"Crackle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the dead: While all around, confusion, rage, and fright, Mix the contending hosts in mortal fight. So pent by hills, the wild winds roar aloud In the deep bosom of some gloomy wood; Leaves, arms, and trees, aloft in air are blown, The broad oaks crackle, and the Sylvans groan; This way and that, the rattling thicket bends, And the whole forest in one crash descends. Not with less noise, with less tumultuous rage, In dreadful shock the mingled hosts engage. Darts shower'd ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... calm. "Read it—out loud," she said. "Then we'll know." She tried to smile, and made so great a failure of it that she came very near crying. The faint crackle of the cheap paper when Lite unfolded the letter made her start nervously. "Read it—no matter—what it is," she repeated, when she saw Lite's eyes go rapidly ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... eleven, but couldn't hear well on the up-stairs extension, so I went to the instrument down-stairs, where the operator told me it was long-distance, from Buckhorn. So I listened, with my heart in my mouth. But all I could get was a buzz and crackle and an occasional ghostly word. It was the storm, I suppose. Then I heard Peter's voice, thin and faint and far away, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... gold, stewards hurrying up from below with provisions with which to stock the boats, and the captain on the bridge overlooking all, the whole deck brilliantly illuminated by every available electric lamp, while overhead the steam still roared out of the pipes, and the crackle of the wireless obtruded itself ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... unregenerate life again,—to scuffle, swear, gamble, and love light loves with his fellows; to take ship and know the sea once more, and by her beget pictures; to talk to Binat among the sands of Port Said while Yellow 'Tina mixed the drinks; to hear the crackle of musketry, and see the smoke roll outward, thin and thicken again till the shining black faces came through, and in that hell every man was strictly responsible for his own head, and his own alone, and struck with an unfettered arm. It was ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... than a fire in daylight. She heard wild voices singing; on still days she saw the trees in Knapp Forest bent to a furious wind. When Mabilla crept up the fell on noiseless feet to spy for Andrew King, Bessie Prawle heard the bents hiss and crackle under her, as if she ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... save at the end of sentences, the ultimate word being pronounced with distinct emphasis. Page after page was turned; the droning sound of his voice went on and on, with its clock-like inflections at the end of sentences; the revived crackle of coals lent spirit to an otherwise dreary solo, and always it was Melissa who poked the grate and at the same time rubbed her leg to renew the circulation that had been checked by the limp weight of Katie Sykes; the deep sighs of Mrs. Bingle and the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... their stems grew thickly together, the horse, with his strange rider, could make but slow way among them; and every now and then the former, half blind with affright, dashed his sides against the trunks, causing them to crackle and ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... Prussians, in regular force, appear on the Kaninchen Berg (Cony Hill, so called from its rabbits), south of the River, evidently taking post there. Roth fires a signal shot; the Southern Suburbs of Neisse, as preappointed, go up in flame; crackle high and far; in a lamentable manner (ERBARMLICH), through the grim winter air." This is the day Friedrich came over to Ottmachau, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... quietly. "We have, indeed, met with good fortune." Again we heard the brushwood crackle, and a second man, resembling the first in appearance and dress, came forward, and together they held a conversation, interspersed largely with the gestures which play so prominent a part in the language ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Tredgold. "As a matter of fact, I'm dying with curiosity myself. Bring it out and make it crackle, captain; it's a bank-note for ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... before the fire in pairs, instead of by threes as in Ireland, and named for a lover and his lass. If they burn to ashes together, long happy married life is destined for the lovers. If they crackle or start away from each other, dissension and ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... but their curiosity was not satisfied immediately by Frank. Instead his face became set in concentration once more. After some moments of silence, broken only by the slight noise of the receiver, he pressed his hand on the sending apparatus and the Southern Cross's wireless began to crackle and spit and emit a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of the smoke, but it soon became impossible to communicate with the men with anything like regularity, for the roar and crackle of the flames grew deafening, many of the bamboo posts exploding like muskets, and before long Murray had hard work to satisfy himself that the men were not ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... because he dared to open the Country of the Gods to the contemptible foreigners; and in the cry of the tofu-seller echoes the voice of old Japan, a long-drawn wail, drowned at last by the grinding of the tram wheels and the lash and crackle of the ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... personal safety, is devoured with anxiety concerning the too imminent fate of her hostess' china. There is a little Lowestoft tea-service that was picked up only last week at Christie and Manson's, a turquoise blue crackle jar that is supposed to be priceless, and a pair of "Long Eliza" vases, which her hostess loves as much as she does her toy terrier, and far better than she ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... little old ship was finished and had sailed at last and for once our wireless plant up there began to get messages from the sea. I dreamed I was sitting up there with the operator. It was a dark, stormy night. The wireless began to crackle. He jumped up to see what was coming. He was getting messages from our own ship, away out there on the ocean. She was calling for help. 'Sinking fast,—sinking fast,—sinking fast.' Over and over again,—just those two words. ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... the brilliant light and the crackle of the tindery fuel, Miss Bab refilled her apron, and fed the fire till the chimney began to rumble ominously, sparks to fly out at the top, and soot and swallows' nests to come tumbling down upon the hearth. Then, scared at what she had done, the little mischief-maker hastily buried her fire, ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... was promised. For days they had had no fighting worthy the name. Amigos everywhere, villages peopled only by women and children, treacherous peacefulness on every side; this had been their encounter: an occasional rifle shot from the rice fields, a crackle of guns far ahead, a prisoner or two who had not been quick enough in transforming himself from combatant to friend, that was all. Now, there seemed ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... had thought that she might hear. Other people had their letters and were reading them on the veranda, but there was nothing for her. She sat there for a while, cold with disappointment, listening to the tearing open of envelopes and the pleasant crackle of thick letter-paper. Then, when Timmy, the black cat, suddenly leapt off her lap, as if in a mad rush after something he fondly hoped was a mouse, Angela was glad of an excuse to follow. But Timmy, who was of an independent ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... she said; "and it seems such a treat to get away from the Lawn—of course I am sorry to leave mamma, you know," she added, parenthetically—"and the stiff breakfasts, and Mr. Sheldon's newspapers that crackle, crackle, crackle so shockingly all breakfast-time; and the stiff dinners, with a prim parlor-maid staring at one all the time, and bringing one vegetables that one doesn't want if one only ventures to breathe a little louder than usual. Here it is Liberty Hall. Uncle Joe—he is aunt Dorothy's ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... countenance; curiously mingling with its ardors and audacities. A beautiful childlike soul! He was naturally a favorite in conversation, especially with all who had any funds for conversing: frank and direct, yet polite and delicate withal,—though at times too he could crackle with his dexterous petulancies, making the air all like needles round you; and there was no end to his logic when you excited it; no end, unless in some form of silence on your part. Elderly men of reputation ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... only the crackle of an open mike and the sound of breathing. "That is your decision," he said finally. "I'll have a ship standing by. But won't you let us take Miss Morees ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... the men fighting each other like animals; trees were cut down by the bullets which tore through them from every direction; bursting shells set fire to the woods, suffocating the wounded or burning them to death; wild charges were made, ending in wilder stampedes or bloody repulses; the crackle of flames rose high above the pandemonium of battle and dense smoke-clouds drifted chokingly above this hideous carnival of death. Thus for two days the armies staggered backward and forward with no result save a horrible loss of life. Once the Union forces almost ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... dress!" rang the calm orders as a wood, almost behind them, was suddenly fringed with white smoke and a long, rolling crackle broke out. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... innate love of contention, which had been constantly flattered by triumph, brought, his whole nature into play with the prospect of the morrow: not much liking it either. There is a nerve, in brave warriors that does not like the battle before, the crackle of musketry is heard, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... turned back and waited, and in a few minutes the Southern horsemen came in sight, opening fire at once. Their infantry, too, soon appeared in the woods and fields and the dark hours before the dawn were filled with the crackle of small arms. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... flashed up and the steady crackle of flames began. From the debris below came the scream of ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... year, much better. But the old windmill, which looked on in its time at thirty full meetings, still surely misses the week when the dells and the long stretches of heather rattled from the first gun to sunset with the crackle of Martinis and match rifles. The windmill watches red-coated golfers to-day, playing to some of the prettiest greens in the south of England; but the days for the windmill were when the tents were white about the heather, and when they sold Stewart's ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... blanket when you're in bed to-night, Mrs. Pittis. 'Well, your highness,' said I, 'how about the pain?' 'Pah!' says the king, 'where's your philosophy? Did you never see a fly jump into a lamp-flame?' 'Yes, sure,' I answered. 'And what happened then? A moment's crackle, and an end of it. You've no time to feel pain.' 'Well, then,' said I, 'if your majesty will make a hole for me as near the middle as is convenient to yourself, I will jump into the bed straightway.' The king made a great spatter among the coals, and in I jumped. You know, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and every sense on the alert, was keeping a careful look-out from behind an immense projecting buttress of the tree. All was deadly quiet. H. and myself were occupied watching the gambols of some monkeys in our front. The beaters were yet far off. Suddenly Pat heard a faint crackle on a dried leaf. He glanced in the direction of the sound, and his quick eye detected the glossy coats, the beautifully spotted hides of not one leopard, but two. In a moment the stillness was broken by the report of ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... still hot from recent use, placed one hand over the draft, that the fire might not ignite too rapidly, and crept out of the cellar. Any person awake in the house, might have traced the dark progress of this woman by a faint crackle, and the sparks that shot now and then up through the black mass of coal, which was kindling so fast, that the hand which she still kept upon the draft ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... on the appointed afternoon. There was a fire on her hearth and a March snow-squall tapped against the window panes. The crackle of the logs inside and that eerie, light sound outside were so associated with Prosper that, even before he came, Joan, sitting on one side of the hearth, closed her eyes and felt that he must be opposite to her in his red-lacquered chair, his long legs stuck ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Mararin or Gondin who has cast the evil eye, may her eyes crack and fall out.' And at the same time they throw the mustard, chillies and salt on the fire so that the eyes of her who cast the evil eye may crack and fall out as these things crackle in ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... here Mrs. Stanton and I are, scratching, scratching every hour, not each other's eyes but the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... meditatively at Violet. Violet looked smilingly at James. The morning was just as ripping as it had been a moment before. James was still twenty-two. And the editor's letter had not ceased to crackle in ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... careful movements, it was easy enough to move the books silently, and at last she discovered the blue envelope, tucked between two of them. She drew it out without a sound,—careful lest the paper should crackle,—and started to retrace her stealthy steps upstairs again, when she saw the hem of the portiere move ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... the bundle of dry grass on the badger's back. The badger, hearing the crackle of the burning grass, ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... upward scramble clattered down noisily. Withered leaves, shaken free from niches where the winds had gathered them, showered fitfully into the valley. He began drawing himself along by shrubs and young trees that covered a long outward curve in the face of the cliff. Those below heard the crackle of frozen twigs, and the swish of released boughs that marked his progress. Phil stood watching him with an absorbed interest in which fear became dominant. Better than the others Phil knew the perils of the cliff, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... spacious, and lighted by two large windows opening on the garden; the floor was of oak, and there was a great fireplace where the largest logs used in a country in which the wood costs nothing could find ample room to blaze and crackle. It took the young man several days to make the necessary changes, and during that time he enjoyed a respite from the petty annoyances worked by the steady hostility of Manette Sejournant and her son. To the great indignation of the inhabitants of the chateau, he packed off the massive billiard-table, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to the saloon the captain passed the room of the wireless operator, and the tense crackle of the spark told him that the SOS signal was winging its beseeching flight through ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... broke line upon line of yelling figures clothed in uniform. Screaming the battle-cry, the warriors charged, led by Zalu Zako, Bakahenzie, and Kawa Kendi, who in the excitement had dashed from the enclosure. Howls and yells were drowned in the spiteful crackle and cough. Warriors were mown like weeds under a sickle. Scarce a hundred scrambled inside the enclosure at the ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... as a rule, beside the stove in an almost empty log-walled room, reading a book you have probably read three or four times before. Outside, the frost is Arctic; you can hear the roofing shingles crackle now and then; and you wake up when the fire burns low. There's no life, no company, rarely a new face, and if you go to a dance or supper somewhere, perhaps once a month, you ride back on a bob-sled frozen almost stiff ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... are called mountains in the North, and where for good reasons they had passed the winter, followed by the wolves, who fed upon their weak and sick. Everywhere there were the rushing torrents of melting snows, the crackle of crumbling ice, the dying frost-cries of rock and earth and tree, and each night the cold, pale glow of the Aurora Borealis crept farther and farther toward the ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... assault. Napoleon consented. Kleber, who was of gigantic stature, with a head of hair worthy of a German music-master or of a Soudan dervish, led his grenadiers to the edge of the breach and stood there, while with gesture and voice—a voice audible even above the fierce and sustained crackle of the musketry—he urged his men on. Napoleon, standing on a gun in the nearest French battery, watched the sight with eager eyes—the French grenadiers running furiously up the breach, the grim line of levelled muskets that barred it, the sudden roar of the English guns as from ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... been urged to extend. It was pitch dark, with a steadily increasing drizzle of rain and an occasional rumble of thunder. In front there were as yet no indications of shell-fire, only an intermittent crackle ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... all, America is a trying place of sojourn for the aforesaid canny Scot—the man who without being stingy (oh, dear, no!) has "all his generous impulses under perfect control." The sixpences do not "bang" in this country: they crepitate, they crackle, as though shot from a Maxim quick-firer. For instance, the lowest electric-trolley fare is twopence-halfpenny. It is true that for five cents you can, if you wish it, ride fifteen or twenty miles; but that advantage becomes inappreciable ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... fusillade from Fracasse's trench and yet not to neglect the fair targets of the reserves advancing by rushes to the support of the 128th. Reinforced, the gray streak at the bottom of the slope poured in a heavier fire. Above the steady crackle of bullets sent and the whistle of bullets received rose the cry of "Doctor! Doctor!" which meant each time that another Brown rifle had been silenced. The litter bearers, hard pressed to remove the wounded, left the dead. Already death was a familiar sight—an article of exchange ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... which rises just before the sun, blew into their faces, and shook the snow off the swinging twigs with a dry crackle. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... backing, step by step, away from the heat of the burning stacks. The roar, and the crackle, and the heat were terrific; it was as if the whole world was burning around them, and they only were left. A brand flew low over Val's head as she ran staggeringly, with a bewildered sense that she must hurry somewhere and do something immediately, to save something which ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... it, its laughter so outrivaled every other sound that she had difficulty in discerning the Howes' approaching tread, and it was not until the distinct crackle of underbrush reached her ear that she became aware they were approaching. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... talking and looked straight at the officer, standing erect and waiting, as if he expected a quick answer, and only the kind of answer, too, that he wished. Meanwhile there was silence, save for an occasional crackle of burning wood. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... out, is the most stimulating on earth. Its summer breezes fill the lungs with wine. Its autumns are incomparable, a golden glow in which valley and hill bask lazily. Its winters are warm with sunshine and cold with the crisp crackle of frost. Its springs—they might be worse. Any Coloradoan will admit the climate is superlative. But there is one slight rift in the lute, hardly to be mentioned as a discord in the universal harmony. Sudden weather changes do occur. A shining summer sun vanishes and in a twinkling of ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... familiar. The plover and blackbird fell silent. The prairie-chicken's piping cry ceased as the flocks grew toward maturity, and the lark and cricket alone possessed the russet plain, which seemed to snap and crackle in the midnight frost, and to wither away in ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... have felt it too, for all at once he ceased to speak, and I was trembling so much with this new feeling of tenderness that I could not utter a word. So I heard nothing as we walked on but the crackle of our footsteps on the gravel path and the measured boom of the sea which we were leaving behind us—nothing but that and the quick beating in ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... believe in the danger which menaced him, and already an imposing army was advancing against his scattered and divided forces. Already Lannes had beaten General Ott at Montebello, after a hotly disputed engagement. "I heard the bones crackle like a hailstorm on the ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... proceeded to kindle a fire with a tinder-box lent her by Mrs. Chivers. It amused the babe to watch the sparks as they flew about, and when the pile of turves and sticks and heather was in combustion, to listen to the crackle, and watch the play ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... Duggan and obeyed. The cabin door was open, and he entered. One look assured him that Duggan had good reason to be "sot up." The first big room reminded him of the Shack. Beyond that was another room in which he heard someone moving and the crackle of a fire in a stove. Outside Duggan was whistling. He broke off whistling to sing, and as Keith listened to the river-man's bellowing voice chanting the words of the song he had sung at McCoffin's Bend for twenty years, he grinned. And then he heard the humming of a voice in the kitchen. Even ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... know how long, all dead asleep. At last it seemed to me that I heard a noise in my sleep, something like a thing moving, very faint, however, far away; then it died, and then it came again upon my ear as I slept, and now it appeared almost as if I heard crackle, crackle; then it died again, or I became yet more dead asleep than before, I know not which, but I certainly lay some time without hearing it. All of a sudden I became awake, and there was I, on the ridge of the hill, with my cheek on the ground towards the stubble, with ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... ship, and all the ocean, Woke up in wild commotion. Then the wind set up a howling, And the poodle dog a yowling, And the cocks began a crowing, And the old cow raised a lowing, As she heard the tempest blowing; And fowls and geese did cackle, And the cordage and the tackle Began to shriek and crackle; And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, And down the deck in runnels; And the rushing water soaks all, From the seamen in the fo'ksal To the stokers whose black faces Peer out of their bed-places; And the captain he was bawling, And the sailors pulling, hauling, And the quarter-deck tarpauling ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sea that swirling tower of scarlet flame hurled its illumination. For miles on every hand it could be seen. The sound of its crackle and hiss and roar was deafening. The twigs, dry and dead, caught fire from the surrounding blaze of moss, and communicated their flame to the thicker branches and to the tree's ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the rapids was, when circumstances took us into the black current we fared no better. For good all-round inconvenience, give me going full tilt in the dark into the branches of a fallen tree at the pace we were going then—and crash, swish, crackle and there you are, hung up, with a bough pressing against your chest, and your hair being torn out and your clothes ribboned by others, while the wicked river is trying to drag away the canoe from under you. After a good hour and more of these experiences, we went hard on to a large black reef ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... on shore!" quoth little Love Winslow, clapping her hands. "Dost hear, mother? I've been counting the strokes—fifteen— and then crackle! crackle! crackle! ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... awful thing. Judgment is to go before Him, He bears 'His fan in His hand,' and kindles 'unquenchable fire,' into which the leafy trees that have no fruit upon them are to be flung, there to shrivel and crackle and disappear. This is what he expects at the worst, and at the best a baptism in the Holy Ghost, from Messiah's hands, which, however, is likewise to be fiery even whilst it quickens, and searching and destructive ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the sputter and crackle of road-surfacing machines—the cheap Western type which fuse stone and rubbish into lava-like ribbed glass for their rough country roads. Three or four surfacers worked on each side of a square of ruins. The brick ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... chair and sat down before the mirror. For a full minute he sat, as if enchained, then at length—in obedience to the force that was dominating him—his fingers crept under the string, there came to the ear a faint, sharp crackle, and the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the great thought that joy is a Christian duty. The true joy is not the kind of joy that a saying in the Old Testament compares to the 'crackling of thorns under a pot,' but something very much calmer, with no crackle in it; and very much deeper, and very much more in alliance with 'whatsoever things are lovely and of good report,' than that foolish, short-lived, and empty mirth that burns down so ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... minutes more, and then set to work quietly, after the fashion of English mastiffs, though, like those mastiffs, they waxed right mad before three rounds were fired, and the white splinters (sight beloved) began to crackle and fly. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... was in the sitting room, as usual. His spirits were as gray as the weather. He was actually lonesome for the first time since his return home. He had kindled a wood fire in the stove, just for the sociability of it, and the crackle and glow behind the isinglass panes only served to remind him of other days and other fires. The sitting room had not ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and the men of Jakoits village, rushed along the narrow path that led to his house, they heard the roar and crackle of the flames; when they gained the open they saw the bright light shining on the old cannon, whose polished brass was stained and streaked with red. Tiaru lay ...
— The Brothers-In-Law: A Tale Of The Equatorial Islands; and The Brass Gun Of The Buccaneers - 1901 • Louis Becke
... my chrysalist and waiting for the right time, When—I thought—they'd bust to wings and Bill would rise and fly, Tick, tack, tick, tack, as if it came in answer, Sweeping o'er my head again the tide o' dreams went by,— I must get to Piddinghoe to-morrow if I can, sir, Tick, tack, a crackle in my chrysalist, a cry! Then the warm blue sky Bust the shell, and out ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the song of the pines a few score yards from Alton's camp. He knew where to find the resinous knots with their sticky exudations, and was a master of the axe, while it was noticeable that when the fire commenced to crackle he stood still and listened again before he went down to the river with the kettle. Nor did he at once return into the light, but slipped for a moment behind a wide-girthed trunk. It was only a deer he heard moving along the hillside above him, and there was nothing visible but the row of ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... There was only the crackle of the loudspeaker. The set was tuned in on the Wallops Island command frequency, Rick realized. That was how Camillion and company knew when to release the balloon, and when to trigger ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... sends away her little daughter so that she must go alone. She rides with her mother to the railroad and sees her little one walking directly upon the tracks, so that she cannot avoid being run over. She hears the bones crackle. (From this she experiences a feeling of discomfort but no real horror.) She then looks out through the car window to see whether the parts cannot be seen behind. She then reproaches her mother for allowing ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... in the little breakfast-room. Susy could be heard moving about overhead; she would be down directly. Meanwhile the winter sunshine came broadly in; the singing of the tea-kettle, the crackle of the fire made domestic music. But Lydia's soul was far away. It stood ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... crosses the Elbe at Jaromirz. Entirely unopposed; the Austrians were all busy firing FEU-DE-JOIE for the Election of their Grand-Duke: Election done five days ago at Frankfurt, and the news just come. So they crackle about, and deliver rolling fire, at a great rate; proud to be "IMPERIAL Army" henceforth, as if that could do much for them. There was also vast dining, for three days, among the high heads, and a great deal of wine spent. That probably ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... recommended a thorough investigation. There was no other way. If Manning was cleared of the responsibility for the crash, he was free, and it would not show up against his record. If he wasn't, however, then he'd have to pay. Yes, thought Connel to himself, as Stefens' voice began to crackle harshly on the audiograph, if Manning was guilty, then Manning would most certainly pay. ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... supper that we had every night was just as cheerful. Before the men came in out of the field, a large fagot was flung upon the fire. The wood used to crackle, and blaze, and smell delightfully. And then the crickets, who loved the fire, began to sing. The old shepherd loved the fire almost as well as the crickets did, and he would take his place in the chimney corner at supper time. He had a seat near the fireplace, quite under the chimney, and over ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... the same factory," continued he, selecting a second specimen from the cabinet. "This is a copy of the Chinese 'conventional dog,' made of blue 'crackle-ware.' You see, the glaze is cracked all over the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... several times with his stick on the brick floor of the King's Head kitchen, and had not heard a sound in answer. The clock ticked to and fro, and the tabby cat purred softly as she sat before the fire, and the wood now and then gave a little crackle as it burned gently away, and those were all the signs of life to ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... gunpowder, dynamite, gun cotton, nitroglycerine, nitrocellulose, plastic explosive, plastique, TNT, cordite, trinitrotoluene, picric acid, picrates, mercury fulminate (arms) 727. whack, wham, pow. V. rap, snap, tap, knock, ping; click; clash; crack, crackle; crash; pop; slam, bang, blast, boom, clap, clang, clack, whack, wham; brustle^; burst on the ear; crepitate, rump. blow up, blow; detonate. Adj. rapping &c v.. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the sea, and immediately a great cloud of steam arose, and the hissing as of a thousand serpents. We felt the strong suction under our keel, and staggered under the jerk of the ship's cable as she swung toward the beach. The paint was beginning to crackle along the rail. We could see nothing for the scalding white veil that enveloped us; we could hear nothing for the roar of steam, the bombardment of explosions, and the crash of thunder; but our nostrils were assaulted by a most unearthly ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... waltzing from one end of the room to the other. "And we're off to Ab-yss-in-ia in the morn-ing," he sang. "There's plenty in my money belt," he cried, slapping his side; "you can hear the ten-pound notes crackle whenever I breathe, and it's all yours, my dear boy, and welcome. And I'll prove to you that the Winchester is ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... posts is father to the man who cannot eat an egg which has been boiled either more or less than four minutes; who cannot work without absolute silence; who cannot sleep if steam-pipes crackle; and who must straighten out all the tangles of his life, past, present, and future, before he can close his eyes in slumber or take a vacation. The boy Carlyle, proud, shy, sensitive, and pugnacious, was father to the man who made war upon ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... poetry of fire are wanting; you have nothing but an atmosphere that will be comfortable or asphyxiating, according to the taste of your hosts. Years ago in South Germany you burnt nothing but logs of wood in the old-fashioned iron stoves, and there was some faint pleasure in listening to their crackle. You could just see the flames too, if you stooped low enough and opened the little stove door. But the wood burnt so quickly that it was most difficult to keep a big room warm. Nowadays you always find the porcelain stove that Mark Twain says looks like the family monument. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... air, and the resultant crackle was so immediate and loud that he shook his head. "I give it up," he said. "I've never seen ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... all four over the open space of twenty yards. Three or four shots came zipping from aloft, but the instant ring of Winchesters back of them told that watchful eyes had noted every head that appeared, and the swift crackle of fire from the shop put instant stop to the fun up the slope. Into the store-room the manager led them, and unlocked a heavy little trap-door within; then, one by one, the ominous-looking cases were ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... which grow to such majestic beauty in France; and Jack was environed by the mysteries of nature,—nature in the springtime of the year, when one can almost hear the grass grow, the buds expand, and the earth crackle as the tender herbage shoots forth. All these faint, vague noises bewildered little Jack, who began to sing a nursery rhyme with which his mother formerly rocked him ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... tameness is shocking to me." It is the world of "big game." Just now a heavy-headed elk, with much-branched horns fully three feet long, stood and looked at me, and then quietly trotted away. He was so near that I heard the grass, crisp with hoar frost, crackle under his feet. Bears stripped the cherry bushes within a few yards of us last night. Now two lovely blue birds, with crests on their heads, are picking about within a stone's-throw. This is "The ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the polished narra table, sipping a sweet, false Spanish wine from which we drew, not a convivial spirit, but rather a quiet, reflective gloom. All the shell shutters were drawn back; we could see the tin-roofed city gleam and crackle with the heat, and beyond the lithe line of cocoanuts, the iridescent sea, tugging the heart with offer of coolness. But, all of us, we knew the promise to be Fake, monumental Fake, knew the alluring depths to be hot as ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... and sparks by being rubbed. If you stroke a black cat briskly in the dark, you will see faint flashes of light come from her fur; and on very cold nights in the winter season, flannels that are worn next the skin crackle, and give sparks when taken off ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... dauntless and discerning commander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He chose Dicky and Oswald as guides. So we led him to the ambush, and we went through it as quietly as we could. But twigs do crackle and snap so when you are reconnoitring, or anxious to escape detection for ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... and crackle from the stove, the grinding of the gray dog's teeth, the bumping and hissing of the gale outside, the boom of the cascades at the precipices, made up most of the sounds for that evening. Of chat there was a paucity. My knowledge of Norsk extends to few parts ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... go together: and dost thou reckon I would miss that—yea, so much as one of them—out of regard for that which is, saith Solomon, 'sonitum spinarum sub olla'? [Ecclesiastes chapter seven, verse 6]. Ha, jolife! let the thorns crackle away, prithee; they shall ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... sorts of Paste made, and among them, are some which are made with Eggs, according to the old fashion; but these are always hard, when they are baked, though they will fly and crackle in the Mouth, but they taste like Sticks: while, on the other side, leave out your Eggs, and use Butter and Water only, as in the following Receipts, and your Paste will melt in the Mouth, and be ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... streamed up, not red alone, but, delicately green and blue, pale rose and pearly white, while crimson sparks leapt and fell again in the midst of that rainbow, not of hope, but of despair; and dull explosions down below mingled with the roar of the mob, and the infernal hiss and crackle of ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... life. He felt the stress and strain of life, its fevers and sweats and wild insurgences—surely this was the stuff to write about! He wanted to glorify the leaders of forlorn hopes, the mad lovers, the giants that fought under stress and strain, amid terror and tragedy, making life crackle with the strength of their endeavor. And yet the magazine short stories seemed intent on glorifying the Mr. Butlers, the sordid dollar- chasers, and the commonplace little love affairs of commonplace little men and women. Was it because the editors of the magazines were commonplace? he demanded. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... to the commander of the column, and soon the trumpets were calling the men to battle. The crackle of rifle shots ahead increased rapidly. The skirmishers were already pulling trigger, and, as Dick galloped back to Hertford he saw many puffs of white smoke down the road and in the fields and woods on either side. The Union men began to cheer. ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he was a lucky man to have got you when so many other men wanted you, and he loved you, good-bye—would have fairly made your heart turn over with joy and made you kiss the hurried lines and thrust the letter in your belt, where you could crackle it now and then just to make ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... which had to last for two more days, was very welcome. The damp had not reached the biscuits, and for several minutes it could be heard cracking under the solid teeth of Dick Sand and his companions. Between Hercules's jaws it was like grain under the miller's grindstone. It did not crackle, it powdered. ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... me, Seignior, I should crackle like a wicker Bottle in her Arms— no, Seignior, there's no venturing without a Grate between us: the Devil wou'd not give her due Benevolence— No, when I'm marry'd, I'll e'en show her a fair pair of Heels, her Portion will pay Postage —But what if ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... good guess who that smart chap is; but don't bother trying to deny it, Hugh. The only bad thing about it in my mind is that we'll miss those jolly fires. It's always been so fine to skate up and stand before one, to get warm, and hear the flames crackle, while the girl you're skating with sits on a log, or something like that, to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... shout of rage, and made the boat leap through the water as now, in addition to the sharp crackle of the Winchesters, they heard the heavier report of a Snider, and Harvey, jumping up on the after whaleback, and steadying himself with one hand on Atkins's shoulder, saw that only two or three of Oliver's crew were now paddling—the rest had been ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... to the right and jolted over what seemed to be a shallow ditch. The road that followed was of the roughest character. If it was a road at all it was a wood-track; Evan heard the twigs crackle under the tires. They lurched and bumped alarmingly. Once they had to stop to allow the chauffeur to drag some obstruction out of the way. Evidently they had not had the car that way before, for the ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... disappeared into the blackness of the brush. Joe swung the horses up in a galloping curve and with one catlike leap, incredibly light for a man of his chunky build, was down from the seat and crashing through the bushes on the trail of that fugitive whose noisy flight had already become a faint crackle in the distance. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the lake nearest the fawns' hiding-place, and wait in my canoe for the mother to come out and show me where she had left her little ones. As they grew, and the drain upon her increased from their feeding, she seemed always half starved. Waiting in my canoe I would hear the crackle of brush, as she trotted straight down to the lake almost heedlessly, and see her plunge through the fringe of bushes that bordered the water. With scarcely a look or a sniff to be sure the coast was clear, she would jump for the lily pads. Sometimes ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... and went up his stairs, he could not shake off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to the saddle ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... thrown the paper down, with no thought of reading it, and paused to hang up his coat and hat. Upon his return, he was confronted by a black headline in letters two inches deep, and flinging the paper open with a sharp crackle, he stood rigid while the meaning ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... the stars and listening to the dear, minute sounds of peace; and in another the great gray slate was clean, and every bone of me set in plaster of Paris, and sniping beginning between pickets with the day. It was an occasional crack, not a constant crackle, but the whistle of a bullet as it passed us by, or a tiny transitory flame for the one bit of detail on a blue hill-side, was an unpleasant warning that we two on ours were a target in ourselves. But Raffles paid no attention to their fire; he was pointing downward through the bushes ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... china-hunters concerning, for instance, the difference between porcelain from Lowestoft and porcelain from China. Then, again, in the society of a real enthusiast one is apt to be bored by a recapitulation of his or her full accumulations of knowledge. You are shown a bit of "crackle." You look at it admiringly and express your pleasure. Is that enough? Can the subject be dismissed so easily? Far from it. "This is real crackle," the collector insists, with more than a suspicion that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... faint flashes along the edge of the further ways. By their light Graham saw the heads and bodies of a number of men, armed with weapons like those of his guards, leap into an instant's dim visibility. The whole area began to crackle, to flash with little instantaneous streaks of light, and abruptly the darkness rolled ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... course, that, in the end of ends, nothing but the right conquers; the prevalent thorns of wrong, at last, crackle away in indiscriminate flame: and of the good seed sown, one grain in a thousand some day comes up—and somebody lives by it; but most of our great teachers, not excepting Carlyle and Emerson themselves, are a little too encouraging in their proclamation ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... just as if there was a whole battery of small guns in action down in the depths below us. A few hundred yards to the west of the camp there were a number of small hummocks, which might indicate the presence of crevasses, but otherwise the surface looked safe enough. The small guns kept up a lively crackle all through the night, and combined with a good deal of uproar among the dogs to shorten our sleep. But the first night of a sledge journey is almost always a bad one. Stubberud declared that he could not ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen |
