"Footfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looked around fearfully and wished to hear other footsteps, to see other faces and to feel that he was not alone on such a cold and dark night—alone save for the unknown who watched him. At the thought he looked about again, but there was nothing, not even the faintest echo of a footfall. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... and forwards, I heard a little noise outside, a light footfall on the stairs or landing. I stood still, my heart seeming to knock about inside my chest as if it wanted to leap out between the ribs. Then I went to the door and threw it wide open. She stood there just outside. The light from within fell upon her, and my eyes ran over her, questioning, devouring, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... none more serious were anticipated, cast a gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle footfall. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat listening anew. The monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age, made her so slow of hearing, that a footfall without had sounded in her daughter's ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to warn her mother of its approach, before the old woman was roused by it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering 'Here he is!' hurried her visitor to his place of observation, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... A footfall struck on his ear and, thrusting his head beyond the canvas hood, he saw Leff loafing up ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... of his criticism went away, faded and died out together with the soft footfall of his bare feet in ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... Benevolence brought Him from heaven; benevolence followed His steps wherever He went on earth. The journeys of the Divine Philanthropist were marked by tears of thankfulness, and breathings of grateful love. The helpless, the blind, the lame, the desolate, rejoiced at the sound of His footfall. Truly might it be said of Him, "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me." (Job, xxix. 11.) All suffering hearts were a magnet to Jesus. It was not more His prerogative ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... her shoes on, possessed the stolid steadiness of a wooden grenadier, for the heaviness of the massive boots seemed to permeate her whole being, and communicated what might be considered a slow and heavy footfall to her intellect. Peggy, without shoes, was a panther on two legs, and her mind, like her body, was capable of enormous leaps. Slipping off her heavy brogans, she made a single bound, and stood upon the railing of the porch, and, throwing ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... dressing-room, where she was lying on the sofa. He begged to enter alone, only announced by a soft knock, to which she replied with a listless "Come in," and did not look up till she suddenly became conscious of a footfall firmer though softer than those she was used to. She turned, and saw who it was who stood at a window opposite to her feet, drawing up the Venetian blind, from whose teasing divisions of glare and shade ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a happy child's reverie, and who had grown dizzy with watching the swimming reflection in the whirlpool. She had a strange fleeting hallucination that she was again sitting in the moonlight, her cheeks flushed and her strong young pulse beating high to hear Nathaniel's footfall draw nearer down the road. She felt again the warm, soft weight of her little son, the first-born, the one who had died young, as she remembered how proud she and Nathaniel had been when he ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... a bare thirty seconds' start. Then, rising with strange energy for so dazed and broken an invalid, he left the room and followed him toward the head of the stairs. His light footfall was soundless on the matting ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... had deserted him. He stood there on the edge of the pavement, without moving or saying anything, simply looking at her, startled at her sudden appearance, and magnetised by her close presence. He had heard no footfall behind him, and the fact of her being alone seemed so strange to him, that he simply could not realize for a moment that it was indeed she who stood so close to him. The cabman, leaving them to decide who had the prior claim upon him, sat motionless, with his ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a sound reached me. I thought I could distinguish a horse's footfall. I stopped—the sound was louder—coming and coming fast. I dismounted and led my horse into the woods a few yards and covered his mouth with my hands. Still the sounds reached me—the constant cadence of a galloping ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... ghost From some distant eerie coast; Never footfall can you hear As that spirit fareth near— Never whisper, never word From that shadow-queen is heard. In ethereal raiment dight, From the realm of fay and sprite In the depth of yonder ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... as though I would choke. The splash of the water came from the other end of the room. I knew he must be suffering acute pain in his eye. A far lighter blow had kept me sleepless a whole night. A fear possessed me that I might have permanently injured his sight. The splash of water ceased. His footfall stopped beside me. I could feel he was within touching distance, but I did ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... to the end of a large telescope that stood before him on a tripod. This sort of presence was unexpected, and the lady started back into the shade of the opening. The only effect produced upon him by her footfall was an impatient wave of the hand, which he did without removing his eye from the instrument, as if to forbid her ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... standing groups upon the steps; I could not speak, I could not utter. Once more the frightful cry swelled upward, and in its wild notes seemed to paralyze me; for with my hands upon my temples, I stood motionless and still. A heavy footfall as of persons marching in procession came nearer and nearer, and as the sounds without sank into sobs of bitterness and woe, the black pall of a coffin, borne on men's shoulders, appeared at the door, and an old man whose gray hair floated in the breeze, and across whose stern features a ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Then a shuffling footfall was heard on the floor. Hugh Ritson was in the darkened room. He lifted the shaded lamp from the table, approached the bedside, and held the lamp with one hand above his head. The light fell on the outstretched body of his father and the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... of leaves, a slight crackling of stems or branches, brought the eyes of both watchers in another direction; and before they could hear a footfall, they saw, above them on the course of the brook, a figure of a man coming towards them, and Diana knew it was the minister. Swiftly and lightly he came swinging himself along, bounding over obstacles, with a sure ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... thick brush did not avail to tell him what form of animal life was palpitating there. Far away a mocking-bird throbbed out a note or two, grew quiet, and again became tunefully clamorous. A night owl hooted. The sound of a soft footfall rolling a pebble brought him to taut alertness. Eyes and ears became automatic detectives ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... direction which seemed to open fairly, the sky appearing more distinctly through the opening of the trees above. Meanwhile, he kept his eyes busy, watching right and left. Still, he could see nothing, hear nothing, but the slight footfall of his own steed. And yet the animal continued uneasy, his ears pricked up, his head turning, this way and that, with evident curiosity; his feet set down hesitatingly, as ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... painful pleasures, that she had chosen as her share in the household where accident had thrown her. She had that genius of ministration which is the special province of certain women, marked even among their helpful sisters by a soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light hand, a cheering smile, and a ready self-surrender to the objects of their care, which such trifles as their own food, sleep, or habits of any kind never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... were suffering from a nervous trepidation that made even a heavy footfall startling, every one being in expectation of a renewal of ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... he saw Madou's face, and shivered at the thought of the little icy fingers touching his own. To get away from this idea Jack resumed his weary journey. The damp earth had stiffened in the cold night wind, and his own footfall sounded in his ears so unnaturally heavy, that he fancied Madou was at his ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a rifle ready ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... in her gaze. But as so often happens, what she awaited did not appear at the time and place she herself had set. There fell at the western end of the gallery a shadow—a tall shadow, but she did not see it. She did not hear the footfall, not stealthy, but quite silent, with which the tall owner of the shadow came toward her from ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... there conversing, with their faces to the sunlit garden, when there came the sound of a careless footfall and Violet Campion, her riding-whip dangling from her wrist, strolled round the corner of the house, and in ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Not a breath of air was stirring throughout the western wing of the Greyport Hotel, and the usual feverish life of its four hundred inmates had succumbed to the weather. The great veranda was deserted; the corridors were desolated; no footfall echoed in the passages; the lazy rustle of a wandering skirt, or a passing sigh that was half a pant, seemed to intensify the heated silence. An intoxicated bee, disgracefully unsteady in wing and leg, who had been holding an inebriated conversation with himself in the corner of my window ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... hearts are weary, Souls are numb with hopeless pain; For the footfall on the threshold ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... his appearance; and in the tone of his voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man, there was something racy,—a flavor of the humorist. His step was that of an aged man, and he put his stick down very decidedly at every footfall; though as he afterwards told me that he was only fifty-two, he need not yet have been infirm. But perhaps he has had the gout; his feet, however, are by no means swollen, but unusually small. Dr. ——— introduced him as Mr. Douglas ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of two inches. Nepenthe lay veiled in Cimmerian gloom, darker than starless midnight—a darkness that could be felt; a blanket, as it were, hot and breathless, weighing upon the landscape. All was silent. No footfall could be heard in the streets; the powdery ashes, softer than snow, absorbed every sound. And still they fell. Those few scared natives whom necessity forced to go abroad crept about in fear of their lives. They thought the end of the world had come. Terror-stricken, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... of the morning the Ducharme woman, creeping from her room in the rear, caught sight of them. Mrs. Preston's head was lying on the doctor's arm, while he knelt beside the table, watching her pale face in its undisturbed sleep. At the footfall, he roused her gently. Mrs. Ducharme hastily drew back. She, too, did not seem to have passed a peaceful night. Her flabby fat face was sickly white, and she trembled as she opened the side door to the hot morning sun. She threw some small thing into the waste ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... still lying there when there came a very low tap at the door. She started up and listened. She had heard no footfall on the stairs, and it was, she thought, impossible that any one should have come up without her hearing the steps. Peter Steinmarc creaked whenever he went along the passages, and neither did her aunt or Tetchen tread with feet ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... to work, And digs, and hews, and grinds: he sees, not far, Himself, a chief of horsemen richly clad, Armed with long spears and silver-halted blades, Seizing pachalic power by a swift blow. But labour, having brought him gold, brings fears. The weight of wealth has made his footfall staid; He longs for order, settled government, And stands, a stern upholder, by ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... after two, on this eventful day, the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple of a dead religion, silent and deserted. Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle. The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr Haggard's novels, with ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... footfall sounded. In the darkness out there someone blundered into a piece of wicker furniture and disturbed it with a small scraping sound, all but inaudible, but to the thief as loud as the blast of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... A slow footfall sounded on the garden path, and the tall figure of a man clad in the everyday ecclesiastical garb of the Roman Church ascended ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... step?' said Hester suddenly, as a footfall sounded in the now quiet street; but it passed the door, and the hope that had arisen on its approach fell ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... as if he had seen an apparition, and he was vainly striving to drive away a terrible, mysterious fear, when a heavy footfall made the floor of the dining-room creak anew. The noise restored him to consciousness of his position. "It is the baron!" he thought; "he is coming this way! If he finds me here I am lost; he will never consent to help me. A man would never forgive another man for hearing ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... passages as veiled figures slowly and noiselessly passed towards the chapel to their private devotions. Scarcely a footfall reached the ear, nor sound of any kind, except the sweet voice of Mere Madelaine de St. Borgia. Like the flow of a full stream in the still moonlight, she sang her canticle of praise to the guardian of the house, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and children proceeded with their explorations. It was rather awful at first in the twilight gloom of the great hall, with a painted mythological ceiling, and cold white pavement, varied by long perspective lines of black lozenges, on which every footfall echoed. The first door that they opened led into a vast and dreary dining- room, with a carpet, forming a crimson roll at one end, and long ranks of faded leathern chairs sitting in each other's laps. At one end hung a huge picture by Snyders, of a bear hugging one ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... guardian angel. She began to think about the future, and almost to forget Andy and the possible and very great peril of the present, when, shortly before the hour of one, all her senses were preternaturally excited by the sound of a footfall. It was a very soft footfall—the noise made by a bare foot. Nora heard it just where the shadow was deepest. She stood up now; she knew that, from her present position, the one who was making this dead sort of heavy sound could not possibly see her. She waited, her breath coming ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... appearance and manner seemed to indicate that he was a country servant. The stranger was scarcely placed in the boat when, somewhat to his surprise and pleasure, he saw this old man carefully depositing the duenna of his young friend in a seat near him; and in another moment there was a light footfall on the ladder, a waving of white garments, and she was herself placed beside him, whilst the sailors, pushing off from the side of the vessel, made all speed towards the shore. Both turned round ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... rebuild a mighty past. Solitude in the halls and marble stairways, ruin of time in the fretted screens, and broken cisterns holding nothing but dry earth. Nothing there now but the lion and the lizard, not even the ghost of a light footfall, or the tinkle of glass ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... hall had been left burning, and another in his own room, as he discovered when he got there. He locked the door quickly and without noise, but his fingers were still upon the key when there was a quick footfall in the ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... comes! o'er drowsy roofs, inert and dull, Shaking her lap, of silv'ry music full, Rousing without remorse the drones abed, Tripping like joyous bird with tiniest tread, Quiv'ring like dart that trembles in the targe, By a frail crystal stair, whose viewless marge Bears her slight footfall, tim'rous half, yet free, In innocent extravagance of glee The graceful elf alights from out the spheres, While the quick spirit—thing of eyes and ears— As now she goes, now comes, mounts, and anon Descends, those delicate degrees upon, Hears her ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... Deluded man! A fond, a devoted, a trusting wife waiting at home, watching the hands of the clock as they neared the mark of twelve, and listening for thy footfall! Thou, trusting in thine own strength, but to learn thy weakness, lying senseless among thy drinking mates in ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... all from these pages—I like recreation as much as most men, and have grown to find it in the dull but deeply absorbing business of sitting on Education Committees. Some fifteen years ago, in the first story in my first book of short stories, I confessed to being haunted by a dreadful sound: 'the footfall of a multitude more terrible than an army with banners, the ceaseless pelting feet of children—of Whittingtons turning and turning again.' Well, I still hear that footfall: but it has become less terrible to me, though not one whit less insistent: and it began to grow ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the chamber of death—that which was long the apartment of connubial happiness, and of whose arrangement (better than in richer houses) she was so proud. They are treading fast and thick. For weeks you could have heard a footfall. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... off at a quick pace. They were then close to the turn in the park, and Lopez went on till he had nearly reached the park front of the new offices. As he had walked he had listened to the footfall of his friend, and after a while had perceived, or had thought that he had perceived, that the sound was discontinued. It seemed to him that Wharton had altogether lost his senses;—the insult to himself had been so determined ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... now had become my suspicions that I was already preparing to unroll my blanket, rise, and creep after the Siwanois, when his light and rapid footfall sounded on the leaves close to my head; and, as before, while again I feigned sleep, far in the thicket somebody moved, cautiously retreating into tangled depths. But whether I really heard or only guessed, I do not know down to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... turning the neighboring leaves into the tenderest emerald. Here and there, in the sombre row of houses stretching along Beacon Street, an illuminated window gilded a few square feet of darkness; and now and then a footfall sounded on a distant pavement. The pulse ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... fault? If so, the greater pathos. The lonely souls that hold out timid hands to an unheeding world have their meed of interior comfort even here, while the sons of consolation wait on the thresh-hold for their footfall: but God help the soul that bars its own door! It is kicking against the pricks of Divine ordinance, the ordinance of a triune God; whether it be the dweller in crowded street or tenement who is proud to say, "I keep myself to myself," or Seneca writing in pitiful complacency, "Whenever ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... religious, but he was in nowise a superstitious man. Association with Sir Graham, however, and the circumstances attendant upon that association, had gradually unnerved him. He was now a prey to fear, almost to horror. Was it possible, he thought, as he sat listening to that eternal footfall overhead, that Providence permitted a spirit to rise from the very grave to proclaim his lie, and to show the truth in a most hideous form? He could almost believe so. It seemed that the dead boy resented the defacement of his tomb, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... long iron bars. The bungalow was a very solid one, but the partition-walls of the rooms were almost jerry-built in their flimsiness. Every step or bang of a trunk echoed from my room down the other three, and every footfall came back tremulously from the far walls. For this reason I shut the door. There were no lamps—only candles in long glass shades. An oil wick was set ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... Councils decided in those days upon the Faith, and the Creed when accepted and approved by the universal voice was enacted for good and bequeathed to future ages. So it was both as to the Canon and the Words of Holy Scripture, only that all was done quietly. As to the latter, hardly a footfall was heard. But none the less, corruption after short-lived prominence sank into deep and still deeper obscurity, whilst the teaching of fifteen centuries placed the true Text upon a firm ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... Once he turned his back to flee from Riley Sinclair, the gunfighter would become a nightmare that would haunt him the rest of his life. No matter where he fled, every footstep behind him would be the footfall of Riley Sinclair, and behind every closed door would stand the same ominous figure. On the other hand if he went back and faced Sinclair he might reduce the nightmare to a mere ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Rimmon was heard descending the stair. He had a light footfall, extraordinarily light in one so stout; for he had grown rounder ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Spanish verger, chatting of his native Cordova, listening to tales of Father Juniperra Serra, Father Somera, and the legend of the Indians with the miraculous portrait of the Madonna, she had started more than once at a footfall, fancying it that of her ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... recesses. It would have been a relief to hear her at the piano, or in conversation, and to know her attention was diverted. None the less, he peered about for a glimpse of her, and strained his hearing for a sound of her voice. But all was still and silent, except for the muffled footfall of the servant leading him to the library at the far end ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... heard once more the tread of a horse's feet, and counted each footfall mechanically. They grew fainter and fainter, till at last the forest silence swallowed them, and a great solitude seemed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... disobeyed her. And as a climax, she had assumed the impregnable position of a complete prostration, wherein she demanded the minute care of an invalid in the crisis of a disorder. She could bear no faintest ray of illumination, no lightest footfall. In a hushed twilight she lay, her eyes swathed, moaning feebly that her early dissolution at the hands of ingratitude was imminent. Thus she established a deadlock which was likely to continue indefinitely. ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... seriously Greater our successes, the greater the slaves we become He never explained How Success derides Ambition! If only been intellectually a little flexible in his morality Naturally as deceived as he wished to be Official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one Optional marriages, broken or renewed every seven years Pessimy is invulnerable Repeatedly, in contempt of the disgust of iteration Satirist is an executioner by profession Semblance of a tombstone lady beside her lord The banquet to be fervently remembered, should smoke The ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... Presently we heard a footfall upon the path which led to the boat-shed, and then an old man, naked but for his titi, or waist-girdle of grass, came out into the moonlight, and greeted us ...
— Pakia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... softly, and the secretary entered, a look of uncertainty on his handsome young face. The slight sound of his footfall disturbed the master's contemplation. He looked up, relieved to be drawn for a moment ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... loving souls that often spake together, while the Lord hearkened and heard, must have felt that as the advent of the Lord whom they sought was nigh, that of his messenger must be nearer still. They started at every footfall. They listened for every voice. They scanned the expression of every face. "Behold, he shall come," rang in their hearts like a peal of silver bells. At any moment might a voice be heard crying, "Cast up, cast up the highway; ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... but irritate, unsettle, torture me. When I am quite well I will ask you to come. I shall enjoy your visit. Till then, on no account, and on no pretext, let my morbid ear catch the sound of your footfall on my quiet floor. Write to me often, but tell me nothing of the news and gossip of the world. Tell me only of yourself, your studies, your thoughts, your sentiments, your wishes. Nor forget my injunctions. Marry young, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... glancing about him in some surprise as he did so. There was no oil-cloth, no mat, no hat-rack. Deep grey dust and heavy festoons of cobwebs met his eyes everywhere. Following the old woman up the winding stair, his firm footfall echoed harshly through the silent house. There was ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... toward the caldron with arm extended, stiffened without moving. She had heard something. Yes, there it was again—a muffled footfall on the stairs near by. Hark! Down the black shaft from the cave above came stealing a second slender figure in a flowing robe of some pale woolly stuff. In her hands also was clasped a ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... time they were not aware that they were closely followed by some one, who must have heard every word they said. Suddenly the sound of a footfall reached their ears, and turning they saw a figure, who, finding that he ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... grass behind her suddenly she heard a footfall, a new footfall, not that of the long, stealthy stride of Martha, who was called the Mare, and swung round upon her heel to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... on the gravel. This time another footfall joined the first. She gripped her husband's shoulders ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... my first approach, being much more modern; but I was convinced, from the observations I had made as to the situation of my room, that I was bordering upon, if not within, the oldest portion of the pile. In sudden horror, lest I should hear a light footfall upon the awful stair, I withdrew hurriedly, and having secured both the doors, betook myself to my bedroom; in whose dingy four-post bed, with its carving and plumes reminding me of a hearse, I was ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... they reached the other corner, and turned, without any revelation of an opening. The leopard walked leisurely, but steadily. Softly the footsteps of Timokles and the beast sounded in the room, one footfall answering another. Backward, backward, went Timokles—now a turn of a corner—backward, backward. Another corner. This was the wall by which the leopard had slept. Backward, backward! The lad could not pause, but now, as he neared the end of the wall and looked up once ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... had brought her to the meeting place ahead of time. It was five minutes before the faint sound of a footfall among the fallen leaves rewarded her small stock of patience. Leslie's hand sought the pocket of her coat. A tiny stream of white light outlined the figure now very close to her. Instantly she snapped off the light with a soft ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... for some time, when Sal's quick ear caught a footfall on the soft carpet, and, turning rapidly, she saw a tall figure advancing down the room. Madge saw it too, and started up in surprise on recognising her father. He was clothed in his dressing-gown, and carried some ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... And if his footfall crush the flower, How sweet the spicy perfume springs! His mildew stain upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... had stood at that same window waiting and listening in the spring twilight for the beloved footfall of the woman who was never again to enter his house. They had had a disagreement, he had spoken harshly, he had been foolishly, absurdly jealous; for her wonderful beauty, her quick, foreign charm drew ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... certain sense of relief, for he had dreaded this last lesson—when a slight, a very slight sound seeming to come from somewhere near the windows, caught his ear. He had come into the room more softly than his wont, and his footfall had made no sound on the thick carpet. The person who was hidden by the curtains had not heard him, had no idea any one was in the room, for through a sort of half-choked sob the child heard two or three confused words which, though uttered ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... until all other hope is gone, and yet I fear if I do not we are fated to be parted. Even this may be the last time we may meet. I warn thee, Hugh, I am well watched, and I beg you will be careful. Hush! was that a footfall in the grove below the crag?" and she pointed to a clump of trees at some distance under where they were standing, and on the path by ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... place in the pantry and at the height of Harrison's protest against the new order of things a footfall was heard in the dining-room beyond. Thinking it Jerome's and quite ready to add one more to their league of defenders of Peggy's cause, Harrison pushed open the swinging door and stepped into the dining-room with all of her New England-woman's nervous ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... door. Mr. Crowninshield was on the veranda, sitting quietly in a big wicker chair, looking out toward the sea. He was thinking so intently on some imagining of his own that he did not hear the lad's footfall and Walter was obliged to address him twice before he answered. Then he started suddenly, as ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... Pele, He onohi no Pele (verse 11), is the phosphorescence which Pele's footfall stirs ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... faded yellow. I took the liberty to possess myself of the letters. We found nothing else in the room worth noticing,—nor did the light reappear; but we distinctly heard, as we turned to go, a pattering footfall on the floor, just before us. We went through the other attics (in all four), the footfall still preceding us. Nothing to be seen,—nothing but the footfall heard. I had the letters in my hand; ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... shadow I drew out of sight, turned away, and went almost back to the gate before I let my footfall be heard, ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... descends. As the noise of his footfall on the stairs dies away, the lady gropes toward the stairway, then turns suddenly, and going to the ledge where they have sat, she throws herself over ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... from its snow-covered bed, In a wood where the red robins sing, And sighed, 'I could fancy, where brown leaves are spread I heard the first footfall ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... early days of those dark months, Frank Power had written of him that all day he was cheering up others, but that through the night he heard his footfall overhead, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, sleepless, broken in heart, bearing on his soul the burden of those he had no power ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... I put on my great coat, and we sallied forth together to the rendezvous of the lovers. The fair fugitive was true to her appointment, and at the first sound of the expected footfall, glided from her concealment into the happy scoundrel's arms. The action which followed I could not see (though it was a bright moonlight,) for a breeze lifted the large veil which hung over the lady's shoulder, in such a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... was in the world before His specific advent.—Long before His incarnation the delights of the Son of God were with men. In Angel-form, He visited their tents, spoke with them face to face, calmed their fears, and fought on their behalf. He trod the holy fields of Palestine with noiseless footfall that left no impress on the lightest sands, long before He learned to walk with baby-feet, or bore ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... day-dreams, with whose intoxicating power every heart is more or less familiar. She loved to retire to the solitude of the cloisters, when the twilight was deepening into darkness, and alone, with measured steps, to pace to and fro, listening to the monotonous echoes of her own footfall, which alone disturbed the solemn silence. At the tomb of a departed sister she would often linger, and, indulging in those melancholy meditations which had for her so many charms, long for her own ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... was shut just so for years; the lonely bars of sunlight flecked the solitude of the room, and the lilies faded on the table. We children passed it with hushed footfall, and shrank from it at twilight, as from a room that held the dead. But into it we ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... at the trysting place first. She could not see his face, but could distinguish the slight figure seated upon the crumbling fragment of the wall. He was very still and quiet, and she paused as she drew near, wondering if he had not heard her light footfall upon the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... preceding days, and through the darkness Dolf could see the blanched face of the earth, white as the face of the dead. He ran full speed along the river bank as one pursued by the tide, though, even then, his footfall was not so rapid as the beating of his heart. The distant lights through the fog seemed to him like a procession of taper-bearers at a funeral; he did not know how this idea arose, but it terrified him, for behind it again he saw death. Then he came upon silent ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... waiting! They could hear in their sitting-room the steps coming up the stone stairs outside their flat, and every step seemed to be his. Ah, he had come earlier than he had fixed. Vera had stupidly forgotten, perhaps, or he had found waiting any longer impossible. Yes, surely that was his footfall; she knew it so well. There, now he was turning towards the door; there was a pause; soon there would be the tinkle of ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... her. She had almost reached him, but he had not heard her, her footfall upon the old Turkey carpet with its faded roses and lilies had been so light. She was in white, and the light from the old lamp shone on her arms end face and brought out the shadows of her hair and eyes. She put out both hands—then quickly drew back one as ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... the shingle opposite the water-pipe, and waded up-stream casting for trout. The otter-cubs, grown wiser than when the angler saw them near the sycamore, discreetly stayed at home, for they had been taught to regard this strange being, Man, known by his peculiar footfall and upright walk, as a dreaded enemy scarcely less formidable than the hounds and the terriers that at intervals accompanied him for the express purpose of hunting such river-folk as otters ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... trudging the streets, but always returning to the pavement in front of one or the other of the two important newspaper offices. Lights shone in the upper windows of each, but all was quiet; and he saw the men leave one by one and walk away into darkness with brisk but regular footfall. A little before dawn he had caught the newspaper-train for the west, left it at the first station over the Cornish border and set his face toward the sea. His walk took him past dewy hedgerows ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... back the sea for England's dower; His footfall bade the Moor change heart and cower; His word on Milton's tongue spake law to France When Piedmont ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the boys were carried away by golden dreams. They dreamed of freedom, of running down hill, of wading barefoot in the river, playing horses, jumping over the logs. They were good, sweet, foolish dreams that were not destined to be realized. There was heard a familiar cough, a familiar footfall. And our hearts were frozen. All our limbs were paralysed, deadened. We sat down at the table and started our lessons with as much enthusiasm as if we were starting for the gallows. We were reading aloud, but still our lips muttered: "Father in Heaven, will there never come an ...
— Jewish Children • Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
... Two can play at that." And so after some rude jests, and laughter, and a few more oaths, I heard Charlie (or at any rate somebody) coming toward me, with a loose and not too sober footfall. As he reeled a little in his gait, and I would not move from his way one inch, after his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp him (if common sense permitted it), his braided coat came against my thumb, and his leathern gaiters brushed my knee. If he had turned or ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... one The beasts and birds of Paradise came down, With noiseless movement, to the water's edge, And waited on the margin. Creatures huge, With honest, liquid eyes, and those that stepped With cushioned feet and feathered footfall, stole About the brink, with all the tribe that gave The forest life. The serpent reared its crest, Not yet polluted with the valley's dust, And stood like one with royal gems encrowned; While beast, and bird, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of a deserted farm-house, the cavalry picketed their horses round it, and the Scudamores, who had been more than twenty-four hours in the saddle, wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and stretching themselves on the floor, were soon asleep. Just at midnight the sound of a horse's footfall approaching at a gallop was heard, and an officer, who had ridden, without drawing rein, from Canizal, dashed up to ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... come?" said Elsie, when she heard, with her fine sense quickened by the irritability of sickness, a light footfall on the stair, with a cadence unlike that of any inmate of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... yet remember 'mid the fever of exchange, When the hot excitement throttles and the millions make or break, How a camel's silent footfall on the ashen desert range Swings cushioned into distances where thoughts unfettered wake, And the memory unbidden plucks an unconverted heart Till the glamour goes from houses and emotion from the street, And the truth glares good and gainly in the face of 'change and ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... the hope of seeing him once more. That night was hideously silent. Once, for the Countess, there was an awful interval, when the battalion of conscripts entered the town, and the men went by, one by one, to their lodgings. Every footfall, every sound in the street, raised hopes to be disappointed; but it was not for long, the dreadful quiet succeeded again. Toward morning the Countess was forced to return to her room. Brigitte, ever keeping watch over her mistress's movements, did not see her come ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... step I saw my brother Wilfred. I constantly heard his voice, and every footfall spoke of what I had done. The hedges were full of grinning devils, which mocked me, while the stars that spangled the sky spelt the word that was ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... pass. Her arm is growing tired, her eyes begin to blink against her will; she is on the point of throwing up the game, descending from her pedestal, and regaining her own room, when a footfall recalls her to herself and puts her ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... and beckoned me to follow her—the which I did in no easy frame of mind. Opening a little door which I had not seen when I took observation of the apartment, she disappeared down two or three steps, where I pursued the slight sound of her footfall; for there was great darkness, so that I could see nothing. We went, as I conjectured, through several passages of some length, till finally she paused; and knocked very gently three times at a door. The door was speedily opened; and in answer to a question of my guide, whether godly Mr Lees was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... all unvexed Though wild words part my soul from thee. Thou art like silence unperplexed, A secret and a mystery Between one footfall and the next. ...
— Poems • Alice Meynell
... destination had none of the charm of the surrounding country. It was like a dark spot set in the midst of the rolling splendours of the moorland proper. There were boulders of rock of unknown age, dark patches of peat land, where even in midsummer the mud oozed up at the lightest footfall, pools and sedgy places, the home and sometimes the breeding place of the melancholy snipe. Of colour there was singularly little. The heather bushes were stunted, their roots blackened as though with fire, and even the yellow ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and moved away from her with that noiseless footfall that was so like the stealthy ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... Every footfall in the lugger had now ceased. Ithuel was posted on a knight-head, where he sat watching his old enemy, the Proserpine; the proximity of that ship not allowing him to sleep. Two experienced seamen, who alone formed ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... interval that elapsed before the nearest could arrive, nor distinct notion of any part of that long sunny afternoon while he sat by his Nina in the death-chamber. Once he got up to stop the ticking of a clock on the chimney-piece, moving mechanically with stealthy footfall across the room lest she should be disturbed. The doctors came and went, agreeing, as they left the house, that he had answered their questions with wonderful precision and presence of mind; nay, that he was less prostrated by the blow than they ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... heavy heart, I slid out of my saddle; led my steed under the shed; and then entered the deserted dwelling. My footfall upon the plank-floor sounded heavy and harsh, as I strode over it, making a survey of the "premises"—my future home. I might have observed with ludicrous surprise the queer character of the building, and how sadly it needed ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... and a moment later Helen Travers heard his heavy footfall on the porch outside. Presently the erratic violin playing ceased and there seemed no sound on the face ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... it should be time for you to come, my dear, my dear. You would not be very long, and I could wait. I would listen for your feet upon the stair, dear love. And when at last you came, I should know your footfall; yes, I should know it ever so far away. You would not be thinking of me just then. And when you came to the top of the golden stairs, there—there, all so suddenly, would be your little lass, with her arms ready to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Whose footfall made thee fairer, [Ant. 7. Whose passage more divine, Whose hand, our thunder-bearer, Held fire that bade thee shine With subtler glory and rarer Than thrills the sun's ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the whole shell. Both sexes take part in nest construction, but the hen alone appears to incubate. She is a very shy creature, and is rarely discovered actually sitting, because she leaves the nest with a little cry of alarm at the first sound of a human footfall. ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... True enough a heavy footfall was approaching down the passage. It stopped at the door of the room in which we were confined, and a key was inserted in the lock. Next moment the door swung open and a tall man entered the room. A ray of sunlight, penetrating between ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... present felt a sense of gloom and depression creep over him; a sort of apprehension which had no visible cause, and could not easily be explained, but which led one to start at shadows, and look round at each unexpected footfall. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... to happen in the flat before long. The air of the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or when a footfall ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... degrees he gained on the fugitives, and as he could now catch some sound of the rattling of the carriage-wheels, they must also hear his horse's footfall. Were they trying to get away from him? On the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the pathway opened into the street, he now and then saw a dark shape reel past and disappear in the night like a shadow, the soft snow deadening the footfall. These were jolly roysterers, returning from ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... along the path by which she had come, towards the house. As she turned round one of the corners, she saw a man's figure before her, strolling slowly along in the same direction in which she was going. In a few moments he heard her light footfall, and, facing about, confronted her. She continued to advance until she was within arm's reach of him: then she paused, and gazed steadfastly in his face. He was the first human being, save Kamaiakan, that she had seen since her eyes closed ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... waiting for the element to filter into its basin, in order to fill her buckets, while her ear listened in dull attention to the hum of the moving crowd without. A halberdier paced the open gallery at the head of the Giant's Stairs, and, here and there, the footfall of other sentinels might be heard among the hollow and ponderous arches of the long corridors. No light was shed from the windows; but the entire building presented a fit emblem of that mysterious power which was known to preside over the fortunes of Venice and her citizens. Ere Gino trusted ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... exquisite sense of rest. Here he could forget his trouble, and give himself over to the love which seemed his real life; here the recollection of Mrs. Wallace gained flesh and blood, seeming so real that he almost stretched out his arms to seize her.... His footfall on the brown needles was noiseless, and the tread was soft and easy; the odours filled him like an ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... deep well of building, tossed the light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to wait. London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to and fro ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... wayfarers disappear; the sounds of sliding locks and closing shutters are heard here and there; the houses have shut themselves up, the night-bound town becomes a desert profound. I can hear nothing now but my own footfall. ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... follows faster too. She stops, and instantly that light footfall is silent. Not a creature is to be seen. The old ruins rise grim and bare between her and the pale evening sky, but not ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... exultation at their escape, and with her warm little hand she gripped his fingers firmly and guided him into a sea of darkness. The forest shut them in. Not a ray fell upon them from out of the pale sky where the stars were beginning to glimmer faintly. Behind them he could hear the heavy, padded footfall of the big grizzly, and he knew that Baree was very near. After a little the Girl said, still ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... did not move his arms from the gate. He evidently meant to take no advantage, to let her pass him if she wished to do so. Audrey could read this determination in his averted face. Most likely he wished her to think that his abstraction was too great to allow him to notice her light footfall; he would make it easy for her to pass him—a man's eyes can only see what they are looking at. But this time Audrey's prudence counselled her in vain; her soft heart would not allow her to go past him ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey |
