"Stealthy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half-invisible little lane, whence, as it reached the verge of an eminence, could be discerned in the dusk, about half a mile to the right, gardens and orchards sunk in a concave, and, as it were, snipped out of the woodland. From this self-contained place rose in stealthy silence tall stems of smoke, which the eye of imagination could trace downward to their root on quiet hearth-stones festooned overhead with hams and flitches. It was one of those sequestered spots outside the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Now let us hear Chaucer with his single stealthy line that makes us glance over our shoulder as if we heard the ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... large price to the Zooelogical Gardens. For he refused to come on deck. He bared his teeth, and his eyes shone with the malice of hell if the men attempted to approach him. It was impossible to let him rest aloft throughout the night to command the ship, so to speak; for he might sink to the deck stealthy as the shadow of a cloud blown by the wind, and he was strong enough and big enough to tear a ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... of the 2nd Rifle Brigade were the troops chosen, with a few sappers and gunners, the whole under the command of Colonel Metcalfe of the same battalion. A single gun, the 4.7 howitzer upon Surprise Hill, was the objective. Again there was the stealthy advance through the darkness, again the support was left at the bottom of the hill, again the two companies carefully ascended, again there was the challenge, the rush, the flight, and the gun was in the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... silent. The lights had been darkened for an hour. With stealthy step along the upper hall, and silent footfall on the stairway, the cloaked and hooded figure of Leah approached the sleeping apartment of her father and his wife. The sound of heavy breathing betokened heavy slumber, as she silently turned the door-knob ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... make no such stealthy and sure attack. No matter how subtle her art, she can never hope to quite conceal her intent. Her eyes give her away. They flash and glitter. They have depths. They draw the male gaze into mysterious and sinister recesses. ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... womankind, are, thanks to my training, very civil and tractabledo not disturb me in my morning studiescreep across the floor with the stealthy pace of a cat, when it suits me to take a nap in my easy-chair after dinner or tea. All this is very well; but I want something to exchange ideas ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... heroes who lent their names to the diplomatic masqueraders of the sixteenth century; he enters the cabinet of the deeply pondering Burghley, and takes from the most private drawer the memoranda which record that minister's unutterable doubtings; he pulls from the dressing-gown folds of the stealthy, soft-gliding Walsingham the last secret which he has picked from the Emperor's pigeon-holes or the Pope's pocket, and which not Hatton, nor Buckhurst, nor Leicester, nor the Lord Treasurer is to see,—nobody but Elizabeth herself; he sits invisible ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to her lips; but before tasting the stimulant, she glanced round, as she had often done before, to see if any one was looking at her; a stealthy cunning movement, born of the sense of shame she had never quite lost. Every nerve was quivering with excitement, and her heart was beating quickly. But her glance fell upon her husband's face turned toward her, yet with no watchful, reproachful eyes fastened upon ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... one of the old houses of the city, a somber stone dwelling with a garden about it on a downtown square, on which business was already encroaching. We were admitted by a servant who seemed to walk over the polished floors with stealthy step as if there was something sacred about even the Atherton silence. As we waited in a high-ceilinged drawing-room with exquisite old tapestries on the walls, I could not help feeling myself the influence of wealth and birth that seemed to cry out from every ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... death, if the soul was thrust apart from the body, and if he broke the unseen chain that bound them; so he waited and prayed. And the bird hopped upon the floor; and then presently the priest saw the cat draw near again, and in a stealthy way; and now the priest himself was feeling weary of the strain, for he seemed to be wrestling in spirit with something that was strong and strongly armed. But he signed the cross again and said faintly "In Nomine"; and the ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and heiress of the wealthy shipowner Sir Wagstaff Queenborough, Bart., and Eleanor his wife. It was purely the manner of the curate's advances that took my fancy: in the mere fact of them there was nothing remarkable. For all the men in the house (and a good many outside) made covert. stealthy, and indirect steps in the same direction; for Trix (as her friends called her) was, if not wise, at least pretty and witty, displaying to the material eye a charming figure, and to the mental a delicate heartlessness—both ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... story of the stealthy, midnight march from Boston,—the successful mission to Adams and Hancock,—the sudden fear which seized Colonel Smith, the commander of the expedition,—his call for reinforcements before he knew whether ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... off with the clerk, but before Jadwin had reseated himself at his desk was back again. He was suddenly all excitement, as if a great idea had abruptly taken possession of him. Stealthy, furtive, he glanced continually over his shoulder as he spoke, talking in whispers, a trembling hand ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... earthly calling; of a hard and humble one. Types of Him to whose care His people owe their safety amid the temptations, and their support amid the trials of life, these shepherds were watching their flocks; peering through the gloom of night; listening for the stealthy step of the robber; ready, starting to their feet, to beat off the sneaking wolf, or bravely battle ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... and went to the public room, one portion of which was occupied by the office. As he made his way to the desk, he observed the man with black whiskers on a settee at one end of the room. He was smoking a clay pipe. Herbert caught a stealthy glance directed towards himself, but that was all. The man continued smoking, fixing his eyes with apparent interest on a large yellow handbill pasted on the opposite wall, announcing a performance by "The Great American Circus ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... bullet of the Border Police, Guides, or Frontier Force cavalry-outposts and from the bullet of criminal tribesmen, when a devil in his soul surged up screaming for blood and fire and slaughter; during the long stealthy crawl as he stalked the stalker; during the wild, yelling, knife-brandishing rush; as he pressed the steady trigger or guided the slashing, stabbing Khyber knife, or as he instinctively hallaled the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... wolf, who faced and pulled down the bull moose, and from whose voice the biggest dogs in the settlements ran like whipped curs—why had he and his stealthy pack spared this easy prey? It was inexplicable, though many had theories good enough to be laughed to scorn by those who had none. The habitants, of course, had all their superstitions confirmed, and with a certain respect and refinement of horror added: ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... Highgate Cemetery with the yellow fog around us. His mother had been put into a train that would carry her to the quiet country cottage wherein she longed to be alone with her sorrow. Doria still lay in the Valley of the Shadow unconscious, perhaps fortunately, of the stealthy footsteps and muffled sounds that strike a note of agony through a house of death. And it was many days before she awoke to knowledge and ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... They resumed their stealthy walk through the woods, and a few rods farther on came to a wide open space which sloped eastward for some distance down the mountain-side. Here ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... hardly out of her mouth when a stealthy foot-fall came directly beneath their window, and guitar, mandolin, and mouth organ burst forth into "My Bonnie," supported after the opening strains by half ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... public, recognized, patent. People talked of it as a natural thing, which almost excited their sympathy, and whispered in very low tones strange stories of dramas begotten of furious feminine jealousies, of the stealthy visit of well-known women and of actresses to the little house close to the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... gave out. She found herself walking rapidly, agitated and alert, shuddering with a nameless fear that was getting on her nerves. She caught herself looking over her shoulder, haunted by the idea that she was being followed. There seemed to be stealthy, padded footfalls behind her in the enveloping darkness and numberless eyes that peered as she passed—small, glowing dots in pairs, close together, that were gone when she looked a second time. Was it only imagination or were the soft steps behind her increasing in number? She ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... oblivious of her presence, to concentrate again solely on the matter in hand. A long, long interval passed. Chug! chug! the engines continued to grind. How far away they sounded. Another sound, too, at length broke the stillness—a stealthy footfall on the deck. It sent him at once softly to the window; ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... crowd shrink and hold their breath? As the ferret in a burrow crept that slight form amongst the larger and rougher creatures that huddled and pressed back on each other as he passed. A wink of his stealthy eye, and the huge Jacobins left the passage clear, without sound or question. On he went to the apartment of the tyrant, and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... her eggs into the nests of other birds, Madame Cowbird is sly and stealthy. She does not drive the rightful owners from their nests, but simply watches her opportunity to drop her eggs into them when they are unguarded. No doubt she has been on the alert while her industrious neighbors have been constructing their domiciles, and knows where almost every ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... He glanced almost mechanically in that direction, and then nearly dropped his spade as he made out a girl's head surmounted by a large hat. The light was getting dim, but the hat had an odd appearance of familiarity. A stealthy glance in the other direction showed him the figure of Mrs. Chalk standing to attention just inside the open French windows of ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... officers, an occasional Staff Officer, and an occasional most devoted Padre—perform the journey as best they may. Sometimes they skirt a wood or hedge, sometimes they keep under the lee of an embankment, sometimes they proceed across the open, with the stealthy caution of persons playing musical chairs, ready to sit down in the nearest shell-crater the moment the music—in the form of a visitation ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... security behind the mass of mines and submarine traps spread ingeniously across the harbor entrance, devoting their attention almost solely to the artillery duel with the dreadnoughts outside, the German cruiser knew naught of the stealthy torpedo from the daring Monitor until it shot suddenly forward below the surface of the water, revealed in the glare of her own searchlight. But it was too late then to avoid the deadly missile and it struck home abaft the engines and directly ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... spread abroad on his return to Bombay. No, he was really terrified. He interspersed his words with sudden unexpected silences, during which he sat all ears and his face strained to listen, as though he expected to surprise some stealthy movement. But Thresk accounted for it by that decanter on the sideboard, in which the level of the whisky had been so noticeably lowered that evening. He was wrong however, for Ballantyne sprang ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... design. Every precaution was taken, even to enhancing their naturally ferocious appearance by painting their faces, necks and shoulders with a thick coat of vermilion. The party next moved forward with stealthy steps to the very edge of the forest, where again they halted in order to mature the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... The stealthy inroads of lunches and evening refreshments had been deprecated already; this new kind of servant who wasn't a servant, but held her head up like anyone else ("They are as independent as—as—'salesladies,'" said one critic), was also viewed with alarm; but when even this domestic ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... black and white tie, with his quiet, stealthy movements and unobtrusive attentions, would have been pronounced good style as a gentleman's gentleman in the grandest of Belgravian mansions. Had he suddenly come into a fortune, and gone into society where his antecedents were unknown, five-sixths of ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... to bed. K.'s little watch ticked under her pillow. Her stiff cap moved in the breeze as it swung from the corner of her mirror. Under her window passed and repassed the night life of the city—taxicabs, stealthy painted women, tired office-cleaners trudging home at midnight, a city patrol-wagon which rolled in through the gates to the hospital's always open door. When she could not sleep, she got up and padded to the window ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... ripe fruit, and darkened alcoves, and the wayward complaining of lutes. Indeed, wherever Monna Vittoria went she seemed to carry with her an atmosphere of subtle seclusion, of a cloistered lusciousness, of dim, green, guarded gardens, where the sighs of love's novices are stifled by the drip of stealthy fountains and the babble of fantastic birds. I suppose it was no more than my fancy, or a trick of my memory confusing later things with earlier, that makes me now, as I write, seem to recall what seemed like a smile on the face of the pagan effigy of Love as Madonna Vittoria swam into her ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Voyager on dusty wings (A Moth). 3. Buzzing through the fragrant air (A Bee). 4. Trembling lurker in the gloom (A Mouse). 5. Gay red-throated epicure (A humming-bird). 6. Stealthy vagrant of the night (An Owl). 7. Flashing through your crystal room (A Gold-fish). 8. Fairyland is all awake. 9. Once when all the woods were green. 10. In the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... carefully, he made his way up the bank, sure that even if whoever was on the ridge had guessed the ruse of the way in which he had left the automobile, they would not be looking for an attack from the direction in which he was making his stealthy, Indian-like advance. Another reason for slow and deliberate progress was to give Tom Binns time to reach the ridge, and take up a position favorable for the playing of his part in ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... grew less and less furtive; the carriages arrived with greater clatter and to-do, with finer liveries and more gorgeous harness. Those who stepped out of the carriage doors were no longer quick and stealthy in their movements: they lingered near the step to give an order or to chat to a friend; the big cloak no longer concealed the gorgeous uniform below, it was allowed to fall away from the shoulder, so as to display the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... a stealthy walk. Behind them and beside them was chilly darkness lurking in caverns among black, bare tree-trunks. Before them they could see a nebulous glow and hear the monotonous voice singing the ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... tried to thank them all. It was noticed that the smile did not give way even to the tears, although it was tinged with a pathetic expression that proved wonderfully affecting. He concealed the offerings with a stealthy motion, as if ashamed of his weakness in accepting them, and then hurried ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Sped at each bar to the parish bounds, To shepherds at their midnight lambings, To stealthy poachers on their rounds; And everybody caught full duly The notes of our delight, As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise Hailed ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... laughed, yet without a sound—the inward, stealthy laugh, as from a knowledge wicked in its very suggestiveness. His eyes ran from Lawless to Shon, and back again. He put his hand on his mouth, as though for silence, stole noiselessly over to the wall, took down his gun quietly, and turned round. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... passed through the whole room with her slow, stealthy tread, let the light fall upon every article of furniture and the floor, examined all the objects that lay upon the table, and then, after one last threatening look at the beds of the two ladies, went slowly out. She stopped again at the cribs of the children, and looked at them ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. Mary raised her head, and starting up, gazed inquiringly at the muffled face, while the intruder pointed to the motionless form of Florence, and laid a finger on her lip. Then beckoning Mary to follow, she receded, with stealthy tread, to the door, which was softly closed, and walked hurriedly on till she reached a large rose-tree, which shaded the window. Mary shivered as the piercing wind swept over her, and strove in vain to suppress a fit of coughing. There was ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... open but shuttered window, there was a stealthy stirring of animals in the dark, a gliding of ghostly ducks, a breathing of sheep and camels. And sometimes the wild braying of a donkey or the yelp of a dog tore ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... twenty were admitted to the secret; and yet one of them, in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poisonings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue to occur as the natural results of slavery; but no general insurrection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a long time. Whoever much fears or much hopes for such ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... the necessity of levying the taxes be taken from those who make the appropriations and thrown upon a more distant and less responsible set of public agents, who have power to approach the people by an indirect and stealthy taxation, there is reason to fear that prodigality will soon supersede those characteristics which have thus far made us look with so much pride and confidence to the State governments as the main-stay of our Union and liberties. The State legislatures, instead of studying ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... with its soft tufted grass and clumps of squat thorn trees. There was no longer the protecting wood to screen him; but of such there was no need, for the darkness hung about him like the magic mantle of story. Nearing the mill he grew cautious, creeping along with the tread of a stealthy beast, and halting at intervals to listen for sounds that he wished not to hear. He knew there was no one on guard tonight. A movement in the bushes near by, made him fall quick and sprawling to earth. It ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... the ford where the first contingent of beeves crossed, they were waylaid, while returning, by the wily redskins. The nickering of a pony warned them of the presence of the enemy, and circling wide, they avoided an ambush, though pursued by the stealthy Comanches. Wilson was mounted on a good horse, while Yankee Bill rode a mule, and so closely were they pursued, that on reaching the first broken ground Bill turned into a coulee, while Mocho bore off on an angle, firing his six-shooter to attract ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... could have come from, as there wasn't a sound of anyone stirring on the floor. He could hear Dick's stealthy footfall above ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... sails of the fishermen winging across the sapphire waters, leaving ribboned pathways behind that crossed and recrossed like a chart of the stars; proud white pleasure-yachts, great vessels from all ports in the world; and an occasional battle-ship, drab and stealthy. And the hundred pink and white villages, the jade and amethyst of the near and far islands, the smiling terraces above the city, the ruined temples, the grim giant ash-heap ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... braves to view the Mystic Torch And belt of Sacred Beans grown from my flesh One touch of it makes them invulnerable Then creep, like stealthy ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... startling. The bell of a telephone instrument on the top of the desk began to ring. A moment's breathless indecision, and then she walked to the instrument and took the receiver in her hand. Simultaneously she heard a stealthy movement outside. Her fellow-watcher, whoever he might be, had also made up his mind to know who was ringing up Norris Vine ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Whirled it round him like a rattle, Like a medicine-pouch he shook it, Strangled Kahgahgee, the raven, From the ridge-pole of the wigwam Left its lifeless body hanging, As an insult to its master, As a taunt to Hiawatha. With a stealthy step he entered, Round the lodge in wild disorder Threw the household things about him, Piled together in confusion Bowls of wood and earthen kettles, Robes of buffalo and beaver, Skins of otter, lynx, and ermine, As an insult to Nokomis, As a taunt to Minnehaha. Then ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... for while still in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of gratified love and pride to which she had waded through ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... fascinating simpers, and do not ask for real feeling. For my own part, I abhor the stale intrigues which end in sub-prefectures and receiver-generals' places and marriages; or, if love comes into the question, in stealthy compromises, so ashamed are we of the mere semblance of passion. Not a single one of all these eloquent faces tells you of a soul, a soul wholly absorbed by one idea as by remorse. Regrets and misfortune go about shame-facedly clad in jests. There is not one woman here whose ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... pretended not to be able either to speak through it or to understand its cacklings. All that might very well be assumed in order to divert suspicion, so Miss Mapp paused by the door to let any of these delinquents get deep in conversation with her friend: a soft and stealthy advance towards the room called the morning-room (a small apartment opening out of the hall, and used chiefly for the bestowal of hats and cloaks and umbrellas) would then enable her to catch one of them red-mouthed, or at any rate to overhear fragments of conversation which ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... was not thinking so much of the unpaid bronze-smith as of divers weightier debts. On the evening in question he had ordered Bias, the sly Thracian, out of the room; with his own hands had barred the door and closed the lattice; then with stealthy step thrust back the scarlet wall tapestry to disclose a small door let into the plaster. A key made the door open into a cupboard, out of which Democrates drew a brass-bound box of no great size, which he carried gingerly to a table and opened with ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... key and they stole across the short lawn and up the balcony steps like two stealthy marauders. Then he turned and held out his hand to her in the ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... happiness from poor villagers who live among the padi fields, away there across the river, dimly seen now when the moon is high? And has he helped to make them happy?—did they always sit singing there before he or others came, or did they have to watch with Krises ready, for fear of stealthy foes—foes who crept to stab beneath the raised bamboo floors. Perhaps he, too, has aided with his mite—perhaps—who knows? And as this thought occurs, the discontent will fade, while content ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... It is midnight. The stealthy step of the restless maniac is no longer heard in the long, cheerless corridors; the ravings of the incurable cannot penetrate the deep walls of the cells in which their despair is immured; even the guardians ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... of penitence. So it chanced that, in the flutter of the moment when the last psalm was given out, and Torrance was reading the verse, and the leaves of every psalm-book in church were rustling under busy fingers, two stealthy glances were sent out like antennae among the pews and on the indifferent and absorbed occupants, and drew timidly nearer to the straight line between Archie and Christina. They met, they lingered ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soothing in their simple and sometimes wild melody. They soothed Daisy. After a time, wearied and exhausted by all her long day of trial, she did forget pain in slumber. The eyelids closed, and Juanita's stealthy examination found that quiet soft breathing was really proving her fast asleep. The singing ceased; and for a while nothing was to be heard in the cottage but the low rush and rustle of the wind which had driven away the storm clouds, and the patter of a dislodged rain drop ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 1 • Susan Warner
... friend, Lord Fairfax, found himself no longer safe in his rural abode. Greenway Court was in the midst of a woodland region, affording a covert approach for the stealthy savage. His lordship was considered a great chief, whose scalp would be an inestimable trophy for an Indian warrior. Fears were entertained, therefore, by his friends, that an attempt would be made to surprise him in his green-wood castle. His nephew, Colonel Martin, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... feeling uppermost in her mind, and this alone prevented her calling Ann. Standing a few moments in breathless silence, she heard the slow opening of a drawer; another pause of eager listening, while the stealthy footsteps seemed to be returning towards ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... of mangroves whence weird hoots and bubbling cries and sharp clicks came at night, the stealthy sand marching over the land, the barren slopes of the mountain, and the misshapen rock, gave one's thoughts a twist in the direction of the vague and mysterious. Wylo's continual harping on the wonderful stone renewed the old longing for ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and disappeared. In five minutes or less Johnny saw him walking away from the cabin and glancing frequently at the hills upon either hand. His manner might have been called stealthy, if one were looking for stealth. Johnny was looking for something else, and presently he gave a grunt of satisfaction. The object behind the rock stood up and levelled his glasses at Mateo. Johnny waited until he was ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... perhaps an hour when stealthy footsteps were heard approaching, and not one, but two men came up whispering in hurried and agitated tones. She caught a few words of ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the snow creaked under stealthy footsteps and a shadow stole past the window. Antkowa seized a piece of wood and stood by the door which was flung wide open; a small boy of about ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... trepidation beset me. What meant the presence of this menacing pair here in the heart of the forest? What meant their stealthy advance, their weapons, their wild looks, their uncouth appearance? Assuredly these boded ill. Perhaps they were robbers, outlaws, felons, contemplating overt acts on my life, limbs and property! Perhaps they were escaped maniacs! With a sinking of the heart ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... roguish eye, Wherefore dost thou hie, Stealthy, down the street, On well-booted feet? From French novels I Gather that you fly, Guy or ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... The secret, stealthy opposition grew apace; it assumed sinister proportions,—all the more sinister because it was masked by every outward sign of submission. Crust had won friends right and left among the very people who would have killed him not so many months before but ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... a scheme to be wealthy, By means that were cunning or stealthy; But we always had the bliss— And what further could we wiss?— To be pleased with ourselves, and be healthy; But we always had the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... spoken, for tears choked our words; but our arms were still entwined, and my head rested on his bosom, in all the abandonment of nature's holiest feelings. All at once I heard a rustling in the grass, soft and stealthy like a gliding snake. I raised my ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... been imparted by the invention of the punishments that were inflicted upon prisoners. There had been a long and hot July day of notable warfare. The Twins, if small, were swift and wily; even Christian had justified her adoption by a stealthy and successful raid upon the opposition gravel heap. A long and savage series of engagements had ensued, that alternated between flights, and what Christian, blending recollections of nursery doctoring with methods of Indian warfare, designated "stomach-attacks." ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... grewsome old shell any way, full of unaccountable noises after dark—rustlings of garments along unfrequented passages, and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty, dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against the wainscot, was a crippled ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... falls Smit by a whirlwind when an earthquake cleaves A chasm for rushing blasts from underground; So fell the goodly form of Aeacus' son. He glared, a murderous glance, to right, to left, [Upon the Trojans, and a terrible threat] Shouted, a threat that could not be fulfilled: "Who shot at me a stealthy-smiting shaft? Let him but dare to meet me face to face! So shall his blood and all his bowels gush out About my spear, and he be hellward sped! I know that none can meet me man to man And quell in fight—of earth-born heroes none, Though such an one should bear within ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... time to go to her sitting-room, and for eight o'clock to pass, because once every hour, all night, a young gentleman of the Court, appointed for this purpose and dubbed a "wet-nurse" by jealous comrades, cautiously opened his door and made a stealthy circuit of the room, to see that ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... alleyway leading from the street without, through which he himself had come, sounded the stealthy crunch of feet. Motionless in the utter darkness, Jimmie Dale listened—there was a scraping noise in the rear—someone was climbing the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... tiger's cage, and the big yellow brute was walking up and down with long stealthy strides, his great eyes roving over the curious faces in front of him. Some one poked a stick at him—an attention which met an instant roar and spring on the tiger's part, and a quick, and stinging rebuke ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... long after this that a stealthy step was heard on the gravel path and Phoebe hurried to the door. Copernicus came in with a low word of greeting and followed the ghostly shadow of his hostess ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... stood looking after the other through the darkness, listening as the stealthy steps descended the stairs—then suddenly he knelt again beside the dead man on ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... When I was an apprentice at it—and though you may not think it. Miss Sharey, I am a professional, not an amateur, although I am generally employed on Government business—secrecy was our watchword. We hid in corners, we were stealthy, we always posed as being something we weren't. We should have denied emphatically having the slightest interest in the person under surveillance. In these days, however, everything is changed. We play the game with the cards upon the table—all except the last two ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Anglo-Saxon fatherland the border of woodland, heath, or fen was jealously guarded as a frontier and natural defence for the little predatory and agricultural community. Whoever crossed it was bound to give notice of his coming by blowing a horn; else he was cut down at once as a stealthy enemy. The marksmen wished to remain separate from all others, and only to mix with those of their own kin. In this primitive love of separation we have the germ of that local independence and that isolated private home life which is one of the most ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... doors. Christian saw nothing of all this. His imagination carried him far away to the Avenue de Messine: he saw himself arriving there in the middle of the night, eager and quivering; ascending with stealthy and hurried step the heavily carpeted stairs, entering the room where the night-light burned, mysteriously veiled under lace:—"It is done—I am no longer king. You are mine, mine." And the loved one ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... more peep into her face. The light and the loveliness of her dream had passed; I should not now have had to look twice to know that it was Mary Osborne; but never more could I see in hers a common face. She was still fast asleep, and, stealthy as a beast of prey, I began to make my escape. At the first movement, however, my perplexity was redoubled, for again my hand fell on the sword which I had forgotten, and question after question as to how they were together, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... form and face, instinct with thought, passion, or suffering. With store of such, his adventurous ramble had enriched him; the stern dignity of Indian chiefs; the dusky loveliness of Indian girls; the domestic life of wigwams; the stealthy march; the battle beneath gloomy pine-trees; the frontier fortress with its garrison; the anomaly of the old French partisan, bred in courts, but grown gray in shaggy deserts;—such were the scenes and portraits ...
— The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... felt his nerves stiffen—felt himself constrained to hold even his breath as he widened a little the crack in the curtains. This was no stealthy entrance. The door had been flung open. Von Hern, his dress in wild disorder, pale as a ghost, and with a great bloodstain upon his cheek, stood ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... until the stealthy going minutes distended and swelled monstrous and horrible as viper-bitten bodies, and the venerable Signior Time became of ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... persecution," when the aldermen issued an edict, against monkeys. Now he was "hung up" for rent, unpaid. And, literally, he remained hung up most of the time, usually by his tail from the banisters, in which position he was able both to abet the mischief of the children, and to elude the stealthy grabs of their exasperated elders by skipping nimbly ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... two girls came downstairs, the landlord's wife took their satchel, and led them over broken sidewalks to the meson, where the street was filled with torches and laden burros and blanketed shadows. Murguia's caravan was forming, making a weird, stealthy scene of activity. Jacqueline picked up a lantern, and ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... of storming a castle were discovered. They could be scaled by means of tall ladders, especially in a stealthy night attack. Stones could be thrown over the walls by mangonels to annoy the garrison. Sometimes a wall could be brought down by a battering- ram. But the quickest and surest way was by mining. The miners worked their way to the wall, and then began to take some of the stones of the outer casing ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... I had said it I was convinced I had hit on the explanation, and that perhaps it was already too late. It seemed to me as I listened that I heard stealthy footsteps on the east porch, but there was so much shouting outside that it was impossible to tell. Liddy was on the point ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... many by-paths. He is trying one of them already. The stealthy, invaluable Attwood has told me about it. This Mr. Chester has made an investment in Richmond lots on information which he had no right to use. Never mind the details. If he follows that general direction, it will be a flashy success, a pretty worm-eaten ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... assistant, said it would be all right for Hervey to meet him at quarter of eleven under the elm tree, Hervey was only too glad to jump the rule, which was that scouts must turn in at ten thirty, directly after camp-fire. This stealthy meeting under the old elm tree near the witching hour of midnight was quite to ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... heard a sharp snapping of twigs and then stealthy, light steps. An animal of some species was moving in the thicket nearby. Naturally I sustained a thrill, and bethought me of the rifle. Then I peered keenly into the red rose shadows of the thicket. The ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... ever great!"— Songless sat I by a grove, Pines, like funeral priests of state, Chanted solemn rites above. Dark and glassy far below, The River in his proud vale slept, Eve with olive-shafted bow Like a stealthy archer crept. ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... was I was not more horror-stricken than I really was by this mysterious, and, all things considered, even terrible interpellation. It was not until the silence had again returned, and the faint rustling of the frosty breeze among the crisp weeds crept toward me like the stealthy approach of some unearthly influence, that I felt a superstitious terror gradually inspire me, which hurried me at an accelerated pace from the place. A few minutes, and I heard the friendly voice of my charioteer hallooing to me from the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... here and there over the rough logs of the cabin walls. He had been shot and nearly killed by a bandit, gored by a bull, dragged by a frightened horse, and bitten by a bear. Upon one lonely excursion far from any settlement, he had been followed by a huge, stealthy, mountain lion. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... some moments, into the ear of the hideous creature who had made way for the Veiled Woman. The grim skeleton bowed his head submissively, and strode noiselessly away through the long grasses—the slender stems, trampled under his stealthy feet, relifting themselves as after a passing wind. And thus he, too, sank out of sight down into the valley below. On the tableland of the hill remained only we three—Margrave, myself, and ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... to be a raid on a large scale: no isolated affair like the pilgrimages of Shorty Bill, but an affair where the enemy's trenches were to be entered by a large party. No silent, stealthy work, but a thorough good jolly, with bombs and ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... I was aware of that which his keener senses had already distinguished. A low, stealthy sound came to my ears, not from the direction of Baker Street, but from the back of the very house in which we lay concealed. A door opened and shut. An instant later steps crept down the passage—steps ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of rising heather and struck a sharp slope of turf. Close above them loomed a dark mass of building, and the silence was unbroken save by the stealthy fall of their footsteps. Grim led the way, then came Estein, then Helgi, and the others followed in ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... again into the citadel, and might even in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and near it the stealthy tread of the foe that would win ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... slightly to apprise the half-conscious guardian of the ominous house that he was obeying her orders, and vanished in the rear darkness. The dead hush of sleep now reigned over the place. So it seemed, but the stealthy Pepillo was wide awake. He remained motionless, breathless, hidden in the gloom of the second cabin. At length he reappeared, took up the candle, stood awhile listening, then moved cautiously to the edge of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... was not made by withered bracken or bramble leaves, and had nothing to do with the stealthy fall of a poacher's heavy boot. It came again more clearly, and Thurston was almost sure that it was the rustle of a woven fabric, such as a woman's dress. To confirm this opinion a soft laugh followed. He rose, deciding it could only be some assignation with ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... confident advance into 'Dixie' was not only checked, but turned into a disastrous rout. The patriotic but unwarlike enthusiasm of the country, which had hoped to crush the rebellion with seventy-five thousand men, was temporarily stifled. But the chilling was only like that of the first stealthy drops of the thunder-gust upon a raging fire, which breaks out anew and with increased vigor when the tempest fans it with its fury, and now burns in spite of a deluge of rain. The chill had passed and the fever was raging. From the great centres of national life went forth warm currents ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... year it had been crowded. There were, however, a few groups of the villagers kneeling at the shrine, or at the different altars, to aid the picturesque. We ascended into the upper part of the edifice, and walked in those narrow galleries through which I had formerly seen the Benedictines stalking in stealthy watchfulness, looking down at the devotees beneath. I was admitted to the cloisters, cells, library, &c., but my companions were excluded as a matter of course. It is merely a spacious German convent, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... from all directions, infantry were converging, picking their way in single file to reduce their casualties if a shell burst near them. The landscape, the people, the early morning—everything was stealthy and ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... divorce', and a declared woman-hater; railed on them, and kept them at arm's-length, Fanny Dover included. It was really comical to see with what perfect coolness and cynical apathy he parried the stealthy advances of this cat-like girl, a mistress in the art of ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... they rode, and on, Like fabled Centaurs, men and steeds seemed one. No bugle echoed and no voice spoke near, Lest on some lurking Indian's list'ning ear The sound might fall. Through swift descending snow The stealthy guides crept, tracing out the foe; No fire was lighted, and no halt was made From haggard gray-lipped dawn till ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sheepishly presented him with a pair of white mice in a wooden cage. Jimmy was thrilled. The cage was on his knees all evening, and one of the mice was clearly ill of a cake with pink icing. The Portier's gift was a stealthy one, while his wife was having coffee with her cousin, the brushmaker. But the spirit Of Christmas does strange things. That very evening, while the Portier was roistering in a beer hall preparatory to the midnight mass, came the Portier's wife, puffing from the stairs, and brought a ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who was the instigator of that plot, who was the paymaster of the, as he believed, baffled assassins. For in a sense he believed them to be baffled, and this for two reasons. The first was that he heard no sound of stealthy footsteps creeping across the bridge. The second was that when he glanced up at the Inn window he saw that the dim glow in the distant window was suddenly occulted, and then as suddenly became visible again. It ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... only one who could slip up on the sea-parrots and kill them with a club. Shane and Harlan and even Kayak Bill tried it repeatedly with no success. They were unable to creep down under the low-growing brush in a manner stealthy enough to reach the birds. Even Loll found it impossible to approach them in the open, and they grew more wary day by day. Six people depended on the child for nourishing food, and Lollie, after that first ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... something so eerie in the subdued tones, and stealthy motions, and profound darkness, that Nigel could not help feeling as if they were proceeding to commit some black ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... armed from head to foot, and mounted on swift chargers. This squadron had been hovering in the neighborhood of the English army for some days, watching for an opportunity to attack them, but without success. Now, foreseeing that Edward would attempt to enter Romorantin, they pushed forward in a stealthy manner to the neighborhood of that town, and placed themselves in ambush at the sides of a narrow and solitary gorge in the mountains, through which they knew the English must ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... disreputable, poverty-stricken cot, grew suddenly tense, holding her breath as she listened. The sound reached the attic so faintly that it might be but the product solely of the imagination. No—it came again! And it even defined itself now—a stealthy footstep on the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... stealthy pace, Calenus, gliding under the shade of the trees, reached the chapel, and gently putting back the boughs that completely closed around its rear, settled himself in his concealment; a concealment so complete, what with the fane in front and the trees behind, that no unsuspicious passenger could ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... shore. With steady strokes of the muffled oars, the two boats made their way toward the two brigs that could just be seen outlined against the sky. Elliott, in the first boat, directed the movements of his men, and restrained the too enthusiastic. So stealthy was the approach, that the foremost boat was fairly alongside of the "Detroit" before the British took the alarm. Then the quick hail of the sentry brought an answering pistol-shot from Elliott; and, amid volleys of musketry, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Through that neutral veil where lamplight and shadow meet upon the wall, the engraved portrait of a famous and godly missionary peered down at her out of altered and malicious eyes; the claw-footed, haircloth sofa was a stealthy creature offering to entrap her with wide, inviting arms; three folded umbrellas leaned over the edge of their shadowy stand, looking down at her like scrawny and baleful birds, ready to peck at her with ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... a beautiful view across the River Rance, to the wooded slopes beside Dinard, and, finding a seat beneath a lime-tree, Barbara sat down. She had been there about a quarter of an hour, and was almost asleep, when she heard stealthy footsteps coming through the grass beside her, and the next moment her startled eyes fell upon the solicitor's son ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... forth two balls of fire. They came farther and farther into the level land. They grew larger and brighter. The dark hid the body of the creature with those fiery eyes. They came on and on, just over the tops of the prairie grass. It might have been a wildcat prowling low on soft, stealthy feet. Slowly but surely the terrible eyes drew nearer and nearer to the heart of ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... dead of night by a noise in the next room. It was neither snore nor cry. It was more like a long, shuddering gurgle, and then—silence! Frightful, terrible silence, broken at last by the sound of stealthy footsteps and hushed voices. Babette sunk down on her pillow again, her baby clutched in her arms. A voiceless prayer went up to Heaven for the child's safety and her own, for already she heard them approaching her door, and made sure her last hour was come. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... attics in the gables, seldom visited. You went up from the inhabited portions by a corkscrew staircase, steep as a ladder. The servants did not like the attics. There were creaking footsteps on the floors at night, and sometimes the slamming of a door or the stealthy opening of a window. They complained that locked doors up there flew open, and bolted windows were found unbolted. In storm the wind keened like a banshee, and one bright snowy morning a housemaid, who had business there, found a slender ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... stealthy step along the hall to the door, yet the girl had no presentiment of evil. The warm, brooding, fragrant darkness of the night was not more undisturbed ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... child Jane is a sad task, and pity would lead us to soften every touch if this could be done in truthfulness. She was but twelve years of age, yet there was scarcely a trace of childhood left in her colorless face. Stealthy and catlike in all her movements, she gave the impression that she could not do the commonest thing except in a sly, cowering manner. Her small greenish-gray eyes appeared to be growing nearer together with the lease of time, and their indirect, furtive ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... fallen tree, side by side, and, while talking in low tones, did not for a moment forget their surroundings. They had lived too long in the perilous wilderness to forget that there was never a moment when a pioneer was absolutely safe from the fierce or stealthy ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... brave and trusty warriors of the woods was very offensive to Washington; the more, as he knew, that, when it came to be put to the test, these men, unskilled though they were in the modes of civilized warfare, would be found far better fitted to cope with the cunning and stealthy enemy they had then to deal with, than those well-dressed, well-armed, well-drilled, but ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... when the sisters entered. It was both warm and fresh. A night-light burnt on the table, where cups and bottles were ranged, a spirit-lamp and kettle, and other necessaries. The night-light threw long, stealthy shadows over the room. The fire burnt with a red glow. The bed lay against the long wall. As the two figures entered, there was a faint sound of quick panting, and a moan. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... with a sigh adown he lay And slept, nor ever woke again, For in that hour was he slain By stealthy traitors as he slept. He of a few was much bewept, But of most men was well forgot While the town's ashes still were hot The foeman on that day did burn. As for the land, great Time did turn The bloody fields to deep green grass, And from the minds of men did pass The memory of that time of woe, ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... the friendly "outdoors" it should be he, to guard her from her own foolhardiness. These roads were paths of peace, but Nan was equal to adventure more extended. She might have snatched snowshoes, in her stealthy preparation, to go off wood wandering. She might brave the darkness where, to country minds, lurked the recurring legend of the "lucivee." There was no actual danger, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... During our stealthy passage across the basin we discussed in low tones the important question of the boats; and it was ultimately settled that we would take two of the four gigs, and at least make an effort to hoist in the longboat, the other two gigs and the jollyboat to ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... budding woods, a sudden stir near at hand caused Emsden to turn his head. Just above him, on a rugged slope where no trees grew save a scraggy cedar here and there amidst the shelving ledges of rock outcropping through the soft verdant turf, he saw a stealthy, furtive shape; he was aware of a hasty cowed glance over the shoulder, and then a stretching of supple limbs in flight. Before he himself hardly knew it the sharp crack of his rifle rang out,—the aim was ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... then he heard distinctly the sound of the coming deliverers. Another minute, and he saw the dark lines leaving the shadow of the forest, and descending the hill in serried array, then deploying, as if to surround a foe in stealthy silence; he looked around for the object, and beheld Ragnar's forces all unconscious of their danger, not having heard the approach in their own hasty preparations for departure. Another moment of dread suspense, like ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... blowing in from the ocean and the brittle sand grass kept up a constant rustling. This sound served admirably to cover the approach of a stealthy figure that had followed the boys at a distance ever since they had left Bartanet. This figure crept closer and closer to the sand dune, until only a projecting hump concealed it from the five ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... stooping gait like a giant worn out with labor; he was in clerical dress, but his soft felt hat was in his hand, and the grand powerful head with its heavy dead-brown hair and pale face were distinctly visible under the shadow of the ivy. He did not more at the sound of the stealthy footstep or at the light shadow that fell across him, though the girl crept so close that he could have touched her with his right hand; but on Catharine's reappearance she shrunk back with a gesture of mingled entreaty ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... immediately ensued he could not fathom, for he could not know that from beneath one of the hides that covered him protruded one of his heavy army shoes, or that some eighteen large Wieroos with robes either solid red or slashed with red or blue were standing gazing at it. Nor could he hear their stealthy approach. ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and flushing, and the fear to look too much, and the stealthy joy of feeling that there must be something meant, yet the terror of believing anything in earnest and the hope that, after all, there may be nought to come of it; and when this hope seems over true, the hollow of the heart behind it, and ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... side, as if perfectly at his ease, yet speaking in quick earnest tones, and drawing her closely to him, Ruby waited until he heard a stealthy tread behind him. Then he sprang up with the speed of thought, uttered a laugh of defiance as the sailors rushed towards him, and leaping wildly off the cliff, fell a height of about fifty feet ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... Katie, chased her with crickets in their fingers, and "jollied" her with an irreverent freedom that turned Tansey's heart into cold lead in his bosom. The signs of his adoration were few—a tremulous "Good morning," stealthy glances at her during meals, and occasionally (Oh, rapture!) a blushing, delirious game of cribbage with her in the parlour on some rare evening when a miraculous lack of engagement kept her at home. Kiss him in the hall! ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... should care for that, except for your sake? No, a thousand times, no! I'm young still, I could begin the world again! Yes, and conquer it as I have done before; but"—his voice sank, and he look round the room with a stealthy glance which shocked and startled Stafford—"the ruin Ralph Falconer threatens me with means more than the loss of money. It means the loss of everything! Of friends, of good ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... his walk and looked back towards the fire where Ainley sat writing, with Chigmok glowering at him across the fire, whilst Anderton sat staring abstractedly into the glowing logs. Then a stealthy movement of the half-breed's arrested his attention. The man had thrust his hand into his furs, and as it was withdrawn Stane caught sight of something that gleamed in the firelight. In a flash he saw what was about to happen, and shouted ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... people know little of optical illusions and false visual perceptions, though they are aware that incorrect auditions are frequent matters of fact. Moreover, to the heard object a large number of more or less certain precautionary judgments are attached. If anybody, e. g., has *heard a shot, stealthy footsteps, crackling flames, we take his experience always to be *approximate. We do not do so when he assures us he has *seen these things or their causes. Then we take them—barring certain mistakes in observation,—to be indubitable ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... you here. It comes in the wake of that evening breeze which creeps about with stealthy feet, winding its way into the most secluded courtyards and sending a sudden shiver through the frail bamboos that stand beside your dinner-table in some heated square. Then the zephyr departs mysteriously as it came, and leaves behind a great void—a ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... and drew up in the full glare of the moonlight. From here he could see the curve of the shore; and, beyond the quay and esplanade and last scattered houses of the little town, the lighthouse marking the tip of the western horn of the bay. He could hear the soft stealthy plunge and following rush of the sea up the white shelving beach. Could hear also—less soothing sound—through the open windows of the drawing-room of the Pavilion, just across the garden, Marshall Wace singing, with all the impassioned fervour of his ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... and Lady Macbeth may meet. After this prelude we are prepared to be possessed by her emotion more fully, to feel in her ears the dull tramp of the blood that seems to make the raven's croak yet hoarser than it is, and to betray the stealthy advance of the mind to its fell purpose. For Lady Macbeth hears not so much the voice of the bodeful bird as of her own premeditated murder, and we are thus made her shuddering accomplices before the fact. Every image receives the color of the mind, every word throbs with the pulse of one controlling ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... he knew a moment when flesh crawled and the hair seemed to stir upon the scalp; for Duchemin knew he was not alone; there was something else in the room with him, something nameless, stealthy, silent, sinister; having knowledge of him, where he stood and what he was, while he knew nothing of it, only that it was there, keeping surveillance over him, itself unseen in ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... and now! The year he left us, The People in full Parliament could wrest The Bill of Rights from the reluctant King; And now, he'll find in an obscure small room A stealthy gathering of great-hearted men That take up England's cause: England ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... minor animals, are God's meanest creatures. They live on manzanita berry meal, pine-nuts, and grasshoppers. Bows and flint-headed arrows are their only weapons. They snare the smaller animals. The defenceless deer yield to their stealthy tracking. The giant grizzly and panther affright them. They cannot ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... to the buckboard with swift, almost stealthy strides. The dark olive of his complexion, the high cheek-bones, the delicately chiseled, aquiline nose, the perfectly penciled eyebrows surmounting the quick, keen, handsome black eyes; these things combined with the lithe, sinuous grace ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum |
