and scarce awake, Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take, I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light. Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare Of flickering horror in the sectors where We raid the Boche; men waiting, ...
— Counter-Attack and Other Poems • Siegfried Sassoon
... still gruff and still proffered snubs which were gratefully received, for Mark was genuinely anxious not to be misled by the atmosphere of praise and affection in which he ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... his diagram. He saw no one; but half way up the cliff was a huge bowlder, over which peered a pair of eyes that were closely watching every move he made; and, when Arthur whistled twice, the eyes disappeared, and a man stepped from behind the rock, and said, in a gruff voice: ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... as he, taking the advantage of a moment of exciting debate, slipped out into the darkness, and made his way into the Democratic headquarters. At the corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets a dark figure stepped out from the darkness and confronted him. "Hello dar, Calvin Sauls!" said a gruff voice. "Where is you sneakin' ter? You got er few uv us fool, but not all. Goin' down ter tell wa't you foun' out at de committee meet'n, eh?" "O, g'wan way f'm me, man; I got dese white fo'ks bizness ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... despised him, with his supple manners, quiet words, and religious studies. To the young priest's timid yet earnest request for permission to pronounce the marriage-service of him and his bride, Thor assented with gruff heartiness. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... pause of some length, at the end of which the soldier said, in the same gruff voice, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... they all followed, making the interior that had been so long silent ring with their heavy tread, whilst from time to time a gruff, hoarse whisper broke from one of them. But superstition lay strong upon their imagination, and they were awed and quiet. The daylight came down the hatch, but for all that the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... Tob. A gruff, rude fellow, and smelling vile of tar, but seeming to have a sturdy honesty of his own. Tob sails away this night for parts unknown, presumably to found a kingdom with Tob for king. It seems he can find little enough to earn at his craft in Atlantis these latter days, and has ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... nauseating that he threw away the lunch he had been given as he left the fort for he never expected to live to eat it. He passed so near an Indian camp that he was challenged, but he answered in Sioux in their gruff way and so satisfied them. When he came near Nicollet village he crawled up a little hill and peered over. He saw two Indians on one side and three on the other. He dropped back in the grass. He looked for his ammunition and it was gone. He had only two rounds ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... eyes, which at times were penetrating, and occasionally wore a sad, sympathetic look. His hands and feet betokened that he had sprung from a physical working race, though there was nothing of the animal about him, and in spite of a gruff, uncultured mannerism, he either had it naturally or had acquired almost a grammatical way of addressing people when he wished to assert what he obviously regarded as the dignity of his high calling. This effort to check a natural tendency to the common dialect was very ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... his head for a long time, for he was thinking. At last he said in a big gruff voice: "On that hill over there I see a house. And in that house there ...
— The Cock, The Mouse and the Little Red Hen - an old tale retold • Felicite Lefevre
... had laid down his long, formidable rifle when he hurried to the rescue of the boy, and he now stooped and picked up the weapon. Moving back a few paces, so as to get beyond the noise made by the rushing waters, he said, in his gruff but ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... plume upon one side of its crest. He trotted his horse up the glade, while behind him rode four cavaliers in the same dress—all clean-shaven, with round, comely faces, looking to me more like monks than dragoons. At a short, gruff order they halted with a rattle of arms, while their leader cantered forward, the fire beating upon his eager face and the beautiful head of his charger. I knew, of course, by the strange coats that they were English. It was the first sight that I had ever had of them, but from their ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... impossible to distinguish among the actors when all gave such fine account of themselves in difficult roles of this well-known New York stage play. Guy Pollock as the old millionaire could not have been bettered for his fine impersonation of the gruff old millionaire; Mrs. Harry Haydock as the young lady from the West who so easily showed the New York four-flushers where they got off was a vision of loveliness and with fine stage presence. Miss Vida Sherwin the ever popular ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... began to move away. Overhead in the narrow space of sky visible to them from where they stood, the stars burned brightly. Some instinct made them look up; as they did so, their hands met. Then a gruff sound broke the silence. It was Alanson Black's ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... visitor came to the cabin. Smoke knew him, Harvey Moran, the owner of all the games in the Tivoli. There was a note of appeal in his deep gruff voice as ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Payton's gruff, hearty voice from just behind them, "how do you like your first glimpse of the Old World, eh? It won't be any time at all before ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... just passed over; but the latter did not seem disposed to profit by this silent invitation to which large raindrops gave more emphasis. He was so absorbed in his meditation that, to arouse him, it needed the sound of a gruff voice ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... old, wise, and patient, who had given him his creed as a spaceman: "Travel wide, deep, and high," the skipper had said to the young Connel, "but never so far, so wide, or so deep as to forget that you're an Earthman, or how to act like an Earthman!" Even now, years later, the gruff voice rang in his ears. It wasn't long after that that he had met Shinny. Connel smiled behind the protection of his helmet, as he looked at the wizened spaceman, who was now old and toothless, but who still had the same merry twinkle in his eye that ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... an unpopular personage in the mystery-plays of the middle ages, was probably represented as having a gruff, harsh voice. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... see. Rosebud, my gal!" The Pilot's gruff voice thundered through the house. "We'll put it to the test, Sartoris; we'll put it ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... my porridge?" said a gruff little voice. Then came a rapturous shriek. Evidently the Little Bear had caught Curly Locks in his bed. We sat listening, while the game ended and another followed in its place. Suddenly she began to ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... get used to it," he said in his short, gruff way. "You'd think it would become a matter of course, but it doesn't. That man's wife is dying of cancer. It's not an operable case. I told him that to-day. He asked for the truth and I gave it. I ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... Hearts how gruff The monarch stands, how square, how bluff! When our eighth Harry rul'd this land, Just like this King did Harry stand; And just so amorous, sweet, and willing, As this ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... drawn over the chestnut hair that turned back in a crisp wave from the bold, frank, innocent face. But she waved him off, and balancing her foot upon the edge-stone, saw herself reflected in the steel-like water. Then he begged with rare softness in a voice that was rough and gruff, unless it ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... bowed and smiled again, and rose up to take the cup from this fair bearer, and at that moment there was a sort of scuffle, unseemly enough, at the lower end of the hall near the door, and gruff voices seemed to be hushed as Ina glanced up with the cup yet ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... woman and the greatest little girl in the world, so I am happy." This is one of a large class of persons who receive fair wages all their lives, and yet die paupers, because they plan to spend all they make as they go along. In conversation with a gruff, old Dutch conductor between Albany and New York City, I ventured to ask him if he had ever crossed the ocean. "No," he said, "nopody eber crosses de ocean, bud emigrants, and beoble vat ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... to hear the sound of sobbing as he passed the parlor. Mechanically he took and receipted for the dispatch. Slowly, absently he retraced his steps, listening to the strange sounds, a pleading, choking, girlish voice, soothing words in the gentle, loving woman's sweet tones, the occasional gruff monosyllables from the General himself. Strain reached the library again in something like a dream, finding Petty stalking up and down, tugging at his slim mustache, and nervously expectant of further question, but none came. They were startled by the quick, hurried footsteps of the General, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... best points for throwing light upon the notes; and all went well till we had played and sung "While shepherds watch," and "Star, arise," and "Hark the glad sound." Then the squire's mother, a tall gruff old lady, who was much interested in church-music, said quite unexpectedly to Andrew: "My man, I see you don't play your instrument with ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... very sensible and fast-increasing change of temperature; and this addition to their causes of discomfort roused every one of the company from his temporary lethargy. The growl of dissatisfied voices awoke again, more gruff than before; the spirit of jesting had long languished and now died outright, and in its stead came some low and deep and bitter-spoken curses. Poor Mrs. Renney shook off her somnolency and shook ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... phalanx within the forest, of natives presenting a front like a battalion. Youranigh my interpreter halted and remonstrated: our elder guide ran forward, and on his reaching that body, the sound of gruff voices that arose from it strongly reminded me of Milton's ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... moved out again, and Effie clung still to the little man's seal-skin cap, as she sat on her cushion of sea-weed, upon the hump on his back; and he marched along, using his flat hands like oars, while the gruff old constable with his sword, and the dolphins and the fishes, great and small, moved beside the pair, and they all went swiftly up from the light to the darker green, the voices growing fainter to Effie, and ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... another toast; and listening rather inattentively to the first sentence or two, I soon became sensible of a drift in his Worship's remarks that made me glance apprehensively towards Sergeant Wilkins. "Yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving a decanter of Port towards me, "it is your turn next"; and seeing in my face, I suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpractised orator, he kindly added,—"It is nothing. A mere acknowledgment will answer the purpose. The less you say, the better ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... courage, and Rudy had courage at all times; he soon had a large circle of friends around him, they praised him, they did homage to him, and Babette had almost entirely left his thoughts. At that moment a heavy hand struck him on the shoulder, and a gruff voice addressed him in the ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... is done by one man at the pole or tongue in front. This individual also sets the key to the song by which in Africa all heavy labour is carried forward. He cries his wavering shrill-voiced chant; the toilers utter antiphony in low gruff tones. At a distance one hears only the wild high syncopated chanting; but as the affair draws slowly nearer, he catches the undertone of the responses. These latter are cast in the regular swing and rhythm of effort; but the steersman throws in his bit ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... the man nearest shifted his position slightly so as to look them over, conversation instantly ceasing. Something indefinable in the fellow's attitude, and steady stare, gave West a feeling of hostility, which was not dispelled by the gruff ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... forty years old; but sailors always call the captain the old man. And Ephraim was afraid of Captain Solomon, but he needn't have been afraid, for Captain Solomon was a kind man, although he was rather gruff and ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins
... moment, the Blue Children were crowding round the tall old man, who pushed them all back and, in a gruff voice, said: ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... ring, jingle, gingle^, chink, clink; tink^, tinkle; chime; gurgle &c 405; plash, goggle, echo, ring in the ear. Adj. resounding &c v.; resonant, reverberant, tinnient^, tintinnabulary; sonorous, booming, deep-toned, deep-sounding, deep-mouthed, vibrant; hollow, sepulchral; gruff &c (harsh) 410. Phr. sweet bells jangled, out of time and harsh [Hamlet]; echoing down the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... thus warming herself in the hot spring, Tutanekai happened to feel thirsty and sent his servant to fetch him a calabash of water. The servant came to dip it from the lake near where the girl was hiding. She called out to him in a gruff voice, like that of a man, asking him for some to drink, and he gave her the calabash, which she purposely threw down and broke. The servant went back for another calabash and again she broke it in the same way. The servant returned and told his master that a man in the hot spring ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... up - very shy - to make my salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen,' was the answer. 'That means next birthday,' she grunted. 'Come and give me a kiss, my dear.' I, a man! - a man whose voice was (sometimes) as gruff as hers! - a man who was beginning to shave for a moustache! Oh! the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... old Englishman long resident in America. Benevolent and beneficent, but gruff in manner and speech.—A. D. T. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Locke replied with gruff heartiness, and the others now began to remove their goggles. Locke, however, did not do the same. They exchanged ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... as though he had been marked down for its prey. I heard his voice. "Ah! here it is." He had found his hat. For a few seconds we hung in the wind. "What will you do after—after . . ." I asked very low. "Go to the dogs as likely as not," he answered in a gruff mutter. I had recovered my wits in a measure, and judged best to take it lightly. "Pray remember," I said, "that I should like very much to see you again before you go." "I don't know what's to ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... wife it is!" he said in gruff fondness, laying his hand on Carlen's shoulder, "crying over a man dead and buried these seven years, and none of our kith or kin, either. Poor fellow! ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... house an abode of perpetual spring. Duvillard and Fonsegue, however, carrying their cups of steaming coffee with them, at once went into the former's private room to smoke a cigar there and chat in freedom. As the door remained wide open, one could hear their gruff voices more or less distinctly. Meantime, General de Bozonnet, delighted to find in Madame Fonsegue a serious, submissive person, who listened without interrupting, began to tell her a very long story of an officer's wife who had followed her husband through every battle of the war of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... lads, look alive," cried Willis, in a voice which he meant to be gruff; "if you intend to take a few hours' repose before we start in the morning, it ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... he silences her with a petulant movement and gruff word. He is not in the mood for music. The loaded revolver he always keeps in his room is brought down and laid beside him as ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... having left his stomach at the top of the shaft, found himself rushing downward with horrible velocity through utter blackness. Instinctively reaching out for something by which to hold on, he clutched a rough-coated arm, but his grasp was rudely shaken off, and a gruff voice bade him keep his ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... purposely, and otherwise to gather himself into the plushy depths of his warm furs, he hires the first cabman that accosts him, shoves in his heavy valise, which is all the baggage he has, and in a gruff sort of voice, orders to be driven to the "Albion Hotel." There is nothing surprising in it at all, the gentleman certainly looks like a "Russell House" patronizer, but then the "Albion" is quiet and secluded, and perhaps this gentleman prefers it to the endless noises of greater hotels. The ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... the old gentleman went away. The bank closed at two o'clock; by that time Jamie had not half finished his figuring. The cashier went, and the teller, each with a "good-night," to which Jamie hardly responded. The messenger went, first asking, "Can I help you with the safe?" to which Jamie gave a gruff "I am not ready." The day-watchman went, and the night-watchman came, each with his greeting. Jamie nodded. "You are late to-day." "I had to be." Last of all, Harley Bowdoin came in (one suspects, at his grandfather's request), on his ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... signor," replied another voice, gruff, harsh, and repellent. "I could see plainly, though the night was dark; I had been watching the approach of the boat, and had been lying so long concealed in the darkest part of the ruins that my eyes ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... yer a-shovin' to?" growled the aggrieved tar, in gruff English accents. "If yer thinks yer 'ead was only made to ram into other folks' insides, it's my b'lief yer ought to ha' been ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... realized all that wife and child and home meant to him when he volunteered recently for a certain hazardous duty. He knew, too, how quickly his dear wife would know the full extent of the peril with which he felt himself surrounded. And so his reply was short and seemingly gruff, as many another man's has been ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... female voice tremulously suggested that singing might 'improve the conditions;' on which Mr. C. struck up 'Power of Love Enchanting' in maudlin spiritualistic words. Things looked dull. All at once we were hailed by one of the most tremendous gruff bass voices that ever hailed a man-of-war. John King, the favourite spirit of Mr. A., had appeared with a grumbling announcement of his presence. 'Who is this John King?' inquired the Liverpool man, who, if he was a confederate, acted peculiarly well. 'He lived about three hundred ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... shadows that growled, hissed, laughed excitedly. Mr. Baker whispered:—"Get away from them, sir." The big shape of Mr. Creighton hovered silently about the slight figure of the master.—"We have been hymposed upon all this voyage," said a gruff voice, "but this 'ere fancy takes the cake."—"That man is a shipmate."—"Are we bloomin' kids?"—"The port watch will refuse duty." Charley carried away by his feeling whistled shrilly, then yelped:—"Giv' ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... are upon the ridge where they fell. Then King Eirik went through Viken, and subdued it, and remained far into summer. Gudrod and Trygve fled to the Uplands. Eirik was a stout handsome man, strong, and very manly,—a great and fortunate man of war; but bad-minded, gruff, unfriendly, and silent. Gunhild, his wife, was the most beautiful of women,—clever, with much knowledge, and lively; but a very false person, and very cruel in disposition. The children of King Eirik and Gunhild were, Gamle, the oldest; then Guthorm, ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... matter of fact, he had hardly spoken to Caterina. Conversation was not the Mule's strong point. He had exchanged the usual greetings with her at the fountain on a fiesta day. He had nodded a good morning to her, gruff and curt (for the Mule had no manners), more times than he could count. And Caterina had met his slow glance with those solemn eyes of hers, and that, so to speak, had settled the Mule's business. Just as it would ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... though it was stifled in the centre; evidently the council was dividing into two sides. Buchmann shouted: "I will never approve an agreement; that's my system." Somebody else yelled "Veto,"134 and others seconded him from the corners. Finally the gruff voice of Skoluba was heard, a ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... famous sorcerer THUMBLING," answered our hero, in as gruff a voice as his little body was capable of; "and I have only to say a single word to chop your head off your shoulders. You don't know yet with whom ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... sorry." His voice was gruff. "What he wanted to do was to crush the slim, bruised foot against his lips. The very touch of its satiny skin against his hand sent queer tremors through every ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... had taught me to ride Captain Daniel's pony, is equerry, and young Harvey our personal attendant; old Harvey smiles as we go in and out of the stalls rubbing the noses of our trusted friends, and gives a gruff but kindly warning as to Cassandra's heels. He recalls my father at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... had disregarded the hand, and, with a gruff "Good night," had returned to his armoury, slamming the door behind him. There he had nourished his wrath on more whiskey and soda than was good for him, and crawled upstairs in the ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... turn now to fight a victory! I will go my ways to Posen again, if you don't.' And, in these current weeks, in Soltikof's audience-room, if anybody were curious about it, we could present a very lively solicitation going on, with answers very gruff and negatory. No suasion of Montalembert, Lacy, and Daun Embassies, backed by diamond-hilted swords, and splendor of gifts from Vienna itself, able to prevail ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the door open, and close softly. Then someone gave a gruff cough. Hugh looked around ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... "Well," was the gruff response. "Why couldn't he stay where he was? I suppose you won't want to come here any more after ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... travelers speaking the English tongue. I stopped my cariole within a few paces and asked him "what luck?" One would think the sound of his native tongue would have been refreshing to him in this dreary wilderness; but, without deigning to raise his head, he merely answered in a gruff tone, "Don't know, sir—don't know!" I certainly did not suspect him of knowing much, but thought that question at least would not be beyond the limits of his intelligence. Finding him insensible to the approaches of humanity, I revenged myself for his rudeness by making a sketch of his person, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... her thought the doctor spoke. "Isn't going to die while you're here. Not for a week—perhaps two weeks. But he'll never be up again." His voice was gruff and his brow was furrowed. He had been with Jeanie King when Jimsy was born and when she died, and he had cherished and scorned James King for ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... her mind, a special connection with Albert. In their expeditions the Prince had always trusted him more than anyone; the gruff, kind, hairy Scotsman was, she felt, in some mysterious way, a legacy from the dead. She came to believe at last—or so it appeared—that the spirit of Albert was nearer when Brown was near. Often, when ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... Wednesday morning Jawn Donohue was oiling the old switch engine preparatory to making up a train of coal cars. Since his ride with the President, Jawn had been even more silent than before. His work had been done with the same gruff independence, and his fireman had received the usual quota of stern rebukes; in fact, Jawn was outwardly so like his old self that none suspected him of emotion, but Jawn knew how thin was the veneer. It is hard upon a man to ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... up to the surface of the snow, and saw white men approaching. I was overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. I had suffered so much and so long, that I could scarcely believe my senses. Imagine my astonishment upon their arrival to be greeted, not with a 'Good-morning' or a kind word, but with a gruff, insolent ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... not been for the humane assistance of our conductor, I know not how I should have surmounted these difficulties. Sometimes I was ready to sink down from very weariness. At length I hailed, with a joy I could hardly have supposed possible, the gruff voice of the Irish rower, and, after considerable grumbling on his ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... forward a chair for her lover; he had just seated himself, when Cephas Barnard spoke in a voice as sudden and gruff as a dog's bark. Barnabas started, and his chair grated on ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... manifestations of joy at his return with: when may I go to Arimathea again? And his second question was hardly less indiscreet: why did we leave Arimathea? His father answered: because it suited us to do so; and Joseph withdrew to Rachel who was never gruff with him. But despite her bias in favour of all he said and did she reproved him, saying that he should not ask as soon as he returned home when he was going away again. I am glad in a way, Granny, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... swish, swish o' galloping hoofs in dry bracken, for Scaurdale was a bog-trooper and born wi' spurs on, and I heard the whimper o' the wean, and a gruff voice petting. Belle was greetin' softly, and as Dan made to lift ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... of der bank millionaire's baby!" he yelled in his most finished voice of trade, and the father, thinking of what might have been, felt a pang of horror at the careless words from the gruff ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... expanded, his eyes glowed, a flush crept up into his cheek, and the whole man thrilled to the music as he had done, many a time and oft, in years gone by. As the last notes died away, he glanced down at the empty sleeve pinned across his breast, shook his head, and thanking them in a very gruff voice indeed, turned on his heel, and busied himself at his little cupboard. Peterday now rose, and set a jug together with three glasses upon the table, also spoons, and a lemon, keeping his "weather-eye" meanwhile, upon the kettle,—which last, condescending to boil ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... come to raise a disturbance in my theater?" asked the showman of Pinocchio, in the gruff voice of a hobgoblin suffering from a ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... of our own companion, just where I found Blackwood, Jones and the bo's'un were now engaged in talk. This last was a gruff, cruel-looking seaman, who must have passed near half a century upon the seas; square-headed, goat-bearded, with heavy blond eyebrows, and an eye without radiance, but inflexibly steady and hard. I had not forgotten his rough speech; but I remembered ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a coolness sprang up between the skipper and the girl, which increased hourly. At times the skipper weakened, but the watchful mate was always on hand to prevent mischief. Owing to his fostering care Evans was generally busy, and always gruff; and Miss Cooper, who was used to the most assiduous attentions from him, knew not whether to be most bewildered or most indignant. Four times in one day did he remark in her hearing that a sailor's ship was his sweetheart, while his treatment of his small prospective brother in-law, when he expostulated ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... and we strolled out to invite the other guests. A few minutes' walk brought us to the domicile of Thomas Ringwood, Esq., known amongst his intimates as the Bully, a sobriquet he owed to his gruff voice, blustering tone, and skill as a pugilist and cudgel-player. He was member of a well-known and highly respectable English family, who had done all in their power to keep him from disgracing ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... acquaintances among the upper classmen, but frowned at Lemoyne's light tenor tones and mincing ways. Of course the right sort of fellow, even if he had to sing his solo in the lightest of light tenors, would still, on lapsing into dialogue, reinstate himself apologetically by using as rough and gruff a voice as he could summon. Not so Lemoyne: he was doing a consistent piece of "characterization," and he ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... a bone stuck fast. Well for this wolf, who could not speak, That soon a stork quite near him passed. By signs invited, with her beak The bone she drew With slight ado, And for this skillful surgery Demanded, modestly, her fee. "Your fee!" replied the wolf, In accents rather gruff; "And is it not enough Your neck is safe from such a gulf? Go, for a wretch ingrate, Nor tempt again ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... in trade, endure What gold alone can never cure; The constant sigh for scenes of peace, From the world's trammels free release, Wait not, for reason's sake attend, Wait not in chains till times shall mend; Till the clear voice, grown hoarse and gruff, Cries, "Now I'll go, I'm rich enough;" Youth, and the prime of manhood, seize, Steal ten days absence, ten days ease; Bid ledgers from your minds depart; Let mem'ry's treasures cheer the heart; And when your children round you grow, With opening charms and manly ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... way. Before the scrape of her hard, bare feet had died away on the back porch, a wild shriek—I was sure it was hers—filled the hollow house. Then the deep, gruff tones of an angry man's voice mingled with the girl's further squeals and ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... to be a sailor—a sailor bold and bluff— Calling out, "Ship ahoy!" in manly tones and gruff. I'd learn to box the compass, and to reef and tack and luff; I'd sniff and snifff the briny breeze and never get enough. Perhaps I'd chew tobacco, or an old black pipe I'd puff, But I wouldn't be a sailor if . . . The sea was very ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... departed many months before. A child, ill-clad, in fragments of clothes, with long and dirty hair, unclean face, and naked feet, cried at the door, and loud talking was heard within. Mr Fairman knocked with his knuckle before he entered, and a gruff voice desired him to "come in." A stout fellow, with a surly countenance and unshaven beard, was sitting over an apology for a fire, and a female of the same age and condition was near him. She bore an unhappy infant in her arms, whose ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... I roamed about the village. I addressed two or three labourers whom I found standing at their doors; they appeared, however, exceedingly reserved, and with a gruff "buenas noches" turned into their houses without inviting me to enter. I at last found my way to the church porch, where I continued some time in meditation. At last I bethought myself of retiring to rest; before departing, however, I took out and ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... saw he was going to be punished, he would change his tone to a shrill, threatening note, showing his teeth, and trying to intimidate. He had quite an extensive vocabulary of sounds, varying from a gruff bark to a shrill whistle; and we could tell by them, without seeing him, when it was he was hungry, eating, frightened, or menacing; doubtless, one of his own species would have understood various minor shades of intonation and expression that we, not entering so fully into his feelings ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... the brawl that himself had caused, and he looked toward Messer Guido, whom he knew, with a forced show of friendliness, and spoke with a gruff assumption of good-humor. "Messer Guido, will you tell ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... their room, he waited for Ernest to allude to what had happened. But Ernest prudently said nothing and waited also. Then while they were undressing Christophe decided to speak about his love. He was so ill at ease that he dared not look at Ernest: and in his shyness he assumed a gruff way of speaking. Ernest did not help him out: he was silent and did not look at him, though he watched him all the same: and he missed none of the humor of Christophe's awkwardness and clumsy words. Christophe hardly dared pronounce Ada's name: and the portrait that he drew of her would ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... passing on, when Ishmael turned in his lair, and demanded roughly who was moving before his half-opened eyes. Nothing short of the readiness and cunning of a savage could have evaded the crisis. Imitating the gruff tones and nearly unintelligible sounds he heard, Mahtoree threw his body heavily on the earth, and appeared to dispose himself to sleep. Though the whole movement was seen by Ishmael, in a sort of stupid ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at a table in what appeared to be the commander's cabin. They looked up from their game at Lord Hastings' gruff command and seeing but a solitary figure, all dropped their ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... and bloated, appeared at a hatch-window at the back of the room, and a gruff voice made ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... alongside," answered Paul through his trumpet, in a rapid off-hand tone, as though he were a gruff sort of friend, impatient at being suspected for ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... for him to enter that gate. Out popped two soldiers with great battle-axes in their hands and looking as fierce as dragons. "Are you a stranger in this town?" said one in a great, gruff voice. ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... come to supper," said a gruff, untamed voice; and Margaret perceived that the person in the gathering gloom of ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... of a distant lamp through the thick window-panes. A few minutes later a little square flap in the centre of my door was let down with a startling bang; a small hand-lamp was thrust through the aperture, and a gruff voice cried "Now, then, get up and light your gas: look sharp." I cannot say that I made any indecent haste. My gas was lit very leisurely, and as I returned the lamp I saw a scowling visage outside. The man was evidently ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... yet accomplished by our young friends, when startled by the sound of heavy footsteps and gruff voices in their rear, and casting a look behind them, they beheld, rapidly approaching by another path which wound about the base of the mountain, two men of most ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... on a bench behind a deal table, of which there were three or four in the kitchen; presently a bulky man, in a green coat, of the Newmarket cut, and without a hat, entered, and observing me, came up, and in rather a gruff tone ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... he said, with emphasis. Yet it surprised him slightly to find the gruff old light keeper enthusiastic concerning a scene which must be so very much a ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... exchanged a few words—the very shortest of consultations. They had been on the bridge together all night, and had said all that there was to be said about wind and weather. The captain gave a sharp order in his gruff voice, and, as if by magic, the watch on deck appeared from all sides. The chief officer emerged from his cabin beneath the wheel-house, and went forward into the fog, turning up his collar. Presently the jerk and clink of the steam-winch told that the anchor was being ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... boat, which was manned by four native sailors, and steered by a thick-set, powerful white man, who was wrapped up in a heavy coat, and who bade Barry a gruff "good evening," she was quickly slewed round, and in a few minutes was alongside again. No lights were visible on deck, but Captain Rawlings was standing in the waist smoking ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... queer little quirk to his mouth the gruff Senior Surgeon jerked his glance back from the open window where with the gleam of a slim torn-boyish ankle the frisky young Spring ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Harriet went to the door, and gave the peculiar rap which was her customary signal to her friends. There was not the usual ready response, and she was obliged to repeat the signal several times. At length a window was raised, and the head of a white man appeared, with the gruff question, "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" Harriet asked after her friend, and was told that he had been obliged to leave for ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford
... in just as the merriment over the Minstrel's little joke had died away. Ashby's voice—quick, sharp and decisive was that of a man accustomed to ordering men, but his manner was suave, if a trifle gruff. Moreover, he was a man of whom it could be said, paradoxical as it may seem, that he was never known to be drunk nor ever known to be sober. It was plain from his appearance that he had been ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... were married, and everybody in the two towns, except gruff old King Pelias, was glad. Apollo himself was one of the guests at the wedding feast, and he brought a present for the young bridegroom; it was a promise from the Mighty Folk upon the mountain top that if Admetus should ever ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... suspiciously shaky; his own eyes could not see the old cot, nor Jane's beaming face quite plainly, so he only gave a gruff assent and ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... and the air was hot and close. Not a sound came to his throbbing cars. With characteristic irrepressibility he began to swear softly, but articulately. Proof that his profanity was mild—one might say genteel—came in an instant. A gruff voice, startlingly near at ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... such sweetness lightened his features, that a murmur of "Blessings on his comely face!" ran through the assembly; and Adam indulged in a gruff startled murmur of "'Tis the Prince, or the devil himself!" while his young master, comprehending the gesture of the Prince, and overborne by the lovely winning graces of the Princess, stepped forward, doffing his cap and bending his knee, ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... word with a hard-drawn breath, and presented the appearance of a man who restrains himself. He was still endeavoring to maintain this attitude of repression when a discreet tap on the door called from Mr. van Tromp a gruff "Come in." A young ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... ambition: the gift was a cartoonist's facility in line drawing, and the ambition was to be able, in the dim and distant future, to illustrate Jimaboy's stories. Lantermann, the Times artist, whose rooms were just across the hall, had given her a few lessons in caricature and some little gruff, Teutonic encouragement. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... presence, Basil followed the example of Marcian in approaching with bent head to within a distance of three paces, then dropping to his knees, and bowing so as almost to touch the ground with his forehead. He heard a gruff voice command him ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... more than thistledown. Hardly a man has thought it worth his pains to envelop his shoulders in his plaid, but stands and lets the rain take its chance. There is a perfect babel of tongues; no bawling or shouting, however, but a perpetual gruff susurrus of broad guttural conversation accentuated every now and then by a louder exclamation in Gaelic. Quite half of the throng are discoursing in this language. It is possible to note the difference ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... tints gleamed against a sky of intensest blue. Behind him, as he turned to look, lay Lost Chief Valley, with blue clouds rolling from the tops of Dead Line and Falkner's Peaks. Douglas shivered and urged the team on. But the mule again balked, and as Doug gathered up the whip a gruff voice ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless they ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... voice, gruff as a day laborer's after these flute-sweet tones, increased his embarrassment. Nevertheless he determined that he would tell them ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... across the crowded Bridge, suddenly he felt himself seized roughly by the shoulders, and he heard a gruff voice exclaiming: 'There you are! I have found you ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... grew less blinding. The heat abated, but Albert Howard, who had fallen asleep, slept on. His brother drew a blanket over him, knowing that he could not afford to catch cold, and breathed the cooler air himself, with thankfulness. Conway came back again, and was scarcely less gruff than before, although he ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... house and read a sign near the door with the following card: 'Monsieur Magloire, taxidermist.' The lady got out and rang the bell, but to no purpose. Becoming bolder she knocked at the door. A sliding window was opened and a gruff voice asked: ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... him whistle. "Here's the boy himself! Going along wi' us, sonny?" he asked, looking down on me and speaking down in a voice which seemed to me unnaturally gentle—for I remembered him as a gruff fellow and irascible. The outside passengers at once broke off their talk to lean over and take stock of me; and this again struck ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... taking shape as the vessel approached it and showing a well-defined, rock-bound harbour. Was this the home harbour? The sick crawled on hands and knees above the hatchway to mumble out their thanks to God for escape from doom. A cask of brandy was opened, {25} and tears gave place to gruff, hilarious laughter. Every man was ready to swear that he recognized this headland, that he had known they were following the right course after all, and that he had never felt any ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... I have a veil, a beautiful—HAVE, did I say? Alas! Troy WAS. But I must not anticipate—a beautiful veil of brown tissue, none of your woolleny, gruff fabrics, fit only for penance, but a silken, gossamery cloud, soft as a baby's cheek. Yet everybody fleers at it. Everybody has a joke about it. Everybody looks at it, and holds it out at arms' length, and shakes it, and makes great eyes at it, and says, "What in the world—" ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the only one of the family who was nervous. Father and mother had become so changed that they were gruff and bad-tempered; and all the pleasure and light-heartedness seemed to have gone out of our long rambles. There was no more romping and rolling together down the hillsides. If Kahwa and I grew noisy in our play, we were certain to be stopped with a "Wooff, children! be quiet." The fear of ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... Mr. Walberg with this resentment so warm that his greeting of the strange gentleman was gruff and short. The caller, an alert, businesslike man, came at once to his point. He was, it proved, not the representative of a possibly repenting Baird. He was, on the contrary, representing a rival producer. He extended his ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... he had sunk into oblivion. We therefore carried on a very pleasant and vivacious conversation, as the night was warm and we were not inclined to sleep. Suddenly the old Cure pulled off the handkerchief and said in a gruff voice, "It is the time for sleeps and not for talks." and, having uttered this stinging rebuke, re-covered his head and left us in penitent silence. We arrived at Evians-les-Bains in good time, and went to a very charming hotel with a lovely view of the Lake ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... of night to call on a gentleman; come to-morrow and leave your cards," rumbled the gruff voice from inside ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... was white and set, now. He was facing death at the hands of a man whom he had befriended many times. He did not know Catherson's motive in coming here, but he knew that the slightest insincere word; a tone too light or too gruff, the most insignificant hostile movement, would bring about a quick pressure of the trigger of Catherson's pistol. Diplomacy would not answer; it must be a battle of the spirit; naked courage alone could save him, could ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... which "Papa is opposed." Sometimes his protest takes the form of a good-natured laugh and shrug accompanied by the time-battered observation that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks." More frequently overtures of this kind are repulsed by the gruff excuse: ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... A general gruff titter ran round the vault as one of the men placed beside the bottle a jar with a brush in it and ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... tale by varying height and brightness. I hear under my window the sprint of over-tired horses, the rattle of uncertain wheels as the street-sellers hasten south; the jangle of cab bells as the theatre-goers take their homeward way; the gruff altercation of weary men, the unmelodious song and clamorous laugh of women whose merriment is wearier still. Then comes a time of stillness when the light in the sky waxes and wanes, when the cloud-drifts obscure the stars, and I gaze out into blackness ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... I do not know," replied Seti forgetting his feigned voice. Then, seeing that she glanced at him sharply, he added in gruff tones: ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... Gruff; "a promise is a promise if there are laws in Paflagonia! And as for that monster, that wretch, that fiend, that ugly little vixen—as for that upstart, that ingrate, that beast, Betsinda, Master ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a little thin for travelin'?" asked gruff Mr. Spooner anxiously, and for his part he pointed the storekeeper to a small bright plaid shawl that hung overhead, and stooped to wrap it himself ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... various accents, those foreign intonations, gruff or faltering, as one gazed upon those widely different physiognomies, some violent, barbarous, vulgar, others hyper-civilized, worn, suggestive only of the Boulevard and as it were flaccid, one noted that the same diversity was evident also among the servants who, some apparently lads just out ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... to ponder over the difficulties confronting our expedition, some few of the crew now began to 'speak it foully,' and even to emit gruff proposals to return homewards. But to these waverers old Bill at once administered the sternest rebuke; and, as they at last held their peace, he averred with a gay smile (for he dearly loved the presence of danger, and could never be brought to look on it other ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... gave a shrill cry of surprise, and then screamed with laughter. One of them tried to grab the hair, but the poilu held it high, beyond her reach, with a gruff command of, "Hands off!" Other soldiers and women in the estaminet gathered round staring at the yellow tress, laughing, making ribald conjectures as to the character of the woman from whose head it had come. They agreed that ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... seeking to gain the big chance that he believes would open the door to success fails to secure his opportunity because he is disconcerted by a gruff reception that he misconstrues as personal to him. He wrongly interprets natural self-defense as a sign ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... week or ten days in the harbor, owing to head winds or inclement weather we set sail; and I remember well that the pilot, Fowler by name, as he was about to leave the vessel, throwing his leg over the bulwarks, said in his gruff voice to our skipper, "I will give you twenty-eight ...
— Piracy off the Florida Coast and Elsewhere • Samuel A. Green
... the floor for some time unconscious of what was going on around me, in a sort of stupor, utterly crushed over the horrors about me. I do not know how long I had lain there, perhaps ten minutes, perhaps half an hour, when suddenly I heard a gruff, deep voice behind me—the brigadier, who had come around to inspect and to give orders about the outposts. His calm, quiet voice brought me to my senses and I reported to him. His self-assurance, kindness, and determination ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... gave Billy a brief and gruff negative to his query and went on painting barrel labels. He was thinking of other matters, but Billy still hung around. He had a hunch that he might be going to make merchandise in some way of the knowledge that he had gained, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... strong revulsion. Better the continued buffeting with an obstreperous mob than the embarrassments he foresaw in such a rencontre; but it was too late to avoid it: the interests and perils of the two parties were too nearly identical, and he heard the gruff voice of ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... used to brag, "and knows every beast on the place as well as I do myself." This was gross exaggeration, yet was the infant Harry a conspicuously forward child, with the "makings of a man" in him visible to all. His hearty whoas and gee-ups carried as far as the overseer's gruff voice; and the picture of the jolly boy, with his rosy, joyous face, and his fair curls blowing in the wind, was one to kindle the admiration of all who saw it. The phrase continually on the lips of his adopted family and connections was: 'Won't his father be surprised when he sees him!' ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... finally she did show some good sense, she asked the man standin' on the platform if he would help her off, for she had been tryin' to git off for the last five stations. So she had to take a car back, but the conductor wuz humbly and gruff and she got along all ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... said at length, with an easy, gruff good-humour, "I place the life of Philip Danvelt in those fair hands to do with as you please. Surely, sweeting, you will not be so unkind as ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... and vivid diamonds that seemed to set the very air on fire all round them. Fischer stood beaming benevolently and drinking deep of the astonishment and ecstasy of the girl, the grim admiration and gruff thanks of the colonel, the wonder of ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
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