"Footfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into an apartment new to him. It was not very large, but most luxurious; a fountain played in the centre, and the floor was covered with the skins of panthers, dressed with the hair, so that no footfall could be heard. The room was an ante-chamber to the princess's boudoir, for on one side there was no door, but an ample ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... 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. Oh, my God!" ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 as light as that. She sat up, and then the ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... we started. The warm light of the open door became a speck, and then nothing; and in the long dark drive, when every footfall of the horses seemed to consume an age, the sickening agony of suspense was almost intolerable. Oh, my dear! never, never shall I forget that night. The black trees and hedges whirling past us in the darkness, always the same, like an enchanted drive; then the ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... walk with hob-nailed high-lows upon a gravelly road, and you would never hear his footfall," said the man, as the door noiselessly opened and shut, a soft-footed, low-voiced, subtle-looking mulatto entered the kitchen, and gave good evening to ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... moment distracted by the footfall of men coming in haste up the path from my father's wharf. 'Twas not hard to surmise their errand. My sister sighed—I ran to the door—the doctor began at once to get into his boots and greatcoat. But, to our surprise, two deck-hands ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... faltered, nor did she keep her eyes resting quietly upon the throng of her handmaids; but to the paths far off she strained her gaze, turning her face aside. Oft did her heart sink fainting within Tier bosom whenever she fancied she heard passing by the sound of a footfall or of the wind. But soon he appeared to her longing eyes, striding along loftily, like Sirius coming from ocean, which rises fair and clear to see, but brings unspeakable mischief to flocks; thus then ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... 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
... regal class Nature has broadly severed from the mass Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames Some happy lands, that have luxurious names, For loose fertility; a footfall there Suffices to upturn to the warm air Half-germinating spices; mere decay Produces richer life; and day by day New pollen on the lily-petal grows, And still more labyrinthine ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... the woman has been doing extra work; it is stormy, too, blustering and spattering rain. Yet she pauses occasionally and listens to a passing footfall, as though she expected ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... solitudes of the country. Perhaps even more so, for the solitude is somehow more apparent. The last theatre-goer has disappeared inside his hall door, the last dull roll of the brougham, with its happy laughing load, has died away—there is not so much as a single footfall. The cropped holly hedges, the leafless birches, the limes and acacias are still and distinct in the moonlight. A few steps farther out on the highway the copse or plantation sleeps in ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... in the maiden Spring? Who heard her footfall, swift and light As fairy-dancing in the night? Who guessed what happy dawn would bring The flutter of her bluebird's wing, The blossom of her mayflower-face To brighten every shady place? One morning, down the village street, "Oh, here am I," we heard her sing,— And none had been awake ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... have mentioned that when a troop of elephants are passing leisurely onwards, feeding as they go, their footfall is unheard; but when angry, the case is very different. The monster seemed to make the very ground quake beneath his feet, as he came trumpeting on behind us, adding, not a little, I suspect, to the ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... fright. I jerk off the bedclothes, convulse into an upright posture, and glare into the darkness. Nothing. I rise softly, creep cautiously and swiftly over the floor, that always creaked, but now thunders at every footfall. A light gleams through the open door of the opposite room whence the sound issues. A familiar voice utters an exclamation which I recognize. It is Petronius, the unprincipled scoundrel, who is uncording a bed, dragging remorselessly through innumerable holes the long rope whose doleful wail ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and 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; gather out the stones; lift up an ensign for the peoples. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... absent wife—a detestable combination. Twelve o'clock at night outside a house is an immoral hour, inside a house it is non-moral, but respectable. There is nothing in the street at that time but dubiety. Who would be a husband listening through the tolling of midnight for a muffled footfall?—And he had told her not to go: had given an order, formulated his imperative ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... had said. The swish of bushes parting and the occasional sound of a stumbling footfall on the trail now became plainer. They heard the voice of Moise break out into a little song as he saw the light of the fire flickering among the trees. He laughed gaily as he stepped into the ring of the cleared ground, let down one end of the canoe which he was carrying, ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... I then truly all that I beheld? Or is this stream of being but a glass Where the mind sees its visionary self, As, when the kingfisher flits o'er his bay, Across the river's hollow heaven below His picture flits,—another, yet the same? But suddenly the sound of human voice Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, 200 Doth in opacous cloud precipitate The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved Into an essence rarer than its own. And I am narrowed to myself ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... past midnight when once more I came out of the narrow ways, almost empty at that hour, when every footfall resounds between the old houses, into the old Piazza to learn this secret. Far away in the sky the moon swung like a censer, filling the place with a fragile and lovely light. Standing there in the Piazza, quite deserted now save for some cloaked figure who hurried away up the ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... 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 hastily, and their eyes met in a glance ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... not to be startled by whatever I should see, 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 ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... five dollar bill, he's a fraud of the first water, even tho' he prays night and morn till he's black in the face and howls hallelujah till he shakes the eternal hills. But if his children rush to the front gate to greet him, and love's own sunshine illumes the face of his wife when she hears his footfall, you can take it for granted that he's true gold, for his home's a heaven, and the Humbug never gets that near the great white throne of God. He may be a rank atheist and a red-flag anarchist, a Mormon and a mugwump; he may buy votes in blocks-of-five and bet on the election; he may ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... thought. Her two attendants, the girls Pani and Toea, watched her with their full, lustrous eyes as they sat on a mat in the centre of the house smoking their cigarettes of strong, black tobacco. Without all was silent, save now and then when an occasional footfall would sound on the path in front of the quiet dwelling as some native returned to the village from the beach, carrying a string of fish or a basket of sea-birds' eggs for the evening meal. Straight from the open door the lagoon lay shining under the light of myriad stars, its placid ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... possibly to listen again, possibly to assure myself as to what I had best do next. The silence was profound. Not a sound disturbed the great, empty building. My own footfall, as I stirred, seemed to wake extraordinary echoes. I had moved but a few steps, yet to my heightened senses, the noise seemed loud enough to wake the dead. Instinctively I stopped and stood stock-still. There was no answering cessation of movement. Darkness, silence everywhere. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... halted, and listened, and they could catch the distant footfall of the patrols echoing in some far-off corridor. That reassured them. They ceased to fancy the smell of burning and to be victimized by the illusion that a little tongue of flame darted ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... 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 soon ensconced amidst ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... corner he heard a soft footfall, and swerving in his saddle he turned and struck with all his might in the face of a man who leaped at him, at the same time grasping the uplifted wrist with his other hand. A curse and the tinkle of thin ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... imparting a pink hue to 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
... while he measured his vigil only by the ticking of a clock somewhere out of sight, then he heard a quiet footfall on the hardwood, and through the fronds of the plants he saw a man's figure pace slowly by. The broad shoulders and the lancelike carriage proclaimed Von Ritz even before the downcast face was raised. At Cara's door the European wheeled uncertainly and paused. Because something vague and subconscious ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... the elevator door clang and waited expectantly, but nothing happened. I began to wonder whether, even if some one had a pass-key to the suite, we could hear him enter if he was quiet. The outside hall was thickly carpeted, and deadened every footfall if one exercised only reasonable care. The rooms ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... in the church tower had struck eleven, and Harry heard the cry of the watch, "all's well." He still stood where he had parted with his sister; as her last footfall upon the stairs died away, and the house was hushed for the night, the plans which he had matured long days ago, for this night's execution, laid fast hold of him. Can it be possible that the boy is about to forget those last words of his mother? No, they ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... quickly. Amidst all the magnificence she had noted on her journey through the long suite of reception-rooms—the littered treasures of amber and gold, and ivory and porcelain and silver—she had seen only an empty wine-flask; so with quick footfall she ran down the wide, shallow stairs to the lower floor, and here she found herself in a labyrinth of passages opening into small rooms and servants' offices. Here there were darkness and gloom rather than splendour; though in many of those smaller rooms there was ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... apparently exhausted frame with one of those long sticks which the women use for digging roots; a child was running before her. Fearing she would be much alarmed if we came too suddenly upon her,—as neither our voices in conversation, nor the footfall of our horses, attracted her attention,—I cooeed gently; after repeating the call two or three times, she turned her head; in sudden fright she lifted her arms, and began to beat the air, as if ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... 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 hard and fast. ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... but heavy, footfall of Pringle ceased. The house was silent; the city had become so. An occasional Madison Avenue car could be heard ringing along the cold rails, or rhythmically bounding down hill on a flat wheel. Once some distance ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... pointed, but not far below freezing; and the flakes were large, damp, and adhesive. The whole city was sheeted up. An army might have marched from end to end and not a footfall given the alarm. If there were any belated birds in heaven, they saw the island like a large white patch, and the bridges like slim white spars, on the black ground of the river. High up overhead the snow settled among the tracery of the cathedral towers. Many a niche was drifted full; many ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... right arm across the supine body and enveloping the face in her left sleeve a single twist and Nettie Vollar would choke in a cloud of thick satin made gay with unfading flowers and the embroidered symbol of long life. She felt her body grow rigid with purpose when the sound of a footfall below held her motionless ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... impenetrable as if it had been a wall of stone. And thus it was that Jean found himself suddenly secluded from the world, after many weeks of tumultuous activity, seeing no face save that of the gentle woman whose footfall on the floor gave back no sound. She appeared to him, as he had beheld her for the first time down yonder in Sedan, like an apparition, with her somewhat large mouth, her delicate, small features, her hair the hue of ripened grain, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... night down the darkest streets and along the shadiest sides of them, like a burglar. I trembled whenever I saw a policeman or heard a footfall on the road. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... swung past him, Weldon heard the rustle of a quiet footfall. It was Captain Frazer's ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... a little uneasy. She fancied that perhaps she ought not to be here; she remembered now the servant's slight air of unwillingness to let her in. There was a footfall in the hall, and the sound of talking; and as Mr. Morris's hasty step came up the passage, the door was pushed abruptly open, and Ralph was looking into the room, with one or ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... him through several winding passages. A man could get into this gruesome building and never find his way out, thought Alyrus, and though a brave chieftain in his own country, he shivered here in the black corridors, echoing with every footfall. ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... flock of long-tailed titmice, which were twinging and pecking about the fir-cones a few minutes since, are gone: and now there is not even a gnat to quiver in the slant sun-rays. Did a spider run over these dead leaves, I almost fancy I could hear his footfall. The creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to see! Above my head every fir-needle is breathing—breathing for ever; currents ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... crawled back to the face of the cliff behind him, and crouched behind a rock with his cocked rifle across his knees. The man must climb over the ledge; there would be a bare, level floor of rock between them-the Lewallen would be at his mercy—and Rome, with straining eyes, waited. There was a footfall on the other side of the ledge; a soft clink of metal against stone. The Lewallen was climbing slowly-slowly. Rome could hear his heavy breathing. A grimy hand slipped over the sharp comb of the ledge; another appeared, clinched about a Winchester—then the slouched hat, and ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... 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, and serpent turned to gaze ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... all her ears sought for two sounds with agonizing acuteness—the firm, rapid step of Jonah mounting the stairs winding from the shop, or the nonchalant, laggard footfall of Ray ascending from the stairs at the rear. Would Cassidy send the bottle and trust her for the other eighteen pence? Would Jonah hurry back to meet Miss Grimes? Presently her ear distinguished the light, uncertain ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... usual. Even if he returned, she could not know with certainty how much of a part hazard had played on the landing above, where she already heard the distant sounds of Sylvia's voice mingling with Siward's, then a light footfall ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... said Lopez, starting 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 and so absolutely groundless! ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... were a few odds and ends of female dress, and two letters tied round with a narrow ribbon of 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; just as I was descending the stairs ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... beautiful but still tearful Uzcoque maid stood thus revealed before the astonished senator, and his enraptured and speechless son, the approaching footfall of a horse at full speed was heard, and in an instant there darted round the angle of a cliff the martial figure of a Turk, mounted upon a large and powerful steed, of that noble race bred in the deserts eastward of the Caspian. The ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... fringe of which it stood. Neither of the women, however, heeded the sweep of the tempest, for their bosoms were racked by storms other than those of the elements. With eyes heavy from pent-up floods of tears, and hearts dark with foreboding, they listened for the footfall which both knew would bring with it their ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... 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 ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... wind at the corner of the street like some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... passed between the dwarf and his master. Then Otter followed, his hand upon the hilt of the Arab sabre which he wore, while Leonard and Soa waited above. They heard the man's heavily booted feet going down the steps followed by Otter's naked footfall. ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... excellent nurse, with her quiet, reserved ways and her manner of moving about a ward as if she studied the lightness of every footfall. But she had her peculiarities. I have already said that she was not given to be communicative, and for the first three months she was in the place I do not believe she uttered a word to any one within the walls except on subjects connected with the performance of her duties. Then, too, she manifested ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... destroyer. Such particularly was the fate of the agoutis, which had either forgotten the experience of past seasons or had failed to inherit the cunning of the other wild folk. When the Jaguar approached, noisily announcing her coming with voice and footfall, they sat stock still and waited. Only their noses twitched and their large, black eyes stared dumbly in the direction from whence the sounds came. They never had long to wait. With a growl, Suma pounced upon them, mauled them into bits and ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... on a door near at hand, then waited a moment, and, getting no response, turned away toward the shed and the deep, wet, burring sound of a wash-board. The woman bending over it did not hear his footfall. Presently he stopped. She had just straightened up, lifting a piece of the washing to the height of her head, and letting it down with a swash and slap upon the board. It was a woman's garment, but certainly not hers. For she was small ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... 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 foot and a strong hand; till presently he stood ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... as a shadow I drew out of sight, turned away, and went almost back to the gate before I let my footfall be heard, and called, ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... 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 out again; and when she went, she ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of dawn Cooling thy feverish brow, And the fading of the last footfall of the stars No kiss can I bring to thy bedside, Nor caresses of cooling fire, my sweet. Yet through this dreamful silence That writes on the rim of the golden light The story of our love With most eloquent poignancy, More love we pour into ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... that he should marry a girl whose father was "indeed very bad, but especially about his shoes?" Staveley had told him that connection would be necessary for him, and what sort of a connection would this be? And was there one word in the whole letter that showed a spark of true love? Did not the footfall of Madeline Staveley's step as she passed along the passage go nearer to his heart than all the outspoken assurance of Mary ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... 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 Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... burning dimly, and the girl's white face was lost in the shadow, when the young man first glanced at her, so he had no suspicion of the truth, though a most indefinable sensation crept over him as he heard the timid footfall, and the rustling of female garments as Adah Hastings drew near with her boy in her arms. He knew she stopped before him; he knew, too, why she stopped, and for a brief instant his better nature bade him be a man and offer her what he knew she wanted. But ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... listen. Hope was coming up the stairs. She recognized the slow, gentle footfall. It came nearer the door. Theodora took a quick step to the table and caught up the ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... moan a wordless lovesong, very low and terrible in the night alone before the door, and did not answer. Then she saw him go softly down the steps, look up and down the street, move guiltily across the yard, hiding behind a bush at a distant footfall, and slip slowly into the sidewalk and go hurrying away from the house. In half an hour she was waiting for Henry Fenn as a cat might wait at ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... 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
... To his wild work, beside the monument. "Ha! leave, thou moon! where thy footfall hath been In sorrow amid heaven! there is sin Under thy shadow, lying like a dew; So come thou, from thy awful arch of blue, Where thou art even as a silver throne For some pale spectre-king; come thou alone, Or bring a solitary orphan star Under thy wings! ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... away from her with that noiseless footfall that was so like the stealthy padding ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... change of place.] Motion — N. motion, movement, move; going &c v.; unrest. stream, flow, flux, run, course, stir; evolution; kinematics; telekinesis. step, rate, pace, tread, stride, gait, port, footfall, cadence, carriage, velocity, angular velocity; clip, progress, locomotion; journey &c 266; voyage &c 267; transit &c 270. restlessness &c (changeableness) 149; mobility; movableness, motive power; laws of motion; mobilization. V. be in motion &c adj.; move, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... fellows emerge as something sublime from an immense mirage, and we see the deep meaning in our struggles, in our victories and defeats; we begin to find pleasure in the rhythm of passion and in its victim in the hero's every footfall we distinguish the hollow echo of death, and in its proximity we realise the greatest charm of life: thus transformed into tragic men, we return again to life with comfort in our souls. We are conscious of a new feeling of security, as if we had ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the matter-of-fact attitude of the watcher, and on the cool courage of his servant, the abject fear of the dog, who dies in agony, all tend to create an atmosphere of grave conviction. The eerie child's footfall, the moving of the furniture by unseen hands, the wrinkled fingers that clutch the old letters, the faintly outlined wraiths of the man and woman in old-world garb with ruffles, lace, and buckles, the hideous phantom of the drowned man, the dark figure with malignant serpent eyes, shadow ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... around the hoary pile, and, with deepening shades, every soul 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
... while they were suffering from a nervous trepidation that made even a heavy footfall startling, every one being in expectation of a ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... group silently, his footfall making no sound upon the moss-grown earth. He did not approach quite near, however, in silence, afraid of startling her, but stopped a little way ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... decks, sometimes aloft, sometimes on the boom end; taking his full share of what the others got, but doing no work for it. We didn't only feel it, we knew it. He took up no room, he cast no shadow, and we never heard his footfall on deck; but he took his whack with the rest as regular as the bells, and—he whistled "Nancy Lee." It was like the worst sort of dream you can imagine; and I dare say a good many of us tried to believe it was nothing else sometimes, when we stood ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... monumental statue on horseback of the murdered commander, gleaming by pale moonlight in the convent cemetery; how my heart quaked as he bowed his marble head, and accepted the impious invitation of Don Juan: how each footfall of the statue smote upon my heart, as I heard it approach, step by step, through the echoing corridor, and beheld it enter, and advance, a moving figure of stone, to the supper table! But then the convivial scene in the charnel-house, where Don Juan returned ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... remained standing as long as she heard the footsteps of Frank's mother on the stairs; not immediately thinking of what had passed, but still buoying herself up with her hot indignation, as though her work with Lady Arabella was not yet finished; but when the footfall was no longer heard, and the sound of the closing door told her that she was in truth alone, she sank back in her seat, and, covering her face with her hands, burst ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... foremost as they ran for the entrance. In fact, not one of them was peculiarly keen to follow such a trail as this in the darkness. Breathless silence fell over the patio, and then they heard the departing beat of the hoofs of Red's horse. And the shock of every footfall struck home in the heart of Marianne and filled her with a great loneliness and terror. And then the noise of the gallop died away in the ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... out 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
... already seated. It was at the moment of that profound hush which precedes the recital. Even my footfall, light as it was, reechoed to the groined arches. The church was ghostly dark,—so dark that the hundreds of heads melted into the mass of pews, and they into the gloom of column and wall. The only distinguishable gleam was ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... then we know not and dream not if ill things be, Or if aught of the work of the wrong of the world be thine. We hear not the footfall of terror that treads the sea, We hear not the moan of winds that assail the pine: We see not if shipwreck reign in the storm's dim shrine; If death do service and doom bear witness to thee We see not,—know not if blood for thy lips ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... heart is eased with hearing, Only mine eyes are soothed with seeing, A face brought nigh, a footfall nearing, Till hopes take form and dreams ...
— A Dark Month - From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the elm-tree, I watched the long, long, shade, And as it grew still longer, I did not feel afraid; For I listened for a footfall, I listened for a word,— But the beating of my own heart Was all the ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... doors, glanced distrustfully into the darkness of the passage, and at last ventured out and disappeared, regaining his own room with such soft steps that not the faintest footfall was heard amidst the tomb-like slumber ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... tribe rose at once and flitted along beside us on our landward side. We could not hear a footfall, or a breath. They passed through dry grass without rustling, neither stumbling nor crowding one another, but all so governed by one all-absorbing thought that they acted in absolute unison. That the thought was food did not, even in their starving state, make them forget the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Surgeon's eyes her white forehead puckered all up with perplexity. Then with her mind still thoroughly unawakened, her heart began suddenly to pitch and lurch like a frightened horse whose rider has not even remotely sensed as yet the approach of an unwonted footfall. "What—did—you—say?" she repeated worriedly. "Just exactly what was it that you said? I guess—maybe—I didn't understand just exactly what it was that ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... open windows they heard his quick, light footfall as he hurried up the Frauengasse. Something made them silent, listening ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... stricken with utter panic, Wambe's soldiers streamed away a scattered crowd of fugitives, while after them thundered the footfall of the victors. ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... Every footfall echoed the horrible, unbelievable word. The man was incapable of feeling—every other pain was deadened in this great suffering which ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... were round and small, with grass growing everywhere. There was a wall, and then a great gateway surmounted by a cross, and nothing behind it, nothing whatever to be seen. To the left there was a house, and to the right the Satory barracks. Not a sound to be heard—not a footfall, not even an echo. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... go again. He did not mean to watch the wistaria vine. He went, he told himself wildly, to evade the summons that was sure to come from Adam Craig. But when the glimmer of wistaria swayed beneath a footfall, madness came upon him and he went stealthily through orchard and forest, stalking the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... sir, and a speedy and favourable ending to—the present—difficulty." The Superintendent emptied a bumper neatly, and with discreet relish, and followed Saxham into the consulting-room, and once more, at the sound of the measured footfall padding behind him over the thick carpet, the suspect's blood surged madly to his temples, and his hands clenched until the nails drove deep into the palms. For from that moment began the long, slow torture of watching and following, and dogging by the suspicious, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... an eternity, the prisoner lay rigid, staring at the open door of his cell. The opening was black, deserted, like the mouth of a deep tunnel, leading to hell. And then, suddenly, from the gloom beyond that opening, came an almost noiseless, padded footfall!" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... immediately that the Count had come out first to look and listen under my window, and that Sir Percival had afterwards joined him. They must both have been walking on the lawn—or I should certainly have heard Sir Percival's heavy footfall, though the Count's soft step might have escaped me, even on the ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... decay; whilst falsehood's trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now. Where is the fame Which the vainglorious mighty of the earth Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound 140 From Time's light footfall, the minutest wave That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze That flashes desolation, strong the arm 145 That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes! That ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the park from Fifty-ninth Street—a big studio and apparently many comfortable rooms—a large, still place where no servants were in evidence and where thick velvety carpets from Ushak and Sultanabad muffled every footfall. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... human being; she was an Intelligence and an EAR. Not a sound came from without, even the Elevated appeared to be temporarily off duty; but inside the big quiet house that footfall was waxing louder, louder, until iron feet crashed on iron ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... overpowering smell of drugs. There was a strange man in the room. The boy with a cold chill at his heart recognized him as a doctor. How still the figure on the bed was! How marble-white the face propped up by many pillows! The mother heard the gentle footfall of her beloved child, and the soft brown eyes unclosed at his approach—unclosed with the ever-loving glance. A fleeting smile passed over ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... been going on, in which the nurse and the governess have been concerned. After we have already intercepted a letter, hesitation is absurd! You are not equal to the effort yourself. I know the room. Don't be afraid of discovery; I have a naturally soft footfall—and my excuse is ready, if somebody else has a soft footfall too. Leave it ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... and see if you're good at keeping watch. Inside the arch. And if you let a footfall past, I'll break your back. (AINSLIE retires.) Steady with the light. (At work with centre-bit.) Hand up number four, George. (At work with picklock.) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gentleness, and sought to win her favour by flattery and presents, knowing that whatever he gave her he could take back again. But she dreaded every moment lest the scene should change, and trembled at the sound of every footfall. At every interview with her new master Clotel stoutly maintained that she had left a husband in Virginia, and would never think of taking another. The gold watch and chain, and other glittering presents which he purchased for her, were all laid aside ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... a sudden there was heard a heavy footfall near the entrance way. The oval-shaped door-frame was pushed aside. In stepped a large black foot with great big claws. Then the other clumsy foot came next. All the while the baby badgers stared hard at the unexpected comer. After the second foot, in peeped the head of a big black bear! ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... pleasure of existence. He had risen early, and, a neighbor with him, they had driven forth: stars all about, perpendicular, horizontal, save in the reddening east, upon their long day's drive to the sawmill. The two teams plodded along steadily, their footfall muffled in the soft prairie loam; the earth elsewhere soundless, with a silence which even yet was a marvel to ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the rear room. De Spain felt hope in every footfall he heard, and the mention this time of Morgan's name cleared his plan of battle. Before Gale, with an oath, could blurt out his answer, de Spain had resolved to fight where he stood, taking Logan ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... 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 by the door; then looking ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... side of the spring and begin to think of their homeward ride. And what a delight it was that night ride home through the majestic silence of the desert, where their own hearts' beating and the soft footfall of the camel were the only sounds! the wild flash of planet and star, and sometimes the soft glimmer of the rising moon, their only light! Eros, the god of passion, seated with them on the ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... has not come hither," said the Brooklet in reply; "I've listened for her footfall ere the stars were in the sky; The Fountain has been singing of a Maid, with eyes so bright You may read the cherished secrets of ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... her to her face. It would be vain for her to leave the house till he should have gone. Should she do so, she knew that she would not dare return to it. So she sat, thinking, dreaming, plotting, crushed by an agony of fear, looking anxiously at the door, listening for every footfall within the house; and she watched too for the well-known click of the area gate, dreading lest any one should go out to seek ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... if I bring him alone out of the palace, to some quiet corner of the Park—the Flying Mercury, for instance? Gordon can be posted in the thicket; the carriage wait behind the temple; not a cry, not a scuffle, not a footfall; simply, the Prince vanishes!—What do you say? Am I an able ally? Are my beaux yeux of service? Ah, Heinrich, do not lose your Anna!—she ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and unaware that they were alone, nor counting how little three women could do against thousands. But the people heard the hammering hoofs of the two big horses, and the Arab's light footfall resounded quickly and steadily, as the fingers of a dancer striking the tambourine. Hundreds glanced back to see who rode so fast, and thousands turned their heads to know why the others looked; and all, seeing the Queen, pressed ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... warmly—even in its literal significance of imparting a good deal of his own earnest caloric to the editor's fingers—and left the room. His footfall echoed along the passage and died out, and with it, I fear, all impression of his visit from the editor's mind, as he plunged again into the silent ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... the expected frou-frou, and the soft footfall of the beautifully-shod feet, warned him of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... 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
... the smell all about him was not of roses, but of dust-bins, and there were no nightingales—but far away he could hear that restless roar that is the voice of London, and near at hand the foolish song and unsteady footfall of a man going home from the "Cat and Whistle." He scratched a cross on the hard ground with a broken bit of a plate to mark the spot, got up and crept on hands and knees to the house, climbed in and found the room ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... up a brave heart, however, and took what seemed to me the right road. It was wrong, nevertheless, and led me whither I knew not, but to some wild boggy moor where the solitude seemed painful, intense, as if never footfall of man had come thither to break the silence. I tried to shout—with the dimmest possible hope of being heard—rather to reassure myself by the sound of my own voice; but my voice came husky and short, and yet it dismayed me; it seemed so weird and strange, in ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell |
